The Path of Ascension

Matt sat with his collection of mana stones and planned things out. Seeing that everything was in order, he sent his mana into the newly created formation. It was an improved version of his latest set up. It now could remove the ambient mana in the formation and keep it from returning to the formation.

It also let him put mana through the mana stones with aspected mana, then direct that into the formation at any ratio he wanted. He could even direct his unaspected mana into the formation, through an effort of his spirit to change the channels.

The added control would hopefully let him increase the accuracy of his predictions. He would be able to more easily fine-tune future experiments.

First was an even split of metal mana and fire mana. The monsters that came out were heated metal golems. Even for a Tier 1 rift, the monsters seemed impressive, so he cleared the area and increased the mana throughput, until the rift hit Tier 5. Each time the rift broke, the monsters were either fire attuned with metal aspects, or the reverse.

The rewards from the few Tier 5 rifts were... interesting. The bottle of molten metal was fascinating, but not necessarily useful. The hammer that constantly gave off heat had a better chance of being useful, and he had high hopes that it was valuable.

Sadly, even in the five delves he allotted to the rift, he never got a growth item. But he was more interested in moving on than repeatedly delving a single rift. Liz might use the rift for added training, as it didn’t have blood creatures. It would force her to ration her blood and mana, more so than a rift with flesh enemies.

The next test was a mixture of water and nature aspected mana. It created massive, vibrant forests in the rifts. Nothing as large as the world tree that they climbed, but every tree was hundreds of feet tall, instead of a single tree that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Its rewards were also of dubious quality, at least on outward inspection.

Matt moved through the various combinations of even splits of mana types that he felt would synergize. Opposing aspects were a few steps away. The interesting thing was, it didn’t work every time while Tiering up. Sometimes the mana unaspected, and the rift became a standard rift. But that was a much rarer occurrence than when using regular items to influence the rift creation.

He double-checked with his AI and threw in a Tier 5 log that was currently on fire, along with a Tier 5 dagger. He made sure to prepare a freshly cleared and closed-off area, and repeated the same test as the fire and metal rift.

The results were better, and at the same time worse than he had hoped for. There were lots of daggers in the rift, and they were part of the haul from nearly every reward distortion, but he didn’t see any more noteworthy changes.

When he made a rift of water mana and metal mana, with a dagger thrown in, he found his first truly strange and powerful item. It was a growth item, and while the blade was pitted and rusted, it screamed violence and danger to his spirtual sense. Matt refused to touch the actual blade, even with [Cracked Phantom Armor] active.

His logical side knew it wasn’t going to be able to penetrate his armor without deliberate effort, but it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take, especially with the feelings that his spiritual sense gave him.

Without a doubt, it was a growth item, and he was excited for the appraiser’s rating. Matt didn’t know what other items their team really needed, but if they got enough points, a defensive growth item would be great for either of the girls. They were more expensive, but if even half of his experiments could work this well, and pay out such unique growth items, they would be able to afford them in short order.

Matt was about to test more ideas, when Liz came out of a rift sweating and with goo dripping from her spear.

“Anything good?” She panted at him, but looked suitably impressed with the weird feeling dagger.

She wanted to go get it appraised immediately, and while Matt wanted to test more things, he also wanted to see why the dagger felt so dangerous.

When they arrived at the auction house, they were quickly shown into a back room. They were seen by a higher up in short order. Matt was curious as to why they had gotten the special treatment. Apparently, it was half because they were marked as seekers on The Path, and half because they sold their less impressive items to them in bulk, but never haggled.

Matt wasn’t sure if that last bit was an insult or not, but he didn’t mind. They had more money than they knew what to do with, and it ensured that they never had to wait for service.

The dagger was as impressive as they had expected.

“It gives a really impressive, tetanus-like infection when cutting someone. It also has an armor-piercing effect that’s...” Their appraiser trailed off and leaned in closer to the item. “Impressive. I’d give it at least a full Tier of penetration. Can I get you to sell this here? We’d love to get the publicity an item like this would bring.”

They declined, and the Empire Market didn’t even give them an estimated price afterwards. In fact, it recommended an auction.

Matt and Liz went out and celebrated the amazing find, and the potential for many more to come. He wanted to party into the night, but she cut it short, as she wanted to get some more practice so they kept their celebration mostly tame.

