The Path of Ascension

Chapter 2

“Matt I need you to check the staff bathroom. The water is really slow,” Beatrice called out as she walked by.

“Is it the hot, cold, or both, Bee?” Matt called out from the maintenance room, where he was assembling a table. He got no response, as apparently, Beatrice had already walked off to return to the slow lunch crowd.

Matt decided to finish the table first as a bar fight last week had destroyed nearly half of the tables in the common room before it was brought under control. And they only had enough spare tables in reserve to make the common room not have too many gaps. So Matt had been making tables in all of his spare time to fix the common room and then get their surplus back.

If Benny wasn’t such a tight ass with money and bought better tables instead of treating them as disposable, I wouldn’t be playing amateur carpenter every other week. Or hire a bouncer.

Matt finished the table and grabbed his plumbing bag. As he walked through the common room, he looked for Beatrice, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and two customers were at the bar, clearly waiting to be helped. Matt didn’t recognize them, so probably new customers.

Where is Beatrice? Must be nice to be able to slip out for a dozen smoke breaks just because you sleep with the boss.

That made him pause. Maybe she did earn the extra breaks. After all, no one else wanted to be near the man.

If Matt didn’t help new customers, Benny would have his ass despite the fact Beatrice was supposed to be the one manning the common area.

Matt hurried over to the front desk part of the bar and greeted the guest. “Hello, how can I help you this afternoon, sir and ma’am?” Benny expected unfailing politeness to his guest and would side with any paying customer before taking the side of his staff.

“We’d like a room, please, but we don’t know how long we’re gonna be in the area, so what can you do around umm, say a two-week stay with the possibility of it going longer.” The man answered, and Matt got a better look at him as he was lit by the bar’s brighter lighting.

He was tall based on Matt’s 5’10 at least 6’2, possibly 6’3, dark hair and gray eyes with a face that, while hard looked, used to laughing. The woman next to him was probably 5’9. The ponytail of copper-colored hair made her green eyes pop even more in the dim lights.

What took Matt by surprise wasn’t their good looks. It was that these two felt far stronger to his spiritual sense than the normal Tier 2 and 3’s that usually frequented Benny’s. Even stronger than the Tier 4’s, though that was beyond his ability to get a good sense of.

It made Matt nervous if these two wanted to start trouble. No one here could stop them or even would want to stop them.

If they felt slighted no one was there to greet them, I don’t want to think about what Benny would do to me to keep in their good graces.

“Yes, sir, we have a few packages that seem to be what you need. If you’d like we have a room for a week and after that, it’s just pay by the day for the same rate. It does come with unlimited training room access and three meals a day. All for just 400 credits a week and then 60 credits a day going forward. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

It was the woman who answered him, “We’ll take it. Can you show us to our room, please? Then to the training room.” She swiped at the payment reader, and Matt saw the ‘accepted’ immediately appear.

“Yes ma’am” Matt did as requested, and they only stayed in their room long enough to drop off their bags. Then Matt led them to the training room, where the woman looked around at the training dummies in obvious disappointment.

Why is she disappointed? The training aids are only 10 years old and updated with the newest software attack and defense patterns of tier 4 speed. It’s one of the few nice things this place has.

“Is there something wrong ma’am? These training aids go up to Tier 4, and the software was just upd...”

Before Matt could finish, she cut him off with a “No, it’s fine. I just forgot where we were for a moment”

Matt decided to leave before she could take her obvious disappointment out on him. He had a sink to fix.

Only a year left. Keep your chin up. You got this.

***

The alarm went off at 3:55, and Matt was down at the training room by 4. He had two hours of practice time before Benny was up and would assign some tasks.

Matt started with a few warmups then used the variable bar to do strength training. Today was legs which meant he would be walking like a newborn for the rest of the day.

Using part of the PlanetNet vouchers Miles had given him, he had found a training routine that would be good for a young man looking to be a melee delver. It wasn’t amazing, but it had been free and did not require proprietary supplements or a subscription to a sketchy website like so many others did.

