The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

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While Matt had never actually played any game that even featured full-dive capabilities, he knew they existed. SSEs, or Single Server Experiences, were some of the largest games in the realm, allowing countless individuals to share a massive virtual world, and some of the largest had an entire planet dedicated to a single immensely popular game. There were even some multiplanetary games, which from what Matt knew of inter-world communications had to be the result of one or more Talents supporting the connection.

Still, by the time he’d really learned about them, Matt had been far too busy with The Path to get into them, and the few games that his AI was compatible with that he had tried out had always felt…wasteful. He didn’t need to worry about saving his mana, after all, and he could always benefit from practicing his manipulation skills instead. He’d heard that the Unbroken had used a similar setup for training, but Matt could just practice in reality for free and had never felt the draw.

There was actually a lot of really impressive enchanting-work that went into the simulations Matt found as he looked into the technology. Servers were always built around the proper [Artificial Intelligence] Tier 26 skill, but they rarely used just that. [Library] for storage, [Simulate Item], [Simulate Building], [Simulate Motion], and [Simulate Water] were just the absolute tip of the spear for the utter gauntlet of simulation skills involved, and while it was possible to interface with many games with just [Artificial Intelligence], [Heads-Up Display] and [Imagined Reality] could supplement or outright replace the enchanted interface pods if Tier 20 or 32 skills were in the budget.

But he tried not to get too sucked into the inner workings of what he was quickly learning was involved in all city AI setups. They were, after all, intentionally trying to waste time, and Liz and Aster both wanted to try out a proper game, so they rented a set of pods and rented a local multiplayer game they could try out for a few hours as they grew accustomed to the technology. The game they chose was a non-combat production style game, where the three of them needed to work in a stylized restaurant and take ever more complex orders while food literally flew through the air.

It started easy enough, but eventually, they were overwhelmed by the chaos, and they failed the level and started over with a few buffs they had earned from their last run. They played that game for a while before moving onto a tower defense game, where one of them took turns defending against the others, who sent wave after wave against the defender.

It was dark when they left the still brightly glowing gaming center and went to find something to eat. Instead of trying to find some fancy restaurant, they decided to try and find the lowest Tier restaurants they could, and then use their greater cultivation to quickly process the food before moving on.

They hit seven restaurants before Aster finally tapped out, saying she was stuffed.

Feeling quite full himself, Matt also bowed out, even as Liz put down two more bowls of noodles at their final restaurant. After that, they wandered the city for another hour as they let their stomachs settle and went back to their rooms to sleep in.

The next day, Matt woke up to a cold chest as Aster decided she needed to curl up on him. Wrapping her up in a blanket, he was about to use [Fire Manipulation] to grab some heat from the air and bring it around his chest to warm him up, when he heard the shower was on.

Aster was too damn cold for her own good, but Liz clearly knew she had done that, and simply left him to his fate. A decision she would soon regret.

Slipping into the bathroom, he grabbed Liz and hugged her to his frozen chest despite her squeals and squirming.

“Let me go, you asshole! You’re freezing, and I just warmed up.”

Matt tucked his head into her neck as he laughed. “This is vengeance for letting me get that cold.”

After they both warmed up, Matt and Liz found Aster flopped on the couch with a show playing on the screen mounted to the wall.

Matt flicked her tail as he went to sit down. “Any plans before our massages?”

Aster let out a long groan. “I’m not moving from here until the massages. I want to be pampered. I’ve got this knot in my left leg that’s killing me.”

Matt patted her through her fluff in agreement.

He was most certainly looking forward to a few hours of pampering.

Like all good things, their vacation came to an end as they returned to Luna and Kurt, who welcomed them back into the grind of delving.

Or at least, that was what they expected.

Instead of throwing them into a rift, Luna sat them down outside and paced in the air as she talked.

“You three have reached a point in an Ascender’s training that only those who make it reach. As Tier 13s, you have completed a low Tier 18 delve, which is about as high as anyone can delve up. Even sending you into a mid-Tier 18 rift would mean a single mistake was fatal, and I’d need to save you, which is a pointless level of risk. So instead of pushing you to delve higher, we will start more detailed training.”

She jumped to the ground and then asked, “If I send a [Fireball] at you, what is your reaction?”

At the same time, a small marble sized flame appeared over her tail, which gently swished back and forth.

Knowing his manager, Matt immediately rolled backward off the chair he was sitting on and then to the side, all the while watching her with his spiritual perception.

Seeing she wasn’t actually attacking them, all three of them stopped and Luna continued. “Dodging is the preferred defense, but what do you do if you can’t dodge? If you are surrounded?”

Matt got up, and after brushing himself off, said, “Block?”

Luna arched an eyebrow at him, even in cat form. “Is that a question or a statement, Matt?”

Smiling, he said, “Yes.”

That earned him a flick of the tail and accompanying [Fireball]. Dropping to the ground, he was able to dodge it and swore he heard a chuff of amusement, even as Luna spoke using [Air Manipulation].

“Dodging is a valuable tool, as it takes minimal energy and costs nearly nothing to avoid damage. Most people consider blocking to be the second, but why?”

Liz spoke up this time. “Blocking costs energy, but if you were going to get hit, it’s better to spend the mana to use a spell to block it.”

Luna nodded but sat back on her rear legs before shrugging. “That’s all true, but I’d consider you all to be missing an obvious answer.”