The Path of Ascension

The next morning, the trio moved to the island Matt was going to do experiments on. There, he swapped the formation plates out for one that would actively drain mana from inside the contained area. It was an expensive formation, as pulling mana from a rift was like trying to pry food from a starving man’s hands.

They did not let go.

It was why PlayPens just repeatedly delved the rifts to dissipate them. Why spend money to remove a rift, when you could delve it and get crumbs?

Once the rift was gone, he repeated his actions from yesterday and created a rift. Today, they were being more methodical, and even Aster seemed interested.

When the rift formed and wolves popped out, Matt looked to Liz and said, “That seems incredibly unlikely. Two Tier 1 wolf rifts in a row? Is there anything in the guide about that?”

While Liz checked the document, he brought the rift up to the peak of Tier 1, watching as Aster found a corpse and had herself a snack.

“No, it’s not likely but not unheard of. Do you want the actual answer?”

“No. I’ll think about it. I want to see what me and the AI can come up with.”

“What the AI and I can come up with.” Liz corrected him.

“AI and I sounds dumb.” His retort was met with an eye roll that he could feel on his back.

They had some lizards when they increased the rift to Tier 2, which stayed when the rift was pushed to Tier 3.The monsters changed to monkeys at Tier 4. When they made the jump to Tier 5, the trio was surprised by tigers. Aster enjoyed her meal, while Matt tried to figure out the mechanics behind the changes.

The delving was simple enough. They fully cleared the rift the first time, but then proceeded to rush to the boss on each subsequent run. Their haul wasn’t impressive, but they still had gotten six enchanted items from the rift. One of them had a chance to be valuable,as it had a much more complex enchantment.

It was during their third day when things got weird.

They boosted the rift to Tier two, and a flood of rabbits came out.

Aster lost her mind.

She proceeded to try and eat every rabbit that came out, and when she saw Matt starting to increase the Tier, she pleaded with him not to.

Matt knew that this was a good time to pick his battles. Especially over a Tier 2 rift. Matt and Liz delved it with her once, then gave her freedom to delve the rift at will. It took a long argument with the blissed out fox before she agreed to leave the rift every half an hour. It took Matt threatening to dispel the rift before she finally acquiesced.

He had to admit, it was cute to watch her try and find their burrows in the light forest. She didn’t even eat many of them, mostly wanting to hunt. If the rift’s Tier was higher, he would have never agreed. But at Tier 5, she was able to kill even the boss with a thought.

For all her insistence and begging, she was thankful. She leaped into his arms and nuzzled him, while sending loving vibes through their bond.

It made the inconvenience of having to move locations worth it.

Thankfully, they only had to move a few yards away, but an hour of work was wasted. Not the end of the world, but it caused Matt to be slightly lazy. Instead of carefully clearing the area around the rift, he ended up leaving a small sapling to act as a central marker for setting up the formation.

Neither he nor Liz thought much of the sapling, except to chuckle when it began fluttering in the thick mana concentration. Matt learned his lesson when he and Liz stepped through the Tier 5 rift. Instead of landing in a forest or plain, as was the case with most of their rifts, they were dropped three feet above a large tree branch. The sudden fall caused them to stumble, and they slid off, tumbling into free fall.

Matt’s screams were swallowed by the wind, but he retained enough sense to drag his spatial bag over his shoulder and fished out his flying sword. He used it to catch himself and Liz.

When they steadied out and hovered, Liz started to press kisses over his neck and face.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Fuck. That woke me up.”

Matt didn’t think he could speak for the hammering of his heart, and just gasped out a few unintelligible words.

Getting his bearings, Matt flew them up to their entrance, to find that they were spat out at the lowest level of tree branches. The problem was, the tree was taller than any building in any city he had ever seen. It pierced the clouds and didn’t look any thinner for its height.

Matt breathed out, “I have no idea what this is.” They looked down to see a carpet of green that he was sure were normal-sized trees.

It was so far out of his expectations, he turned to Liz and asked, “Anything about this in the book?”

She laughed, “No. Not even a bit. What did we do?”

