The Path of Ascension

Before they left, Matt still couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole thing was a trap. So he called out, “Hold up, Malcolm. We want an AI-backed promise that you can do what you said. I’m sure you can understand how sketchy this is from our perspective.”

Malcolm looked aghast at the suggestion. “I would never, but if it would set you at ease, I can do that for you.”

Liz gave a slight nod from behind Malcolm’s view. A moment later, they all received a message, ‘Malcolm can find and guarantee that five ruins are present on this new and unexplored planet.’

With the message from Malcolm giving him an AI identification number, he sent it to the other three. If they ended up disappearing, the message would at least provide a paper trail on who to investigate.

For all the man’s apparent goodwill, Matt still expected that he had some kind of ulterior motive.

They walked to the edge of the protected area, and as he crossed the border, Matt received a message.

‘As you are under the Tier of this world, please note that this isn’t an established world. The Empire has little recourse to punish those that break the law. Please take the appropriate measures to keep yourself safe.’

Matt waved the message away from his field of vision. It was a good warning, but he was confident in their power. As long as they didn’t stumble into an ambush, that was.

The five of them walked into the clear area around the city, which was located in a woodland area. It was a young forest from what Matt’s AI was picking up. A forest fire had caused telltale signs of damage. It was just a question of whether it was natural, or if some rift had spat out a legion of fire-type monsters.

Camilla looked to Matt, and then Malcolm. “Is there a reason why we aren’t flying?”

Matt looked at Malcolm, who then rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I don’t have one. I suppose that means you do? Can it fit four?”

The fact that he was ignoring Aster in his question irked Matt, but he didn’t say anything, as she was totally ignoring the man’s presence. But it still left a bad taste in his mouth.

He looked to Camilla and shrugged. His flying sword was already cramped with the three of them.

“Our flying device is already full with us four.”

Malcolm either didn’t catch Matt’s slight rebuke, or he ignored it.

They walked along the untouched forest for nearly half an hour, before Liz stopped them by calling out, “Oh! Hold on. I need to harvest this.”

She squatted down by an oddly colored bush that was bursting with essence according to his spiritual sense. While Liz carefully cut off two of the blooming flowers, Matt ran the image through his AI, and checked to see if it had any matches of common plants in the Tier 6 range.

He found that it was strikingly similar to a hopping aspen bush, usually seen on Tier 5 worlds. They were useful in various attack potions. The flowers had an incredibly sticky property that could be distilled and transferred to other potions.

His AI had the brilliant idea that extracting the juices of the stem could be useful in regeneration potions. He even looked into it for a moment, but the AI’s idea was to grind it up, mix it with water, and carbonate it.

He wasn’t going to try that, even if he had the ability to carbonate a liquid in the middle of a forest. The burns from the AIs enchantment debacle were still fresh in his mind, even if a few days of [Endurance] had taken care of them without a problem.

The first monster they encountered almost ended their expedition early, when a large cat dropped down on Malcolm, who was located at the center of the party. [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Mage’s Retreat] sprung to life immediately, and Matt quickly turned around, shoving his hand down the monster’s throat.

The large cat had tried to bite down, but with Matt’s fist down its throat, it started to panic as it struggled to breathe.

With its attention on Matt, Malcolm scrambled away to safety. His armor was covered in scratches, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

The beast was only Tier 5, and unable to damage Matt at all, so he just punched it a few times with a spiked fist. With the beast dispatched, the group gave the panicked Malcolm nonplussed looks.

Liz was the one to ask, “You ok?”

The wannabe explorer was looking at the corpse of the beast that tried to snack on him, and it took several attempts of the question to get through to the man.

Finally, he shook himself out of his trance and patted himself off.

“I’m fine.” Malcolm swallowed, and finished, “Though I need to use the bathroom now.”

They got back to their hike. Matt, taking the point position, kept checking the treetops thanks to a few pointed reminders from his AI.

Malcolm’s Talent seemed to be more like radar, as they had only needed to change directions slightly as the day progressed. The forest had hidden it for a while, but the once flat ground that they were trekking through transitioned into small hills, he was able to get a better mark on the location of the first ruin.

