The Path of Ascension Chapter 248

Chapter 248

 

Matt and Liz rushed forward to go and meet up with Aster, who he could feel approaching them. She had most certainly skipped the lines and identity checks given the speed she was moving, which would result in a number of fines, but he really didn’t care about that right now.

Aster was home, and that was all that mattered.

It took them almost a minute to weave through the walking people, but eventually, Matt saw the head of white hair with fox ears bobbing and weaving through the crowd, and he knew they had found her.

As the crowd parted, Aster sped up and threw herself into his and Liz’s waiting embrace.

They held each other for a few long moments before they all pushed back and got a good look at each other.

Matt was slightly emotional seeing the amalgamation of his Folded Reflection sister in this Aster, but it was in the best way possible. It was his little sister with a few additional parts.

Namely, the ears and tail that hadn’t stopped wagging.

“I’m so glad to be back together with you guys! Oh, it felt like forever! Where are we staying? Did you just drop the house or rent somewhere?”

Matt laughed as Liz shot a glare at him. “Matt didn’t want to rent, and the lots of land here are booked for a while. So we’ve been bumming it at a tea house for the past two days.”

Aster laughed as Matt shrugged. “I figured we’d be immediately leaving once you arrived. Luna has had us running missions like madmen for the last few years, but she’s been absent the last few days.”

They all looked around, as when comments like this were usually said, Luna would appear and comment how she was always watching, but nothing happened to that effect.

Aster’s fox ears twitched and swiveled. “I hope she’s ok… Could she have gotten sick?”

As if summoned, Luna appeared but looked both worried and haggard. “I’m not sick, just incredibly busy. Let’s get moving. I can give three of you two days off to enjoy your reunion, but then we leave. We need to get all of you to Tier 16 sooner rather than later, at least if the three of you still intend to push forward. At this point in training, managers generally back off so your personalities can shine through. Instead, I push even harder, so long as you’re committed to going the distance.”

Hearing the implied question, none of them agreed to step off and Aster even perked up and pulled out a small notebook and pen. Matt half figured she was pulling a prank on Luna, but she honestly looked ready to take notes.

Luna didn’t seem insulted, but she also looked so distracted that Matt wasn’t sure she had even noticed. “Ventillyria is our destination. It’s a good Tier 22 world that we can more easily get rift access in.”

Liz opened her mouth to speak, but Luna’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “Stick to this city and keep your masks on. I’m keeping you three covered but don’t do anything stupid.”

With a parting glance at the three of them, their manager vanished as suddenly as she had arrived. Matt took the opportunity to look at Aster’s notebook, which had actual notes about Ventillyria and a few doodles drawn on the edges.

Flipping it shut, Aster grumbled just loud enough for them to hear, “Stupid cat probably has a hairball or something.”

Matt smirked, and Liz raised an eyebrow as she linked arms with Aster as she turned to leave. “Someone knows about that, do they?”

Aster mock gasped. “I would never! I’m dignified, enlightened, and an elected official. I would never vomit in someone’s smelly boots.”

Matt smirked at the memory. “You really hated those boots.”

Aster’s tail started smacking his and Liz’s thighs as she let her excitement get the better of her.

“Oh, it’s so good to be back with you guys!”

Matt slipped out of the arm lock and pulled Aster into a one-armed hug. “It’s been rough without you.”

When they were out of the crowded spaceport, Liz pushed Aster to arm’s length. “I like the dress. It’s cute. Are you going with dresses mostly?”

Aster twirled, and the flowy sundress-like thing spun with her. “Not normally. The tail is great to have, but gets in the way of anything that isn’t low-waisted or made with it in mind. So I’m usually rocking pants for the ease of use.”

Liz nodded, but Matt asked about armor. “Did you get armor made?”

Aster laughed. “I did. And it’s quite good. A Tier 17 set of plated leather. It even protects my tail.”

“I can look it over if you’d like. I haven’t had as much time to learn higher Tier runes as I’d like, but I’m passable.”

Liz tsked. “He’s being modest. He’s actually gotten really good.” In a false whisper, she clarified, “Or rather, his [AI] is good. Mom and Dad got him the real skill, and with his stupid mana generation, he’s been putting it to use.”

Aster laughed again. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear about how mad that’s made Luna. I bet she was ten kinds of pissed.”