Matt threw out his best answer, “While I’m not sure, I think that the little sapling we...” He corrected himself, “I left is the cause of this. I think. It seems to have influenced the rift’s theme.”

“Can we land, please? The falling gave me vertigo.”

With Liz’s request, they landed on the nearest branch. It was thicker than most skyscrapers. It was so massive, the ground almost seemed flat.

It was still curved enough to send us tumbling.

Matt cursed the rift. He didn’t want to even think what would have happened if they didn’t have his spatial bag with them. They had only kept them on because of the habit they made on the training world, and not wanting to leave their valuables at camp while delving for hours. He pledged to always delve with the bag fully stocked from now on, and even made an alert for his AI to ensure he didn’t forget.

After they settled themselves, they flew around the tree and found various giant birds and squirrels to fight. They seemed to have a war going on between the two factions. Each species raided each other’s nests, until they saw the humans. Then, any animosity was set aside to attack the interlopers. It was a more intricate rift than most of the Tier 5s that they had delved so far. Most of the monsters even had Concepts, which made the rift harder.

The final boss was a massive bird that tried to fly in strafing runs at them, while launching a steady stream of [Wind Blade]s at them. It meant little to the duo, who could fly, and they quickly pulled out an acorn from the reward distortion. If the little nub wasn’t stuffed with essence, he would have taken it as mundane. But they stored it along with their other rewards to be checked in a few weeks.

Their sixth run of the rift gave them the weirdest item. It was a wood axe that seemed to want to cut down the mighty tree that they were delving. It was weird, but it also went into the bag.

After they ended their day of ten delves, Matt turned to Liz, who sat next to him and watched the sun fade over the ocean.

“It’s not a great rift, but it’s a weird one. Should we keep it, or scrap it and start over?”

Liz shrugged, not saying anything until the sun fully set, and only orange flames illuminated the horizon.

“It’s weird enough. I think we should keep it. But the rewards aren’t great. It’s also dangerous, if you don’t know about the drop stepping in.”

“Yeah, true. Well, we can always keep it around and make a new one tomorrow.”

As they sat, he gave voice to a thought that had been running around his mind all day. It came to him after his conclusion that the rift was influenced by the sapling in the formation.

If that was true, what else could they do?

It excited him in a new way. Cooking was fun; he could try things and then eat the results. This was similar, but he felt like a mad scientist in a movie. It was like he was mixing various colored liquids to make a new potion. The unknown set his blood aflame.

“What if we do some more testing? We’d need to be more careful with entering the rifts, but who knows what we can do if we put other materials in the center? Is it a guarantee of a rift type, or is it less significant? It seems to influence the rewards after all. But think of the possibilities.”

He ended with a sigh of wonderment.

“What if we use mine, or Aster’s mana? We all have aspected mana after all...” Liz’s question jolted him, causing the sleepy Aster to readjust into his lap.

He looked to his bond and asked the question both verbally and through their connection. “Want an ice rift?”

“Ice cream? Rift?”

That perked up the fox, who stood and looked around before glaring at him, sending over, “Bully.”

He picked his partner up and flipped her over to give her belly rubs in recompense.

“It’s an interesting idea. I guess I could use your aspected mana stones to fill the formations, but I think it would work.”

Matt’s mind raced a million miles a minute, but he forcefully pushed those thoughts down and tried to relax with Liz and Aster. The fox had found a burst of energy, and now wanted to wrestle the two of them.

The next few days were a blur. They tested a bar of steel that they still had from the golems ruin, which taught them two interesting things. One was that the item that the rift formed over had about a seventy percent chance to influence the theme of the rift.The second thing was that the rift had a chance to absorb the item it formed over. If that happened, then the rift was guaranteed to produce a rift relating to the item. At least, that was what they had found through their limited testing.

The Tier of the item also had to be at least as high as the Tier of rift that was being made. A Tier one metal couldn’t be used to make a Tier 2 rift.

Learning that, they tried to cheat the system. Their next few runs, they only put in an item when they were about to boost the rift to Tier 5 /,but it never worked. It seemed like they needed to have the rift start with the item they wanted the rift to “resonate” with from Tier 1 .

