The Path of Ascension Chapter 131

Chapter 131

Matt’s next few days were a combination of hectic work and leisure time.

The morning after their arrival, the first thing they did was register for their slots in the tournament with their real identities.

It was an easy process that consisted of a simple examination and demonstration of their skills. At least, the ones they were willing to show.

An hour later, they were finished and able to return to their room, only for Mara and Leon to teleport them to one of the nine planets that were linked to East Flower. From there, they would then hop on a quick teleport back using their false identities.

With their first layer of masks on, they were able to change into their false personas. But with the second, they could create true anonymity.

Matt’s mask was a pitch-black, hard shell covering that seemed to absorb all the light that hit it. All except for a silver, stylized feather pen giving form to his persona’s name of Quill. The feather took up the entire left side of his face in a mostly vertical curve that somewhat traced the shape of his face.

Liz had a pale mask that was always flickering with a flame where her hair would have been, giving her a radiant back glow which cast her face in shadows. It gave her an intimidating appearance that she could thankfully turn off if she needed to. Having a glowing light on your head made for an impressive sight, but also told every enemy where to aim.

He quite liked it for its aesthetic purpose, but its secondary function was far more useful. When Luna had delivered the mask, she had explained that it had a false center of power that would let their newly advanced Tier 10 cultivation seem as if it was at the peak of said Tier.

It wouldn’t pass a close inspection by anyone over Tier 25, but that was why she would be personally keeping her spiritual sense concentrated on them when they were wearing their masks.

Someone would have to be vastly stronger than her to pass both layers of protection and see their real cultivation. Although she wouldn’t tell them the exact number, her cultivation was somewhere around Tier 45. It wasn’t likely that a spy would be able to see through their identities.

Matt had been surprised that she expected spies watching the tournament. Not that he didn’t expect there to be any at all. He was surprised that they would be willing to show themselves somewhere that the highest echelons of the Empire were residing. That seemed incredibly risky, and for little gain.

His manager had explained that the place would be crawling with every spy the other Great Powers could get in. When she added that some of the lower ranks of the nobility had been known to accept bribes for information, he was glad for the multilayered defense.

Unlike their first time registering for the tournament, their cover identities were put under far more scrutiny.

With the masks on, they weren’t asked or able to provide an easy information packet of their abilities, which meant they needed a far more intensive screening.

They were quickly brought into a private meeting room, where an unassuming man sat them down and told them that someone would be there to interview them shortly.

Matt had to resist smirking under his mask as Mara and Leon invisibly mimed playing with the man’s suit.

The duo had such a crazy control of their powers that they were perfectly visible to Matt and Liz, but seemingly intangible to everyone else around them as they tagged along.

It only took half an hour before a woman in a smart suit came in and set a pad down in front of each of them.

“Please fill out as much information as you feel comfortable doing so.” Her statement was met with raspberries from the invisible Mara and Leon.

The forms were easy enough to fill out, and less than five minutes later, Matt was done. As he waited for the woman to finish whatever she was doing, he perused the first events that would be hosted during the Tier 10 tournament.

While the solo fights and team fights would only start at the beginning of the third month, the first three weren’t empty by any metric. Everything from speed-delving specific rifts, to finding and completing trap and puzzle rifts was available, but Matt was more interested in the other challenges.

There purportedly was a rift containing three hidden bosses that were hard to find and harder to kill. Rewards were given based on how fast the delving team could come back with the respective remains, and how many of the bosses they had killed. The point structure made it a balancing act, where teams needed to manage their time spent finding and killing said monsters. It could pay off to simply kill one quickly and leave, rather than flounder through the rift and waste time.

The next entry that piqued his interest was the endless rifts. They were a subset of wave rifts that had no limit on the number of combat waves. They were incredibly rare, but they gave no essence during the fights, which prevented skills like [Lesser Sacrifice] from helping delvers endure countless waves. The essence given was limited to the same amount as a standard rifts delve, which made the rifts unpopular for the general public.

It wasn’t just his interest as an aperologist that made him want to look at the rift. The rewards were doled out each month, and increased as the tournament went on. While the rewards during the first few months were decent, by the end of the tournament, they were beneficial to the extreme.

