The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

48

The statue was once a warrior who lived in, as far as Matt could tell, a mundane realm.

The man was born as a smith’s son, and he would have continued down that path, but his country was being invaded by its neighbors, and he was conscripted.

While he was away, his village was raided by the enemy scouts, and his family was captured as slaves.

The person whose life Matt was reliving didn’t know that until he returned from his time on the battlefield, after the five-year campaign, to find a village trying to rebuild itself.

Filled with hate, he took his sword and rushed back into the enemy lands.

At first, he intended to buy his parents freedom, but he quickly learned that they were nowhere to be found.

No one was willing to admit where they had been brought to. Matt simply watched as the man searched high and low, before eventually finding a slaver who told him that his parents had been sent to the mines, and neither had lived.

The man reacted with rage and killed the slaver and his entire family before burning down a large portion of the city that he was in.

After that, he moved around from village to village killing anyone native to the county that he could find.

It was just him, his sword, and his grief as he slaughtered hundreds.

Finally, he was trapped and caught by that country’s government, and tried for murder. In the end, he was killed with his own sword in some form of poetic justice. Or at least, that’s how the locals thought of it.

The vision only lasted an instant, but Matt explained what he saw, and all the others tried the same, watching the same life with no variation.

After that, they found that the other pillars each had a unique weapon, and contained some version of a tragic, mundane life of struggle and blood.

There was a sword, an axe, a hammer, and an odd metal bow.

Each statue was missing their unique weapon. After seeing the four lives, the forge made more sense, and Matt stepped up to the blaze. Along with Susanne as his assistant, they forged a size-appropriate weapon for each of the statues.

Susanne was only proficient in smithing to the point that she could do some general repairs to her armor, but she was a willing assistant to Matt. He wasn’t as good a smith as he was an enchanter, but he had picked up more than a few of the tricks of the trade over the years.

It took him a few hours, but Matt made, refined, and polished the small weapons until they were as close to the items in the visions as possible.

He was sure that a dedicated smith could make something much better, but the veritable figurines were close enough for the task at hand.

When they placed one of the weapons on the pillar, the statue reached out and took it before testing it with a practice swing, or in the bow’s case, a draw.

After the weapon was tested, the statue sunk into the ground and vanished.

There was no Genesis Energy reward, but a door opened on the far side of the wall. They didn’t know if that meant they only just passed the test or if there was something more to it. They looked around but found nothing so chose to move one.

They didn’t leave until after they took everything that wasn’t nailed down, which meant a few dozen bars of Tier 14 metals and the tools. They needed some reward after all.

Matt wanted to take the anvil, but it was rooted to the spot.

In the next room, they encountered another puzzle, and their AI completely shut down after the entrance door closed tight. They could only communicate with prepared hand gestures, which was annoying, but doable.

Seven stone sticks were extending off the far wall that pulsed with Genesis Energy in a flashing pattern. It only took a little trial and error for them to learn that they had to repeat the pattern back after it flashed in its entirety.

That would have been a simple and easy challenge, but they had to use their own Genesis Energy to light up the sticks. And while activating a single stick was easy, the patterns started at twenty lights, and only got longer with each stage passed.

Matt cheated shamelessly.

Using his channeled boosting skills along with his armor, he was able to increase his mental faculties and perceptions to a point that he could catch even the smallest flickers of Genesis Energy in the sticks, and with enough mana in [Mage’s Retreat], he was able to keep up with the patterns.

He actually had fun, as it was reminiscent of his training with Luna in the early days, when she took them to the desert. He and The Unbroken were put through her own little version of bootcamp. Matt only messed up once, on his first attempt of the third pattern, which meant he didn’t lose too much Genesis Energy. It was a worthwhile investment, though, as they learned that he needed to match the pace of the flashing sticks. He couldn’t rush through it or pause and take his time.

If their AI worked as usual, it would have been as easy as following its prompts, but that wasn’t an option. By the time Matt reached the point where the patterns were fifty flashes long, with multiple sticks to light up at once, he had fallen into a near trance-like state.

When he beat the pattern with two hundred flashes, they were all rewarded with a flood of Genesis Energy.

Nearly half of it went to Matt, but none got less energy than their reward from the Queen ant.

The next room returned their communication, and with it, a sense of ease. Complete isolation was hard on him, and it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with very often.

The next room had three stone gargoyles. When they entered, the stone mouths moved, but no sound came out, and after ten minutes, they were attacked.

As fresh Tier 14’s, they were easy enough to kill, but the four of them complained endlessly.