The Path of Ascension

Chapter 11

Matt thought about Griff's words for the next few hours. He didn't know what to do. The risk was fairly high, but the reward was also great.

If he reached out to get the specialized researcher AI, he would have an AI to use, but in the process he risked letting important information slip. It was as if he was shouting that he had a unique mana producing Talent from the rooftops, and that was dangerous.

Mana was precious on higher Tiered worlds, where the general population didn’t just live by the safe areas along the coast. The runic formations that stopped rifts from forming in cities cost a lot of mana to run. The cost was only partially offset by the higher Tiered cultivators and rifts producing more mana and mana stones.

As Matt contemplated the risks and benefits of the AI, he leaned more towards doing what Griff suggested. It was dangerous, sure, but he didn’t think even massive companies would dare risk the Empire’s wrath. His status garnered from being on The Path would protect him.

Research first. Matt looked up what he could about the company TrueMind Corp. What he found lined up with what he expected. Would a company that large let negative publicity ruin their image? He didn’t think so.

What he did discover was that their main source of revenue was producing Tier 30 and above smart runic formations. The selling of personal AIs was a side project subsidized by The Empire. They stood to benefit from the advantages the AI would give their younger generation. Shadi, the founder of the company, was reportedly altruistic in her old age. That was after she had crushed the competition, twenty thousand years ago.

Now that TrueMind was alone on top of their target market, the founder reportedly had given up on advancement of her cultivation. Instead she had been focused on a personal project and rarely seen. Matt didn't trust that at all, but he doubted she was up to anything too heinous. Besides, producing a few mana a second couldn't be that rare at higher Tiers, it was just uncommon at low Tiers. Any benefit the founder would gain from taking advantage of him wouldn’t outweigh the consequences.

It was still a risk, but the reward of a personal AI was worth it. The AI would always be useful, unlike the other expensive items Matt needed to progress. An enchanted sword would grow obsolete after Matt reached Tier 4 or 5, and a spatial bag had the same problem. The bag would last longer than the sword, but still be replaced at some point. Most Cultivators used them even after Tier 15, because the lower-ranked spatial rings had a limited storage area. However, it was said that eventually the bags were completely replaced with rings after a point.

He couldn't always plan for Tiers ahead of his own, but it felt like a wasted opportunity to not get the only item that would grow with him.

Making his decision, Matt called the local offices of TrueMind. When the receptionist answered, he simply asked to speak with a manager, and was transferred.

When the person picked up Matt asked, “Are you someone who can make decisions about unique Talents and AI’s?”

“Nope, this is the complaints office. Let me transfer you.” Matt facepalmed. He had immediately asked for a manager, so it made sense that the receptionist had sent him to the complaints department.

It was a much longer wait this time.

“Hello, this is Janet with the development team.” The voice on the other side sounded only half attentive.

Development team? What were they developing on this low Tiered world? Matt wasn't sure, but gave her his best pitch.

“I was informed TrueMind was interested in unique Talents. I happen to have one that produces a lot of mana under the right circumstances. But that also makes me unable to use the standard AI’s.”

Janet sounded more interested when Matt said that. “Really now. How much is a lot? If it's enough we would be willing to hire you.”

He had already decided to not reveal his true powers, but he also realized he had to show a little of his abilities if he wanted their attention.

“I am not able to work for your company as I'm on The Path of Ascension.'' He wanted to get that out as soon as possible, so they wouldn't get thoughts of crossing The Empire to get his Talent after what he said next.

“And I can produce around… humm... Let’s say five mana a second. No reserves.”

All he heard was a chair creak, it was a long moment before Janet spoke up.

“Ok. ok, that's interesting. So, some kind of high mana regeneration but lacking in capacity. That is unique. I assume that the trend will continue, or you would have just waited. I'm assuming you want the researcher AI, right?”

Matt swallowed hard; those assumptions were too accurate for his liking.

“Yes, that's exactly what I want.”

For the next few minutes all he could hear was rapid tapping at a screen.

“If you want to purchase a researcher's AI, I can do that. It will cost fourteen Tier 6 mana stones.”

