The Path of Ascension

Matt and his team were left at their wits end once the meeting was over. They didn't know what they should be doing with their free time. They couldn't even spar, in case they injured themselves. So that was out of the question for at least another week, and without the ability to go on missions, Matt felt adrift.

With little left to do, Matt offered, “I’m going to pester an enchanter I know. Does anyone want to come?”

Annie sighed. “It's too early to work. How about we go get pedicures? Maybe a full message? Treat ourselves a bit.”

No one else wanted to do work after that suggestion, and Matt wasn't going to be the odd man out when he wouldn't mind the distraction.

They found a nice place and were pampered into an absolute mess of luxury. The place was so fancy, they were treated to hair cuts as well. His hair was buzzed back to nearly nothing, as he didn't want to deal with it during a fight. Conor had taken the same approach as well.

Liz and Emily both had their long hair merely trimmed, but Annie had taken her shoulder-length hair to a style only a finger-length long. She said that it would only get in her way, with all the sneaking she planned on doing.

Aster had her coat brushed and shined. The finishing touch was the array of ribbons that she had woven through her fluffy tail, along with a matching pair of bows by her ears. She pranced around, showing off her cuteness to everyone they passed as they walked around the city. Eventually, they stopped in for a light lunch before they went their separate ways just after noon.

Annie and Emily were going to visit a friend, and Conor was doing the same. Liz just pushed Matt to go visit Kelley, the Tier 10 enchanter that he had made friends with. She was going to start preparing for the upcoming changes, and try to get ahead of what she expected was coming.

He offered to help, but was very kindly told that he wouldn’t be of much use to her.

It was actually a relief, he really didn't want to play nice with people that he didn't know. All he wanted was to do some enchanting.

Kelley was waiting at the front desk next to his nephew when Matt walked in. Matt hoped he would be. He had messaged the man earlier, and then once again when he was on his way.

“Oh, you’re here, good. Let's head back. No girlfriend or Aster today?”

Matt shook the Tier 10’s hand and laughed. “Nah. We died yesterday, and after a spa day, we have nothing to do for the next two weeks, until we can safely spar again, which is at least a week out.”

The man looked positively gleeful at the news, and he half dragged Matt into his workshop.

“That's perfect. I've been playing with the light rune you gave me. I think I figured out how they can be linked together to create an array, but the efficiency loss is still a little higher than what’s practical. To make it commercially viable, we need it to be as bright or brighter than the standard rune, at the same mana per minute level. Not the high end of mana cost, where it already wins. But I think I'm close.”

Matt snagged a pair of dark-tinted goggles and peered through the blinding light, looking at and recording the string of runes that Kelley had set up.

At 80 MPS, Matt's AI started parsing through what Kelley had done, and began testing modifications from both the base rune and the one the older man had adjusted.

“I think we can work on this. First thing I see is...”

***

The sun was peeking over the horizon and illuminating the giant walled-off city. The tips of the skyscrapers glowing like candles as Matt walked down the street to their rooms in the headquarters building.

On the way, he ordered breakfast for everyone and returned to their room with warm bags in hand. He had just finished setting the plates when Liz came out of their room with a sleepy Aster. She still had the ribbons in her tail, but not the ones by her ears. Considering how much she moved in her sleep, he wasn't surprised in the least.

Liz just yawned at him and asked, “How’d it go? I was surprised you didn't come back last night, so I figured it either went really well or really badly.”

Matt grinned at her around his face full of egg.

“It went really well, actually. Well, kinda. Kelley and I mostly worked on the light rune I gave him, and we managed to solve the problem of the rune being too inefficient. But it only works for single runes, and not for strip lighting. We’ll work on that later, after we both have time to think on it. After that, we mostly worked on enchanting various bits and bobs he had lying around.”

Liz looked vaguely concerned at that. “He isn't taking advantage of your mana, is he?”

Matt waved his fork, “He isn't. Or if he is, he's either really bad at it, or working an extremely long con. He didn't ask, and when I half offered, he waved me off.”

They ate in silence for a while, until they both finished their plates. Eventually, Matt asked, “How did the prep stuff go?”

Liz grinned at him. “Gooood. But I need you to stand the first watch for me.”

“Watch? What watch? And where? And when?” He cocked an eyebrow and said, “I'm willing, but confused.”

If Liz needed someone to do something fast, it was much easier for him to step in and take over for a while, than to scramble to find someone else. The only question was what exactly it was that she needed him to do.

