The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

46

Luna gave Matt an odd look that he couldn’t decipher but changed the subject. “Have you decided what cover you want to use during the tournament yet?”

“Cover? Like a mask?”

His manager shook her head. “Not just that, but a combat style that doesn’t give away your trump cards.”

“What?” Matt was loud enough that Erwin looked back to where the two were sitting.

Luna rolled her eyes like he was foolish. “Matt, do you really think that The Empire lets the truly powerful delvers show off their actual abilities in the tournament? Not a chance. There will be more spies there than you can shake a stick at. No, the best fighters are given handicaps that will allow them to fly under the radar, while still displaying their prowess.”

Matt shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Light and Shadow still won their tournament.”

Luna spun the ring on her finger. “I will bet you everything I own that those two won despite the restrictions placed upon them. I can’t see their actual abilities, but I guarantee that they’re hiding their true skills. We’ll do the same with you. I expect you to win if you’re going to be foolish enough to actually participate.”

She let out a sigh that contained more frustration than Matt could understand. “Though, I don’t think The Emperor will allow you two to sit on the sidelines if you choose to remain on The Path. I believe he’s trying to curry favor with the more neutral Great Powers by showing them that we’re creating Ascenders at a prodigious rate. Combine that with a few concessions and territorial treaties, and he probably hopes to keep them out of the upcoming wars, if not pull them under our own banner as more permanent allies.”

“That seems risky. If we’re too strong, won’t it invite the Great Powers to gang up on us?” Matt felt a kernel of fear settle into his stomach.

Luna nodded. “It’s a possibility. No doubt about that. But I do agree that it’s a risk that we should be willing to take. When Light and Shadow reach Tier 25, there will be a war. But no one expects it to be a war that breaks the rules. So long as we aren’t outright crushed, we will at worst lose some territory, and have to make some concessions. But if we have promising ascenders in the later generations, we can ensure that we will rise again. And there are at least two other teams who seem like they can make it. Or are at least close to being powerful enough. Not quite on a Light and Shadow level, where they’re able to easily fight up three or four Tiers, but able to fight up three with some preparation.”

Luna shook her head. “If you don’t mess up in the Tier 9 rift, we will talk about this after the tournament. What else did you learn?”

“The guild was nice. Like a large extended family. At least on the surface, everyone was friendly and helpful to each other. It was nice to see. I think I want that for myself one day. Set up a crafting guild where I don’t need to hide my Talent and create wondrous rifts and items. Create without the normal constraints of mana. I saw how the crafters were limited in their ability to make items and improve their skills. I could remove all of that. One crafter cried when he completed an item two Tiers higher than himself.” Matt didn’t think that was what Luna was quite looking for, but he felt that it was important to say.

Luna just gestured for him to continue, and they talked about what Matt learned until they reached their normal base.

He was surprised to find out that Luna believed The Empire would step in to buy the excess growth items. It was to prevent the local prices and economy from crashing more than anything else. She said that it was a fair price to prevent the guild from being attacked from all sides. It was a reminder of what his Talent actually meant. A target on his back.

Matt spent time with his friends, who he hadn’t seen in over two months. While they chatted with AI, there was no substitute to being there with them in the flesh.

The next day, he and Erwin started on their own project— seeing what would happen if a growth item was used to create a Tier 6 rift. It was commonly accepted that rifts past Tier 5 didn’t produce growth items at an appreciable rate, but that was for normal, natural rifts. Rifts in nature didn’t have growth items used to influence their makeup.

They discovered whatever special property that made the rifts create growth items disappeared at Tier 6, even when they used a growth item as a seed for the rift.

It was disappointing, but not unexpected.

While they tested their rifts, Matt, Liz, and Aster prepared to delve into the Tier 9 rift once again. They wanted to prove once and for all they had what it took.

9

Their preparation wasn’t as simple as last time.

They started by doubling down on their training, with Kurt overseeing the melee aspect and Luna the magical.

Kurt actually stopped them from training with their new gear against him after they got used to it, instead sending them to fight members from the various local guilds closer to their Tier. The arrangement felt just like they had returned to the vassal kingdom’s world and were able to duel the other Pathers. Except this time, they were fighting entire teams, which were all at least two Tiers above them.

They lost many of these fights, but never so severely to necessitate healing. Kurt broke down each battle for them and analyzed where they could improve. Matt was the most restricted out of the three, having been handed a strict mana usage limit. Despite that, he managed to give a good showing.

Without their AI, they were put at a disadvantage from the start. The predictive algorithms gave their opponents a distinct edge that was hard to overcome. Spells and skills kept them slightly unpredictable, but not to the degree they were accustomed to. That was when Luna sat them down and deconstructed how AI algorithms worked, and the problems that lay within.

At their Tier, AIs weren’t stupid, but they didn’t have the time or mana capacity to truly break away from the limits of their initial programming. Until then, the AIs’ predictions could be, quite ironically, rather predictable. Their base algorithms could be tricked by setting traps with certain stances that normally flowed to other stances or moves. By using the first stance, then transitioning to a stance that could exploit the original stance’s counter, they were nearly always able to beat someone who only relied on their AI.

As simple as that sounded, it wasn’t quite as easy to put into practice. The AIs were seldom tricked twice in the same way, and it was like learning a completely new combat style for every position they could be in. The trio did learn though, and even gained valuable insight to their own combat methods despite Luna barring them from using their own AIs.

To Luna’s distaste, Aster still struggled to properly use the sword attachment on her tail. The older evolved beast convinced Aster to hide the sword in the fluffiness of her tail, and save it for sneak attacks, which gave her a bit of unpredictability. No enemy expected Aster to turn and slice their leg off with her floof.

Liz toiled at first with her new spear, which Kurt insisted she use in as many forms as possible. For training and sparring, she used mock replicas of the weapon in its halberd, great axe, and hammer forms, to avoid wasting her valuable Blood Iron but never in fights.

She worked long and hard to internalize the new fighting styles that the different weapons demanded of her. But with so much to learn, her progress was still slow. Matt sparred with her, but he couldn’t actually teach her about her new weapons. He knew them well enough to use one in a pinch, but they weren’t exactly his preferred style.