The Path of Ascension Chapter 462

Chapter 462

Matt along with everyone else in their group prepared for a battle as Rah paused the moment he stepped onto the Tier 11 world.

“Huh. I think I feel an anomaly six or so worlds away on this sky bridge’s path.”

His answer was less than enlightening and everyone looked to Allie for a reaction.

They weren’t disappointed.

“Bullshit. I bet you are just messing with us. We just arrived. There is no way you immediately noticed something so many worlds away. You’re bluffing.”

Allie had been increasingly ornery in the last month of traveling through the bubble worlds. She wasn’t mean, she simply wanted to bicker and would take any opportunity to engage. Additionally, she stopped the moment someone disengaged, something she happily shared was a deal she worked out with Zack early on the Path together.

Zack humored her as much as he could tolerate and Allie didn’t push when he needed a break. Normally she focused that excess energy on self improvement, but without that endless pit to throw hours into, she found herself bored and increasingly restless.

At first, mainly Aster and Zack were willing to entertain her but now the two of them spent a good amount of time together. For all that she wanted to chatter, she was also equally willing to be chattered at, which made her an excellent sounding board as Matt worked on his various mana ideas.

They stumbled into their arrangement after she annoyed him one too many times as they walked through the various sky bridges. Trying to give her a taste of her own medicine, he started talking about his own work hoping to irritate her.

He failed.

She was a very good rubber ducky.

Now they had their own system where she happily half-listened and gave the best feedback her wandering thoughts could give. Meanwhile, he mostly tuned her out as she tried her best to drag him into a debate.

She’d succeeded a few times but that was fun in its own way.

They even did actual work, though they kept their perceptions aligned with everyone else’s, who remained a more casual Tier 5 perception instead of being more efficient.

Matt shared his thoughts about her incorporating something like spatial blades into her weapon attacks.

She’d had similar thoughts; they spent a lot of time theorizing how she could manage it early.

Cutting through reality itself wasn’t that rare at the higher Tiers. Tier 36s could tear through a low-Tier world’s reality, and some decided to take that a step further. By incorporating the things they gleaned from their own strength, cultivators had long learned how to add spatial aspects to their attacks.

Not everyone did it, but for purely offensive fighters like Allie, there was no reason not to try and develop the ability as early as possible.

The idea started as a joke but they quickly started theorizing when they realized they were onto something. Using her Tier 3 spatial manipulation Talent, it was theoretically possible to cut through reality itself with every attack. But without a way to get started, she was left scratching her head.

That was until they had the idea to abuse [Teleport] and use it to start the process of slicing through space.

It wasn’t a great idea but it was the best they could come up with, and Allie was more than happy to push her most important skill in a new direction.

Gan Le surprised everyone, Rah most of all, when he gave his own advice. The resulting conversation distracted everyone as the two skill modification experts started talking shop.

In the process of skill mergers himself, Matt listened intently, not that he was alone.

Everyone listened and absorbed what they could. While numerically speaking, most cultivators rarely bothered significantly modifying their skills, the reverse was true when it came to elites.

Always seeking an edge, everyone in their group was actively modifying at least one skill, and most were working on more than one. Matt was working on a dozen modifications and three mergers. While he was doing a lot, he was far from the most busy.

Liz was still trying to modify most of her skills into Ichor variants so they worked better, but it was a battle she had to fight every time she absorbed a new skill into her core or inner spirit.

Even the crew members had their own questions.

It was an effort on everyone’s part, but after his initial resistance wore off, Matt found himself having fun.

No one missed Rah’s smug looks, but he’d earned it. Being present and active in each planet had upped the enjoyment and more importantly their investment in the exploration significantly.

So when Allie tried to egg Rah into a bet, no one was too surprised.

What caught them off guard was when he went along with her taunts.

“Oh? A bet. I suppose I could be enticed. What are your terms?”

The shocked look on Allie’s face only lasted a fraction of a second but Matt recorded it and immediately sent the image through the exploration team’s group chat.

He was a tad slower than Liz and a fraction faster than Aster and Zack, who had both memorialized the image by adding their own artistic flair.

Aster put hand drawn stars and zig zags around Allie’s eyes and face, leaving her in a tasteful, if comical, state.

Zack, in a manner solely his own, had commemorated the moment of surprise by adding a time and date stamped on the image. He even packaged it with a verification of its authenticity, backed by a muscle map he pulled out of Allie’s own [AI] matching her facial moment.

Liz clenched her fist in the air. “I win! I was fastest! I—”

Allie spluttered, “Excuse me, I—”

She was cut off as Susanne one upped them all by posting Allie’s reaction to the original picture, winning the silent bet. Without arguing, everyone handed her poker chips reflecting their own silent commitments.

As the woman who suggested the game of ‘capturing the best reaction’ in the first place, Allie could only watch on in horror as the group congratulated their quiet swordswoman.

Aster reignited the debate all over again as she sent that reaction to the group chat.

Allie argued she couldn’t submit two reactions even if they were different, and because no one wanted to see Aster get another victory, they agreed and added the new rule.

