The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

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Manny continued mouthing the word seven even as Matt told him about their Minkalla run, to which the Emperor was a rapt listener, responding in all the best ways. He both compared it to his run and commiserated with their low points, and even cheered the high points, like killing the Fall General.

They chatted for what felt like an entire day, exchanging stories and jokes as Matt filled Manny in on what his self outside had been doing in the recent years. While Matt couldn’t answer too many high level things, Manny seemed happy to get any information.

When Matt told him about Duke Waters and his legendary status, he nearly jumped out of his chair.

“From my grandmother’s time, we believed that giving the commoners more breathing room and freedoms would lead to a population boom and subsequent increase in general power. It cost so much to do it the other Great Powers never bothered. And after seeing the Empire’s budget, I’m not surprised, honestly. To do even the conservative increase in social services my father pushed through, we needed to increase tax revenue by almost ten percent.”

Looking at Matt, he sighed once more. “I’m so glad we found you. I’m sure most of my free time will be using your Talent to try and fix our deficit.”

Matt nodded. “There are plans set in place, as I agree. My Talent can do a lot of good, and I don’t intend to hide my mana forever.”

Manny growled. “The other Great Powers. Yeah, they would be an issue.”

Hopping to his feet, he said, “While I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and catch me up to speed, we need to keep you out of any boxes, and the best way to do that is to make you too hard to cage.”

As he stood, he continued, “I understand why I sent you to this legacy after hearing your story. My Talent is about taking and using complementary Talents to make myself a scary mother fucker.”

Letting that sink in, the Emperor asked, “What do you think my Domain is about?”

Matt shrugged. “Well, you told me when I first met you that it was about self-sacrifice, but if you had asked me before that, I would have guessed flexibility or being in the right place at the right time, or something.”

Manny grinned. “No, it’s the obvious choice and a viable one. Making yourself better at many things is super useful, I won’t deny, but I had a different train of thought.”

He spread his arms and said, “I wanted to be Emperor to protect people. My Talent already lets me fill whatever role I need, so with my Concept, I made sure that I would never be without the power to help. And, with a strong enough defense, you don’t need to worry about yourself; you can just focus on your enemy or your allies. You can take the [Firebolt] so that others don’t have to. That is my legacy. So, let’s see what you have. Show me your best defenses, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Matt activated [Cracked Phantom Armor] and his repulsion armor before he readied himself in a boxing position.

Manny rushed him with an explosive leap, which Matt met with a [Cracked Mana Spear] to the face. He dodged to the side, directly into where Matt had sent a [Wind Cutter], which cut right through him.

Only for Matt’s sword to bounce off Manny’s real body, that had invisibly dodged in a different direction.

Manny laughed even as he faded into visibility with a layer of translucent scales over his body. “Good. Luna was said to make monsters, and I can see that was true. But let’s test how good that armor is.”

A mace appeared in the Emperor’s hand and he swung it down on Matt’s sword. Unlike what he expected, the mace shattered his sword, overpowered his repulsion armor, and crushed through both layers of [Cracked Phantom Armor], only to come to a dead stop a fraction of an inch above his skin. Matt got the message.

Rolling his shoulder, Matt nodded. “Was that a Talent?”

“Yep. Well, three technically. One which deals additional damage to items, one which improves armor-piercing, and a third to make anything I strike far more brittle. I have a counter for everything, and if you want to resist me, you’ll need to put some real effort into it.”

Ducking, Matt flared his Concept’s repulsion and armor power while casting [Bulwark], trying to integrate them into a cohesive whole.

Despite those efforts, the mace came down and passed right through all his layers of armor and dissipated the legacy body.

Instead of throwing himself into the fight immediately, they took a step back and Manny started teaching him exactly how to use his Concept to block. The training encompassed how to integrate both his repulsion effects to skills, and just generally reinforce skills with his Concept.

As they settled in, Matt felt as if the world around him started to fade away in that oh so familiar way that indicated he was falling into the training.

Being able to better infuse his repulsion Concept into his shield spells would be incredibly useful, like Manny had said. Without having to worry about your defenses, you could go on what would otherwise be a reckless charge to punish your enemies.

When they finally started fighting after five years of more academic training, Matt learned that fighting Manny was like fighting an altered reflection of himself. So long as he kept his defenses reinforced, they were able to have incredible showdowns Matt had only really seen in movies and games. The two of them were both incredibly hard to hurt and had a plethora of skills, which meant no two exchanges were the same.

When he threw [Earth Spear]s at Manny, his spell wasn’t just dodged but would turn on him midair as his opponent changed his Talents to better manipulate earth, turning it into a battle of mana control and how forceful they could be with their respective manipulation skills. A battle Matt lost most of the time.

While Matt had unlimited mana to throw at their contests, so too did Manny in this false reality, and Matt stood no chance against someone with three Talents always perfectly suited to the situation. Manny had an innate skill for manipulating every element, a growth talent dedicated to enhancing that element, and Tier 25 talents to shut Matt out from controlling them or preventing mana usage. The combination made manipulation skills functionally free, or more besides. As a result, Matt lost almost every one of their engagements.

But almost every engagement wasn’t every engagement.

Through a series of quickly swapped manipulation duels of various elements, Matt managed to catch Manny reacting with the wrong Talent set, and he was able to pummel the Emperor with the metal orbs, sending him stumbling back, which was his one victory before Manny increased his strength.

Finding his Concept not integrated sufficiently to block this level of attacks, Matt found himself respawning a number of times before he was finally able to go back on the offensive.

Time passed in a blur as the fights became increasingly complex, with both of them using multiple elemental manipulations at the same time. Matt hadn’t even heard of a Talent that gave increased control with multiple elements, but Manny just laughed and said he wasn’t boasting when he said he had a Talent for every situation.

At first, he had only managed to combine his repulsion armor with his skill armor, but soon after, he was able to reinforce [Bulwark] with the same effect, strengthening the already powerful spell. Flaring his repulsion through [Bulwark] rather than his own body took even more work, but it was well worth the effort. After they got to that point, Matt started making minor improvements to all his defensive skills, trying to make them innately stronger to resist the varied methods the Emperor had at his disposal to break and or dispel his armor.

By the three quarters mark, Matt had mastered the mental flexibility to use two manipulation skills at once effectively and had improved all of his defensive spells to various degrees, but none so much as [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Bulwark], which could now resist even the Emperor’s best strikes without immediately falling apart.

Without even knowing it, Matt felt himself being pulled out of the legacy. Not wanting to break the Emperor’s legacy, he didn’t resist.