The Path of Ascension

Chapter 176

Minkalla didnt try to restrict their flight as they descended into the hole, and Matt was grateful for it. The last hole they found had a no flying restriction and spikes at the bottom, after all. Still as they descended they stayed near the wall just in case they needed to grab on in a hurry.

The hole did send a mass of nearly invisible bats at them like a swarm of locusts, but Matt easily took care of them with [Flamethrower] and [Fire Manipulation]. The Genesis Energy he got was a pittance, but it seemed to be more of a check of their ability to sense the monsters rather than a concentrated attack from the hostile planet.

When they reached the bottom of the hole, they found a pair of pyramids on the ceiling and floor, like a pair of stalactites and stalagmites. The tips of the pyramids seemed connected by two hands of Genesis Energy that gripped each other as if one of them was preventing the other from falling. The reason why became apparent as the top pyramid started to draw them in, with gravity warping and inverting before placing them at the foot of the pyramid.

As they came to a halt, Matt found that his flight ability was completely locked down once again.

Liz sighed over their AI comms. Well, we arent flying out of this place. Let's see what this cavern looks like. Aster, youre with Matt let's circle the pyramid and see what we can find. Hopefully, some other way out.

Aster scampered into Matts shoulder and laid herself down, facing away from the pyramid and the empty space to their left. Without their eyes working because of the floor restriction, it didnt matter how she situated herself, but they had trained with her keeping her attention on their perimeter, and that was an easy habit to fall into.

The trip around the pyramid told them exactly nothing. There were no entrances, and nothing that seemed to be interactable along its edge. All they could sense in the surroundings were the flat rocks that made up the cavern's ceiling, so they just moved along without stopping.

Once they completed their half of the trip, they waited about two minutes for Liz and Susanne to make their way around the corner.

When they did, the four of them reconnected with their AI, and Aster was able to ask, What did you guys find?

Liz, who just stepped into range of his spiritual perception, stopped at the corner and said, The entrance. Or what we believe is the entrance.

Matt jogged over and followed them to where he could see a black, seemingly endless hole in the bottom of the large stone that made up the pyramid.

It felt ominous and wrong somehow, but he couldnt put a finger on exactly what the problem was. Minkalla was keeping him from looking beyond the surface, but that only indicated that it was hiding something. Something he wasn't eager to find with his face.

Susanne asked, You feel it as well, right?

Matt and Aster nodded in unison. Yes, and I don't like it. Do we try to bypass it?

Liz looked from the hole and back to Matt. If we could. Go ahead and try to climb the stone.

Aster remained in place as he walked over the ten-foot-tall brick of stone, and in a small leap, jumped to the top of the first layer.

Except when his feet landed, they were on the ground once again.

Matt looked to Aster, and while he couldn't feel it, he could see her snuggle deeper into his neck. That had been unsettling.

He had felt himself jump, but when his feet had been about to touch the stone, reality had warped around them so subtly, they hadnt noticed it initially, and it sent them back to their original position.

Ok, so climbing is out of the question. I don't like this door. Were clearly in a puzzle area, which means stepping into this first entrance would be suicide.

Liz tapped her foot, but Susanne spoke up. First rule of puzzles in Minkalla is that our AIs will either be shut down or ineffective at solving said puzzles, if theyre even allowed. Since our AI still work as much as they ever do, it's either not a puzzle, or our AI won't help.

Aster offered up her idea, What if we do a lap together?

They all agreed, but before they left, they stacked a series of stones to indicate where the entrance was. This place was already warping space, so having a marker wouldnt hurt.

What they found as they made another lap around the pyramid was disconcerting. Where Matt had found nothing on his first walkaround, they now encountered a new entrance. Their little pile of stones was also noticeably absent.

The entrance, while blocked off from this spiritual perception, was noticeably less dangerous than the last one, but all of them agreed that it was still noticeably off.

When they returned to the spot where Lizs and Susannes entrance should have been, they once again found nothing but bare walls. No stacking of stones, and no entrance.

Matt paused and looked around for a long second.

He had realized something on his trip around the pyramid, and he didnt like the implications.

Wanting to be proved wrong, he asked Susanne, When did we get married?

As he asked, he projected the thought, Right before we came to Minkalla, in case something went wrong.

