The Path of Ascension Chapter 389

Chapter 389

Aster’s capital world was… interesting.

That was the best word Matt could describe it with, no matter how many times he visited.

When he and Liz had been slated a fire aspected world, Aster had been dreaming of an ice version, but that was so improbable it may as well be impossible given that there weren’t any known ice aspected worlds over Tier 15, which would have been the absolute minimum for a primary ducal capital.

She had mostly taken that in stride, which was why she had bought an un-Tiered world and had it delivered to her capital system, hoping Matt could turn it into an ice world someday.

That didn’t mean her world didn’t have its own advantages.

She had gotten a Tier 32 world on the brink of Tiering up to Tier 33 from the Federation.

From their understanding, it had galled the Federation to give up such a high-Tier world but, as one of the three aggressors in the war, they along with the Sects and the Republic had been tasked with giving up the ducal capitals since it was their fault there were any buyouts to begin with.

The logic was a bit muddled by the fact they had officially won the war, but Matt hadn’t gotten a say at the negotiation table and so couldn’t call out the hypocrisy.

Matt liked the joke that, despite getting a normal world, she had still gotten a cold aspected one. The former Federation world had a distinct personality that would take generations to change.

Where most Great Powers were happy to let their people design their worlds to their own aesthetics, a metric more or less governed by their Great Power’s control over culture, the Federation was much stricter in their allowances.

That wasn’t to say that the world was the lifeless, flat, gray city blocks the movies typically portrayed Federation worlds as being dominated by. No, there was more variance and life in the world than that, but there was a kernel of truth in those movies.

The world had been designed from the outset with nearly no allowance for organic growth.

That wasn’t inherently unusual, as most high-Tier worlds had development plans, but the Federation took it a step beyond a simple general plan.

Every street, every alley, every park, and every building had been planned for and then completed to an exacting standard which, from a ground level, gave the world a sense of sameness that those raised in its presence found comforting and those raised outside it uncanny.

From his position as an immortal, let alone a planetary ruler himself, Matt could see what had happened and why.

The world was basically a model for efficiency.

Buildings were arranged in ways which formed communities reflective of the Federation caste system, which allowed each area to specialize to greater or lesser extents with the end goal of making things efficient.

Distribution communities acted as the hubs of a wheel with the spokes being various production lines such as food, clothing, technology, or whatever else the government had decided needed to be produced.

Between areas, in the gaps where something productive couldn’t be easily built, the designer of the planet had designed a variety of parks and other recreational activity spots to give people a place to relax outside their homes. Taking advantage of their unique shapes, the parks were each a work of art, and built to accommodate a particular number of people living nearby according to the design they had planned for.

That was not at all how the Empire built cities or worlds.

The Empire and most other Great Powers were willing to designate areas for particular production, but they didn’t so closely mandate space usage like the Federation did.

That, combined with the Federation’s caste system, meant their former worlds often struggled to integrate.

Aster’s world had it worse than most.

Being a high Tier, the world was highly populated and, while some of the former Federation civilians had been transferred off world when her world was selected, most of the world’s inhabitants had not been so lucky.

Instead, they were left to fend for themselves, and many of them clung to their old way of life feverishly.

Ironically, the Federation’s policy of awakening everyone similar to the Empire had a negative effect, as most of their population on a higher-Tier world was Tier 3 or 4 and had the extended lifespans associated with the higher cultivation.

Aster had followed historical models and chosen a slower method of integration, not because she wanted to copy Matt and Liz’s disastrous efforts on Soerilia, but because Federation worlds were heavily indoctrinated and would lash out in incredibly unified numbers.

The other way to deal with such disturbances was to either forcefully deport everyone and spread them out amount a thousand other worlds to break up their cohesion or direct action with led to a lot of dead civilians and generations of trauma.

Their unity was respectable in theory but problematic in practice as what they lashed out at were things they saw as anathema to their former structured lives.

One such thing being what Aster had complained about recently.

“How have the job relocations been going?”