During their days of testing the metal bar, they got a skill shard and a bunch of smithing materials. The skill, [Reinforce Metal], was used to dump mana into metals and strengthen them. It allowed the caster to modify the metal in any way they wished. The trio were sure that they could trade it for a useful skill.

That was only four days in.

On the fifth day, they had a rift with golems. They only had to look at each other to agree to just dissipate the rift, and not enter. Neither wanted to deal with them again.

That ended their experiments with metal, and they started using water. This worked in more subtle ways. They expected to find oceans or something similar, and they did a few times. But mostly, it was seasides or forests with complicated river systems.

Matt was pretty sure that they got another underwater breathing enchantment, as the item they found felt exactly like the necklace they found on the training world. But they weren’t going to test anything themselves. Cursed items were hard to unbind and had negative side effects. They weren’t common, but the risk was always present.

They even pulled a [Create Water], skill which Matt absorbed and put in his inner spirit. It had a mana cost of 30 for the initial cast, then 5 MPS for upkeep, but it created pure water endlessly with his regeneration rate. They could have sold it, but except to a water mage, it wasn’t a very valuable skill. So, they felt it was better to have the added safety of never having to worry about running out of water.

He felt weird pulling a utility skill into his inner spirit, but he cared more about the reduced mana cost than he did about the free slots.

Fire was their next test, and was a mixed bag. It worked fine for aspecting the rifts, but they couldn’t actually run most of the rifts. No Tier 5 could swim through molten rock, and It was only thanks to them being careful on first delves that Matt was able to escape before [Cracked Phantom Armor] was broken. Only their decision to have Matt check rifts alone saved Liz from that disaster.

It still gave them data points to add to their AI’s ever-growing list.

While the three of them ate dinner, Matt said, “I don’t think we’re the first to discover this.”

“Oh?” Liz was interested, and even Aster gave Matt her full attention. While she spent most of her time playing in her rabbit rift or running around the island, she liked to watch the rifts being created as much as he did.

Secretly, Matt knew she was more interested in tasting the hearts of new rift monsters, but he appreciated the support. He didn’t mind being a snack dispenser.

“No. There’s no way people have never discovered this. I’d put money on individual guilds learning of it, and either not using it because the cost seems to scale with the desired rift Tier,, or keeping it a secret and using it to their advantage.”

Liz nodded, but Aster spoke first, “Hide? Why.”

Liz, who was closer, picked up the fox and deposited her on her lap after pulling out a brush, “Well Aster, you know this is a secret. We won’t tell anyone else. And they hide it for the same reason that you don’t want others to delve your rabbit rift.”

“Mine!” Aster’s yip was filled with indignation at the thought that someone would try and take her playground away.

As Liz explained to Aster, with the occasional interjection by Matt, he had to wonder if this was what having a child was like.

Once Aster seemed to understand that they couldn’t tell people about their rifts, he continued his train of thought. “I’m not sure what higher Tiered guilds would do if we leaked this, but I don’t think they would be happy.”

Liz didn’t seem bothered. “Let’s assume that they somehow find out we know all this. One, we’re on The Path. This doesn’t seem like a big enough reason to cross the Emperor, the only Tier 50 in the Empire. Two, even if Uncle Manny didn’t step in, my parents would. Only the top three guilds that are headquartered have Tier 47’s, with the rumor of a Tier 48. I’m sure my parents have made sure that the movers and shakers know not to touch you. Three, we aren’t going to share this with anyone.”

She seemed to finish, before adding, “Four, it’s just too expensive to create rifts over and over for most organizations.”

Matt interjected, “Yes, but they can. I showed you my math. It’s not that expensive.”

“I know, I know. But I think you underestimate how much pull crafters have in a guild. They eat up all the excess mana that a guild has. It’s a whole lot more expensive to buy your items, which is why guilds raise crafters. They don’t have millions of mana to throw around unless the top people are sitting around for some reason. Even then, they would want to use their mana to train.”

Matt just nodded at her. He didn’t have the experience with higher Tier people, so he had to defer to her wisdom on this.

The next day, they took a break and started to delve rifts without trying to affect their theme. The rifts were too varied, and they wanted to collect more items. Besides, this was meant to be a break for them. Almost dying twice because of the environment in the rift wasn’t exactly the vacation they were searching for.