Various beasts tested their group, but even the Tier 6 lizard that had attacked wasn’t much of a challenge for them. They simply surrounded it while Matt kept its attention. After that, it didn’t take long for Camilla’s whip to shred the beast’s side, or for Liz to take its blood and use it to cut through its own body.

Aster, who had simply watched, took the heart that was her due.

Malcolm looked like he was going to vomit when Aster used [Heart Of Power]. A part of Matt was hoping she would get a second permanent boost with the heart of a higher Tier beast, but they had no such luck.

As the day turned into night, they found an exposed cliff, and set up camp with their backs protected by the craggy wall.

They took the night in shifts, with Liz and Camilla taking the first watch. Through their AIs, they had decided to have Matt stay with Malcolm, as he was much harder to kill. If the man did ambush his watch partner, Matt had the best chance to survive the encounter.

When he was shaken awake by Liz, he quickly slipped back into his under armor. It was a new experience for him. He understood why Liz always bitched about it.

His skill was weightless and didn’t chafe. In contrast, his under armor was well fitted, but it trapped a lot of heat with its skin-tight nature. It still wasn’t as bad as Liz’s much heavier plate armor, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless, so he had removed it while he slept. Their new surroundings were uncomfortably hot; it seemed like they were near the tropics of the planet.

Matt channeled [Endurance] for a moment to banish the lingering tiredness from his bones, and was ready to stand watch while his friends were sleeping.

Malcolm only stumbled around when woken to take his watch, and Matt was tempted to send the man back to sleep. Still, he wanted to see if the man could do something more than just getting chewed on.

As they watched out for monsters, Malcolm asked, “Hey, Matt. Uhh... how do you do it?”

Matt just cocked an eyebrow at the man.

Malcolm clarified his question. “The fighting and the killing. You just stand there and take hits. Sure, you have an armor skill, but aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?”

While checking the surroundings, Matt said, “Not really. It’s the only way to get strong. I don’t know your history, but I’ve made my way through life by fighting, and you get used to the idea of putting your life on the line. My ability with a blade and my skills help with that as well. I’ll pull out of a situation if it is too risky, but otherwise, I power through.”

Matt shrugged, and when he didn’t get a reply, assumed that Malcolm was finished,and that he was free to go back to running simulations with his AI.

“I just don’t want to get hurt, you know.”

Matt wanted to roll his eyes. As long as you didn’t die, healers could fix anything. He didn’t know what he did to get to Tier 5, but the man seemed to have almost no backbone.

At first, Matt had assumed that the lack of combat experience was a ruse to lure them into a trap, but now he was pretty sure that Malcolm really was what he seemed. He was just an inexperienced young man with a Talent that let him find things. Matt figured that people had shepherded him through rifts for his services, or that he was from somewhere with abundant ambient essence.

Those were the only ways that Matt saw the man having any chance to reach Tier 5 at his age. He didn’t look much older than them... twenty-one at the oldest.

The slowdown on aging didn’t really kick in until Tier 5, where a human would live about double the years an unawakened would. Even with one hundred and eighty years to live, the man acted so pitifully young. At most, he was in his late twenties to have the appearance that he did. Matt had to just assume that he had lived an extremely sheltered life.

The rest of their watch turned out to be mundane enough. Matt was getting breakfast made for everyone with the small camp stove, when he heard someone call out.

“Hey, there’s the camp.”

Matt spun, and found a man around his age appear along the cliff face. He was standing in the open with his hands visible, and a massive brown wolf was sitting at his side. Aster, who was sitting in Liz’s lap, cocked her head at the wolf and yipped at him.

She got a curious bark in return, and Matt called out, “What can we help you with?”

The pair stood their ground, but called out, “We smelled breakfast cooking, so we thought we’d come share what we knew of the surroundings. We’d be happy to trade the info for a hot meal.”