Matt didn’t ask to make fun of one of her issues, but genuinely wanted to know how she was managing.

The groan told him everything he needed to know.

“Not great would be an understatement. People want to do the same jobs they were doing before they were transferred for some unknown reason. If I try to get them to make something actually useful, they complain; if I try to get them to move onto other things, even things they like, there is pushback. So much pushback. Ugh. If I need to hear that word one more time, I think I’ll pull out all of my hair. It’s always pushback. I pushed through my initiative to let people choose their own jobs and a whopping less than one percent took me up on the offer and those people have been basically ostracized by their families.”

Liz winced. “So I take it they didn’t like the idea of them not having state-sponsored jobs very well?”

Aster’s tail and ears drooped. “Not taking it well would be an understatement. Almost forty percent of the population simply went to work but sat in front of their machines the day after I floated the idea by local leadership. I even made it clear I wouldn’t allow outside businesses to bully their way into the local markets before said local markets got on their feet. At least beyond what local markets the Feds felt was useful to export but noooooo. I’m flat out evil for trying to give them a choice. I swear they can turn anything negative. I had a local former Leader caste dickhead tell me, and I quote, ‘taking away mandatory jobs is taking away guaranteed job security’. I wanted to strangle him. I’m genuinely afraid I’m going to have to wait out the three generations before I can make any substantial progress.”

Matt winced but nodded.

They had dealt with similar things but on greatly lesser scales if for no other reason than it was their vassal’s problems and not their own so they didn’t need to suffer though the minutiae and only got reports.

Listening to Aster’s issue, he was happy they had gotten a Sect world for their capital where their overwhelming might had made things as easy as could be hoped for.

Wanting to cheer her up, he said, “If there is any silver lining, it’s that most of the Tier 15s and higher stayed behind in the Federation. Think of how much worse it would be if they were here acting as cultural anchors.”

Aster blew out a puff of air that shimmered and sparkled. “I know I should be grateful for that, but I struggle to muster the enthusiasm. Still, we are making progress. Surprisingly, the half caste system for the younger generation was taken pretty well. It will at least ensure the next generation is leaning towards an Empire mindset even with at-home indoctrination. Same with the media deregulation, if to a lesser extent. The kids like shiny new things if for no other reason than their parents don’t. It’s a foot in the door at least.”

Their conversation came to a close as they entered one of the rift locations Aster had prepared for them.

Her world being Tier 32 meant it had an abundance of Tier 29 rifts, thus they had their pick of the litter so to speak.

It also had several notable rifts that had reputations.

One such rift was known for its difficulty as well as its mystery; it was their obvious first delve.

The rift being such a high Tier immediately had all three of them on edge from even before they entered, and the sight that greeted them did nothing to lower their guard.

The rift was idyllic.

Not a single thing over Tier 1 was to be found anywhere near the rift entrance. In fact, there wasn’t even a single instance of violence to be seen.

The snake didn’t eat the rabbits it was nestled with, nor did the ants burrow into the tree log; their nest was next to it, but they didn’t carve out a home as their species should.

Odder still was off in the distance: giants of various species, miles tall, walked amongst the landscape, but seemed to not hurt a single thing.

“I don’t sense an illusion.”

Aster’s comment was said in a flat matter-of-fact voice that did nothing to ease Matt’s tension.

Something was wrong, and if the illusionist couldn’t pierce it, they might need to leave before they risked getting killed by something they never saw coming.

That would be embarrassing, but they were delving three Tiers up and pushing their limits, and part of that was knowing when to back out of a dangerous situation.

Still, it was too early to give up quite yet and so Matt threw millions of mana into analyzing the problem with his [AI] while feeling their surroundings with all of his senses, as well as all of his manipulation spells, hoping to find anything. Even a single data point could lead to unraveling the whole puzzle.

As he was doing that, Liz leaned forward, spear at the ready, even as her phoenix self fluffed her wings, ready to launch herself forward.

After a brief pause she thrust forward and covered a dozen feet in a blink, driving her spear into a nearby tree, pinning something to the tree that should have collapsed with a thought from a Tier 26 like her with its apparent Tier 1 strength.

