The Path of Ascension Chapter 370

Chapter 370

Matt whistled as he and Liz watched chaotic space swirl past them, letting his hand idly run through her hair as she leaned into him on the couch as they watched chaotic space pass by with their spiritual senses.

They were both in excellent moods, the ducal meeting having gone exceptionally well, contrary to their expectations. Both of them had expected some kind of incident or challenge to their authority, considering they were weaker than the typical Tier of duke, just as Aiden had suffered when he earned his duchy.

Instead, they were treated as any other new peer. They didn’t have the depth of their duchies to pull from when it came to making trades, but there were still a few deals that they had accepted. Most were for production facilities to be set up amongst their new lands, but ultimately, those kinds of exchanges were minor things in comparison to the dukes and duchesses who used the meeting to set up deals for truly rare resources. Matt and Liz could only hope to get their hands on prizes of that ilk in the future when they had trade goods of equal value.

Ultimately with only half of their duchy having arrived, they couldn’t barter too much. But they did know what rare resources most of their planets would have, which let them complete some minor transactions which they were happy to take a small loss on just to establish the trade route.

Once the ships started moving between systems, they would inevitably seek to fill or empty their holds, and that was what they really cared about. Once the foundation was laid, everything else would be that much easier.

One notable item Matt intended to get his hands on was the Gilard family’s unique marble. The Tier 40 stone was widely desired for usage in thrones or other symbols of office, thanks to its rarity and unique presence. Few nobles actually had thrones made out of the marble, as the Gilards were notoriously picky about who they sold it to. But Ascenders historically had good luck getting their hands on it, and Matt wanted to surprise Liz with it as a present for when their flying castle was created.

When infused with a person’s mana, it created stunning visual displays based on their mana type and sub-aspects. The most famous example being the throne of a long since ascended duke who had Air mana with unique sub-aspects. The resulting throne looked like it was made of gravel constantly tumbling around in a hurricane, yet somehow keeping the overall shape of a throne. While he was curious how his own sub-aspects would flavor the neutral mana manifestation, he especially looked forward to how Liz’s Ichor would show itself.

And so was Duke Gilard, based on how quickly he agreed to sell some. He had been hemming and hawing to no end about selling some, probably in the hopes of getting a better price, until Matt mentioned his own curiosity.

He had been tempted to buy a little more, as the marble was said to be incredibly stable for enchantments, but it was just too expensive for the current budget of his guild. Definitely too expensive, and in too low supply in general, to be useful in any final product. It was still a shame, it might have helped isolate some variables and further their research into improving the 50-50 odds for de-aspecting, the current big focus of his guild.

A topic which had piqued his curiosity when delving in the Sects. Seeing so many unique and interesting rifts made Matt want to get back into making custom made rifts to personally delve. Part of the Path, especially with Luna as a mentor, was constantly delving into new rifts almost or completely blind, and figuring everything out on the fly. He had been doing it that way for so long that it felt weird delving any other way, and their travels through the Sects had reminded him just how much he enjoyed such delves. Some people took great satisfaction from delving a single rift until they had absolutely mastered it, but Matt wanted a completely new experience every time he delved.

And that just wasn’t possible unless he was able to create new rifts rapidly and with some measure of control.

Keeping a rift from de-aspecting in its entirety, like what was required for aura rifts, would be a pipe dream. But keeping things stable enough that he could get a rift to Tier 30 with a general theme he wanted would be more than enough to keep himself from getting bored when advancing.

It would have to wait until they had more to trade and until Matt had something of equal value to make fair deals, but that was only a matter of time.

Beyond that, they had managed to avoid creating enemies, and both he and Liz were riding that emotional high as they traveled to meet their new ducal capital.

It was nice to be able to spend time together where they weren’t working, weren’t stressed about something, or weren’t solving some disaster, and they luxuriated in each other’s presence.

That only lasted until they were close to their destination. It was just a long jump from Lilly, but Matt wasn’t even tempted to check in on the guild.

Or, he wasn’t too tempted.

Mostly because he had been getting regular updates sent his way, and he didn’t want to risk getting too involved and missing the arrival of their world.

Their arrival was well timed, and after just a few hours of waiting, the eddies in chaotic space started to change. It was like a large boat was moving through the water, changing the very tide of its surroundings long before it actually arrived.

Stretching his spiritual perception to its max, it still took a few more hours for Matt to be able to sense the world itself.

Despite knowing otherwise, he expected Palustris to be noticeably different somehow, even from this range. It was, after all, both high-Tier and fire-aspected.

