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1054 Words
Matt finally spoke. “I guess my Talent helped me here. I got a full three Tiers converted to Genesis Energy in my physical core.”
Aster headbutted his leg. “Ugh! That feels like cheating.”
While she said that, he could feel her happiness for him.
“Oh, that’s great. I hadn’t even thought of that. If we—”
Liz was interrupted by Susanne. “We have a kitty coming over.”
That shut them all up. While they were in a protected formation and Liz was speaking over AI, it was still better to not risk it. Gareth might have some way to overhear their conversation with a special Talent or skill.
Gathering their things, they got up and left through the central pillar.
As the world settled, Matt felt himself fall to the ground. His armor was so heavy, he could barely move.
Pulling it into his spatial ring, he gasped for breath.
They didn’t need to test anything to see that their third floor was Back to Basics.
As a floor, it wasn’t a bad one, but it was a fantastic floor to get after Genesis Cultivation.
Genesis Cultivation converted essence inside someone’s cores to Genesis Energy, but that reward was on the outermost layers unless you had it as one of the bottom floors. But Back to Basics removed your essence altogether.
It reset you to a fresh Tier 1, and made you work all the way back to your previous peak.
Getting Back to Basics after Genesis Cultivation pulled the Genesis Energy in your cores to the lowest Tiers, giving the cultivators who encountered these two floors the best scaling possible from the unique power.
Activating his spells, Matt smiled.
Back to Basics only removed his essence to lower his Tier but seemed to have no power over his Talent. He had a full 2,560 mana in his mana pool to use.
Standing back up, Matt saw his blade sitting on the ground and couldn’t even budge it. He tested it by activating [Mage’s Retreat]. Sadly, the skill did nothing, as he had no essence in his cores for it to multiply as a new Tier 1.
Putting his blade into his spatial ring, he was grateful that his spirit remained as strong as a peak Tier 11’s. It at least allowed him to continue to use his advanced spatial items.
Aster whined as she freed herself from the divot she found herself in. “This sucks! I barely even remember being a Tier 1. At least it didn’t lower my intelligence with the loss of power.”
Liz wiped the dust off herself and helped Susanne up. “Matt, can you drop the house so we can get the Tier 1 items we prepared?”
Doing so, they entered and got the sets of Tier 1 items they had prepared in case they got this floor.
Matt frowned at the replica of his blade.
It was made to the same shape as his growth blade, but it just felt wrong.
But considering he couldn’t use his Tier 14 growth weapon as a Tier 1, he was forced to use this one. His sword was far too heavy for him at his current power.
Before they set off, he said, “Minkalla wasn’t able to restrict my Talent, so we can blast past this floor relying on me.”
Liz and Aster nodded. It was the same for them. While their limited mana pools would normally be a problem Matt’s Concept made that a non-issue.
Susanne laughed lightly as she swung her Concept manifestation. “I’m weaker, but this doesn’t change my fighting style, really. Useless Talent coming in handy here. Sadly, I can’t cheat with spells, though.”
They set off through the forest they found themselves in, and Matt kept his eyes, and spiritual perception spread out as far as possible.
Not that it was far, but it was further than it had been when he was a proper Tier 1. He just wasn’t sure if that was from their Eternal Darkness reward, Minkalla not being able to truly remove Tiers from them, or simple practice from the intervening decades. Even a dozen feet was better than nothing, so he didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth.
They had only traveled a small distance when they heard rustling in the underbrush.
Aster slinked off to the side behind Liz while Matt and Susanne took a forward position.
They waited and found a pair of goblins walking down the forest trail in a lazy scouting formation.
The one on the right was giving the grime under its nails more attention than the surroundings, which made their ambush easy.
Stepping out of the foliage, Matt swung his blade and cleaved the closest goblin in two. Or at least, he tried to. He killed the monster, but his blade got caught on the ribs and failed to properly bisect the creature.
Susanne had none of his issues with a weapon manifestation, and her goblin fell in twain.
A wash of energy that felt like a facsimile of essence flowed into Matt and unlocked his previously allocated and compressed essence.
Except, instead of the white of essence, it was the golden color of Genesis Energy.
Following the trail, they continued to encounter goblin patrols, but as they killed and increased their own cultivation, they found the goblins provided less and less advancement in return. As they were nearing the middle of Tier 1, they discovered the goblin camp.
At least a hundred goblins milled around the large camp in sloppy formations and with awful gear.
Matt felt almost nostalgic, seeing the goblins as he had at Tier 1. But not enough to let the goblins live.
Flexing his untouched mana pool, Matt cast a full power [Hail].
The spell more than covered the goblin camp and stretched beyond its bounds.
Even in his outer spirit, at 2,560 MPS the spell was nearly a solid wall of ice, and the weak bodies of the Tier 1 goblins were crushed under the weight.
All of them instantly shot up to early Tier 2 from the kills.
Matt laughed. Minkalla had screwed him on the last floor theme, but now he got to break its test with his Talent.
- Writer
