The Path of Ascension Chapter 402

Chapter 402

 

Matt just blinked at his bond, waiting for her to crack.

With a slow smile, Aster broke before he did, adding some much needed levity to the gathering.

Liz flopped onto the long couch in the suite, letting an arm cover her eyes. “Good luck. He’s not able to describe much. I pestered him for days.”

Matt held up his hands as everyone, even Susanne and Zack, both heaped insults onto him.

Allie’s might have been the worst. “I curse your scones to be dense and tasteless.”

That was just rude. His baked goods were fantastic and there was no way he’d let them be more dense than they were meant to be, or tasteless.

Still, he let everyone gang up on him, throwing out sillier or more ridiculous insults.

Finally, when they died down, he threw up his hands. “Fineee. It’s just confusing is all. It’s not like anything that came before that was more tangible. The Truth is weird. I can feel it, and if I act in accordance with it I… I don’t really have a word for it. It’s all so new, which is why I wanted to talk to someone who already has a Truth and knows me to get some answers.”

Phoenix Liz, who had flopped over similar to human Liz, uncovered its face and squawked at him.

“I know I said that before, but it’s true.”

Zack, however, had a question Matt could actually answer. “Did you create the full thing or do you just have an idea of what it’s supposed to be?”

“I might have the full thing? Or at least a candidate, anyway. It feels like how a Truth feels in a mind-echo, but it seems like every time I experience one, there’s always the disclaimer that Truths are tricky things and impossible to actually put into words. Let alone that everyone’s Truth will feel different, so what I’m dealing with could still be incomplete. I get the first part of that, anyway, ‘I Am The Master Of My Own Destiny’ really doesn’t do it justice, it’s so much deeper than that. Like trying to describe your Image, really. No matter what you say, what words you use, you just know that it’s impossible to fully convey, even with telepathy. It’s a sense of profound rightness, something that’s incredibly satisfying to know. It’s like a warm, cinnamony hug around my existence from the Realm itself. I feel it constantly, so that might mean that it’s an enlightened Truth, but also it definitely waxes and wanes a bit based on what I’m doing, so it could be enforced and I’m always enforcing it? It’s a constant whisper from the Realm that I am Right and am doing the Right Thing, as though I can talk to it and get a look at the inner workings for how it all works, deep down. If that makes sense…”

Aster flicked her tail at him, sending a small wave of cold air at him. “I’m with Liz, none of that was helpful.”

Matt pulled her down to the couch next to him. “Not my fault. Domains are weird. I did my best to describe what I’m feeling.”

Susanne took a nearby seat, curling up into it. “I actually think I understand what you’re saying.”

Matt perked up. “Oh?”

Everyone looked at the swordswoman, but she simply nodded. “I won’t say I understand all of that, but I think I understand what you meant about connecting the Realm to yourself. I’ve been feeling around for my Aspect and have been meditating over what an Aspect really is. Conventional wisdom calls it the first true connection between yourself and the Realm. At Tier 35 and higher, you are truly starting to become a force of nature. A mover and a shaker in any Realm. That’s not a small thing, even if it’s small.”

The others seemed confused by her last comment, but Matt thought he understood it. “I need to tie my Truth to myself and through myself to the Realm.”

Liz righted herself and raised a finger. “What does that actually mean though?”

Allie nodded along. “Yeah, I’m lost here.”

Matt looked to Zack, hoping for an answer from the only true researcher of the group, but the newly gray-haired man held up both hands as if to forestall Matt’s hopeful gaze.

Seeing there was no rescue, Matt tried to explain. “It’s… okay, bad metaphor time. What I have right now is a seed. It’s a tiny glimpse at the underlying clockwork of the Realm, and now I need to water it and plant it in good soil and make sure it gets enough light such that it can grow up to be big and strong. But the soil is the Realm, and the sun is me, but I’m also the seed, and the seed isn’t not a tree, but it also isn’t a tree yet, and it still needs to grow up so that the seed is actually anchored in the Realm, instead of just being in a place that it could grow in.”

“What about the branches and leaves?”

Allie’s question caught Matt off guard. “I don’t know, I said the example was bad. If I had to answer, I’d say the branches are an enlightened Truth as they reach out, but I think the example falls apart more than it helps.”

Aster jumped to her feet and dragged him upward. “You said things resonated with your Truth. Let’s test it. Obvious thing first!”

Matt felt ice start to creep up his legs locking him to the ground.

“Ok, Mr. Master of your own Destiny, I’m locking you in. Use your Truth to do something.”