Matt queried Aster through their bond, and found she wasn’t suspicious of them or anything. After looking at Liz and Camilla for approval, he decided to call the man over.

A second, smaller wolf came out of the forest, and the now trio approached. Matt checked their rear out of instinct, but nothing else came out. The wolves seemed to be a matched pair, and from Aster’s reaction, they both seemed to be bonded to the man.

They sniffed at Aster, who remained in Liz’s lap, but cocked her head at them.

The man sat in the clear area, while Matt pulled out an extra few chunks of lizard flesh he had put away. It wasn’t like they could keep it forever, considering the low Tier storage items they had.

“I’m Fen. These are Bow and Arrow.”

Fen smiled at the names. Matt assumed it was an inside joke of some sort, but he didn’t press for an explanation. The wolves were cute during their quiet conversation with Aster.

Matt used his large spoon to point to himself, then everyone else. “Name’s Matt. That's my bond, Aster. Liz and Camilla make up our party. Malcolm here is an escort task of sorts.”

Fen nodded at everyone, but gave Aster a larger smile. “Nice to meet you all.”

After stretching out a bit, he said, “So there’s a Tier 5 rift a few miles away, tucked into the corner of a valley. It’s kind of hidden, but we have good noses. Anyway, in the rift, you’ll find a perfect set up for a party. It’s a long winding mountain climb; downhill, thankfully. But each monster is some sort of massive goat-hybrid thing. They were usually alone, but they had a lot of essence for their Tier.”

With that, a location was sent to their AIs, along with a message verifying the information it contained.

Matt was tempted. Large rifts with lots of larger beasts were ideal for essence. Not all rifts were equal, after all.

With the extra food taking his attention, Matt listened to the conversation. It was mostly Liz talking to Fen and his companions. It surprised their new breakfast additions quite a bit that she was able to speak the beast language. That seemed to really open him up, and he shared some embarrassing stories of his journeys with his bonds.

For his effort, he got a large paw in the face, and was also sat on by the larger male wolf. It was all in good fun, and after a few minutes, they sat down to eat.

Bow and Arrow ate their slabs of lightly cooked meat with gusto, and the humans soon joined them in eating.

As they were cleaning up, Malcolm asked Fen a question that ruined the mood. “So, how do you have two bonds? Were they twins, or do you have a Talent?”

Matt looked at the man, shock written all over his face. Liz and Camilla both had the same expression. That was an incredibly impolite question that Matt wouldn’t have even dreamed of asking a stranger. He hadn’t even asked Camilla about her Talents, and they had been traveling for nearly two months now.

Fen just looked coldly at the explorer, and down to his wolves, before turning to the other four. “Well, stay safe, you all. Maybe our paths will cross later.”

With a slight wave, he walked into the forest, and was quickly gone, lost in the foliage and hills.

Matt looked at Malcolm, and was about to question his reason for asking such a personal question, but Camilla spoke first.

“What was that? Where were you raised? No one tells people their Talents. Or at least the finer details of one.”

Malcolm just looked between them, confused. “What? It’s not that big of a deal. I just wondered why. How will you ever get questions answered if you don’t ask? There are only so many explanations for him having two bonds. Why not answer the question?”

Matt just shook his head. He was regretting taking this idiot up on his offer, but he really wanted to get into the ruins.

The things I do for profit.

With the mood soured, they headed deeper into the forest. They heard combat not more than an hour later, and when they investigated, they found two parties fighting. The rift nearby was the obvious prize.

They stopped to watch from their vantage of a hill, about a half mile or so away.

The one side had three people, and the tank was using his shield to give cover to his dagger wielder. That particular man was slipping in and out of the melee, quickly striking when their two melee opponents were otherwise occupied.

The party of three also had a ranger that launched flaming arrows which exploded on contact. The bowman was trading attacks with the mage of the other party, who was launching [Earth Spears] that were all easily dodged. The opposing party seemed to be losing, as their mage had to raise an [Earth Wall] to block most of the retaliatory arrows.