They continued to chat until they reached a hotel Matt had found with a vacancy and got a suite of rooms. Matt expected they would end up waiting around for Aster to get settled in, but after changing into a nicer set of clothes, she was ready to go right back out the door.

“Let’s grab dinner! I want you to cook me a rabbit dish when we settle down, Matt. Yours is the best, and believe me, I’ve tried half the businesses that serve rabbit on The Nest.”

“I think that’s mostly the taste of nostalgia, Aster. I’m decent at best, but I’ll happily cook for you. So tell us about what you have been up to. We got and watched all your messages, but it’s not the same as hearing it in person.”

With his agreement, Aster seemed happy enough to chatter about her friends and adventures in the Beast Academy.

Liz was extra interested when Aster mentioned Alyssa and how she was doing.

Liz flicked a rib onto her discard plate with a sigh. “I should have known that she would rise to the top of that sewer.”

Matt had a mouthful of cornbread, and Aster had taken the pause in her narration to shove an entire husk of corn into her face, so he took the hint and grunted out a questioning noise.

Liz thankfully understood and elaborated. “Well, shit floats, so of course she would rise to the top.”

Aster choked on the rib she now was gnawing on, and Matt couldn’t help but cough so hard his eyes watered from the unexpected answer.

Liz was unrepentant. “I’m telling you guys. The entire beast academy side is full of elitist assholes.” Liz nodded to Aster and continued, “The bond side sounds a million times better, but the other side is all about who can kiss ass more. Who can earn more Feathers? Who can suck up to Mom by being nice to me? Alyssa would fit right in.”

Aster, who finished her glass of beer, nodded. “They tried to make us walk like a dozen miles when we had a meeting. I just kept spam pinging their side until they initiated a teleport. Did you know their palace is huge and made of high Tier materials, while the bond side has to deal with a friggin’ office building? It’s unfair, I tell you!”

Liz cocked her head in confusion. “Didn’t they repair the building yet?”

“What?” Aster looked genuinely confused, which prompted Liz to explain.

“Mom said when she was at the academy, she burnt the nice place they had down, so the student council had to move into a temporary office building. You would have thought they would have built a new building by now.”

Aster twitched several times before reaching out like she was going to strangle someone. “I’m going to roast that chicken someday. That building sucked! It had a perpetually drafty window that always leaked. I built a wall of ice in front of the window, and it still managed to leak.”

Matt looked at the barbecue chicken leg he had been eating and pondered out loud, “How would you cook a phoenix?”

That earned him an interested look from Aster and a disgusted look from Liz. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I know how to cook other firebirds, but it’s damn hard, as their flesh is obviously resistant to flame, so you need a shit load of heat. The problem is, once you reach a certain heat, the meat will quickly burn. Phoenixes are even more resistant to flames and have regeneration. It seems like it would be really hard to cook one of them… I’m just saying.”

Liz shook her head slowly. “Thinking about how to cook your wife. That’s messed up on so many levels.”

Aster tapped a finger on her lip before cleaning it off. “What if you froze the meat first? I know that’s how you cook flame halibut. It’s got something to do with breaking the resistance to heat.”

Matt nodded. “That might work, but you’d need to be careful extinguishing it. That would ruin it and you might as well just eat a normal bird.”

Seeing she was being ignored, Liz dug into their table of food until the conversation naturally drifted back to one of their missions.

“I was so impressed you fought a Tier 19, Matt. I wanted to brag to my friends so badly. One of the lion twins hates Quill, by the way, so we definitely need to set up a meeting between you two before we go public. It will twist the knife so much deeper.”

Matt laughed at the idea. “Yeah, Quill gets annoying to play, let alone deal with, so I agree with her. It’s fun for, like, the first week. But after that, it’s awful.”

Luna had said she would protect them from eavesdroppers during this dinner, so they were more free with their words than usual.

Aster turned to Liz and waggled her ears and eyebrows. “Also, Kelly loves Torch. She’s a super huge fan. Has like ten Torch shirts. Her heart only burns for Torch.”

Liz went to facepalm, but seeing how dirty her hands were, she just went back for another helping of food. “I swear, when we go public, I’m going to publicly drench a Torch shirt in blood to kill that stupid trend.”

Aster shook her head. “No way, you can’t do that. It would become a collectible at that point. Actually, you should do it; then we can auction it off for a ton of money.”