“That’s really not a good idea,” Liz murmured, a sentiment echoed by Susanne, but Aster was relentless.

Allie poked him with a stick and murmured “Do something” repeatedly.

He didn’t even know where she had gotten the stick from. She hadn’t summoned it out of her spatial ring, nor had she teleported, but he pushed that question off as he turned inward, looking for that little speck that told him the Truth of the Realm, and the way in which he could arm himself with the full might of the Realm itself.

A glimmer of that reality flickered through Matt’s mind, but it was weak and feeble, and the moment he tried to actually touch it, he felt it dent and crack under his fingers, like a Tier 0 ingot of metal. Except unlike the metal, his metaphorical arm began to crack and deform as well.

But he persisted, tapping into his Intent to reinforce his spirit that didn’t feel quite right but worked nonetheless. Unfortunately, he then ran face-first into a second problem.

His nascent Truth didn’t have nearly enough power to punch through that much ice, let alone Aster’s ice.

“Tone it down some. My Truth is a seed, not a tree.”

Aster blew a raspberry at him, but the ice trapping his legs thinned until it was more of a suggestion of a restraint rather than an actual inhibitor of his movement.

It didn’t make any actual difference, and as Matt pushed his Truth into the restraint, he felt the glimmer of an Aspect begin to yield well before the ice started to give whatsoever.

“Can you go less?”

Aster rolled her eyes, but the ice thinned until it was mere frost stiffening his clothes.

Closing his eyes, Matt focused on his Truth. It was a layer deeper than his Intent, which was already a layer deeper than his Concept, but it was somehow more a part of him instead of being farther away.

His Truth was almost like a gem shining and spinning, but it was also empty like an egg.

Except all of those descriptions were wrong because his Truth was there. It was just growing.

Matt tried to move, but let the restrictions Aster’s frost put on him prevent his movement, despite being strong enough to physically break through.

At first, nothing happened, but as he let the feeling of being locked in place grow and bubble, he felt his Truth brighten as it reacted to encountering something it found against its principles.

Matt stoked that feeling, and felt Aster’s restriction break.

In practice, the ice holding him in place was hardly doing that, but what little resistance there was had vanished.

It wasn’t much now, even as the spark of light in his Aspect that was his Truth dimmed, but also grew imperceptibly larger.

Matt would have been content with that, but he felt there was more to his Truth he didn’t quite understand. His Truth needed more to grow into a healthy Truth, but it also had depths to it that he had yet to understand.

Part of his journey to make his Truth would be fulfilling both of those requirements, but he had time.

He was already well ahead of where his Tier needed him to be, and he knew he should be content and take his time; but he had a new power and wanted to figure it out immediately and leverage it into more power for himself and his friends.

“And that’s enough.” Liz was there suddenly, hands moving in a sweeping motion and picking up a cloud of red blood – unusual for her, these days – from the surroundings.

Oh.

That was from him.

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t get any sound to actually come out. Not that it stopped his spirit from speaking.

“I really think I,” his spiritual perception-speak broke down into the equivalent of a coughing fit, “I was getting close, though.”

“Mmm, yeah, no. We can revisit this later, preferably when you’re already in a healing pod. Zack, could I get a serenity [Reconstitute] on Matt’s upper thigh? Give it a few thousand mana.”

Matt took a look at himself through his spiritual perception, and tried to wave Liz off. She was seriously overreacting, he still had the bones of his left arm, and half his face was absolutely fine. Interestingly, he could even see the faint golden handprint from his stygian gossamer if he used the right senses. The way his lower torso was disintegrating into a starscape was cool more than concerning, and Zack’s spell was patching it up quickly anyway.

“Honestly, it’s fine,” he reiterated while flooding his body with mana, first with his lifesap, then with [Regeneration] to get muscles back in his arm. Essence-control wasn’t quite feasible without them, and [Telekinesis]-ing his fingers was just a pain. “See, it’s fine!”

A stabbing pain in his existence while he was mid-sentence caused his spiritual voice to break, but that didn’t undermine his point that much.

“Uhuh,” Liz crossed her arms, “And if you saw me melting into a puddle, would you be… wait. Bad example. Uh. If you saw me becoming petrified, I’m sure you’d be totally fine with that.”

“Well that’s completely different,” Matt shrugged. Then shrugged again, because the first time hadn’t worked, but the second time he had enough muscle mass back to make the movement visible.

“You, mister, are on bed rest. Stop playing with yourself, or I’ll have to drag you into the other room personally.”