That crushed his happiness, that was three and a half billion credits. He didn't have a hope of getting the AI unless he could work out a deal.

“I was informed that a deal could be worked out?” Matt asked hopefully.

“It could be, but it comes with some restrictions and conditions. Are you interested? Most would rather wait.”

Matt didn't like the sound of that, but this could help him grow faster, and that was priceless.

“What are they?” He was happy his voice didn’t waver.

“So, I can get you the standard researcher AI and one software, but you have to come in to do scans and testing at every Tier until Tier 10. If you miss any because of any reason, you would owe us the missing Tiers after Tier 10.”

“The other option is something we’ve been working on for a while. It's the beta version of the next generation researcher AI. It’s more versatile and built to be more malleable. The problem is it’s mana inefficient. Our job and another dozen worlds’, is keeping the malleability while reducing the mana cost.”

This sounded better to Matt, something new would be an advantage. Griff had said the newer models had a higher starting point. It was tempting.

“The adaptability and increased computing power are expensive. Very expensive. If you hadn’t said you generated five mana a second, I wouldn’t have even offered it. The idling mana cost is a permanent one mana a second, and the active computing can multiply that easily.”

“So, if you exaggerated your mana abilities now's the time to say so.”

Matt hesitated for a moment, thinking over all the scenarios he could imagine. Then with determination he said, “No I didn’t, that sounds like a useful AI for my situation. What’s the catch?”

Janet chuckled. “The normal catch is the absurd mana cost. We would give it all the software for combat and predictive modeling. We’d want you to push the AI, and heavy testing under combat conditions always brings out good data.”

“If you take this option, we would have you come in to scan until Tier 15, and we’d send you a special pad with testing software. We would expect the AI to be tested on downtime. Also, I’m obligated to inform you that we usually pay for scans and testing of cultivator’s AIs. The usual rate is one mana stone of their Tier plus one. So, you’d be losing out on a load of income.”

None of that bothered Matt, the AI could do the testing when he was asleep, which would also allow him to benchmark its growth. The income loss wasn’t relevant, it was a lot of money now, but to the future him, who was a Tier 10, earning a Tier 11 mana stone wouldn’t be impossible.

Matt made his decision. “As long as the testing won’t run into my own time I don’t mind.”

“Really? That's good. I can send you the contract then. I gotta say I didn't think this would come across my desk today. It's good for our branch though.”

As Matt read over the contract he idly asked “Why is that? Do you get a bonus or something for finding a tester?”

“Eh kind of. If you prove even mildly useful we’ll get a bonus sure, but this is an important project. It usually takes decades to get an AI good at something without incredibly specialized programming. And the programming limits the AI. The ones that learn naturally are far better than ones that get massive software programs.”

Janet continued, with the passion she had for the job showing clearly. “It’s why it takes so long for a new generation of personal AIs to come out. We learn from the older AI’s and can make the starting parameters even smaller and less detrimental to the AI’s future growth. The older an AI gets, the more it can break the shackles of early programming. But it’s hard and can take centuries and an absurd amount of mana to do.”

“This design has been on our back burner for at least a hundred years. Really it's an interesting design philosophy...”

Matt only listened with half an ear as Janet continued with how his data could help them in the smallest ways. As he reviewed the contract, he found it was as she had said. He would owe them a scan and test every Tier until 15, and if he missed one, he would have to make it up on the back end.

The other part about the AI having to run specialized testing was vague. It was written as a pre-established set of testing software that would take up no more than an hour a day under normal conditions. And he had a month to adjust to the AI before testing began.

After scanning the contract again for anything he might have missed, he digitally signed the document.

“Got it on my end. We'll have a package sent over with a special courier immediately. I look forward to seeing your data.”

Matt hung up after thanking her and felt relieved that it was over. He hadn’t even needed to spend any money. He had just needed to sell himself for the next few decades.

Sighing, he went to the blacksmith area. He had some ideas for blades, so he wanted to see if they were possible. His mana regeneration meant he could use an enchanted blade with ease. He could fill the mana stones to charge the runes himself, and not have to worry about using his rift acquired mana stones.

