The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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Overall, it was one of the strongest single rewards Minkalla had to offer, but it was still very, very rare for anyone to actually get it. Usually only one or two people managed it any time it appeared as the seventh floor. Mostly because it meant everyone else was dead as a result of the final few gathering enough Genesis Energy.

Matt was dumbstruck that Minkalla could do all of that and said so. “This seems like too much. The rewards are too strong.”

Kurt answered him. “Yes, and also no. For the most part, anything but the deep floor rewards and Innate skill slot are available out here, even if they are rare enough to be little more than rumor or not found for many more Tiers. The Concept enhancements are an excellent example, they’re entirely achievable by anyone, but outside of Minkalla it’s just not worth spending that much time expanding them in new ways instead of developing an Intent, or really doing anything else with your time. But yes, it’s incredible what Minkalla can offer. However, the dangers are equal to the rewards. The lower the Tier you go in, the more danger you are in. The four of you will be targets. The other Great Powers know the same thing we do. It’s generally assumed that any Tier 11 Pathers are future Ascenders, and they will do anything they can do to kill you if possible. That means you will also need to kill anyone who sees you use any unique skills that could identify you. If that happens, leave no survivors.”

That brought Matt and the others back to the real world and the dangers they would face.

The rewards were sweet, but they would only get to eat them if they could reach an exit floor and escape. Seven of those floor themes would be what they faced in Minkalla’s depths, and they would have no choice in the matter.

Still, Matt wanted them. He wanted them all and wished he could enter Minkalla more than once and farm the place for every unique final floor.

But he couldn’t, no more than a Tier 15 could enter Minkalla. Once you were forged by the place, once it had tempered you, that was it. There were no second chances.

After asking more questions, Luna and the others started drilling them with the small details of the floor themes and their challenges. After confirming they understood what they were going into, they started on the floor challenges and what they could expect to face in them, whether it be monster types that were generally seen or puzzle types.

Lastly, they went over every recorded challenge room and what the survivors reported facing inside.

None of them minded the long days spent studying, reviewing, and of course practicing together. This was information that could prove useful to them, but their teamwork would make or break them.

Two weeks later, the message came. The previous cycle had ended, teleporting the last few stragglers—as well as those paid to stay inside the planet specifically for that purpose—outside the planet. There was a mad scramble as everyone rushed to the mass transit platforms to take people into space so they could fall onto the planet, but the four of them bypassed the rush altogether.

Luna took them out into space with her own flying house, out over the massive planet of copper and steam, and just past the planet’s atmosphere where she parked them. There they waited, the tiniest specks right on the edge of the eternal vastness of space and what may well have been the mightiest thing in the realm.

Exactly twelve hours after the previous cycle ended, a gentle golden glow blossomed from the heart of the planet, piercing metal and steam as if they weren’t there, before spilling outwards and refreshing the enormous machine planet in a wave. The once dull metal became shiny and new, the planet-sized gears ticked faster, smoother, and the entire world radiated with power.

Clad in nondescript masks, the four of them joined hands and stepped off the platform. As soon as they left the enchantments holding them above the planet, gravity reasserted itself and began pulling them down to the surface of the grand world below.

To Minkalla.

6

Matt felt nothing.

They had been miles and miles above the surface of Minkalla, with the wind rushing through their hair, when everything went black as the planet moved them to the first floor.

He couldn’t even hear his own breathing or taste the air around him. It was disconcerting for a long heartbeat; he couldn’t even feel his armor, the clothes on his body, or the weapon in his hand.

It was like he was in the worst dream imaginable.

That only lasted a second before Luna’s training and preparatory work came to the fore of his mind, and he spread his spiritual perception out in a wave around himself, allowing Matt to see what was near them.

The first and most obvious thing was that his friends were still standing around him, and each had readied their weapons.

Matt spread his spiritual perception as far as he could, blanketing his friends and reaching out into the darkness…only to find that his maximum range was perhaps a tenth of what it normally would have been. What was normally miles of perception was crushed down into perhaps a thousand feet, and even there his perceptions were somewhat murky and blurred, requiring him to actively work to counter the suppression. It wasn’t too troublesome, as their perceptions were exceptionally robust thanks to Luna’s training, but it would doubtless wear on him in time. Utilizing only spiritual perception was annoying, but eminently manageable thanks to Luna’s training. He could ‘see’ things like essence and mana decently well, but they bore little surface-level resemblance to how they looked in reality. Liz’s spirit, for example, looked a bit like a roughly bird-shaped mist of blood gently flickering with flames, while Susanne’s was a razor-sharp blade coiling in on itself endlessly. Still, he knew how to extrapolate physical movement and even fight with the sense, he just preferred using it alongside his other senses.