The Path of Ascension

Matt brought his fist down on Camilla’s left arm and used [Cracked Phantom Armor] to ignore the bladed whip that was embedded in her flesh. The whip was made of linked, concentric, rotating blades that formed ‘S’ shapes. Their hooks were incredibly sharp, and could even stress his armor if the whip got wrapped around him.

His fist struck her just hard enough for their AIs to count the blow as a broken arm. He was able to dodge her retaliatory strike with her gleaming mace with a back step. He used the distance gained to deliver a low sweeping strike to the woman’s overextended leg.

The blow sent her to the ground, and Matt dove in, using his size and weight to restrain her in a grappling lock. The first time he had done that, Camilla had freaked, and she ended the training session for the evening. Now, she was determined to learn how to escape.

She struggled, but after a few moments of being unable to break out from his grip, she called out, “I yield!”

He dropped his hold and wiggled away. Camilla didn’t like any more personal touching than was required, and he respected that as much as he could while they weren't sparring.

Seeing the look of disappointment on her face, he said, “You really shouldn’t be that hard on yourself. You said you’ve been learning to fight for only about a year. Sure, you’ve had good, even great, teachers, but you still need time to really learn the finer points of fighting.”

Before Camilla could say anything, he held up a hand. “You are doing better than I was with this much training time. You need to stop thinking so much. You plan your next move and which combat form you’re going to use ahead of time. That makes you easy to predict. The best way to move past that is to experience more fights. There isn’t much else you can do.”

She lightly punched the floor. “You say all that, but you aren’t using your boosting skill or even a weapon. And I can’t use [Berserker’s Rage] as a boost in a practice fight.”

A part of Matt was envious. Duke Waters had kitted the girl out with great items and skills. She had [Berserker’s Rage], and either it was cracked, or she had a Talent that boosted her strength when she took damage. The one rift they had delved as a test had shown at least that much.

Camilla had rushed the monsters and willingly took flesh wounds, while delivering crippling blows with her two items. The fact that she only wore armor covering her vital organs and head gave Matt his boost when damaged hunch. She also had a skill that he couldn’t identify. It was able to heal skin and muscles, but was completely unable to heal the broken arm she had gotten.

Once again, he wasn’t sure if it was a Talent, a rare skill, or cracked skill. But her whole kit fed into her combat style of taking smaller hits, then hitting back with twice the power.

On top of it all, her whip and mace were growth items. The whip bit deeply into her own flesh, but she never seemed to mind. The damn thing also tried to do the same with anything it hit, and could ensnare a limb and shred flesh with ease. Matt was incredibly wary of the weapon when his armor skill was inactive.

The mace was slightly less menacing, but it had the ability to project force deep into whatever it hit. [Cracked Phantom Armor] thankfully blocked that effect, but the mace head could levitate three and a half feet off the shaft of the weapon. It only could move as if still attached to the shaft, but the ability gave her an extra bit of range. It was invaluable against enemies that weren’t quite brave enough to get into melee range, and hovered just out of her perceived reach.

As if she needed any more advantages, her kit was rounded out with a [Bolt] skill for mid-range opponents. Matt was sure that she had a long-range skill or weapon hidden somewhere, but she hadn't shown it yet. Neither he nor Liz felt comfortable pushing Camilla about anything she wasn’t willingly offering up, so they didn’t pester her. She didn’t question why Matt was able to keep so many skills active, or how he could do so for much longer than a typical melee fighter at his level. So they let her keep her secrets in return.

They had kept busy during their downtime between train rides and waiting for the teleport times between planets. To that effect, they bought out a single Tier 5 rift for a single delve during a long break between departure times. They wanted to see Camilla fight real opponents, and the delve allowed them to finish consolidating their Tier 5 cores with the remaining crunches.

With their time traveling together Matt learned a few things about Camilla. She never met anyone’s eyes, man or woman, and while she could fake public interaction for a few minutes she always cut it short quickly, never letting a conversation stretch on past its shortest point.