That suggestion almost turned Liz into a fireball right then and there, and the two bickered back and forth until another round of food came in. Their conversation eventually turned into familiar territory, and they just chatted about what they wanted to do in the next two days.

Aster wanted to hit a spa as a human, and the two of them happily agreed, so they booked themselves a joint massage and body work treatment for the next morning.

They all chose to actually sleep a little, and when they woke up, they found Aster back in beast form, flipping through the channels on the suite’s screen.

Liz seemed to take that as an invitation, and turned into her bird form before jump-flying over to Aster. The fox seemed surprised when the mass of hot bird fell onto her as she started to wiggle.

“Noooo! Not the heat! Not the ash! I just cleaned my fur! Matt, help! An evil being is trying to melt me!”

Liz squawked, “Take it back! I’m super cute.”

Aster, who had freed herself after a few failed wiggles, shook like she was trying to get water out of her fur. “Nuh-uh. Look at me; I’m cold and pretty. Clearly, foxes are better.”

When her tail playfully smacked Liz in the wing, Liz reared up and started smacking Aster with her wings.

“Phoenixes are clearly the better bird.”

“Yeah, but who wants to be a bird when you can be a fox?”

As the two argued, Matt tuned them out and went to pour himself a bowl of cereal. He was only three mouthfuls in when two disheveled beasts arrived at the table.

They just stood there looking at him.

Looking at his cereal and back to the silent duo, he sighed before pouring them each their own bowl.

“You two could have done this yourselves.”

Aster looked at her paws, and Liz looked at her wings at the same time. “How?”

Matt just rolled his eyes. “Clearly, it’s impossible. I apologize profusely for my idiotic comment.”

That earned him a snort from Aster which he took as a victory.

When he was getting up, Aster transformed back into her human form before racing off. “I’m taking a shower first.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Sighing, Matt went to take Aster’s emptied spot in front of the screen, where Liz flew over to join him still in bird form.

An hour later, Aster had just exited the shower that Matt didn’t miss was covered in a layer of rapidly melting ice.

He was going to take his own shower when Liz flew in before him. Dropping back to the couch, Matt started flicking through channels until he found a movie he liked and watched the last half hour. When it ended, he returned to flicking through the channels, eventually landing on a local news station that had an urgent red banner rolling as the anchors talked quietly amongst themselves.

The banner just said standby, and he was going to change the channel when Luna appeared right behind him.

“Stay on it. Liz, Aster, come out here now.”

Matt was just as confused as the others, but when they all sat on the couch, he felt an ominous feeling washing over him.

Luna sighed. “Word just got sent out through military channels that Light and Shadow are completing the Path.”

Matt felt like he had been hit with a poleaxe as he whistled.

Aster said what he was feeling. “Oh, shit. Already? That means they finished The Path in what? A hundred and eighty years?”

Luna nodded. “We knew this day was coming soon, but I wasn’t informed as to precisely when. This changes some of my plans, but I suppose I just have to deal with it. It’s also why I’ve been so frazzled the last few days, this was a surprise to everyone.”

As the news anchors bantered lightly, Aster brought out a small bucket of skills and assorted valuables. “Oh, and I got some cool stuff from graduating from the Academy. It’s mostly utility skills, nothing super fancy, but the amount of thought put into it is really nice. Let’s see, there’s [Create Mud] with a booklet on how to modify it to make clay for pottery practice. There’s [Damp Hands], though I’m not sure I’ll take that one, and a few more skills for pottery. Ooh [Layers] is a great drawing skill, too…” Matt had raised an eyebrow at that one. “It lets you draw on different magical layers, shifting, merging, or erasing them, before you release the spell and your sketches are finalized on your paper. [Mechanical Motion] is another good one, great for drawing the same thing over and over. You have that for enchanting, right Matt?”

At his nod, Aster continued, “There’s a few of the cheaper sword skills-.”

“Aster, you’re not going to use a sword. Not in a real fight. I’ve been to the academy. I know the sparring club you were in and while it can be fun and can teach good skills, you don’t have the cultivation to actually use any of those skills in a real battle.” Luna chided.

“No no, I get that. But some of the skills look so cool, especially the impractical ones. And I have plenty of slots in my outer spirit, so what’s the harm? Anyways, here is the shining jewel of the bunch, worth more than all the others combined.” Aster held up a pair of skill shards that had actually been polished.