The Path of Ascension Chapter 397

Chapter 397

Matt felt like he was walking on air as they exited the rift, and even Luna’s appearance while looking them up and down and circling them did nothing to ruin his mood.

Sending her a recording of their boss fight, Matt enjoyed the brief micro expressions that slipped through her control.

Aster laughed out loud in a sharp barking sound that almost sounded like she was in her fox form. “Oh, your face. You never expected us to do it, did you?”

Liz blew out a raspberry when Luna’s face scrunched up. “Oh, just give us this.”

In a dramatic move for Luna, she smiled and waved with a small bow. “I bow to your experience. You three are truly exceptional.”

The sincere compliment caught all three of them off guard, and Matt said, “That just sounds weird coming from you.”

Aster pouted as she agreed. “That wasn’t how I imagined it at all.”

Liz just laughed. “Ha! Mom and Dad are going to hate this!”

Instead of being upset, Luna grinned. “Do send that to them. They forever are denied such compliments due to their own efforts, or rather lack thereof.”

Tapping her chin, Luna pulled them to Rah’s compound on the guild moon. “Let me show this to Ra’thala. He could do with seeing the peak of power. He has currently only started to delve up a single Tier as he finds his own footing, but I want to push him up at least another Tier to Tier 28.”

Aster shrugged. “Sure, we don’t mind. In fact, let’s go say hi.”

They did exactly that, though none of them missed the glint in Rah’s eye when he noticed they had Tiered up.

“How has your and Ciceron’s work been going?”

Rah shrugged. “Nowhere, really. Ciceron is still learning how my cultivation works.”

“Ah, so he’s asking a million questions a second?” Liz winced in sympathy as she asked.

At that, Rah grimaced before it morphed into a pleased look. “Yes. On the plus side, this is making me really reexamine what I’ve already done, and it’s giving me some ideas on where to start. Having to explain to someone who doesn’t know what cultivation is isn’t new to me, but explaining to someone who has the breadth of knowledge to ask questions I’d never pondered is… draining.”

Matt was genuinely happy for him and expressed that with Liz and Aster.

Rah was taking a path never before traveled, and any leads were good with how daunting the project is.

They spent a little time chatting over some of the broader principles of his cultivation method and how Ciceron and Rah got into a two-day tangent that led nowhere, mainly because they had a very different understanding of what counted as a knot in one’s cultivation.

Once they finished chatting, they went and spent a week checking in with the extended Moore family and just relaxed, enjoying the break from a decade of constantly delving up multiple Tiers.

While they were with Travis and Keith, Matt did note that he needed to bring the pair to a rift or ten. The two were still Tier 20 and really needed to start speeding up. Matt had considered dragging them through a more Tier-appropriate rift before, but seeing them again and with a seven Tier gap between them changed his perspective. It just wasn’t really possible anymore, and he kicked himself for not acting on the thought earlier.

If he got them to Tier 24, they would at least be safer in making their Intents, but the question was how.

Matt paused. No, the real question was if they would accept the help at all. Like all the Moore children, Travis had his own hang ups about independence and he might decline on that basis alone.

Something to consider when Matt had a free year or two. He was confident he could figure something out.

His current biggest issue was the release of the new skills and navigating the guild through the eventual follow-up strike that would surely come from their hidden enemies.

After checking again with Rah and ensuring that he really didn’t want credit for the discovery, Matt met up with Kees.

Rubbing his hands together, Matt asked, “Are we ready?”

Kees nodded. “As ready as we can be. All the preparatory procedures we discussed have been completed, and our intelligence division is ready to dig into anyone who starts to kick up a fuss. We won’t be caught off guard this time, even if they do get a blow in.”

Matt agreed even as he reviewed the files Kees sent over.

One thing caught his eye and he asked, “The initial test subjects were that successful? It’s almost ten percent higher than our initial expectations.”

Kees flicked through a few files before tossing a paper folder to Matt, who reviewed it.

“Better than expected, but not that unexpected considering the children’s direct access to two of the trainers who each had completed three of the five skills. Our secondary test groups fell closer in-line with our previous expectations when they were taught by less qualified teachers who only learned through our instructor teaching programs.”

Matt thought that over before asking, “Hm, what do the projections say about the following generations, given the dissemination of the skill and increase in personal experience for future teachers?”

Kees pinged him the study the guild had done, but after reviewing it, Matt wasn’t quite happy with the scope of the tests and the simulations.

Grabbing the information, Matt used his now doubled mana generation to run his own simulations.

His mana was, frankly, mind boggling. From 83,886,080 maximum mana as a Tier 26, and therefore mana regeneration per second, when he was under one percent of his max, or 838,886 mana, to a staggering 167,772,160 maximum mana as a Tier 27.

Almost one hundred and seventy million mana was close to the full mana pool of a typical Tier 42 mage. And he had it at Tier 27.

Every.

Second.

It was even harder to accept the fact that he would eclipse a Tier 50 mage’s maximum mana in just three more Tiers.

At Tier 30, he would have 1.3 billion mana, and a Tier 50 mage with a typical split usually topped out at only one billion mana.

