The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

6

Matt sat with Liz as they waited for their table at the restaurant with anticipation. This was quite literally their first break in the last three years, and they were savoring every moment of it.

They only got the break because April and Kurt both vetoed Luna’s suggestion of last-minute training as they were approaching Minkalla proper. Apparently, the view on approach was unparalleled in all the realm, and missing it was a sin. Luna herself didn’t even fight it too much and agreed to cut them loose.

Minkalla, unlike most worlds, didn’t allow people to teleport into it directly, and forced people to fly in through chaotic space. Thanks to something thought to be tied to the planet’s cycles, Minkalla sucked in all free mana and essence from the entire star system, making it impossible to build the kind of infrastructure that teleportation nodes required. The only exception was at distant space stations, like the one they’d come from which needed a ship to bring people in instead of the normal planet to planet teleportation.

When they passed through some invisible point, Matt got firsthand experience with the phenomenon. It was like they had traveled through a wall that had been built. At one moment everything was normal, and at the next, there was quite literally no ambient mana at all. When he tested it and released some mana into the air, it vanished seemingly into nothing, sucked away faster than Matt’s peak Tier 11 brain could process.

Essence would probably yield the same result, but he couldn’t test that, so he had to take Kurt’s demonstration on it. His manager’s second in command demonstrated an exposed essence stone being drained nearly instantly, with the contents being aggressively pulled toward the massive planet.

Apparently, the essence couldn’t be contained as well as mana could, which was the only reason that mana powered technologies still worked in Minkalla’s influence at all.

Ominously, he had written that, “Minkalla is hungry and greedy,” before silently laughing.

Still, it allowed for what was called a once in a lifetime view, and if it was enough for Luna to allow them to skip out on an evening of training, he wouldn’t dare miss it.

Aster hadn’t waited, and immediately went to the beast-only deck of the luxury ship to find some bonds to play with.

She called over her shoulder that she loved them, but needed some time alone as well, especially after their last three years of being within arm’s reach of each other.

That left him and Liz free to purchase the ludicrously expensive fine-dining experience for twenty Tier 16 mana stones. It was expensive, but they had been delving so far up, and so often, they didn’t even feel the cost. Once they started delving Tier 15 rifts, they had the chance to get Tier 20 skills, and despite how rare of a reward they were, they had delved enough to get lucky a few times.

They were eager to enjoy some luxury after their years of constant delving, and they both primped and preened beforehand to look their best. They had ‘masks’ in the form of a bracelet that obscured their appearance for all but themselves, which was just fine for them. They only cared about looking their best for each other.

And Liz looked as fine as ever. She was wearing what she referred to as a ‘Torch’ outfit, preferring the aesthetic that came with being a fire mage over the patterns and colors that she’d normally wear as a blood mage. Still, the Tier 12 fabric shimmered in oranges and reds, almost as if the garment was made of actual fire, as she walked.

Her hair was let down for the first time in quite a while, and it spilled down her back like its own river of faux flames. She was still wearing her most critical items, of course. On her right hand, an engraved silver and copper-colored storage ring shone like so many diamonds, while her left hand bore a plain, fingerless black glove and a freshly polished but otherwise featureless silver ring.

Matt had the silver ring’s twin on his hand, next to a golden ring embedded with countless tiny mana stone shards gleaming with every color of the rainbow. On his other hand, he had two paired, obsidian rings which held their portable house and spatial ring that his rewards from the tournament had come in. The rest of his outfit was primarily based around that color scheme, with a silver, sleeveless, tunic-like shirt over black pants, and a golden band on each arm. His hair had been cut for the first time in three years, turning it from a blond rat’s nest back into a shortly cropped and clean hairstyle.

When they were led into the dining room by an impeccably dressed waiter, they saw a massive wall of glass that spanned fifty feet high and stretched on for what seemed like a mile along the horizon.

Matt whistled as it came into view. His spiritual sense said it was between Tier 20 and Tier 30 glass—a quick check on his AI confirmed that the ship was made of Tier 25 materials—and around ten feet thick. He was glad of it, because any rogue asteroid wouldn’t result in them struggling to breathe in a vacuum during their dinner.

At Tier 11, it wouldn’t kill them for at least a few hours, but it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with.

As their waiter sat them down, they nodded to the other indistinct couples, who were also quickly seated in rapid succession. The restaurant was supposed to time their visual arrival to Minkalla right after dessert was finished, after all.

Looking at the tabletop, Matt inspected the vase of flowers that had been placed there and noticed that they were actually made from metal. Notably copper, bronze, and aluminum, with each petal polished to a sleek shine.