The Path of Ascension

Their preparation wasn't as simple as last time.

They started by doubling down on their training, with Kurt overseeing the melee aspect and Luna the magical.

Kurt actually stopped them from training with their new gear against him after they got used to it, instead sending them to fight members from the various local guilds closer to their Tier. The arrangement felt just like they had returned to the vassal kingdom's world, and were able to duel the other Pathers. Except this time, they were fighting entire teams, which were all at least two Tiers above them.

They lost many of these fights, but never so severely to necessitate healing. Kurt broke down each battle for them and analyzed where they could improve. Matt was the most restricted out of the three, having been handed a strict mana usage limit. Despite that, he managed to give a good showing.

Without their AI, they were put at a disadvantage from the start. The predictive algorithms gave their opponents a distinct edge that was hard to overcome. Spells and skills kept them slightly unpredictable, but not to the degree they were accustomed to. That was when Luna sat them down and deconstructed how AI algorithms worked, and the problems that lay within.

At their Tier, AIs weren't stupid, but they didn’t have the time or mana capacity to truly break away from the limits of their initial programming. Until then, the AIs’ predictions could be, quite ironically, rather predictable. Their base algorithms could be tricked by setting traps with certain stances that normally flowed to other stances or moves. By using the first stance, then transitioning to a stance that could exploit the original stance’s counter, they were nearly always able to beat someone who only relied on their AI.

As simple as that sounded, it wasn't quite as easy to put into practice. The AIs were seldom tricked twice in the same way, and it was like learning a completely new combat style for every position they could be in. The trio did learn though, and even gained valuable insight to their own combat methods, despite Luna barring them from using their own AIs.

To Luna’s distaste, Aster still struggled to properly use the sword attachment on her tail. The older evolved beast convinced Aster to hide the sword in the fluffiness of her tail, and save it for sneak attacks, which gave her a bit of unpredictability. No enemy expected Aster to turn and slice their leg off with her floof.

Liz toiled at first with her new spear, which Kurt insisted that she use in as many forms as possible. For training and sparring, she used mock replicas of the weapon in its halberd, great axe, and hammer forms, to avoid wasting her valuable Blood Iron but never in fights.

She worked long and hard to internalize the new fighting styles that the different weapons demanded of her. But with so much to learn, her progress was still slow. Matt sparred with her, but he couldn’t actually teach her about her new weapons. He knew them well enough to use one in a pinch, but they weren't exactly his preferred style. Kurt used that lack to push him during the training as well, but didn't force Matt into the same variety of weapons he did with Liz, just increasing Matt's ability with blunt weapons.

Where Liz did excel was swapping weapon forms in a fluid manner. With her true weapon and its shape-shifting function, Liz was able to rapidly change between styles, and was able to create an unpredictable fighting style. One second her enemies were blocking a spear thrust, and the next, they were dodging a heavy chop from a halberd. If anyone then tried to get in close, she switched to the great axe or hammer forms. The only reason Luna and Kurt allowed her to use it, instead of a normal halberd, was that Liz usually used a medium length spear, not a weapon as long as the halberd usually was. A weapon that long had problems in a lot of rifts and no one wanted to create problems for themselves.

Liz only really struggled when she was forced to use a single weapon form for longer than a blow or two. She fell back on her spear too easily, which led to her defeat on more than one occasion. Still, she was improving massively between each fight.

In addition to their training with Kurt, Luna also had them practicing their Concepts every day. She led them through both their general applications, and the abilities granted by their specific Concepts.

They spent a minimum of two hours a night, right before they went to bed, exhausting their willpower on Luna’s Concept training.

Matt was quite proficient in stepping on hardened air, and could even climb a few Concept created stairs to get an approximation of flight. But he was still struggling to raise himself in the air without the platform. He also had a difficult time using his Concept to zipper the air around himself, to help him move just a bit faster than he normally could. Luna had explained that he needed to start training now, because once he reached T15, he'd be breaking the sound-barrier. If he was still interacting normally with the air, then, he'd be too easy to track and it would slow him down. Sometimes he was able to get it, but other times, he ended up creating walls in his own way. More often than not, it led to a sudden and painful stop.