Matt had decided to hold off on taking the potion Aunt Helen had made for him until he was at the peak of Tier 5. If he found a Tier 5 mana concentration treasure while exploring the new planet, he would regret using his potion. The potion would work at any Tier, unlike a treasure.

With their fight over, Matt joined Aster at the edge of the room, and used her to practice limiting his Concept’s mana regeneration effect on specific people. They knew it was possible, as the Concept ignored anyone with full mana. It was just a matter of him learning how to do it consciously.

They also had figured out the math of his Concept with the help of Travis and Keith. He could impart his mana regeneration to anyone in the area of effect. However, there were three limitations. First, his mana transfer lost efficiency with distance from his core. Second, his mana was pretty inefficient at condensing itself to match those with a higher concentration than himself. Finally, he couldn’t control the rate of mana restoration between individuals in the area of effect. At least, he couldn't currently. His Concept always tried to give to everyone in its area of effect evenly, regardless of who had more or less.

It was still faster to refill Aster and Liz with his Concept mid-fight than to recharge their fast converting mana stones. It was only a matter of time until he could limit the effect to them, and keep them going for as long as he could fight...

Endlessly.

Matt idly watched Liz take her turn against Camilla. Liz was kitted out in a forest patterned armor set that, while vaguely similar in shape to her old armor, was made from Tier 5 materials. It was a step up in every way from her old set.

The most notable change was that she had retired the spear that she had ‘won’ at the auction on the training world.

Instead, she had used the baroness’ smith to remove the old enchantment, and place it on a new spear more reminiscent of the one she had lost in the landslide on the training world. This particular spear had a hollow core that she could fill with blood, and her proficiency with the new weapon compared to the old one was night and day.

With her [Blood Manipulation] skill, she could make the spear hover, and if he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she had a weapon skill that made it automatically fight by her side. The woman was able to use the spear to fend off Camilla, who had to devote a lot of attention to preventing it from poking her. Liz never pushed any more than that, but Matt knew exactly how infuriating it was to get poked at constantly, only for the weapon to dart away at the last second like a hummingbird.

This portion of the training was more for Camilla to get used to fighting people at range. She had quickly learned that [Bolt] cost too much mana to sustain against Liz, who had her [Blood Shield] ready to absorb the electricity.

After a few more rushes that only caused Liz to keep her distance, they changed the pace, and Liz started shooting out [Blood Bullets]. Camilla had to use her admitted flexibility to dodge the thumb-sized balls of blood. Liz was working to put extra spin on the pellets of blood, giving them a bit more penetration power. But the skill still automated the creation and manipulation processes for her, removing the need for her to manually guide the blood or maintain their form.

When the blood mage used her Concept, the blood was as dense as steel and hit as if a Tier 7 threw them.

All of that raised the problem. Camilla was having a hard time keeping up. She did much better in a rift, where she could take damage and get a boost, but she didn’t have the experience to keep up with the trio in this type of combat.

If Duke Waters hadn’t asked for them to help the woman, Matt wouldn’t have even considered taking her to explore a new world... No, he might have been swayed by the woman’s tragic backstory. He wasn’t that heartless. She needed help, and he could understand wanting to get strong, so that no one could direct your life.

But he was worried that this babysitting assignment would slow down their progress. While this excursion wasn’t meant to increase their Tier as much as delving would, they would still be dealing with a planet full of rift breaks. Monsters would be everywhere, and with it being a Tier 6 world, Matt was afraid that her inexperience would get her killed.

Matt and Liz were trying to book as many rifts during the last leg of their journey as possible, to get Camilla some much needed combat experience. The problem was that they were buying the slot from a team that already held the position. No one wanted to give up the essence and rewards, so prices were sky-high.

It had been so frustrating getting obviously fleeced, Matt was tempted to take out his homemade rift charging plates. They were shoddy work, with a terrible efficiency of forty-five percent, but they accomplished the end goal. Besides, it had only cost him a few hours of time and mana generation.

Giving out his secret would be monumentally stupid, but showing the arrogant teams that their precious rift slot was worth about five minutes of his time was a beautiful daydream.