There was everything from special weapons and armors created by Tier 35’s, to greater rewards like true, low Tier spatial rings for the top five finishers. He even saw a portable house listed for first place after the first six months.

Matt wanted that house.

He was tired of mooching off of others when they stopped somewhere, or having to rent a new apartment. If they had their own place, they could have home wherever they went. Including when they delved rifts.

Before he was able to see the rest of the challenges and rewards, they were escorted to a training room with two instructors waiting for them.

The still unnamed woman gestured and said, “These are two Tier 25 testers we have. We need to ensure that you have a minimum level of ability in your chosen skills.”

She looked at the pad that Matt had filled out and said, “Quill, you indicated that you are a talisman user. We will need you to create a series of talismans in front of us, so we can ensure that you’re making your own consumables. Same with you and your potions Torch.”

Matt nodded as one of the men separated and asked, “Who’s the mage?”

Matt looked at Liz, and she offered, “Quill is a pure mage, and I’m a heavy melee hybrid, but I still sling fire skills around.”

That same man gestured to Matt and said, “I’ll start with you then.”

As they moved to the second half of the room, a barrier of light separated the room into halves, and the man said, “Ok, please attack me as you would in a duel. Feel free to go as hard as you wish. I will be reactive for the second half. I will warn you before I start my offensive. We need to see where you will be placed for the seeded slots in the solo duels. If you want a good seed, show more of your skills. If you want to hide some of them, feel free; I’ll let you know if you don’t hit the minimum threshold for competing here.”

Withdrawing his staff from a second copy of his weapon storing spatial ring, Matt pointed his staff at the man and cast [Ice Spear].

The staff was one of his creations, and it took full advantage of his massive regeneration with a series of inscribed spells to add to his skill set. There were even a few tricks that he had added with Erwin’s expertise, but he had no intention to show those skills off here.

This was just to test their competency; showing off trump cards would be stupid.

The tester smacked away the shard of ice, but Matt had already moved to the left and cast a second [Ice Spear], and followed it up with a [Fireball].

As the pair of projectiles raced out, Matt used the new spatial bracelet that Jamie had started selling in the last few years to remove a talisman. He had balked at buying a second set of the enchanted items, but had doled out the price to keep his cover identity a little more secure.

The bracelets were produced by the hundreds, and were less conspicuous than the vests they had ordered, despite being much smaller.

With a tiny amount of mana, he activated the talisman and felt a rush of energy course into his limbs. He raced forward, covering the twenty feet to his opponent in an instant.

The effect faded, and Matt drew a second talisman that created a massive burst of mana that shoved the Tier 25 back.

He knew the man had allowed that spell to push him back, but he was happy to see the effect was working as intended.

With two more sheets of parchment pulled from his spatial bracelet, Matt increased his speed and raced away as the second parchment started launching a stream of [Fireball]s.

Taking the time that bought him, Matt pulled out another paper and held it as he waited for the end of the [Fireball]s. When he counted the last projectile, Matt sent a bit of mana into the paper, and a giant bolt of lightning lashed out.

The spell was just a massively overcharged [Jolt], but with Tier 11 materials, he was able to shove thousands of mana into the single spell, to devastating effect.

As befits his Tier 25 status, the tester wasn’t even phased, but he nodded in approval as he said, “I’m going to start attacking now.”

To Matt’s relief, he was only moving at a physical fighter’s Tier 10 speed, which meant he didn’t have to use any more of his speed talismans. It put an incredible toll on his body to increase his speed for even the short two seconds, and his joints were already complaining.

Retreating as much as the room allowed, Matt cast a few spells through his staff while taking out a defensive talisman.

As the man rushed forward and threw a punch at Matt, he activated the talisman, and a barrier of blue mana crystallized around him. It shattered under the higher Tier’s power, but he didn’t press the attack.

Matt used the time to retreat back into the center of the room, and launched another series of attacks while being forced to dodge and avoid the tester’s relentless approach.

