The Path of Ascension Chapter 453

Chapter 453

 

Matt was buoyed along by the exuberance of the rest of the crew and couldn’t help but be excited for them.

Strange realms were said to be able to replicate Minkalla effects, but being lucky enough to find one at the right Tier before it was used was the stuff of legends on most expeditions. One that affected the lowest Tiers of one’s cultivation base were rarer still.

Matt fully understood how incredibly lucky his cycle of Minkalla had been. Moving all of his Genesis Energy down to the lowest Tiers of his core was something most people who got access to Genesis Energy never got to do at all.

This strange realm already had that benefit, but it paid for that advantage by being brutally hard. The half dozen exploration teams who had officially ventured inside had learned a lot, and several full reports had been shared with them as part of the ticket.

They had looked into getting a second ticket, but it was first come first serve, by batch. Additionally, any new slots sold were for the next batch, meaning years of waiting, which probably meant never getting a second attempt. Anything as popular as this strange realm was never going to last more than a year or two at the rate tickets were being sold.

So instead of running the strange realm twice, they decided to run it as a group.

Considering half of them might not get any benefit out of the strange realm at all, Allie and Zack were willing to bring the crew in. That would compound the difficulty of the strange realm, but they were confident in themselves and the crew in being able to overcome that hurdle.

The seven of them were already a Tier stronger than the strange realm, and would be punished with a stronger than normal experience anyway, so increasing it slightly wasn’t that hard of a choice.

According to the ticket’s provided information, that seemed to be the only punishment for being too strong. Thanks in no small part to the reward being in tandem with a cultivation reset challenge, that was the only effect of them out-Tiering the strange realm.

Best of all, the rewards were fantastic.

As advertised, it converted the essence in the selected cultivation core into something more efficient per amount allocated, giving a foundational improvement to the cultivators strength.

Unlike in Rah’s Realm, where the amount of essence a cultivator might have when they Tiered up varied with their specific style, every cultivator in their Realm had the same amount of essence spread between their three cores.

With that baseline level of power being so flat, there weren’t many ways to strengthen the amount of raw power a cultivator had. Improving one’s very essence was one of the best, and the one that scaled well.

The strange realm they were headed to had a singular consistent restriction. Everyone was limited to a single cultivation core while inside.

If someone chose their magical core, they were limited to skills in their innate and core skills while being Tiered down to Tier 1, having to re-earn their power in various ways. According to the reports, the mages had the easiest time, and anyone who chose it would additionally have their spirit strengthened at the end of the strange realm, based on how well they did.

On the other hand, those who picked their physical or bloodline cores suffered. They would be cut off from magic entirely, unless the scenario they were placed into had some method of enchanting to let them leverage their advantages.

For the physical cultivators, that always meant greater physical strength, but could translate into weirder things according to the scenario. One report Matt read over indicated they gained access to a near mana energy they were able to use to cast limited magics, but none of the following groups had been able to recreate the power in their own attempts.

Everyone from the crew who mainly cultivated their physical core still chose that one, because in addition to their essence improving, they also received a general all-round improvement to their physical bodies, making the harder strange realm scenario worth the additional effort.

While they found success, that couldn’t be said for the people who chose their bloodline core.

They were nearly always reverted to some variant of their bloodline form while also being restricted to Tier 1, meaning they could no longer transform into a human form. To make matters worse, they were cut off from both their enhanced body and any magic that wasn’t innate to their bloodline.

That was then compounded by the fact most didn’t allocate that much essence to their bloodline cores, and therefore didn’t gain as much power as they would have if they picked the core they specialized in, thanks to how the strange realm unlocked and converted their new essence.

The reward, however, was worth it for those who invested into their bloodline. If they exited successfully beyond the converted essence in the bloodline core, excavating and refining their bloodlines in the future would be easier. That made it an ideal secondary reward for both Liz and Aster.

Liz wanted to do it because she wanted to make her ichor bloodline better, refining her already existing power.

Aster, on the other hand, wanted it for the polar opposite reason. She was still preparing her bloodline for her eventual leap to a Rank 1 Level 5 mana type, and that meant excavating her own bloodline for the next jump. Best of all, the buff would still prove helpful once she followed Liz’s path and sought to raise her bloodline to Rank 3 with her ideal mana type.

The reward was so good that several of those with bloodlines they actively cultivated intended to follow their lead. Solely counting on that secondary reward to make up for the opportunity cost of converting the essence in one of their other cores.

That was if they could absorb the strange realm’s energy at all, given their Genesis Energy.

With the Minkalla run the four of them had, they had four or five Tiers converted respectively, thanks to the energy shifting down due to Back to Basics. Matt’s creation of pure neutral aura during Genesis Cultivation’s floor challenge allowed him to convert an extra Tier’s worth of essence into Genesis Energy compared to the others. That in turn meant he would need to nearly break the publicly acknowledged deepest run of the strange realm to even see if he could gain its power boost.

