The Path of Ascension 4: A LitRPG Adventure

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Grand Sect Elder Winter Hornet looked around the gathering of leaders and met Defiant Comet’s eyes. The woman glittered with released mana in a wasteful display. For her, it was nothing unusual, but her nod back spoke of understanding.

Smooth Bow and Dual Spear sat and quietly chatted with their heads pressed together. Their sects were an annoying alliance that always voted together.

They were the fools trying to reform their sects and feeder sects to follow the cursed Empire’s path of cowardice.

He would have removed the two, but their Sects were old and held great sway, accounting for nearly thirty percent of the highest Tier smiths and alchemists among the collaborating sects. It could cripple the war effort to alienate them now.

And they were loyal. They advocated for war with the Empire as much as the other Elders. Only, their goals were different. The duo wanted to slow the Empire’s growth and recreate its success.

Elder Winter Hornet knew that to be the folly it truly was. The Empire might find the rare gem, but their harsh and brutal training method of allowing the strong to dominate the weak had made them a top Great Power for generations by ensuring every one of their cultivators were hard as the stones beneath their feet. The Empire might have surprised them in short order, but he believed them to be a paper dragon with one real tooth.

Young Master Waters.

Elder Winter Hornet sneered. The man was a monster, that was a fact no one doubted, but he was only one man. The Empire hadn’t allowed their regular troops to fight for nearly three millennia.

The new Emperor was a coward, like his father before him.

A new Tier 50 had to make their mark and show their power. The normal way to do that was to duel the other Tier 50s and start a war, or at least fabricate a border skirmish. It was what he had done, and it forced the others to take him seriously. Through his fists, he ensured no one would try to interfere with his lands.

Emmanuel had only wanted to duel them, which was an outcome that no one would allow. The thief’s Talents were well-documented, and no one was willing to allow him a chance at their Tier 50 Talent. In a fight, the man might be able to breach their defenses and take what was their core.

The strong ruled. He would play no part in propping up weakness with his own might.

If Elder Winter Hornet had been in his place, he would have simply started a border skirmish to show his willingness to fight, but Emmanuel had just sat there.

Then, Duke Waters had been found and, suddenly, the Empire was willing to engage with their young master.

That had been an undesirable outcome, but an acceptable one. When a Great Power had the advantage of a cultivator who could punch above their weight, they pressed it. As was right and proper.

No one even contemplated having a Tier 36 or higher go and assassinate the man. None of them were willing to initiate a true war over something so trifling as having an exceptionally powerful young master. They would eventually grow bored of war and Tier up out of the wars, looking for new rifts and new challenges, and the stronger the faster.

A few thousand years was nothing. They would just need to wait and, eventually, the man would move on. Then, the Empire could be taken down a peg to restore the balance between the Great Powers.

However, Light and Shadow had been found shortly afterwards, and things had changed.

Suddenly, the expensive social reforms that the Empire had been undertaking, which the other Great Powers had mocked, had produced another pair of powerhouses.

In and of itself, that was fine. It was rare, but a Great Power with two sets of young masters were not unheard of, and it was usually considered a golden age for the realm. But, normally, young masters were tens of millennia apart, not a scant thousand years.

It meant that they would have the pair for far longer than was average.

The Empire had been accused of cheating, but the Coward had provided overwhelming proof that neither he, nor anyone else, had interfered with the general rules they all abided by.

Young masters were strong. There was no question about that. But that didn’t mean a carefully nurtured chosen one couldn’t equal them. The greatest Dao Children, with their carefully cultivated bloodline, Talents, and Revelations, could certainly match a young master. But there was power in the public perception of someone who had reached Tier 25 in two hundred years on their own.

Most rightly assumed that young masters were then given everything they needed and wanted, which only increased their power further. It was true that the cultivators who reached Tier 25 on their own, when given the full support of a Great Power, bloomed. It was adding water to arid soil.

They flourished.

A third batch of strong youths were being raised in the Empire, and the fact that a few were suspected of having the ability to at least make it to Tier 20 while on The Path made the timing urgent.