Aster wolf-whistled and Allie laughed, while Susanne and Zack shared a glance at one of the guest rooms.

***

It took three weeks for Jericho and Esmeralda to find them a target, but eventually they did.

Or, they thought they did.

All subsequent tests just found more information pointing to the academies, which prompted the six of them to look into them further.

Matt knew about them in general, but he didn’t really know much beyond the fact that they produced elites. That obviously wasn’t all they did, but it was their main purpose, which made it suspect that they or their people would be hostile against Matt, Liz, or Aster, prompting them to dig deeper.

Most academies started as more competitive higher education.

For the average citizen who only wanted a degree for a job, they just went to a college for their higher education. On the other hand, academies served the exceptional who wanted to go further.

The academies were both more restrictive in who they accepted, and also demanded more from those who passed.

Bracketed in Tiers, low Tier academies taught their students to be well rounded. Even a graduate from a Tier 5 academy would be passingly familiar with all of the crafting skills and a skilled delver having at least one skill, if not more. Academically, they would all graduate Tier 5 with at least two bachelors’.

Many from those academies would then leave as Tier 5s and go out and live successful lives as businesses and low ranking noble families snapped them up, but that wasn’t the end.

If one wanted, they could continue to a higher Tier academy, where they could get their Master’s by Tier 10 while also learning more skills, rounding themselves out.

That went all the way to Tier 20, where one received their Hidden Master’s degree and were considered true experts in their fields.

Their seneschals were that type, having risen their way up and were prime examples of anyone so dedicated.

If that was all, things would have been fine, but people were people, and people were insular. People liked groups, them versus us, and that mentality held true even in academies.

Secret societies and shadowy cabals infested the academy system from top to bottom.

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Most were benign, and acted as nothing more than clubs with a shared identity who looked out for each other while in the same academy, but others were far more clannish, requiring lasting loyalty that extended beyond the academy walls.

That painted such a bad picture, Matt called up Cato to ask for confirmation of what Matt was reading, which he provided. At the same time, he cautioned Matt that the document was only half the truth.

One didn’t have to join a secret society. In fact, most academy students never joined one, though not for lack of trying, as those that did join a society tended to do better and go farther, thanks to the challenges and opportunities that being in a secret society brought. They all had different focuses, too. Some made great protective amulets, others focused on secret skill modifications, some taught their members how to be summoners, and more.

After listening to Cato’s comments, Matt asked, “So what do you think of the information about the video being made with an academy’s software?”

“As with all things, My Lord, it depends. If we can find a software that has been published even in small amounts, I’d put my money on someone just using it to distance themselves from the method of making the video. If we can’t find such evidence, and the software seems truly unique, then it was most certainly a society behind who made the video.”

That was close to Matt’s own thoughts on it all, though he didn’t like that. He had been hoping Cato would have better news.

“What’s the worst case scenario with the societies?”

Cato took a long time to reply, which only made Matt more nervous. “Worst case depends a lot on the truth of rumors I’ve heard. Most societies are… harmless. It’s a school tradition without much behind it. My own society was of that type, but there were rumors about societies who were far more powerful and demanded steadfast loyalty, even out of the academies. If the rumors are true, the strongest societies are led by dozens of Tier 46s, guiding them from the shadows. These are people who control Empire-wide corporations, guilds, even noble families. Those societies have an uncountable amount of people in various positions inside everything. They could be the principal, a teacher, a lowly janitor, or anywhere in between. Those types also tend to be incredibly loyal to the society. I would caution you, My Lord, that not all societies are like that, and I don’t actually know if any are, but those are the rumors.”

That fit what Matt saw in the government documents, but it only painted a picture he didn’t like.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that they had high Tier enemies, but a high Tier secret society was about the worst possibility Matt could think of. How were they supposed to get their vengeance against a group whose entire purpose was to be secret? It was doubtful there would be a convenient list of members for them to find.

After sharing what Cato said, Matt went back to looking through the information, but, having a better idea of what he was looking for, he found the relevant notes in the Imperial databases. Clicking into the first, Matt blinked as he checked his permissions to make sure he actually had full access to the document.

There were only a few tens of thousands of words about the secret society, the Dust Fall Order, who, according to the reports, were believed to have orchestrated the downfall of at least one Ducal house, at least three guilds, and over a dozen corporations in their seven hundred thousand year history. ‘Suspected’ being the key word because, as the document made sure to mention at least a dozen times, there was little evidence to link any of the acts to them.