The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

30

“I’m fine. Aidan gave me good armor.”

She accompanied the statement with a tap at the place where her armor had a streak in it. A tusk had scraped along her well-protected torso but was unable to break through. That brought his attention to the armor that he hadn’t really examined until now. It only covered the woman’s vitals and left her extremities otherwise exposed. She had a dangerous fighting style that he didn’t exactly envy.

He withdrew his blade with a heavy pull and looked to the rift after checking the blade for damage. A slight draw on the repair rune fixed some problems that he couldn’t see with his eyes.

Liz and Aster caught up with them shortly afterwards, and they waited for another few minutes before Malcolm finally came back into the clearing.

“Hey, good news! I found the entrance to the ruins.”

Under his breath, Matt muttered, “At least you did something useful while running away.”

The women next to him chuckled at his barb.

They followed the excited explorer to find a tiny cave that was only wide enough for one person. With Matt’s size, it would be extremely cramped in height and width. He wasn’t looking forward to this ruin if the whole thing was a tunnel system this small.

Malcolm brought out a light and said, “All right, let’s get in there.”

Liz and Matt met each other’s eyes.

She said, “Nope. We’re gonna rest up, then delve the boar rift. After, we’ll call it a night and come back to the ruin in the morning with full mana.”

When Malcolm opened his mouth, Camilla interjected. “Look. We want to delve the rift. There’s good essence and better rewards in there. I’m not passing them up. Who’s going to find this tiny ass hole in the ground hidden behind a boulder anyway?”

Malcolm acquiesced after a moment. It wasn’t like he was about to go in by himself.

8

Matt carefully watched the surroundings while on watch from his place near the camp. The world was so active. This was a living planet that had a functional ecosystem well before the Empire arrived. The world was teeming with bugs, trees, and native animals.

It shouldn’t have been a shock to him, as his own planet Lilly was just the same in the not-so-distant past. It was his time on the desolate training world that had tainted his perspective of what uninhabited worlds were.

Just as the old mnemonic said: Life makes mana. Mana makes essence. Essence creates rifts. Rifts convert all three.

It didn’t account for the fact that essence multiplied on its own, given enough time. Or that essence could break down into mana given the right environment. Or even that rifts created life itself.

But the self-propagating feature of essence was the reason that Tier 15 was the watershed Tier for immortality. The amount of essence one possessed at Tier 15 was enough to replace the body’s needs, allowing the cultivator to become completely self-sustaining.

That was why Tier 15s had complete control of their body’s shapes and features. They could manipulate their spirits with their minds, which let them transfigure their bodies. The further they advanced past Tier 15, the further they deviated from the restrictions of humanity.

In theory, it was possible to advance solely from the essence production of your cores, but that was so slow only the crazy would pursue that path. You needed so much more essence to advance, that it would take eons to go from one Tier to the next. A single delve would be trillions of times more effective than relying on one’s natural production of essence.

Still, it was interesting to ponder while he was on watch.

The small stone in his hand was the reason why Matt’s mind kept going back to essence. Their reward from the delve of the boar rift had been an essence stone. Much like mana stones were pure ambient mana condensed into a small form, an essence stone was rift essence condensed into a small oblong. It was about the same size as the last knuckle of his thumb, with perfectly smooth edges.

They contained essence equal to the amount that the rift would contain in a complete clear. The small stones were incredibly valuable, as they would allow someone to advance with all the advantages of rift delving, but with none of the risks.

Matt twirled the stone in his hand. It wasn’t hard to understand why they held so much value. The rich would pay out their noses for a resource like this. It was also useful for them, but there was no way to split the essence between the four of them who actively cleared the rift. So, they intended to sell the stone, and split the rewards equally.

Malcolm hadn’t contested a share of the reward. The man had cowered behind them, and rushed from massive mushroom to mushroom for cover, while the other four killed everything that moved.

He had gotten a small share of the essence, just from being near them. If he had complained about the free ride, Matt wasn’t sure who would have hit him first. No one wanted the freeloader claiming a share of the prize.

Malcolm, for having done nearly nothing all day, was currently nodding off on the log he sat on. Matt shook his head and walked the perimeter once more. He had done some searching through his survival guides to occupy himself. According to one, night watch used to be called fire watch, which made him chuckle for a minute. How primitive would you have to be to be worried about a fire going out? Even a [Fireball] skill could be used in a pinch.

Matt flicked the stone in his hand, sending it spinning in the air. This essence stone was worth something like twenty-five Tier 7 mana stones in the Empire proper. It was crazy that people would pay that much for a little bit of essence, but he wasn’t complaining about the small windfall.

A part of Matt couldn’t believe it. If someone could afford that price, they should be able to afford an escort through a Tier 5 rift. At the same time, it took time to be guided through a rift, whereas the essence stone was nearly instant. Besides, if you were a Tier 15, it would be chump change to buy essence stones for your children.

Considering how mana stones increased in value, buying down was of little concern. The reward was good for their team, though. Even with a quarter going to Camilla, they would be able to get a nice item or two.

Watching the night sky slowly start brightening as dawn approached, Matt’s daydreams drifted to how different his life could have been if he had been accepted to a guild.

Would they have taken advantage of him after he hit Tier 3?

Would he have even hit Tier 3?

Matt tried to think of the possibilities. He couldn’t see the future, but it was fun to come up with scenarios while keeping his friends safe. He had already run through all the possibilities of random calamities he could think of, and how he would react to them.

A blip interrupted him, and his AI’s draw on his mana decreased. Trying to not get his hopes raised too high, he checked the results of the enchanting test that his AI was running. The results were conclusive.

“Ha!”

His outburst jolted Malcolm out of his stupor. After being abruptly woken up, he wiped his face and started walking around.