It was almost hard to fathom, even for him, but that was the power of exponential functions.

With a hundred and seventy million mana generation dedicated to the task, his [AI] churned with power as it processed copious amounts of data, simulating the scenarios the guild had previously run. He would have liked to use his Minkalla granted [AI] boost, but their years of intense delving had left him tapped for Willpower, and he’d rather recover it than spend it.

His results weren’t vastly different from the originals, but they were more thorough and covered more edge cases.

“Send these sims to the teams and have them looked over. I didn’t play with the numbers too much, but my gut says the impact of people with personal experience in making the skills will be larger than the simulations are predicting.”

Kees narrowed his eyes at Matt before his eyebrows went into his hairline. “Congratulations are in order Guild Master. I apologize for missing your Tier up.”

Matt grinned, but waved away the comment. “A minor and expected advancement. What’s more interesting are the skills.”

Tapping his chair, he reviewed most of the rest of the information before asking, “When can we leave?”

He was expecting an answer in minutes to at most an hour, but Kees killed that hope with reality. “We informed the mortal families when you exited the rift, but it’s currently night time for them, and so we will need to wait until they wake to leave. Call it seven more hours. Your ship is already prepped, and materials needed for the presentation are on board.”

Matt wanted to say something, but he realized there wasn’t really anything he could do to speed up a mortal’s sleep cycle. Or there was, but he wasn’t going to go about messing with anyone’s brain chemistry like that.

He could spend the time working on his sword with his people.

Pausing as he moved down the hall, Matt changed direction and headed down to their island, which was still sitting in the sea.

He could work on their official ducal business when he was aboard his Horizon class cruise ship, but he didn’t want to leave all the work for when they returned.

If he worked for the next seven hours, he could make a dent in their backlog, making his trip more enjoyable too.

There was no reason he couldn’t tinker as they traveled. The cruise ship had its own enchanting room he could use for tests.

Linking up with Isabella, as Cato was helping the guild get ready for the move, Matt threw himself into work until it was time to leave.

Originally, Aster was going to come with them, but she had gotten a message that corruption had infected her winter bloodline programs, with people in charge having their own metric on who was deserving of the resources. Contrary to Aster’s rules and regulations.

All three of them suspected it was the same person who had orchestrated the aura potion attacks, but there was no real proof until Aster investigated further, so she’d sadly be missing the skill reveal. Thankfully, the intelligence officers and Aster’s own safeguards had caught the issue early, before it could truly pervert her efforts.

At least they hoped it was the cabal attacking them, as Aster hoped her efforts of breaking the Winter Wolves’ control over winter bloodline materials weren’t being wasted by the very people they were supposed to empower.

After saying goodbye to Aster, Matt and Liz [Portal]ed to where the mortal families they were bringing along to the Capital were waiting.

Part of the guild’s work leading up to the release of the buildable skills was to ensure that young, freshly-awakened adults could actually manage to make the skills.

To that end, they had put out a notice for any wannabe delvers who couldn’t afford to take the traditional route, but were willing to dedicate their own time into becoming delvers.

The families weren’t necessarily poor, as living on a higher-Tier world like Palustris came with higher wages and a higher standard of living. But at the same time, living on a higher-Tier world limited the amount of low-Tier rifts to go around. That led to longer than normal wait times as young adults worked to cycle through and Tier up, as well as higher demand thanks to the higher population.

There was a reason most higher-Tier worlds bought new planets and/or moons to add to their star systems, so they could act as pressure relief valves for families such as this.

But these people, and those living on low-Tier worlds, were exactly who Matt was trying to help with the buildable skills program.

Both groups were represented in the ten children gathered next to their parents, but in a distinctly separate group.

As he and Liz stepped through, Matt analyzed the young adults.

All were sixteen, with the exception of a young girl who would only turn sixteen on their way to the Capital.

These were his living examples that their methods worked and were doable by anyone who put in the time.

Five were families from Palustris, while the other five were from a nearby Tier 3 world, just to quash any question of the first group of kids being given special treatment due to living on their capital world.

As Matt passed through the portal, he dropped his perception down to a Tier 1 speed and felt the world speed up.

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“Welcome everyone. Let me express how grateful I am that you were able to take the time out of your busy lives to accompany me to the Capital, and show off Titan’s Torch’s newest innovation. I personally and deeply appreciate it.”

The families were being well compensated for their year-long sabbatical, and the children would be given priority rift access across the duchy when they returned to compensate them for their time. But he did appreciate that they were willing to spend their time helping him and Titan’s Torch.

Matt felt his social battery plummet as the looks of awe and veneration swept over everyone, but he put up with it as he shook hands and played nice with everyone. Even after so many times, it still made him deeply uncomfortable.

After he had made his rounds, he cast [Portal] into his cruise ship, where he accompanied the families on the tour of the guest floor, along with the wait staff assigned to the floor who would be catering to the families while they were traveling.

As soon as he could, Matt made his escape and checked in on his guildmates, who were accompanying them for the ride.

Thankfully, they were quickly on their way and hurtling through chaotic space for the Capital.