The Path of Ascension

Chapter 115

April moved through the world with as much speed as her Intent would allow.

Luna had her running around like a chicken with its head cut off. At first, she had just been tasked with finding some of the better combatants in the Empire, near the Tier 30 mark.

That should have been easy.

It had been one of her last assignments as a liaison.

This time, the people Luna wanted located did not want to be found.

April wasn't sure if it was because Lunas information was at least three decades old, or because the news of Luna coming out of retirement had sent the people she was looking for into hiding.

The fact that she had apparently missed the Tier 32 Madam Ultra by mere hours indicated that it was likely the latter.

Still, the woman would be waiting on the next teleport swap, and that wasn't for another five minutes.

Ignoring the city's anti-flying restrictions, April landed at the front door of the transport hub and raced inside. She would be heavily fined for that stunt, but she intended to present the bill to Luna. If the woman wanted people chased down, she could pay for the fines that she incurred while doing so.

The tall woman with purple hair was visibly cursing as April walked over to her.

April pretended she didn't see or hear anything. Good afternoon. I am representing an Old Friend who is requesting your assistance. You are the potion master, Ultra, correct?

The woman sighed. I'm going by Reina now. There was a pause before she said, Didnt think you'd risk the fine to catch up with me.

April shrugged as if it didnt bother her. Ill be writing it to my boss as an expense.

That earned her a fleeting grin.

Can I offer you something to not have caught up with me?

April let her professional smile turn hard. I'm afraid not. We all have our jobs, after all. You can always refuse.

Reina spat to the side. And have the thrice-damned cat chase me down herself? No thank you. When and where? Just tell me so I know how long to hide for.

April passed on the information and watched as Reina carried several spatial bags onto the teleporter pad.

April just ripped her way into chaotic space and summoned her vessel. After ensuring that she had enough mana stones to power the ship, she set the course for a nearby, but unconnected region of chaotic space.

Running the vast emptiness wasn't ideal, but she had a limited amount of time, and too many places to be.

Aprils next target was one she didnt expect to have issues with. He wasn't an old contact of Luna's; he was an old associate of hers who, she believed, would be a better fit than the random person that Luna had chosen.

When she had been given leeway to change the roster as she saw fit, she hadnt thought the woman meant it initially. But as she researched some of the names, she discovered that more than a few were of distinctly lesser quality than the rest. Most were still masters of their crafts, but some were considered to be in the top one hundred at this point, rather than the top ten like the rest of the people Luna selected.

April didnt have to be a genius to realize that it was a test from the older woman.

The simple answer was that the woman wanted to see if she was paying attention to the selection of trainers she was lining, but her gut told her that it wasnt that simple.

The children might not see it, but Luna was testing them a million ways with every interaction and assignment.

She suspected that the policy carried over to her own assignments.

That was why she was going to see Achlys. They had met when she was on her first assignment, and her manager had wanted to find a wolf evolved beast to help train their Pather. It was then that April had found Achlys.

He had refused to help them, as he disdained combat, but she talked with him long enough to learn about him.

He was a Briarwolf, a subspecies of World Wolves, with a peak lupine bloodline with an odd second form. Normally, Briarwolves could control nature itself to a limited degree. The wood-aspected monsters were usually found in the forest. She had even fought a few of them before the species had been domesticated a few thousand years ago. After the rage had been bred out of the species they had learned they were naturally sapient instead of beasts who needed to Tier up for intelligence.

Now, there were only a few rifts containing them that had been around before their domestication. New rifts never spawned sapient creatures after allsimilar ones, sure, but not true reasoning beings. And those rifts were under protection to bring out more of the species before they would be destroyed to prevent abuse.

Achlys was abnormal for the breed. He was even more of a loner, which could be chalked up to personality rather than anything in particular, but she had done her homework on him. Achlys had been on The Path himself, before deliberately stepping off at Tier 7, after which he vanished for a time.

When he reappeared, he was Tier 15, and had retreated to the edge of the Empire. There, he worked on creating habitable planets with his Talent.

Like most Briarwolves, Achlys had cursory control over nature. However, April had noticed that the area in his influence acted more like a rift-created area than the normal forests. Even for Briarwolves, it was very strange, and she suspected that the phenomenon might extend to influencing actual rift environments.

