The Path of Ascension

His blade was no longer lodged in its skull, as there was practically no skull left. A massive crater had been removed from the entire left side. The flesh and scales were peeled away at the edges, exposing fragments of bone that were still intact.

Everything in a one foot radius of where Matt embedded his blade in the serpent and unleashed [Mana Charge] was completely vaporized. Even the monster’s brain had been mostly destroyed. He could see bits and pieces leaking into the monster’s mouth.

At the thought, he sat up and tried to get away from the monster. Liz was still lightly holding onto his shoulder, with Aster snuggling in deeper.

With the duo not letting him up, he said, “Don’t let the monster brains get on my arm. I’m already going to have to reattach it. I don’t need it coated in brains too.”

Liz pulled back and wiped her eyes before the blood from the beast started moving at her command. Once enough had gathered, it pried the beasts maw open and grabbed his severed arm.

Seeing it floating towards them, he looked down at his stump and back at the severed arm. Ignoring common sense, he tried to close his left fist. It felt like it should work, but nothing happened.

Liz grabbed the limb and doused it in the remaining portion. After the odd experience of placing his own arm in a spatial bag, Matt stood and looked for his sword. The discharge of the spell and the subsequent fall had blown the blade elsewhere.

With a wince, he reactivated [Cracked Phantom Armor]. The skill covered his body and put a comforting pressure on his stump. He made a mental note to look into that later. The skill acted like a tourniquet, just as it did with the wound in his side from the Tier 1 rift back on the PlayPen.

With the dull throbbing in his arm increasing, he turned to Liz and said, “I’ve got about a day before they can’t reattach the arm and will have to grow a new one. But uhh... Do you mind if we get out of here a bit faster? I don’t know where my sword went.”

“I didn’t notice where it fell either. I was more worried about you.”

After shooting Matt another look of concern, Liz rose on a column of blood. Once she was fifteen in the air, she shot off over the edge of the step pyramid. A minute later, she came back, with his sword following behind on a tide of red.

Aster was still glued to his leg, and he bent to scratch her while Liz returned his sword to him.

Then, he immediately rose and cut out the heart of the beast that nearly ate him. Watching Aster chow down on the massive heart was surprisingly cathartic.

After stowing the weapon, the trio rose to see the exit tear in space. It was behind where the final boss’s statue had been. Over the bowls, where the blood was gathered in between waves, were three rift rewards. Walking up to their respective bowls, they dispelled the distortions in space. Out of Matt’s distortion dropped a small crystal.

A skill shard.

Jackpot. With the pain in his arm temporarily forgotten, he scooped the shard and had his AI scan it.

[Filter]: Choose an element of a selected material and pull it to your hand. 15 mana a second, ten fluid ounces per minute. Only one element can be selected at a time. Selected materials are limited by the user’s knowledge.

It seemed to be a good skill, as far as he could tell. Pocketing it, he looked at Aster and found her pawing at a second skill shard. It looked to be made of blood, instead of the usual clear blue.

“Hey girl, what’d ya get?” As he bent down, his missing arm disrupted his balance, and he had to steady himself before checking the shard. His AI came back with a blank. It didn’t know what type of skill it was.

He looked to Liz to see if she had a higher repository of skills. He had only bought the Tier 8 one. But he was distracted by seeing her with a pair of chakrams. As she brandished them, a bolt of lightning ran between the two, linking them.

“Well, shit. We sure got rewarded this rift. Three rewards and two of them skill shards.”

That got her attention, and she came to check the skill he held out to her.

“Know what this is?”

Spinning the red shard, she answered, “Not a clue. I only have the Tier 8 skill repository, and it’s not in it. Damn. Two skills and a Tier 5 weapon. We made out like bandits. Even with the cost of reattaching your arm and the healing, we came out on top.”

Before they left the rift, they cut the fangs out of the monster, figuring they might be worth something. Afterward, they quickly activated their beacons.

Moments later, they were standing back in the city. The teleporter room was far more sedate than it had been previously at the end of the first week.

The healers, quickly seeing Matt with a missing arm, hustled them off and onto a waiting bed. One of them immediately started calling out information.

“Missing arm, two inches off the elbow. Doused in blood clotting. Prep regrowing mana stones.”

“Hey, I still have the arm.”

Matt was ignored as the healer was commanding his nurses.

Looking at Liz, he saw her reach into the spatial bag and removed his arm before waving it in front of the healer’s face.

