The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

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When Liz returned with her spoils, he had to question her methods. “That seems wholly unnecessary. I’m sure we could have just asked her for the food.”

Liz gave him a pitying look. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Matt ignored his teammate and dug into his plate. Aunt Helen had loaded his plate with turkey and stuffing with asparagus and warm gravy.

It was divine. The turkey was impossibly moist with a crispy skin and the gravy added that slight bit of additional flavor to the meat while the asparagus were full of what he guessed were steak flavors, like they were from an entirely separate meal. Considering how Liz got the food might very well be the case.

Still, it only reinforced the fact the woman had reached a level in cooking he only hoped to come close to someday.

When they were done, he washed and dried the plates while Liz talked. “We have a ticket out of here in four days. It’s good that we got one when we did. The backlog is months long. And that’s even with most of the Tier 15s and higher just flying out through chaotic space. Otherwise, it would be years. Speaking of leaving, are we still on for hitting a club tomorrow night?”

Matt finished his meal and asked, “What’s taking so long, then? It was mostly Tier 15s here, right? And, yes, I’m up for it.”

Liz shook her head. “Not really. Remember, the ascension is good for people awakening, too, and all the planets near here brought over every kid they could. I’m sure they were cranking out teleports as fast as they could manage.”

Matt responded, “I did forget about that. It makes sense, though. Not as much of a rush to bring them back. Lots of mana wastage to save time.”

The usual month-long teleport time was a long enough delay that ambient mana could be gathered and used to fuel the teleport. If they were trying to get thousands upon thousands of people off-world as fast as possible. Matt felt like he had a pretty good idea as to what the millions of mana he’d sold to the Baroness in the months before was being used for.

Matt sat with Liz and asked, “Aster already broke through into Tier 5. Are you ready to do the same?”

They didn’t have any essence in their spirits, but they could still perform a single crunch, and break through now. They would just need to finish the remaining crunches when they had enough essence to power the consolidation of their power bases. It still annoyed Matt that any unused essence only lasted for a few days, but he couldn’t change that fact. If he could have kept the essence from the Tier 5 rift they had delved, he could have finished all ten crunches of his core right at this moment, which would have saved them the inconvenience of having to delve, kill a monster, then finish their advancement.

With an effort of his spirit, he compressed his core, and all of the gains from his Tier 4 essence allocation surged through his body. The newfound power of his advancement rushed through him, and the sensation made Matt want to move.

He needed to get used to the new power his limbs thrummed with.

“Let’s go spar.”

Liz ran back up to her room, and Matt did the same. He changed into workout clothes and grabbed one of his mana crystals, filling it up with just a few seconds of concentration.

Then, he pulled as much as he could back into himself. In the blink of an eye, his mana pool refilled, jumping from less than one mana to his full twenty. Then, it jumped from twenty to forty.

While his Tier 1 Talent cut off all forms of mana cultivation, his Tier 3 allowed him to double his maximum mana every tier by absorbing mana in excess of his previous cap. When combined with the percentage-based regeneration of his Tier 1 Talent, doing so also doubled his maximum regeneration. Now, assuming he was at or under 0.4 mana, or 1% of his total mana pool, he’d be regenerating 40 mana every second.

With a test, he found that [Cracked Phantom Armor] was able to handle 20 MPS. [Mage’s Retreat] was able to take as much as he could give it, but with 10 MPS, he was getting a fifty percent boost to his strength allocation. He was content with keeping it near that level. The skill had harsh diminishing returns meaning it wasn’t worth it to send the rest of his 10 MPS into it.

Instead, it was better to use that 10 MPS for his AI, his sword’s runes, and his sword’s skill, [Mana Charge]. Especially now that he could channel the skill without any strain and would be able to use it in combat without exhausting himself.

Matt paused. He also needed mana for [Hail], the skill he had never even used. Then, he would also be getting [Endurance] as a reward for being on The Path of Ascension at Tier 5.

Suddenly, Matt felt like he could already use another doubling of mana.

If he lowered [Mage’s Retreat] to 2 MPS, he got an extra 8 MPS, which he hoped would be enough to cover the two new skills.

It would mean that he would only be able to count on [Mage’s Retreat] for a twenty-five percent boost at Tier 5. But that was still considerable.

Matt then remembered potions that Aunt Helen had given him. They would increase his Mana Concentration, which in turn would increase the efficiency of all of his skills. He made a note to check in with the older Phoenix about whether he could use another now, or if he should wait until he finished his other nine crunches. He didn’t think it would matter but wasn’t willing to risk it.

Using his AI, Matt saw a message blinking in his inbox.

It was a message from Dena and Eric, his sponsors.