“We need someone to staff the situation room and basically see if they’re trying to send Pathers on suicide missions because of terrain or anything.” Seeing the expression on Matt's face, she hurried to add, “It's not meant to be hard. We’re still working out the exact details, but we don't expect it to be more than that. Or at least not much more. We’re thinking about rerouting all Pather communications through the offices we are setting up, but that seems like a little too much for a single person to handle.”

“Wait, back up a bit. Who is we?”

Liz looked confused, but finally understood. “Sorry. Yesterday I was talking to Juni, and afterwards, Talous. He’s the one of the top Pather team leads on the Queendom side, and we’re making sure we get everything we can from the two royal heirs. Anyway, he and a few others on both sides who are interested planned out a lot of things yesterday. Some of us are dead, and some aren't.”

“The idea is, we’ll always have a top fifty Pather in charge, and on the council that the Prince is making. If no one in the top fifty is dead, the top ten need to send a representative. It's not ideal, as it will screw up some missions, but it's the best we can work out for now. None of us want to do it permanently.”

Matt wiped his plate with his toast and asked, “And that means someone needs to be in the situation room?”

“Yup! That's where most of the big decisions are carried out. I think you'll at least not mind it, even if it isn’t your cup of tea. The map shows everything that’s going on, and the various upgrades that can be bought from the points that the Kingdom is earning. We’ll get someone else to do it soon, but we all need to start today.”

He looked at their room with longing, but blasted [Endurance] at 80 MPS for a few seconds to banish any fatigue he was feeling. They left the food out for the others, and they quickly moved downstairs, where they separated.

Matt found himself in a brightly lit room with row after row of massive screens, and people tapping at them while interfacing with their AIs. He was surprised by how quiet the room was with that many people talking, and by their gestures, some discussions were getting rather heated.

A quick inspection of the room with his spiritual sense showed him a series of enchantments surrounding each workstation. It was overlaid with an obscuring rune, making it murky and twisty to his senses, but the application was obvious.

A petite young woman with bright pink hair came over to him and introduced herself. “Jessica, watch commander for the first shift. I assume you’re the Pather assigned here.”

“That's me. Though I admit, I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be doing, or how any of this works. Any help would be greatly appreciated.” He grinned at her, trying to show that he wasn't going to step on her toes or try to take over somehow.

If that was Liz’s plan, he had no idea how he would even begin to go about that, so he just kept things honest.

Jessica looked at him questioningly, then motioned around after finding what she wanted. “This is the relay section and where we communicate with the various teams who are out in the field. From those that are defending the lowest level forts to those defending the cities.”

“Not an AI? I know we didn't deal with one, but I'm surprised by that, with how many teams are out there now.”

The Tier 7 woman shook her head. “The hundred people we have are generally enough to handle the volume we get. It's usually a lot of small calls that only take a minute, but we don't let an AI handle the communications simply because the teams don't like that.” She shrugged and continued with, “Apparently, it's been tried, and doesn't go over well. Even though most of the operators are relaying information that an AI is giving them. Don't ask me about the psychology. I can't explain it.”

Matt raised his hands slightly and took a half step back. “Oh, I understand. I'm sure someone figured out the most optimal way a million years ago. I was just surprised.”

Jessica laughed lightly at that. “Fair enough. Sorry, that’s something that some of the other nobles were upset about. They thought it was wasteful that we requested their people for such dull work.” She made air quotes with her fingers and sarcastically chimed, “Menial labor that an AI could do. And they always seem to complain during my shift.”

She guided him forward to a glowing, projected globe ringed by panels, with levers and knobs inlaid.

“That’s the big boy. That isn’t our work; the Empire put this together for us. It lets the Prince spend Kingdom level points to upgrade various forts or cities throughout the world.” She pointed to a counter on a side wall and said, “That’s the overall points total, and where we’re earning our points. Everything can be interfaced with your AI if you’re in this room. Feel free to poke around. You won't break anything, since none of us have permission to do much more than view the files and processes. Only the Prince has the ability to spend these points. And while he can delegate things, only like three people have been given the right. But I'm pretty sure that all three are really just Juni.”

Matt laughed at her attempt at a joke and said, “Yeah, The Prince seems to trust Juni, and he’s always busy with various things. Though, I've only worked with him for a little bit, so I'm sure you know him better.”

Jessica grinned and responded, “The running conspiracy is that Juni’s Talent makes it so he doesn't need to sleep, since no one’s ever actually seen the man sleeping. It would explain how he gets so much done.”

Matt paused to think about that; he hadn't seen the man sleep either. Juni always was up and about, constantly doing something during the golem attacks, and afterwards. He doubted that it was actually the man's Talent, but it could be.