He also was completely unable to lock down space to prevent teleportation. He wasn't sure why, but Luna was growing more and more frustrated while he struggled with it. She never said anything, but he had spent enough time with her to recognize the look of impatience in her eye growing with each failure.

Liz, with her internal Concept, struggled with all of the physical applications except moving air. Kurt said that was mostly normal for internal Concepts, and had her doing exercises to practice influencing things outside of her body without using blood to interact with everything but there was little progress on that front.

Aster actually had the least issues among the trio. Locking a space down was a breeze for her, with her absolute zero Concept. It was second nature to the fox for things to ‘freeze in place’. Matt wasn't sure he understood the logical leap that she was making, but realized that was probably why he was struggling with the training himself.

Aster also succeeded in using her Concept to warp the light around herself to a degree. As of now, she could only blur colors, but it was far more than Matt or Liz could do. It wasn't practical for stealth against anyone with their own Concept, as Aster's control of her own power was tenuous at best. When she used the ability, it was like she was screaming her presence to anyone with their own Concept.

Luna did say that was normal, but technically fixable. Normally, if she or Kurt wanted to remain invisible, they used one of the invisibility skills, or their own Intents or Aspects. All had their flaws, but against people weaker than themselves, they were easily dealt with.

Aster struggled with flying and air zippering as much as Liz did. Which was to say, she couldn't even manage to touch on the requisite skills.

Two months into the new training regime, the three of them tackled the Tier 8 wave rift. With their upgraded weapons and armor, they were able to reach the twentieth wave, which they learned was the final one. The boss had been the only monster to come back to life, and it took the combined efforts of all three of them half an hour to finally take it down. They estimated that the monster was at the peak of Tier 9 in power. They only won the fight because they outnumbered it, and the monster wasn’t all that good with its blade.

None of the zombies returned to life and the mist didn't rise again. When they finished checking their surroundings and entered the house, they discovered that a trap door had opened in front of the stairs.

Matt carefully led the way down the stairs into the darkness, where they found what appeared to be a room of ritual sacrifices.

There were no enemies, but they did find a skill shard nestled in a book that seemed to be made from poorly stitched together human flesh.

Liz used a tendril of blood to grab the skill from a distance, but nothing happened, and they returned to the second floor. There, they received a second skill shard and exited the rift.

Luna and Kurt were both standing there as they exited.

Kurt clapped for them as Luna pulled the two skills to herself.

Kurt wrote, “Well done. I didn’t expect you to beat that big guy this time. Good teamwork.”

Luna tossed both skills back to Matt and Liz, saying, “Well, that rift is now on the keep list. Two Tier 14 skills. Hmmm. We'll need to notify the local noble that they need extra security for an undead rift.” She tapped her chin while looking at the distortion. “The boss was Tier 9 in strength at the end, but that's still incredibly rare. It probably has something to do with the rift being full as well.”

Matt had to agree. At Tier 8, rifts normally dropped only Tier 8 skills. From Tier 9 to Tier 13, rifts dropped Tier 8 skills at the same twenty-five percent chance, but that wasn't the whole story. Just as rifts below Tier 8 could drop skills, Tier 9 through Tier 13 rifts had an increasing chance to drop Tier 14 skills. At Tier 13, there was an even chance between Tier 8 and Tier 14 skills. It was incredibly rare for a Tier 8 rift to drop not one, but two Tier 14 skills.

Luna wanting to save it made complete sense.

“The one from the sacrifice room is [Lesser Sacrifice]. If you use it and kill an enemy, the essence is consumed by the skill for a mana boost, along with a pretty hefty, but temporary boost to all of your cultivation stats. Both magical and physical. The conversion rate is pretty bad, but…”

All three of them looked impressed, and were excited to see what Liz’s Talent would turn the skill into. There were a ton of possibilities, and most of them were good.

Liz took the skill and immediately slipped it into the skill locking band, then clamped it to her wrist. It was too perfect for them to consider giving the skill to anyone else.

Luna held up the other skill shard. “This is the armor skill that the boss used. [Shadow Armor]. It's a fairly rare Tier 14 skill.”

