The Path of Ascension Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Head Sect Elder Winter Hornet looked around the gathering of leaders and met Defiant Comet’s eyes. The woman was glittering with released mana in a wasteful display. For her, it was nothing unusual, but her nod back spoke of understanding.

Smooth Bow and Dual Spear sat together and quietly chatted with their heads pressed together. Their sects were an annoying alliance that always voted together.

They were the fools trying to reform their sects and feeder sects to follow the cursed Empire’s path of cowardice.

He would have removed the two, but their Sects were old and held great sway, accounting for nearly thirty percent of the highest Tier smiths and alchemists among the collaborating sects. It could cripple the war effort to alienate them now.

And they were loyal. They advocated for war with the Empire as much as the other Elders. Only, their goals were different. The duo wanted to slow the Empire’s growth and recreate its success.

Elder Winter Hornet knew that to be the folly it truly was. The Empire might find the rare gem, but their harsh and brutal training method of allowing the strong to dominate the weak had made them a top Great Power for generations by ensuring everyone of their cultivators were hard as the stones beneath their feet. The Empire might have surprised them in short order, but he believed them to be a paper dragon with one real tooth.

Duke Waters.

Elder Winter Hornet sneered. The man was a monster, that was a fact no one doubted, but he was only one man. The Empire hadn’t allowed their regular troops to fight in nearly three millennia.

The new Emperor was a coward, like his father before him.

A new Tier 50 had to make their mark and show their power. The normal way to do that was to duel the other Tier 50’s, and start a war, or at least fabricate a border skirmish. It was what he had done, and it forced the others to take him seriously. Through his fists, he ensured that no one would try to interfere with his lands.

Emmanuel had only wanted to duel them, which was an outcome that no one would allow. The thief’s Talents were well documented, and no one was willing to allow him a chance at their Tier 50 Talent. In a fight the man might be able to breach their defenses and take what was their core.

It wouldn’t do to give the man more power, especially theirs.

If Elder Winter Hornet had been in his place, he would have simply started a border skirmish to show his willingness to fight, but Emmanuel had just sat there.

Then, Duke Waters had been found, and suddenly, the Empire was willing to engage with their Ascender.

That had been an undesirable outcome, but an acceptable one. When a Great Power had the advantage of a cultivator who could punch above their weight, they pressed it. As was right and proper.

No one even contemplated having a Tier 36 or higher go and assassinate the man. That was a precedent no one wanted to set. Besides, the stronger the Ascender, the faster they usually advanced past Tier 35, removing themselves from the large-scale wars for new lands and old planets.

They would just need to wait, and eventually, the man would move on. Then the Empire could be taken down a peg to restore the balance between the Great Powers.

However, Light and Shadow had been found shortly afterwards, and things had changed.

Suddenly, the expensive social reforms that the Empire had been undertaking, which the other Great Powers had mocked, had produced another pair of powerhouses.

In and of itself, that was fine. It was rare, but a Great Power with two sets of Ascenders was not unheard of, and it was usually considered a golden age for the realm. But normally, the Ascenders were millennia apart, not just a few hundred years.

It meant that they would have the pair for far longer than was average.

The Empire had been accused of cheating, but the Coward had provided overwhelming proof that neither he, nor anyone else, had interfered with the general rules that they all abided by.

Ascenders were strong. There was no question about that. But that didn’t mean a carefully nurtured chosen one couldn’t equal them. There was power in the public perception of someone who had reached Tier 25 in two hundred years on their own.

Most rightly assumed that any Ascender was then given everything they needed and wanted, which only increased their power further. It was true that the cultivators who reached Tier 25 on their own, when given the full support of a Great Power, bloomed. It was adding water to arid soil.

They flourished.

A third batch of strong youths were being raised in the Empire, and the fact that a few were suspected of having the ability to at least make it to Tier 20 while on the Path made the timing urgent.

The other Great Powers needed to attack and cripple the Empire before their lead on the others became so great, they would be left behind and forced to bend the knee.

Looking at the rest of his Elders, Elder Winter Hornet pushed his perception out of the capital planet to see if their visitor had arrived yet.

Two short days later, she arrived with an entourage befitting the next Tier 50 of the Republic. Dicomaty’s replacement was a tall woman with pure, white eyes that drew you in, and with her near the peak of Tier 49, he had to resist the pull even while she didn’t use the ability.