The fighting came to a stalemate, until the dagger wielder was able to slip under an attack using a skill. Matt wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but the dagger wielder seemed to move quicker than everyone else around him, and his form became almost ethereal for a brief moment. He was able to get behind a member of the opposing party, and he plunged his dagger into their chest from the rear.

With that, the group of three quickly finished their fight, and killed the rest of their opponents. The mage ran off, but was already being chased down by the archer. Matt didn’t think they had a chance of escaping.

They turned and took a longer path around the rift. None of them wanted to get in a fight over a rift that they didn’t even want. Once they were a good few miles away from the rift, Malcolm pulled off to the side and started to vomit.

Once he finished, he washed out his mouth and looked behind them. “Why would they slaughter people like that? It’s just a rift.”

Liz just rolled her eyes, but Camilla snapped, “Killing for a first delve of a rift is nothing new. Even I know that. Look at the situation. They had their backs to the rift, so the other team probably came second and tried to push them off. While I don’t know if I would have killed them, I can’t say they were wrong. And if you’re going to kill one person in a team, you might as well finish them all off. The last thing you need is to get ambushed in retaliation. Are you sure you’re cut out for being an explorer? You seem pretty pitiful to me.”

Liz nodded and said, “We can fly you back to the city in a few hours. Camilla’s right, you’re not cut out for this.” After a pause, she said, “I’m not trying to be mean, but it seems like you’ve come out here completely unprepared for the reality of how things are done in places like this. And while we won’t throw you at a monster, you need to be careful once we split up.”

Malcolm took another swig of his cantine, and spit the water off to the side.

“No. I can do this. I want to explore new worlds. So... I need to get used to this.”

Though they were skeptical of his conviction, the group decided to carry on. They continued on for the rest of the afternoon, until they eventually came upon a clearing, as they had done many times during their trek to the ruins.

When they were halfway through, there was a roar that rumbled the very grass and trees around them. Out from the side of the thick foliage, a nine-foot tall monster trundled in, armed with a rib bone from some massive creature.

Matt’s AI noted it as a troll. One of the few low Tier creatures with innate [Regeneration], or a variant of the skill. All of his sources gave conflicting reports, but they all agreed that they were hard to kill without fire, poison, or acid.

Matt called out, “Pull back into the forest! That will limit it a bit.”

The five of them retreated as fast as they could. Matt kept to the rear of the retreat, covering their backs, and had his sword at the ready. It was a Tier 6 monster, but they were four combat proficient delvers, disregarding their one non-combatant.

As they passed into the trees, Matt realized their mistake. The troll was fast. Too fast. Its massive form crossed the small clearing in three steps, and it wasn’t slowed at all by the trees. It simply barreled through them.

They scattered to dodge the toppling trees, and Matt stepped forward to face the beast. He had been charging his longsword’s [Mana Charge] skill, and wanted to use it to end the fight quickly.

Hopping over a freshly felled tree, Matt slammed the glowing blade into the creature’s thigh. With the release of his mana came the familiar bright flash, and the surrounding flesh was burned away. As he retreated, Matt assumed that the monster couldn’t regenerate that much missing tissue, but the troll proved him wrong.

In just seconds, the flesh wriggled together, and the creature’s leg was completely healed.

Dropping [Mage’s Retreat] for a moment, and lowering [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s draw, he cast [Hail]. He had to fill his mana pool with the mana stone he kept in a bracelet to activate the skill, but the situation called for it. The storm of ice rained down, and Aster began collecting the ice to unleash an attack on the threatening beast. She gathered the ice and formed large shards, then drove them into the creatures side.

Matt kept [Hail] active with a few MPS, but struggled to keep the troll’s attention. It had decided that Aster was the origin of the ice attack, since she was also launching [Ice Spears]. With a defiant roar, the lumbering monster charged towards the fox, but she was much too nimble to land a blow. She bounded through the frozen trees and foliage, with her speed seemingly enhanced by the icy forest environment.

When Matt approached again, the monster spun away from its hunt for the fox, and tried to slam him with its bone club. The creature was both larger and a Tier higher than him, so he didn’t dare risk taking a hit head-on. Even if he survived it, he would be sent flying, and would be stunned and vulnerable.