Seeing Matt's hopeful gaze, she shook her head. “Sorry, Matt. It's worse than your skill. It's a reserve skill, with the advantage that it can heal itself, yes. The problem is, it’s weak to melee attack while excelling at magical defense. It’s also useless against void, which it has no ability to resist.”

Matt sighed. That was a straight-up downgrade to [Cracked Phantom Armor]. It wasn't like his armor needed to be recast every time its damage threshold was breached like normal armor skills. It just reformed once the object no longer blocked its plane as long as he kept the skill active.

Still, it could be useful for Liz or Aster. Liz already had an armor skill, but her Talent meant that this could transform into something unique.

Aster, on the other hand, could use it as it was, which was still an improvement to her nonexistent armor skills.

They talked it over and decided to give the skill to Aster. His bond wasn't super happy with the drab color, but accepted it without much more than a grumble or two. She was quite proud that her armor, while quadrupedal, was a nearly identical copy of Matt’s armor when he used the more ornate second layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Liz’s Talent was beyond powerful. The skill [Lesser Blood Sacrifice] did everything they hoped for and more. It didn’t take essence to power itself, but blood. And while the conversion rate was worse for both mana and the power boost, Liz didn’t lack for blood, and the buff stacked. It sadly had a soft cap in the available boost because summoned blood couldn't be used to empower the skill, and each buff had a separate cooldown. Still, it was still an incredible power spike for Liz, and partially solved Luna’s critique about Liz being too dependent on Matt’s concept. It would let her use the essences blood she created in a fight to kill faster and sacrifice more blood snowballing her damage to an insane degree.

They intended to delve the Tier 8 rift to get three more copies of the skill, so they could all have an original version of it, as they weren’t able to use the essence anyway. But they decided to attempt the Tier 9 rift first. The mana wasn't needed, and the boost to their cultivation wasn't necessary for their plans.

Together, they stepped through the rift entrance and appeared on the familiar, wooded mountainside.

They quickly cleared the rift's first portion of shadow assassins. Through experimentation,they learned that the method the shadows used to materialize wasn't perfect. As Aster had noticed before, the smell of the monster was apparent before anything else. Then, there was a slight noise of displaced air as one appeared. At the same time, the visual aspect of the object changed right before the monster appeared.

That was a part of Luna’s anti assassination training. Low Tier invisibility or camouflage techniques all had flaws. This one was the smell of the monster appearing first, then in rapid succession, the rest of the illusion faded.

With their theory confirmed, they were able to slowly but safely clear the rest of the path to the city entrance.

There Matt boarded his flying sword and rose into the air to survey the city.

He was mentally untangling the maze-like city, when a massive building in the center of the city started to glow a fiery red. The building was nearly as wide as it was tall, with the same slanted shingled roofs that had ornamentation on every flat surface.

The fire grew brighter, and Matt started to worry. It wasn't natural, and had only started when he took to the air. Getting [Fire Manipulation] ready, Matt started to descend to his teammates.

He was just too slow.

An arm thick beam of fire lashed out, and resisted any control that Matt could exert on it with his [Fire Manipulation]. Matt threw himself to the side, while commanding his flying sword to fly up and in the opposite direction.

The beam of fire quickly lashed upward, and sliced his flying sword into two uneven halves that were instantly melted with follow-up blasts of fire before they hit the ground.

“My sword!”

Matt couldn't believe it. That was his first and favorite flying sword. He and Keith had scoured and reviewed every Tier 7 flying sword on the market to find the perfect one for him, and it was gone, just like that.

The damn tower hadn't even left him with slag to keep as a memento.

Liz and Aster rushed over, asking, “Are you ok?”

Matt threw up his hands. “No! I’m clearly fucking not! I liked that sword! Someone’s going to pay with their head for destroying it.”

Matt could hear the eye roll as Liz said, “Ok, you're fine then. So while this place doesn't have an anti-flying formation, it’s the kind of rift that attacks anything that flies. Good to know.”

Aster poked Matt's face with her nose with a questioning thought of her checking the air, but Matt just patted her in reassurance.

He got to his feet, retrieved his longsword, and said, “Well, we’ll be able to fly fine when I kill whoever is up in that tower.”

Liz pointed out, “Could be the building itself.”

“Well then, I’ll knock the fucking building to the ground.”

