The path of ascension 5.., p.1
The Path of Ascension 5: A LitRPG Adventure, page 1
THE PATH OF ASCENSION 5
©2023 C.MANTIS
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CONTENTS
Also In Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Thank you for reading The Path of Ascension 5
ALSO IN SERIES
Book One
Book Two
Book Three
Book Four
Book Five
Book Six (Coming Soon!)
Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)
1
Tur’stal nodded as she listened to the reports from her various ministers, nobles, and important figures from her Flowers.
Even though the Tier 10 Pather tournament was going to happen on a specially prepared planet, all her planets would see an influx of visitors, and her people needed to get ready to bear the brunt of such an influx.
Everyone had issues, some real, some imagined, all apparently very important for her to deal with. Still, that was part of her duties as a queen, and she needed to at least hear out her petitioners in open court or there would be no reason for the venue.
It was still annoying.
As a weaselly looking man came up to her and explained how he needed his entire town’s sewage system replaced for the influx of visitors, Tur’stal checked her own records and agreed with him. His town only housed a few million of her lowest Tier citizens, but that would make it a prime target for people trying to find cheap accommodation for the event.
Approving him for access to the funds she had set aside for this, she gestured for the next petitioner to come forward. This woman was clearly just trying to line her own pocket with funds by offering her cousin’s construction crew for assistance with the upcoming work. She was politely declined and sent away just to be replaced by a dozen other petitioners who either exaggerated their problems to try and skip the normal improvement queues or were trying to line their own pockets before the tournament even happened.
Two days later, she saw the last of the petitioners and, after changing into something more comfortable, listened to her own staff’s reports about the status of her planets.
Most of the issues had already been addressed with the open court, but her people had noticed a hotel company lapsing on their maintenance. Clearly, they were trying to save money for the tournament when housing would be at a premium.
Making a note that they needed a surprise inspection, she finally turned her attention to the last-minute preparation for the tournament itself.
The reserves were full of mana to fuel rapid delving of the rifts, the safety procedures were working and had been thoroughly tested by her own security teams, the guards she allocated to the event had passed all the checks and tests, and the more standard rewards were already gathered and ready to be given out even with the changes they were making this year.
Everything looked perfect.
And it needed to be, considering that the Emperor was coming to this event in person and called for all the other royals to arrive as well. Not that she would have slacked if he was only coming as a clone. Rather, she simply wanted her planet to give the best first impression to all the young Pathers who would one day step off and might decide to settle down on her Flowers after seeing how nice they were.
Tur’stal looked out at her capital and smiled.
This would hopefully be a tournament to remember.
2
As Matt left Lilly, he wanted to look at his parents’ information packet, but despite having fond memories of Lilly now, he couldn’t bring himself to open it. Something inside of him felt that it wasn’t the proper time, and he followed his instincts.
He eventually told Liz, “I don’t know why I can’t open it. It feels like I should be able to…but I just can’t hit the button.”
“Are you afraid of what you’ll see?” Her question got to the heart of the matter, but Matt shook his head.
“Not quite that.” He stared aimlessly ahead, collecting his thoughts until he finally said, “It’s more like if I look at it, everything is real. Despite me knowing they’re long dead and gone, it feels like the weight of it will just…crush something.”
Liz nodded, understanding and graceful enough to let the subject drop for the time being. After leaving Lilly, the three of them had started crossing the Empire as fast as they could manage with the normal teleportation schedule. Their destination was the capital of one of the true kingdoms; it was governed directly by a royal in the more distant regions of the Empire.
Tur’stal was hosting the Tier 10 tournament this time, and her kingdom was two full kingdoms away from Lilly’s position in the Empire. With little less than a year to reach the capital, they had to rush to move through the dozens of intervening planets if they wanted to arrive early.
Most of their travel time was spent sitting around teleportation platforms, which meant Luna was able to hammer in some last-minute magical training.
To help counter his mana control problem, Matt broke through to Tier 10 immediately after leaving Lilly. As they expected, the doubling of his mana pool directly reduced his mana control to worrying levels. With 1,280 mana at his disposal, Matt was a force to be reckoned with, but regaining his abilities with his mana required constant training with Luna and Kurt.
The exercises started with simple things, like moving a small ball in a controlled pattern, then they slowly evolved into battles of control against Luna. Once his control returned to the minimum acceptable level, they started working on his elemental manipulation skill control.
For all her issues, Luna was an excellent teacher and was always able to identify when Matt was consciously or unconsciously using crutches for his abilities. But she always had suggestions on how to improve his skills.
Aster joined Matt at Tier 10 with her own breakthrough, but Liz resisted the urge to Tier up as her deal with her parents was only effective until she reached Tier 10. She knew they would flock to her side immediately if she broke through.
“It’s better if I wait until we arrive on East Flower to break through. We only have a few more weeks of freedom left.” Liz said it was like there was an executioner’s ax hovering over her head.
It was a feeling that Matt understood but for the opposite reasons.
While Liz was apprehensive of her parents wild and flamboyant behaviors, he was growing more and more worried about having parents again. In-laws or not, they would still be his parents as well.
What if they don’t like me? I know what Keith and Travis said about them, but I don’t know them well enough to predict. Should I bring them a gift? What can I even give a Tier 48 couple? They have literally everything they could ever want, need, or toss away a million times. How could I give them something of any worth or value.
I’m so screwed.
Matt was in a constant state of stress that slowl
It looked like a lot at first glance, but the impression was misleading. A large number were showing up now, but it was nothing when compared to how many would be arriving in the final three months.
They were five months early for the final check-in time and start date of the tournament. The majority of those present wanted to get one last delve in or practice their abilities just that tiny bit more. But Matt, Liz, and Aster needed to arrive early so the bipedal members of their group could set up their identities to participate.
