The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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She was blind, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel her hands, and even her spiritual sense had almost collapsed. Had Minkalla permanently blinded her? Was she doomed to live the rest of her life as a cripple? What had caused her to suffer so?

The rest of her team had appeared around her, and it seemed they might have suffered a similar fate? Without being able to talk, she had no clue what any of them, even darling Vale, were trying to say. Still, they’d been together for enough Tiers that even only being able to barely sense each other’s presence still meant that they could fight, though not as well.

Bianca had fallen to a fireball from Vale, after he’d mistaken her for a monster sneaking up on them. Vale and Noah had found some crystal in a hidden room that ate up all the energy they’d been rewarded from their hunting, then ate them as well.

Now Winona was all alone, desperately trying to find her way out, wherever that may be. A flicker of movement underneath her was the only warning she got before she was suddenly engulfed in some kind of massive, living bag. She tried to cut her way out, but her glaive was too unwieldy in the tight space, and not even being able to see her target meant her struggles were fruitless.

With her dying breath, she cursed Minkalla and all its conspiracies against her and her friends.

Alvin walked through Minkalla with his team, observing the surroundings as much as the darkness around himself.

They were a group of strong Tier 14’s who never managed to create their Concepts and were reaching the end of their lifespan.

He personally only had around a dozen years left before his body started to rapidly decline with the onslaught of age.

This was his one last chance at life.

His wife had already left him when she earned her own Concept centuries ago and was able to keep advancing.

His team had left him the same way.

All because he couldn’t complete his Concept. He had long ago figured out his Image, a chair sitting in a ray of light coming through a window, but he was never able to figure out the accompanying Phrase.

That lack had resulted in his floundering around at this Tier for the last thousand years.

Still, that time stalled at the peak of Tier 14 didn’t mean his skills had slipped. If anything, remaining at the peak of his Tier had allowed him to refine his fundamentals.

A lot of people looked down on people like Alvin, but that was a mistake.

None of the peak Tier 14’s willing to enter Minkalla as a last-ditch effort were weak. Training was the number one recommended way to discover your Concept outside an ascension, and they all trained until they bled.

There was no better motivation than death’s cold hands wrapping around their throats, especially with the knowledge that taking just one step in their advancement meant they could live forever.

Alvin had bled more than any of his former friends and family in his pursuit of power, but it was futile.

The rest had died or advanced beyond him.

Minkalla was his final chance to succeed.

He just needed to make it to floor four, and then kill everything and anything that tried to stop him from earning enough Genesis Energy for his exit reward. The rest was secondary.

The theme rewards meant nothing to their group, and with the scaling cost of rewards and the scaling Genesis Energy rewards from killing monsters, they just needed to get to the fourth floor as soon as possible.

Alvin didn’t want to be like Frank.

Even the thought made him shudder.

Frank had nearly joined their team, but at the last minute, decided to enter Minkalla off-cycle and try his luck solo.

Except, when he got to the fourth floor, there wasn’t enough Genesis Energy readily available, as most of the monsters had been killed by the first wave of cultivators who entered Minkalla.

He tried to fight others to take their Genesis Energy, but he failed and was, in turn, defeated.

Normally, that would mean death, but Frank was always good at running, and that trait preserved his life.

His next gambit was to try his luck in a challenge room.

By spending all his accumulated Genesis Energy, he activated it, trying to double or triple his investment.

But he failed.

The next three years, he had tried desperately to gather the Genesis Energy he needed, but ultimately failed and was kicked out at the start of this cycle.

Now, unless he could find an ascension and use that to finish his Concept, he was dead.

And finding an ascension was more luck than anything else unless you knew someone. Most of the Tier 45s who advanced didn’t advertise, and the Empire was big. If you weren’t nearby, you would hear about their ascension as an event that already happened, instead of as an opportunity.

Frank’s story, a clearly pre-written message he’d gotten the moment Frank left the AI-blocking field of Minkalla, wasn’t common. Alvin and the others all knew that, but it happened.

Ascensions were luck. Minkalla off-cycle was luck. The only way for them to remove that as a factor was to enter with the first wave.

Alvin brought his sword around and decapitated the spindly monster that pulled itself out of the tree.

With age came a degree of wealth, and with wealth came skills. He had a full set of self-empowerment skills, and enough mana reserved in them to make him faster and stronger than all the monsters they faced by a massive degree.

The forest they were in seemed endless, and they were wasting time, which grated on all of them.

Finally growing tired of the delay, he growled into their AI comlink. “Bethany, what are you doing? How can you be this lost? Are you a tracker or not?”

The woman in question stiffened before turning around slowly. “If you want to scout the path ahead, I’ll walk behind you. Well behind, so I don’t get splashed with your blood as you fall into a trap.”

Despite knowing she could only see it with her spiritual sense, Alvin bared his teeth at her.

The woman was a half-decent scout at best. If she was even mildly competent, they would have been on the next and final level of this floor already.

Ramzi, the team’s healer, raised a hand to try and calm them all down. He always played peace maker. “Shut the f**k up, both of you. If I hear another f*****g complaint from either of you, I’ll let you both bleed out the next time you get injured.”

Alvin turned and inspected his area of the forest.

He wasn’t entirely sure that Ramzi was bluffing and wasn’t going to risk it.

Their archer, Jimmie, loosed an arrow as they started walking, and a bird-crab-thing fell to the ground not far away from them.