That ended the conversation. Matt was still fuming as they entered the city, but forced himself to remain rational. While his AI hadn’t gotten a perfect look over the massive city, it had gotten enough to help them avoid turning in circles.

Their first encounter with a troop of orcs was night and day compared to their last one. Matt’s upgraded weapon cut through armor and flesh as if they were nonexistent.

Liz fared even better than he did. Her new weapon and armor allowed her to fight toe to toe with the Tier 9 monsters.

Aster avoided getting hit with her smaller, more nimble form as she continually froze feet and armor at the perfect moment, allowing Liz and Matt to dispatch the orcs in short order.

Just to test her combat abilities, she soloed a single group of orcs. She had to quickly rotate through her skills to avoid the spears that destroyed any skill or spell that lingered for more than a second or two but fared well otherwise.

Aster started with a spurt of [Hail], then transitioned to [Ice Manipulation] to surround all the orcs in ice, and finished with [Shatter]. Even with the magic-resistant shield, the orcs were shredded in seconds, as their armor did nothing to stop the onslaught of ice from all directions.

With their combat prowess proven, they moved through the city with more speed. They even took fights with more than one squad at a time when they needed to push through a certain part of the city.

They only struggled slightly with the orc squad leaders bearing flags. It took them five fights with one of the ten orc squads before they settled into a working routine. Aster would hold the attention of the red armored monster by shooting him with ice. That simple tactic was enough to keep his attention completely on the fox. Her small size meant that the orc had trouble actually hitting her. When the orc did get too close, she simply created some water, then flash froze it. She had no trouble walking on slick ice, but the boss struggled.

Her toying with the ever-strengthening boss gave Matt and Liz time to slaughter the other orcs, who were no stronger than the other squads.

It took them close to six hours before they reached the central tower.

Matt had expected it to be the headquarters of the orcs, but the patrolling squads avoided the building like it would set them ablaze as well.

They entered the wide-open door to find a simple layout that was conspicuously empty. The lack of any enemies caused them to take extra care as they climbed the ten-story building, but they found nothing.

No guards, no shadow assassins in the objects of the building… nothing.

As they reached the ninth floor, they found the first oddity. The ceiling was made from some sort of brick or stone, and it radiated heat that they could even feel from the floor below.

When they reached the steps, Matt carefully poked his head over the lip of the floor, to find they were facing a giant chicken.

A giant flaming chicken.

A giant flaming chicken, at the peak of Tier 9.

It was sitting in a nest of charred timbers, but it was still a giant firebird.

Matt popped down and said, “I think your flightless cousin is up there.”

Liz was confused until he shared his AI recording of the view he had gotten, and his girlfriend winced.

“Matt, let me remind you. Please don't ever call a phoenix a chicken. That really, really pisses off mom. That isn't a phoenix. It's a flaming ostrich.”

Matt grumbled, “They're both flightless birds, and they're both on fire. And what will your mom actually do?”

Liz shrugged. “Last time someone said she was a chicken who just laid eggs all the time, she followed them around and burnt their hair and clothes off at inopportune moments. Just don't. You won't win that one.”

Matt made a note of that, but pointed up at the ceiling and asked, “So what's the plan? I'm pretty sure this is the sub-boss that Luna was talking about. It feels strong.”

Liz highlighted a portion of the AI recording Matt had missed. “Look here, there are giant lenses on each of the walls. I'm pretty sure that was how the ostrich shot such a strong beam of fire at you. The glass concentrated it. That means we probably won't have to deal with such a strong fire attack.”

Aster quietly yipped, “Also explains why it burnt the sword.”

Matt and Liz looked down to her, and she explained, “Jealous it can't fly. Stupid chicken.”

He resisted a snicker at Aster picking up that insult. It was funny.

It also made sense, and they hadn’t seen any other birds in the rift, which the jealous chicken might be responsible for.

After hashing out a rough plan, Matt ran up the stairs and cast [Hail] directly over the nest. The ice spell worked about as well as they expected.

Not at all.

The ice turned to vapor before it even reached the bird. It did obstruct the long-necked chicken’s vision enough that it completely missed its first stream of fire at Matt. Now that he was close he could feel it wasn’t pure heat vaporizing the ice but some part of the monster's Concept at play.

