The Path of Ascension Chapter 398

Chapter 398

The commotion was so loud Matt automatically dampened the sound around the children. Even with the masks they were wearing, the sound wave was nearing a dangerous level.

Activating a function of the ballroom, Matt started rearranging the rooms into a more traditional layout that would best accommodate this many people. It would take a few minutes for the rooms to make the changes safely, but that just gave him time to deal with the initial rushing waves of people.

With a wave of his hand, Matt floated the children to his side while the scientists and his guild leadership, led by Kees, moved away to make room for those who would settle for not talking directly with him.

Matt personally considered those people the smart ones, as they would get more time and better information from the people on the ground, but that was the downside of being a public figure.

The smartest of them all beelined for the kids who were both the primary target audience and the only ones with personal experience in making the skills in question. He noted them down as people he might be able to work with later if they had any other developments in the field.

Beyond individuals, he paid attention to who arrived relative to their cultivation bases. With mortals present, young mortals at that, most everyone was moving at Tier 1 speeds, but Matt still wanted to note who was willing to break protocol and rush down. In their midsts would be the ones truly interested in this new product.

He’d just have to sift through the sycophants, people who ignored the kids’ safety, and the ass-kissers who were just trying to get closer to him. He’d have to do that no matter what, so it was well worth the effort.

The first person to arrive was a fellow duke, followed by a guild leader who both wanted to adapt the skills for their own people and wanted to talk about the implementation pitfalls he had run into. Matt was happy to speak with them, even if all of the information they wanted was what had already been made available in the information packets on the ballroom’s LocalNet.

The next person was far more interesting: Piers Dencourt was only Tier 42, but he was the CEO of LifeLike— a VR game company. Their current largest hit was a semi-realistic battle royale that allowed people to fight each other safely, with abilities that spanned from the most basic of skills to effects rarely seen in even the most esoteric Domains and Talents. But they had countless games spread across the genres.

“Ascender Titan. This is brilliant. A feather in your cap for sure. A discovery for the reign, if I’m not being too presumptuous. Though I’m not sure discovery is the right word. Creation maybe?”

Matt played things humbly. “Both work, but this isn’t on me. We were given the information by someone who wishes to remain nameless and uninvolved. My guild then took that, refined it, and made it more palatable for the masses.”

That revelation seemed to surprise people, but that didn’t stop Piers from pitching his idea. “With your blessing, Ascender, and in the spirit of you sharing this information freely, I wish to create sims where the unawakened could try out these skills and get a feel for which of them they might resonate with the most. For no cost, of course. Even just two years isn’t a small amount of time investment for a mortal, even if it’s not burdensome, let alone four. It would be regrettable if someone decided they wanted to change their mind after a year or more.”

Despite saying it would be free, Matt knew Piers and his company would gain massive amounts of wealth as people, once introduced to their products, stayed inside their ecosystem. But he was fine with that.

A free product which could help people decide if they wanted to create one of his skills was a fantastic idea.

Once he gave his unneeded blessing, Piers made his way to a teleporter and exited the ballroom, no doubt rushing to get his product out before anyone else beat him to it.

The next in line moved forward— Dominus Maniake— who wanted to congratulate Matt, followed by the rest of the more important ducal families.

They were interested, albeit in ways that surprised Matt, even though they probably shouldn’t have.

They liked what they saw in the demonstration. Really liked it. Liked it so much they wanted to hire his guild or the research teams which worked on the skill creation project to create custom iterations on the skills or wholly new skills that better fit their families’ needs.

Dominus wanted a variation of the flame weapon specifically made to work with claws and teeth, preferably in a variety of elements to fit better with his family’s draconic forms, while the others all had similar requests.

Matt tried to explain to them exactly how hard it would be to develop such skills while retaining the simplicity which made it possible for lower Tiers to create in their spirits, but all of them seemed undaunted and persisted. Giving up, Matt pointed them to where the guild’s process documents were available and gave them his blessing to try and hire out the researchers who had worked on the project.

If they wanted to pay his people exorbitant amounts to leave the guild, he’d wish both parties the best with no hard feelings. He wasn’t going to stand in their way, but suspected that it would be harder than the nobles thought to tempt his people away.

All of the research teams had their guild rewards waiting for them when they returned. Considering that said prize was funding for a project of their choice that they could sell if they so chose to do so, they could make far more by putting something on the open market rather than working with a single noble family. Unless the nobles in question were willing to pay exorbitantly.

Either way, he genuinely hoped they were happy with their decisions.

Though that did set a worrying trend, as people came seeking a partnership for making bespoke skills for their organizations.

Thankfully, things started to blur together as he made small talk and helped the children show off their skills. He kept their mana pools full the entire time, but eventually their mortal limits started to show and they were returned to their parents to rest. Once they slept, they could— and did— choose to return to the event that would last at least a week.

While they got to rest, Matt didn’t.