“Hello? We have the arm. No need to regrow. We just need it reattached.”

Matt winced at her, using his arm to wave at someone. It just felt wrong. That was his arm.

Once the healer saw the arm, the air of urgency died down a bit, and the healer took it while examining the cut.

“Ah. Ok good. Seems like a fairly clean patch job. What kind of healing do you want? You want...”

Liz cut him off before he could continue, “Full reattachment, with a check-up tomorrow and a guarantee if anything goes wrong with the healing in the next six months.”

The healer looked offended. “I’m a Tier 6 healer. I’ve never had a complaint.”

“Good. So you won’t mind when we get the healing checked out tomorrow. And off-planet.”

The healer just grumbled, and after cutting Matt’s shirt off at the sleeve, he fit the severed limbs together. After sizing the arm up, he uncapped a needle that the nurse handed to him. When it was jabbed into Matt’s thigh, he felt the sensation of everything around him feeling far away.

He wasn’t about to pass out, but it felt as if his body was separated from him. He could feel Liz holding his good hand, but it was like he was watching a movie.

With a green glow, the arm was reattached. Matt understood why he had been numbed. He could feel the bone stitching together, despite the local anesthesia.

It hurt. He had never known bones could feel pain of this variety. He wanted to tear at the itching and tearing sensation. The drugs did their work, and with his good hand being held, he had no energy to reach over.

An eternity later, the healer held up a massive rack of lined up mana crystals. Once he removed his hand, he went back to healing. Matt idly watched the rack get replaced with a second, identical one. The spent rack was taken to a shelf on the wall and replaced yet again.

Some charging stations for the healers, I guess, so they can heal more than bits and pieces.

When the bone was reconnected, the healer moved a clear screen over and rotated it around his arm, looking at the readout. After looking it over, he made a minor adjustment to Matt’s arm and checked the readout once more before moving it back to the side.

“Shit, kid, you have way more physical essence than a normal mid Tier 4. Closer to a peak one.” He wiped at his sweating forehead with a towel, before tossing on his gloves and getting a second pair.

Next, he started reattaching the muscle around his arm. It felt like he was a piece of cloth being stitched together. Definitely not a pleasant experience.

Another two racks of mana crystals later, the arm was reattached, and Matt was able to move it around.

“Go ahead and see if everything feels right.”

Still doped up, Matt moved the recently detached arm and tried to describe it. “I don’t know. Everything still feels far away. But I don’t feel anything pulling or not working.” He clenched his fist and watched the muscles bunch and pull just like they should.

The healer stood and cast a green light that covered Matt’s entire body. Once the light faded, the hazy feeling of the injection disappeared, and his cracked ribs twinged as they healed.

Feeling surprisingly good, he stood up.

“Ten Tier 5 mana stones for the healing. Do you have it in cash? Or would you like to borrow the amount from the guild? Oh, and one week minimum before you can take another healing. It’s only that short because we didn’t have to regrow the whole arm. That, and you got here pretty quickly.”

That stumped Matt for a moment. Healing was free for mundane injuries and non combat-related injuries, but ten Tier 5 mana stones... He understood the idiot whose neck he broke’s pain.

Paying the man upfront, he checked his AI and found a message from Simeon asking how the delve went.

Before he left, he turned and asked the healer, “How much mana did it take to reattach the arm?”

The man looked up from scrubbing his hands and said, “30,000 mana, give or take. A good bit of that is lost with the fast converting mana stones. So call it 50,000 total. Directed healing is more expensive than healing with a single spell.”

He thanked the man once again and turned towards Simeon’s place. Being so close to the man’s office, they decided to swing by.

The man was lounging around and playing a game on the large screen next to his desk. Seeing Matt, he stood and asked, “Hey man, how’d it go? Good rift, eh?”

“I mean, the boss took off my arm. But yeah, lots of essences,” Matt motioned to the cut off sleeve. “Wish you would’ve said it would be a Tier 5 boss, though.”

Simeon, in the process of shaking his hand, paused. “What? Tier 5? The boss should only be at peak Tier 4 with all ten waves completed.”

Looking at Liz, he glared at her abdomen and said, “Wait. You have some blood skill. Any way to create new blood?”

Matt froze, and so did Liz. She burst out. “What the hell? Yeah, I do. You’re trying to tell me that my [Create Blood] was used by the rift? It should be inert. I can’t do anything with the blood but control it.”

