The Path of Ascension Chapter 444

Chapter 444

Tim sat down with dozens of scientists just hours after he finally finished getting his ‘Beginner Concept Actualization’ entry to Novice.

The method to gain proficiency wasn’t what he had expected at all when he unlocked the skill but a year of saving, on top of the loans he had taken out, had finally paid themselves off as he reached Novice and a flood of information hit him.

At the same time as he processed the influx of knowledge, Tim heard the scientists chattering about the readings he was giving off. Once he was done, he’d check the results out, as he enjoyed learning about what his Talent actually did, but the information given about his Concept from his entry was slightly spotty and it took a moment for him to sort through it all.

After he processed all of the information, Tim changed a few of the things he was doing and his Concept finally fully-formed. He felt three new dings as his Talent gave him a slew of new entries.

Beginner Concept Strengthening: 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 400 Billion Credits.

Beginner Concept Harmonization: 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 600 Billion Credits.

Beginner Concept Flexibility: 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 900 Billion Credits.

The first three seemed fairly standard and, thanks to his earlier training, Tim felt like he understood both what they would do and how they would do it. The entries were basically strengthening exercises for his spirit.

What he was far more interested in was his Concept’s actual power. He had shaped and sculpted his initial formulation hoping to influence the final result and Tim, deep down, begged that his efforts had been correct.

There was thankfully an entry to confirm exactly that.

Beginner Concept Main Effect Strengthening (Proficiency Gain): 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 30 Trillion Credits.

Beginner Concept Main Effect Efficiency (Proficiency Gain): 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 50 Trillion Credits.

Beginner Concept Secondary Effect Strengthening (Passive Proficiency): 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 300 Billion Credits.

Beginner Concept Secondary Effect Efficiency (Passive Proficiency): 0/100 Proficiency — Unlock Cost: 500 Billion Credits.

What was most interesting of all was that he had actually unlocked an entry that was already unlocked. He had long gotten used to the fact that learning about an entry didn’t lower the cost of unlocking it so he didn’t expect to get a skill for outright free like this. It was also the first entry he had gotten that had more than one way to grind up proficiency.

Beginner Willpower Pool Expansion: 0/100 Proficiency — Harmonize with Concept to gain proficiency| Strengthen Concept to gain proficiency| Have a Concept to gain proficiency.

It was that last method he assumed made the entry unlock automatically. He had a Concept and therefore was gaining miniscule levels of proficiency which somehow bypassed his normal need to pay to unlock an entry.

Tim half expected to see a willpower regeneration rate but he knew that such was mostly dependent on how large one’s willpower pool was. Most people regenerated a percent of their maximum willpower pool at a steady rate. The size however was generally based on three factors.

The first was the most obvious: how many stages the cultivator unlocked and how large each was. Each stage of a Domain increased the willpower a cultivator had in their pool by a flat but variable amount, which in turn increased the amount of willpower regenerated each day. The larger or more complex a Domain stage was when formed, the more willpower a person initially got. Although there was a rough maximum, there were no records of being surpassed without Talent intervention.

The largest Concept was never going to be bigger than even the smallest Intent, but inside those stages the variance could be massive. That was usually offset by how most Concepts which came with such large initial pools also had more willpower hungry abilities, but it could still make quite the difference in the formative years right after gaining it.

The next most important factor was how long the cultivator had each stage of their Domain. Each additional stage of a Domain increased a willpower pool by a variable amount each day, based on seemingly everything from your mood, to what you had for dinner, to how much sunlight the cultivator did or did not get recently, but it averaged out to something fairly consistent.

Ultimately that meant someone who was older might have a larger willpower pool, but someone else who was younger and had the next stage of a Domain might already have a greater total willpower, as the later stages were an order of magnitude better at expansion.

Even a few hundredths of a percent difference in willpower gain rate didn’t seem that impactful until it was magnified by people who could live forever.

Tim had been depressed upon that realization, as it seemed impossible to catch up to people who had been born infinitely long ago. But Awda, the scientist he was closest to, pointed out that age mattered little to both Tier and experience.

The Realm wasn’t so simple and age didn’t necessarily equal power.

Thanks to the additional stages giving more willpower growth, having a Concept for ten years was on average the equivalent of having an Intent for a single year or having an Aspect for 36 days.

Tim liked to think of it similar to his gaining of proficiency, except it was flat experience gained per day and the mechanism he hoped would allow him to gain passive proficiencies.

Finally, the last method to increase the size of a willpower pool was just to use one’s Domain. Like a muscle, constant usage would see small but important levels of growth to the willpower pool itself.

If a cultivator only cared about willpower regeneration, possibly when they bottomed out and therefore couldn’t use their willpower until it recovered sufficiency, they could meditate or deliberately harmonize with their Concept to increase the speed. Most never bothered as even an average delver didn’t rely on their Concept beyond its passive abilities most of the time.

After spending their hours with the researchers who were studying every detail he provided them, they eventually had to actually try his Concept.

Tim and the scientists had been aiming to have a Concept that allowed him to gain passive proficiency as its main power with additional proficiency as its secondary, but having both effects, even if reversed, was good enough for him.

It took some time and fumbling around but Tim finally got his Concept to work.

