The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

10

He wondered if they’d be pushed to get one of the one-day briefings, then figured that they probably would. Luna was obsessive at the best of times, but the preparation for Minkalla had been on another level. April probably had one scheduled for them already, and just hadn’t informed them yet.

The old man glared at the crowd and growled. “Be like them. The deeper you go, the better the rewards, yes, but the greater the danger. The monsters at the highest layers of Minkalla are only fresh Tier 14’s, but the deeper you go, the stronger they are, until they get to the peak of Tier 14. Also, for any of you who are at the peak of Tier 14 and want to advance to Tier 15 to get an advantage in Minkalla. It won’t work. We even have what happens if you try recorded, because people never learn their lesson.”

The old man poked at the air interacting with his AI until a familiar video started to play behind him.

A young man in Sect robes laughed on the screen as he monologued about how at Tier 15, he could defeat all of them. Except mid-sentence, he exploded in a fine mist of blood and bone. It was gruesome, but not unfamiliar, as Luna had made them watch Wendy’s entire recording eleven times. With all the rewards edited out, of course, because Luna was still Luna.

“If you advance to Tier 15, you die. You aren’t ejected from the planet, like if you try to enter at Tier 15. You just die. Not a single person has ever circumvented that rule. We have lots of reports come in every year about a few attempting it because of their Talent, some cracked skill, or something else. It never works. Don’t even bother trying, you will not be the first to somehow survive. I don’t care if your Talent is literally ‘will not explode as a result of reaching Tier 15 on Minkalla.’ It. Will. Not. Work.”

The old man lowered his head from where it had been fixed on, as he stared at someone on the other side of the room for a few seconds before finishing up. “Minkalla is dangerous. Killing each other is expected, and even encouraged by the planet. The deeper you go, the more likely you end up as someone’s prey. If you are Tier 13 and normally delve up to Tier 14, statistically speaking, you can get to the second floor without too much issue. If you are Tier 14 and delve Tier 15 rifts, you can probably make it to the third floor. At that point, just leave. Escape with the prizes you have, and don’t push further. Anything beyond the third floor can’t be quantified with statistics, as so few make it back from that point. You only need to meet one elite ready to pick your corpse clean of any gathered treasure. The real Monsters in Minkalla are the other people. It’s practically just luck to survive after the third floor, and you. Will. Not. Be. Lucky.”

He pointed to the screen, “Don’t be a part of that sixty percent death rate. Eighty percent of that comes from pushing past the third floor. Be smart and leave.”

As he looked over all of them, he added. “Let me remind you that you can change your mind at any time. Please, just turn back now and value your lives. Come back mid cycle and have a much safer time. Push to floor four, even five then. You’ll get less rewards per floor, yes, but you can go deeper and still survive. You’ll still get the deeper floor rewards. The people who go mid-cycle come back with more and come back more often than those who try to go in at the…optimal time. It’s only optimal if you are strong enough to survive. For the vast majority of you here, believe me when I say, you are not. You will be eaten by a monster or serve as cannon fodder for the best and strongest.”

With that, the man left, and the doors opened to staff directing them to various locations.

Matt and Liz shot each other a look through their masks. Luna had already explained this and more in their training. The old man’s speech just seemed to be a way to get people to turn back from entering Minkalla. It wasn’t anything they and everyone else didn’t already know. Really, it was just like a longer version of a briefing they had before boarding their shuttle. In the end, it didn’t seem to work, and only a couple of people returned through the doors they had come through.

As they went through a few more in-process procedures, the number of arrivals started to overwhelm their sense of scale.

It was a never-ending stream of lines that only grew longer as more and more ships arrived.

It was so bad that staff walked around offering snacks to everyone waiting. There was even a service to hold one’s spot in line for trips to the bathroom, so long as you weren’t close to the front.

It was frankly ridiculous.

But once they were done, they exited the spaceport and were spat out onto a normal, if busy, city street.

As they walked to their accommodations, they saw that every shop was selling Tier 14 equipment and gear. Talismans and potions were abundant, along with survival gear and rift-made mana stones. It seemed that every shop sold some variation or combination of those goods, with others just specializing in one space.

The other most common shops were those that sold armor and weapons. Half the shops were selling their own specialized gear at extortionist prices Tier 14 armor should not sell for Tier 16 mana stones, no matter how much the proprietors extolled their goods’ abilities. Seeing the prices, Matt was happy that Luna had he and Aster re-gear with Tier 14 armor before they left the Empire proper.

That had been expensive, especially the custom pieces, but not to these inflated levels of prices.

When they arrived at their lodging, Luna teleported them to a separate location where they exchanged their Quill and Torch masks for blank masks that wouldn’t give anything away.

With them on, Aster looked like a general medium-sized quadruped of unidentifiable species. Better equipped, they were able to wander the city together as they waited for their final member to arrive.