As he completed each set, he recorded his weights and sets, trying to keep the fatigue at bay. He’d been working twelve-hour days with as much physical training as he could manage for the last year, and while he had clear results, he was bone tired. Even when he slept, he was tired.

Each rep was paired with the mantra of ‘one more year’.

After his weight training, Matt took his usual practice longsword down and started a Tier 2 combat sequence on the training dummy. It was faster and stronger than him at this setting, and with his wobbly legs, Matt would be adding to his ever-rotating collection of bruises.

Matt practiced in rounds of five minutes, trying to inflict damage while avoiding being hit as much as possible. Everything he read on the CityNet said that injuries were what stopped most low Tiered delvers.

With few Healers on the planet and fewer still that were public with their skill meant an injury could only be healed with mundane methods, and that meant months of recovery if it was bad. That meant months of not delving and not progressing. It meant months of wasted income and added debt.

I can’t afford to get injured.

It’s so shit that living on a low Tiered planet meant that anyone with a Talent in healing or a Talent healing skill was immediately snatched up by one of the guilds and brought off planet, which left only the lucky few that got a healing skill as a rift reward and didn’t take that opportunity to join a guild and do the same. Or the few insane enough to sell such a valuable skill shard.

Can I blame them, though? I was going to do the same. Am I just bitter that I couldn’t leave this backwater?

Matt thought to himself that was truer than he liked to admit.

The training aid landed a blow that brought Matt out of contemplation and back into the fight. With a pivot and an upward slash, Matt deflected the next blow and brought his sword down on the training aid’s collarbone. The blow was hard and clean enough that the lights flashed red, signifying a ‘kill’.

The aid had a programming oversight that didn’t handle overhead attacks on its right side well. It was hard not to abuse it, Matt didn’t want to develop habits that might get him killed, but an obvious flaw in an opponent was possible.

Matt heard the beep that signified his three minutes of rest started.

He picked up his water bottle and wiped the sweat off his face, and stretched. Stopping when he saw someone was in the other corner of the room.

Is it that late already? Am I late for work?

Matt quickly checked his pad and saw it was only 4:23. Looking closer, he noticed it was two someones in the corner, the man and woman that had checked in yesterday. The strong ones.

He didn’t want any trouble, so he turned down the volume on his pad so the beeps wouldn’t disturb the training duo. The last thing he wanted to do was piss off a customer, let alone a strong one.

Matt continued to practice in intervals. As a Tier 1, he didn’t have enough essence or cultivation in his physical side to be able to keep up with nonstop high-intensity combat. At Tier 1, he was only marginally stronger than an unawakened.

Matt had gotten to see a recording of a competition where there were two Tier 15 participants during a lesson of high Tier cultivators in the orphanage. The combatants were so evenly matched the fight lasted over an hour of nonstop combat. Matt’s heart would have exploded if he’d had to fight at that intensity for that long.

Cultivation was the journey of power and strength, after all.

Matt cleaned up his area and stored the training aid along the wall, preparing to go shower. As he walked through the common room to the staff housing hall. He saw Zephyr, an old man who had shown up two or so months ago. The entire time he’d been here, he drank until he passed out on a table, woke up, and kept drinking.

Matt had taken it upon himself to make sure the grumpy old bastard got into his bed most nights and ate at least one meal a day. He recognized the look of loss and despair in the man’s eyes. He saw it every time he looked in a mirror, saw it in the other orphans in his year.

He couldn’t fix Zephyr, but he could at least stop him from killing himself before he got past whatever had broken him.

“Come on, Zephyr, you need to sleep. And drink this.” Matt shoved his water bottle in the man’s hand and glared till he finished it off.

“Alright give me your arm.” He hooked an arm under Zephyr’s arm and helped the man shuffle to his room. He grumbled nonsense at Matt the whole time.