The Tier 15 winced and said, “I’d imagine so. But you’d have needed a lot of blood to push it over the edge into Tier 5. Honestly, I’m surprised you manage to get it that far. When we push it over, we send in around two hundred gallons of blood.”

“Fuck. I thought I was losing blood the whole time, but I figured it was just the frenzy of the fight. It must have been taking my created blood while I was mostly using the monster blood.”

She turned to Matt and said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think of that being a possibility.”

Matt waved her off. He didn’t care, and it led to exciting possibilities for their future delves.

He turned back to Simeon, “Just wanted to say thanks for the help getting into the rift. It was definitely worth it. Arm and all.”

An air of cheer returned as Simeon just laughed and said, “Yeah, the rewards will never be that good again. Don’t even expect half that. Mostly, the rift is good for essence. It allows us to get a lot of promising Tier 4’s to Tier 5 by the end of the six months.”

After some more small talk, they went to the inspectors to get the chakrams evaluated. On the way, they passed a skill-testing station and dropped Asters reward in.

Evaluating.

Evaluating.

Skill determined.

Upgraded [Heart Of Power]: Eating the heart of a fallen foe will temporarily empower the user. Upgrade, small chance for the improvement to be permanent.

“Huh. Well, that’s oddly appropriate for you and thematic for the place we got the skill.” He looked to Liz, then Aster. “Uhh, How does she absorb it? Do they sell bands for animals?”

Liz laughed, and plucking the skill from his hand, tossed it to Aster, who ate it like a treat.

“No need. And yeah, feels like the rift got a peg on the little glutton. Odd, as she didn’t even eat a single heart beside the boss’.” With a shrug, she wrote it off. “Eh. Rifts are weird. Still crazy to get it like that. And not the base version.”

“Is that the normal color of that type of skill?” He had thought the red color had meant something, but it felt weird that blood rift had a red skill shard.

“No clue, never seen one.”

They left it at that and went to the single evaluator table. With it currently in use, they waited for the group in front of them to finish. Once they got up and left, Matt and Liz set the chakrams and [Filter] skill down on the table.

“Tetra, Tier 8. Is this all you’d like to get evaluated?”

At their nod, she picked up the skill and confirmed it as [Filter].

“The guild would be willing to buy it if you wish.”

They had talked about that and decided not to sell it outright.

Liz said, “We’d rather trade for upgrade materials to upgrade our growth items. Crafting skill for crafting materials.”

The lady paused before answering, “We can currently do that, but materials used in growth items are never common. The best the guild can do is the materials up to Tier 6.”

That was the price they discussed before, and so, they agreed to Tetra’s terms.

“Ok, after this, we’ll take you to the growth table and see what reacts to the rings. Now for the chakrams.”

After testing the weapons, she burst Matt’s hope. “Peak Tier 5 weapons with a lightning affinity and a slight boost to lighting skills. The guild will buy it outright for seven Tier 6 mana stones.”

He had been hoping that they would be another growth item that they could sell, but this was still good.

Before they left, they asked about the Tier five boss’ fangs, and the guild bought them for a Tier 5 mana stone.

For only a Tier 4 rift, they really had made out like bandits.

After turning over the three items to the guild, they were escorted to a back room full of tables. Each had bits of materials under the glass surface. Every material was labeled, and Tetra had them run their rings over the glass until they felt a reaction.

With dozens of tables for the Tier 4 materials alone, they began the dull process of testing the rings against the lines of materials. After two tables worth of materials, Liz finally felt a reaction. Matt came and waved his ring over the material as well, and he too felt a resonance.

It felt like a magnet, but wasn’t physical. It was all in the ring’s magical nature. Looking down, he saw the item was Tier 5 titan’s tongue.

It was small, and didn’t look anything like a tongue. It was grey. Tetra retrieved a chunk of the strange substance the size of a finger for them. Once Matt and Liz’s rings touched it, the material vanished. They could feel the change in the rings through their spirit sense. The rings were already linked, but it felt as if the bond between them grew stronger.

Going back to the room with the tables, they found the section dedicated to Tier 5 materials.

Matt spoke as they repeated the process of running their ring hands down the glass. “It’s kind of amazing how the rift growth items can out Tier us without hurting us. Why can’t we make items like that?”

Liz scoffed then laughed, “Whoever figures that out will either become the richest person ever or be assassinated.”

“Yeah, I guess that would piss all the crafters off.”

