The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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Aster sent a shrugging fox picture as she said, “Well, that’s boring on a floor that we can’t see on.”

Liz was following his own thought process and said, “Perception, not sight, though. This might help us see better through our spiritual perception.”

That caused them all to consider it, but just as Matt was thinking to offer to test it, Susanne reached down and picked it up.

When nothing bad happened to her, she asked, “Anyone mind if I try it on?”

None of them minded, and she tied the ribbon around her ring finger on her off-hand.

“Oh, yeah. My spiritual perception is a bit clearer after putting this on.”

She untied it, which Matt was grateful was possible. Items that bound to you and refused to let go weren’t unheard of, even if they were rare even in Minkalla.

Susanne offered the ribbon up, and they each tried it on, and as she said, there was a small but noticeable increase in their spiritual perception.

In the end, Liz kept the item as it also boosted her sensitivity with her blood, and her Talent seemed to get around a little of the restriction Minkalla imposed on all of them.

With their new item wrapped around Liz’s bicep, they started their climb down the shaft of the tunnel.

They had climbed down the tunnel another few hundred feet when the bat monster once again attacked them, but this time, they were ready. Liz had aerosolized a bit of her blood and spread it out around them as a countermeasure to the monster’s sneak attacks.

It was an incredibly taxing method on both her mana and mental strain, but while it slowed them, it made sure that they were safe, and was the only reason they knew the bat-wyvern was coming back at them.

Matt had a barrage of [Fireball]s ready to intercept it while he cast [Jolt] on cooldown.

He now had three different versions of [Fireball] in his spirit. The first was his oldest, and was made to be as cheap as possible, but it was one he never used anymore. The second one, and the one he most often cast, was a version of the skill that he had increased the mana cost for in exchange for a lower cooldown. His third was a version of the spell meant to be as destructive as possible and had quite a large cost in exchange.

All versions of a skill that hadn’t been radically changed generally shared the same cooldown, which meant he could only use one at a time instead of just casting [Fireball] ‘A’ then [Fireball] ‘B’ to bypass the cooldown. Most of his spells were different enough that they didn’t share much of a cooldown, but at times like these, he fell back on his [Fireball] that had been modified to have a cooldown of less than a second for double the original 10 mana cost.

For anyone else, it would be a dumb move, but Matt didn’t mind. His mana pool nearly never dipped below 25.6 mana unless he had his generation all sent into channeled spells.

If he didn’t, he could cast that 20 MPS [Fireball] forever.

And he did.

Over and over, he sent mana into the skill as he tracked its location through the information Liz’s AI picked up from her connection with her blood and sent to them.

Even a Tier 14 monster couldn’t easily take the rapid and accurate barrage of [Fireball]s that Matt sent at it, and the bat-wyvern twisted and rolled in the air, trying to dodge the onslaught. But fast as it was, the four of them were used to fighting Tier 15 monsters that were faster, stronger, and more durable than this beast, so Matt had no trouble anticipating its flight path and landing most of his shots.

Still, he was unable to actually kill it, and ended up just scaring it away, but that was fine for the time being.

They climbed for another two hours in the seemingly endless pit, fending off attacks by both the large and small bat monsters that kept trying to kill them.

When they sensed the bottom of the pit, Matt whistled even though it made no sound.

The pit was carpeted with Void Obsidian stalagmites.

They were incredibly rare and expensive in the outside world, and at Tier 14, Void Obsidian would have sold for its weight in Tier 16 or 17 mana stones.

It wasn’t great for melee attacking, as any shearing pressure would shatter the Void Obsidian, but it was fantastic to make arrowheads out of. Its void properties meant that it would punch through magical and physical armor as if they weren’t there and would be more than effective for a few Tiers up, even without enchantments.

With enchantments…Matt wanted to find out.

He wondered what would happen if he made Liz a spearhead out of the stuff. It could make for some incredibly potent attacks.

But first, they needed a way to get past the razor-sharp Void Obsidian and reach the exit in the middle of the hole.

Just as they were discussing how to do it, the bat creature came back at them with a flock of the smaller bats.

Matt cast [Flamethrower] and then [Fire Manipulation], taking his stream of fire and sending it out in a larger wave to kill as many of the little monsters as he could before the large one reached them.

It helped, but the monsters seemed unaware or unbothered by their brethren dying in droves and kept flying forward.

With Liz, Aster, and Susanne taking the large bat’s attention, Matt focused on keeping the smaller ones off of them as they unleashed some of their strongest spells to kill the large bat without pushing into their actual trump cards.

Susanne jumped to the side and slashed out with her Concept blade as she was mid-air, slicing off the monster’s wing before she landed a few feet lower.

Liz and Aster didn’t let her attack go unanswered, and Liz sent a tendril of blood at the monster’s leg, trying to pull it down to the Void Obsidian below. The monster responded by gripping the wall with its talons, physically resisting long enough to use its spell breaking technique.

It lunged at Liz, but Aster was ready and cast one of her new spells, [Snowbank]. It was the ice equivalent of [Flamethrower] and sent out a slurry of snow at a rapid rate. Aster used her [Ice Manipulation] to compact and harden the ice until it was a pillar traveling at incredible speeds.