Not that Matt minded if they didn’t succeed and he walked out empty handed. He had benefited greatly so far on this expedition and he didn’t mind helping Zack, Allie, and Rah get a benefit he already had, let alone the rest of the crew. Depending on how Opposite Day interacted with the conversion, Zack and Allie stood to make out like bandits with their better than fully compressed essence.

The reported scenarios were totally unique, leaving them with little to expect beyond the very basics. Thankfully, every report indicated the strange realm was entirely safe. Anyone dying inside was ejected into a waiting space until everyone finished.

Because of the reported variance, the only things they knew for sure were that they would have to collect something and they would be restricted to their chosen core.

The first team to explore it found themselves on a trade caravan, having to defend it from monsters and bandits alike. Each kill had increased their power in their chosen core but the power of the monsters rose faster and killed the last of them after the third city they passed.

The corporation in control wasn’t sure how the strange realm knew, but each time everyone in the group advanced a Tier, it would give them a chance to end the strange realm. It was only if at least one person accepted to voluntary leave that the eliminated entrants would get the secondary rewards. But so long as one person made it to the next break point, everyone succeeded, and was one of the main challenges of the strange realm when entering in as a large group.

In the case of the first team, they walked for weeks or months between cities, unable to progress until everyone advanced, all the while the monsters got stronger, making it a very dangerous race against time.

The second team to enter the strange realm had been tasked with slaying ghosts that haunted a world after a devastating battle cursed the region. The more they managed to slay, the more their power increased and the more their cultivation was converted.

The third group wasn’t so lucky; they were tasked with protecting a city from endless swarms of fire elementals. Weirdly enough, they didn’t have to kill the elementals to advance. Rather, they had to ensure as much of the grain was harvested as possible, and every day they were empowered based solely on that metric.

Despite their strange criteria, they reportedly had the biggest benefit, having converted the first five Tiers of their cores entirely, making them the largest public team that advanced the furthest. Others might have beat them but they weren’t making their information known.

Considering the difficulty, Matt and the others suspected that would be close to the real best run.

To confuse things further, the fourth reported run said the group’s scenario was similar to the second, but instead they were tasked with hunting down bandits that littered the countryside in a low-tech society.

That was possibly the strangest thing to Matt but he didn’t let himself get too side tracked. All of the reported runs seemed to exist inside of perfectly believable worlds with their own, seemingly unique, languages, costumes, and powers but enough information to do their jobs would be given to them.

To ensure they reached the strange realm before it could possibly dissipate, they skipped over several closely-Tiered but less interesting strange realms they might have been able to hit on their way.

Being so close to the core of the second layer of energy, the planets were already picked over, with long-term exploitation teams starting to settle in. The explorers had already moved on and were trying to find untouched worlds before the final surge, as the third layer bubble popped and set off one last rush. Most people would return to settled space after that, but some would push their luck and enter the second layer of chaotic space, where the pieces of this bubble had been torn off.

Those worlds were much richer targets, but with their allure the danger was that much higher.

They would be in that first category. Over a decade since the first explorers arrived, a majority of the strange realms were now occupied and known quantities. Most weren’t at the right Tiers for them, but they did pass two Matt would have loved to explore.

Sadly, both were arena type strange realms, and so far, no one even close to their combat power had been willing to enter a combative strange realm with them. Or at least nobody who wasn’t so many Tiers above them it’d be suicide to attempt it.

Matt couldn’t say he really blamed people for that, but it excluded them from almost a quarter of the total strange realms useful to them.

That didn’t mean the year of travel was spent in their normal relaxed atmosphere. Instead, they trained.

Borrowing a small area in Magnus’ portable world, the seven of them started working with the crew in ever rotating shifts preparing them for the cultivation reset. They even went as far as to bring out some of Luna’s Back to the Basics preparation training methodologies.

While they had explored several strange realms together, this was one where they wouldn’t know what to generally expect. The potential rewards meant they needed to prepare for everything.

Thankfully, no one was a true non-combatant. At worst, they could delve at Tier and threshold. However, most of them could at least cross a minor threshold up, meaning they could fight from lower, middle, high, and peak of the same Tier when they delved for advancement.

The year helped, as they brushed up on their low-Tier combat abilities and got them used to fighting in their new groups, based on what core people intended to choose.

It wasn’t perfect, but no one was willing to squander this opportunity, and the crew sacrificed any free time to attend.

When they arrived at the indicated world, they nearly had to double check their directions because the world wasn’t guarded like they expected. Instead, it was only protected by a standard-looking Tier 30 mining corporation’s life boat acting as a beacon, with a single person inside to relay messages or give those inside warning if someone came.

Any such casual demeanor vanished as they reported they were there for the strange realm, but when they provided their information, he went silent. A few moments later, the life boat vanished and two Tier 35 combat ships replaced it, escorting them inside after they ensured no one was hidden nearby.

