The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

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Matt looked at Liz and said, “This is too nice. I don’t trust it.”

Aster sniffed around and yipped, “Those trees smell like cherries. Too strong. Can’t smell anything else.”

His bond then sneezed twice before growling at everything around them as her tail grew poofy, and she started to freeze their surroundings.

Liz asked, “What’s our vote?”

Matt offered, “Proceed with extreme caution after we test the place? We know she only chose this one because she thinks we’ll fail.”

Getting agreements from all around, Matt used [Earth Manipulation] and took control of all the ground around them, then shifted it a hair. It was a trick that Vinnie taught him. If something didn’t move, it either meant that it wasn’t earth, or was a single object too big to move. Either way, the test was a poor man’s [Earth Sense]. Matt found nothing. Even extending into the boulders on the path, he felt nothing out of the ordinary.

“Nothing with [Earth Manipulation]…going to check with [Air Manipulation].”

Putting actions to words, he repeated his test of grabbing the air and moving it a hair. It was harder than with the more static ground, but even though the natural air patterns in the rift, Matt felt nothing that his instincts or his AI noticed as off.

Looking between Liz and Aster, he said, “Nothing. Any ideas?”

Aster, to his surprise, yipped, “I don’t like the trees. Burn them.”

If his ice bond wanted something burned, he’d trust her instincts.

Using [Flamethrower], he set the nearest tree on fire, then used [Fire Manipulation] to ensure that the flames spread rapidly.

Still, there was nothing. No additional essence, and nothing moved besides the ashes floating in the sky.

Liz lowered her spear and tapped her armored chin. “Nothing. Huh. I really expected some traps.” She met his and Aster’s eyes and asked, “Continue on?”

Matt nodded as Liz readied her spear, and a tendril of blood floated around her. Aster kept close to her heels as he took the lead.

Stopping after one step, Matt said, “Let me clear the air.”

Saying that, he used [Air Manipulation] to whip up a frenzy long enough to push the smoke away, and with the help of a few touches of [Fire Manipulation] removed the remaining fires.

With a clear path forward, Matt led the way, with most of his mana dedicated to both layers of [Cracked Phantom Armor].

As they passed the first copse of trees, nothing of note happened. Matt felt more on alert now than if something had already attacked them.

After nearly two hundred feet into an open rift without being attacked, the trio became increasingly disconcerted. Add in the beautifully crafted scenery, and the whole thing seemed too perfect. The rift almost seemed to be purposely lulling them into a false sense of safety.

They were passing one of the perfectly round boulders when Matt looked back to Liz, about to ask if they should turn back. Something was wrong, and he could feel it.

As he turned, he saw the boulder swiftly and silently turn into a black-clothed, man-shaped monster. It kicked off the air and slashed out toward Liz’s neck from behind with a glowing blade.

On instinct, Matt used their rings to swap places, and concentrated all of [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s second layer around his head and neck, creating a shield as thick as he could muster.

His blade pierced the humanoid’s chest, but at the same time, the glowing sword that had been aimed for Liz’s neck adjusted trajectory and cut Matt in the shoulder. The weapon skittered along his collarbone to his neck.

Even as his sword killed the monster, and threre was a massive rush of essence, he felt his armor breached, and could feel his windpipe fill with blood.

The next seconds were a rush of panicked emotions from Aster, who had frozen everything around them, and Liz, who was carrying Matt to the entrance of the rift.

It was only because of Luna’s training that Matt managed to focus on not breathing and using his armor to prevent the blood loss from being worse or drowning in his own blood.

As the world changed colors, Matt quickly felt Melinda’s healing energy washing into him. Spitting and coughing out the blood took Matt a good few minutes, while he heard Liz explaining what had happened to everyone else who had gathered around.

That put a damper on any further training for the evening, and he, Liz, and Aster just snuggled together, recovering from the close call earlier that afternoon.

Liz held him tight and whispered, “Thank you.”

Matt shrugged but said nothing. He’d always willingly take a blow for Liz and Aster. That wasn’t a decision that took any thought.

He shrugged. “That’s my job. Take the hits. You might not survive.”

Aster quietly yowled a mournful tone that broke Matt’s heart. Along with the sound came a mixture of emotions he had no words for but were a mirror of what he felt when he realized that he was truly alone in the nights after the rift breaks.

Liz continued, “I really don’t want to find out what it’s like to lose my head.” She looked over at Matt, then nodded and simply said, “Thank you.”

None of them slept until nearly dawn, but no one bothered them for the normal morning training.

Luna watched them sleeping only for the first few moments, pride and suffering plaguing her as she stared. They’d made it out of the rift better than she could have hoped.

“Better than I hoped at all.” Her soft whisper blew off on the breeze, and she turned her attention to the next regimen of training, and how all of them needed to improve. The way forward was clear, but The Path was muddied and treacherous after all. There was no telling when one might slip and fall off without a guiding hand to catch them.

Their preparations and testing of the rift were as good as she could ask for from Tier 6s. Even if Matt had used [Earth Manipulation] on the boulder that the monster was hiding in, he wouldn’t have felt anything amiss. The monster had been the stone before it transformed.

The rift was better than she expected when she had Erwin design the hardest rift he could think of. It was harder than an average Tier 10 rift. The only reason that it was a Tier 9 rift was the monster’s lack of corporal forms. If their armor or clothes were broken, they had little holding them together. Or at least, that held true for the normal monsters. The sub-bosses were a different matter altogether.

It also helped that the rift had a constant danger of assassination, which would help the children in the upcoming years, whether they stayed on The Path or not.

Knowing that the kids would bounce back from this, she started to create a training regimen that would ensure they had the skills to successfully complete a rift as tricky as this one. She was stacking the deck, but she had to make the task presented possible.

If she was lucky, they would get overconfident and need rescue.

The next day Matt, Liz, and Aster threw themselves into the training presented.

When that was done, before he moved to start examining the rifts with Erwin, he asked Luna how to increase his defenses with [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Her answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “You need to work on your mana manipulation and stressing the skill. I would also work on changing the base form’s shape more. If I were you, I’d even try to change the color. If you can remove the color entirely, you’d have the best armor in the Empire.”

After she gave him some extra mana exercises that would help him, he went to join Erwin.

They had intended to work on reducing variables in rift construction, as they had most of the base elements tested.

To start, they created ten rifts with neutral mana. In theory, all the rifts should have been identical, but they were anything but. Each rift was unique and varied. That was a problem with their elemental rifts, but they hadn’t been testing for that.

The results were okay because they were just their baseline.

Then, they removed all the ambient mana from the enclosure and created ten more rifts. These rifts had slightly less variance in their features, but there was still a wide variety of aspects. They could clearly see that some of the rifts were even elementally aligned.