The Path of Ascension 7: A LitRPG Adventure

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None of them managed to fully heal over the week. Liz’s arm still was waxy, and Susanne’s face was still a mess of scabs and half-healed burns. Aster’s burns were hardly any better, and Matt still had holes in his chest that threatened to tear back open if he took another hit because of his healing cooldown. However, none of their wounds would slow them down at this point, and that would hopefully be enough along with their final cheat.

Talismans and potions.

Matt divvied up most of his no-skill talismans between his teammates. Much of his arsenal as Quill had been made with him in mind, but there were still enough talismans usable by the others that would make a difference. And when paired with Liz’s potions, they would be able to buff themselves to the limit of what a Tier 11 could handle.

If worse came to worst, they could Tier up and just hope they still had enough Genesis Energy to take the theme challenge.

After they were freshly rested from a good night’s sleep, they set out to the boss room. If you knew what to look for, it was just as obvious as the ones with an enormous troll waiting in the center. The rooms consisted of crystal caverns comprised of gems that reflected everything, blindingly bright lights that turned everything into a white haze, and thick banks of fog blanketing winding mazes of tunnels that would force people to separate.

The one they found was set in a cavern ruin littered with drooping vines and a number of stalagmites and stalactites. Minkalla didn’t recognize ‘teams’ so much, but this room was perfect for them all, thanks to the silver fog enveloping the area. They all knew what would happen once they entered.

Matt downed his potions, activated his talismans, and drew his swords. To his left and right, the others made their own preparations, with him helping Aster. He took a long look at each of his teammates, then nodded farewell as he stepped into the mists. No sooner had he lost sight of the others than a new figure emerged from the fog across from him.

Their surroundings cleared, giving Matt a clear look at…himself.

They were almost identical. The identical part went without saying, but the almost was only because Matt felt way more tired than his duplicate looked, in a way that [Endurance] couldn’t touch.

Neither of them moved quite yet, preferring to stare in silent contemplation. Matt couldn’t help but wonder what the other was thinking.

Was it aware that it was just a copy of himself?

He had thought of the question before, but Luna didn’t have an answer.

From what he had seen, the copies so far weren’t rage-fueled monsters like the beasts found in ruins and rifts, but neither did they talk or act like real people. They seemed intelligent, or at least enough to present a facsimile, but not truly sapient. But this final copy was different. Nobody knew just how different, but Matt felt his double with his spiritual sense. Its spirit felt complete, not like a shallow shell stretched over Matt’s body.

It left Matt and everyone else who cared to think about it with a massive question mark of what Minkalla was actually doing on this floor.

If people hadn’t been verifiably killed in this fight by never exiting the mists, he’d wonder if they were simply replaced if they happened to lose. Even as seconds turned to minutes, neither of them stopped inspecting each other. Or rather, he inspected the copy while it stood there. He still had no idea what, if anything, was running through its mind.

Its armor had the same scratches and dents as his own had when he first entered the floor, but it was missing the damage that had been done during his encounters thus far. But that also meant it lacked the repairs and modifications he had done to it as well.

Thankfully, Matt wasn’t the same Matt he had been two weeks ago.

Each fight had changed him and forced him to grow.

Through victories and losses, he had improved. He was tired, yes, but he was experienced against fighting himself now. He’d strategized, prepared, and dug out a very particular set of gear from the bottom of the loot pile. He’d picked out and exploited his own weaknesses relentlessly, blocked [Cracked Mana Spear] with his own sword, and come to grips with his new skills and Boon in a way that the Matt in front of him simply never could.

Never would.

He was ready.

A sound like a thousand books being flipped through echoed throughout the arena, and Matt was surrounded by a veritable storm of talismans. A good quarter of them unleashed their payload simultaneously, and a hail of elemental attacks barreled down on his copy. He felt the copy ripple through space, bringing up a matching set of defensive talismans that caused an explosion as the spells collided.

When the air cleared, Matt’s clone was standing unharmed, ten feet away from where he’d started and with a shimmering [Bulwark] slowly fading as the parchment of its talismans started to burn away.

Honestly, Matt was glad that he couldn’t be taken down so easily. To prevent retaliation in kind, he flexed his Concept to lock space down, and felt with some amusement as his reflection did the same. Neither of them wanted to deal with talismans at the moment. Fair enough, he supposed.

They mirrored each other, raising their swords in a faux salute before blurring into motion.

Except, the swords they raised were vastly different.

Matt didn’t wield his growth weapon.

While he loved that blade, it was currently in his left hand, ready to be attached to a mount on his back while he wielded the void sword, that the vampire boss had dropped, as his primary weapon in this fight.

Minkalla had seemingly created it specifically to counter [Cracked Phantom Armor], and Matt wasn’t going to pass that advantage up when fighting a copy of himself.