The Path of Ascension 5: A LitRPG Adventure

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“Ah, a good question. Yes, there are more dangers than your fellow contestants out there. The other side of the planet has a number of rifts that we deliberately filled until they broke and spilled their monsters out. They were then allowed to wander free and set up their own little monster tribes and such.” He flicked a finger at them, and an information packet waited to be downloaded to everyone’s AI.

As Quill read over the information, he whistled.

There were a number of points available to anyone who actually cleared the monster nests or even managed to kill a number of monsters.

Ten average Tier 12 monsters were worth one point, while the rare Tier 14 monsters were worth ten points split between everyone on the team that took one of them down.

He looked to Torch, and even behind the mask, he knew she was as eager as he was.

This was the perfect location for their combat prowess to shine.

The gardener threw some cold water over the crowd with a laugh.

“Do note that you need to spend five points a team each time you enter the Jungle, and those points are non-refundable. If you get beaten by another team, as soon as we believe that you can’t protect yourself out there, we will pull you out. If a monster is about to eat you, we will pull you out. If we pull you out, we’ll take any items and points that you’ve gathered during your adventure.”

A part of the crowd started to grumble at the need for points when most teams hadn’t had the opportunity to enter any rifts yet. There wasn’t even any guarantee that they’d be able to earn any points for the next few days.

Still, it seemed like the gardeners had thought about it.

“If you wish, the points can be taken on loan to enter the Jungle for your first time, but that’s a one-time deal that you won’t be offered again.”

Done with his speech, the gardener gestured to a teleportation formation next to him. “Anyone who wishes to enter can teleport into a random location in the Jungle with one of these. You will also find teleportation pads spread throughout the Jungle at random and at any Tier 12 or higher rift location. They are one way and the only way back to the Garden. Also, using one of those teleporters is the only way to keep the stuff you gather from the Jungle.”

With that, the crowd separated into two. Some people walked away, unwilling or unable to fight in such a dangerous environment, while the others took their place in the line.

When it was their turn, and they found themselves inside the walled location, Quill froze as he felt the difference in the space around them.

“They spatially expanded half a f*****g planet? Are they crazy?”

He honestly couldn’t believe anyone would be that spendthrift. The size of a spatial expansion scaled exponentially with the original size of the location, and the degree of the spatial expansion.

His mind went back to the wall that cut the planet in half, and he shook his head. It wasn’t a wall there to keep the monsters in, but to stabilize the spatial expansion. He hadn’t even known a spatial expansion field could be kept stable over a distance that large.

Torch laughed next to him as she pointed to the drone that had followed them through the teleportation.

“Quiet, watchers.”

Laughing, Quill gestured to the drone, and it followed his direction to get a better view of his masked face.

Looking directly into the lens that would project his mask to anyone watching, he repeated, “Queen Tur’stal is f*****g crazy. But wow, do I respect it.”

As he finished his statement, he added a slight bow and a dramatic look around the grassland they were in. Then, he moved to take off in the air with the flying devices wrapped around his ankles.

To both his and Torch’s surprise, they found that after they reached a height of ten feet, their flying devices started to struggle to rise higher, and their speed was restricted to a slow walk.

Not wanting to fight the clear rule in place for their location, the two of them landed in the waving grass and started to stalk forward, blending in with the waving greenery.

As they heard a lion’s roar, they prepared for a battle.

Tur’stal looked over at the view of Quill and Torch and brought her glass to her lips for a small sip.

Mara preened next to her, “He definitely takes his trash-talking from us!”

Leon, ever willing to play along with his wife, nodded along while not taking attention away from his conversation with Rusty.

Tur’stal rolled her eyes at the bird. Matthew’s Quill persona seemed to take a great deal from the duo’s exaggerated personalities, but she was more interested in how they actually compared to everyone else in true combat. The Tier 48s had kept the pair under their own perception the entire time they had been under her skies, and she hadn’t been curious enough to disrespect Mara and Leon’s desire for the Tier 10s privacy.

That meant the rift speedrun they had done earlier was her first time seeing the masked personas in action, and she wasn’t particularly happy with the rift. It was an awful match-up for them, which was deliberately done by their managers, she was sure. But it meant that she didn’t really get to see them in action.

Still, they had gotten first place, even if a Seeker team had solved the rift in less than an hour.

The rift before that had provided more of a show, but the only real highlight had been Matt’s lifting of the lava river and pulling out the Lava Whale. That had taken some serious control and plenty of power to back it up.

But that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to see more. The few reports she had access to all stated that the team was following the rules, but the exact details about a Pather team were only accessible to the Emperor by default. If she wanted to see the truth, she would need to petition him, and he never accepted those. No, the reason she was watching them was the conversation she had with Emmanuel. He hinted to her that he expected them to be the next Light and Shadow.

High praise.

At first, she thought it was just because of Liz’s connection to him, but she had spent enough time with the girl as a child, as all the royals had. She knew her well enough and understood that her royal bloodline wasn’t the girl’s only merit.

She did have the personality to push far enough. Her reaction to her royal upbringing gave her the correct mix of anger, stubbornness, and determination to push long and hard enough to complete The Path. Even if only out of spite.