She looked at the map and said, “You aren't a part of the Kingdom, but Juni has a reputation. He gets things done. People have tried to pin assassinations and sabotage on him to the Prince a million times. If he does things like that, he's never been caught, or at least left substantial proof. He's also insanely loyal to the Prince, though that one makes sense if you know their history.”

“Oh?” Matt was officially interested, and tried to pry some more information out of the shift commander.

“Yeah. The Prince ran away when he was around five, I believe. How he got away from his minders, no one knows, and more than a few heads rolled for that lapse. But he found Juni’s house and was taken in by the family. He pretty much lived there for a few days before anyone found him.”

Seeing Matt's look of incredulity, she nodded. “It was a new backwater world. Tier 3, and no one there was strong enough to scan the whole place, so it took a while. Either way, they apparently became fast friends, and when they were to be separated, Juni said he would follow his friend. Five or so years later, Juni shows up at the Prince's birthday celebration after crashing the event by climbing down a chimney. Right in front of the King and everything. He swore his allegiance to The Prince in front of everyone, and was granted a knight title by the King himself. Lifted his family right out of peasant status with one move. They’ve never been separated since.”

Matt wasn't sure how much of that he believed, but nodded along with the woman. It just sounded too fantastical. A Prince without a Tier 25 bodyguard? Or one so incompetent that it took days to search an area that an unawakened child could escape into? No, he didn't believe any of that.

It was an interesting look into Juni’s history, or reported history, if nothing else. He made a note to relay it all to Liz later. She was more likely to be able to weed out the good information than he was.

Jessica’s head jerked away from him, and she said over her shoulder, “Gotta work. If you have any questions, find me once I put out these fires.”

Matt walked over to the huge map and inspected it. It seemed to be a larger version of the one he had seen with Juni when they had checked in with the man.

There were five continents with a city each. Two of them on nearly connected landmasses were red, with the surrounding forts colored in a similar shade. The map clearly showed a series of large forts surrounded by a ring of medium forts, with the walls of smaller forts creating something akin to border walls around the cities.

Little resource icons flashed, but any in the Queendom’s territory were dim, with not much information provided. He could only see what the resource was, and its expected value in both points and material yield. Though it was just an estimation based on the information gathered before the Queendom took over the land. Quickly swiping over to a Kingdom controlled area, he found a Tier 6 iron mine that was producing two tons of material a day. The mine wasn't simulated, as he expected. Instead he saw that there were upgrade paths in the map where automated miners could be purchased. But the Kingdom seemed to have invested in actual miners.

After some spinning of the globe, he found a virtual mine by finding the medium fort his team had taken over. It produced aluminum; or it would have, if it was a real mine. Instead, it was simulated, and produced a set amount of virtual aluminum, which could be converted to real aluminum for free, or converted into points.

That mine was creating points at an astonishing rate. Three thousand points a day as it was now. If they upgraded it, they could double that. It seemed incredibly unfair when you considered that it was one of the thousands of medium forts, but two things still caught his ire.

The first was that they were Kingdom level points, and not normal points. They weren't the same, and couldn't be converted except at a pretty massive loss. Even when converted, it couldn't be done without the army’s approval. Matt suspected that it was the reason why Colonel Thorne was there for the meeting.

The second was that upgrading everything was absurdly expensive. It cost thirty thousand points to upgrade the fake aluminum mine to the next level of production. Ten days of production wasn't bad in and of itself to double the mine’s output, but that was nothing when looking at the cost for fort upgrades.

For a small fort to have the cheapest upgrade, which was to improve the gate to a Tier 7 metal banded wood, cost eighty thousand points. To raise the wall another five feet taller and increase its stone to Tier 7 cost two hundred thousand points. Adding a set of mini defensive ballista on each side of the front gate cost half a million points. Upgrading them to mana cannons was another million points on top of that.

And those prices were all for the smallest of forts. The prices only scaled further for each level of defensive structure.

Increasing the defensive rating of the wall around a city cost fifteen million points per section of wall. That meant one hundred and fifty million points for the smallest city, and two hundred million for the larger cities.

The cities were the only structure that could increase the Tier of their defenses to Tier 8, but the cost was so absurd, it was nigh unreachable. Upgrades for each section cost half a billion points.

Still in shock, Matt flicked to the other defensive upgrades that various places could get. True magical shielding was on the list, but it was only available for medium forts or larger. He didn't even feel that the price was all that high, at least for the initial price. Two hundred thousand points was relatively cheap, until he looked at the specs for the shields. It cost 15 MPS as a standing price, and had a battery of half a million mana, which would be drained to sustain itself when absorbing damage.