***

They sat on their beach with all of the items laid out. Matt may have had a record of each item, but it still hadn’t felt like they had gotten this much before it was all spread out.

Three weeks of ten-ish delves of fully charged rifts per day gave them a little over two hundred chances for loot. They got a lot of mana stones, but they weren’t as impressive or valuable. They added up, but were nothing in comparison to the items they got. Thankfully, mana stones only dropped about 30% of the time.

Skills were rewarded about five percent of the time from Tier 5 rifts. They got [Reinforce Metal], three [Create Water]s, of which Matt and Aster each absorbed one. [Mend], [Mana Strength], [Light], and three [Fireball]’s, of which Matt and Liz each kept one. They would be selling one [Reinforce Metal], one [Create Water], one [Mend], one [Mana Strength], one [Light], and one [Fireball].

The [Fireball] that he and Liz kept turned out to be useless for both of them, which was funny. Matt couldn’t cast it without the help of his reserve mana stone, and it was just a ball of blood for Liz. Good for moving blood around, but it didn’t explode or have heat like the original skill.

That was why Matt was waiting to absorb the skill until he had a little more free time. [Endurance] was almost out of his core spirit, and Madam Delver’s Guide to Skills even had a strategy to decrease the mana cost. Combined with the way they had quickly changed [Endurance] when they absorbed it, he was confident that he could get the initial cost down to 5 mana. With the thirty percent cost reduction from being in his inner spirit, that would mean a 3.5 mana cost. If he could get that down to 3 mana, he could use [Fireball] endlessly at Tier 8.

He would just need to work on the skill to make it cheaper, which wouldn’t be difficult with the time it would take to reach Tier 8. Madam Delver’s Guide to Skills warned that it would make the skill slightly weaker to decrease the cost that much, but it was only a twenty to thirty percent loss. It came out to a negligible loss when he could cast the spell endlessly.

It was an enticing idea, and one he was willing to test. He was spending most of his downtime practicing with the box that could simulate skill changes. In a few weeks, he was ready to make the rapid changes. He was just waiting for [Endurance] to settle in his inner spirit.

The growth items had a drop rate of about one and a half percent, and the three growth items they had received were an odd bag. They could feel the difference in the arrangement of essence that was reminiscent of their rings. It was a testament to his growing spiritual sense, and overall improvement from his time as a Tier 4 that he could feel the difference. The shortsword growth item flickered with flame. They had pulled it out of a rift when they mixed fire and metal. Their decision to not delve aspected rifts only lasted until they thought to mix the things they had tried before.

A mini snow globe that was endlessly sunny, and a hammer were the final two growth items. Neither of them could even guess at the usefulness of the last two, but they definitely felt like growth items. Matt felt good about the hammer. It felt nice and steady; good for a blacksmith.

Throughout their two hundred-odd delves, they had also gotten eighty normally enchanted items. They were mostly just rift made items, with one or two standard enchantments like durability or sharpness. Useful, but not notable.

They did get thirty-four items with more exotic enchantments that they had great hopes for. If they were like the ones they had found on the training world, they could make them quite a bit of money.

They also kept any weird items that felt stuffed with mana or essence, like the acorn from the first tree rift. It ended up mostly being a mix of herbs and crafting materials. Sadly, there were only twenty-two of them, but of those, Liz recognized a few and expected good prices for them.

That was the problem.

Matt shook his head to Liz, who looked as shocked as he did as they surveyed their goods. “This is too much. There’s gotta be a few normal parties worth of goods.”

“How do we explain it?” She was just as confused as he was.

“Can we spread it out through a few auction houses?”

She considered his suggestion for a long moment. “I guess. There were two when we left last. But even then, it’s too much. Maybe we split up and sell it in two bunches?”

He thought that over and shook his head. “We’re registered as a party, so they could see through that easily enough. I… I had no idea it was this much.”

It was going to be a problem no matter what they did.

And we haven’t even had the items from the vault inspected yet. They’re still too noticeable.

Matt had no idea what to do.