The bright firefly of light shone in the chaotic space guided by two Tier 45s who were visibly straining to guide Palustris’ node into its awaiting spot, with even minor corrections obviously taxing them.

It took everything Matt had not to rush over and dive in, but while he had the self-discipline to refrain, he didn’t bother trying to hide his overt excitement. Hardly able to contain himself, he cheekily took Phoenix Liz off his shoulder and started bobbing her around.

That earned him a playful peck when he stopped and a glare from Human Liz, but the byplay ended the moment the two guiding Sect cultivators got the planet in place.

Once it was in place, five tethers of energy stretched out and connected with the nearby planets, locking Palustris in place. Higher Tier worlds were spiritually heavier than a lower-Tier world, which made them harder and slower to move through chaotic space. But it also meant they needed more connections, which was part of the reason higher Tier worlds were used as important nodes in the map of tethers that connected worlds.

It took half an hour for the tethers to stabilize, but once they did, Isabella and Cato went down and checked things over before giving them the ok. Having confirmed that nothing was amiss, Matt and Liz completed the hand off procedures and floated outside the speck of light.

Now that the moment was upon them, Matt felt nervous.

This was their world.

An entire universe of their own.

A world for them to rule. A world for them to guide. A world for them to nurture.

A world they couldn’t afford to mess up.

Liz squeezed Matt’s hand and grinned at him. “Let’s do it. Together.”

Returning her smile, Matt pulled them into the world’s real space along with their ship.

They appeared over Palustris, floating in its orbit, and Matt just let himself take it all in for a long moment.

The world was red.

It wasn’t entirely red, to be fair, but thanks to his mana sight, that was the overwhelming color as he looked around the planet. That said, it was a tapestry of red with a million and one variations and subtleties that stood out from each other, but there were a few places that weren’t just fire. He’d seen more than a few magical nexuses over the course of his life, where the ambient mana became so dense it was visible and occluding, but seeing it on a planetary scale was something else entirely.

He adjusted his vision to accommodate for the overwhelming presence of fire mana like he was adjusting it to a bright light, and looked around, taking in the sights.

It was beautiful.

Unlike the propensities of media to exaggerate aspected, or even just high-Tier planets, into being one uniform biome throughout, Palustris still had lakes and rivers, oceans and forests, alongside all of its volcanoes and deserts. Sure, as often as not, they were lakes of super heated water and rivers ready to let out plumes of steam at the smallest disturbance, but they were there. There were a few places that would be habitable for mortals with minimal assistance or terraforming needed.

It was in one of those more habitable regions, this one near the equator, that Matt and Liz floated down to set foot on their personal planet for the first time. The sky was a reddish-orange and the obvious smell of smoke permeated the atmosphere, but for a mortal, it might barely be noticeable. The smoke, however, was far from just woodsmoke. The scents of incense and sulfur, ozone and polished amber all came together for what he felt was a rather pleasing experience.

Every world had its own scent, some more pleasant than others, and Matt was quite happy that their new world had an enjoyable one. On his shoulder, Liz seemed like she was having a bit of a meltdown, feathers shuddering and muscles quivering as the subtle flames along her wings and tail flared up into a vicious, golden blaze hot enough to set Matt’s hair on fire.

He avoided that particular fate with a quick but heavy dose of [Fire Manipulation]. The Liz at his side wasn’t so lucky, as the phoenix on her shoulder underwent a similar reaction while her human body braced herself, eyes wide as her hair lit itself, carrying the strands into the air for a moment before she got ahold of herself.

All three of Liz’s bodies shuddered in unison, shaking the effect off.

“Sorry. I’ve heard of resonance with fire bloodlines and fire aspected worlds, but hadn’t expected it to be so…” Liz paused as she searched for the right word. “True. That’s not the word I want, but you saw it. It was so subtle that I almost didn’t feel it happen. It was almost similar to how you described your inspiration. Like my spirit expanded and was in perfect harmony with the realm itself, except this was with the spirit of the world. It’s like a weight was taken off my shoulders that I didn’t know existed until it was removed. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to leave.”

Matt tugged Liz into a hug through their still connected hands. “You’re making me feel jealous.”

Liz’s grin was wicked as she said, “Aww. Don’t worry, love. I’ll show you what it felt like later.”

Laughing, Matt studied the surroundings as they finished descending through the atmosphere. Non-volcanic mountains penned in the valley on all sides, and this particular region was dominated by a forest.