The message was a surprise. He had tried to message them on more than one occasion, but it had always failed. The only thing that changed was that he hit Tier 5 which seemed a little too convenient to be a coincidence.

Matt opened the message and found a video.

He opened it with his AI, and it played instantly, overlaying his vision. He saw a heavily armored Eric, and more lightly armored Dena. Their helmets and armor were splattered with blood, but they had taken their helmets off to record so he could see that they were unharmed.

They were sitting on a mountain top. At first, it seemed normal, but as it was the first frame of the paused video, he had time to notice some discrepancies. Behind them was a land of death. They had slaughtered enough of something to dye an entire valley red. The recording sadly didn’t have enough detail for his AI to identify what kind of creatures they were.

As he was about to start the video, Liz knocked. “Are you ready?”

“No. I got a message from my sponsors.”

With that, his partner pushed her way in and plopped next to him.

“Oooh. Let’s watch.”

Matt flicked the video to the screen on the wall, and he took special notice of Liz. He wanted to know if she recognized them. He had told her about them, but never had a picture to show. She seemed to know everyone else with even a little fame or power, but she didn’t react, so he played the video.

Dena spoke first. “Heyyyyy, Matt! Nice to see you. If you’re watching this video, you hit Tier 5 while on The Path. And fast enough that we haven’t recorded a second video.”

His sponsors both laughed at that.

Eric picked up the thread. “Sorry about that. We’d have liked to be there for your advancement, since it’s a big deal. Tier 5 is where you can start learning deeper secrets of cultivation. But first…”

He trailed off.

Dena said, “You’ll learn this eventually, but we didn’t find you by chance. Detrimental Talents get flagged by planetary AIs, and the owner is watched. If they seem okay, they get a team sent to meet and scout them out. That’s how we found you. We’d rather tell you ourselves now that you’re Tier 5 and are more likely to hear about it independently.”

Eric cut in, “That doesn’t mean we don’t like you. You’re a great kid, and we meant what we said about you having skill. That’s also why we blocked you until you hit Tier 5. You’re on The Path. You should have no doubts that you earned your place. You had no guidance other than what you found on your own. But we got chosen to find you because we were on a break and close to Lily.”

Matt was touched. They couldn’t have known that he met Liz, who was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. He didn’t know how he would have reacted if Liz hadn’t been there to answer his questions. But still, the idea that he would question whether or not he had earned his place on The Path wasn’t far-fetched.

He had been emotionally fragile back then. He wasn’t perfect now, but he had grown a lot with Liz and Aster.

Matt looked at Liz, while the two on the screen looked awkwardly at each other.

“Do you count as guidance that I found on my own?”

Liz just shushed him as Dena spoke up, “We wish we could have been there for your Tier 5, but we’re running back-to-back rifts right now. We don’t have the time nor privacy.” She gestured around them. “That’s why we’re recording this in a rift. It’s one of the few places that you can be assured to get some privacy. Once the instance cycles, it’s your own little world filled with monsters.”

Eric changed the topic. “We were able to scout you because we were on a break, but sadly we can’t be there for you in person now. We’re sending you an information packet with this. It will introduce you to some…things. The potion you took to break into Tier 5 isn’t the true way to advance. It’s like a prosthetic, and it’s good. Don’t misunderstand, but at this stage of your advancement, you can start thinking on something called a Concept. The packet explains more. Read it over.”

Dena jumped over Eric. “Also, check out the free guide for Tier 8 skill shards. It’s a good source of information, but the best skill you want to get is [Endurance]. If you bring it into your core spirit, you can expand the skill’s abilities to make it a channeling self-healing skill. It won’t heal any more than the body can naturally do, but that’s sometimes enough to save your life. It could get you out of a dangerous situation.”

Matt was touched. If he hadn’t met Liz, this would be exactly what information he would need at this point. They may have been chosen to find him, but while they didn’t say it in the message, Liz had told him that no one could be forced to scout a detrimental Talent. They had chosen to accept the assignment and spent more than the minimum time.

They also didn’t say that they were Tier 15 which he found interesting.

Or higher, Matt corrected himself.

Eric finished, “We really don’t have more time. Sorry, Matt. Once we can catch a break, we’ll come find you. We are on a bit of a time crunch ourselves after our last healing cooldown. But now that you have your feet under you, feel free to send us messages. We’ll try to answer what we can. Just know, it might take time for us to get out of the rifts and be able to update our AIs. Rifts get a lot larger at higher Tiers.”

They both said their goodbyes, and Matt looked at Liz.

She spoke before he did. “They’re so nice. We need to send a nice return message. That’s all really good advice for someone…without my, uhmm…advantages.”

Her stammering was amusing, but Matt didn’t press it. “You don’t recognize them?”