That wasn't bad. The King was Tier 35, and clearly invested in the prize for winning the war. A Tier 35 mana stone had two hundred fifty billion mana, and the man had, or at least should have, the ability to get them quickly. There had to be a few nobles he could shake down, if nothing else. One stone could power everything itself.

That was his perspective on things until he looked at the outgoing costs that the Kingdom was incurring. Nearly two-thirds of their income was being spent on mana. A little searching showed that the Empire had realized that a single, higher Tier mana stone could turn the tides, so they forced the Kingdom to buy mana with points.

A single point bought 10 mana.That meant that it would cost fifty thousand points to fill up a shield's reserves. That wasn't a small investment. It changed the light in which he viewed the mana stones he pilfered. That wasn't a small investment, though he doubted that the army was handing out lower Tier mana stones. It would make more sense if they had a few Tier 45 mana stones, and just slowly drained them. At five hundred trillion mana, a single one might fund the entire war a few times over.

That would be a fortune to everyone in the vassal kingdoms, of which the strongest weren't even Tier 36. But it would be nothing to the Emperor, who had Tier 47 rifts to delve.

It made sense to limit the outside materials that could be brought in, as it rendered the various mines on the planet actually valuable to the war effort.

Matt tried to think of how he could use that to his and his team's advantage, and spent the next two hours reviewing various functions. In the end, he didn't see any way to exploit his mana regeneration. The easiest way would be to create a rift where iron was present in the ground, as there were two Tier 5 rifts being delved for that purpose. A team went in with miners who, after it was safe, started mining the rift over and over. The rifts had a limited number of instances, so they could expertly mine the ore and leave.

He was pretty sure that he could make a rift like that, but how he would own it would be a separate problem. If he said he made it, he didn't know what would happen, but the questions he imagined being asked would be less than ideal for his continued anonymity. He also didn't know how he would be able to claim a rift at all. He was pretty sure that they were considered a part of the planet, unless you were a guild or noble family.

It wasn't like he needed the money, but he did want to increase his point generation. The two weeks of forced downtime sucked, and he was anxious to earn enough points to buy the [Cracked Breach] skill. He half suspected that it was placed there explicitly for him. It was just too perfect of a coincidence, otherwise considering that the skill could accept an absurd amount of mana with a relatively low upfront cost. But he could cover upfront cost with the help of a mana stone next Tier.

Some of the upgrades just felt weird. Why spend points on a moat when you could just dig one out? After some consideration, Matt figured that this actually was the army’s intent. You could spend an absurd amount of points, or you could build whatever you needed yourself.

Things like the teleporter setup for large forts seemed impossible to build on one’s own, but considering the strategic value of something like that, it seemed kind for the army to provide them at all.

That didn't change the fact that the Kingdom was raking in points like they were hotcakes. A single small fort generated ten points an hour, and there were tens of thousands of them. The medium forts generated one hundred, and the large forts were worth five hundred points an hour. A city generated ten thousand points an hour.

If he decided to become a mana battery he could make 6,912,000 mana a day.

Matt paused as the realization sank in. That was worth 691,200 kingdom level points per day. If he sold his secret right here and now, he could buy everything he could ever want out of the reward shop. All it would take was a few days of sitting back and relaxing. He was sure that the conversion wasn't one for one, but that hardly mattered when he never ran out of mana.

I could change the course of the war with a few days worth of giving mana… That's enough to redirect points into upgrading a fort or two.

Matt was almost tempted to try and work out a deal.

No. Fuck that. I'll earn more points than that by fighting. I’ll carve out a deeper impact through my actions, not my mana. I will not, and will never be reduced to just a mana battery. I'll kick down a city's walls solo if I have to, but I won't devolve into nothing more than my Talent.

Still, the scale of points was mind boggling.

He received a call from Liz as he was idly scrolling through the numbers. Since it was the first contact he had had in five boring hours, he quickly picked up. “Check to see if 54°21'56.0"S 36°34'45.6"W is a bad spot to send a team.”

Matt found the spot and saw that it was a cold and mountainous region near the pole of the planet. There was a single medium fort defending a palladium mine. The fort was distinctly far away from cities, and acted more as a beachhead for the Queendom, located on the southernmost continent. It was half-covered in ice caps, with a large fort built at the center, with a small ring of forts around it. The continent and fort were both otherwise isolated from the main forces of both vassals.

