The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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“The boons,” Luna explained, “Are something partway between a theme reward and a normal monster drop. It’s always connected to the theme of the court, and how strong it is varies depending on how influential you were to the Court’s victory. No, we don’t know how it’s tracked, but it’s very comprehensive and accounts for working in logistics, hunting other Court members, tactics, or any other role. Also note that unlike every other floor theme Minkalla has, there is only one floor and not three sub-floors.”

“I hope we get winter or ice!” Aster yipped excitedly, “We’re going with winter if we find winter, right? You promised!”

Matt chuckled and stroked his bond, “Yes, we’re going with winter or ice if we somehow have one of them as an option. And get this as a floor.”

“Good,” she put her nose up in her best haughty impersonation, “Winter is the best.”

The next slide showed a metaphysical examination of the way essence interacted with skills, but there were a number of differences that led Matt to realize what it was an instant before he read the actual title.

Genesis Cultivation: All spells cost Genesis Energy instead of mana or essence. The monsters on that floor drop more Genesis Energy per kill, but the floor remains heavily rooted in resource management.

Reward: On floor one, the most recent Tier of essence that’s been cultivated is converted to something similar to Genesis Energy, enhancing all aspects of cultivation, but particularly in the stacking bonus that comes with cultivating the same areas for multiple Tiers. By floor seven, not only is all essence converted to effectively Genesis Energy, but the effect lingers until Tier 16.

Now that he knew about Genesis Energy, not only did the floor’s name make way more sense but so, too, did the restriction. The math behind the reward also promised some serious benefits, giving them essentially a full Tier boost in cultivation. It would probably be even more for Matt, as having all his essence in his physical body meant the stacking boost would be even more potent.

The next slide showed a whole host of magical beasts, elemental animals predominantly.

Blood is Thicker: Bloodlines, and other innate non-Talent abilities, are drastically improved in strength. Most enemies on the floor will have bloodline equivalents.

Reward: Change your mana aspect. On floor one, it’s a minor change from a level 1 element to a related level 2 element, all the way up to floor seven when you can out and out have three complete high-end aspects perfectly merged or separated in the mana pool. Or you can change your mana type to arcane or void. For those not looking to change their mana aspect, effective mana concentration can be increased substantially instead.

Matt wanted to find that floor for Liz and Aster as it would be great for their own plans. He didn’t think he’d take the mana aspecting unless they found the floor theme on floor seven where he could get arcane mana. As it was presumed to be a combination of every mana type besides void, arcane mana would provide a notable boost to every spell he ever used, though not quite as large as what water mage would receive from having water mana for their water spells.

As he was musing over the potential applications of arcane ‘endless’ mana, he noticed Aster and Liz were engrossed reading something on their [AI]s.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Sorry, can’t say,” Liz apologized. “It doesn’t really affect you, though.”

Matt opened his mouth to push further when the slide changed again. He knew that meant it was bloodline related and it was Liz’s way of hinting as much as she could. That was how they had worked out her telling him without actually telling him anything about the bloodline stuff he wasn’t allowed to know yet.

Still, it was annoying.

Mundane Life: No mana can be used on this floor. For anything.

Reward: A growth item becomes less dependent on whoever it’s bonded to, reducing the item requirements to Tier it up, reducing the spiritual strain it puts on the person, and makes it more mana efficient. By the seventh floor, it requires only essence to Tier up, puts no spiritual strain on whoever is using it, and produces mana instead of requires it as well as serving as an external mana storage.

“How much mana does it make? Also, no spiritual strain? Could you bring it up to Tier 30 and have an incredibly strong magical item that way?” Susanne glanced Matt’s way along with her questions.

“It makes a decent amount of mana for anyone not used to being around Matt and increases regeneration by about ten percent.” Carol answered, “And no, it’s not strictly zero spiritual strain, increasing the item’s Tier too far will still put strain on the bond like normal, but it’s close enough to nonexistent so long as you’re roughly the same Tier. Also, the essence requirement alone scales fast enough that it would be challenging to raise it too far above your own Tier. While some drastically mana-hungry growth items may not have their costs completely offset, anything you four would have would be mana-neutral by floor five at the latest.”

Matt’s mind went to his teleporting rings. Even with his insane mana regeneration, it still took a little while to charge up the swap for any appreciable distance, but if that were free, the power to teleport around the battlefield at will would be insanely powerful. And how might that work with his mana conversion ring? Would it count as an item that cost a variable amount of mana to produce a variable amount of mana? Would he be able to make free mana from his ring?

If his speculation was right that idea could have some possibilities. Very interesting possibilities.

He was so engrossed in thought he almost missed the slide change to display a very old friend of his, crowds of goblins.

Back to Basics: Start off with no essence, nothing, at functionally fresh Tier 1. Regain essence as you progress, and with a bit of effort, you can assign it to somewhere it wasn’t before, allowing for a permanent reallocation of essence. Enemies are appropriately low-Tier, but scale quite fast.

Reward: Concepts empowering the body become stronger, or if the Concept doesn’t do so, it begins to. On floor seven, it’s a full second very strong Concept, or the original is about three times as strong if it was able to empower the body before.