***

Matt sat down and watched the rift. They had been delving the weirdly aspected rifts for the last few weeks, and he had picked up on Liz’s mood. Every day she seemed more dissatisfied, and doubled down on her practice. Whether it was spell practice or melee sparring, she was always putting in extra hours of work. He was worried she was going to burn out.

This was his attempt to help.

He had been sneaking out at night for the past few weeks and practicing to make a special rift for Liz. It was the first time he was trying something this ambitious, but his secret testing and his AI’s analysis said it was possible. But the surprise would be ruined if he let Liz see what he was creating.

With a smile that felt bolted on, he got started with a bundle of herbs that created a Tier 1 clotting potion. With the bundle in the mana empty area, he started feeding the rift with fifty percent nature mana, and ten percent each of earth, fire, water, and air mana. He finished with ten percent unaspected mana.

That was the catch that took nights of work to discover. To get the unique rifts with unequal mana types, there needed to be a neutral catalyst.

When the rift formed and broke, he cheered to see plant vines lash out. They were quickly shredded by the formation, but it was a good sign.

He entered the rift to inspect it, and found a variety of herbs like the ones he seeded the rift with.

The experiment had worked perfectly.

Matt then encountered his greatest challenge; Tiering it up. He threw in the next bundle of Tier 2 herbs, which were from a Tier 2 recipe to make a fire-resistant ointment, and fished out the Tier 1 bundle. He had expected the transition to be easy, but the rift unaspected ,even though he did everything the same.

Something about the difference in materials made the rift unaspect and become a normal rift. He didn’t think it was the different herbs, as he had tested that with the metal rifts and different weapon types. There was no problem there, but this rift was proving challenging.

His AI had said that his idea should work, but it took five attempts to get the rift up to Tier 2 and with the properties he wanted. They either changed during the Tier up, or never took on the herbs’ properties in the first place.

It took hours, and the sun was rising when he finally got the rift up to Tier 5 and with the desired properties. After one last inspection of the rift, Matt found that it was filled with plant life, along with an accumulation of all the various herb bundles he had seeded the rift with.

When everything was ready, he took a deep breath and called Liz over.

After waiting for nearly five minutes, he realized that she was still asleep, and flew over to cook her a large breakfast.

She was woken up by Aster when the fox smelled the bacon and followed her sleepy nose out of the tent. She had stepped over the blood mage to try and steal a piece, without any regard for the woman.

Liz leaned over and kissed him.

“What’s the huge breakfast for? Did you do something while you’ve been sneaking off in the night?”

Matt paused. “You knew about that?”

She waved her fork around and said, “You’re as subtle as a bear trying to sneak out. I trust you weren’t doing anything bad, but now with the giant breakfast, I have to wonder.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. Seeing her joking manner only caused Matt’s excitement to grow.

“No, I made you a surprise. Something I’ve been working on lately.”

“Is it dangerous?” She looked more awake at that, and put down the waffle stuffed fork.

“No, not anything like that. Are you done? Get armored up!”

Liz glanced between her mostly empty plate and Matt. Finally, she pushed it away and got ready. She was clearly surprised that he was bringing her to a new island, but he refused to answer her questions.

Seeing the rift, she just cocked an eyebrow until he started talking.

“I noticed that you’ve been on a training binge ever since the investigator stopped by, so I made you a rift with herb bundles and a blend of aspected mana. I was thinking about how you said you enjoy alchemy. But we really haven’t had the time or resources to let you do that since we left your brothers. I figured with a rift made with them, you can get nearly unlimited practice, and you could get a break from the endless combat training.”

That caused a genuine smile to blossom on her face for the first time in what felt like weeks.

“Thanks, Matt. I was... struggling a bit with what I can bring to the table compared to you. You’ve literally been creating essence for us to advance with, on top of items for us to sell. Just thank you.”

She quickly kissed him as she finished.

“A good alchemist only becomes more valuable as we Tier up, so this is a perfect way for me to pull my weight. A whole rift full of herbs will be great practice for me.”

She tugged him to the rift, and they entered. It was only Tier 5, so not a challenge to either of them. Liz was less interested in the strangling vines that they quickly dispatched, and more enamored with the vast variety of herbs she found in the rift.

Her oohing and aahing continued as they trekked through the marsh.

When they killed the tree boss, she looked around and did a little dance.

“How did you make this place? It’s got more variety than most of the rifts you’ve made before.”