A Tier 4 reduced to this is just sad. Who did he lose to end up like this? Spouse? Kid? Mother? Father? Brother? Sister? Some shitty combination of those?

Matt fished the key card out of Zephyr’s pocket and dumped the old man on his bed. Before he left, he filled a glass with water and put it on the nightstand.

Why is there so much pain? Where is happiness?

***

The next morning Matt was once again down in the training room. At 5’, the redhead and the dark-haired man came in. Unlike yesterday though, the redhead came over to his side of the gym, and once she noticed she had his attention held out a hand to shake.

“The names Dena, sorry I either didn’t get your name when we checked in, or I forgot,” she said with a smile that would have removed any sting had she forgotten his name.

“No, ma’am, that’s my bad. I never introduced myself. The name is Matt” Matt took her hand and gave it a firm shake, and asked, “Is there something I can help with ma’am?”

“There actually is. I’m in need of a sparring partner who specializes in longswords. My husband Eric over there” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb at the man with her, who just nodded at the mention of his name, concentration fully on the floating ball doing circles around his hand. “He’s too busy working on his Mana Control. Would you be interested? I’d pay the standard fee.”

Matt was interested, but there was no way he could take Dena’s money. If Benny found out, he would be out on his ass so quick his head would spin, then he’d be truly screwed.

“I’d be happy to help ma’am, though I can’t take any payment. Part of my duties is to assist guests in any way I can.”

Dena gave him a look that said she sensed something was wrong but wasn’t going to press it.

“How would you like to spar, ma’am? I’m only a Tier 1, so I won’t be able to challenge you, but if you need to practice a certain move or technique, I’m happy to fill whatever role you need me to.”

“I’m more looking to practice my staff technique against the longer weapon, so I’ll reduce my speed and strength to match yours.”

Matt shrugged and said, “whenever you’re ready, ma’am,” and pulled his longsword up into a neutral stance.

As soon as Dena moved, Matt sidestepped the butt of her staff and retaliated with a cut towards her leg when she stepped out of range of his slash.

As the fight progressed, Matt found that Dena wasn’t very used to the staff, which was probably the only thing that stopped her from kicking his ass. Even with her speed and strength reduced to near his levels, Matt found it hard to take the initiative in the fight. Whatever her normal weapons were, she was quite used to melee fighting, and it showed.

She called the end of the training at 6 after several rounds of combat. The breaks were purely for Matt’s benefit as even after an hour of training, she hadn’t even started sweating yet.

Being a higher Tier truly was stepping above the common man.

“Do you train here every day, or do you have a set schedule? This was a far better practice than I thought it would be. You have good instincts with that longsword there.”

Matt made sure he had his breathing under control before he answered, “I’m here every morning, ma’am, and I’d be happy to spar with you as much as you’d like. It was far better than the training dummies even turned up to Tier 2.”

“Good I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

***

Every day for the next month and a half, Matt sparred with Dena and even had the occasional longsword vs. longsword sparring match with Eric when the taller man got fed up with his mana control exercises.

Apparently, he was the dedicated melee fighter of the duo, but he found his Mana Control lacking recently and was working to shore that up.

The few suggestions Eric had given to Matt about longsword combat had greatly increased Matt’s confidence with the blade. There was nothing revolutionary, but he had tips to attack from unexpected angles and a few feints that Matt found enlightening.

Eric was an ax user but said no melee fighter could rely on just one weapon and had to be at least proficient with most of them. Because of the infinite variations of monsters, some would eventually be resistant or were less ideal to fight with one single weapon type.

It was probably the best month and a half of Matt’s life. They were nice to him, didn’t treat him like spare luggage that they were trying to get rid of, or as a charity case because his parents were dead.

The couple treated him with respect even though they were so much stronger than him. They could have treated him like something you’d scrape off a shoe, and no one would have looked askance at them for it.

