The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

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He put the idea on the back burner for now. If they failed again, he would proffer that strategy. There was nothing wrong with attempting it again to gather more intelligence either, so they could further nail down the best path forward.

If that failed, he figured they could try leaving the chicken alive, and use something flying to lure its attention and fry the sea snake. Its refracted flame attack was incredibly strong; it just might be able to overwhelm the serpent and its water manipulation.

His team had their own advantages, too.

Liz was able to attack up Tiers as if they didn’t exist and had a ton of versatility in how she could fight, but she was limited to her own element for combat.

Blood skills were the only ones she could modify and increase in power, so they were the only skills that she could effectively and efficiently use in combat, outside her melee attacks with her halberd.

That left her at a loss when it came to the water snake. It could completely dilute her blood, thus rendering her offensive and defensive skills essentially useless. Trying to go in on the massive thing would leave them susceptible to the waves, and If they were unlucky, they could be washed away from the bridge entirely.

Aster was strong in her own right and had a slightly greater degree of versatility in her skill set. She had made overwhelming the fire chicken seem an easy task, even if Matt could still feel a touch of weakness in her Concept a day later.

His bond might be able to kill the water snake if she could freeze enough of the water around the bridge. He changed his mind once he had his AI calculate the sheer volume that she would have to freeze. It just wasn’t possible in the time frame available to them.

Matt turned his attention to himself.

He didn’t like what he saw.

He was a melee fighter who could take a hit, but he lacked a way to hit above his Tier, like his teammates did. There was nothing self-deprecating in the line of thinking; it was just a matter of fact. That disadvantage would disappear as he Tiered up but, for now, he was handicapped against these beasts that wielded their elements as naturally as breathing came to him. Mana was a huge gift, but without the strength and right avenues to use it, there was little more he could offer of himself in those situations. He was basically relegated to becoming a meat-shield.

Still, he was a good shield. Even his most pessimistic side couldn’t deny that. With Luna’s training, and his second layer of armor, he could take hits from the Tier 9 monster without instantly dying.

Not letting himself sink into a pity party, Matt homed in on what he did have; unlimited mana. Outside of combat, that translated into near infinite wealth, even now.

He paused to correct himself. He had unending wealth, which was slightly different.

Either way, at his Tier, it was nearly the same thing. He passed on getting into another philosophical battle of numbers with himself over the subject and moved on while shaking his head.

Matt tapped his fingers in a rhythm as he continued his musings. He could do what most people were unable to do; throw wealth at a problem until he was able to crush any opposition.

Turning to the PlanetNet, then EmpireNet, Matt ordered a new flying sword. This one was a Tier 9 variant that would stress his spirit to use, but was incredibly fast, and had a built-in suite of onboard enchantments. It even came with an expandable windscreen and temperature regulators.

It wasn’t a combat variant, as they only were available after Tier 15, but this was one of the fastest flying swords on the market at its Tier. It was even top ten in maneuverability. It would have ranked higher, but the insane top speed meant that no amount of enchantments could allow it to corner more than it already could.

The price of fifteen Tier 10 mana stones made Matt wince. That was fifteen hundred Tier 9 mana stones, but he had the money from selling the growth items before they reached Tier 6. They were Tier 14, and far more highly valued than just Tier 9 stones.

And it was a good investment.

Matt tried to convince himself of that before he purchased anything; the incessant worry over the usefulness of the items procured always needled him. But it got easier as he continued to buy more things.

The next item he bought was a set of Tier 7 scouting drones. They were small and had worse optics than even the ones he had taken from the golem ruin, but he wanted them to be disposable.

The Tier 8 harvesting drones he bought were dozens of times more expensive for just a set of five, but Matt didn’t intend on carelessly risking them. They were meant to move behind them and pull resources like herbs and other materials that they didn’t have the time to tend to themselves.

He was offered a deal for a better version that included small-scale mining and body processing attachments as he was checking out.

The price was quite a bit higher, but Matt recklessly hit accept for the better versions.

Then, he started looking into a new skill to practice.

Talismans were technically a subskill under enchanting but were less prestigious. They were formations put on objects and were pre-charged before use. In combat, you could send in a tiny amount of mana to activate the stored mana and let loose any spell or function that the talisman creator placed on the device.

The craft was slightly looked down upon, as they were creating expensive, one-use items that required almost too many resources. Meanwhile, normal enchantments were less expensive, and were permanent.

Few people wanted to pay more money for something that could only be used once.

While Matt didn’t know much about the craft, he had seen enough movies and read enough books to know that their advantage was being as strong as the enchanter could make.

He wasn’t a master enchanter, but Matt was pretty good. He also had the advantage of being able to overcharge the talismans to an absurd degree without worry. Unless the talisman couldn’t handle the sheer amount of mana he thrust into it. But he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Buying a set of books about talisman creation was more expensive than he would have expected, but once again, the problem vanished once he threw money at it.

After reading the information, he purchased the materials he would need from the nearest city.