The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

10

She started using [Earth Manipulation] in the distance to modify their following training scenario. She wanted them to have to defend against Wrangle’s hordes in different locations.

Luna looked to the man as he carefully aimed his summons’ shots at anyone who stalled. He was quite good at this, even if it wasn’t a passion for him.

He was impressive, and she now understood why the Empire had noticed him. Creating a skill was notable, but the man’s ambition was nearly matched by his ability. They had talked when the children had gone to sleep yesterday, and he had given her a detailed report of the skill he was trying to create.

He wanted to make a skill to permanently merge his summons into stronger variants.

The fact that he had almost succeeded was mind-boggling. If she hadn’t seen the damage to his spirit, she wouldn’t have believed the story second hand.

If he created the skill, it would become a top priority to see if the Empire could recreate the skill in a rift. The only issue was that she suspected the skill would be at least Tier 38, which meant creating a rift for a specific skill was basically impossible. The price was simply too great to repeatedly destroy perfectly good rifts for. And no higher Tier planet would sacrifice one of their proven useful rifts to test the theory, even if the Emperor covered the cost himself. Essentially, they would need to find a new high Tier planet, which was unpredictable at best.

It was a well-known fact that most new skills were copied by the rifts after humans and beasts had made them. If the skill was viable, it was crystallized and made a possible reward after the cultivator entered any rift afterward. The oldest records from before the last great shattering and subsequent political unifications had noted new skills coming from created rifts, but they seemed to have plucked most of the lowest hanging fruit already. And with the general lack of mana for the Great Powers, it was considered a fool’s errand.

That was the commonly accepted truth, at least. But Matt’s own [Copper Skin] called that back into question. The skill had literally never been seen or heard about before, and while someone in another Great Power might have made it, it seemed unlikely that someone above Tier 15 bothered to make an inferior [Iron Skin]. Of course, there might have been some low-Tier prodigy that managed it, but she and Emmanuel were hopeful they’d stumbled across a new way to make new Skills.

Luna decided that she’d help Wrangle with his Aspect while she was here. He was going to be fixing his spirit for the next few centuries, since he rightly chose to save the spirit healing plant for when he made his next attempt at creating the skill, so he might as well advance in other avenues.

Luna saw Kyle fall and used a fraction of her power to ensure that the boy would land safely in the sludge.

Seeing how the sun was beating on her charges, Luna also flexed her will to slightly remove some of non-visible light in the surroundings. Not enough to be noticeable, but she’d increase that protection as the day wore on so they avoided the worst of the heat.

She was going to force them to do mana manipulation training as a break after this. They needed to hydrate, and the break would make the next workout harder.

Luna got a reply on her damned AI and smiled.

Purrfect.

Erwin had finally answered her and was willing to suspend his own research for a while to see Melinda and Matt.

That would be a good break after this, where they could all reach the peak of Tier 6 and then start delving Tier 8 rifts.

Luna wanted them fighting up three Tiers by Tier 9, and they had a lot of work to do to reach that point.

She was also limited in the time she had with Melinda’s team before her influence started to do more than bend the rules. So, it was good that he was available, and she didn’t need to go track him down and rip him out of whatever hole he found himself in. Erwin could get lost in a rift for decades if it was interesting enough, and him replying within a year was already a good sign.

Luna noticed as Sam started to try and use her burgeoning Concept to stop the insects’ attacks. How she convinced herself that they were poisonous enough to slightly affect the projectiles Luna wasn’t sure, but that was good lateral thinking on her part.

Things were going surprisingly well.

3

Matt and his friends panted as their break neared its end. He didn’t know if he had the energy to do more physical activity after barely finishing the obstacle course. His arms shook involuntarily, and he had drunk too much water, which now threatened to come back up.

He, like everyone else, had taken a lesson from Aster, and dug a small pit to the much cooler sand a few inches down. They all let it leach the heat out of their overworked bodies.

Luna hovered above them, and as her countdown reached zero, a building rose out of the sand.

“Our next training exercise was supposed to be more physical conditioning, but I don’t think you have it in you to perform up to my standards.” She gestured to the building. “This is a proprioception training house. Make it out of the room and to the next one. Complete all five sections. That’s it.”

Matt forced himself to meet the woman’s eyes and was unnerved by the glint in them. They spoke of someone ready to enjoy watching them fail.

All of them filed in. They were exhausted but were in slightly better condition with the break. They entered and lingered in the first hallway they came to, as they waited for Luna to appear in her usual fashion. Ever herself, she appeared hovering near the ceiling as if she was peering over the edge of a bed.

She pointed to the rooms. “Pick one and enter. It should be self-explanatory.”

After entering the closest door, Matt found himself in a dimly lit room with nothing to explain anything.

A whooshing sound was his only warning. Before he could react, a fist-sized ball struck him in his sore leg. Between the unexpected impact and tenderness of his leg, he crumpled in a heap, clutching his leg as his muscles seized up uncontrollably.

When the whooshing sound happened again, Matt rolled to the side. He heard the projectile bounce off the floor and a whispery voice called out, “One.”

Matt had just climbed to his feet when the next whoosh broke the silence. This time, it was louder, and he was struck on both his hip and shoulder simultaneously.

Ready for the impact, they didn’t hurt nearly as much as the first had, but the double impact still sent him reeling.

When he successfully dodged the first attack, he heard a repeat of the same message. After dodging the second volley with two projectiles, he heard the whispery voice call out the expected, “Two.”

Matt survived five volleys in short order, when the already dim room went completely black, and a ball nailed him silently in the chest.

Instead of lighting back up, it seemed like he had reached some checkpoint and didn’t have to start over completely.

This new exercise was a thousand times harder without the benefit of an auditory indicator for the attack. He was a twitchy mess when he finally reached the end of the third session, when the number of projectiles doubled and increased speed.