Once they entered the world’s real space, Matt’s suspicions were confirmed.

While the outside looked like a normal higher-Tier world, the inner world had a full one hundred man company of Tier 35s all on full alert.

Seeing that, Matt mentally reevaluated the value of the information they had sold the information brokerage. He had known such telemetry data was valuable, but their Seekers had been there and they hadn’t gotten information worth this strange realm.

How was any part of that worth their scan records?

Not that he felt bad at getting a deal.

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That, and the service was exceptional.

They were guided in and their ship sealed by both groups before they were led to an ornate looking multi-colored obelisk. It pulsed with power fluctuations culminating on a large pearl seamlessly embedded in the stone near the top.

It wasn’t fully unstable, but it was clear the strange realm wasn’t long for the Realm.

Matt’s suspicion that the truly important people had already long since gone through this strange realm was only confirmed when he got a good look at it.

The corporation behind this group had gotten their value out of it and was happy enough to profit from the excess.

Floating around the obelisk, they touched it in unison.

Matt found his consciousness drawn into a dark spot with only a single area of light.

Unable and unwilling to resist, Matt looked at the three copies of the obelisk he had just been touching.

The first blazed like a star in the sky full of twenty nine Tiers of essence.

Matt was a little moved upon seeing his life’s work represented like that.

What was less flattering were the other two pillars. The one representing his mana core was empty, with only the barest wisps of essence swirling around thanks to his efforts at fixing his mana concentration, while the third pillar was missing its orb entirely.

It was a little hurtful to see both displayed like that, but they accurately represented his cultivation.

Matt’s mana was entirely Talent-driven, and instead of letting him abuse that fact like in the shadow strange realm. Because he wasn’t actually in his real body and his Talent wasn’t related to his body, he was limited by the restriction in this strange realm. He could have risked choosing his nearly empty magical core but that seemed like a waste.

Knowing he couldn’t risk being a true burden to the team, he touched the shining core. The instant he did so, he vanished from the mental landscape.

A moment later, he found himself coming to consciousness standing under a baking sun that beat down on his bare shoulders relentlessly, despite being less than an hour from setting.

Looking around, Matt found himself standing with a group of others as a thin and sickly looking man yelled at them from the back of a wagon.

Inspecting himself, Matt found nothing wrong. He was in a facsimile of his own body, but his other cultivation cores were entirely gone as if they had never existed. That included his mana and spirit full of skills, but he shrugged that off.

In fact, even his physical core was ‘empty’. It wasn’t actually empty but his essence was locked away by a mist-like substance.

Matt spent some time playing with it, trying to learn something, but it felt like poking cotton with a stick. No matter what he did, his feedback was limited, making his efforts ultimately useless.

Paying attention to the leader’s words, Matt quickly figured out the scenario they were in. The old man’s ‘rousing speech’ combined with the spotty memories implanted in Matt’s memory worked together seamlessly in that regard, but he didn’t push deeper and see if he could learn more.

The ‘world’ they inhabited was recovering from a disaster, and most of the human population centers had been decimated by the very sun which beat down on them as they listened.

Matt had some vague ideas about the disaster, but his new memories about the monsters were far from complete.

What he did care about was there though.

The monsters they would need to fight were formed from the sunlight and ferociously attacked any humans.

Straining his now much weaker ears, Matt could hear clashes from the wall and knew the city’s defenders were fighting off rogue monsters even as they spoke. They would continue to do so until the sun fell below the horizon and the monsters vanished.

Matt knew some might want to explore this odd world but he simply didn’t have the time. He, along with everyone else with him, were being ‘volunteered’ for the expedition that was leaving the moment the gates opened.

As harsh as the fighting sounded, the city had long since been a safe haven, surrounded by the oasis’ ever fertile field.

As such, the city population boomed and something had to be done about the third and fourth children.

So every year, a new city was reclaimed via an expedition of the expendables.

Only one out of ten caravans made it to their new location and survived according to the information in his memories.

Matt assumed that was because they were entering in with a massive group whose average Tier was two Tiers over the strange realm’s, but so long as the monsters were killable, they would manage.

Once the old man stopped shouting, they were forced to join up with the rest of the caravan.

Seeing the rest of the crew mostly assembled, Matt felt slightly better, but that feeling only lasted until he realized there weren’t any of the people who chose their bloodlines with them at all.

He got his answer a few minutes before the sun set as a group of children brought them additional food animals.

To anyone else, it would look like an odd selection, but Matt recognized the oddities as being members of the crew.

Best of all, among the cages of chickens were a pair of a fox and a golden hawk, representing Aster and Liz, shoved into a cage together.

Seeing they were temporarily safe, Matt simply nodded at them instead of immediately moving to a rescue.

Matt earned himself two sets of glares, but he winked at them as Allie chortled next to him.