The trees of the forest weren’t green, of course. Their leaves ranged from the bright colors of fall to coal-black shimmering with red, and their bark looked almost like a log in a cold fire, blackened and ashen gray, but with occasional glimmers of reddish-orange as the heat peaked.

Some trees were even in a perpetual state of burning, though they let off little heat to their surroundings.

Others were actually absorbing heat, or rather fire mana, through various functions.

The trees weren’t alone, either.

The birds in the trees were likewise all fiery, though in subtle ways. A small foraging bird let off clouds of smoke to obscure its exact position, while a falcon diving to grab a morsel of food had the tips of its feathers burning with a steady, but minor intensity, propelling it down even faster than gravity should.

Its target, a small lizard of some kind, was sitting on a rock snacking on a colony of ants. The ants had glowing thoraxes and were crackling with lightning as they tried to swarm the lizard, but the reptile that had limbs wreathed in blue hot flame didn’t seem to mind.

Near the river, two crabs with claws wreathed in silver fire battled for dominance while several fish swam around them, picking up the scraps.

With a slight motion, Matt redirected them to land at the riverbank and they set foot at its bank, breathing in the refreshing steam it was letting off.

Unlike what the corner of Matt’s mind that grew up watching movies and shows full of single biome worlds kept insisting, the river was hardly anathema to the fire-based life of the planet, and teemed just as surely with all kinds of life as any other planet. Dozens of fish species swam through the hot spring-like water, with one particularly interesting specimen crackling with lightning and obviously using some kind of innate mana sense to hunt down insects along the riverbank. Tiny bolts of lightning zapped out of the water to stun its prey and caused it to fall into the river where it could gobble them up.

Another species absorbed fire mana, stockpiling it until it reached a critical amount where it then exploded, causing a shock wave of power that pushed anything too close back. A third, much smaller fish, a minnow of some kind, used that brief expulsion to snatch algae that had been kicked up off the river bed and out of the crab’s reach.

Dipping his hand into the water, Matt let the currents carry the water through his fingers.

It was water.

A little warmer than one would expect a river to be, but liquid water nonetheless.

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Liz knelt down next to him and copied his action before scooping a handful of the water into her mouth.

She worked her jaw for a long moment before she swallowed. “It’s water.”

“Har, har.”

Matt took a sip and let his taste buds register the flavor.

It wasn’t great.

They were far down river from the source, and the river was teeming with life, which had to defecate and decompose somewhere.

Still, he had drank worse and didn’t let that distract him.

Instead, he concentrated on the fire mana infused into the water. It gave the water a unique flavor he typically only associated with high-Tier fine dining, as to make such infused items oneself was an annoyingly long and mana draining process. Not that he minded the mana costs, but he rarely had the time to do so; it was just the typical water on their new home.

Liz hopped off his shoulder and dove into the water, hardly making a splash. She returned a moment later with a fish wriggling in her beak, its suffering ended a moment later with a snap.

As she had her snack, Matt [Portal]ed them north to check out the pole.

As he’d spotted from space, there was actually ice present, the entire area rife with thermal mana. Pockets of hot and cold littered the area, extreme enough that Matt needed to use [Cracked Phantom Armor] just to avoid being harmed.

Geysers of boiling water erupted from the ground around him, only to freeze in midair, coming down as massive clouds of snow. Rivers of boiling water snaked through deep blue glaciers, and a light dusting of snow suddenly sublimated into a cloud of steam, which in turn hardened to form a layer of ice around Matt, albeit one he trivially broke through.

Matt scooped up a snowball and tossed it directly at human Liz’s face. The phoenix body on her shoulder swooped off, caught it in her talons, and tossed it back at him, but it melted before it hit him, and hot water just splashed off his armor.

“Do you think Aster will love or hate this?”

“Oh, definitely hate it. I see there’s a few areas that are more consistently cool, and she might like those, but the thought that her precious ice might suddenly become boiling water at any time…?”

Matt chuckled at the image, then [Portal]ed them south again to check out a few other points of interest, while still avoiding any of the actual settlements away from the more civilized areas of the planet. They were more like outposts than true settlements, as low Tiers didn’t live there and their only purposes seemed to be to house delvers or explorers who were roaming the planet and its hazard zones.

Of which there were many.

A full sixty percent of the planet would be whole uninhabitable to anyone under Tier 15. The fire mana and essence caused too much disturbance that even short-term exposure would cause serious health issues. Even those in the Tier 15 to 20 range would need to take precautions to ensure they didn’t fall afoul of any of the purely environmental hazards, not to mention any monsters.