The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

25

The man looked like an eager kid with presents at a New Years’ celebration.

Matt’s following words didn’t dampen that at all. “I want to redesign my formation plates from the ground up. I’ve learned a lot from when I was only Tier 5. Besides the rune repository I have access to, I learned a lot about mana types and their subaspects.”

Erwin nodded. “Yes, yes. Excellent idea, I was actually thinking pretty much the same thing. Your stuff is good.”

Seeing Matt’s look of doubt, Erwin hurriedly added, “No, really! For someone of your Tier and experience? Quite ingenious.” The man rubbed his hands together and asked, “What are you thinking? I have…a few ideas of my own, but I want to see where your mind is at before I explain.”

Matt toed the concrete slabs and said, “I want to change the material that the formations are made out of. If I use a higher Tier metal with an inlay of precious metals, I think I can increase the efficiency.”

Erwin raised a finger like he was the student and asked, “Why not wood or monster remains? They have significantly higher rune capacitance, after all.”

Matt didn’t have an answer for that, and opened his mouth twice before he said, “I didn’t even think of them. I’ve only enchanted metals.”

Erwin shrugged. “Fair, fair. I’m sure you’ll get used to them quickly enough, though. They’re not that different, but they have their own quirks. With metals, you see…” He glanced at something off to the side before saying, “How does that woman always… I’m getting distracted. Perhaps a hybrid setup? We do really need to focus on controlling the mana flows and keep a close eye on everything. Even the smallest change might hide something important.”

“Can’t a lot of that be done with secondary equipment? It will just make it harder to make the plates with this. Seems easier to use an outside formation.”

Erwin vehemently shook his head. “No, no, no! Well… Okay, it will make it harder, and we could use other stuff, but that will create far more variables to account for. Maybe we introduce a mana spectrometer, and that changes its interaction with the mana flow slightly. Or perhaps we can set an essence recorder interface during formation of the rift somehow. There will be time to use multiple devices of that ilk, but this is clearly a delicate process. I want to make sure that as many of our methods and variables as possible are absolutely identical between each test. Hard-carving all of our analysis equipment into the formation plates will make it harder, and will limit us in other ways, but what matters now is getting a control rift.”

Matt couldn’t really argue with that logic and agreed to make a secondary formation set with more specialized materials, once he was able to gather some from his rift experiments.

“Why wait?” Erwin said, while looking at Matt as if he was the one saying something absurd.

Matt explained, “I have Tier 6 metals on hand, but I don’t have any monster parts or woods, and I’d rather get this next set made sooner rather than later.”

Erwin laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I keep tons of materials in storage and have to restock at least once a decade. A few dozen formation plates will barely even scratch my reserves.”

With that solved, they moved on to designing the plates.

This set was far more robust than Matt’s current plates. The base was made out of Tier 7 ironwood inlay, with Tier 7 gold for the actual runes. Matt ruined two sections of the set with his initial creations, but they had a working group of plates by the time the sun rose above the horizon.

Unlike his last set, which only had the basic functions for adding mana, depleting a rift, and defensive formations, this was anything but a simple setup. This generation of formation plates had several new features and could do everything the last one did.

The difference between enchanting metal and wood was night and day. With metal, it felt like chipping away at the dense material, even when the runes were carved directly into the item’s spirit. The wood took on the runes like a fish into water.

With their added capacity to hold runes, they also added a barrier formation to the plates. It helped to keep out ambient mana and maintain a near mana vacuum. Erwin insisted on that, and Matt agreed without further prodding from the older man. He was sure that ambient mana could change the results, which meant that they needed to account for the variable.

The formation plates could also monitor every change in mana density and concentration, while sending that information to their AIs. That was the only rune that Erwin personally carved. Matt actually had the rune in his repository of knowledge, but it was far outside of his ability to carve a Tier 22 rune. And that was the most stripped-down version. The one Erwin used was leagues above the simpler runes that Matt had copies of.

Kurt served them all breakfast, and Matt dug in while he watched the sunrise. He was tired but elated at their success through the night. Burning [Endurance] perked him up enough not to be sleepy when Kurt started their lessons.

The first thing he did was line them up, and nine versions of himself walked out of his body. Each had their own boards to write on, but Matt could clearly see the difference in the clones.

He could tell that they were replicas, clearly made out of mana as they were hazy and slightly see-through.

A quick search in the Tier 8 skill repository showed nothing, and Matt was pretty sure that it wasn’t the publicly listed Tier 44 skill, [Clone]. That skill created perfect copies.

Kurt answered the unspoken question with his main body. “I am using [Mana Clone]. A Tier 32 skill that will let me speed up your training. They aren’t that useful in direct combat, as they don’t have a copy of my skills, but they are useful in other ways. We will be dueling for an hour. Then, we will be working on combat skills. For those without combat skills, we will be working on the skills you do have. Does anyone have any questions?”

Kyle raised a hand and, when he was nodded at, asked, “Can you explain the difference between a blade mage and a normal melee fighter? They both use skills, so the difference seems to be more one of naming than anything else. Luna said you were a blade mage, and I’ve always been interested in them.”