The Path of Ascension 5: A LitRPG Adventure

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Matt could just imagine. An Ascender was considered the largest threat in any actual battle, first and foremost. But in the end, they were a single person or a single team. And while they were generally considered an enormous singular threat, that power was balanced by only being able to be in one place at a time.

Most conventional strategies said that Ascenders were a better defensive asset, because they could be entrusted to be a bulwark themselves, while the general army moved through wider space.

Some Ascenders were better on the offensive and were used to make deep probes into enemy territory. They forced the enemy to assign larger and larger numbers of troops to try and protect assets behind the established lines of engagement.

Duke Waters was the second type: a single man was hard to find in the vastness of chaotic space. Especially if he chose to flee.

Still, the risks were greater with such tactics, so it wasn’t the ideal role of an Ascender.

If the Empire had three Ascender teams, they could have one or two on defense, and safely risk the others on any number of offensive missions.

He started to really understand why the other Great Powers were fearful. The rules of the game had changed, and they found themselves flatfooted and unprepared.

Wanting to change the conversation to a happier topic, Matt asked a question he had been wondering about since the day he had first met the Emperor.

“How did you see when I took the skill shard and hid it in my pad? I know there weren’t cameras in those locations, but I didn’t think of that until later.”

Emmanuel laughed as he waved a hand, and an apparition of Matt asking the question appeared. The recursive effect started to loop when the illusion vanished.

“Matt, my father had a Seeker-like Talent. His Tier 50 was the ability to predict the future to an incredibly limited degree. Frankly, it’s nearly useless against the other Tier 50s because of their relative power and the associated cost in trying to predict someone with that much power. But it does let me peer into the past anywhere my spiritual sense covers.”

Matt was unable to get his head around the concept of being able to peer through time, like looking through a video recording.

As he was contemplating that, he murmured, “I knew there were no cameras there.”

That led him to a second question that had bothered him. “That also made me wonder, why did you need to get your head healer when you found out about Melinda’s Talent? There’s no way you didn’t know what Overhealth was.”

Emmanuel, who was lounging on the single kitchen table chair like it was an overstuffed armchair, snorted. “Matt, you’re getting close to forty, but you’re still essentially an infant when compared to immortals. You were what? Thirteen at the time?”

Matt nodded but remained silent.

“When you have a few centuries as an immortal, you’ll probably start to alienate the younger kids for a while. You’ll have massively more experience than them, and a near-perfect recall, even discounting your AI. If you want to not seem like an alien, you’ll learn not to be perfect around non-immortals. That sometimes means asking someone in a perceived position of authority to clarify information you already know. And to be honest, I was pretty baffled. Overhealth on skills cast simply isn’t a Talent, at least from what I knew. Reducing or eliminating healing cooldown on the self, absolutely, but as an effect which can be applied to others? I wanted a second opinion, who could ensure I didn’t misunderstand, someone with experience healing.”

Matt only let out a ‘huh’ as he thought that over.

So, the Emperor had only gotten his head healer because the explanation about a healing ability coming from a healer was easier to swallow for a bunch of teenagers.

That actually made sense as Matt thought it over.

Or at least, he could understand the logic behind it. He was pretty sure at the time that if the Emperor had said the sky was purple, and Melinda’s Talent would make elephants fly, he would have believed it without question.

It was the Emperor, for ascenders sake. Even knowing him personally, Matt had a hard time doubting anything he said.

Eventually, the rest of Liz’s siblings returned to the apartment, and they had what Matt could only call a family dinner.

Matt was kept involved in the conversations, but during one of his trips to the kitchen, he paused and watched how the siblings interacted with Emmanuel.

Alice, Liz’s third oldest sister, caught his perusing and stopped to chat about the way each sibling interacted with the Tier 50.

“It’s all about when we were born. Sam was born and in the army before our parents became nobles, and then made friends with the then crown prince. It’s hard for him to separate his work life from personal life and relax around Manny.”

Matt nodded. He could see that barrier in their interactions. While Sam wasn’t weird or anything, he looked like he was ready to snap to attention anytime Emmanuel looked in his direction.

He just wasn’t able to fully relax.

Matt looked at the Tier 37 and asked, “What about you?”

She winked at him and returned the question. “What have you observed?”

Matt gestured outward. “Leah is younger than Sam, but she’s more friendly with him than you. Not sure if that is just individual personality or something else. If I had to guess, that’s because when you two were born, he wasn’t the Emperor yet and had more time to be active in your lives?”

He ended the statement with a raised eyebrow, asking if he was right.

Alice sipped at her drink as she agreed. “Daniel as well. Emmanuel is a great uncle to the younger siblings, but he had more time to just come visit with us. And when he did, he was just another friend of the family. Or at least, that was how it felt to us as kids. Our parents were only dukes at that point, and we had more normal childhoods. Daniel and I are just more reserved with him, having grown up, than Leah is. As kids, we used to be every bit the immovable burr that Leah remains.”

Matt nodded to Erin, the next youngest sister. “And Erin was born when your parents were royals?”

Alice let out a giant sigh as she agreed. “Yes, and she didn’t handle that added pressure well as a kid. Not that she should’ve, but her personality is quite a mismatch for such a public position. Our parents learned from their mistakes with her, but she got hurt more than once because of their political newness to the position. She might have a giant harem, but she’s an incredibly introverted person.”

Matt agreed with the assessment. He often found her sitting on the balcony and watching the city pass under them with a cup of coffee in hand.

She never scorned his presence if he joined her, but she carried an air of solitude like a blanket.

He had misinterpreted it for loneliness, but after interacting with her for a while, he understood the difference. The absence of company didn’t bother her, it even seemed to give her peace. He wasn’t sure how that led her to developing a harem, but he wasn’t going to question her methods of finding love and happiness.

For all she liked her time alone, Matt actually got along with her well, and she had even voluntarily joined him for some silent time while he cooked or crafted talismans in the living room.

They had a companionable silent understanding between the two of them despite having said less than a thousand words in the last month of living under the same roof.

Matt finished off by hitting Travis and Liz together. “Travis and Liz grew up firmly in the ‘my uncle is the Emperor’ camp, and still hang off of him like a jungle gym. He’s always been larger than life to them, so it never really changed their interactions with him.” Matt nodded to Keith, who was the only other non-sibling who came. “And Keith is my only bastion of normality in this too damn strong family.”

Alice laughed. “We’ll see how you feel after a proper family get-together, with all the extended family.” Changing the topic, she hooked an arm through his and pulled Matt to the table. “Come on, I want to have a rematch on Battle Bots. That flipper bot was a cheap way to win, and I won’t give you such an easy victory this time. I’ve spent more time as a crafter than you’ve been alive, and I refuse to let our contest end on a loss from a cheap trick like that.”

The rest of the evening was spent in a variety of ad hoc pickup games and various members of the family telling stories of their past adventures.

It didn’t surprise Matt that Mara and Leon always had a wacky story of the two of them doing something stupid or ditzy, then having to clean up massive messes.

After getting comfortable with Emmanuel once everyone had a drink or two in their systems, Matt decided to ask about the Aura rifts and the two rifts he had helped Erwin create. Luna and Kurt hadn’t heard anything more than what he had heard from the news about the new skill and [Endurance] rifts so he had been wondering for the last few years about the truth behind each event.