Liz winced as if something was screaming, but neither Matt nor Aster heard a thing.

Ripping her spear free, Liz grabbed at something they couldn’t see before she vanished.

Matt felt nothing during the whole thing which only caused his danger sense to spike.

Even his [AI] lost its connection to Liz, and Matt was about to start breaking things to find his own hidden monster, when Aster made an “Oh!” sound, just before vanishing as well.

Grabbing space with his Domain meld, Matt started to pull, and watched as reality started to flicker and distort like a bad hologram.

Just pulling harder wasn’t working, so Matt activated his Intent and concentrated his mana into its black form and activated [Cosmic Pressure] to strengthen the gravity around him.

The ground started to buckle and crack, but he must have hit a critical point because he felt himself pass into something beyond the ordinary.

It took almost a full minute, but as reality started to settle, his most immediate and largest worry vanished as he reconnected with Liz and Aster’s [AI]s. Looking around him, he nodded at the far more normal rift.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Instead of an idyllic meadow, they were in a horrifying nightmare version of the forest they arrived in.

The snake curled around the rabbits wasn’t casually relaxing with them, but instead snacking on them one at a time while watching them where they stood at the rift entrance, with slitted eyes that glowed a bright fluorescent orange. Its Tier was also not the Tier 1 they had seen but Tier 20, not a threat but more inline with the dangerous wildlife one would expect from a rift of this Tier.

Matt also finally got to see what Liz had killed, but couldn’t put a name to it beyond goblinoid.

Green skin and slightly shorter than the average human fit some of the normal wickets for goblins, but it was the shimmering cloak the creature was wearing, which made his senses slip off the creature like water on oil, that really caught his eye. Or as much of it as he could give, as the creature kept trying to blend in with the surroundings, similar to the Republic’s antimemetic effect, but unconnected to a domain.

What did draw his attention were the hands of the creature, which had normal fingers until the final knuckle. It had been replaced with comically large blades, so thin and sharp they caused the light that bounced off them to fractal.

No, Matt realized he had fallen for the trap, as the knives were similar to the cloak the creature was wearing but far more concentrated.

And wicked sharp, going by the deep furrows cut into Liz’s armor.

Aster was the first to speak, however. “So that confirms there are at least two ways to enter this side. Maybe three.”

“And how did you guys enter?”

Aster started bobbing her head before pointing off to the side, where a gust of wind seemed to make reality waver.

“Naturally forming spatial folds.”

“Killing one of the creatures seems to create something similar but more localized. I could have resisted but it caught me off guard,” Liz added.

Matt nodded before repeating his earlier actions long enough to confirm he could rip through space once more to return to the other side.

“Ok, so a dual reality rift. A little strange but we’ve seen weirder. I—”

Matt twisted and threw himself forward, cutting across the space a few feet away from him. Shimmering silver blood arced through the air, but the creature seemed unphased and drove its finger blades at his face and head.

Matt reached up and grabbed its wrists, pinning the creature’s hands together, twisting and slamming the creature into the ground, but all of that proved unnecessary as essence started to pour out of the creature.

Except it wasn’t nearly enough essence.

“Now that’s strange.” Liz leaned over to look at the creature as she explained. “I got way more essence than you just did.”

Matt made the connection with a nod. “So, we are supposed to fight these creatures on the other side where they are harder to spot. Interesting.”

Aster tapped her staff to the ground as her crown glowed and two ice golems formed next to her.

They stretched out their hands and gripped nothing and pulled but, even with her boosting their power, they weren’t able to rip through reality as Matt had.

Aster rolled her eyes, and Matt took the silent command to tear them back into the idyllic version of the rift.

Back in the pretty forest, they walked down the path that wound its way through the woods, waiting for another ambush that never came. Just as they were starting to worry that they had done something wrong and had walked for almost a mile, one of Aster’s golems smashed its hand down, creating a burst of essence before it vanished, being pulled into the other version of the rift.