The spies he had in the Republic hadn’t learned much about the Talent, but it was known to be her Tier 25. Overnight, she went from just another average cultivator to a Republic sensation, who was unbeatable in a direct engagement. She seemed to also have a partial Seeker ability, rising through the ranks with combat prowess and political maneuvering.

When in use, Janet’s eyes drew in attacks, where they then vanished, until she spat them back out many times stronger. So far, no one had figured out how to counter the ability, but he had a few ideas.

Standing, he pushed his perception out and welcomed the party of seven to his capital.

With his five sect elders at Tier 47 and two at Tier 48, he had the strength advantage. But he also had three thousand years to advance his stronger people, where Janet hadn’t. It would be the height of folly to disrespect them now, right before they took full control of the Great Power stronger than his own.

When the group appeared in the meeting chambers, he nodded slightly and said, “Good evening. I am happy to have you visit my realm.” Elder Winter Hornet gestured around. “If you would like, after our meeting, please partake in any activities you wish on my planet. I wish you to feel at home.”

Janet kept her eyes nearly closed and responded, “Once we get the formalities out of the way, I will be happy to take you up on that offer. But first…” She trailed off and glanced to her side, where a burly man with melee fighter cores stepped forward and presented a box with a single, thin and absurdly sharp needle. It radiated so much cold, that during the few seconds of the man opening the box, he was covered in frost. Though, it didn’t seem to bother him.

Janet nodded to the box. “With Dicomaty ready to ascend, I have been delving rapidly to reach Tier 49, after securing the general vote. During that time, I had a lucky encounter. A rare permutation of one of our rifts created a Tier 48 Ice Wasp.”

Elder Winter Hornet stiffened at the name, but wasn’t dumb enough to think that she was mocking his weapon of choice. No, he could feel the barb was indeed the stinger on a wasp.

In his childhood, he had been a simple slave, who was sent into the deep underground caverns to chip away ice from critical components of the Ice Forges. The Winter Forge Sect had used them to create their special elemental weapons. It was hard and bitter work, where two out of five died from exposure, or ice falling on them. But he had absorbed the cold, and cultivated with it. When he fought his way out of the mines, he had done so with the only weapon available to him. His ice pick.

When he emerged, he discarded his slave clothes and old names for cultivator robes and a proper cultivator title, as he was made an official disciple. That was the start of his climb to the top.

Elder Winter Hornet had never forgotten his humble beginnings or changed his weapon of choice. He had only elongated the handle to fit in his hand better. With the cold, he slowed then killed stronger opponents with his awl, which let him punch through the heaviest of armors.

It was why he knew the Sects system worked, and that the Empire was only getting lucky.

Struggle brought out power.

It always had, and always would.

He nearly licked his lips as he looked at the stinger. It was the perfect weapon to make into a replacement for his elementally neutral awl, which was a full Tier lower than the material presented.

The problem after Tier 47 was the lack of rifts, and the inability to find high enough materials to make proper weapons with. With an elementally aligned weapon closer to his own Tier, he would double his power output without the threat of ascending involuntarily.

“I offer the stinger as a show of goodwill in our alliance to take down the Empire. This is too big of a threat to our Great Powers’ future prosperity to have any doubt in our dealings. Let this show my sincerity.”

Elder Winter Hornet smiled. It was a good show of faith, and he knew he would end up paying for this favor. But whatever future favor this cost him, it would be worth it.

He smiled. “Let us chat. I want to bring in the lesser Great Powers to round out our numbers. Sit, and let us discuss.”

***

Matt and Liz met up with Melinda’s team at the Queendom teleporter, to find his friends dirty and tired looking, but they had smiles on their faces.

“What happened to you guys?”

Tara kicked his shin. “You! You kept attacking our encampment and causing a bunch of stress!” She mockingly pouted. “You owe me for that! I lost a lot of points because of you.”

Matt smiled as Liz retorted, “You could have jumped ship when the Queendom changed the rules.”

Sam scoffed. “Yeah, and join the losers? At least our side won the real war.”

Matt laughed as the three of them started to bicker, and turned to Melinda and Mathew. “So what are your plans? I hear that you’re going to the boonies as well.”

Mathew half shrugged. “Apparently. Baxter wants us to meet someone.”

They both looked to Melinda, who looked back at them with a blank face. “I don’t know either. Everyone heard him say the same thing. He was trying to be mysterious.”

Matt didn’t care. It would be nice to travel with them either way.