That caused Matt to preen. He actually enjoyed the trial and error that was involved with rift creation.

“I used a bundle of herbs that made a potion for its Tier. I was hoping that it would ensure a good mix. It only took a few tries, but it worked.”

Matt wasn’t about to tell her how much time the rift making had taken, as it would just make her feel indebted. He wanted to avoid that.

Liz hugged him. “It’s perfect. Thank you. You may not know this, but my parents are awful at all of the crafting skills. Neither had the patience to sit around for long enough. Originally, I just wanted to snub them a little by picking up a crafting skill, but I actually ended up really enjoying alchemy. Next time, I can clean this place out with the harvesters we have.”

Matt smiled. He doubted that Liz would ease up on the training, but he hoped she would spend more time doing what she loved. For now, Liz seemed happy, and that was good enough for him.

***

Matt sat with Liz and looked at the barrel of blood. He had insisted that she use [Create Blood], instead of her own blood for the experiment. He didn't think it would add anything, and hated to see her cut herself. But he just repeated that the bonded metal in her blood might also mess with the rift’s aspects so it was better to me safe.

With a second look at each other, he threw in the useless shoe growth item.

They had actually gotten quite a few amazing growth items in the last month of delving the mana attuned rifts.

He was preparing to send two to Melinda’s team, and the rest had been sold on the Empire’s internal market. One was a quiver that acted like a spatial item, but it created arrows over time. It also enchanted them, if the arrows remained in the quiver while it was fed mana. It was just too perfect for Tara. He intended to send it to her when they entered the Empire proper, not trusting local couriers enough to take it however far they needed to to find his friends.

He also wanted to send a bracelet that increased range with earth skills to Vinnie. It was perfect for his Talent’s innate [Earth Manipulation].

He hadn’t been the greatest friend to them, and slipped with his messages to them during the golem incident. He hadn’t picked their conversations back up until he found the quiver. They usually kept up a pretty consistent stream of messages, but he had gone months without replying which he had made sure to rectify.

With a splash, the useless shoe sank to the bottom, and brought him out of his reminiscing as it floated back up, just under the surface of the blood.

“This feels wasteful.”

Matt nodded at Liz’s statement. Throwing a growth item into the creation of a rift felt like destroying it, but they had to test it at least once. Besides, if they could get Liz a rift that made blood aspected growth items, it would be well worth it. They could use the technique for massive profits if it worked as well.

As blood wasn’t a common aspect for mana, it was nearly impossible to find a good growth item for her. If the Empire’s trading network couldn’t find one with its tons of seekers, and others who were either lucky or absurdly strong, then they needed to try other avenues.

So, Matt proposed testing a rift with both Liz’s blood and her mana, along with the addition of a growth item. The shoe was their only useless growth item, so in it went. Liz had a few things that she wanted from the market, but nothing that would amplify her blood abilities. If this didn’t work, they were going to get her a growth item spear.

It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be better than nothing. Having a single, stronger weapon had its advantages. Matt already ordered a spatial ring for his new sword. To have it work for a cultivator less than Tier 15 meant that it would be perfectly shaped to his weapon, and unable to hold anything else. Still, the ability to summon and dismiss his weapon was too good to pass up.

Even with rifts that swords weren’t ideal for, having a weapon stored in a spatial ring as a backup was a good safety measure. He had bought a Tier 6 hammer in case they found a golem rift again, but it would never be his preferred weapon.

Liz didn’t want to spend the Tier 10 mana stone to get one made for her spear, especially when she intended to upgrade her weapon soon. They were at the peak of Tier 5, after all. They were only waiting so that they could continue to search for growth items. When they advanced to Tier 6, they wouldn’t get the full rewards from lower Tier rifts, and Tier 6 and above rifts had nearly no chance to drop growth items.

She said that it was a waste to get a spatial ring made if she was going to upgrade weapons every Tier. While he agreed, to say that they had an excess of mana stones was the understatement of the century. So, he really didn’t mind if she got a new ring made every time she changed weapons.

But her reluctance only made Matt want to try this test even more. If it worked, they could possibly get her a growth item through trial and error.

Or by running it a few thousand times.

Matt refused to listen to the pessimistic voice. If he needed to run a rift a few thousand times for her, he would do it. Eventually, the rift would give them an item that Liz could use. He’d make sure of that. He still wanted her to try and find a growth spear, but she didn’t like any of the ones on the market.