Even the chance was worth requesting his help in training Matt. She knew of Matt's rift creation, and if her suspicions were true, figured that the wolf would be a good addition to Matts experimentation efforts.

When her chaotic ship arrived next to the bright speck of light that was the planet he inhabited, she made a cautious approach and landed a few miles away from a growing forest.

The Tier 13 world had been scoured clean of life by a rogue meteor impact. It had torn the atmosphere away and rendered the planet uninhabitable for millions of years, until the Empire had found it. At Tier 13, it was a prime candidate for terraforming, and after it had been located and scouted, they had done just that.

April was sure that an air mage had come in and repaired the tattered atmosphere, while a fire or magma mage came and ensured that the core of the planet was cycling properly for habitability.

Those were always the first roles to start the terraforming process. After that, a water mage would come and make sure that the planet had the correct level of water for its size. Meanwhile, a Tier 40 would come and change the spin of the planet to keep it in line with the Empire standard.

Now, the world was in the growth phase. Life mages, along with any other mages that could encourage safe but accelerated growth, were paid to come to this world and create self-sustaining ecosystems.

While she wasnt a part of the teams that did such work, she had read up on the process, and knew that this planet was nearly finished. Soon, the noble house given dominion over this region of space would start to settle this world. Being Tier 13, quite a few people would flock here for the resources that it would eventually produce.

The noble family that received the title was a branch house of the Tier 26 Earldom Falors in the Empire proper. It was an old and established noble house, and they had broadcasted far and wide that they intended to quickly bring this planet up to Tier 15.

As April stood around and inspected the planet, Achlys finally returned her introduction message.

Achlys was willing to grant her an audience, and she quickly hurried over to his location.

A wolf stepped from the side of a tree, as if it was a part of the tree itself, before deciding to separate for a time.

His beast form appeared as a mix of wolf and forest greenery. Vines, leaves, and tree bark seemed to fight for space over his body, between the more normal flesh and blood.

As the wolf padded over to her, its form changed, and a man stepped over to her as a robe covered him. He was utterly nondescript in a way that managed to draw the eye, despite the best efforts of his plainness. Brown hair and eyes tried to hide the fact they had just been the deepest black and bright yellow, only moments ago.

The soft voice she remembered asked, So why have you come? I won't fight, and I made that quite clear last time.

April sent him a standard nondisclosure agreement, which he quickly signed and returned.

After ensuring that everything was in order, April flexed her Intent and locked down the space around them.

This isnt like last time. I'm here now for your more unique abilities. Were training a young Pather who has the ability to create rifts, and were studying everything about them. I thought your services could be useful in such an endeavor.

She looked out through the forest, and watched as a rift formed a few miles away.

It was natural in the sense that no one had created it with mana gathering formations and the like, but it was distinctly unnatural, as this area should have been protected from rifts forming while Achlys was present. Briarwolves naturally prevented rifts from spawning near them and in their forests.

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She could still feel the other cultivators' power reaching out and nudging the growth of the surrounding lands.

Achlys shook his head. I'd rather not. I don't want to help someone create more experiments.

April jumped in before he was able to turn fully away. He's a good kid, and makes them for free. He even helps his friends as much as he can within the Path restrictions.

Achlys stopped walking away, but didn't turn back around. Then let him continue to do so. I want no part in it.

He wants to make a difference, and doesn't like rifts either. He lost his family in a rift break during the Lilly tragedy, and wants to ensure that it can't happen to others. He wants to help people.

She hoped that would work. While most of Achlys' past was a giant question mark, he always tried to improve the places he traveled to and she was banking on the fact that was for a reason.

Seeing the man stay still, she added, Erwin and him are working hard to change how we treat rifts.

Achlys turned back around and sighed. Erwin is in on this? Hes eccentric, but not stupid. Who are you working under?

Luna and Kurt.

Achlys' eyes went distant, and he looked up the information before saying, The void cat and the siren? She's retired. And Kurt is a full manager on his own merit.

He is, but he opted to reprise his role as Lunas assistant for this particular assignment. April let a smirk tinge her voice. She really couldn't reveal much else. Not until he agreed, at least.

