The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

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Noticing his leaving, Manny waved. “Good luck, kid, and when you see the other me, tell him to remember what Carissa said when we told her we were chosen to be the heir. Thanks for letting me learn about the real world. I can rest easy knowing we have people like you to help hold up the sky.”

Matt nodded. “We all need to lift as much as we can. We are in it together, after all. Thank you for the training. I’ll make sure to put it to good use.”

“Hit me.”

Liz took in the appearance of the thin, gray haired man in front of her. She squinted a bit. It looked like his hair actually was metal, not just gray. A style that had fallen out of favor a while ago.

“Um, hello. My name’s Elizabeth, but you⁠—”

“I didn’t ask your name, and you doubtlessly know mine. I told you to hit me. Which you have yet to do. Once you manage that, then we might start with the niceties.” He seemed calm despite the venom in his voice.

Liz sighed. Why did she have the worst luck with trainers?

12

Matt awoke from his legacy-induced slumber to see the black monolith standing in front of him, pristine as the day that it was made. It might have lost a bit of luster, but even Matt’s senses couldn’t tell if he was just imagining a small dimming. He sighed and stretched, extracting himself from the pillow circle and exiting the isolated space that had been established around the Legacy.

Ciceron walked over, clearly distracted by his AI, and murmured, “Follow me, and I’ll take you to pick your legacy.”

As Matt stared at him, Ciceron blinked himself back into reality and corrected himself. “Follow me, and I’ll lead you out of this formation. How was the legacy?”

Matt thought over his experiences and grinned. “Eventful, interesting, and best of all, useful.”

As they arrived back in the familiar part of the house, Matt saw Luna sitting on a table with a steaming cup of tea in front of her while she pawed through a book.

Without looking up, she gestured with her tail at the couch and said, “The other two still have a few hours…maybe a day or so until they wake up. How was it?”

Matt nodded. “Incredibly useful. I have a much better grasp of my manipulation skills and some of my defenses. Of… I guess extending my Concept into things which don’t technically match it? Yeah, that’s probably the best way to describe it.”

Luna leaned down to lap at the tea but spoke despite that. “Good. There’s a reason I picked that legacy for you. Your styles are similar despite you two using two different methods to get to that point. As we said before you went in, legacies aren’t usually made available until after the person has ascended. It’s uncomfortable to know you could have told something confidential to someone without actually being the one to tell them.”

As they waited for the rest of his team to finish their legacies, Matt discussed some of the challenges and advancements he had made. His mana control had definitely taken a sharp climb, but that was just a byproduct of a semi-decade of training, rather than an explicit side effect of the treasure.

Luna had him demonstrate a few small movements with a pile of sand, which he was happy to do, and was able to make fairly intricate designs in the pillar of sand.

Luna nodded and left her book behind for the first time as she padded around the pillar. “This is good. You’ll need more practice in adversarial conditions, of course, but take heart that you will be able to overcome your control issues with sufficient practice.”

Out of nowhere, a whirlwind formed into a needle and raced directly at his heart, but Matt easily used [Air Manipulation] to infiltrate the skill and break the skill structure before he took it over and dissipated it harmlessly.

Luna looked up at him and chuffed. “Did he teach you that, or did you put it together yourself?”

“I figured it out on my own. Happened almost by accident when I needed to weaken an [Air Lance] and was already using [Air Manipulation]. We didn’t focus on it or anything, but it’s a nice development. He said he was surprised that you hadn’t already taught us it, and that it’s what most people start with.”

“I hadn’t expected you to figure this out so soon, but didn’t account for the Legacy. Yes, most people learn that way, but that makes it too easy, and the skills you learn with one mana type don’t always transfer to others. If you learn how to dissipate spells with raw mana, you can transfer those skills to any mana type easily.”

Matt agreed, as Manny had thoroughly taught him that lesson during their time training when he had tried to rely on dispelling attacks rather than tanking the hits.

When a small ball of flames flew at him, he didn’t dissipate it this time, and instead used [Cracked Phantom Armor] to let her see that he hadn’t been slacking off on the main training.

The ball of fire tried to eat through his defenses, but as he flared his Concept, he grabbed the ball of fire from off his chest and held it in his hand, then squeezed down and made the [Fireball] explode. His control over his armor and Concept was good enough that not even a wisp of smoke escaped his grasp.

“Good. A little more brute force than I’d recommend, but that was much better than when you went in.” Saying that, she sighed. “Legacies are so very useful, but sadly, they are limited in supply and frequency of use.”

Matt nodded and rubbed his chest. His spirit was strained just like last time, but unlike his first Legacy, he had more experience with spiritual strain and could say what Legacies did to him was vastly different than a skill.

A skill’s spiritual strain was like cracks in the foundation of a house. Large and obvious. The Legacy’s spiritual strain was more like a dishrag being used until it was see-through. The damage was more subtle, but far more thorough.

Matt busied himself with some mana practice until Liz emerged from her room. She flopped onto the couch next to Matt, draping herself over him with a groan.

Luna’s tail curled as she and Matt waited for Liz to speak. After a few seconds, Liz extricated her face from Matt’s shoulder and pulled herself into a more normal sitting position.

“It worked, but damn, was that hard and annoying. He’s a worse trainer than you, Luna.” Liz grinned as she said that but continued almost immediately. “Well, more that his training sucked. There is only so much ‘just feel the difference’ a girl can take before she needs concrete guidance. I figured it out, but I feel like I could have done better with a good teacher. I can’t imagine how bad of a trainer he was in real life, if he was that bad even with the legacy’s help.”