Still, Camilla wasn’t some genius of fighting, and her odd choice of weapons didn’t help her. But the woman was determined. And that was much more important in his mind.

Matt still worried that the temporary addition to their team was going to get in over her head with them. He didn’t want her death on his hands.

After watching Camilla dodge Liz’s attacks for a while longer, they swapped out again. He stood up with his longsword in hand. The weapon had gone from dangerous to deadly, with his spirit able to handle repeated uses of the embedded skill, [Mana Charge]. It gave every few swings a massive increase in power, and had so far ended every fight on its own.

This particular spar with Camilla, he pressed aggressively, and forced her to take painful slaps with the flat of his blade. The message that he could have bisected her at any time was clearly getting through to her, if the scowl that grew on her face was any indication.

Still, she used her evil whip to great effect, trying to tie down his blade with its clinging effect. She never kept a hold of the blade for more than a moment, after the first time he had simply braced himself and pulled her off her feet.

She had a more moderate essence allocation, and that, combined with his larger build, meant that she only out muscled him when [Berserkers Rage] and whatever secondary buff she was using were active.

Matt wasn’t sure, but seeing her deflate when he had turned on [Mages Retreat] and easily broke out of her grapple, actually made him feel like he had taken something important from her.

Still, they had a lot of work to do if they wanted to get Camilla ready to keep up with them.

Later that night, Matt worked on his second project. He bought every beginner’s enchanting guide he could get his hands on. The price wasn’t so bad, but when he expanded the purchases to every other crafting profession, the total hurt his bank account.

It was worth it though, as he was able to run simulations on his AI with nearly his full mana pool. At least when they weren’t sparring. The mana was wasted if he didn’t use it after all.

The results were slow at first. Even his basic understanding of the professions from his classes at the university was enough to tell him that the AI was off the mark with most of the simulations it came up with.

He tested most of the ‘approved’ results and found them disastrous. One test had exploded so violently, he needed to channel [Endurance] for the next four days to remove the second-degree burns.

Matt was just happy it didn’t scar, and that he didn’t have to pay a healer for testing something he had been sure wouldn’t work. That was one embarrassment that he didn’t want to have to explain. Liz, and even Camilla, had mocked him for the bandage.

The AI needed practical experiments for its ideas, or it would never get better. At least, that was his excuse.

He had also bought the Tier 6 world’s explorer’s guide to natural treasures. It was just chucked into their AIs, just in case they ran into any of the common types. In the end, they would just be looking for things with a high essence concentration, and would rely on appraisers to sort out the trash from the treasures.

***

The capital of the vassal kingdom, Seven Suns, literally had seven suns in the solar system. He was disappointed to learn that six of them simply looked like brighter stars from the distance they orbited the capital planet.

It was still the first time he was on a Tier 32 world, and this is where they were meeting for the expansion. The city was bursting at the seams with people.

Even the air was rich in essence. It took a lot of self-control to resist sucking it down and advancing his cultivation. He knew it would be slower, considering he would have to process the essence with an extra few steps that weren’t required with rift essence, but it was right there.

Still, the higher ambient essence made everything feel like it was more real. From the rocks to the air, everything felt heavy. Liz and Camilla had experience living on a higher Tier world, so they told him that he’d get used to it pretty quickly.

What Matt found interesting was that the most mundane things were harder here than anywhere else. Everything that was made from local materials was impossible to break with his strength. He had tried to pick up a spoon, but the Tier 32 metal might as well have been the entire planet itself.

He found it reasonable that they imported lesser materials to combat the issue, but it led to places of business that only catered to a certain Tier of people. That meant that there were places that were simply inaccessible to lower Tier people, as they would be unable to even open a door.

The area they stayed at was a moderately upscale hotel chain that catered to Tier 5 through Tier 10’s. It overlooked the higher Tier section of the city. The entire division of the Tiers drove Matt to get stronger, so he wouldn’t be blocked out of a building simply because he couldn’t open the door. Those portions of the city also had an interesting lack of rules regarding people using skills or their higher Tier physical cultivation.