So long as he focused he could… Tim didn’t really have the words to describe it but he felt like he pushed the entry into his Concept which then, agonizingly slowly, started mimicking the requirements of his entries until he deliberately stopped it.

That discovery caused a multi-hour detour from their original goal, but that was why they had started right after breakfast; it allowed them to dig into oddities without feeling so many time constraints.

He had been warned about such oddities early on, as it was why most weren’t told too much about Concepts before they actually had one, as trying to custom-make a Domain stage deliberately usually came with weaker results but it had been a risk he was willing to take.

So despite the Concept’s abilities being reversed, everyone’s expectations were high and they were deeply interested in why his Concept decided to mimic the actions he needed to do, instead of mimicking the results directly.

It was an interesting deviation and one that revealed quite a lot about his Talent.

First, he couldn’t seem to gain proficiency manually while he had an entry for growing his Concept. He could do his proficiency gaining method while letting it passively tick with his Concept but he only ever got proficiency from one source at a time, which was weird as he didn’t have such a limitation when training multiple things himself.

Second, while it seemed possible to fit additional entries into his Concept, he wasn’t able to do so yet given the size of his Concept.

Third, his Concept was slow. It took seven times as long as he might take to earn proficiency when doing the skill. It was ‘passive’ growth but the penalty to his gained experience per action really hurt his long term accumulation.

Finally, his Concept’s size was an ‘opportunity for research’, which Tim knew wasn’t exactly a good thing. It was small, like a candle struggling to hold onto life on a windy night where one stray breeze could blow it out.

Tim had been aware that was a downside of deliberately designing a Concept but he couldn’t help but curse that his main methods to remedy the issue cost so damn much. Most of all he was simply relieved he succeeded and saddened he hadn’t managed to do better after waiting so long for his Concept to form.

It seemed almost fitting. Perfect on the outside but, like himself, riddled with flaws deeper within.

After talking things through with the scientists he had a good rapport with like Awda, and the counselors, he settled his next goal on needing to earn a lot of money. Thankfully, with his Concept now formed, that meant Tiering up and delving for advancement and money.

Tim almost gave up at the mountain of paperwork that finally creating his Concept had made him fill out but his excitement to finally be able to advance pushed him forward once more.

It had been far too long and the few crafting-related jobs he enjoyed had all been limited by his advancement.

But to fix that, he needed essence.

Which meant delving again.

Tim just needed to keep pushing.

A little harder, a little longer.

Then he could rest.

Maybe he’d be even able to catch up to his roommates if he put in some extra delves.

The idea sounded awful, but then again so had sitting at the Academy, stuck and unable to advance.

***

Having encountered so many people at the latest planet, none of the crew of the Unsparing were surprised that the moment they entered chaotic space, they found several ships broadcasting around them outside of visual ranges but still reachable with dedicated projectors.

Most ships in deep chaotic space actively avoided it as it was the same as giving everyone around the ship an exact location, but in this case, the ships in question wanted people to know they had reached the breach.

The first teams from the Great Powers proper had arrived and worlds were about to become far more contested.

Two of the signals they were picking up were still very far out but were definitely Empire ships. One exploration guild with reportedly over five ships in their convoy who was neutral with Lila’s guild, and a Count’s three-ship convoy.

The fastest to move were generally the smallest of the guilds, but the difference wouldn’t be too great. If they were already arriving this deep then there wouldn’t be much more time before the next ships arrived.

Thankfully, the two ships were both broadcasting news updates, giving them their first new information since they had left.

To no one’s surprise, the Rasdale tidal breach had grabbed everyone’s attention, pulling anyone who could safely enter the second layer of chaotic space or higher, into the hunt for treasure and unique opportunities.

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Reading between some of the lines, Matt wasn’t surprised in the least that seekers were the main limiters. It was so bad in the Empire, some groups had begun teaming up with those who had seekers, willing to brave the risks of chaotic space without their own seeker aboard, hoping to strike it rich.

It wasn’t the largest Rasdale breach on record but it was in estimated to be in the top twenty, and at the time the ships they got the information from had left, the experts were still speculating if it would break into the top ten.

Matt was reading the reports as they came through the still-distant connection when he looked up along with everyone else.

The captain had walked over and quietly cleared their throat. “Ascenders, we have a hail addressed to the Guild Leader.”

Matt raised an eyebrow before realizing the captain meant Lila and not himself.

Keeping his mouth closed and hoping no one else noticed his gaff, Matt listened as Liz gestured for the captain to keep speaking.

The captain however had little more to add. “The Count seems to have been expecting us. The Monster Collective team we encountered earlier has been spreading information about the Unsparing, and implying the Guild Leader is with us which is why we escaped before.”

Aster drummed her armrest before asking, “Do you know if Lila happens to know Count Dixie? We don’t, that’s for sure.”

“Not that I’m aware of, but that means little. How do you want to handle this, Ascenders?”

After talking it over, Liz finally agreed to accept the message with everyone else able to listen in but not speak, not wanting a repeat of Allie’s trash talking to get them in trouble once more.

They had to change course to shorten the distance between the two ships but when they had about a month of travel between them, Count Winnia Dixie responded to their message.

It was voice-only and the connection was spotty but it was better than nothing.