As he too used his superior agility to dodge the creature, he lashed out with his blade at its arms and chest. The wounds instantly healed, but at least he was doing his job and keeping its attention, while also charging his blade again. This time, he wanted to see what [Mana Charge] would do to the creature’s head.

Liz’s [Blood Bullets] peppered the beast’s side with wounds that also quickly healed, and Matt even saw a generic [Mana Bolt] flash across his vision and towards the troll. His AI indicated that it came from Malcolm. It was completely ineffective, but it was more helpful than cowering in fear, or vomiting in the corner.

At least he’s trying.

Matt was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had half expected the man to turn tail and run. Actually, he was shocked that he hadn’t.

Camilla came from the beast’s flank, and slammed her mace into a still closing wound. It splattered chunks of meat across the forest floor with its impact. The extending function of her weapon was ridiculous. It added so much range at no cost. The weapon allowed her to effectively put out poleaxe levels of damage with the extra leverage created by the extension.

Matt and Camilla rotated back and forth between quick bursts of attacks and retreating, keeping the troll occupied. Meanwhile, Aster and Liz were using a combination of attacks, causing more and more damage. Shards of ice and frozen blood peppered the troll, while blood whips lashed at limbs frozen in place by the snow fox.

Aster was so much more effective when she didn’t have to create her own ice, and could simply manipulate what Matt generated using [Hail]. On top of her combos with Liz, she was sending [Ice Spears] directly into the monster’s face, and slicing up the troll’s entire upper half with bursts of razor-sharp fragments of ice from [Hail].

Despite her impressive onslaught, the wounds shrunk and closed quickly. The troll’s regeneration prowess even pushed out the ice and frozen blood still embedded in its skin.

This wasn’t a battle to kill the beast. It was one of endurance. Their only recourse was to last until the beast ran out of mana, and could no longer keep up with the inflicted damage.

That was the plan, until the beast let out a deafening cry, and shook the very air. Everything went bright, and Matt was forced to use his own Concept to counter that of the beast.

It was using an ability that any Concept was capable of. Any person or beast equipped with one could slightly influence reality with their phrase and image. All Concepts were capable of simple alterations, like restraining others by pitting one’s will against their own.

Matt and Liz had trained for this with Travis and Keith. It was a common monster tactic, and one that was fairly easily countered. That is, as long as one had their own Concept to counter with.

Camilla’s moves started to slow, as if she was dropped underwater. The troll tried to take advantage, but Matt had his own Concept activated slightly to stop it. He wasn’t engaging either of its abilities, but was instead immersing himself in it. That partial activation was enough to negate the monster’s effect on Camilla, once Matt projected his own will into reality.

The spirit had sovereignty in the body, and one’s will would always be able to influence reality if fine tuned enough. Even a small amount of power could counteract an attack like this, if one was properly trained in the use of will. In a rift, the monsters had the advantage of numbers when it came to fighting with concepts. The ability to counter Concept based attacks, like that of the troll, was fairly simple, but it was hardly efficient.

The use of will was taxing, especially to those inexperienced with their Concepts. The monsters’ sheer numbers generally gave most Concepted but low Tier delvers problems. Not to mention the fact that monsters usually had larger, stronger wills at those lower Tiers.

Both of those issues were somewhat alleviated with this being a single monster in the open, rather than a string of monsters that they had to kill while being ambushed.

“Back up! Let the three of us handle it. Use your ranged attacks.”

Camilla frowned, but did as Matt asked and started to pull back.

Without Camilla to take the pressure off, Matt was struggling to both deal damage and dodge everything. Without him dealing damage, the monster took more notice of the four people slinging spells at it.

A kick aimed at Liz was quickly countered with a blow from [Mana Charge]. It completely blew off the monster’s foot. The troll went to stomp down, but when it fell down farther than expected, it ended up stumbling to the ground. Matt narrowly dodged the falling troll, solely because he had been counting on his explosive blow to do exactly what it had, thanks to the prediction of his AI.