Achlys ignored it, but nodded. Very well. Ill consider it. This project is nearly over anyway. Why not take a break and fiddle with some rifts for a bit?

As she was mentally celebrating, the wolf added, But if I don't like it, I'll leave.

April shrugged, Thats your right as a helper. Im sure youre aware that you forfeit any agreed upon rewards if you leave early.

The man turned back into a now brown-colored, but smaller wolf. Seeing this, she hurriedly sent the rest of the information and took her leave.

This was far from her last stop.

She had just entered the next world on her list when she received a barrage of messages from Luna. A portion of them were routine, but one stuck out to her.

Her boss had the children fighting other people on the planet without disguises.

April's good mood vanished. She would need to spend even more effort laying down false trails now. That seemed like such a stupid move; she had to question why.

She tried to remind herself that Luna had been doing this for far longer than she had even been alive and must have her reasons.

Unable to come up with any answers that made sense, April started calling her own contacts. False tracks were normally laid by contractors who had no idea what they were doing. There had been a government program for it a few thousand years ago, but it was so filled with spies, it had been scrapped for a more organic approach.

April would have to hire a few dozen teams to change their appearance and make some waves in the Tier 7 through Tier 11 range. If she muddled the trail enough, they could say that the kids were any of the false teams, instead of exposing their true identities.

It was just more work for her.

She had just dealt with the inconvenience when she got another message about Erwin and Matt creating rifts for a local guild.

Letting out a small scream of frustration, April started hiring more people to set down false trails. She had no idea how she had pissed off the older woman, but she regretted ever accepting this assignment.

Three days later, she was off and moving to find a suitable swordsman to train Matt. According to the list of acclaimed melee fighters that she had access to as a part of a management team, the one Luna had asked for had been most recently ranked fifty-second.

After her complaining about Matts instructor during the vassal war, she was sure that this choice had been a trap.

Seeing that her ships mana crystals were low, she changed her route slightly so she could hit one of the management team supply caches.

The only way through this was to finish the assignment, and April had never given anything but her all.

Her goals were much loftier than being part of a simple management team, but this was her first step.

Mistakes were not acceptable.

***

Melinda sat with her back against a rock and watched the lake surface ripple with the soft wind.

Things were so peaceful. After the months of harsh training in the desert, she was happy for the reprieve.

She was just tired.

Tired in a way that had nothing to do with physical activity.

Her team was growing strong and wealthy. They had earned enough skill shards from delving the Tier 8 rifts that they had all rounded out their skill sets for the foreseeable future, while also improving their combat prowess.

But that wasn't all she wanted from life. She wanted the simple life she had lived with her friends before the vassal war. She also wanted to keep them safe which is why she had accepted the idea to fight in that war.

Melinda plucked a leaf off the small shrub next to her and twirled it.

She had embraced the training at first. They had been clearly lacking in power and ability before it had started. In the past, they had sometimes struggled delving rifts at their own Tier. But now, they could split the party in random ways, and still delve two Tiers higher than their own. Now only the strongest Tier 8 rifts Matt could make were able to make them struggle. They had worked hard for their current abilities, and had earned the progression that they were now benefitting from.

She just didnt know why they were progressing.

A few years ago, she would have said that it was to keep her family safe, but they were now. She made sure of that.

She looked over to where Matt was running laps through an obstacle course.

He wasn't doing it because he was told to. He enjoyed it.

She had just healed them from their last attempt at the Tier 9 rift, but he had immediately thrown himself back into training.

He had several cracked bones, and burns all over his face, but was entirely unbothered by the experience. He wasnt even phased enough by the defeat to consider resting first.

Aster and Liz had also gone off to do their own thing, but Melinda doubted that they were slacking off either.

She simply did not have that same drive. In her free time, she wanted to relax.

They just seemed to drive themselves harder after each new challenge.

Her team had also started tackling the Tier 8 wave rift, and while they hadnt been in danger of dying, they always struggled after the tenth wave. They had only reached the fifteenth wave once, through excruciating perseverance. Their team had everything on paper that Matts did, besides the unlimited mana, but there was something else missing with them.