The attack was noticeably weaker than one that killed his flying sword, but Matt didn't let himself get overconfident. He could still feel the heat from the attacks passing.

He could feel it through his stupidly strong armor skill.

If he got hit, he was sure that he would be seriously burned at best.

Matt lashed out with his sword, and a crescent of mana smashed into the bird, bringing its attention to him long enough for Aster and Liz to get into their positions.

Rolling out of the way of another attack, Matt rushed forward, only to be forced to dodge once again.

The stupid chicken, as it turned out, really was an ostrich. The characteristic long legs and neck were revealed as soon as the boss stood up and stomped its feet.

The nest it had created for itself roared to life with an outward wash of flame that Matt was unable to control with [Flame Manipulation]. He was forced to activate his physical armor enchantments, and to cast [Create Water] over his head. Even with all of that protection he still felt the skin of his face and limbs singe.

His AI said that Liz and Aster were ok, so Matt rushed forward while bringing his blade around, and a mana-filled arc flew into the flaming feathers of the beast.

The rune inside of the weapon was only Tier 7, but Matt had no problem bridging the Tier gap with mana. The two thousand mana stored in the weapon exploded out with a burst of wind that caused the flames to gutter out for a moment.

The sub-boss screamed, which roused the flames from the entire room to life at its cry.

But Matt had still done his job.

A thigh-thick shard of ice took the bird in the head. Unlike his hail, this attack was hardly diminished by the incredible heat, and cut a furrow into the face of the monster.

Then, as the boss was turning its attention to Aster, Liz came in with an oversized axe that thunked into the skinny leg as if it were a tree.

The scream was ear-shattering as the boss stumbled. Another wash of flame cascaded out in an expanding circle and hit Matt and Liz. They were close enough to take damage, but this wasn't the first time they had been badly burned, so they continued to fight.

Luna’s training had prepared them for this.

Keeping his breath held, Matt swapped places with Liz the second she removed her axe. He intercepted the [Fireball] that the monster had aimed at her with a swing of his own blade.

The explosion of a partially charged [Mana Charge] and [Fireball] colliding caused a shockwave that sent Matt tumbling, but a second scream echoed out as Liz took a swing at the other leg.

The flaming ostrich fell to the ground and started to glow as it let out a piercing wail of pain.

As the heat in the room increased, Matt felt the boss's Concept infusing the fire, making it all the more deadly.

The wing that Matt had damaged with his first attack knocked Liz back, but a shadow-covered Aster stood in the open and screamed.

If she had been a wolf, the cry would have been majestic, but since she was a fox, it was too high pitched and warbly to be anything other than amusing.

What wasn't funny was the weight of Aster's cold Concept.

Aster rejected the bird's reality of heat and fire, and replaced it with her own.

His bond’s Concept of absolute zero clashed with the Tier 9 sub-boss's own fire Concept.

Fire and ice. The eternal cycle of everything without essence.

There was a moment where the two powers were in balance, but with a flick of Aster's tail, the tide changed, and the fire went out.

The room, which had been charred and blackened, was instantly transformed into a winter wonderland. Stone shattered, and wood cracked at the rapid temperature change, destroying the objects around them.

Liz was closest, and brought her axe down onto the neck of the stunned bird.

A torrent of essence rushed into Matt, but as he was still a peak Tier 6, it spilled out of his spirit like an overfull glass.

Aster wobbled two steps before using [Heart of Power] on the corpse of the monster. A ripping sound was clearly audible as the chest of the monster ripped out, and a head-sized heart hovered in front of Aster as she tore into it.

As his bond feasted, Matt hobbled over to Liz, who was working her left arm in a way that told him something was wrong.

His AI said it was nothing major, but he still asked, “How's the arm?”

Liz grumbled, “It's the armor. A piece got bent, and it's sticking halfway extended.”

“Are you ok to continue?”

Liz was about to answer when Matt spun. There was a ripple of power from Aster, and Matt felt her mana pool grow slightly.

“Really?”

Matt was honestly jealous. That was the second time the upgraded effect of [Heart of Power] activated and gave his bond a permanent boost to her cultivation.

Liz noticed and laughed, asking, “Was the boss good?”

