The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

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It wasn’t quite a straight-up opening move, but it was close. At minimum, Aaron could make her [Cracked Shatter] more potent with less setup, and that was promising.

Ciceron even said that legacy wouldn’t reduce her spells’ abilities to slow, as the mage had never forsaken that portion of the mana type, even in her later years.

Her last option was Aspen Erhulz, a fairly traditional winter wolf from the Clans. His approach was the closest to Aster’s current setup, meaning she had the most options for developing either a single skill or generally improving her entire arsenal.

[Dispelling Wind] could be developed such that it would slowly strip away mana from attacks it was countering, and even feed into itself, creating a very nice, if minor, feedback loop. [Absolute White] could be enhanced such that practically anything without a spirit of its own in its area of effect would be frozen in space. [Air Body] could be developed into a winter-aspected skill and allow Aster to slow and freeze opponents simply by passing through them. [Glacial Strike] could gain a transmutation effect, making enemies transform into ice rather than simply becoming coated in a thick layer of it.

Or she could spread out her efforts between all of them and more besides, getting less of an individually powerful skill but instead learning general techniques for winter skill modification.

Letting out a low whine, Aster looked to Luna and asked, “What do you suggest?”

The cat simply shook her head and licked a paw. “This is a decision you must make for yourself, Aster. I will continue to help you as a discussion partner, but the final decision is yours. Though, you should plan for the future and not right now. Your skills until Tier 25 will be valuable, yes, but you are already planning for some very impressive bloodline development into the future, and you would be remiss to not keep that in mind as you consider what role you shall play in the wars to come.”

Aster nodded before mulling that over.

How did she see herself in the future? After an agonizingly long decision, she settled on Aspen. Covering for Matt and Liz while they were building up momentum in a fight might not be as dramatic as turning someone into an ice sculpture, but the core role of a support was to enable and cover for their team. Whatever else she might be, she was supportive of her family.

Liz twirled the pen Ciceron had been writing with as she thought about the fact Luna had dated someone. That fact shouldn’t have been surprising, but it made their manager seem all too normal for the woman she knew.

Aster was still hogging the Book of Legacies—apparently there was only one, and it was the same book in all cases, regardless of what kind of legacy was being chosen—and she and Luna had already exhausted their non-specific discussions about what she could want.

Even suppressing her cultivation as much as possible to make the time pass faster, it was still taking a long while for Aster to settle on a concrete option as she endlessly flipped between the handful of choices she’d narrowed down.

She had been shopping with Aster enough times to know the girl had the decision making abilities of a spoiled child who wanted to buy everything and avoid making a hard choice.

Before she was really able to get into that train of thought, Ciceron removed a dozen pages from his book with great care, set them down in front of Aster, and walked over to her

“Now, unlike last time you were here, I can actually give you a wider range of access to our legacies. We actually have one blood mage legacy, but it’s for a healer.”

Liz grumbled internally at being pigeonholed but looked at the first page.

Kelly Lively wasn’t a name she recognized, but he’d apparently been a blood mage of some prominence for his ability to do extensive internal work even on people far past the conventional healing limit. It was a skill she’d tried experimenting with her [Lifeblood Manipulation], but it was almost embarrassing just how inadequate she was compared to a conventional healer.

Even if she wasn’t inclined to try and out-perform the professionals at their own specialty, there would undoubtedly be a fair amount of knowledge present on more freeform blood connection, practice that would be invaluable for her own forays into the wider realm of blood magic.

It instantly went to the top of her list. And the bottom. It was a list of one, after all.

There were, as expected, lots of possible water mage legacies which might be promising. One, amusingly, was even about making certain water spells work on blood, giving water mages the ability to manipulate their own blood inside of them.

She was almost tempted by a water mage that could turn [Water Manipulation] into something that could nearly as easily control ice, steam, and mist, if for no other reason just how much it would help her in mastering all the elements that her spear gave her access to.

In truth, though, the only one which really called to her was one who managed to make mana spent on [Water Whip] cumulative, gradually building up power so long as the skill was maintained. It fit her fighting style well enough, but she ultimately discarded the idea. She was reaching for more these days, and her [Blood Whip] simply wasn’t her path forward.

An idle thought about using the same legacy as before and expanding her [Blood Tidal Wave] was appealing in a certain way, but Oppa’s obelisk wasn’t even listed as an option for her.

So, no water mage legacies. There were some generically good manipulation-focused legacies that her spear would help her utilize to their fullest potential, but they still weren’t what she was looking for.

One legacy made her stop and stare. King Legion, a one-man-army from many generations ago, had a surviving obelisk with a massive focus on [Clone]-type spells. With his Legacy, Liz could directly make her [Lesser Blood Clone] mostly autonomous, only requiring a minor amount of attention to direct, and while it still wouldn’t have access to her Skills or Domain, it would in many ways double her direct combat prowess.

Unfortunately, there were no legacies about binding Oaths, which was a pity. She and Luna had discussed how perfect the pocket-dreamscape was for trying out the last of her Folded Reflections powers, but it wasn’t to be.

Her Concept was a strong contender for what she wanted to work on. Minkalla and subsequent training had drastically expanded what her Domain could accomplish, and there were some very interesting possibilities. A bone mage who could help her master flight, a pyromancer who could teach her to store flame inside her body, and a metal mage who might be able to enable her to enhance her spear with her Concept.

It was the latter she was currently studying. Kess Vitan was a metal mage with an internal Concept who had, through use of Blood Iron, extended control to his blood, and from his blood, to his sword. With his sword, he could then replicate a lot of the tricks of an external Concept, such as utilizing his sword as a flying sword, and performing Susanne’s ‘cutting through space’ trick.