Matt swore to himself that when he was that strong, he would remember their kindness and strive to show the same to others, so many of the delvers that came through Benny’s treated anyone weaker than them as sub-human and fawned over anyone stronger. It was all so fake. Matt wanted nothing to do with it.

“Hey, Matt, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I’ve got to ask. Why are you here?” Dena looked awkward as she asked, and even Eric looked up from his Mana Control trainer.

“You’re strong, good with a blade, and very hard-working. I’m just confused why you haven’t been snatched up by a guild or party already?”

Matt sighed and said,” No real secret to it. My Tier 1 Talent doesn’t allow mana cultivation, and that invalidated my contract with the guild I was going to join. Any of the other guilds that were willing to take me had terms so absurd I might as well have sold myself into slavery.”

Dena winced, and Eric mirrored her expression. She opened her mouth to speak, clearly going to apologize for something that wasn’t her fault. So Matt cut her off. He didn’t want their pity.

“That’s why I’m working here, Miles the head guild representative, did what he could to help me. He wasn’t able to do much, but he showed me the direction I needed to take. That’s why I’m here saving up money to purchase a slot in a Tier 1 dungeon. Everyone has said that there are no purely detrimental Talents, just paired talents that you need to advance to fix. So I’ll be a solo delver and advance on my own. It’s not even a purely bad thing delving solo. I won’t have to share the essence, so I’ll advance faster, which will let me catch up with my age group.”

“Hopefully the problem is solved at Tier 3 and not Tier 25.” Matt tried to lighten the atmosphere by making a joke.

“Well that’s a shit hand to get dealt, but you didn’t give up, which is the most important thing. If this planet were a higher Tier, you’d be picked up by a guild for that alone. So many delvers lose the will to continue, and that’s not something a Talent can compensate for.” Eric said with a shake of his head.

On that sour note, Matt went about his day.

***

That night there was another fight, this one worse than the usual.

The party of delvers that started it came in later than most, so the common area was full of parties eating and drinking. They sauntered in as if they’d just found the crown jewels of the emperor himself.

Their attitude attracted everyone as they walked to the item identifier. Shoving the man who was about to use it out of the way.

The anticipation built as they placed the skill shard in the reader, they were so cocky and sure they got a good skill they didn’t even bother to set the readout to be sent to their pads and had it display on the large screen for all to see.

Their reason for their arrogance was readily apparent when the first line of text appeared.

Skill shard analyzing…

Cracked skill shard detected. Requesting higher authority to analyze.

A cracked skill shard was a rare variation of skill shard that was modified off the baseline. The change could be anything, and finding two that were identical was said to be impossible.

The most famous cracked skill Matt had heard of was a cracked version of the skill [Shadow Sword]. The original skill let the user project a copy of the weapon to the side during a strike. Nothing crazy as it was only a quarter as strong as the original strike, useful but not amazing.

The cracked version let the user summon fully autonomous shadow swords. Unlike the skill [Sword Minion], which needed real blades and the user’s concentration to control them, or [Sword Doppelganger], which was just a single sword that while autonomous and had the same strength as the original but could be broken with a strong enough hit.

That [Cracked Shadow Sword] let the user summon endless copies at only a quarter strength. Having a few hundred blades that worked together in perfect harmony was a skill everyone feared.

Matt couldn’t remember the name of the individual who had gotten the skill but did remember that they had carved themself out an Earldom over several new planets with that skill alone.

Are we going to see the birth of a legend here?

Matt hoped not.

If the skill turned out to be a useful variation and not neutral or detrimental, it would turn into a bloodbath. These idiots should have never let it be a public reveal. They could get themselves and, more importantly, Matt, killed in the rush to acquire the skill.

Just as Matt was about to escape and the crowd was on the cusp of exploding, the man who had been holding the skill and was probably the leader of the party, with his back still towards the crowd, said, “I’d love to meet the people who would attack the son of Brackus from Brackus holdings.”

That’s what he’s relying on to keep him safe?