Eyria de Solis was damn near the very last person he wanted to see among the sea of people Matt just hadn’t wanted to invite at all, but politics demanded he must. She was the owner of one of the larger training aid manufacturers and designers, as well as being the head of the training aid oversight board. Not that she wasn’t powerful in her own right, being Tier 45, but her real power came from her business acumen. She had spent the first five thousand years of Agatha’s reign rapidly expanding her market share to almost twenty percent of all the Empire’s digital-based training models.

Matt wanted to say she was just greedy like most businesspeople, but she was far more devious.

Instead of expanding more and risking getting broken apart for becoming too strong, she had stopped her growth and led an effort to standardize the Empire’s mortal teaching systems. It had been no secret that Agatha was hammering down any threats to her or her descendants’ rule. Stopping her expansion was her first smart move, but her stroke of brilliance was when Eyria closed ranks with the other trainer manufacturers to set the standards for such devices. Then she offered them to the Empire at-cost for mortal schooling, while also promising to keep them up-to-date and competitive.

Matt would love to say that in Agatha’s place he would still have chosen to break up the oligopoly pretending to be a board of standardization, but he couldn’t. Even ignoring the two separate rebellions Agatha was putting down at the time, the trainer manufacturers were useful and offered to solve the schooling crisis the exploding populations were causing.

Most of the trainer manufacturers got their start designing for noble families’ training retinues, and when Agatha took over, they branched into the expanding corporate world where they helped train low level new hires on their roles. But it wasn’t until later, when the guild system was implemented to act as a check to the nobles and business turned full on corporations, that the trainers’ business exploded.

Guilds needed to train vast numbers of people to delve quickly, and so turned to digital training aids. It wasn’t perfect, there were growing pains and many losses, but it worked and the practice took off from there.

When the populations really started to grow, they offered their efforts to teaching aids for the Empire, which gave them a shield from prosecution as they sold the product at-cost for schools.

The problem was everything that came after.

Having formed a pseudo-governmental oversight board, they effectively prevented an actual governmental oversight board from being created.

They then used their positions to freeze out their non-conforming competitors and continued to leverage that position for the last fifty thousand years.

And worst of all, Matt had already had a run in with one of their subsidiaries back when Titan’s Torch was first created. It had only been about a small rune conflict, but he had no doubt he had already earned himself an enemy with Eyria.

Amusingly enough, Titan’s Torch had briefly, half a second at most, considered partnering with De Solis Instruments to manufacture their digital trainers for the skill creation methods. It wasn’t the products— despite their control over the market, the regulatory board genuinely did ensure good products were put out, and Matt himself had used several of their products growing up. Not just in his schooling, but his orphanage’s supplemental delving training had been aided by De Solis Instruments’ lessons, using their training dummies and mock magical weapons.

No, it was their strict licensing and regulations they demanded of anyone who wanted to sign with them that made Titan’s Torch decide to simply build out their trainer themselves.

Which made Eyria coming up to him just while things were winding down concerning.

“Ascender Indomitable Titan. How lovely to meet you in person.”

“Eyria. Thank you for coming. I’m sure you are a busy woman.” He didn’t know what else to say and didn’t want to engage in small talk for longer than needed, and so let her fill in the silence.

“No more than you are, Ascender Indomitable Titan. Already Tier 27, less than a century after the war ended. Truly, you and your team are exemplars to the title of Ascender.”

She ended her sentence by turning slightly to the displayed skills and their respective trainers for those attending the event to try.

“I must commend you on the discovery. Who would have thought such a thing was possible? It’s something I would have dreamed of as a child. In fact I’m pretty sure I had several day dreams of such a discovery. Throwing a [Fireball] was my and everyone else’s dream at the time.”

Matt wanted to call out her blatant attempt to humanize herself to him through their shared lower-class backgrounds, but he was surprised she was taking this approach and so decided to play along.

“I’m sure that even with my background and its hardships, my life was a dozen times better than your own growing up under the old dynasty.”

Instead of the reaction Matt expected, Eyria smiled. It wasn’t a devious or dastardly smile, it was genuine and came with depths that he couldn’t quite place.

“I’d agree. Things were far, far worse when I grew up. I was born to a common family, but I was attractive enough to be plucked from the fields and into our baron’s son’s bed. I was property after all, and had no choice in the matter. Now here I stand while he’s nothing more than a distant memory, unable to create a Concept even with all of his advantages. To get myself back on topic, skills were heavily restricted. Anyone who had one was destined for a better life, even if it was just being one of the local nobles’ delving teams. They were awakened and free people. Little remembered fact, that. The nobles kept so many people from delving that rifts were at genuine risk of overflows. Some worlds had entire continents allowed to just overflow because it was too much effort to delve the rifts down. Other nobles gave lucky commoners the ability to rise above their station and delve. We all looked up to them as unreachable examples of freedom. The ability to cultivate at all was restricted, let alone skills.”

Matt wanted to remain disinterested, but he hadn’t met too many people who were that old and willing to talk about their experiences under the old dynasty. Even Luna didn’t speak much of it during their history lessons, given how little it mattered in today’s Empire.

