The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

62

Matt could see that she was still proud of herself and shot back, “I decapitated a sphinx with just physical power. That’s far more impressive when you really look at it.”

Aster hopped out of her backpack and said to Susanne, “And they forget about our contributions as soon as it comes to bragging. How droll.”

She pranced over to the eagle and sphinx, casting [Heart of Power] as she went.

As the skill had been upgraded from the start for her, it could permanently add to her cultivation, and had done so a few times over the years. She usually did so because she enjoyed eating hearts, more so than the very rare chance at getting the increase.

Except this time, the sphinx’s heart increased her mana pool cultivation.

[Heart of Power] didn’t force her to advance, but it allowed her to push further in her current cultivation.

After getting the upgrade, Aster pranced around happily. “That was a bit of Genesis Energy added to my core, not essence. I’m the best! We need an ice cream break! Ice cream for everyone!”

Matt stared in disbelief at his bond’s luck and cursed.

Grumbling, the three humans ignored the excited fox as they moved over to the ruin reward. There they dispelled it, and out from its depths came a number of items.

They pulled out their portable house and set it up to take a break before they moved to the next sub-floor and to inspect the items.

The first and most obvious reward was a greatsword in the same form as Susanne’s.

This one was razor thin and enchanted with only sharpness enchantments. With a careful test, they discerned that it was able to easily cut through the sphinx’s stone armor.

Susanne sighed. “I don’t really use real blades anymore, but that would be good to pull out in an emergency. Shame that it’ll break if I look at it sideways.”

The next item of note was a choker with a stylized snowflake hanging off it.

Aster took it and found that it boosted her ice powers and created a better version of Matt’s shade formation disks.

She loved it because it looked good, but it was a very potent find for the winter fox.

There were also a number of alchemy ingredients that were rare Tier 14 herbs, and Liz happily transplanted them into her garden.

Matt didn’t get anything so pointed in the reward but was quite happy with the two dozen essence stones and a handful of common Tier 14 skills.

After their three days in the heat of the ruin, everyone relaxed and slept for a full six hours before they stepped into the distortion that would take them to the next sub-floor of Minkalla.

11

Matt stood with his three teammates, staring at the reward distortion they hadn’t yet opened as the nearly invisible bodies of the boss and its protectors faded away around them. The last two weeks had been rough, and while Matt felt that his spiritual perception was sharper because of his forced reliance on it, he was glad to have just killed the final boss of the third sub-level of the first floor. It was some strange octopus-like mimic creature that could become incorporeal, invisible to their spiritual senses, or take the form of nearly any item or spell it desired.

It could also teleport and split apart into smaller clones of itself…because why not. It dropped a handful of skill shards as well as a load of genesis energy, which got tossed into their storage rings for later study.

For now, they examined the shimmering portal in front of them, which would allow them to reach the safe area between floors. They were able to choose between proceeding to the second floor, pausing and recovering somewhat, or even leaving—not that they planned to do so.

The last two weeks had been a hectic rush of delving and moving through Minkalla, gathering what resources they could, and stocking up on as much Genesis Energy as possible.

Overall, things had been fairly standard, if not easy. Minkalla always pitted them against monsters and challenges that they had to be strong and quick-witted enough to overcome, but so far, nothing had been surprising. Though on the third sub-layer, where Minkalla really pushed its challengers, it would’ve been nice to avoid dealing with constant mimics, doppelgangers, ambush predators, and the spirit-like creatures that kept trying to drain his mana.

Those were annoying even without their being almost invisible, let alone his endless font of mana constantly causing them to grow strong. They weren’t even fun fights; the bouts always turned into either endless back and forth until the monsters collapsed from their wounds, or ambushes that were foiled in a single blow from either Queen or himself.

Then the endless environmental hazards that constantly flipped from boiling hot to deathly cold, or impossibly windy to outright floods, only made things worse. And…well, they were glad to be finally moving on. Having to deal with those ever-changing environments when they couldn’t feel what was going on was more than annoying.

All that aside, they were still well ahead of the one-month-a-floor pace they set for themselves.

All that was left was to decide was if they wanted to spend the Genesis Energy to get the Eternal Darkness floor theme reward, which would, as it was the first floor, give them a slight increase to their spiritual perception.

The four of them were split, not with each other but with their managers. This was one of the floors they had been told to just blow past if they were behind, as its reward wasn’t fantastic. However, they were well ahead of where they should be in both speed and Genesis Energy collection. As Tier 11s, they were expected to have gathered enough Genesis Energy to get the exit reward somewhere in the latter half of the second sub-level, and enough for the floor theme in the early parts of the third and final sub-level.