The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

9

From a hidden, warped area he had formed with his Intent, Colonel Thorne watched as the boy played with his Concept and his friends. He was about to leave while mentally noting that the boy was good, but not exceptional, when the boy’s methodology changed.

Suddenly, the boy did something that shouldn’t be possible at his Tier and experience.

He quickly brought up a profile on the boy, and was about to set up an offer for army recruitment and personal tutelage, when his body froze. It wasn’t an attack, but an overwhelming pressure of a greater cultivator. It was a second later that his spirit cried out a warning that a monster was looming over him with jaws wide open.

His instincts gained in countless battlefields over his last nine thousand years in the army cried out for him to flee, but he was caged by a will stronger than his own. His Intent was gently rebuffed and forced down. It was a terrifying realization that also brought some comfort, because if someone that strong wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t have even noticed his death. The horror of being this close to a monster was something he hadn’t felt since his Tier 20s.

A purple-haired woman floated in front of him, and he received a message verifying the woman’s identity as Luna. She was surrounded by two other people who stood close by, but said nothing.

With an air of pure authority, she said, “These are mine. Go find your own clay to mold.”

This was a Path manager in the flesh. He had never met one before, and he already wished that he hadn’t.

“I didn’t mean to interfere, ma’am. I can…”

She didn’t seem to hear him, continuing as she sent him a second message with coordinates. “Also, make this island your base. But if you ruin the rifts there, I’ll take it out of your hide.”

Thorne cringed internally at the order, as he would need to move his entire operation, but this woman was at least Tier 40, and had the Emperor’s ear. Technically he had no obligation to follow her orders, but for something this small it would be dumb to refuse her. It was a harmless change that wouldn’t impact their plans so he would do it to avoid trouble down the road if nothing else.

He waited for a dismissal quietly. He didn’t want to leave before he was dismissed, which might anger the great lady. It was unlikely that she would harm him, but even in the Empire, catching the ire of someone this highly placed was never good for career advancement.

As Thorne listened, his expression grew confused.

“This i***t boy. What is he doing? He could be getting fourteen percent more out of his Concept if he added a bit of firmness behind his repulsion. Lessons in physics are in order. This is shameful, her boy toy is using Concept manipulations, and she can’t.”

The man handed what looked like a piece of paper to the ranting woman while he wrote on a floating notepad. The woman read it for a moment, then it vanished in a puff of void. “I don’t care if she has an internal Concept. It’s only a little harder for her. She could do it if she put in the work.”

Thorne felt bewildered. Internal Concepts made it nearly impossible to harden the air or carry oneself without flight spells. Almost anyone who truly wanted Concept flight from their internal Concept would wait for Minkalla. From the testimonies he had heard, doing it naturally had taken positive ages in figuring out how to lift their bodies up. It was at least a hundred times harder than flight with an external Concept, which by itself was quite difficult.

This woman wanted the girl to do something he had only heard of two internal Concept users accomplishing without Minkalla? The difficulty of the task was only matched by the reward for actually figuring the methodology out. Internal Concepts sacrificed the ability to use manipulations like that for increasing the user’s power. But if they were able to learn to reach outside of their body, they got the best of both worlds.

The man turned to him and nodded a dismissal.

Thorne cast [Teleport] and escaped from the crazy manager. Anyone who pushed their charges that hard was someone whose attention he didn’t want to garner.

Those poor kids.

Just in case, Thorne marked the trio to be watched. Any special treatment would earn him some demerits due to their Pather status, but he didn’t want to be surprised about their movements.

With an internal sigh, he started the arduous task of moving the army base to the island selected. He would personally inspect the rifts, as they must be unique for the Tier 40 to take an interest in them. He also didn’t want any potential dangers near his camp, no matter how unlikely a few Tier 1 through Tier 7 rifts were to be a threat. The Tier 1 rift was particularly unusual on a Tier 6 world, but it was no real cause for concern. The Tier 7 rift was notable as well. Rifts growing to a Tier higher than the planet was normal enough, and indicated that the planet would be Tiering up in a mortal generation or two. But he still would need to check them both out as outliers.

They played with Aster until a commotion drew their attention, and they all peered over at the noise.

“Albie! Albie over here!”

A huge woman, with an incredibly muscular frame a little over six feet tall, walked in through the crowd to where Prince Albert sat at a recruiting desk. She called out loud enough that it carried to where he and Liz sat, “Did you get my flowers? Were you surprised?”

She had a glowing, menacing lance that she used to trip the two guards that tried to intercept her. Matt didn’t miss that Juni moved behind her but stayed in the crowd.

Prince Albert crossed his arms and replied with a stiff face, “Yes I got them. Very…” He paused for a long moment, clearly choosing his words. “Considerate of you. Although, in the future, I would prefer if you delivered them to the front desk, and not break into our headquarters. I should report you to the Colonel for violating our sovereign territory before the start of hostilities.”

Princess Sara laughed. “With your outdated security it was hardly breaking and entering. But you like the flowers? That’s great. My team found this great out of the way rift that was full of them. It had these awesome vine monsters that spread seeds if you didn’t kill them fast enough. From what my team told me, they should put up a good fight. If you want, I can take you to the rift. Besides the vine monsters, it’s very romantic. Nice and isolated, on the edge of a cliff that has a great view. What do you say? Could be fun.”

While the princess was speaking, she worked her way through the crowd until she stood in front of and looking down at the prince, who looked flustered.

Uncrossing his arms and standing up, the prince took a step back. “If you’re done playing games, I think you should leave. As you can see, we are very bus… Hey!! Stop poking me!!”

“What? I thought you like being poked with a stick! You know, considering the one lodged firmly up your ass.”

Liz pulled him forward, saying, “Oh, I like her. Or at least, I like that she’s annoying the Prince. Dude’s an uptight prick.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda nice to see him all flustered after all the s**t he pulled during the golem incident.” Matt enjoyed the exasperated, non-in control look the prince had on his crystalline face.