“Maybe we can just swagger in and pretend nothing’s weird, and request a private appraisal. Then we let them know that we’re a part of The Path. That should take most of the danger out of this, right? If they’re the only ones who know, it will be suspicious, but not dangerous.”

Matt, not having a better idea, agreed with the suggestion. So, they packed up and flew to the auction. Hesitating wouldn’t decrease the risk.

When they arrived on the outskirts of the city, Matt felt like everyone was watching them and waiting for a chance to snatch their bags. By the time they reached the auction house, he was a bundle of nerves, trying to not sweat through his clothes.

Seeing his state, Liz took pity on him and did the talking to the receptionist.

“We need a private appraisal.”

To his surprise, they didn’t even question the request, and they were brought to a room behind the counters. They were warned they would have to wait a while.

Matt sat down for all of two seconds before he started pacing. His nerves started to bleed into Aster, who started to growl at the wall. He restricted their bond so Liz could pet the floofer into a calm state. He was bad enough without a feedback loop making it worse.

It was half an hour later when they were seen. The door opening caused Matt to reach for a blade, but he stopped himself before he did anything stupid, and moved to sit next to Liz.

A woman of indeterminate age came in and introduced herself. “I am Diana, Tier 12 appraiser, nineteen years of experience. What do you have for me today? Also, please note that the fee is doubled for a private appraisal, but the percentage for selling any item is still the standard five percent.”

Matt looked to Liz, who shrugged and said, “We have a lot of things. These first ones we’ll sell to you if there isn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

The woman didn’t look convinced until they brought out the eighty normally enchanted rift items. She only cocked an eyebrow, but quickly scanned the items and found nothing out of the ordinary. They received a message with each item’s picture and description as she went through them. When they agreed to sell for a standard price, Diana absorbed them all into the ring she wore.

Matt’s nerves only increased as Liz pulled out their thirty-four more uniquely enchanted items. This caused the appraiser to pull her head back slightly. It wasn’t the reaction he feared, and he counted that as a win. He started to let himself calm down.

Diana did ask them, “Do you want to sell these in bulk as well?”

“If there isn’t anything we want, yes.”

There were only two items that stood out to them as useful to their situation. The first was an orb that could cast shade anywhere, and lower the surrounding temperature to a more comfortable climate for a mana per second cost. The other was the broach that allowed the wearer to breathe underwater for half an hour. Everything else was combat-focused, and not any better than what they already had.

The appraiser tapped a finger and brought the items to her ring, asking, “We will want to auction these items off in our next auction. We can either buy them outright, or we can host them for you.”

Matt squeaked out, “When?”

“Tomorrow evening. Is that all?”

Liz brought out the crafting items, which earned them a long look, before the process repeated and they sold everything off.

That wasn’t even our vault items. Will we ever have the chance to sell them?

When Diana asked if they had anything else to get apprised, she didn’t seem to expect Liz to bring out their remaining ten items at once. This time, Diana jerked back slightly before she hesitated and got to work.

“Do you know the skills already?”

At their nod, she continued, “Ok. And I assume you want to sell or trade them?”

Liz answered, “Sell, please.”

They had discussed it, and wanted to try and gather most of their skills in a way that wouldn’t be in a database for others to data-mine. It wasn’t even uncommon for people to analyze public fights, and sell prospective builds of fighters. By not buying on public auctions or skills swaps, they avoided most of that possibility.

Next, she moved to the growth items, and Matt leaned forward in anticipation.

She started with the sword that even now let off a small flame. Her results were predictable enough.

“It’s a shortsword growth item that will empower all flame skills cast, and its growth potential seems to be the growth multiplier for fire spells. More so for melee fire attacks. I’d estimate around a Tier 13 to Tier 15 cost, unless a bidding war happens.”

Diana picked up the hammer, and after a long examination, let out a small polite laugh. “It’s a hammer that will increase the effectiveness of alchemy connections made with it.” She shrugged, “Sorry, but this one is kinda funny. It might sell if someone thinks they can incorporate it, but it will probably be much cheaper than the last one. We’ll start the bidding at a Tier 9 mana stone. It will sell, but I can’t even guess at how much. Would you like to put it up or not? You might have better luck in a larger city, or the Empire proper.”

