The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

14

Liz and Susanne spoke up from time to time to detail their individual outings, but it remained primarily Matt who told of their conquest first of Spring, and then of Fall. Their decision to attack the general was foolish, and borne of the overconfidence they’d carried through their entire delve until that point. But they all survived, and that was what mattered.

That Liz had her glove destroyed was something of a painful loss for the girl, but she was confident that Liz would be able to overcome it. The girl’s Concept only effectively applied to blood inside her own body, or previously the glove, it being bound to her spirit so closely.

Once removed from her body, it required active focus and Willpower to maintain the connection. Thus, external storage devices of the form commonly employed by water mages would be insufficient for the blood mage. Liz’s Talent enabled her to quickly assimilate external blood as ‘hers,’ but when compared to the millions of gallons of blood the glove could store for her, it would take her an impossibly long time to gain control over a comparable amount of blood.

She would still be able to utilize [Blood Tidal Wave] and its ilk, of course, but losing the ability to reliably apply her Concept to them was a substantial loss in power for Liz’s Blood kinesis spells. Once they were off The Path, custom enchantments from Talented crafters could easily return her oceans of blood to her, but in the meantime, it would present a substantial obstacle to the girl.

Still, as a loss which taught them the danger of Minkalla, it was far superior to one of their lives.

It also served as a firsthand reminder of the danger of overreliance upon any one strategy. There existed a counter to every tactic, and redundancy in toolkits was essential for any Ascender. Tools were vital for any cultivator, just as surely as Domains and skills were, but the loss of a single tool shouldn’t cripple a cultivator any more than a countered skill, missing limb, or broken Domain.

Luna wasn’t happy the item was gone, but she also wouldn’t mourn its passing. It had served its purpose in both life and death, which was more than most growth items could say.

Susanne spoke up for the General’s true defeat, and while Luna wasn’t pleased that Liz had utilized her offensive blood magic in such an external and public way, Courtly Warfare proved its value once again as they spoke of how obscured the blood was in its use.

Their choice of attacking was still not something Luna was particularly proud of, but they at least had the sense to stay and finish the fight, rather than run. Hopeless battles should be fled, close ones should not, if they were to become true Ascenders. They had won, and that carried a certain level of justification for their actions. Even Liz using her blood magic. She’d rather the children be alive and needing some of their messes cleaned up rather than dead, after all.

Even from their retelling, Luna would be having words with all of them—such as Matt not anticipating an intelligent foe to dodge an attack—but their overall performance was admirable.

Even better, they all received high-quality upgrades for their growth items, new and old.

Taxing Skills slowed them, and as she had expected, they were constantly facing other delvers, having all been reset to the same stage courtesy of Courtly Warfare.

Folded Reflections slowed them down again, as was normal, and the smaller floor meant they were starting to really learn why other delvers were the true danger of Minkalla’s depths. Minkalla was a test bed for proto-Elites, and it was hardly a surprise that when outnumbered and out-Tiered, they would struggle. A group of ten was less common, but all that truly meant was that one of the Great Powers had a full squad of promising recruits they decided to send into Minkalla together.

The one fight took nearly two hours of back-and-forth, given how effectively their opponents had separated them, and Luna would be spending a substantial amount of time ensuring they’d know exactly how to proceed in a similar situation in the future. Being outnumbered by people slightly weaker than them would become a common occurrence, and they needed to learn the tactics to fight in such situations.

Matt and Liz’s voices were getting raw, so they took a break for food, then resumed discussing the lives they each had experienced. True to form, Minkalla’s illusions were traumatic even at the best of times, and she used the opportunity to mention that she’d already coordinated a series of visits with their therapists in the coming weeks, while they were still recuperating.

Matt’s lives were interesting, but ultimately nothing unexpected. She hoped that living a full life with his family alive and Aster as his sister would help settle some of those issues once and for all, but that was ultimately a good life that shouldn’t cause any lingering issues. The other lives got progressively worse, and she knew he would need to properly process those lives before too long.

That one of them had shown him as a terrorist was surprising, but the life where he was locked in a room to provide mana had the potential to become an issue. She was grateful that Emmanuel hadn’t been placed in the role of Emperor for that life, as that could have turned into something very delicate. It was everything he feared, and that whole life had the potential for creating deep seated mental instabilities.

Aster’s lives were varied and useful for their effects, but Luna had no worries about them becoming problematic in the future. Beast bonds as a whole were a bit more resilient to those lives because of their connection to said bond.

Liz, on the other hand, was another situation altogether. From the start, Luna had some hope that her lives wouldn’t be too traumatizing, but she was quickly proven wrong, as each one seemed to strike at another facet of the woman’s fears.

Eventually, Luna had to interject after Liz’s life as a serial killer plague mage. Liz was putting up a decent front, but she’d had far too many millennia of experience to be fooled by someone who was only slightly over forty.

“Liz, while I understand those lives weren’t pleasant, don’t push them away. I haven’t been able to train you in the usage of your blood beyond fighting like, as you put it, ‘a red water mage’, not because I don’t want to, but because the resources are basically non-existent in the Empire. Either blood mages go into healing, where they are incredibly helpful, or they do reprehensible things and are executed for their crimes. Secondhand documents and reports are valid resources but are not nearly as valuable as firsthand experience.”