The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

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Unable to come up with any answers that made sense, April started calling her own contacts. False tracks were normally laid by contractors who had no idea what they were doing. There had been a government program for it a few thousand years ago, but it was so filled with spies, it had been scrapped for a more organic approach.

April would have to hire a few dozen teams to change their appearance and make some waves in the Tier 7 through Tier 11 range. If she muddled the trail enough, they could say that the kids were any of the false teams, instead of exposing their true identities.

It was just more work for her.

She had just dealt with the inconvenience when she got another message about Erwin and Matt creating rifts for a local guild.

Letting out a small scream of frustration, April started hiring more people to set down false trails. She had no idea how she had pissed off the older woman, but she regretted ever accepting this assignment.

Three days later, she was off and moving to find a suitable swordsman to train Matt. According to the list of acclaimed melee fighters that she had access to as a part of a management team, the one Luna had asked for had been most recently ranked fifty-second.

After her complaining about Matt’s instructor during the vassal war, she was sure that this choice had been a trap.

Seeing that her ship’s mana crystals were low, she changed her route slightly so she could hit one of the management team supply caches.

The only way through this was to finish the assignment, and April had never given anything but her all.

Her goals were much loftier than being part of a simple management team, but this was her first step.

Mistakes were not acceptable.

Melinda sat with her back against a rock and watched the lake surface ripple with the soft wind.

Things were so peaceful. After the months of harsh training in the desert, she was happy for the reprieve.

She was just tired.

Tired in a way that had nothing to do with physical activity.

Her team was growing strong and wealthy. They had earned enough skill shards from delving the Tier 8 rifts that they had all rounded out their skill sets for the foreseeable future, while also improving their combat prowess.

But that wasn’t all she wanted from life. She wanted the simple life she had lived with her friends before the vassal war. She also wanted to keep them safe, which is why she had accepted the idea to fight in that war.

Melinda plucked a leaf off the small shrub next to her and twirled it.

She had embraced the training at first. They had been clearly lacking in power and ability before it had started. In the past, they had sometimes struggled delving rifts at their own Tier. But now, they could split the party in random ways, and still delve two Tiers higher than their own. Now only the strongest Tier 8 rifts Matt could make were able to make them struggle. They had worked hard for their current abilities and had earned the progression that they were now benefitting from.

She just didn’t know why they were progressing.

A few years ago, she would have said that it was to keep her family safe, but they were now. She made sure of that.

She looked over to where Matt was running laps through an obstacle course.

He wasn’t doing it because he was told to. He enjoyed it.

She had just healed them from their last attempt at the Tier 9 rift, but he had immediately thrown himself back into training.

He had several cracked bones, and burns all over his face, but was entirely unbothered by the experience. He wasn’t even phased enough by the defeat to consider resting first.

Aster and Liz had also gone off to do their own thing, but Melinda doubted that they were slacking off either.

She simply did not have that same drive. In her free time, she wanted to relax.

They just seemed to drive themselves harder after each new challenge.

Her team had also started tackling the Tier 8 wave rift, and while they hadn’t been in danger of dying, they always struggled after the tenth wave. They had only reached the fifteenth wave once, through excruciating perseverance. Their team had everything on paper that Matt’s did, besides the unlimited mana, but there was something else missing with them.

Melinda didn’t want to say they didn’t have the ambition necessary to progress on The Path, but she feared that it might be the case.

They would always push themselves, but somehow, they always came up short.

She knew it wasn’t fair. Matt, Liz, and Aster were monsters in both combat ability and pure endurance.

They were good people, but they had to be some of the best in the Empire. She and her team’s pride depended on it. Because if they were average her team would be regulated to the trash heap to be thrown into a rift to be disposed of.

When her group cleared a rift, they wanted to relax and come down from the adrenaline of the fight, but Matt’s party just went right back to working.

The only time she had seen them truly take a break was when Matt had nearly lost his head.

His entire esophagus had been cut through, and one of his carotid arteries had been severed. How he had managed to use his armor to help slow his bleeding, she had no idea, but it was an impressive use of his armor.

If that was the level of dedication her team needed to truly make it on The Path of Ascension, she didn’t know if she even wanted her team to finish it.

She turned to the right to see Mathew and Sam sitting on the little pier they had built. They were fishing. It was a calm and relaxing sight.

They had delved five Tier 8 rifts today. Five. Two years ago, she would have laughed at the absurdity, but today had been a fairly light day.

They only needed to recharge their mana once because of how efficient they had become with Kurt’s practical combat training.

With that, and more blind delving experience, they had been able to easily clear any Tier 8 rift they encountered.

Melinda flopped back and gazed at the passing clouds. She wondered if she could convince her team to slow down a little once this training was done.

She mentally probed the center of her magical and physical cultivation cores. She could Tier up at any time, as her spirit was full of essence. Her cores were in need of condensing before they advanced, but she pushed through that to the center of her spirit.