Before long, it was their turn to teleport to the Queendom’s interplanetary teleporter, and they crushed in with everyone else attempting to get into the city that he was just besieging an hour ago.

Relying on Melinda, they made their way to the much larger teleporter, and were quickly transported out. Apparently, with the Queendom’s taking of the Tier 20 planet, the victors rushed to bring in vast quantities of goods, and used the teleporter as fast as it could be loaded on the other end.

When they appeared on the other planet, Matt, Liz, and Aster all started sneezing so rapidly and so intensely, they gave themselves headaches.

Melinda patted Aster, who seemed to have it worse, and covered her face with a cloth mask. Everyone else had already brought out face coverings.

“Sorry, we forgot to warn you. We looked it up after hearing from other in the Queendom. This place has pollen that is really irritating for a while. It will pass in an hour or so, but it’s rough.”

Matt looked up through tearing eyes and saw that the air was hazy, and had a purple tinge to it. It was actually really pretty. Or, it would have been, if he wasn’t attacked by another round of sneezing.

They were escorted off the platform by the workers, and once inside a sealed room, they quickly recovered, and he cursed himself for not using [Cracked Phantom Armor].

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it’s taken without the author’s consent. Report it.

Matt grabbed Kyle, who hadn’t stopped smirking, and started jabbing his ribs. “You remembered, didn’t you?”

“Yup!” Kyle said, doing his best to speak while laughing. “That’s— What you get for— Hey!”

Upon hearing that she could have been warned, Aster had frozen his legs solid, causing him to stumble to the ground. There, she pranced onto his chest and started yipping at him.

Her AI messages were broadcast for everyone to hear. “That’s not nice. So I’ll make you ice!”

She seemed inordinately pleased with her rhyme, and the frost started to creep up Kyle’s waist until Matt picked her up.

Sam took Aster and cradled her, loudly whispering, “It’s ok. We can put itching powder in his clothes later. The big meany.”

Liz glared at him as well before adding in the same faux quiet voice, “I know of one that lasts for hours.”

Kyle tried to protest, but even his own team was ignoring him.

Now that he had time to observe, Matt found that they had been led into a building for charter ships to the other teleporter. They walked into a private room, dragging Kyle’s still half frozen form from where they left him on a seat.

After settling him, Matt checked and found a local teleporter, but the price was absurd. For each teleport, it was a Tier 9 mana stone, compared to the Tier 3 mana stone for a luxury suite on the slower flying transports.

“Why does it cost so much money? That’s ridiculous.”

Matt didn’t actually expect anyone to answer him, but a frazzled looking April was suddenly at his side and said, “This is a Tier 2 planet. Mana is at a premium if they want to Tier the planet up in any reasonable amount of time. Teleporters are hungry things, and eat a lot of mana. The Tier 9 mana stone is more a deterrent than anything else. It costs way more mana to activate the formation, but few are willing to pay it. If too many people start paying for it, they’ll increase the price.”

Everyone was looking at her, and she waved. “I’m April. Liaison for their management team.” She pointed at Matt, Liz, and Aster.

She turned back to Matt and flicked a finger at him. “This is the destination Luna wants you to go to. I’ve set a travel plan for you. It’s not a rush, but you don’t really have time to dally either. Two larger stops because of teleportation timings, but as long as you follow this, you should be able to travel in comfort.”

Matt was reviewing the plan and complained, “These are all luxury travel plans. I can’t afford this.” He paused to ask, “Can I?”

April just blinked at him. “Yes? Yes, you can. It’s not even that expensive. But more importantly, there are millions of people trying to get out of Queendom territory, or returning home to said territory. The cheaper accommodations are booked for months.”

Mathew opened his mouth and raised a finger, but April answered, “Yes, those plans included you all. Baxter asked me to schedule for you as well.”

She peered at all of them with a raised eyebrow. “Questions? Comments? Concerns?” Seeing them silent, she continued, “Good. Then I’m off. I won’t see you at your destination unless things go really well on my end.”

The woman looked ready and was fading away when Liz asked, “What are you doing?”

April reappeared and quickly said, “Setting up your next travel plans. This war was supposed to last a lot longer, giving me more time before our initial meeting, but Luna wanted us all to meet you first. I’m the new girl, so I get to do the grunt work. Luna wants half a dozen people to spend time with you all in just the next few years.” She sighed. “Anything else? I really need to get going.”

When Liz shook her head, April vanished.