Matt and Liz met each other’s gaze and nodded together.

“We’ll put it up.” Matt felt relaxed enough to answer the appraiser.

She picked up the snowglobe and inspected it for a long time, even pulling out new items to poke and prod it with.

“This is a weird one. It seems to speed up time for any living foliage placed inside, but it also seems to have a restriction of only having one single thing in it at a time. As far as I can tell, even the growth aspect will only increase the speed, and not the amount of things you can add. It might be good for a higher Tier alchemist, but even then, the inability to even plant more of that type of plant is limiting?”

Matt was going to agree to put it up anyway, when Liz messaged him, ‘Wouldn’t Gereden be perfect for this with his tree bond?’

He paused before thinking it over and replying, ‘Would he take it?’

Matt actually liked the man, for all his taciturn nature, but he was staunchly independent. He didn’t see a way to give the man an item without pissing him off.

‘Direct delivery with no return address?’ Liz followed it up with a laughing face. Thinking of the man’s face when he got the item, Matt agreed.

Liz, seeing his agreement, said, “Can we get it sent to a friend with a description, but not telling him who we are?”

Diana seemed amused and agreed readily. “With the volume of items you’re selling with us, we can do that. Just give us a name and a last known location.”

With that, they were invited to stay and join the auction the next day. They took Kas’s auction house up on the offer, and were put up in a VIP room. If they had thought the hotel that they stayed at was extravagant, this place was a step above. Even the sinks were made of gold. It was frankly unnecessary, but Matt didn’t mind spending the night in such a nice suite.

When the auction started, they mingled with the rest of the guests on the lower floor and mingled. As much as Matt hated it the first time on the training planet, he was enjoying himself. He even learned of a few interesting tidbits from the other people who flocked here to subjugate the planet.

One man he chatted with even told him a story of a misty mountain that erased the memory of anyone who entered. It was so weird, Matt didn’t believe the man until he shared a news article. He had gone in himself, but like everyone else, exited an hour later, thinking he walked directly out. Not a memory or scratch. Even their AIs were as helpless as they were.

Apparently, even the local Tier 15 noble family fared no better. He said that there was a rumor that someone stronger investigated, but as no one had died, they left it alone. Everyone speculated about fantastic rewards, but it was all rumor-mongering.

Matt made a note to tell Liz about it. It seemed interesting enough to investigate themselves. After all, they would need to leave this planet once it started to get settled, and they couldn’t play rift creator without getting caught.

The actual auction was only interesting when their items came up, and while counting their ever-expanding bank accounts. Liz bought a pair of earrings that doubled as a privacy barrier, while Matt picked up a plucked Tier 4 mana concentration flower. He couldn’t use it to condense his own mana, but he thought he might be able to make a rift with it. If he could make a Tier 4 rift, there was a chance for a Tier 5 variant to be given as a reward. Or at least that was his plan.

They had even bought a set of fast attuning mana stones, each with aspected mana of one of the basic elements mana. It was a common enough purchase for crafters, so they didn't think anyone would question it. He figured that they would let him test mana types when forming rifts, and that they would hopefully influence the rift rewards. Even if it didn’t work, their resale price was steady enough that they wouldn't take a loss.

They had gotten a Tier 14 mana stone from the growth sword, which dwarfed everything else.

When the auction ended, they returned to their island, and were about to head to bed while chatting.

Neither could quite believe how much they made in the last few hours, and discussed what they should do when they had another lot to sell. Liz thought they should go back to the other city, but Matt wasn’t convinced that it would be enough.

“I think we just need to start holding the items. Next time we sell off that many growth items, it will do more than draw attention to us.”

A voice rang out from above. “There won’t be a next time.”

Suddenly, an enormous pressure seemed to lock down the entire world. It was more than just his spirit being pressed on. It was as if Matt was a bug pinched in between someone's fingers, ready to be squished at any moment.

With great effort, Matt turned his head and saw a man floating in the air, backlit from the bright moons in the sky.

“I am Investigator Gregor Hanson for The Path of Ascension. I’m here because you were flagged for violating Path restrictions.”