Melinda didnt want to say they didnt have the ambition necessary to progress on The Path, but she feared that it might be the case.

They would always push themselves, but somehow, they always came up short.

She knew it wasn't fair. Matt, Liz, and Aster were monsters in both combat ability and pure endurance.

They were good people, but they had to be some of the best in the Empire. She and her team's pride depended on it. Because if they were average her team would be regulated to the trash heap to be thrown into a rift to be disposed of.

When her group cleared a rift, they wanted to relax and come down from the adrenaline of the fight, but Matt's party just went right back to working.

The only time she had seen them truly take a break was when Matt had nearly lost his head.

His entire esophagus had been cut through, and one of his carotid arteries had been severed. How he had managed to use his armor to help slow his bleeding, she had no idea, but it was an impressive use of his armor.

If that was the level of dedication her team needed to truly make it on The Path of Ascension, she didnt know if she even wanted her team to finish it.

She turned to the right to see Mathew and Sam sitting on the little pier they had built. They were fishing. It was a calm and relaxing sight.

They had delved five Tier 8 rifts today. Five. Two years ago, she would have laughed at the absurdity, but today had been a fairly light day.

They only needed to recharge their mana once, because of how efficient they had become with Kurt's practical combat training.

With that, and more blind delving experience, they had been able to easily clear any Tier 8 rift they encountered.

Melinda flopped back and gazed at the passing clouds. She wondered if she could convince her team to slow down a little once this training was done.

She mentally probed the center of her magical and physical cultivation cores. She could Tier up at any time, as her spirit was full of essence. Her cores were in need of condensing before they advanced, but she pushed through that to the center of her spirit.

Her Concept was a shadowy puddle that reminded her of the end of all things.

She could feel her Intent waiting to be created. It was at her fingertips if she so chose; or, almost there. It was missing one final ingredient. She was half way there, but the final piece seemed massive compared to the passive part of allowing her Concept to convert her essence.

When she had had a revelation about her Intent, she asked Luna about it, and the cat had confirmed that she was ready to create her Intent. Or at least had the prerequisites. She had a Concept that had fully converted the essence in her cores to resonate with herself, and an idea of what she wanted.

The problem was, her Intent seemed to want to follow her Concept on the path of death. There was an easy answer if she wanted it. When she had run into problems in creating the Intent she wanted, she had half-heartedly tried to create the death Intent that seemed to want to form, but even that refused to crystalize.

That next step seemed like a gulf she couldnt cross.

While she had come to accept her Concept, and actually found its passive form quite useful, she didnt have any desire to be more deathy. She wanted to heal people. She wanted to fix what was broken.

As she watched a cloud pass over, she focused on everything she thought of as death and conceptualized it.

The good and the bad.

Pain, blood, the end. Release.

Feeling that mental imagery resonate with her Concept, she added all the anatomy she knew about the human body and its various functions. How to break it in the little ways, and how to restrict blood to a portion of the brain and shut everything down.

With the proto-Intent forming, she added what she thought of her childhood, and how the death of her parents had changed her life.

As she held all those dark thoughts at the front of her mind, she felt the melancholy wash over her, and for a moment, she let it take her.

She followed it to the darkest depths that it had to offer, then waited. There was still something missing, but she wasn't sure what. Luna and Kurt had said that there was a second part of Intents that she would have to discover for herself, but could only reveal that it was different for everyone.

Within the dark abyss of death that she had created, she remembered what Luna said.

Concepts are the foundation of what you are. An Intent is the next level, both literally and metaphorically. You need to find what that next step is for you. When you find it, youll know. Common advice is to create the phrase and image you want, and then try to embody that. If I say more, I'll most probably send you down the wrong path. It's different for everyone.

She had countered, But I didn't even want my Concept. How do I build off of something I don't want?

Luna had shrugged. You can always break your Concept and make a new one. I'm sure youll figure it out.

Melinda hesitated. She had learned to accept that her Concept was a reflection of herself as a child, and how she viewed the world around her.

She wanted her Intent to reflect the her of tomorrow.

With that thought firmly in her mind, Melinda inverted her dark thought of death and pain into life and relief.

Like the goop from her Concept when it killed things.