It was still amazing to him. Growth items seemed like the perfect items. The only real downside for them was finding the materials needed for their evolution. But with a hall like this, that wasn’t even an issue.

As he ran his hand down the rows of materials, Matt was still experimenting with his freshly reattached left arm. It felt normal, but foreign at the same time. It was like an itch that wouldn’t go away. His AI confirmed there was nothing wrong, but it still felt off.

So, with no other alternative, he continued with the task at hand and tried to ignore it. He’d mention it during the check up tomorrow, but he hoped that there was nothing wrong. He couldn’t see anything off with the arm from looking at it. There wasn’t even a scar where the flesh had been regrown.

It had even been cleaned when he wasn’t looking. The only indication of the injury was a small area where the hair of his arm was missing. The bare skin left a trail across the top of his arm.

He panicked for a moment, as he tried to move his fingers, but didn’t receive a motor response. He looked at his hand, and felt his heart rate spike as he saw the digits remain still. A split second later, they moved.

Ok. Back to work.

This time he found the material needed. Tier 5 heart of a willow tree. When he was handed the small piece of wood, his ring again absorbed it as soon as contact was made.

The rift items, now at Tier 6, felt heavier spirituality.

As they left the guild area, they returned to their rooms. As they walked, Matt pushed 18 mps into the ring. Once the ring was at 6000 mana, he started to feel the ring leak out a small amount of mana per second.

Wanting to test their new capabilities, he turned to Liz and asked, “Want to go test the rings?”

She looked at him quizzically. “Are you sure you’re up for it? You may have been healed, but you did just suffer a pretty traumatic injury.”

He brushed it off. “Naa. I’m all good.” He wiggled the fingers on his left hand to prove his point. He even flashed her a smile for added effect.

She wasn’t impressed, and responded with a flat look, “Matt, you know what I mean. Don’t downplay this.”

He dropped the smile and shrugged. “It’s really not that bad. All’s well that ends well. And this will take my mind off it.” It was a lie, and he was pretty sure she saw through it, but she humored him.

To seal the deal, he added, “No combat, let’s just test the rings.”

She sighed and acquiesced.

When they arrived at an available training hall, they experimented with the rings’ expanded capabilities.

Each swap still only cost 1000 mana, but they were able to swap from the far sides of the room, which was about thirty feet from side to side. They were even able to go from one corner of the room to the other, covering about forty feet.

The teleporting function was still absurdly expensive, but with the increased capacity of the rings, they were able to move almost two feet in any direction.

The [Filter] skill shard ended up being worth the trouble. He tried to weasel a light workout out of Liz since they were in the training room, but she just scrunched up her face and walked out without a word.

Knowing he pushed too far, he looked at his friend and said, “Sorry.”

She didn’t respond, and he didn’t push any further.

When they arrived at their room, she did something he didn’t expect. She ordered a massive feast and got it delivered. In the past, she had ranted about how dumb it was to pay someone to walk with their food when they could just get it themselves, and he agreed.

She didn’t respond to him when he said what he wanted, only speaking to ask Aster what she wanted.

When their food arrived, she paid and set the multiple bags down on the table, before checking the containers and shoving two at him, saying, “Eat.”

He opened his mouth to respond, when a disposable fork was shoved into his mouth.

Taking the hint that she didn’t want to talk, he sat down and ate. She got Aster’s container open before moving another four containers in front of Matt’s place on the coffee table.

She put on a stupid comedy, and they watched in silence. Matt was hungry, and the platters she had ordered for him were meat-heavy, with cups of lemonade that didn’t have nearly enough sugar to be good. But he was thirsty too, so he drank it anyway.

After finishing the second platter, he peeked at the remaining ones in front of him and said, “Liz, I can’t eat all of this. “

Her face screwed up, and her hand gripped the fork in her hand so tight that it was shaking.

In a voice that sounded like it was taking everything she had to remain calm, she said, “You need to eat. Healing takes from the body.”

“Really it wasn’t that bad.”

It was the wrong thing to say, as her face went bright red, and she grabbed her plater and Asters. Quickly standing, she went to her room, with Aster following on her heels.

“What?” That was all he got out before she slammed the door.

“It really wasn’t a big deal.” He finished.

The door flew back open, and Liz screamed at him. It was so loud he flinched back.

“You stupid fucking moron. You almost died. I watched that stupid dragon nearly EAT you. If you hadn’t teleported, it WOULD HAVE SWALLOWED YOU.”

He opened his mouth to rebut her. It hadn’t eaten him after all, but she ran roughshod over him.