Matt was flabbergasted. Brackus holding was a local courier service. While they had power, they weren’t nearly enough of a deterrent to stop people from killing this arrogant ass. The only difference was now they would make sure to kill the witnesses as well.

Matt turned to slip out but saw Zephyr passed out on a table near the item identifier. For a moment, Matt debated leaving the old man. It was his fault he chose a spot where the action would be fiercest.

Just leave him. Getting yourself killed to save a drunk isn’t worth it. Just go.

Matt cursed at himself even as he started towards the old man. In the end, Matt couldn’t just stand by. The trick would be getting close without attracting attention or starting a mad rush towards the party at the item identifier.

Matt got to Zephyr’s table right as the item identifier beeped.

It grabbed everyone’s attention.

Analysis complete…

Skill shard identified as [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Original skill description: Charge 200 mana into the skill, which, when activated, will block one blow that is detected to be lethal or can be activated at user discretion.

Cracked skill description: Channel mana into the skill to activate phantom armor, which will then block physical and elemental damage depending on the rate of mana channeled into the skill.

Rating: Detrimental - extremely niche / useless due to mana cost being continuous. Turning a life-saving skill into a costly defensive skill. Recommend Mage focus cultivation with an emphasis on mana regeneration.

Matt swallowed. No one would be killing for that skill shard but judging by the look on the party leader’s face and the growing laughter of the crowd, a brawl was about to break out.

Matt grabbed Zephyr and whispered, “Start moving. We need to move.”

Before he could get Zephyr moving on wobbly legs, the man who had been pushed out of line spit at the party. “That’s what you arrogant fucks get for cuttin...”

That was all he got before the son of Brackus took the skill shard out of the reader and threw it at the man. While he dodged the projectile, the party leader took that opportunity to punch him in the face, and like that, both parties were brawling, and it immediately started to spread to the rest of the room.

People taking the opportunity to get aggression out or settle grudges.

Matt pulled Zephyr along, no longer trying to be subtle and just trying to find the edge of the fighting. He didn’t want to get crippled by an errant blow.

They had almost made it when something hit him from behind. As he and Zephyr tumbled to the ground, Matt saw a gleam under a broken chair leg.

It was the skill shard.

Matts world slowed.

Matt looked at Zephyr and saw the man was completely out of it, eyes closed, mouth slack.

I have to take the chance. It may be useless for most, but I could use it. I hope this doesn’t get me killed.

Matt quickly grabbed the chair leg and skill shard with it. As he pulled Zephyr to his feet, he raised the chair leg threateningly while letting the skill shard slip into his sleeve.

Matt carefully swung the chair leg at someone’s back and let that knock the wooded weapon out of his hands, then switched arms he was holding Zephyr with, trapping the skill shard in his elbow.

The feeling of the small crystal shard pressing into his flesh haunted Matt’s every step and made adrenaline pump through his veins like never before.

Matt got Zephyr out of the brawl and into his room, quickly dumping him on the bed before heading to the maintenance room. When Matt was closing the door and couldn’t possibly be seen by Zephyr, and before he fully stepped into the hall and visibly to the cameras, he shoved his right hand into his pocket and let the skill shard fall in.

When Matt got to the maintenance room, he prepared to start making tables and chairs as a cover. Benny popped in not five minutes later once the noise died down.

“Oh good, you already started. And I saw you getting the old man out of there. I can’t charge him for rent if he’s dead. Good work.”

Matt resisted the urge to scowl when Benny made callous statements like that. He had practice. The comments were commonplace.

“No problem, boss. What’s the damage? Do we need more tables or chairs?”

“Tables. People can eat standing up, but no one wants to eat on their lap. If they wanted to sit, they wouldn’t use my chairs as fucking weapons.” With that, Benny stomped out.

Matt let out the breath he’d been holding.

He almost shit himself when Benny said, ‘I saw you’. Matt expected Benny to check on him, but if he had seen him steal the skill shard, Benny would have killed him. Useful or not, lazy as he was, Benny did treat his customers like they were his only source of income, which they were.