Life came from death.

Her mental image was bathed in light where there had been darkness. In that same instant, she turned her thoughts to the positives of healing. She now focused on mending and healing the bones she had mentally broken, and the flesh she had ripped apart in her mind.

It was so stable, she could even back off the image for a while, and it would stay intact. But only for a moment. If she backed off for too long, the image started to crumble.

There was something missing.

As Luna had said, she needed to find something more.

She just didn't know what.

Withdrawing from her cores, Melinda noticed that the sky turned a vibrant red as the sun started to set.

She hopped to her feet and started to stretch.

While she had no confirmation, she believed what was slowing her down was her Talent for overhealth.

A small part of her questioned why she needed a healing Concept, Intent, or Aspect with a Talent that almost guaranteed that she would never need to apply any effort into perfectly healing someone. It whispered how it was a farce that she pretended to study and learn about the body when she didn't really need to. Her Talent could handle all of that after all, so why bother.

That had gotten to her for a little while and stumped her, but now, she had a proper answer. She wanted to be a proper healer. If, however unlikely, there came a time when her Talent didn't work, she would still possess the skills needed to heal anyone.

She also truly liked healing. It was fun, and provided an amazing service to people that would always be needed.

Melinda was a healer.

Seeing everyone moving to the house they were living in, she took her place at the table and watched as Matt brought out an array of food. It was hardly unusual for him to cook for everyone, but she hadn't expected him to do so after the last fight and his late training.

Watching him set down the plate of what she thought was ham, she carefully inspected her friend. He looked fine, and had a cheery smile as he joked with Kyle, who made fun of the pineapple flowers he had cut.

She thought they looked cute, but let the two of them bicker.

Inspecting Liz, Melinda found her newest friend looking morose. She was trying to hide it as she talked about the projects she was working on with Sam, but Melinda saw a flicker of darkness in her eyes.

She made a note to talk to her before she went to sleep for the evening.

While she didnt quite understand where Liz was coming from with her issues regarding her Royalty parents, she did sympathize with Liz feeling like none of her achievements belonged to her.

Aster was wagging her tail as Vinnie cut three slices of the ham off for her. Aster seemed unaffected by her ordeal in the Tier 9 rift, but it was harder to read her.

Melinda still had trouble differentiating the Aster of now, who could talk and reason, with the more animal Aster of the PlayPen. She, and everyone else, were careful not to slip into old habits, and instead address her and treat her like the person she was.

But even as Melinda watched, Aster seemed fine.

She had been reading up on beast and evolved human psychology in the last few months, and everything about them being more desensitized to the dangers and killing associated with delving seemed true. Aster seemed less bothered than even Matt.

When they were finished with their meal, she waved everyone else off as Liz started to clean up the table. So, how are you doing?

Liz didnt say anything for a long enough time. Melinda wasnt sure she would.

Im just wondering if we're doing the right thing.

Melinda made a noise of encouragement, but didnt say anything.

The redhead continued after that prompting. I just worry about everything recently. I worry Im holding Matt back by wanting to stay on The Path. I worry something will go wrong, even though we talked to Luna, and hell be fine with the restrictions until at least Tier 10. I worry that I'll lose my identity by relying on Matts mana. I worry about being able to keep up with him if he leaves The Path. I worry that if we aren't together, we'll drift apart. I worry that Im just not strong enough. I just worry.

Melinda let the woman pour out her problems, and just nodded along as they rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

Finally, Liz turned to her and asked, How does your team do it with you and your Talent?

Hearing the question, Melinda had to resist brushing it off. Liz deserved a true answer.

They all do things without me. I think while similar, the situations aren't identical. Melinda paused before finishing, We work together, and yes, they rely on me to delve, but when we're out of the rift, we do things together and apart. We each stand on our own. For example, you have your alchemy, and Matt has his rift building. You help each other, but you don't need each other for it.

Liz seemed to mull that over for a while, and Melinda let her. The other woman wasnt dumb; she just needed time to process her own thoughts.

Finally, Liz said, I just worry, you know. This rift has beaten us three times now. While weve gotten a lot farther, Im not sure how to counter the new sub-boss. It's a water monster in an ocean, and I just don't have the control yet to keep my blood from diluting.