Either way, they had plenty of contribution points to spend.

As the rift hit Tier 1, there was a plop sound, and everything disappeared. The blood, the shoe, even the bucket. All completely absorbed by the rift.

It was the worst luck. It meant that if they increased the Tier again, they could lose everything they put into it. Without a second growth item to ensure that the same things were added to the rift, it was sure to unaspect.

Standing and keeping a smile on his face, Matt said, “Unfortunate, but at least we can speed run the rift and get the reward.”

The rift was full of leeches, and was a decidedly unpleasant place overall. They waltzed through the Tier 1 rift until they reached the boss, and dismissed the reward distortion to find just a few mana crystals.

It wasn’t what they wanted to find at all, and he could see Liz trying to put on a brave face. She was upset that the test had been a failure. The problem was, they were Tier 5 and delving a Tier 1 rift. It meant that they wouldn’t get a growth item in any reasonable time.

Matt didn’t accept that.

While Liz went back to her alchemy table, he called Aster over after she checked in from her time in the rabbit rift.

He pulled her onto his lap and whispered into her ear and mind, “I need your help. We had some bad luck with Liz’s rift, so I need you to run the rift over and over while I charge it, so we can get her a good item.”

Aster threw him a picture of Liz with an exaggerated frown, and he nodded.

With nothing more, the fox threw herself into the rift and was gone.

Matt started charging the rift. It was only a Tier 1 rift, so it would charge in less than a minute if he used his own mana. But he was using Liz’s fast recharging stone, so it took closer to two minutes. The timing was nearly perfect with how long it took Aster to run through and kill the boss.

They did that for three days straight during nearly all of the daylight hours, but neither complained. Liz tried to get them to stop, but they refused. She said that they pushed themselves too hard for nothing. They said she was family.

They were a team.

Finally, a tired but determined fox came out with a single, black, fingerless glove. Matt could feel that it was different. It felt like a growth item, and apparently, Aster knew the difference as well, as she didn’t stop to let him inspect the glove. She scampered over and threw herself onto Liz’s alchemy table, knocking over the small cauldron and shattering bottles and containers.

“Aster!... Aster!” The first shout was anger, but the second was excitement at seeing the glove in the fox’s mouth.

Liz carefully took the glove and smiled as she felt it. She looked at both of them and snatched up the panting fox, pressing kisses all over her head. Aster yipped about how hard she worked, and Liz praised her relentlessly.

That ended their day, and they went to get the glove appraised. The outcome was better than Matt could have ever hoped for. The glove would let Liz withdraw her own blood without cutting herself, and came with the added growth benefit of perfectly storing blood for later use. The capacity of that function was what would grow with Tier, and it would let Liz store her own iron infused blood with no detriments. They immediately paid to upgrade the glove to Tier 6, and Liz gave both of her teammates endless praise.

Seeing her so happy was enough for Matt. It was far better than getting items for himself.

The fox of the hour was treated with an all-you-can-eat buffet at the ice cream parlor. She was dead to the world when they finally returned to their island, so the two celebrated by themselves.

When the next morning came around, Matt went to check out their rifts, and noticed that the blood rift for Liz was sitting there, waiting for testing.

Now that they had a growth item for Liz, they could risk the Tier up and the rift losing its growth item base. It would be great if it worked out for them, but if it didn’t, they only lost some time.

Liz came up to him and watched as he tiered the rift up. To his disappointment, standard bears came out, even while using her fast converting mana stone to charge the rift and including another bucket of Liz’s blood. Without a second layer of added growth items to build upon, they had lost the blood and growth item base on the Tier up

Liz rubbed his shoulder, “It’s fine. We got lucky enough with the one. We can try again with a standard rift made from my mana and blood.”

Matt looked over to her. “Why? I thought you would have been more upset.”

“I love you and Aster, but you were going crazy to get me a perfect item. Can you honestly tell me that you weren’t going to try again if the rift Tiered up perfectly?”

“I was going to tone it down, but yes, I think we could have gotten you other good things out of that rift.”

Matt knew that was mostly bullshit, but he wanted her to have the best. The odds would have been terrible, but they could have delved it for an hour a day to see if they got anything out of it. Losing the attunement meant that they lost whatever increased possibility for a growth item they might have had. But they still could make a new one and roll the dice, like they normally did.