“Shut the fuck up. Not a word. By every ascender. You almost died. Healing takes a lot out of the body. So eat everything and drink everything. Don’t...”

She paused and swallowed before the door slammed shut again.

Matt sat frozen for a solid minute. He felt terrible.

He knew it was a big deal, but a strong face was usually the way to get people to stop worrying. It had always worked before.

Standing and going to knock and apologize, he heard sobbing from the other side of the door. Standing with his hand raised, he checked his bond with Aster.

She tested the bond, and seeing that he was fine, she slammed the connection shut. Just like Liz had done with the door.

Taking the hint, he sat down and let the movie drown out the muted sobs. He was sure the sobs were too quiet to be heard through the door and over the show, but they rang in his ears.

With deliberate bites, he finished each plate of food and both drinks. His stomach was uncomfortably full, and each bite tasted like ash, but he finished everything. He was about to throw out the platters, but left them on the central table open. He didn’t want Liz to think he hadn’t finished everything.

As he lay in the darkness of his room, he mulled over the girl’s actions.

No one’s ever cried for me before.

The thought hit him like a truck. He had always kept a strong facade at the orphanage. The other kids had enough baggage and issues. No one had time to comfort another.

Going to sleep to the sound of weeping in the dark halls had been a nightly occurrence for years after the rift break.

Matt cried himself to sleep for weeks before he realized that it had done nothing. The only thing that would change his fate would be getting strong. Strong enough that he could stop rift breaks and crush the monsters that came from them.

No one’s ever cried for me before.

The repeated thought broke something in him. He had people who cared if he died.

He instinctively knew Aster did, but Liz was a stranger a few months ago. Someone he could have passed on the street without notice.

But she wept for him. She ordered him food to help mitigate the healing’s side effects.

She wept at the possibility of losing him.

It was a sobering realization.

Matt extended his hands in the dark. He couldn’t see them, but his mind’s eye showed the image of a child doing the same.

Now his hands were large and calloused. Strong. The hands of a Tier 4.

I’m stronger than my world was. Or at least equally as strong. I killed a Tier 5 boss.

The thought was surprising. He realized a part of himself still thought of himself as the small kid who had lost everything.

He had people who cared. Or at least two of them.

He put himself in Liz’s shoes and thought of her or Aster getting grabbed and tossed in the air, ready to be swallowed.

The thought made him shudder and clench his fist. He wanted to shy away from the thought, but forced himself to think it over.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and he pondered who he would let die if he had to make the choice.

It wasn’t an easy one. He cared about both so much. He battled with the decision until the band around his hand shifted.

That made the choice easy.

He’d choose Liz then swap with her.

Just as he had done, Matt’s subconscious had made the connection earlier today. He was strong, and [Cracked Phantom Armor] made him hard to kill. He’d take his chances of survival over either of his partners’.

And if I don’t... Well, Liz would take good care of Aster.

The thought was surprisingly comforting. He had no doubt the girl would care for the fox in his absence, at least until she could reach Tier 15 and get her human form. The thought of death didn’t bother him. It had loomed over him for so long. A specter that had only stayed its hand at the cost of the rest of the city.

It was still there. He knew it.

It lurked in the shadows, and the attacks of every opponent. They were old friends, Death and him. She would come for him eventually, and he had to be strong enough to resist her pull.

The only way to keep the reaper away was to be strong enough. And today, he had looked down her throat. Today, death had beckoned to him with massive fangs and a pink throat.

Will I be as lucky next time?

The only thing that had saved him was the ring on his finger. It was the reason he was alive. He felt vindicated when he thought about the decision to team up with Liz on a whim.

It was the reason he hadn’t had a problem trading [Filter] for the enhancements. A teleport of a single foot had meant the difference between being swallowed and losing an arm. Whatever they lost in the value of the trade was made up for with the fact that Liz might be able to dodge the reaper’s bite next.

Even in the dark, Matt’s eyes hurt. With the trauma of the rift and heavy use of [Mage’s Retreat], his body was exhausted. His mind refused to calm, and instead ran through everything he could have done differently.

His AI tried to assist him with battle plans, but he set it to do next week’s homework for TrueMind. This was for him and him alone to ponder. It was cathartic in a way, like poking a sore tooth until the pain faded to nothing.

With images dancing through his mind of Liz and Aster’s deaths at the hands of every rift monster he had ever encountered, he drifted off into sleep.