It was something he and Liz had considered, but discarded. They wanted a proper wedding with all their friends in attendance. That wasnt even considering her parents, nor the fact that they would want to be there. But they were incredibly busy due to Emperor Emmanuel's absence. As the Empires only two Tier 48s, they were his second in command, and had their plates full with his attending of Sword Saint Hastor's and Dicomatys Ascensions.

Dicomaty had ascended not long ago, and last he heard, they were just arriving at the Clans capital, but Sword Saint Hastor still hadn't completed his ascension yet.

Susanne, as he expected, said what he feared. Are you ok, honey? We got married right before we entered here.

Hearing that, Matt crushed the talisman he had in his fist and summoned his sword, just as ice appeared around him and Aster.

He seemed to take the fake Liz and Susanne off guard, because his sword and Aster's icicles took each of the fakes in the chest.

A wash of Genesis Energy hit him and Aster, and he sighed, looking at his friends' mutilated corpses. Or at least, the copies that Minkalla had created.

It took returning to Liz and Susanne's location for him to realize the issue. If walking around the pyramid brought you to a new location each time you turned a corner, he should have never met up with Liz and Susanne.

Either the rules hadnt happened to work for them, as they were separated, or the two of them were illusions. Thankfully, Minkalla couldnt read the past and didnt even try, so simple tricks like projecting thoughts about one falsehood was usually enough to expose its lies. It was worrying that Minkalla could so flawlessly act as his friends, complete with their AIs. But if it was from the higher realms, even the most secure messages would be like childs play to intercept.

The fake duo vanished in a second now that he had taken the Genesis Energy from them, leaving two-quarter circles of stone in their places.

Aster whined as he picked up the drops. That was scary. Can we go back to where we were?

Matt nodded, and at his fastest boosted speed, sprinted around the pyramid to their original landing spot. He was reassured by the fact that he encountered both false entrances and a stack of stones along his way.

When he and Aster returned to where they split, they ended up waiting for nearly half an hour before Liz and Susanne came around the corner.

Matt readed his sword and cast his strongest [Bulwark], keeping his mind as blank as possible as he demanded through their now established AI connection, Report?

Liz and Susanne both handed their weapons at the ready, which comforted him, and even though Aster kept her summoned ice at the ready, they were both fairly sure that these were the originals.

Encountered false yous that tried to lead us on a trip around the pyramid, which was creating new sides or something.

Matt hunkered down as he asked, Did you get anything from the false copies? Two-quarters of a square?

Lizs answer reassured him slightly. Half of a circle. When did you buy me the ring on your finger?

Matt smiled as he answered the trick question. We earned it together.

Their paired teleporting rings werent in fact earned by the both of them; he had earned them himself. But if Minkalla was creating copies, the lie would hopefully be easily noticed.

A double lie about their rings was one of their preset answers that they had established before they entered Minkalla.

Liz didnt approach at his lie and asked, What city did we meet at?

This time Matt told the truth. A training planet hardly counts as a city.

Liz lowered her weapon and approached cautiously. What is your favorite ice cream.

Aster answered this one. Right now bananas and strawberries. No actually that was last week. Right now I really want some apple fritters ice cream. Mmm that sounds good did I pack any of that away? Oh, of course I did!

Liz was reassured at the rambling answer and approached.

Dropping his guard, he and Aster met up with the real duo. Now that Minkalla had started to make copies, they would need to do this testing any time they left each other's spiritual perception.

Putting together their quarters of the stone circle, the pieces clicked into place as they neared each other, then released a small pulse of energy. The wave revealed an entrance right on the face of the pyramid, mere feet from where they landed.

This entrance didnt have the signature Minkalla veil over its depths, and they could clearly see a chamber room inside the gloom of the pyramid. At least, as clearly as the Eternal Darkness would allow for.

Matt took the lead and was ready for any traps, but they found none.

As they entered the interior of the pyramid, the stone circle fell apart and crumbled into dust before vanishing.

The room around them was cluttered like a pack rat's storage house, but there were three stone pillars standing in a triangle in the center of the room.

None of them moved, and were careful to avoid touching anything.

Matt reviewed his AI downloaded list of traps and puzzles, but found nothing similar to particular room they were in.

The fact that the lists didnt have any leads to pull from wasnt very surprising, in and of itself. Minkalla seemed to have an endless list of puzzles to pull from, and it was rare for anyone to encounter a puzzle they previously were aware of. Even if they found one they recognized, it was all but assured that the planet would stop their AI from solving it.

Matt stepped through the room and made a lap around the pillars.