Matt knew that he shouldn’t be checked on for the rest of the night. The spare tables and chairs were kept in a separate storage room, so there should be no interruptions while he hid the skill shard.

If the arrogant party complained that the skill shard was missing, which Matt bet they would, Benny would try and appease them by searching the staff. It was Benny’s standard practice, so he could say he did his best.

Matt grabbed a finished table, wedged it under the door handle, went to the desk, and pulled out his pad.

It was an older model and had seen repair by Matt and the previous owners. Matt pulled out a shim and carefully pried off the back. He immediately ripped out the speaker. The sound was tinny and intermittently went out, so no real loss.

Matt carefully placed the skill gem into the newly open space. It was a close fit. The shard was longer than wide, thankfully, a little less than an inch long, and a quarter-inch wide at the middle.

Most of the cramped internals were taken up by the screen, the processor was small, and the mana battery was even smaller.

The skill shard nestled in just fine next to the battery. Matt grabbed a hot glue gun and, after it heated up, put a drop under the skill shard, stopping it from rattling and giving its hiding place away.

Matt closed the pad back up and checked to make sure it still worked. Nothing seemed amiss, and Matt shook it to see if he could hear anything move.

Not a sound. Perfect.

After cleaning up and putting everything away, Matt smiled and was about to get back to making tables when he saw the small speaker. He couldn’t leave it out. It wasn’t like anyone else came in here but leaving any clue to his theft was stupid.

He proceeded to smash the small speaker till only indiscernible powder remained, which was tossed to intermingle with the dust and debris already in the shop.

The evidence of his theft taken care of, Matt started making tables. He had been at it for about an hour when the shouting started, and Matt smiled. Shortly after that, Benny came in with the irate party leader.

As soon as he saw Matt, he started shouting, “Did you steal it, boy? I’ll fucking kill you if you took it.”

Inside, Matt smiled. That was all he needed to hear. It was a question, not a statement.

Outwardly Matt put on a surprised face and stood up, asking, “steal what, sir? I didn’t steal anything. Benny would kill me if I did, and I’ve been working here for over a year. Never stole a thing.”

The man didn’t seem to care. He had a wand in his hand that he was pointing at Matt.

Matt knew what it was; it was a mana detector. It only worked at close ranges but would find mana concentrations. Which meant a skill shard would be detected if it wasn’t right next to a mana battery which would overpower any reading with unstructured mana.

Matt hadn’t expected the man to have a detector like this on hand, but it was a standard tool used at the orphanage to check for any kind of mana contraband. Matt wasn’t concerned.

“Come here, Matt, let the man scan you. I don’t think you took it, but if you did, say so now. Even if you swallowed it, the wand will detect it. Don’t do something stupid.” Benny looked bored and was clearly only humoring the man.

Matt, with nothing to fear, walked over and let the man run the wand over him, focusing on his stomach, shoes, and pockets. After a murmured curse, he started waving the wand over all the drawers. He found nothing and stomped out moments later.

Matt wanted to set up more of an alibi, so he asked Benny before he left. “Wouldn’t it be more likely that someone else took it and absorbed it already?”

Benny looked tired and answered, “Na, not that anyone would want to take that shit skill, but it takes days to absorb a skill.” He looked at the tables Matt had stacked in a corner and said as he was leaving, “that’s enough for tonight, just go to sleep and finish tomorrow. All this over, a great life-saving skill turned into a shitty defensive one. Whoever heard of a channeled defensive skill?”

As Benny turned the corner, Matt heard the murmuring turn to ‘arrogant whelps who throw skill shards then want them back’.

Matt was surprised Benny didn’t try and get him to stay up all night to finish, he had before. “Thanks, boss. I’ll be sure to finish it up first thing tomorrow”.

Not caring if Benny heard him, Matt took the excuse he was handed and fled to his room.