The Path of Ascension Chapter 393

Chapter 393

Alice’s heart raced as she appeared in a medical room.

She had heard about them when others who had ‘died’ returned to the ruin after the month-long penalty wore off, so she expected the top of the line equipment and Tier 20 healers moving to start healing her. But she only had one question.

“How long?!?”

The AI virus had shut down her AI, meaning she and everyone else hadn’t been able to tell how long they had been holding on for.

They had just kept chanting the mantra of ‘one more minute’ and she felt she had lasted long enough, but also knew that it would have been close.

Victory or defeat had been inadvertently decided by how long she had lasted.

Or not necessarily defeat, as their side still had people inside the ruin who might be able to dislodge the Corporation mercenaries left in the boss room, given how few there had been at the end.

Still, it would be painful to know she had personally fumbled the ball right at the finish line.

The immediate lack of celebrations hit her like a lead weight in her stomach, but she tried not to let the feeling get to her.

Her Concept was exhausted and that left her feeling melancholy, which made pushing the negative thoughts away harder.

The five minutes it took to repair her body felt like a century, but at least the healers did something to reset her AI so it would work again. Once she restarted it, she could start checking in on the situation outside.

As she pulled herself up into a sitting position, she looked at the door and debated how long she could delay the healers so she could keep it closed, therefore cutting herself off from the rest of the planet.

As she was contemplating how to manage that, the door was kicked open and Ascender Wraith walked in shaking a bottle of champagne, causing bubbles instead of foam to fly everywhere. The healers started to glare, but those expressions froze when they noticed both who was making the mess and that there wasn’t a mess to be had, as the bubbles just turned into ice that vanished before it touched anything.

Alice’s heart started to hammer in her chest as she saw the smile Wraith shot at her.

“One minute and twelve seconds.”

Alice’s brain had just started to understand what was going on when she registered what Wraith said.

“Wait? If it was that far over, then why didn’t you guys pull me out then? I wa—”

Realizing who she was yelling at, Alice’s teeth clacked together.

Titan and Legion, who slipped in as Wraith moved forward, laughed at her remark. But Legion was the one to answer. “And deprive you of your chance to expand your Concept like that? No way. You believed that everything rested on your shoulders, and so pushed yourself beyond your limits. Once you recover, you will notice a sizable increase in your harmonization with your Concept. For that final minute and twelve seconds, you truly embodied your Domain.”

Titan laughed as he stuck a champagne glass under the bottle Wraith still held and presented it to her once it was half full.

“First drink to the lady of the hour.”

Alice felt herself flush, but with only a slight tremble she’d blame on her empty willpower when she retold the story.

“Thank you. I…” Alice had no idea what to say, but the Ascenders didn’t press and gave her a moment to collect herself. “Just thank you.”

Wanting to cover her awkwardness, Alice took a swig of the champagne, not sure what to expect with Wraith playing with illusions. Instead of anything unpleasant, she found it was a very tasty floral drink that was good enough she’d buy it if she ever saw it on a shelf.

Titan rubbed his hands together. “And now the fun part. Rewards. You and everyone else in the final room basically maxed out the rewards scale. Any idea of what Tier 20 skill you want, or would you rather have something else?”

Alice had thought about what she wanted a dozen times, as had everyone else. In any downtime where two or more people were together, the conversation inevitably went to what they wanted from the game. It was half hope and half distraction from being trapped in a cave like ruin for months on end.

It at least let her have an immediate answer.

“[Will of the Millennium Oak].” Realizing she had just asked for an incredibly rare skill, she immediately tried to back track. “I can um—”

Ascender Titan laughed and flipped over his hand, revealing a sparking skill shard. “No, that’s a good choice for you. I’ve been collecting some for a future experiment so I have a few in my skill ring, so we don’t even need to send for your reward.

Alice almost wanted to complain about how Ascender Titan casually implied he had multiple copies of [Will of the Millennium Oak], let alone that he was seemingly planning to waste them on an experiment.

[Will of the Millennium Oak] wasn’t the rarest Tier 20 skill, but it was up there, being an incredibly valuable skill for both melee and ranged fighters thanks to it boosting one’s durability, regeneration, stamina and mana regeneration. Its powerful rooting effect greatly limited its usability in combat for most people, but for those like her who preferred to stand her ground it was a further bonus not a deterrent.

If used in conjunction with healing spells, its regeneration effect multiplied. When paired with the increased mana generation, one rarely needed to pay for healing, which would greatly reduce her costs going forward.

Skill in hand, she blinked at its shining facets before looking up and once more, thanking the Ascenders, who then went to mingle with the rest of those who had fought for the planet.

Alice found her bag sitting next to her bed and quickly leaned into it, digging through her accumulated junk to find a bracelet that would lock the skill to her skin and started absorbing it.

The moment she stepped out of the makeshift hospital, she was mobbed by people congratulating her, but that was nothing to the masses trying to get close to one of the three Ascenders who were moving through the crowd, trying to spread out.

Before she could do more than accept a few congratulations, the ground trembled slightly and a massive building started to appear as if it grew from nothing, but Alice could feel the stone deep in the ground moving and flowing like water until it reached the surface where it solidified.

Ascender Titan waved everyone inside, even as the building started to become more opulent with each wave of Ascender Wraith’s hand or shake of her tail, until it looked like a ballroom out of a movie.

Then, if that wasn’t enough, food, delectable food that grabbed everyone’s attention, started to appear on the tables that grew from the floor.