As he arrived, he looked for Smith the smith but couldn't find him. Eventually, he did find the smith Tun that he had bought his longsword from. He waited for the man to finish the mace he was working on, and drew his attention with a wave.

“Hey Tun. I hit Tier 3 recently, and wanted to look at enchanted blades. Considering I bought my last sword from you, well, I wanted to see if you had anything.” Matt didn't know why but he finished hesitantly.

“Depends on what you are looking for, but yeah probably. I'm going to assume you want a longsword. The real question is are you looking for something cheap, or something to last you a few Tiers?”

“What are the differences between the two?”

“Well, it's only a Tier 3 weapon. By necessity it's not going to use amazing materials. One, because they are way too expensive and two, most people outgrow the weapons fast because the Tier is low.”

It made sense, so he asked “So why get a good weapon? I'll have it for a year or so at most.”

“The idea is, you get a better weapon and don't get a new one till Tier 5. You pay more now but can skip the Tier 4 upgrade.”

“I can see the logic. What are the differences in the weapons though?”

Tun walked over to a book and opened it to a page. He pointed to a picture of two runes and said, “Well the cheaper ones have less runes on them. At Tier 3 you can barely get a major rune and a minor one on a weapon. Tier 4 can hold stronger versions of the same combo.”

Matt wanted to clarify that before Tun moved on so he interjected. “Wait. What is the difference between a major and minor rune if there are stronger versions in Tier 4?”

“A Major rune is just a more prominent version of a minor one. Think of it like a deeper engraving, or an allocation of mana. At each Tier, the runes become increasingly complex and harder to inlay into weapons and armor. And metals are inherently bad at enchanting. A mage's staff or wand can hold two or three major runes at Tier 3, a sword can barely do half that. Well, until you get to high Tier metals. And even then, they still lag behind high Tier woods and monster parts.”

“Ok. What can you do for each type and what's the price run?”

Tun tapped the book, “The normal combination for a Tier 3 longsword is a major durability and a minor sharpness. At Tier 3 and 4, most monsters can't take a hit from normal steel, and the durability ensures that the weapon can survive your increasing power. The sharpness is just because it's nice to cut shit easier.”

Pointing at the other page of the book he continued, “The other cheaper option is to just get one or the other. If you get the sharpness you might bend or break the blade though.”

That left Matt with a conundrum. While he wanted the better blade, he didn't know if he could afford it.

“And the price?”

“2.5 to 3 mil.” Seeing Matt open his mouth to protest the absurd price, Tun hurried to finish “Putting both runes on is a shitload harder than putting one rune on a weapon.”

Matt winced, even with his credit card, he would need to nearly max it out again. He had paid down most of the debt, but he didn't want to lean on it again so quickly.

“What is the difference between a Tier 4 and 5 weapon? Seems like I need to get one of them.”

Tun spun a hammer in his hands as he said, “Well I haven't worked on those Tiers yet obviously. But starting at Tier 4, the spirit is stronger. So a fighter can handle the stress of activating the runes, and the materials get less mundane. A smith will add trace amounts of more magically inclined materials at higher Tiers. It's usually only a few grams of a Tier 6 or 7 monster, but it's enough to make the blade stronger, hold more runes, and easier to enchant.”

“Tier 5 is where you can add active enchantments onto a weapon, essentially a skill that the weapon or armor can activate. That’s a huge increase in price, though at the same time, it's the only way to add damage for most people. At least until skills start dropping at Tier 8.”

Tun shrugged and pursed his lips. “At higher Tiers, it's less about mana efficiency and more about mana throughput. Dumping more mana through the runes wears them down faster, so you need better materials. In turn, that means you need more complex runes, which are harder to enchant.” Tun was still staring at his hammer, continuing to twirl it in his hands as he spoke. Matt couldn't tell if it was longing or something more complex going through the smith.

“There is also the problem that skills in a weapon are unable to grow to handle more mana, unlike skills in the spirit. Runes in a weapon aren't able to keep up at the higher Tiers, where a skill can take thousands of mana of throughput.”