He watched as people blurred past in little more than streaks of colors. The more he watched, the more he was bothered. The entire city was built out of local materials, but they purposely made things like doors and utensils out of higher Tier materials, seemingly to keep the lower Tiers ‘in their place’.

That in and of itself wasn’t a problem. No, it was the fact that the Empire proper had laws against this very thing. But as a vassal kingdom, they had the ability to allow these kinds of... ‘policies’. It wasn’t Tier discrimination, as they claimed that everything was open to all, but if you didn’t have the ability to open a door, that wasn’t their fault.

While walking around the city, Matt continued to find more and more aspects of the vassal kingdom that he didn’t like. For one, the lower Tier districts were treated like slums. Even if they weren’t dirty, they had noticeably worse infrastructure. It seemed so petty for these districts to be in the condition they were, especially when enchantments could do nearly everything to fix potholes and crumbling sidewalks. Even his city had automated vehicles that would repair things like that overnight.

Overall, Matt didn’t have a good first impression of the vassal kingdom, and pitied anyone who was taking the option of subjecting themselves to the kingdom for land. He couldn’t think of anyone who would want to move out of the Empire proper to a place that allowed blatant discrimination and Tierism.

Either way, they only had to remain in the city for two and a half weeks. They tried to get access to the public rifts for a delve or two, but they had absurd prices for the Tier 5 rift. In the end, they just decided to just train in the sparring rooms they could reserve. The problem with that was, there were an extra few million people waiting in the city. It made for a cramped atmosphere that stretched resources.

From what they saw, the higher Tiers actually had it worse, as the news of a Tier 20 twenty world was far more unique than a Tier 6 world. The other two were even less impressive at Tier 3 and a weak Tier 4. They too had cultivators ready to brave the depths of their continents, seeking to find new rifts or the natural treasures that would surely be there.

So, they mostly hung out for the last bit of time before their next teleporter would be ready. With Liz and Matt being on The Path, they would be one of the first groups out. It was a nice benefit, along with their exemption from the taxes that he heard more than one person complain about.

Currently, they were sitting at an open-air cafe, snacking on pastries and day drinking with some local beers. It was mostly Matt and Liz chattering back and forth, with Camilla chiming in every now and then. She had opened up quite a bit, but she was still a little quiet and reserved. Matt wasn’t sure if that was her natural disposition, or something related to her time under Duke Cumulus’ control.

For all she had divulged to them, she never talked about that part of her life after the first day. Matt wasn’t one to pick open a scab, so he let it lie. He had little room to throw stones, as he still hadn’t opened the package of his parents’ memories. Some things were better left in the past.

While they were finishing up their pastries and debating if they wanted another round, Camilla leaped forward towards Matt, with her whip appearing in her left arm. She had a special spatial ring that was specially created to hold her weapons, as they were growth weapons, and expected to be using them long enough to justify the cost or a spatial ring for lower Tiers.

Matt hadn’t expected to be betrayed, but his instincts were faster than his mind, and [Cracked Phantom Armor] spring to life at her sudden movement. The skill appeared just in time to catch the blade that dug into his head. His jerk back from Camilla’s movement made the blade skitter along the front of his skull, instead of piercing his temple.

Turning around, he lashed out, with [Mage’s Retreat] active at 10 MPS, and used his control of [Cracked Phantom Armor] to create spikes on the knuckles of his gauntlets. He punched out, but hit only air, as the masked assassin was already trying to escape into the panicking crowd.

Camilla, having seen and reacted the fastest, was already moving towards the assassin, and wrapped her bladed whip around the fleeing enemy’s arm. Instead of the assassin being stopped, their light armor exploded in a small puff at the shoulder, and they continued to run off, with their arm left in the ensnaring links of Camilla’s whip.

Liz, who had had Aster on her lap and was much slower to react, was ready to charge after the man. Meanwhile, Camilla looked at the arm in her whip-like it was something she had never seen before.

