The Path of Ascension 7: A LitRPG Adventure

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Matt’s spiritual sense didn’t even have enough time to properly register what was in the safe room before he rolled to the right. At the same time, Susanne’s and Aster’s AI linked with his own, giving him a wealth of information.

He came out of his initial dodge and sprinted to the right while arrows and spells peppered his newly resummoned [Cracked Phantom Armor].

He appeared next to the Clan’s gathering point, so while the attacks weren’t absent, they weren’t full-on, either.

Thankfully, once he neared the Empire’s portion of the safe area, he was able to slow to a walk and join his Power’s side.

This wasn’t a surprise, and it was exactly why they set up this contingency before they left.

The first people into the safe room would be those who weren’t going for the theme reward. While that population predominantly featured Tier 14s, it also included a fair number of Tier 12s and 13s from the other seasons that just wanted out, whether or not they had enough for the exit reward.

With the exception of the Sects, each Great Power had managed to convince enough of the people that were exiting to stick around for three hours in their own ‘territory.’ If only to give additional protection to those taking the theme challenge as they reoriented themselves to their real bodies.

There would be no repeats of the previous floor’s safe room if Matt could help it.

Three hours, translating to three months in-challenge, should be plenty for most people to get their upgrades and move on.

Anyone who took longer than that was on their own.

Matt noted that Liz wasn’t here yet, which implied that she ran into some difficulty, but he wasn’t overly worried.

Jill wasn’t out yet either, while Bradley was chatting with the first-place solo winner of his own Tier 10 tournament, Statue.

The woman was a metal mage as well but had gotten a [Metal Body] ability far earlier than Bradley and had used the impressive amount of control she had over the nigh-invincible state to great effect.

Statue saw Matt appear, and after inspecting him and nodding, she turned her attention back to the surrounding Great Powers.

Aster exuded smugness at her growth item’s upgrade, but as they had decided to lean into the idea that she was Susanne’s bond, didn’t jump into his arms.

All of them wanted to show off their new abilities, of course, but by prior agreement, they would hold off until all four of them were together.

He did feel out the Boon settled into his spirit, familiarizing himself with it. It felt like…well, like a new limb. Something that hadn’t been there before but was wholly one with him.

Its effects surprised him though. He had gotten a far stronger reward than what they had recorded. He’d expected a better than average reward but something this good was beyond his expectations even after single-handedly powering the faction to victory but there were harsh diminishing returns on the favor to final Boon conversion so he hadn’t expected anything quite so impactful.

Matt had heard that very rarely, an upgraded [Manipulation] skill could gain a truly incredible amount of finesse and feedback while becoming almost free to use, and he was reminded of that as he tried out his new abilities.

[Ice Manipulation], [Air Manipulation], and [Shadow Manipulation] still cost the normal amount to use, but they were responsive in a way he’d never felt before.

As a quick test to check the changes he could fell, he made himself a finger-sized ice sculpture of a songbird and found that not only was he able to effortlessly imbue it with detailing on each feather, but he could make the ice flex and flow in a way that it could flap its wings and fly like a real bird without cracking and shattering like normal ice.

There was more to it as well, but before he could experiment and find out how else the Boon had impacted his skills, Liz appeared right outside the Federation’s territory and was bombarded by attacks. Fortunately, when people were put into the spatially expandable safe area, it was a good distance away from other people so no one would appear inside anyone’s formations.

Thanks to the degree of separation, Liz was easily able to escape the attacks and join the Empire’s group. With her there, the four of them wasted no time in racing to the pillar leading them to the next floor and were quickly whisked away in a swirl of motion.

Luna watched a woman celebrate exiting Minkalla after an inspiration to Tier 15 when she felt the ripples of space fluctuate around all eight Great Powers’ moons and ripped a hole through reality at the same time.

She and every other high Tier were caught off guard at the sudden influx that implied that the fourth floor had been conquered. Normally, that took at least six months when there were only two courts. A two-court fourth floor was…unlikely. And even then, it had only been three months.