“But what you want to know is how much better each would be. Well it depends on the smith or enchanter doing the work. But the usual improvement is Tier 4 is about thirty to forty percent better than Tier 3. And Tier 5 is usually forty percent better than Tier 4.”

That didn't really help Matt at all. If he got a new weapon at each Tier, it would be incredibly expensive, and he still needed to get a spatial bag. That gave Matt his next question.

“Would this make the spatial bag impossible to use?”

“Only at the same time. The real problem is how expensive the bags are. The spirit is only strained when actively using the enchantments, so it shouldn’t interfere unless you can't deactivate one or the other.”

“Really, it's up to you. After Tier 5, most get a new weapon every rank. I can't really tell you to do either, but from what I’ve seen people buy the dual rune Tier 3, and then 5. Or they get the single rune Tier 3, and buy both a Tier 4 and 5. I can make you a custom longsword with the size and runes you want.”

“The turnaround is usually a week though so...”

“You don't happen to have a buy one get one free, so I can get a Tier 3 hammer or axe as well do you?”

Tun just looked at him, then turned around and started hammering on a red hot bar of metal.

Matt thanked him and walked back to his room. He couldn't decide if it was better to get the higher Tiered weapon. It was so expensive that it would eat into his spatial bag budget if he did, but he might be able to use it for two Tiers if he did get the better one.

The next day, he decided to get the better sword. He was putting all of his essence into his physical cultivation, so he was growing stronger than most people in his Tier. The chance he broke a weapon was higher than most.

He also had to consider that he didn't have any other way to attack, other than his weapon. So, he needed the ability to deal damage, and the dual rune option offered him a way to increase his damage per hit.

They spent a few hours designing a sword for Matt. It was far more fun than he thought it would be. He designed a balanced blade that was slightly longer than his current one. He had grown quite a bit in the last year and a half, and expected to grow more before his next upgrade at Tier 5.

He had just finished with Tun and was playing with Aster in a field, when his pad beeped that he had a package waiting for him.

With excitement, he retrieved the package and found another pad and a box. A note came with the smaller package. It just stated the device was to be installed by medical professionals only.

Matt checked over the pad that came in the package. It was smaller than his current one, and heavy. At least three times heavier than his.

When he arrived at the medical facility, he was told it would be at least an hour before a healer could oversee the installation of the device.

It made Matt slightly nervous when he considered the fact the small, rice sized hardware would be connecting to his spinal column at the base of his skull. It wasn't strictly necessary to have the hardware left in after the construct took residence in his spirit, but it allowed for more computing power before the AI grew and evolved.

When the healer came out, he was an older man with a touch of grey at his temples. He escorted Matt to a room, and explained that he would feel groggy for the next three days. That is, until the AI was fully online and settled both in his spirit and in his skull.

Matt laid down and felt the doctor wiping at his neck when the area went numb. Then, he felt the surrounding flesh moving. A healing spell washed over him and the numbness and small aches from training washed away.

“Alright, when you cycle essence into the construct, it will begin to assimilate like any skill. If you have important things to do, I recommend doing them before. You'll feel drunk or very tired. At least, most people describe it as one of the two. I felt drunk when I got mine. Also, you are barred from delving for a week after the three-day period. Good luck.” With the last words tossed over his shoulder, the doctor swept out of the room.

Matt ate lunch with Aster, and then headed back to his room and put a show on before cycling essence to the back of his skull. It was gradual, but he started feeling mentally exhausted. He wasn't physically tired, but his thinking turned slow and sluggish.

The next three days passed in a haze. He couldn't even work out safely. Combat training was out of the question, so he and his fox mostly relaxed.

The third morning, he woke up and felt clear headed. The world seemed sharper, crisper. He wasn't sure if it was the AI doing something to improve his senses, or if it was just the contrast of coming out of the fog he had been in for the last few days.

He sent a mental probe to the AI, and felt his mana drain to near zero in an effort to feed the construct.