The Tier 10 tournament lasted for exactly one standard Empire year and hosted thousands of smaller competitions simultaneously with the big three.
The big three were the main attractions of the tournament; everything was centered around them. The length of the event ensured that he and Liz could swap between their identities without issue until their real identities were quietly lost in the middle ranks.
The first was the largest attraction, where most of the prestige and rewards came from: the team duels.
The second of the big three was the solo duels. Although popular as well, the solo matches had slightly smaller rewards compared to the team event.
The final portion of the big three was the crafting event. None of them had any hope of competing in it, and they didn’t intend to even try.
As a part of their deal for competing, their cover identities would be shooting for the top spots in both the solo duels and team battles.
Matt was slightly peeved at the rules for the solo duels as they made it impossible for team members to fight against each other in the lower brackets, and the structure of the top fifty ensured they couldn’t fight there either. The final rounds of the competition were a point system where each contender would fight everyone in the top fifty at least once.
If team members met in the finals, it would be considered a draw to prevent hard feelings from a loss and missing out on earning points.
He had been looking forward to fighting Liz for the tournament victory spot but had to hope that he earned more points than her against the other contenders.
Other than wanting to win in both categories, there were a few of the lesser competitions Matt had his sights set on as well.
There were a number of single weapon or fighting style tournaments that had fantastic rewards but were less prestigious than he wanted to get involved in. The reported rewards never changed but never lost their value either.
Legacies.
Matt had only seen them in movies before, and they were purportedly extremely rare, with strict requirements to create and use. But over its time as one of the Great Powers, the Empire had amassed quite a few. They offered use of the Legacies to the top three winners of each style.
He had to ask Kurt about them. The movies were fairly accurate in their representation of Legacies, but a few details were lacking.
There were lots of things that Kurt wasn’t able to tell Matt about Legacies for reasons that Kurt also couldn’t explain, but the main takeaway was that they stored some fraction of a person’s experience and gave the ability to pass their expertise on to the person who earned a use of one. While only usable to those under Tier 15, and with onerous requirements for finding and making them, the Empire had accumulated a supply of them to hand out to those it deemed worthy.
There was a longsword only bracket with a longsword Legacy that Matt desperately wanted to get his hands on. It was the main goal of the tournament for his true identity.
Matt was brought out of his musings once the teleportation countdown started, and his nerves built to a crescendo.
As the familiar feeling of swapping worlds enveloped him, Matt felt nauseous. He wasn’t sure if it was his fear of meeting Liz’s parents for the first time, or the rougher than usual teleportation, but it took him a few seconds to clear his head as they arrived at East Flower.
His first impression of the Tier 43 planet was that the name was apt. Tur’stal’s Talents made nature love her and bend itself to her will, and it showed.
Even inside the teleportation hub room, it felt like they were outside with the number of flowers lining the room. Vines crept up all the walls, washing everything with greens and browns.
That first impression was dwarfed when they exited the building to the city proper and found that the greenery didn’t stop there. The metropolis seemed to be more of a well-curated garden than a true city.
He had seen green cities before, but they were like a snake trying to imitate a dragon. Just from their first steps onto the street, Matt saw half a dozen gardeners taking care of the variety of plants, trees, and flowers that lined the streets. Though, he didn’t know what they were actually doing if Tur’stal’s Talent worked as he believed.
Tur’stal’s vision of a perfect city seemed to be one of beauty and aesthetics as every flower seemed to already have its perfect place in the city landscape without disrupting the city flow.
The sidewalks were long, wooden platforms suspended above the ground, allowing for all manner of flowers and bushes to blossom underneath. Smaller trees formed a faint canopy above him, casting shade in some places and faintly glowing in others. Plants drifted through the air on currents of wind, some of which were large enough for park benches, though Matt didn’t know how you’d get to them without flying. Birds chirped from just out of view, bridging a marvelous symphony that blended with the background hum of the enchantment work and infrastructure of the city itself. It all just…worked together.
The majesty of the sight was only enhanced when Matt felt the ambient essence pressing down like a heavy blanket. The Tier 43 planet was the strongest world he had ever been on, and the essence was on a completely different level than what he knew from other planets, or even the rift monsters.
That illusion of grandeur was shattered when he noticed the absolute absence of mana.
He had been on planets with a notably sparse amount of mana, but he had never encountered something like this before.
There was no mana in the air at all.
Spreading his awareness out, he felt the buildings drawing in what little ambient mana the passersby leaked from their full mana pools like starving men fighting for every scrap.
From what he could feel, everything was spatially expanded to a crazy degree. The closest building was a skyscraper taking up half the city block but, as his spiritual sense pierced the outer layer, he found dozens of businesses inside the small fraction of space he could feel.
His investigation was cut off by the overwhelming feeling of a presence locking on to them as Liz said, “Here we go.”
Following the pressure, Matt saw two familiar-looking people watching from the end of the street.
Before seeing them, Matt had thought the saying that people vibrated from repressed energy was mostly a metaphor. But seeing the two royals, he had to reconsider his position.
The duo was literally vibrating at a speed which made their edges transparent.
Matt felt Liz crunch her essence cores down and step into Tier 10 and, at the same instant, the two vanished and reappeared to embrace their daughter in a group hug.
Mara reached Liz first and picked up her daughter in a massive embrace, in which her hair feathers stood straight out and quivered, while Leon picked them up and bounced from foot to foot.
“Oh, babycakes, it’s so good to see you. It’s been too long! Oh, how we’ve missed you.” Mara’s voice came out muffled from where she had been smothered by Leon’s larger frame.
