The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

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Her Concept was a shadowy puddle that reminded her of the end of all things.

She could feel her Intent waiting to be created. It was at her fingertips if she so chose; or almost there. It was missing one final ingredient. She was halfway there, but the final piece seemed massive compared to the passive part of allowing her Concept to convert her essence.

When she had had a revelation about her Intent, she asked Luna about it, and the cat had confirmed that she was ready to create her Intent. Or at least had the prerequisites. She had a Concept that had fully converted the essence in her cores to resonate with herself, and an idea of what she wanted.

The problem was, her Intent seemed to want to follow her Concept on the path of death. There was an easy answer if she wanted it. When she had run into problems in creating the Intent she wanted, she had half-heartedly tried to create the death Intent that seemed to want to form, but even that refused to crystalize.

That next step seemed like a gulf she couldn’t cross.

While she had come to accept her Concept, and actually found its passive form quite useful, she didn’t have any desire to be more deathy. She wanted to heal people. She wanted to fix what was broken.

When she had asked Luna to confirm what she knew about Intents the woman wouldn’t say anything beyond just letting things take their course or waiting until Tier 20 where it was safe to mess up. Apparently if her Intent just clicked into place like her Concept had there was no risk to her, but they couldn’t explain anything or she might push the wrong way and kill herself.

As she watched a cloud pass over, she focused on everything she thought of as death and conceptualized it.

The good and the bad.

Pain, blood, the end. Release.

Feeling that mental imagery resonate with her Concept, she added all the anatomy she knew about the human body and its various functions. How to break it in the little ways, and how to restrict blood to a portion of the brain and shut everything down.

With the proto-Intent forming, she added what she thought of her childhood, and how the death of her parents had changed her life.

As she held all those dark thoughts at the front of her mind, she felt the melancholy wash over her, and for a moment, she let it take her.

She followed it to the darkest depths that it had to offer, then waited. There was still something missing, but she wasn’t sure what. Luna and Kurt had said that there was a second part of Intents that she would have to discover for herself but could only reveal that it was different for everyone.

Within the dark abyss of death that she had created, she remembered what Luna said.

“Concepts are the foundation of what you are. An Intent is the next level, both literally and metaphorically. You need to find what that next step is for you. When you find it, you’ll know. Common advice is to create the phrase and image you want, and then try to embody that. If I say more, I’ll most probably send you down the wrong path. It’s different for everyone.”

She had countered, “But I didn’t even want my Concept. How do I build off something I don’t want?”

Luna shrugged. “You can always break your Concept and make a new one. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Melinda hesitated. She had learned to accept that her Concept was a reflection of herself as a child, and how she viewed the world around her.

She wanted her Intent to reflect the her of tomorrow.

With that thought firmly in her mind, Melinda inverted her dark thought of death and pain into life and relief.

Like the goop from her Concept when it killed things.

Life came from death.

Her mental image was bathed in light where there had been darkness. In that same instant, she turned her thoughts to the positives of healing. She now focused on mending and healing the bones she had mentally broken, and the flesh she had ripped apart in her mind.

It was so stable, she could even back off the image for a while, and it would stay intact. But only for a moment. If she backed off for too long, the image started to crumble.

There was something missing.

As Luna had said, she needed to find something more.

She just didn’t know what.

Withdrawing from her cores, Melinda noticed that the sky turned a vibrant red as the sun started to set.

She hopped to her feet and started to stretch.

While she had no confirmation, she believed what was slowing her down was her Talent for overhealth.

A small part of her questioned why she needed a healing Concept, Intent, or Aspect with a Talent that almost guaranteed that she would never need to apply any effort into perfectly healing someone. It whispered how it was a farce that she pretended to study and learn about the body when she didn’t really need to. Her Talent could handle all of that after all, so why bother?

That had gotten to her for a little while and stumped her, but now, she had a proper answer. She wanted to be a proper healer. If, however unlikely, there came a time when her Talent didn’t work, she would still possess the skills needed to heal anyone.

She also truly liked healing. It was fun, and provided an amazing service to people that would always be needed.

Melinda was a healer.

Seeing everyone moving to the house they were living in, she took her place at the table and watched as Matt brought out an array of food. It was hardly unusual for him to cook for everyone, but she hadn’t expected him to do so after the last fight and his late training.

Watching him set down the plate of what she thought was ham, she carefully inspected her friend. He looked fine and had a cheery smile as he joked with Kyle, who made fun of the pineapple flowers he had cut.

She thought they looked cute but let the two of them bicker.

Inspecting Liz, Melinda found her newest friend looking morose. She was trying to hide it as she talked about the projects she was working on with Sam, but Melinda saw a flicker of darkness in her eyes.

She made a note to talk to her before she went to sleep for the evening.

While she didn’t quite understand where Liz was coming from with her issues regarding her Royalty parents, she did sympathize with Liz feeling like none of her achievements belonged to her.

Aster was wagging her tail as Vinnie cut three slices of the ham off for her. Aster seemed unaffected by her ordeal in the Tier 9 rift, but it was harder to read her.

Melinda still had trouble differentiating the Aster of now, who could talk and reason, with the more animal Aster of the PlayPen. She, and everyone else, were careful not to slip into old habits, and instead address her and treat her like the person she was.

But even as Melinda watched, Aster seemed fine.

She had been reading up on beast and evolved human psychology in the last few months, and everything about them being more desensitized to the dangers and killing associated with delving seemed true. Aster seemed less bothered than even Matt.

When they were finished with their meal, she waved everyone else off as Liz started to clean up the table. “So, how are you doing?”

Liz didn’t say anything for a long enough time. Melinda wasn’t sure she would.

“I’m just wondering if we’re doing the right thing.”

Melinda made a noise of encouragement but didn’t say anything.

The redhead continued after that prompting. “I just worry about everything recently. I worry I’m holding Matt back by wanting to stay on The Path. I worry something will go wrong, even though we talked to Luna, and he’ll be fine with the restrictions until at least Tier 10. I worry that I’ll lose my identity by relying on Matt’s mana. I worry about being able to keep up with him if he leaves The Path. I worry that if we aren’t together, we’ll drift apart. I worry that I’m just not strong enough. I just worry.”

Melinda let the woman pour out her problems, and just nodded along as they rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.