The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

25

He could feel Aster was uncomfortable with the thought and could read Liz’s face well enough to see she was also leery at the idea. Susanne, he didn’t know well enough to judge, but she didn’t look excited to go through that.

Thankfully, Luna moved them on quickly.

“Now, Aster, Unskilled?”

“Oh, that one! The one where I can’t use my Talent. Er, no. No skills at all. Not even Innate ones from a Talent. You just have to do stuff with your Concept and cultivation. And Talent, if it isn’t a skill.”

“Yes, it’s quite notorious. But the rewards are equally great. On the first floor, you can effect a single Tier 8 skill for some Genesis Energy. If the theme shows up on floor two, you can upgrade two Tier 8 skills or one Tier 14 skill. On each deeper floor, you are able to upgrade more Tier 8 skills and or trade them up. But the scaling is better than a simple doubling. On floor one, you get one then it’s two, three, five, eight, eleven, and sixteen. Also, by using four Tier 8 upgrades, you can upgrade a Tier 20 skill. If that was it, it would be strong but not amazing, but you can spend a little extra Genesis Energy as a Tier 11 and get nearly complete control over the upgrade. Want a [Fireball] spell that has no cooldown? Easy. Want that spell to have added lightning or force damage? Done. Want to have the [Fireball]s bounce on hitting an object? It’s a thought away. The possibilities are theoretically endless, and as Tier 11s you will have nigh complete control while the higher Tiers have less and less. Tier 14 only gets standard upgrades like you can get out of any upgrade orb.”

Matt felt his mouth go dry as he thought of the possibilities.

If he got that floor deep enough, he could upgrade his [Cracked Mana Spear] or [Cracked Phantom Armor] to their Tier 26 equivalents. Unique perfect versions of themselves to remove their weaknesses and bolster their beneficial qualities.

[Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Cracked Mana Spear] both were Tier 20 skills as far as upgrading was concerned, and Tier 26 upgrade orbs were incredibly expensive due to their rarity and the demand. Getting a better version of that?

He could hardly sit still at the thought.

Luna dumped ice water on them. “Once again, it’s impossible to predict which themes you will encounter, let alone which one will be on the seventh floor, but that’s what brings me to the final category of reward, the exit rewards. The only static rewards Minkalla offers. Sometimes called chaser rewards. You only get one of them, no matter how far you delve, and you only get it when you leave. What does change with how far you delve is what options you get. For beating floors one through six, the options presented are good but not amazing, but beating floor seven and having enough Genesis Energy you get what is perhaps the best reward of all.”

Better than adding effects to my Concept? Better than perfectly upgraded skills?

Matt struggled to think what could qualify for that.

The screen changed to an empty list of seven. “Like everything else, they scale based on your Tier. The reward for exiting on floor one is a single Tier 8 skill. For Tier 14s, they have no control, and it’s all random what they get. Tier 13s can choose vague categories to narrow down the results, such as a buff, attack, defense, or utility skill. Tier 12s get a bit more control, and they can add more qualifiers like a self-buff skill or ranged attack. If you have a bit more Genesis Energy, you can narrow that down to something as specific as ‘fire type ranged attack spell.’ For Tier 11s, they can describe to the littlest detail of a skill they want, and Minkalla will give it to them, within reason. There’s even some reports that it can make cracked skills, or at least pre-modify some skills to make them better match a request, but we just don’t have enough Tier 11s who take a skill as their exit reward to really know for sure, they almost all die early, Tier up mid-run, or make it deep enough to get better options.”

Matt shook his head. That was absurd. And it was only the reward for getting through the first floor.

“The second-floor exit reward is better for those weaker. It will fix your essence allocation perfectly like an inspiration. For the Tier 14s, it only fixes it but adds nothing extra. For Tier 13s, it fixes your foundation and brings you to the peak of that Tier. For Tier 12s, it will fix your foundations and also bring you to the peak of Tier 13. Theoretically, Tier 11s will get the same benefit, but we don’t know for sure. No Tier 11 from the Empire ever publicly stated they took this reward. Regardless, it’s a strong reward for anyone who made a mistake or used essence to power a skill, as it will fix said flaws. For you, it’s not so great.”

Luna changed the screen, and the floor three’s exit reward appeared. It was simple, and a Tier 14 skill that followed the same rules as the Tier 8 skill on floor one did. It would be even more useful, but Matt wasn’t that interested in it for himself.

“Floor four’s exit reward is what all the old geezers are going for. At Tier 14, they get the equivalent of a very general Concept that will allow them to reach Tier 15. It’s not great, but it will let them live, which is all they care about. At Tier 13, you get a more specialized Concept, but it’s still fairly generic. Tier 12s get a strong personalized Concept that is about on par with a decent self-made Concept. From what we’ve simulated, we believe Tier 11s get a Concept on-par with yours, namely a very strong one which perfectly suits them. Anyone who already has a Concept and reaches that floor, they can choose to upgrade their existing Concept to that level.”