Before Matt could do anything else, two people flew in from the sky with flashing lights, and sloppy, badly fitting uniforms. As they landed one called out, “Get on the ground now!”

Matt couldn’t believe they were apprehending them, the victims, and shouted, “The assassin went that way!”

Before he could fully point in the direction, a greater cultivation slammed down on him, and his spirit was slowed to a near stop. The unbelievable pressure forced all of his skills to falter. Even his ever-spinning cores slowed, and he sank to his knees, unable to resist the power. They were at least Tier 18 or higher, as they felt stronger than Travis or Keith, but not as strong as Aunt Helen.

Matt tried to protest, but was roughly shoved to the ground, and his hands were cuffed behind his back. His AI fussed for moment before its normal functions returned.

From his vantage point, he was able to see Camilla’s whip yanked from her arm, and her now bloodied arms were being wrenched back as well.

“You are under arrest for unauthorized use of skills in a public setting. What do you say in your defense?”

Matt tried to gurgle something out, but the pressure from these two guards’ cultivation bases rendered him unable to say anything. With [Cracked Phantom Armor] no longer keeping his wound sealed, blood was pooling around his face.

Adding to the insult, he heard the same guard say, “Suspects have nothing to say in their defense. Guilty plea noted.”

His spatial bag was ripped from his back, and moments later, they were being flown away from the open-air cafe, and soon found themselves thrown in a holding cell.

They barely had time to get used to no longer being suppressed when their door opened up, and Liz called out, “Don’t say a word without a lawyer!”

Matt was the first pulled out, and he was shoved and shackled into a metal chair. Soon, a man came in and started questioning him.

The questions started, stupid and only devolved from there.

“Why were you using your skills in public?”

Matt knew they had to have surveillance footage, and even a cursory glance would show them that there had been an attempt on his life.

“Why did you come to our planet?”

He wanted to say everyone was on this shithole planet because of the newly discovered worlds. There were millions of people doing it. It was in no way a secret.

The questions came one after another, and one almost got Matt to break his repeated line of, “I won’t be answering any questions without my lawyer present.” It was, “Why didn’t you pay the bill at the cafe you were eating at.”

Matt wasn’t sure what these idiots’ problem was, but they continued their integration for over an hour, before there was a knock at the door.

Soon a man in casual clothes came in and slid a pad in front of Matt, saying, “We’re a guild dedicated to assisting the city with staying safe and secure. We can’t let people blatantly stir up trouble. We have you on one count of unauthorized use of a skill and attacking a man. Also, making up fabrications about assassins. Our guards reported nothing of the sort.”

The man let out a large long exaggerated sigh.

“I’ll make it easy, you sign the guilty plea, and you only have to serve twenty-five years delving for the state in recompense. If you don’t, we’ll do this the hard way. And believe me, if a judge sees this case, you’ll be looking at fifty-plus years.”

He gave a false smile and finished with, “I’m trying to help you. Really.”

With that, he grabbed Matt’s hand and forced him to thumb his acceptance.

“Look, see. That was easy. Now you just need to make up for your crimes. Rehabilitation is a long road. And you’ll be put to work on the new planets. For endangering the public, you’ll now be protecting them. How noble.”

Matt just stared at the man. He had committed everyone’s face to memory, and he swore he would be back, and heads would roll.

As he thought about it, he started to find it amusing.

These idiots have no idea that we are on The Path. And once they find out who Liz is, they are going to shit themselves.

Either of those backers were far larger than this little group could deal with.

The prediction came true not fifteen minutes later, when he heard panicked screams and the sounds of fast movement from outside his integration room.

A moment later, the door opened, and a guard in a more official-looking uniform came in and asked, “Are you, Matt?”

At his reply of, “Yes.” The man entered, and removed his shackles, then escorted him to a guard with a healer’s armband.

“Fuck kid, what happened to you?”

The healer’s reaction reminded him of the now dried blood from his forehead, and while he had been able to channel [Endurance] in the integration room, it wasn’t going to remove the already caked-on blood.