Aster froze Matt’s shirt for the betrayal but their bets were serious business and no one wanted her to get a further lead.

Kicking dirt and trying to look pitiful, Aster pouted. “It’s bullshit that you can apply the rule after I already did it. Not fair.”

Getting over her betrayal quickly, Allie looked to Rah before her shrug answered his original question. “I don’t know what I’m betting but I’ll bet whatever. There is no way you sensed it this far away. I don’t buy it. I’m calling your bluff.”

Rah tapped his foot before nodding. “I know how to settle this. I will send a timed message in the group chat. It will unlock tomorrow or when all of us agree to open it. That will prove I didn’t tamper with the message.”

Smiling more earnestly, he added, “AI makes little things like this very convenient. In my original Realm, we would have had to write and seal a message with mana to prevent probing but there were always people who could get around such things.”

His next words were far less polite, bordering on ruthless, as he targeted half of Allie’s remaining chips. “Between the two of us? How about forty.”

Their betting chips had evolved into their group’s internal currency they traded and used as barter.

Most of the barter was on chores. To be fair, everyone had a rotating schedule of camp chores when they set down camp. They tried to do so at least once every few days to share a meal but they didn’t stress about such things if they had a nearby target world. For obvious reasons, not everyone liked every chore, and even if they could magic them away, with readily available currency, people started paying each other to not do a chore.

Originally a betting currency, everyone had started with a hundred chips and aiming to take half of Allie’s chips was a strong response.

They were fairly tamperproof, being serialized coins of mana Matt made while channeling his Intent’s ability to artificially concentrate his mana at the cost of making his normally blue mana an ink black.

He was shameless enough to put Aster’s fox face on it without her asking, but it was a lost bet with Liz that had him putting her phoenix silhouette on the other side instead of her phoenix face.

He actually really liked the result and intended to bring the idea into reality when they returned to the Empire as a surprise for the two.

Limited physical currency memorabilia runs were usually cash grabs, but he was genuinely proud of how his design came out.

Not only had his recent efforts at the mana throughput issue paid dividends in his general mana control, it complemented his ability to shape his crystalized mana.

Matt weighed his options and while his initial gut was to agree with Allie, the distance seemed improbable for Rah to be able to sense anything clearly enough to identify, he ended up stepping over to Rah’s side.

“I’ll set the side bet at twenty for Rah.”

Allie tutted. “Why the instant bet? No hesitation at all? Sure, I can’t blame you for siding with him, but I can fault you for not even letting me finish my pitch.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “You were done with your pitch, so don’t even try to pull that. No, I’m not sharing my logic so you can see if you can back out. The bet is set.”

He saw her biting the inside of her cheeks as she tried not to laugh, but her mirth vanished as Liz stepped next to Matt with a silent shrug.

In the end, Stenson, Katya, Magnus, Susanne, and Aster agreed with Allie, though Aster made it a point to look at their side when Allie was looking at her for support.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Arden, Lura, Liz, and Matt bet with Rah, making it a fairly even bet with Zack abstaining.

When Allie pressed him, he looked helpless as he gestured between the two. “I can’t pick. It’s too close.”

Matt thoroughly disagreed but he held his tongue.

With a new target set, they looked to their Seekers.

Magnus caught everyone’s attention when he brought out an ostrich and sacrificed it instead of his more normal goat.

The results were positive, with the ostrich’s feet becoming luminescent for a few moments before the energy faded.

That ended up turning into a small distraction as Aster and Allie both salivated at the more normal bird than what Matt had been experimenting with.

Dinner was courtesy of Magnus’ flock and paired well with several of the things Matt sampled on their last few worlds in preparation.

When they continued, they pushed themselves hard to cross the intervening worlds as fast as possible. Everyone was eager to see who was correct, though they still collected the valuables from the worlds they crossed.

When they were only three planets away, Allie paused the group. “Okay, Rah, what should us amateurs be sensing from our new destination?”

Rah chewed his lip before shaking his head. “Honestly, at this point even, I’m not sure if I’m correct. I thought I was, but I might be wrong. Things feel different than what I expected. Still, I encourage everyone to reach out in the direction and see if you can feel what I’m talking about before we arrive next to it.”

Seeing Allie get really excited, Rah held up his hands, halting her celebrations. “I still believe I am right but I am slightly less sure, as such things were rare even in my Realm.”

Letting his spiritual perception resonate with the world they were on, Matt carefully probed the sky bridge’s anchor point where it towered in the middle of a forest.

He tried to follow Rah’s advice and feel for the vibrations transmitted from connecting worlds but he couldn’t filter anything specific out of the background noise chaotic space caused.

Liz flicked a finger towards Rah as she asked, “Is that what you thought, Rah? I think I feel what I wrote but I never would have guessed that without your hint so I could be entirely off base.”

Rah’s eyes flicked a few times as he read before he nodded his head. “That is my guess as well.”

Matt and everyone else turned to Liz, who looked entirely too smug as she mimed sowing up her mouth.