In his vision, he saw, ‘Startup procedures initializing. Please stand by. Estimated time to finish, 14 minutes.’

Matt took Aster to eat at the dining hall, and after setting out her food, ate his own. The new food was even more expensive than her kit food, as it was made of Tier 4 and 5 monsters. The expense drained his already tight budget, but he wasn't going to skimp on his companion.

The startup process finished, and a heads-up display overlaid his vision. ‘New host detected. Start scanning? Yes. No.’

Matt selected yes and felt the pull on his mana grow stronger.

This AI is absurd.

It was pulling almost three mana a second, any normal mage at this Tier would be empty of mana in just a few minutes. It did explain why they had been working on this model for so long. It was nearly unusable at lower Tiers, and at the higher Tiers no one would want to get rid of their older, more established AI for this glutton.

After a moment, the mana draw slowed down to a trickle, and Matt now had an outline of his body covering his view of the dining hall. When he looked closer his body was tinted green. Focusing on any part gave a breakdown of the limb and its current status.

Under that was a display for his mana.

Mana: 0.9/10

While the mana display wasn't very useful for Matt, the body scan was. It would be nice to be able to see any damage done to him.

Matt looked to Aster, who was cleaning herself, and the AI responded to his intention. ‘Bond detected. Start scanning? Yes. No.’

He went through the process, and a small outline of Aster appeared next to his own outline with the same breakdown. It hurt to realize that his fox had 900 mana at Tier 2, while he had a whopping 10.

After they finished their breakfast, Matt headed to the training room and set the room to the goblin and hobgoblin configuration of the Tier 1 rift. He made sure to bump up the difficulty, but only to peak Tier 2 strength. This was more about testing the AI than his own skills.

Once he activated [Cracked Phantom Armor], the AI prompted ‘skill use detected. Start analyzing and optimization? Yes. No.’

Matt smiled, this was exactly what he was hoping for. All AIs could optimize mana usage, but it was usually only seen at Tier 5 and higher. Hitting yes, he waited eagerly.

‘[Cracked Phantom Armor] detected, analyzing properties and mana usage. Processing. Processing. Processing. Analyzing complete. Optimizing. Failure. Please provide more usage data and information on optimizing skills.’

Decidedly less thrilled, Matt realized he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. It was a long shot to expect a brand-new AI with the mostly barebones software to do what took most AI years to accomplish.

He started the combat predictive mode, then had the AI start the training room scenario.

Immediately he stopped the training room.

The AI had shown every possible move the training aid could do. The predictions ranged from the general attacks to more obscure combinations the goblins would never do. It was blinding and cluttered to the point of being useless.

One prediction had even shown a .000000001% chance of the training aid just shutting down. That prediction was useless even in practice.

Starting to tweak the settings was tedious but easy enough. He lowered the tolerance for shown actions to forty percent or higher only, while taking into account past actions for the monster type and the general body structure.

He repeated the process again. It was better with less clutter, but after a few exchanges he paused the training aids again. Matt then re-enabled the predictions that accounted for the weapon type.

The next fight was better, but he stopped the training after a few exchanges to raise the threshold of shown prediction to sixty percent, and increase the transparency for all predictions greatly.

After that, Matt just fought the training goblins and hobgoblin. He wasn't sure if the learning speed was normal, but the AI was soon predicting the attacks with far fewer possible predictions. Even better, the most likely path was nearly always correct after only a half hour.

He didn't quite trust the predictions, because in the end this was a simulation of the goblins, not the real thing. While it was nearly perfect, the real goblins could, and did make unexpected attacks at times.

The training continued for the next hour, with Matt tweaking settings as he went. He ended up changing the transparency to indicate the probability instead of showing numbers as it had before.

Having the AI rereview all the data it processed, he went and purchased three new 200 mana rechargeable mana stones. Tun had suggested it so he could swap the power source for his new blade, and Matt agreed. He didn't want to get screwed because of the wait time for his mana to unaspect.

When he had asked about letting it use his own aspected mana, Tun had said that would double the price because of the added runes, so he just dropped the idea.