Liz hugged him, “Thank you. I really mean it, but I don’t want to see you run yourself ragged. Neither of you.”

***

They had been delving the Tier 5 rifts for nearly three months after the investigator incident when the world froze. It was like when Gregor, a Tier 41, used his spirit to lock them down, but it was the entire world. Even the ocean waves froze in their motion next to their beach camp.

From everywhere, there was a voice that resonated, and a message was projected to his AI. It came with video and sound, though the second was pointless, as he could hear the man fine.

“I am Colonel Throne, Tier 33, and in command of the 44th infantry battalion. We are here under orders of the Emperor himself. He has decided to allow the vassal Queendom to declare war on your Kingdom for the Tier 20 planet. In his wisdom, he sees this Tier 6 planet as the nexus point, and is gathering the Empire’s promising youths to fight for both sides. With the good Duke Waters taking our position of guarding and expanding the Empire’s borders, we have been given the task to watch and protect the youth who decide to fight.”

The dark-haired man looked sternly into the broadcast, and the pressure took on the flavor of blood, hate, and anger. It made Matt want to cower in the corner, and slaughter everyone who came near him.

Thankfully, he was locked down and unable to move, and the bloodlust lasted only a heartbeat. But it was enough to see that this was a man who had worked his way up through the battlefield.

“Anyone who wishes to avoid this battle is welcome to leave, and will be given an escort to a safe location. Anyone who chooses to stay will earn Empire War Contribution Points, and be able to acquire special rewards. Do not underestimate the rewards, but also do not underestimate the dangers. My men will be watching everything, but death can still happen, no matter how unlikely.”

The Colonel looked like he wanted to spit, but refrained from doing so.

“This is ‘babies first war’, meant to dip the feet of children into the shallow end. The hope is that when you reach Tier 15, and get thrown into the deep end, you fare much better with this experience. To that end, those who are allowed to fight will be the Tier 5 and Tier 6 Pathers of the Empire. Any locals who are here now can be up to Tier 7, to act as generals and VIP’s. No one else will be allowed to interfere, unless they would like to challenge my battalion.”

“Make your decision before morning and choose a side. Any and all decisions will be final tomorrow morning, going off the standard time of the entrance teleport location. For anyone who doesn't answer, we will assume you want to leave.”

With that, the pressure and message ended. The word returned to normal, and the waves crashed as they should.

Matt shuddered. That was only a Tier 33. He didn’t want to think of what the Tier 41 investigator could have done.

He looked to Liz, who had a shocked look on her own face.

A message detailing the contents of the Colonel’s message and supplementary info was provided.

Matt scanned it quickly and asked, “What should we do?”

Liz shrugged, “I’m looking through the rewards, and while they would be amazing if we didn’t have access to the Empire Market already, they are useless to us. We have access to everything, so this really doesn’t open up any doors for us.”

Matt scanned the short list of expected rewards as she spoke and agreed. There were a few Tier 6 and 7 rewards that would be nice to get, but nothing they couldn’t earn when they reached the appropriate Tier.

“I don’t see any reason to fight in this. We’ll have to leave earlier than we wanted, but we knew we couldn’t stay forever. We're at peak Tier 5, so while we can fight, we’d need to leave Tier 5, along with the possible growth items to earn anything impressive. I say we skip this one.”

Liz just nodded as he spoke, and as he reached to click the no option, a message overlaid his decision.

As someone who takes a harder Path, your manager has decided that you must fight. While you may pick a side, you must fight if you wish to stay on The Path of Ascension.

A second message followed that up, saying, ‘The team is still being assembled, but I received word of this early, and feel it is ideal for you both to participate. This is both more and less than the golem fight you had. Learn from this. It might be the only chance you get before you fight in a real war. - G.’

The message had no ID and was simply signed with a ‘G’. Matt was pissed. The first thing they heard from their manager was an order to send them into a planet-wide battle.

Matt wanted to be mad but quickly cooled off, the last line mirrored what the Colonel had said. This might be their only chance to fight in a massive battle before they hit Tier 15, and the stakes were real. After some consideration, he wasn’t sure that they could pass the opportunity up, no matter how much he didn’t want to see people die in droves like in the golem attack.

Liz just grinned at him. “We said we wanted to get pushed. I guess this means our vacation is over. Time to Tier up and prepare for the fight I guess. Which side do you want to choose?”