The taller woman clenched her hand. I fear that Luna is right, and if we can't beat this rift, we don't really deserve to be on The Path.

Melinda grinned. It had taken some getting used to knowing that someone was always watching you, even if they didn't want to, but she knew Luna would hear her next words.

You can always tell her to pound sand.

Liz snorted, We could, but that would be the same thing as giving up. Are we supposed to give up anytime someone challenges us? No. I don't like that answer. She even said she stacked the deck, but this is beatable.

Liz talked on for another ten minutes, mostly just going over the same worries in slightly different ways, but Melinda listened and reassured Liz where she could.

Melinda was a healer. She was a healer in every way.

And her Intent would reflect that.

She would make sure of it, no matter what she had to do.

***

Aster padded through the snow in the new Tier 6 rift that Matt made for her.

There was a particularly nasty type of ice bear that roamed the windy ice landscape, but she was pretty sure that she had killed most of the ice monsters.

She settled in next to the exit rift and started to absorb the ice mana in the surrounding air.

What had once been instinct, now took conscious effort.

She didn't absorb the cold mana itself, but mixed it with her own mana, and as her mana absorbed some of the cold from it, she separated them and grabbed the next handful.

While she loved and thought of herself as the prettiest fox in the Empire, she was growing ever more irritated with her body. Every day the limitations grew more obvious.

Her frustrations had gotten so bad that the stupid cat had even taken her aside and talked about it.

She said that they all went through it, but usually only after Tier 10, when their minds fully awakened.

Aster didnt regret or blame Matt and Liz for giving her that part of the tree thing, but it was inconvenient at times.

She still relished being a true member of the team, and able to contribute more than her irritation at being unable to open doors and not having thumbs.

Luna had tried to use that as motivation to get her to practice her Concept and object manipulation, but Aster had bitten the woman instead, and earned a dunk in a hot bath for her troubles.

Really, the cat needed to chill out.

Aster chortled at her joke.

As she sat and cycled her mana, she flip-flopped between daydreams of how she would make her human body, and wondering how she would kill that stupid water snake.

Her first idea was to turn enough of the water into ice so that the monster couldn't control the element.

She was the best ice mage, after all. She had a little more than two thousand mana, and with her bond to keep her full, she knew she could do it.

After all, she had beaten the chicken that had roasted Matt's flying sword. He loved that flying sword almost as much as he loved her, and despite getting a replacement, he was still upset. She could feel it.

Wiggling deeper into the snow, she decided that she would sleep on his chest tonight. That always cheered him up. He liked the cold!

It was also the comfiest place to sleep for her, so it was perfect.

Now that she had that problem solved, she started thinking about the perfect human body for herself. She wanted to be tall, like Matt! That one was easy.

Shed keep her tail, because her tail was the prettiest thing around. Her hair would be white, because what was better than pure ice?

Her ears, she wasnt sure. Human ears would be nice, but her ears were adorable! After all, they were hers, so they were perfect. And Matt scratched them just right. But most other humans didnt.

She put that down as a maybe.

Probably. She moved the ears to a probably.

She then moved onto her face itself. She mentally modeled what she would look like if Matts parents were her parents. They were the closest thing she had to parents, after all.

Her first idea was more cute than she wanted, so she sharpened the angles a little bit to give her a more fierce appearance. She was a fox after all sharp angles were her thing.

When she was happy with that, she moved on to the chest. She went with something a little smaller than Liz. While she was a mage, she didnt want to have them in the way and didnt see much point in them.

They looked nice, sure, but she didnt need much for herself.

She wanted a thin waist and slightly larger hips. Matt had called it willowy before.

Long legs. Those were a must.

Aster spent more time tweaking her appearance until her AI beeped that it would be dinner soon. Good thing too; she was hungry. She only got to eat three rabbits today.

She saved the form she had been working on to her AI. Human form possibility #315.

Shaking the snow off her fur, she dispelled the rift reward and scooped up the mana stones.

Aster really couldn't wait to get hands. Everything would be so much easier.

Maybe she could get Matt to buy her a spatial ring for her collar.

It was worth a shot.