The Path of Ascension Chapter 130

Chapter 130

 

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 hundreds of intervening planets if they wanted to arrive early.

Most of their travel time was spent sitting around teleportation platforms, which meant that 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 1280 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 axe 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 true worth, or value.

I’m so screwed.

Matt was in a constant state of stress that slowly built until he was about to explode. Luckily, he had their arrival to take his mind off things, as they had finally reached East Flower. They stood with hundreds of other Tier 10 Pathers, who were also arriving early.

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 that 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, before the process was repeated with the top ten, then five.

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, that 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 that were suitable for cultivators under Tier 15. 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.

They were incredibly rare rewards that were found from Tier 45 rifts or higher, with incredibly strict requirements to use them. The person who wanted to create a Legacy needed to satisfy three requirements.

First, they needed to be Tier 45.

Second, they needed to have an Aspect.

And finally, the individual needed to have experienced an inspiration about the topic that they wanted to pass down at some point in their cultivation journey. On top of the maddening prerequisites, Legacies were known to fall apart after a random number of uses.

Sometimes, they lasted for only a single use, but they could also last for thousands of years.

It was completely random, which was why the Empire restricted their use for all except motivated and skilled cultivators that resonated with a specific Legacy.

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 into a crescendo.

As the familiar feeling for 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 on East Flower.

His first impression of the Tier 43 planet was that the name was apt. Tur’stal was the fifth strongest royal, with her Tier 1 Talent that made nature love her, and her Tier 3 that warped the environment to her will.

Even inside the teleportation hub room, it felt like they were outside with the number of flowers lining the room. Vines crept up all of 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.

As far as he could tell, there didn’t even seem to be cracks in the sidewalks from the trees growing along their borders.

The majesty of the sight was only enhanced when Matt felt the ambient essence pressing down on 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 the essence 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 worryingly 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 were actually vibrating, and 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 both of 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.

Liz’s father didn’t miss out on the reunion, and he said, “Oh, you’ve gotten so big. It feels like it was yesterday when you were just learning to walk.”

Liz was trying to say something, but her voice wasn’t able to make it past the couple’s ramblings.

Matt felt glad for Liz to have such loving parents, but felt a bit like an outsider as he watched from the edge with Aster in his arms.

As if sensing his feelings, Leon and Mara finally let go of Liz, who took a dramatic, deep breath while the overjoyed parents turned to Matt.

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With expressions of glee, they looked from him, to each other, and then back to Matt, and he froze with Aster like a rabbit spotting the shadow of a hawk.

Their eyes literally gleamed with a light as they looked at the two of them, and every primate-brained instinct, battle-honed and not, screamed that he should run. Run harder than he had ever run in his life.

Leon squealed while pulling Matt into a hug, with Mara only a fraction of a second behind her husband.

“Oh, we’re so glad to finally meet you properly!” Mara babbled as they bounced around from the couple’s irreversible excitement.

Leon said something as well, but Matt didn’t hear it. He was lost in the hug.

The couple were warm.

It wasn’t the heat of the fire that he knew Mara could unleash, but a feeling of comfort and acceptance.

It spoke of somewhere that he could shelter from the turbulent winds of the greater world, that would always welcome his return no matter what. Somewhere that only wanted to prop him up when he got tired. Somewhere he was accepted for being himself, by people who wouldn’t ask him to change. Somewhere that didn’t expect anything from him, but would support him in every desire he had.

Somewhere that he could call home.

That feeling broke something in him that he hadn’t even known he had been missing, and with seemingly no thought, Matt reviewed the information packet about his parents that he had been avoiding for so long.

For the first time since the rift breaks, Matt saw his parents’ faces.

Young, and alive.

It startled him to realize that they had been younger than he was now when they had him, despite looking older.

He saw his first birthday, and the little cake he ruined, to only his parent’s smiles.

There was a video of his first steps, and his dad doing a little dance with him in celebration.

As he got older in the pictures, he started to remember bits and pieces of the images, until near the end. There, the memories became clear as he recalled the incidents.

Pictures of their life scrolled by in a loop. It was everything the city had been able to find from nonlocal servers, and Matt wondered why he had waited so long to view it.

They were full of sad memories, but happy ones as well. Photos of memories that he should have looked at the day he got them, instead of letting them fade.

He felt ashamed at that but the feeling only lasted a moment.

As the pictures and video flickered past his eyes, he felt the warmth of the duo still holding him. While he knew that they weren’t trying to replace his own parents, he let himself imagine that they were his parents for a moment, and sunk into the embrace.

It felt like an eternity, but finally, he pulled back slightly, and the duo let him go as he blinked away tears.

A subtle [Water Manipulation] removed the lingering effects of his tears that threatened to fall, and he saw understanding smiles on Mara and Leon’s faces.

Liz noticed the change, and having been together so long, knowingly beamed at him.

Like a switch was thrown, once they saw that he had centered himself, Mara squealed while grabbing Aster from his arms and pulling her into an identical hug.

“We finally have a grandchild!” Leon was so excited that little lightning bolts started to shoot from his hair, and Mara’s mane of feathers started to glow.

Mara mirrored him and cheered, “We finally have a grandchild!”

Knowing the joke, Matt shattered their illusions. “Aster is more like a little sister than a child.”

Three faces turned to him. All three were pleading, but for different reasons.

Aster wanted him to save her from the insane duo, while Mara and Leon looked heartbroken at the revelation.

Mara, with a quavering lip, asked, “But you raised her… and Liz helped… that makes you parents, right?”

Going along with the routine, Matt shook his head. “No, Aster has only been like a sibling to me.”

That confirmation shattered the duo’s world.

Literally.