Tun said the weapon would be done in four more days, but that left Matt with not much to do for the next week, so he trained and exercised. Any down time was mostly spent stress testing the AI.

The pad TrueMind had sent had far more testing scenarios then what was mandatory. There was monster vs monster combat, monster vs cultivator combat, and even cultivator vs cultivator combat.

Most scenarios were just small snippets that the AI was supposed to reconstruct the fights off of. Some contained a small area left over from a fight, and some a vast, destroyed landscape with hundreds of corpses. A more interesting scenario he found was when the AI was put into a POV of a fighter, and had to predict the opponent's movements. The AI was awful at it, but Matt was interested in watching the fights play out and making his own predictions.

At first the AI had the same predictive problems as before, but as he let it watch the early fights, it slowly got better at predicting the flow of combat. It was still useless when it came to skills or Talents, but it got better after he found an information repository on common Tier 8 skill shards on the EmpireNet.

The AI could predict low Tier skill usage somewhat, but only after seeing the skill used at least once. So, surprise attacks and a clever first usage still tripped it up.

It was only at a five percent predictive ability with any fight that involved skills, and only two percent for combat over Tier 5. Still, Matt felt progress of his own watching the fights. Seeing the flow of combat in higher Tiers gave him ideas and possibilities for his own fighting style.

He also found an AI downloadable class on veils, and purchased it for 10k credits. It was incredible. The class had information packets that allowed his AI to simulate the feeling and pattern of what a veil should be.

With the AI’s help, Matt was able to get a rudimentary veil that would dampen any spiritual sense trying to probe him in only a few hours. It wasn't perfect, as he couldn't hold the essence at the edge of his spirit as well as the AI projected, but he was happy with the progress.

It was a strain on his concentration, but would help hide his mana regeneration, so he set the AI to ping him any time he let the veil slip. The improvement was slow but steady. He and the AI predicted that within a few weeks, he would be able to hold a weak veil constantly. Then, it would just be a matter of strengthening it over time as his spirit grew stronger.

His new weapon was finished two days before the ban on his delving was lifted. Matt was glad he had gone with the more expensive version of the weapon once he got it. He and Tun had done a cutting test, and even without the enchantments activated, it was stronger and cut better than his first sword.

When the enchantment was active, it cut through a log like a dream. It was odd to use the enchantments on the blade, it felt like his spirit was trying to lift heavy weights while being covered with a wet blanket. It was a distracting sensation to get accustomed to.

It was mana efficient, being a low Tier weapon, but the more stress the weapon was under meant a faster mana drain. Still, Matt went and bought another three rechargeable mana stones. He just had to willthe runes active with his spirit, and they would pull from the mana stone in the pommel. Having extra was a nice backup.

With constant use, he could expect the two hundred mana to last an entire rift, but if he did run out of mana, he had extra mana stones to swap out. Using a rift mana stone was a waste of credits.

There was even a source of income with his mana if he was careful. Out of the PlayPen, people could sell mana to fuel the cities. The price was pretty low at fifty credits for two hundred mana, but it would keep him from starving.

For a moment, he wished he had had a rechargeable mana stone and device to transfer the mana when he was at Benny’s. He could have made the ten thousand credits in no time.

The lack of information had greatly hampered his planning, though Matt figured he wouldn’t have been at Benny’s to meet Dena and Eric and join The Path if he had sold his mana. So maybe it was better he didn’t know of the ability.

It's weird to think ten thousand credits was a far goal. Now, I can make it in a single rift if I get a little lucky. And with the Tier 3 rifts I'll make that with every mana stone. Yet I still feel poor. Things are more expensive, but I’ve come a long way.

I can't believe I once thought that Benny charging 400 credits a week was a lot. Most of them were Tier 3. The place truly was a dump that was just in a good location.

His gear was starting to get a little small, so he took his time off to buy new clothes for combat and casual wear. The combat clothes he bought were simple, just sturdy cloth, but they fit better and wouldn’t tear apart if he moved too fast.

***

Four days later Matt stood in front of the tear to the Tier 3 rift, and with Aster on his heels, he stepped through.