The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

21

Melinda nodded and Luna smirked wryly. “They likely assume that with the threat of two sets of Ascenders, others will flock to their cause out of fear that we could eventually become tyrants, and bully worlds from others. Attacking early makes the attack personal, and that leaves others with no reason to become entangled in the squabbling of two Great Powers. But if they complete it, they can see that we can replicate what others only dream of, and that should be terrifying to them.”

She cleared her throat, with her predatory grin softening. “Though, I will merely reiterate and impress upon you now, we can only prepare. And part of that preparation lies with all of you. Go now, rest. We have much to do in our time together, and I mean to accomplish all of it.”

After that, Matt went back to his room, and constantly thought things over for the next few days. He really didn’t like the future that Luna laid out, but he didn’t see any loopholes or flaws in her argument.

He himself would probably cause billions of people to die by his mere existence. He didn’t see any way to prevent the eventual war. He even contemplated vowing to not advance past a certain Tier, to prevent his Talent from being useful to the highest Tier of planets. It only took a few rounds of his worried brain thinking things over to know that wouldn’t work. He’d still be used despite the lessened efficiency.

Eventually, he decided that he wanted to protect himself and The Empire enough to continue on with the training. If he didn’t, he might not have the power to stand up for himself when push came to shove. Having more personal power was the best way to ensure his own safety, and thus, the safety of those he cared about.

If things got bad enough in the war over him, he feared that the Emperor would sacrifice him for the greater good. Liz would protest, but he could see a future where he was sent to world after world to Tier up planets for the other Great Powers to prevent war.

It wasn’t a comforting thought, but the only solution he saw was to get personally strong enough to prevent that from happening. If he was strong enough, no one would be able to use him as an unwilling mana battery. He had calculated that he would need to be Tiered up to at least Tier 45 to be truly useful for Tier 47 rifts, which meant that if he was a strong enough fighter, like Duke Waters, no one would be able to restrain him.

A Tier 50 might be able to handle him, but he did have the Emperor on his side, which meant he only needed to fight the other Tier 45 through Tier 47s.

After his realizations, Matt redoubled his efforts in the training Luna set up for him.

His future no longer looked as carefree as it had before.

As they neared their final destination, Matt and his friends discovered that there was no particularly high Tier world that had been found. Instead, it was a closely clustered collection of worlds that would make for an excellent future nexus point and jumping point. They would connect the next wave of expansions to whatever new and exciting worlds could be found on the border of the Empire.

While the planet they were going to was near the edge of the cluster, the central world had nineteen connected worlds. The EmpireNet said that it was the seventeenth most condensed cluster of worlds.

That in itself meant that the world would be heavily invested in. It was only Tier 6, but the surrounding planets had up to a Tier 16 planet, which meant that immortals would be drawn to the location if nothing else.

Their destination was, as Luna said, an otherwise unremarkable Tier 11 planet. The only oddity was that the smallest island continent was completely restricted.

As they neared it, their AIs were sent a message that breaking the cordon on the continent would result in a high Tier representative of the Empire being sent to investigate. Not that Matt saw anyone watching the border, but the message stated that there was.

Luna led them right through without stopping, and no one came to investigate, so Matt assumed that she had messaged someone to show clearance.

It took them roughly five hours to reach an area that was a convergence of grasslands, mountains, and a massive lake.

Next to the lake, was a flying house that looked more like a simple cabin than anything grand. Luna just walked straight inside, and led the rest of them in a winding path through half a dozen rooms.

Everything but the dining room and kitchen seemed to be laboratories of various types, which Matt couldn’t identify in the brief time they walked through them. Beakers holding concoctions labeled in scrawling script were scattered about, along with piles of notes that nearly threatened to fall as they all passed through. Another room contained all kinds of creatures in various levels of decay and destruction, where yet more notes were piled precariously. Though Luna moved with purpose and little care, the lower Tiers moved somewhat more cautiously.

Finally, they found an average-looking man inspecting what Matt could only call a miniature world. He was pretty sure that it was a spatially expanded crystal orb that somehow had what looked like a full forest inside of it.

The man, who he assumed was Erwin, was inspecting the soil from under the globe with a microscope.

He called out, “You didn’t have problems getting here, did you?”

Luna peered into the globe and said, “You have too much nitrogen in the soil.”

The man shrugged. “Yeah, it’s the ferns. I found a variety that can fix nitrogen and wanted to see if they could be used for natural fertilization, but they don’t have a wide enough root ball to properly distribute everything. I was hoping that I could use the ants from Altar Prime as a way to help distribute it more, but they’re dying out. Maybe with a few hundred more generations I can…”

The man finally seemed to notice the rest of them and fiddled with a pair of glowing glasses. Now that he could see them, Matt could feel the enchantments on the glasses from where he was standing.