The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

10

He had never considered Luna a friend or even a particularly good person, but he had respected her ability to train them. Now he had to face the fact she put her money where her mouth was in her pursuit of ensuring he had the best foundation possible.

All he could do was hope she’d be all right.

Matt was too far over his healing cooldown for any proper healing spells to be applied to him, but his wounds had been cleaned while he was unconscious and bandaged with semi-mundane techniques. They couldn’t even give him proper prosthetics, thanks to just how fragile his condition was, and it would be a couple weeks before he was ready for them.

The machines he was connected to were also acting as life support in addition to monitors, taking some of the strain from his half-functional heart off his Purple Heart Lotus. That was the one surgery he did have, as everything else needed to wait until magic would work on him again.

His arm was placed in a basic sling, and he had been told in a rather serious tone that he would have problems if he tried to use his arm for anything at all. By the healer’s accounting, moving his fingers did count, and they would be able to tell.

His leg and hip were measured for a prosthetic leg for once it could be installed, as his condition was too fragile for even the basic connection enchantments to actually work on him. In the meantime, Matt would be in an AI-controlled wheelchair, and even that hurt when he shifted his weight.

Teeth weren’t exactly crucial to his physical health, but it was a relatively simple procedure to have his mouth scanned, and ceramic replacements flash-printed and glued into place. It would allow him to talk normally, though he wouldn’t be using the teeth for anything else for at least a month. He and the rest of his team were on an all-soup diet for the time being.

Matt had been in and out of consciousness the entire time and trying to catch up on reading his mail while bed bound and waiting for treatment. He happened to catch a few snippets of conversation from the nurses and occasional healers while being wheeled between hospital rooms. “Medically inadvisable” was perhaps the politest description they had for what he had been doing in Minkalla, but it sounded like an old complaint rather than anything unique to him.

In the end, the only thing that didn’t hurt anymore was his spirit. Apparently, it had been healed as a part of his Inspiration. All the spiritual strain he accrued during the final battle and the subsequent spiritual expansion from the new innate slot was gone, though there were still occasional aches when he tried to use skills. The healers diagnosed it as phantom pain, and assured him that it would pass in time, but to limit skill usage as much as possible, and to utilize only his [AI]. Even that was to be used sparingly for the next week, and only then could he slowly work back up to full magic use.

After the installation of his false teeth, Matt wheeled into the group convalescence room, just as Aster whined at her dessert. Jello, it seemed, wasn’t an acceptable replacement for food, let alone a good snack.

“Hey, guys. I can speak now!”

He grinned to show his new teeth and snorted at Liz’s snort of, “Finally.”

“How’s everyone doing?” None of them looked very good. They were all in their own wheelchairs, just as covered in bandages and [Bandage]s as he was, but this was the first time in the past few days that they’d all been properly awake and in the same room.

Liz smiled as Aster flicked her ears to express her happiness, still missing her tail.

“We’re good.” Liz’s first words were sweet and matched her honest and relieved smile at seeing him, but the smile quickly turned teasing as she continued, “Just, you know, complaining about how you skipped all of Tier 12.”

Matt gave a one shoulder shrug as he gestured toward his missing leg and sling. “It cost me an arm and a leg, so I feel like I paid my dues for it.”

Aster snorted. “If it worked that way, my missing tail would get me all the way to Tier 50. It’s clearly more important than the limbs you lose twice a year.”

Susanne snorted. “It’s good to see you up and about. You seemed out of it there, after the end.”

Being cagey about the hidden exit reward wasn’t quite necessary at this point, as Carol or Watcher Eru were protecting them, but after months in Minkalla it was a hard habit to unlearn. Neither of them alone had the power to fully stop prying eyes from outside their moon, but it was far easier to detect such an intrusion and stop anyone from speaking further, along with wiping the sound from the air in the room. It was probably just Carol though, as Watcher Eru had likely moved on to other, more important assignments. Matt had to think that Carol was wondering what Susanne was talking about, as they had yet to talk about what had happened in their Minkalla run.

Aster yipped her agreement. “Yeah, tell us about it. What is an inspiration like?”

It wasn’t exactly a secret that he’d undergone an inspiration, it had happened when literally every eye in the system had been on him, after all. “It was weird. At first, I didn’t even realize what was going on. It just felt comfortable. Like I was floating in a warm bath before my spirit started to leave my body. It—” Matt paused as he considered how to explain it. “Saying I became one with the Realm is accurate, but it doesn’t explain it. It was a really nice feeling without it being addicting or anything. The best way I can explain it is that for a moment there, the edges of where I ended and the Realm began seemed to blur, which is when the Tier up happened. My spirit seemed to reach Tier 13 without the essence it would normally take to advance. After that happened, all the essence rushed in and started to make my essence core match by Tier.”

Liz tsked. “I wish it could always be that easy. Sounds really nice.”

Matt thought about Luna’s sunken visage and shook his head. “Without Luna’s help there, I would have, you know.”

He wasn’t about to say anything about doubling his mana with each Tier here, but the others understood his point without him needing to say it directly.

They all stayed silent for a long moment before Matt asked, “Any news?”

Susanne nodded. “Word from Carol, which boiled down to sit tight and wait for another few days as we—and Luna—heal.”