The Path of Ascension 5: A LitRPG Adventure

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Erin, the sister with the harem, just threw out good natured barbs the entire time to her eldest sister while trying to dress Matt in the most outrageous outfits she could manifest with her mana.

Normally, Matt enjoyed the back and forth with Erin, but as he was frazzled, he made the mistake of throwing a pillow at her. It started a pillow fight, which devolved into a war that swallowed the entire family.

Eventually, the sides settled, and it was him, Aster, Sam, Leah, Travis, and Kurt vs. Alice, the third sibling, Daniel, the fourth sibling, Erin, and Liz. Despite the lopsided numbers, Matt’s side was thoroughly trounced.

Alice was a crafter who, in seconds, created a device that spawned pillows by the dozens. Combined with Daniel and his experience of running a guild, he had them coordinated and well commanded. Meanwhile, there was Sam, who just laughed at everything.

Mara and Leon were less than helpful in the mini-war.

The phoenix returned to her bird form, sized not much larger than a chicken, and ran around, trying to dodge the projectiles that were larger than her. She always seemed to fail at the last minute and catch a pillow in the face, while Leon just turned into a cloud and flew around, trying to keep score. He did such a poor job, both sides teamed up to swat him out of the sky before long.

That distraction was enough for Matt to relax, but he was still nervous about his meeting.

Still, the next morning, he was ready with Liz and Aster to receive his Sponsors at the teleportation pad.

He didn’t know what he expected when the thousands of people rushed out of the scaffolding, but the couple looked exactly like they had at Benny’s all those years ago.

Dena was still a 5’9” woman with copper-colored hair in a ponytail and wearing simple clothes, while Eric was slightly shorter than Matt at 6’2” or so.

Matt felt a weight lift off him as they smiled and walked over to him.

Somehow, seeing them exactly the same as they had been before was the lifting of a burden he didn’t know existed.

Eric was the first to speak as he laughed and reached out to shake Matt’s hand. “Matt, look at you. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Dena was a step behind and just pulled Matt into a hug. It surprised him when he was easily lifted off his feet and swung back and forth.

The last time he had seen them, they had been pretending to be Tier 4s, and some part of him still thought of them as that Tier.

Now, he could feel they were much stronger than he was, and it took his mind a moment to adjust.

“Look at you! Last time you were just a touch taller than me. Now you are too damn tall! Like this damn giant.”

Dena pushed him back to arm’s length as she inspected him from head to toe, before adding, “You look good, though. And you feel strong.”

She looked into his cores, and he lowered his veil for a second so she could see his true self, and she whistled. “Well, that’s telling.”

Eric was more cognizant of Liz and Aster, who had been standing off to the side and stuck out a hand to introduce himself. “Eric, and you two must be Aster and Liz. Nice to meet you two in person.”

Aster took that as her cue to leap out of Liz’s arms and, standing in the air, put out a paw to shake.

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you guys as well!”

Liz returned Eric’s handshake with a more reserved smile and nod.

Dena had no such scruples and hooked an arm with Liz’s and scooped up Aster to start walking down the packed streets.

Dena let her eyes wander up and down Liz’s frame with a mock leer as she turned to Matt and asked, “Did I awaken something in you for redheads, Matt?”

Matt froze as he realized that Liz did share a vague similarity to Dena. They were both redheads, though the shade greatly differed. Liz’s hair faded to a more blood color with her advancement, as opposed to Dena’s copper tone.

Still, they were both attractive women who bore more than a passing resemblance to one another.

Eric saved him with a laugh and elbow bump. “Clearly he just has good taste.”

He added a saucy wink at the women walking ahead of them.

That seemed to break Liz out of her reserved façade, and she laughed as she joined in the teasing. “Oh, is that so?”

Dena leaned in with a mock whisper, “You should have seen him when I took off my shirt that one time. We had just given him a ticket to the PlayPen, and he was more interested in my breasts than his future. He must have stared for an hour.”

Now out of his funk, Matt threw back, “Hardly an hour. Fifteen minutes at most.”

That broke any tension, and they started swapping stories about their recent activities.

For the most part, Dena and Eric kept the conversation about his adventures during their dinner at a decent Tier 25 restaurant.

They wanted to hear the actual details of their adventures and seemed to be happy to hear them retell stories of the golem attack and the vassal war.

As they sat around and picked at the unending food, they started to swap stories about their various adventures in and out of rifts.

Dena and Eric were cagey with most of their stories, but after Matt and Liz regaled them with the story of the trio tackling the Tier 9 orc rift at Tier 6, they got them to open up.

Matt knew that Luna was nearby, as she had given him permission to reveal that bit of information.

Eric leaned back and then rolled up his right sleeve and showed that his arm was waxy looking.

“This is why we’re pulling off The Path. Just too many injuries piling up. Our last rift was a Tier 25, and one mistake led to my arm getting mangled.”

He flexed his arm, and while everything seemed to be working, Matt also noticed the muscles twitching and bunching under the skin in ways that were clearly not correct.

Liz leaned forward and asked, “What did that?”

Dena poked Eric’s side and answered for him, “The i***t tried to punch the boss barehanded. Not a very smart move, but it probably saved my ass.”

For the first time, the playfulness dropped, and she slithered an arm around her partner. “Delving up three Tiers is nothing to scoff at, as you know. But the gap between Tiers only increases as you advance, and it gets harder.”

Seemingly trying to lighten the mood back up, she winked and added, “Not that delving three up at Tier 6 is easy. So few skills and all. I think I’d rather do it at our Tier if I’m being honest.”

Eric rolled up his sleeve and said, “The body can only handle so much healing after all, and we have to constantly push that line. With our manager’s help, we eked out every bit we could, but in the end”—He shrugged—“it wasn’t enough.”

Liz snorted, and Aster joined her with a scoff. “We know how weird and temperamental managers can be.”

She leaned in and said, “Our manager had us running rifts with a dozen restrictions and kept piling them on us. She also has the worst training measures I’ve ever seen. For a month, she took to just throwing things at us. We could be sitting down and eating dinner, and she would throw a book or something at us, expecting us to dodge it.”

Aster chimed in with the indignance only she could manage, “She kept making fake ice cream and tricking me! How mean can you be?”