The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

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Matt and Susanne weren’t fully healed, but they weren’t badly hurt in the first place. That final test hadn’t seemed to want to kill them.

They approached the pillar to go to the next floor when a man in Sect robes appeared on the other side of it. Instantly, all five of them had their guards up.

Matt and Susanne stepped forward to block a rush, with Liz and Aster gathering their own powers in the rear.

The man said nothing but rushed forward. Instead of attacking them, he quickly touched the pillar and vanished as if he hadn’t been there.

Seeing that, they hurried to reach the pillar themselves.

They couldn’t let someone else get ahead of them, especially someone from the Sects.

Before they touched the pillar, Matt asked, “Anyone get a good feel for him? I felt a Tier 12.”

The other three agreed, and since he wasn’t wearing a mask like they were, giving the impression of being a Tier higher, they suspected that it was his real cultivation.

Touching the pillar, Matt sensed that he could either exit or proceed deeper.

When he thought to proceed deeper, he was given the option to group up with any of the people touching the pillar. Choosing his friends, as they were the only people, he felt them agree, and together, they appeared on a grassy plain.

They had reached Minkalla’s second layer.

All of them took up a defensive position, ready to attack or be attacked by anything.

Liz called out, “Aster, test please.”

Aster sat down between them and started testing.

Eternal Darkness had been an obvious floor theme, but other floors were often less obvious.

One by one Aster checked things.

“Mana doesn’t work. Testing.”

Matt already knew that because he hadn’t been able to use [Cracked Phantom Armor] the second he entered the floor. Just because his most faithful skill refused to work didn’t mean it was his job to figure out why…though, he still fiddled with it a bit.

After a few seconds, she said, “Genesis Cultivation confirmed. Genesis Energy needed and able to cast spells.”

Aster sighed at that, and Matt did his own little test. By directing Genesis Energy into [Cracked Phantom Armor], he found that the skill worked just like normal.

After a little flexing of the skill, he nodded. If anything, it was stronger with the higher-level energy powering it. His normally light blue armor was now vividly gold with light blue trim, and for less Genesis Energy than he got for killing a single ant on the first floor, he was able to power the skill at full capacity for a second.

It wasn’t great when compared to his Talent, but it meant that Genesis Energy went farther than mana did. He had never cast a spell with essence to test that, but it felt like Genesis Energy might be better than essence, unit per unit. It certainly was stronger than mana.

Still, they weren’t going to be wasteful, which meant they would resort to melee combat as much as they could.

Matt was also happy that they had gotten it as a floor, even if he would have preferred encountering it deeper. The theme reward would mean a portion of their essence would be converted to Genesis Energy, giving them a stronger foundation and improving not only their current strength, but a small boost at every tier in the future.

Foundations mattered, after all. You couldn’t use the overwhelming amount of essence gained each tier to completely change your allocation and expect to be just as strong as someone who had used that allocation their entire life.

Essence allocated to a specific aspect of cultivation carried with it a small, but compounding bonus as essence was applied each Tier. It wasn’t really noticeable at low Tiers, but by Tier 16, it would have a measurable impact on their strength. With a second-floor Genesis Cultivation, it would probably start to affect them as early as Tier 14. Leveraging your strengths was vital to stay on top of things, especially on the Path.

That all tied in with the floor theme of Genesis Cultivation, it would convert their allocated essence into Genesis Energy. That conversion in the cultivator’s core increased the multiplier of anything built on top of it. As the multiplier compounded, the deeper the conversion became, and the better off the cultivator would be for it.

The example Kurt had given was a Tier 11 cultivator who had only gotten one Tier converted. They got more out of that conversation than a Tier 14 who had their 13th and 14th Tiers of essence converted by Minkalla. The analogy Matt understood best was that of a rectangle whose area you want to maximize. You did so by adding to the short side, as it adds the largest area for the smallest increase.

As a second-floor reward and as Tier 11s, they could expect at least two of their Tiers to convert, which would be quite an added multiplier to their future cultivation.

Minkalla didn’t seem to care about the amount of essence converted, which was a shame, but lower Tiers still got the most out of the place, with deeper conversions possible. It was another reason why entering Minkalla at Tier 11 was an advantage.

Still, they had to get moving, and they started to walk through the grassland after everyone practiced casting spells with a little Genesis Energy.

There was no flying restriction, but none of them wanted to risk taking to the sky with their now limited casting abilities until they knew what roamed this ruin.

Now that their eyes and other senses worked, they had no issues moving around and through the grassy fields. It also made for a much more comfortable experience altogether; even the feel of his clothes was comforting after such an extended lack of stimulation.

Matt still spread his spiritual perception out and enjoyed the increased feedback he got from the upgraded ability.