“And how did you begin to cultivate? I imagine it’s not for a great reason, but color me interested.”

Eyria’s smile turned sharp. “The second time Adro broke my pelvis, his father decided it was cheaper to get some essence in me than to keep paying for a healer to put me back together again.”

Matt winced. He couldn’t help it. He had expected it to be bad, but he hadn’t quite expected that level of callous calculation.

Laughing, Eyria waved him off. “Don’t feel ashamed, Ascender Indomitable Titan. Many from my time who escaped their circumstances don’t like to talk about it. I won’t say I enjoy remembering, but it is what it is. It happened, and not talking about it won’t change that. It also doesn’t change the fact that I escaped. I won.”

That was a not-so-veiled threat Matt didn’t take lightly. Eyria and all of the higher Tiers hadn’t gotten to where they were today by being pushovers. They were as ruthless to themselves as they were to their enemies.

He might not be as old as them, but he was Endless. He was Dauntless.

“So because of your past you… what? Deserve to keep a monopoly over the trainer business? Are here to threaten me for the rights to distribute the skill creation method? Want to win me over by sharing your tragic history?”

Eyria shook her head. “Nothing so droll. I simply wanted to make sure you understand why. But you’re also not wrong. I do want to take over the distribution of this marvel. And marvel it is. I say this with no deceit or false motives. This is amazing and has the potential to change the Empire or even the Realm itself. That said, like all things, it’s in the execution. Not just marketing, but in the ability to pass on information. Don’t think I’m disparaging your guild’s efforts. The trainers you put together are mechanically impressive, but they are lacking in the execution. It reminds me of what I was putting out tens of thousands of years ago. A partnership between us can ensure only the very best gets out there.”

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Having gotten to the meat of the conversation, Matt waited until Eyria looked back at him physically.

“No.”

That seemed to catch her off guard and Matt smiled, having succeeded. “The trainer works and that is the extent of my guild’s involvement. If there are new skills created with new effects, we will release them. Meaning a skill structure, a guide on how to make it, and a basic trainer meant to assist in the teaching. That is all. To that end, the trainer is entirely sufficient for our purposes. We used best practices and iterated on the design a dozen times. It might not be perfect, but it’s good enough. Still, if you wish to make a superior product, feel free to do so. All of the information will be available for repackaging and reselling, so long as it’s appropriately transformed or improved. I set the floor with my free product. Anyone can access it and it works but I do hope you or someone else swoops in and improves it. I just won’t sell it to anyone and let them take the market hostage.”

Eyria opened her mouth before closing it. After a long moment, she barked a laugh. “I think you are making a mistake, but that’s on a personal level. On a business one, I know you are. Still, I’ll accept your challenge and make a better, easier to learn product. I’ll still make a fortune with it even if I can’t charge what it deserves.”

That last comment irked Matt, especially after hearing what Aster was dealing with on their trip, and he didn’t censor himself. “And that’s what I don’t understand. What it deserves. You had no hand in developing the product, you had no hand in it at all, but you seem so entitled to a pound of flesh from people who you should be sympathizing with. You gave me that spiel about your past, but did you forget it all in the intervening years? Just because you have a stranglehold on the trainer market doesn’t mean you deserve a cut of any information that benefits from a trainer.”

“I was trying to benefit both of us, Ascender Indomitable Titan. I—”

“At the expense of everyone else. Eyria, I must excuse myself. Goodbye.”

Matt turned on a heel and didn’t care that she was glaring daggers at his back; he was tired of the entitlement of the established players and tiptoeing around their interests.

Everyone seemed to have established interests, and doing anything inadvertently stepped on their toes. While they had been delving, Titan’s Torch’s intelligence officers had been digging through the attacks and everything he had learned from the Dobrescus, and had started to highlight the people Titan’s Torch had pissed off who were possible suspects.

This new development just meant a new possible enemy, but that seemed inevitable.

In fact, a part of him was hoping she was bad enough to join the coalition arrayed against him, as it would give his team an easier point of infiltration.

Matt wasn’t about to let himself just become a mana battery for anyone, but he was also determined to make the Empire, and therefore the Realm, a better place.

It was his responsibility. He was the forerunner, the vanguard. In a fight, his place was at the very front, taking the hits and clearing the way for his team. He and his guild simply did that outside of a fight, taking the hits and forging a path for those behind him.

That was where he belonged, the place he wanted to be. Not because others expected it of him, certainly not because he owed them anything, because he didn’t. He did it because it was his goal, his purpose, because he would use his mana the way he felt was right. It was because…

Matt felt his spirit start to fluctuate, and immediately went into danger mode. If he was right about what was going on, and did anything incorrectly, he would cripple or kill himself. He could stop now and be safe, or carry on for the potential of greater rewards.

It was barely even a choice. With incredible deliberateness, he took careful steps, not allowing his mind to deviate as his consciousness pursued a singular idea.

He…

Why did he do what he did? Why bother? Why why why why.

Matt almost lost his train of thought but chased it down, refusing even the slightest misstep.