It was hands down the best food she had ever tasted, and that wasn’t even just because she had been mostly eating field rations or whatever one of her fellow Tier 15s had cooked, if she had eaten at all. It was really that good. Someone near her commented between mouthfuls that it had to be cooked by a Talented chef, which honestly made sense to Alice, as the food both tasted amazing and also had regenerative properties. Every bite seemed to make her willpower recover from the intense fight faster than it would have otherwise.

Once the first plate of food was devoured, she had to fend off people wanting to congratulate or otherwise schmoose with her. It was quite fun to see people who might have otherwise not given her, a solo delver with no renown, their full attention, now try to attract hers. She took even more pleasure when Olivia apologized for selling her rift slot out from under Alice, but the sting of that loss was long gone with her current rewards.

Most people tried and succeeded in talking with the Ascenders, which started all kinds of gossip, but what surprised everyone was just how personable they could be. It only led to everyone swapping stories about their encounters like badges of honor.

Not that anyone could beat her, with all three Ascenders personally congratulating her.

Alice was moving to snag another plate of the divine food when her AI notified her that she, along with everyone else who held the final room, were invited into a separate hall to receive their rewards. Seeing that last bit of information, she was going to ignore the message, having already gotten her reward. But when she continued to the plate, she found herself hit with a dusting of ice and found herself in a small but well lit room.

Legion smirked at her stumbling arrival. “Now that you are all here, we wanted to extend an offer to all of you directly involved with the final defence. All of you fought to the last, and we appreciate that. To that end, we are offering tax exempt delving slots on our ducal capitals when you are of the appropriate Tiers to delve them. That’s a straight shot from Tier 21 to Tier 30 if you play your cards right.”

The phoenix on her shoulder squawked lightly, and just like that, the Ascenders vanished.

***

Matt flopped into the comfortable couch with a groan that turned into a grunt as Aster dropped into his lap in human form, transforming just a second too late to make her form small and fluffy.

Phoenix Liz joined her on his lap, even as human Liz slipped in next to him with her own long exclamation.

“I don’t even necessarily hate mingling, but that was brutal.”

Aster yipped her agreement, not even bothering to say actual words.

Thankfully, the world had been secured and they were able to relax on their trip back to their ducal capitals. Sure, they would have to do some paperwork, but it wouldn’t be that bad.

Just a few minutes later, Matt felt the ship pull into chaotic space and he let out the last of his tension.

The three of them just decompressed for almost a full hour, but got to work formatting their reports for when they got back to Empire space.

Matt was hoping one of the royals would allocate the world to his duchy temporarily, as he was requesting for his guild to study the ruin, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting the world itself. That fact still seemed to be a sore point for Duke Plessi, who was undoubtedly sending his own entreaties to the Royals, pleading his case to keep the world.

Their ship entered real space on one of the border worlds just long enough to sync their messages when Matt got a message from someone he didn’t expect to hear from so soon.

Aunt Helen. ‘I hear the three of you are in this sector of the Empire. I’ll be on Raxuul for another year and a half or so. Come by and say hi if you have the time.’

Matt didn’t need to think twice and immediately contacted the others to find they were already in agreement, and they changed their course to visit the world in question.

It wasn’t even too far out of their way, adding only a month to their total travel time.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Raxuul was a normal enough world, ordinary for its Tier 5 cultivation and mortal industries, and a cursory scan didn’t reveal anything of note for why Aunt Helen would be visiting the world, but that wasn’t surprising.

Leaving their ships in deep space where they wouldn’t be noticed by the mortals, Matt, Liz, and Aster [Portal]ed just a mile above Aunt Helen’s restaurant, where they found her in the back already cooking.

Except, she was cooking for the restaurant with the other chefs who scurried to not get in her way.

Looking up, she smiled and waved, inviting them in.

As they floated down, Matt looked off to the side where he found one of Aunt Helen’s identical bodyguards, who dropped their invisibility just long enough to acknowledge him before vanishing once more.

Matt took a few moments as he entered the restaurant to ponder who was acting as one of Aunt Helen’s uniform guards, despite the futility of the action.

As a young Tier 4, he hadn’t known what the identical bodyguards signified, but now he had a much better understanding.

Aunt Helen was old. Really old in fact. Because of her shattered Concept, she was stuck at the peak of Tier 24 and unable to advance. But that didn’t mean she didn’t live a normal life, which meant also accumulating wealth.

With her motherly nature, she had attracted her fair share of people with bad intentions who would take what she had, rather than work for their own resources. People she had helped when they were young, similar to how she helped Matt with his mana concentration problem, had rightly taken offence.

Killing people, especially people who were ballsy enough to steal from Aunt Helen, came with blowback, as they usually had their own backing. And so eventually, the people she helped started acting as Aunt Helen’s bodyguards as they reached Tier 45. To circumvent anything following them and to free themselves from hesitating, they had started body morphing into identical people, which meant the next time someone offended Aunt Helen, the person in question died. And if their family or friends wanted revenge, they would need to go after Aunt Helen directly. A foolish proposition, given the level of protectors she had with her at all times.

It was a move Matt wholeheartedly approved of, given her Tier and level of connections. Though he was glad that was mostly a thing of the past, as the Sophron dynasty had put a stop to attacking down Tiers like that.

The Red Feather Inn was similar to all of the others he had visited, and they were easily able to make their way to the private kitchen set up in the back, which was always reserved for Aunt Helen’s personal use should she come to town.