Aster pranced over, and around the last mouthful of heart, said, “It was like spicy chicken. Let's kill it again.”

They took an hour to rest and recover, with all of them using [Endurance] to its fullest. Aster had used most of her will power to break the bosses Concept and she would need the rest of the day to actually replenish that well of power. Matt was still unable to cast [Ranged Heal] and speed their break up, as his maximum mana pool was still 20 mana short of the spell’s initial cost. He made a note that they needed to buy copies of [Ranged Heal] for Liz and Aster. It was dumb of them to rely on Matt’s endless mana when he didn’t have the mana to cast lifesaving spells.

None of them wasted any time. As Liz hammered her armor back into shape, Matt used their perch to observe the entire city, and record its layout for the rest of their delve.

When they were ready to move on, they decided to spend some time clearing more of the city before moving onto the massive bridge that crossed the bay.

They didn't want to have to retreat through enemy attacks, especially with Matt no longer having a flying device of his own. As they killed more of the orcs there was a sharp increase in the number of assassins but as long as they moved slowly Aster was able to smell the precursor to the transformation and ambush.

While they were all a little worse for wear, they killed enough of the patrols that they were unable to find any other squads, even when using the drones to scout for them.

They carefully laid out a retreat path, then moved forward to cross the bridge.

Before they even set foot on it, the water started to rumble and crash. A massive, whiskered water serpent wrapped around the bridge and screamed at them. Its black, iridescent scales shined with hues of green and purple, and its deep, golden eyes glowed with anger.

The monster’s power felt just like the flaming ostrich's had. This was another sub-boss at the peak of Tier 9.

A jet of water tore a furrow at them. While the bridge was unharmed, the cobblestone path they were walking upon was ripped to shreds.

Matt pulled back with Liz and asked, “Can you handle this monster?”

Liz had a major weakness to water, after all.

If the monster mingled its water with her blood, she’d lose control of the element long before the reverse happened for the monster. After all, it had an entire ocean to pull from, while Liz was far more limited in the amount of blood that she could carry around.

Liz nodded. “I'll be limited, but I think we can take it.”

Aster yipped, “Let's see if snake tastes as good as chicken!”

Matt was more reticent. “We pull back if we don't think we can win. We already learned a lot, but we aren’t in perfect shape. Better to pull back if we need to. Formation three and priority two.”

That meant Matt would be acting as a hybrid tank, but they would pull back if they didn't make significant progress on the monster in the first two or three minutes of the fight, or as soon as one of them felt that they were in danger.

It was one of the more conservative formations that Luna had drilled into them, but it was exactly what they needed right now.

Matt rushed forward and sidestepped a jet of water, but was almost knocked off his feet as a wave crashed over the bridge. He used [Water Manipulation] to create a small bubble around himself.

To his surprise, it actually worked. But as he reached out to do the same with the next wave, he felt a greater power keeping a firm grip on the water.

Not willing to be swept under the wave, Matt used the rings and teleported past the wave, while striking out at the scaly hide of the serpent. It was like smashing his sword on a wall for all the good it did him. He actually felt the repair enchantments on his longsword struggle for the first time in the rift.

Turning back, he saw Liz and Aster struggling to contend against the jet of water that was being sent their way.

Liz was using her Blood Iron, but he could see it being cut through, and Aster was struggling to freeze the tidal waves of water that the serpent could summon from the bay around them.

They were losing their foothold.

Matt made the call.

“Pull back!”

Neither of them said anything, but Matt had to deal with the full attention of the boss as they moved back. It started to turn the jet of water towards him, but Matt used [Air Manipulation] to punch the serpent in the face with as much air as he could control.

It wasn't a strong blow, but it was unexpected, and disoriented the monster long enough for him to safely reach the end of the bridge and join his team.

The four of them had a stare-off until the snake decided that they weren't going to come back, and it unwrapped from the bridge and slithered into the ocean.

They walked back to the entrance once again.

While they had succeeded in progressing deeper into the rift, they had failed in their task of conquering it once and for all.

The worst part was, the exit portal was fairly close to the other side of the bridge.

As Matt walked past the dark forest, he started planning their next attempt.

If the bridge proved too much of an obstacle, they would just have to go around it.