A quick heal later, and he was done. Matt found Camilla and Aster on a bench facing away from him. As he walked over, Aster spun and leaped into his arms. She sniffed around his face, and worry flooded to him through the bond. Her anger matched his own that he was keeping tamped down.

“What’s going on?”

He asked Camilla, who was watching what he assumed were actual guards streaming in and out of the building.

She nodded through a window he hadn’t seen. Liz was animatedly waving her hands around in a silent pantomime that clearly expressed her anger at the situation. “Liz has been tearing them a new asshole for the last few minutes. She's said the words "The Path" so many times, but they keep flinching each time.. She’s fearless while talking to them. I don’t know if I could do that, even with my backer.”

Camilla shrugged and finished, “You just don’t talk to higher Tier people like that.”

Matt understood what she meant, and silently agreed with her. On the other hand, Liz grew up with people stronger than this entire kingdom and all their corruption. It was honestly shocking that something like this was going on in the capital city.

He looked over at the dark-haired woman who was still seated. “Did they force you to agree to something as well?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Whatever happens, I want to make sure that the contract is nullified. Even with my AI recording, I don’t feel good about it.”

Matt’s frustration boiled out at that, and he hissed, “I don’t know what they were thinking. It’s not like we couldn’t prove everything they did. That’s so incredibly illegal.”

Camilla shrugged. “We aren’t in the Empire proper anymore. This could all be legal here. Forcing a contract doesn’t sound legal, but maybe they don’t accept AI recordings as proof or something. I don’t know, but this group seemed a little too used to doing this.”

Matt didn’t know what to think. This was so outside of his expectations and world view, it was shocking. It also showed how lucky he was. He may have been on a poorly run world, but even the worst guild recruiters didn’t try and force contracts on people.

The incident blew up when two people in much nicer clothes appeared in the window, and then tried to talk to Liz. Matt saw the moment she name-dropped her parents. The people’s faces drained of any color, and their body language changed. He almost felt bad for them, with the threat of two royals looming over them.

Matt had the feeling that this would come with worse consequences than sending the taxmen after the vassal kingdom. A part of him relished the idea, but a larger part of him hated the fact that if he wasn’t on The Path, he would have been forced into whatever joke of a sentencing that they had arranged.

Being an Empire proper citizen, especially one on The Path, meant that he was always judged by imperial law, and not local ones. But this was a wake-up call that the Empire, while not perfect, was miles better than the alternatives.

With a sigh, he hugged his bond for comfort. It helped.

He looked at Camilla. “I hate having to rely on others for protection like this.”

Her fist tightened until her knuckles popped, and she nodded. “I shudder to imagine if the people on top weren’t held in check by other, stronger people who care.” She actually did shudder a bit, then finished, “I’ve been at the mercy of others once before. That’s why I need to be strong. I won’t let it happen again.”

Matt patted her shoulder and said, “Thanks for the save back there.”

She turned to look at his hand, then followed it to his now healed head.

“That would have killed me outright. Just... thanks.”

She didn’t say anything, and they watched as Liz browbeat the two officials.

“Did we ever get our things back?” The thought crossed his mind, and he asked the question idly.

“Ah. Yeah. Well, kinda. They’re still trying to collect our things, apparently.”

That didn’t sound good, but he had a record of everything he had. They wouldn’t be able to play any funny games with his belongings.

Finally, Liz came in and said, “These fucking worthless idiots are useless. First, all they can say is that the assassin was a standard first hitter, and wasn’t in any databases. Then they tried to give me shit about not pressing charges.”

She fumed. “Let’s go. This isn’t over, but we did all we can for now.”

“We still don’t have our stuff back, Liz.”

That caused the redhead to shudder with repressed rage. She stormed out, and before the door closed, he could hear her shouts.

Camilla looked at him. “And you’re dating her?”

That got Matt to smile, and it took his mind off who was trying to kill him. It was a short list of people he had pissed off after all. It seemed that the idiot from Dual Stars wasn’t happy with letting a broken neck be the only price to pay.

“Well what can I say? I find strong-willed women attractive.”