When Matt had spent half of his mana usage allotment, the man waved him off and said, “I’ve seen enough. You hit hard. I have to ask, though. How much harder can you hit? Some of those attacks border on lethal for even Tier 11s. If you can get a lot stronger, We’ll want to prepare special defenses for any time you’re fighting other people.”

Matt hesitated before admitting, “If I have a few seconds, I can hit three or four times that hard.”

That earned him a raised eyebrow and a headshake, but the man just tapped at the air before gesturing them to a secondary room.

“Here, we need you to prove that you can create talismans. Feel free to use the provided materials. We need to see you make a version of each type of talisman you intend to use in the tournament.”

Matt thanked the man and got to work.

He would need to create an offensive talisman, a defensive one, a support talisman, and finally, an array talisman to meet those requirements.

The first three were standard enough talismans that anyone could buy or make with the proper tools, but the final one was more specialized, and a much more difficult application of the craft.

At the cost of time and an absurd spike in difficulty, it was possible to link talismans and let their power funnel into a single attack. It wasn’t as simple as creating one large talisman, but instead involved mathematically linking a series of smaller talismans to create an array that was able to express more power than the sum of its parts.

The problem was, creating a talisman array was a thousand times harder than a single talisman, and there was no room for error over the seven talismans. Prime numbers being the most stable talisman array formations, Matt usually went with seven or eleven, depending on exactly how much power he needed.

Talisman arrays also had a much longer cast time, as he needed to link the parchment together before casting. So, the larger the array, the longer it took to set up, but there was little that could survive that level of attack.

Using the provided mana from the city, Matt quickly created the first three types of talismans. He went with his easiest skills, a [Fireball], one of his speed talismans, and his [Mana Barrier].

It took him only an hour to complete the three, but close to eight hours to properly plan and create the talisman array. Each imperfection on the parchment needed to be taken into account before he could even start drawing out the lines and engraving the spell lines into the spirit of the material.

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Still, he completed the process without an issue, and was even able to keep the talismans he created, to his surprise.

He hadn’t expected that, with them providing the materials and mana.

Liz had long finished her own testing and had proven her alchemy skills, so they were let go after being given a teleportation token.

The man who gave it to them explained, “This will teleport you to a personal room, created for your privacy, from any of the teleportation pads throughout the city. No one will be able to track your movements, and the rooms are perfectly private. When the tournament starts, you’ll be issued another set of keys. Even though these are linked to you two directly, I wouldn’t suggest losing these. Replacing them isn’t cheap.”

They quickly used the keys and found themselves back in their own room at Mara and Leon’s place.

Liz pulled off both of her masks and asked, “What did you do, mom?”

Mara opened the door and innocently said, “Nothing much. We just had the teleportation array link you here.”

Matt didn’t mind that fact, and tuned out Liz bickering with her mother. He had spent quite a few talismans that he would need to recreate before he fought again. He had expected that, and stockpiled a truly massive amount of processed parchment and enchanting liquid, but he wanted to keep his reserves topped off as much as possible.

He only stopped his planning to give Aster a pet as she joined him, sitting on the bed.

Leon reappeared at some point and joined in teasing Mara, but as Matt was planning out his next few days, the absent Luna appeared with a small cough.

Mara and Leon each let out a small scream and vanished, only leaving behind outlines of themselves.

Luna just rolled her eyes, but focused on Matt and Liz. “You two did well in hiding your abilities. Now that you’re Tier 10, I have a new training method for you, though.”

She looked to the two still fading outlines and reached through them, pulling back a pouting Mara and Leon.

Luna didn’t give them even a moment to speak. “Show them mana patty.”

Mara turned and looked shocked to see the shorter woman. “Oh, Luna, how nice to see you. It’s been too short.”

Leon kept up his pouting, and crossed his arms and legs while being held by the collar, keeping his eyes closed.

Luna shook him and asked, “Aren’t you going to say hi as well, Leon?”

The Tier 48 shook his head and murmured, “If I see no evil, there is no evil.”

Luna just threw the man into the far wall and scoffed. “I have no interest in teaching you two idiots. I have new proteges, who aren’t giant slackers. Now, stop fooling around and show them mana patty, before I draw up some lessons for you two.”