The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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Long Zhiyuan sat in meditation and felt the rising sun’s rays fall onto the pillar that kept him suspended a dozen feet in the air. The dawn moved slowly over the horizon and warmed the dew-dampened robe adorning his lower half. The heat felt good on his bare upper chest.

As the light reached his center, he focused on his inner self, where twelve unreal versions of himself performed various tasks and exercises.

His Talent bestowed him with the ability to create false clones of himself within his spirit. They could do anything he could, and he even retained a tenth of any benefits they experienced.

The first version of himself was working out. That was all it ever did. All day, every day. Today, the training was focused upon his chest, and his clone was lying on a bench, repping away endlessly. His spiritual clones never grew tired, never ran out of mana, never grew bored, and could do whatever he directed them to.

His Tier 3 Talent granted Long Zhiyuan a new clone each Tier, but the efficiency in transferring the fruits of their labor to himself only improved by a tiny amount over each Tier up. At Tier 12, they were scarcely better than they had been at Tier 1. Regardless, as they could work even while he slept, their poor efficiency was an acceptable trade-off. Though, he couldn’t help but to long for a higher transfer rate to speed up his advancement. As the total number of clones grew, each new one represented a smaller relative increase.

Still, they were incredibly useful even now.

The clones could even transfer over muscle memories, which his second clone was taking advantage of. It was currently climbing over obstacle courses without the aid of Revelations, or techniques. Being able to dodge attacks and keep his balance was always a useful skill.

Long Zhiyuan never would admit it, but he had been terrified of heights as a child, and his second clone allowed him to gain the confidence to overcome that. Even if he was pushed over the edge of a cliff, he could catch himself without a technique or his First Revelation.

He had tried it to be sure.

Fears had to be faced and conquered.

Long Zhiyuan’s third idle clone was practicing his martial arts in slow movements. That clone was more meditative than anything, but he kept its role constant as it helped keep him calm and centered.

His fourth clone was constantly being blasted apart by various elements and dying. Long Zhiyuan had learned at a young age that pain was more mental than anything else, and his internal clones never passed their injuries onto him.

The fifth idle clone was using [Seven Demons Strike] over and over, gradually learning and expanding the technique to properly work with an open-handed raking strike, instead of a crude punch. The conversion was agonizingly slow, but that was the last of the four basic elemental strikes that he had yet to master, and it should be finished before the trip to Minkalla.

Using a crude, unrefined technique directly from a technique shard, and without using any of the countless improvements outlined within the Sect manuals, would bring shame upon himself and his Sect. It was also the largest sign of someone who was lazy in their advancement in the worst way. Rushing forward without solidifying their foundation.

His sixth and seventh clones were fighting each other, as were his eighth and ninth, along with the tenth and eleventh. The sixth, eighth, and tenth clones were perfect copies of himself with various weapons, but their opponents changed after each fight.

His first two clone opponents were some of the other Young Masters he had fought and killed, but even dead, they still worked for him. Every other day he changed it up and made the copies of himself fight uneven battles to stress test his capabilities in disadvantageous positions. But currently, he was on a solo fight day which meant an even distribution.

His eleventh clone was shifting between various monsters he had fought, trying to learn the best way to kill rift creatures that were stronger than him. People were more dangerous, but he still needed to delve rifts. And the better he could do that, the faster he would advance in his cultivation.

Sadly, Long Zhiyuan needed to use [Heavenly All Seeing Eye] to properly gather enough data on his opponent, if he wanted to create a functioning copy. That technique, more than any of his others, was his greatest tool.

That was what his final, twelfth clone was for. It endlessly used [Heavenly All Seeing Eye], growing the technique’s structure to better gather data from people and monsters for him to fight.

He hopped down from the pillar when the sun reached his head, and his Servant, Godfrey, waited with a towel at the ready.

As always, he had a pleasant smile plastered on his face.

The Servants were an institution as old as the Young Master system was. They stayed by the side of each Young Master to protect them from attacks above their Tier, and to assist them in their daily living.

Each Servant wore the same purple and yellow robe, and they were notorious for being fastidiously neat and tidy. But Long Zhiyuan never forgot that under the endlessly friendly and servile appearance laid no loyalty to him. Godfrey had only stood by and watched as he beat the man’s former Young Master, Ren Manni, to death in order to take over her position as the Soaring Clouds Sect’s Young Master.

Godfrey simply looked on in silence without his smile ever slipping and Long Zhiyuan knew the man would do so again if he was ever killed.

Long Zhiyuan had offered the girl a chance to surrender three times, but she refused each time. Ultimately, he had been forced to rip out her windpipe.

Taking the cloth, he whipped his chest off. After handing the towel back to Godfrey, he asked, “Have my gloves arrived yet?”

Godfrey’s smile stayed constant as he stowed the towel and slipped a box out from his baggy sleeves.

“It came in just this morning Young Master, but you were in your mediation, so I held onto it.” Saying that, he presented the box with both hands and a slight bow.

Godfrey’s voice was pleasant and subservient, which made it easy for some to forget that all the Servants were Tier 35’s, hand trained by the Divine Fist Sect, the home of Grand Sect Elder Winter Hornet.

Long Zhiyuan had seen Godfrey interfere once, just once, when two cultivators were dueling in their flight path to the nearest city. They had refused to move, and in one wave of his sleeve, the two went flying through the nearest two mountains.

Cracking opening the ornate box, he saw two gloves neatly laid out and withdrew the right-handed one.

Slipping it over his own hand, it was a perfect fit. The small and seemingly benign claws at the end were hardly noticeable against the black leather.

Flexing his hand, he found the thin glove to be a perfect match to his request.

Tugging the other glove on, he curled his fingers into a fist to confirm that the nails wouldn’t puncture the glove.

“Acceptable. What did they end up using for the materials?” He had only asked for the gloves and provided the general specifications. Everything else had been left up to the Gorgeous Leather Workers Pavilion. The details hadn’t been interesting before, but now, seeing the finished craft, he was intrigued.