Wanting to take advantage of the troll’s vulnerable position, Matt lowered both of his active skills, and re-cast [Hail] on the monster’s prone form. Aster also cast her final spell, [Frost], which increased the damage dealt from all ice affinity damage spells in the area. Keeping his distance, Matt put as much mana into [Hail] as he could spare. The skill produced more ice as more mana was channeled into it and a virtual blizzard ensued. He was hoping to essentially bury the monster in a cascade of ice.

No one needed the plan spelled out, and they all attacked its arms and legs as it tried to get to its knees. Cut muscles couldn't do anything despite it's insane healing factor.

Aster let out a yell that caused the surroundings to flash freeze, and most of the surrounding trees split and cracked under the sudden temperature change. The troll suffered the worst of the attack, as it was struggling to stand under the storm of ice raining down. The fox’s use of her Concept turned the loose ice into a solid form, completely encasing the troll.

He felt her pass out from the overuse of her will, but his AI also noted Camilla scoping the spent fox up, and depositing her into Liz’s backpack. To his horror, Matt saw the flesh wriggle back together while completely frozen in the solid ice.

“Fuck...” He didn’t get it out all the way before needing to take a deep breath.

He pointed at the missing foot. “It’s not dead.”

Camilla looked at it and asked, “Fight or flee? I say flee.”

Malcolm instantly shouted, “Flee!” But Matt noted that he waited for one of them to answer.

Liz shook her head. “No, if we do, it’ll just regenerate its mana, and become a problem for someone else. Or worse yet, follow us.”

They all looked to Matt. He was the deciding vote, with Aster asleep.

“I think we need to try. If it attacks us while we’re camped out and sleeping, we are royally fucked.”

He thought of a plan, while using his AI at full draw.

“Let’s just make a bonfire around it. The ice should take a while to escape from either way. The fire will speed that up, sure. But the troll can’t regenerate any wounds caused by fire. That’s why people debate if it uses actual [Regeneration], and not some variant. The true skill has no problem with any wound type.”

Malcolm still looked like he wanted to flee, but when Camilla nodded, they each pulled out axes and started chopping. Matt started to layer the already knocked down trees on and around the beast’s icy prison.

Malcolm was still staring at them when Liz asked, “Are you going to help?”

That seemed to snap him out of it, and he said, “I don’t have an axe.”

“Well, get a fire started. And collect more dry wood. We only have so much time before the beast breaks out, so we need a hot fire as soon as we finish stacking this wood.”

They all worked frantically for the next few minutes, and soon had a smaller fire going off to the side.

They had piled the wood high, but with so much greenwood, none of them were completely confident. Just in case, they had made smaller fires in a few places they could retreat to. If it came to that, they could return to one of the fires, and try to shove burning sticks into the beast’s wounds and cauterize them.

“Here goes nothing.” With that, Liz dropped her burning stick into the dry leaves they had gathered. They only had so much deadwood, and were hoping to use it to get the rest of the wood to ignite.

They watched the flames start growing, and soon they could tell that even the greenwood was starting to ignite. The smoke turning black was the telltale sign that they were hoping for, and they could see the ice melting and hear the wood popping.

Then, the troll’s screams added to the cacophony. Matt readied his blade, while Camilla and Liz did the same with their own weapons. Malcolm seemed as if he was one more scare away from bolting away altogether.

Soon, they felt the rush of essence that indicated the fight was truly over.

They all breathed a sigh of relief at that, and Matt used [Hail] to extinguish the flames.

They kept on their path, and night was approaching when Malcolm told them they were getting close to the entrance. They were all exhausted, and decided to make camp and rest before pushing on to find the entrance to the ruins.

They were now inside of the mountain range they had been journeying towards. They had come to a small valley, and quickly found a spot to set up camp for the night. Malcolm set up his tent and passed out immediately, but no one minded. Even with [Endurance], Matt was feeling it after that last fight with the troll. They had all earned a good night’s sleep. Well… most of them had.