After thinking it over himself and having his AI simulate the situation, he responded, “Seems clear enough.”

After a long moment, Liz finally asked, “Ok, good. How are things down there?”

Matt shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. “Fine, I guess. Mostly boring, since there isn't much for me to do other than observe. From the lack of communication so far, I guess you can handle everything from your end?”

Liz seemed apologetic when she said, “We got set up with a full office, and it has most of the capabilities I thought we would need someone down there for. Sorry. I didn’t think it was worth your time.”

“Don't worry about it.” Matt tried to reassure Liz, who he could tell was genuinely remorseful about leaving him out.

“I thought we’d need a lot of oversight, but the Kingdom has been super helpful, and hasn't tried to double-cross us or anything.”

“So, do you need me here?” He tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice. While he had not minded this little break, and had learned quite a few things, he’d much rather be doing something else.

“For now, yes. I’ve got a replacement on their way. If nothing else, we at least have a face down there, so that should keep anyone from getting ideas about changing orders or something. Sorry I have to go. Someone's at my door.”

Matt almost reluctantly disconnected, and spent the last hour of his shift planning out his next steps. He started on his idea for posting a reward for unique mana aspects. He would offer 10 points per person who had an aspect he lacked.

He wasn't sure if it was enough to attract people, but he felt it was more than fair for someone spending a few points of mana to charge his ring a bit.

That was an hour's worth of standing guard, but for a few minutes of effort.

To his surprise, by the time his shift ended, and a young woman came to replace him, he had half a dozen pings responding to his posting.

He eagerly sent them each a message to meet up with him at a public park, and hurried his way over to find six people milling around.

“If you can line up, I just need to input mana into my refilling mana stones.”

That was Matt's answer to hiding his growth ring. He bought two dozen small and inefficient mana stones that could be recharged, and intended to simply have the people add their mana into one, then move on.

Steam, cloud, iron, tree, plant, and finally ice were the aspects of mana that he added to his collection. He was about to refuse the ice person, but decided to take it anyway. The young man was Tier 5, and had a scraggly look about him that Matt recognized from his days in the orphanage. It reminded him of the kids who were falling into depression. That haunted look along with the young man trying, and failing, to hide his eagerness caused Matt to ignore the fact he had Aster’s ice mana.

“Thank you all. If you know anyone who has unique mana, please let them know that I'll take a copy.”

The cloud mana woman was the only one to stick around and asked, “I assume that you’re a crafter?”

Matt just nodded to her question. He did craft things, after all.

“If you have anything that reduces weight, I’d love to buy it. No one else has it at a reasonable price.”

“Head over to Kelley’s enchanting shop. He has a Tier 7 earring that does that. Price is seven Tier 7 mana stones. At a thirty percent reduction, it's well worth the price.” Matt only knew of it because he had helped Kelley create an earring last night, once they moved on from the light rune. The earring they had made wasn't the same one he was telling her to buy, but Kelley had shown him the weight reduction one as a reference. The one they made was a custom job to reduce wind resistance, but crafted in the same shape and style.

The woman winced but nodded. “Better than most others I saw. It's even better if it's Tier 7. It's just expensive. Do you know what the price is in points?”

Matt paused. Kelley didn't actually have points listed in his store, so he wasn't sure if the man even accepted points. But considering that the only reason he was on the planet was for the contribution points, he would surely take them.

“I think so, but I don't know the cost in points, sorry. I don't think it would be more than a few hundred. But I really don't know.”

With that, they went their separate ways, and Matt pulled out the nearly empty mana stones.

The first five were quickly absorbed into his ring, and he cleaned off the old mana signatures by ensuring that the stones were fully drained.

Matt was about to just empty the ice one, but he decided to try absorbing that one as well.

It was worth the points to see how repeated mana aspects would be handled by his ring.

To his surprise, his ring absorbed it without a problem, and didn’t overwrite Aster’s ice aspected mana. They sat next to each other as near twins, but with a subtle difference between the mana types.

Aster's ice mana was a more cold ice, whereas the young man's mana was more of a slow ice. Or at least, that was the fuzzy interpretation he came up with from comparing the two.

He immediately edited his posting about asking for anyone with aspected mana to come and visit him, no matter the type.

Spending ten points was nothing to get extra unique mana types. He wasn't sure if that type of difference in mana aspects could make unique rifts, but he was itching to find a secluded place and test his theories.

For now, he intended to try and make a new item with a slowing ice effect, instead of increasing the cold damage. Kelley was Tier 10, and probably could go for another all-nighter.

Probably...