The other Great Powers needed to attack and cripple the Empire before their lead on the others became so great that they would be left behind and forced to bend the knee.

Looking at the rest of his elders, Elder Winter Hornet pushed his perception out of the capital planet to see if their visitor had arrived yet.

Two short days later, she arrived with an entourage befitting the next Tier 50 of the Republic. Dicomaty’s replacement was a tall woman with pure, white eyes that drew you in, and with her near the peak of Tier 49, he had to resist the pull even while she didn’t use the ability.

The spies he had in the Republic hadn’t learned much about the Talent, but it was known to be her Tier 25. Overnight, she went from just another average cultivator to a Republic sensation, who was unbeatable in a direct engagement. She seemed to also have a partial Seeker ability, rising through the ranks with combat prowess and political maneuvering.

When in use, Janet’s eyes drew in attacks, where they then vanished until she spat them back out many times stronger. So far, no one had figured out how to counter the ability, but he had a few ideas.

Standing, he pushed his perception out and welcomed the party of seven to his capital.

With his five sect elders at Tier 47 and two at Tier 48, he had the strength advantage. But he also had three thousand years to advance his stronger people where Janet hadn’t. It would be the height of folly to disrespect them now, right before they took full control of a Great Power stronger than his own.

When the group appeared in the meeting chambers, he nodded slightly and said, “Good evening. I am happy to have you visit my realm.” Elder Winter Hornet gestured around. “If you would like, after our meeting, please partake in any activities you wish on my planet. I wish you to feel at home.”

Janet kept her eyes nearly closed and responded, “Once we get the formalities out of the way, I will be happy to take you up on that offer. But first…” She trailed off and glanced to her side, where a burly man with melee fighter cores stepped forward and presented a box with a single, thin, and absurdly sharp needle. It radiated so much cold, that during the few seconds of the man opening the box, he was covered in frost. Though, it didn’t seem to bother him.

Janet nodded to the box. “With Dicomaty ready to ascend, I have been delving rapidly to reach Tier 49, after securing the general vote. During that time, I had a lucky encounter. A rare permutation of one of our rifts created a Tier 48 Ice Wasp boss.”

Elder Winter Hornet stiffened at the name but wasn’t dumb enough to think that she was mocking his weapon of choice. No, he could feel the barb was indeed the stinger on a wasp.

In his childhood, he had been a simple slave, who was sent into the deep underground caverns to chip away ice from critical components of the Ice Forges. The Winter Forge Sect had used them to create their special elemental weapons. It was hard and bitter work, where two out of five died from exposure or ice falling on them. But he had absorbed the cold and cultivated with it. When he fought his way out of the mines, he had done so with the only weapon available to him. His icepick.

When he emerged, he discarded his slave clothes and old names for cultivator robes and a proper cultivator title, as he was made an official disciple. That was the start of his climb to the top.

Elder Winter Hornet had never forgotten his humble beginnings or changed his weapon of choice. He had only elongated the handle to fit in his hand better. With the cold, he slowed, then killed stronger opponents with his awl, which let him punch through the heaviest of armors.

It was why he knew the Sects system worked, and that the Empire was only getting lucky.

Struggle brought out power.

It always had, and always would.

He nearly licked his lips as he looked at the stinger. It was the perfect material to make into a replacement for his elementally neutral awl, which was a full Tier lower than the material presented.

The problem after Tier 47 was the lack of rifts and the inability to find high enough materials to make proper weapons with. With an elementally aligned weapon closer to his own Tier, he would double his power output without the threat of ascending involuntarily.

“I offer the stinger as a show of goodwill in our alliance to take down the Empire. This is too big of a threat to our future prosperity to have any doubt in our dealings. Let this show my sincerity.”

Elder Winter Hornet smiled. It was a good show of faith, and he knew he would end up paying for this favor. But whatever future favor this cost him, it would be worth it.

He smiled. “Let us chat. I want to bring in the lesser Great Powers to round out our numbers. Sit, and let us discuss.”