There were no distinctive markings on any of them, and they seemed as identical as any rift-made item. The problem was that the Eternal Darkness floor theme rendered them totally blind. Even with their spiritual perception, they didnt have color sensitivity. The room's challenge could be as easy as finding the items in the clutter that matched the pillar's color, but they couldnt know that with their limited perception.

Still, that was a big if. Minkalla never had an impossible puzzle, even accounting for floor themes, but that didnt mean it wouldn't make the puzzle a million times harder.

It took them two and a half hours until they fished through each and every piece of clutter on the ground to find the matching junk that each pillar wanted.

When they finished, Matt was sure that the room had been a color puzzle. The Genesis Energy they received as a reward was quite a bit more than they had earned from killing any single monster besides the queen ant and giant monkey.

The next room they encountered had an altar with bones and corpses scattered around it, along with another podium where the bodies had been sacrificed upon.

Liz said, I feel blood, namely dried blood, caked on the pillar. Anyone have an idea what this is except a place to sacrifice one of us?

Susanne answered, I don't think that's right. Look at the walls, they have murals carved into them.

Matt joined her and saw what she meant. Along the wall, a tapestry of sacrifice had been carved in a progression, depicting a story.

People gathered around the altar, sacrificed something, and were then rewarded.

Small sacrifices meant that all the worshipers were killed, but if the rewards were high enough, riches and wealth were awarded to the acolytes.

People always seemed to be at minimum a satisfactory reward, and not one out of the thousand carvings had a single one of those rewards rejected.

None of them were willing to kill one of the others to progress, and it didnt even seem like they needed to. Not necessarily. The murals had a number of people offering personal items and being rewarded. Sometimes more so than the groups who offered an actual person up to the chopping block.

Aster was horrified. Do I need to sacrifice my ice cream?

She silently yowled into the sky in sadness as they discussed what they needed to do.

Since none of them were willing to turn on each other, they reckoned they each needed to give up one of their more precious items.

Aster was easy. She had a storage ring filled with ice cream, but despite that giving up even one of the cartons was hard for her. So had a limited supply for the foreseeable fortune after all.

Mr pyramid, I hope you enjoy Apple Fritter ice cream. It's one of my favorites. Aster lowered her head as she offered the ice cream. When she used her Concept to put the carton on the altar, it was immediately sucked into the pillar.

At the same time, a rush of Genesis Energy hit Aster as she was rewarded for her offering. Considering the reward was abundant, they were able to confirm the fact that the more precious of an item, the better their rewards.

As the Genesis Energy stopped rushing into Aster, a door opened in the side of the wall, but everyone other than Aster was prevented from even crossing the threshold.

Matt was considering what he would sacrifice when Susanne moved forward and laid a strip of cloth on the altar.

She was rewarded with a rush of Genesis Energy almost equal to Asters, but when they asked what she offered, she would only say, Something Ive carried for too long.

Liz went up next and put a picture of her, Matt, and Aster at an amusement park. She didnt receive as large a Genesis Energy reward as the others, but she did get one.

Matt stood up and put one of Lizs mana concentration potions on the pillar.

It was a failed product, but he kept it anyway. She had tried to improve upon the formula for months, sacrificing her little free time over their last three years. She hadnt succeeded, but he appreciated the thought, and had kept just one of the vials despite her protests.

To anyone else, it was a standard vial of Tier 12 mana concentration potion, but to him, it was proof of her love.

The altar still rewarded him somewhere between Lizs reward and Susannes, but he was on the lower end. Still, it was enough, and they were all able to progress after their sacrifices were accepted.

In the next room, they encountered a forge that Matt was sure was glowing with heat.

[Fire Manipulation] allowed him some minor control over the inside of the forge, at least.

There were four pillars surrounding the forge, on which stood four small statues.

When Liz approached one, she gasped through their AI. I think these take Genesis Energy. It tried to take a little, at least when I touched it.

Matt thought it over before saying. Let me test it.

He put all of his Genesis Energy into the ring with the pressure gauge before extracting a thimble full, then handing the ring off to Susanne.

Then, he repeated Lizs action of putting his hand on the statue, and in front of his eyes, he was treated to a vision of the statue's life.

The statue was once a warrior who lived in, as far as Matt could tell, a mundane realm.

The man was born as a smiths son, and he would have continued down that path, but his country was being invaded by its neighbors, and he was conscripted.

While he was away, his village was raided by the enemy scouts, and his family was captured as slaves.

The person whose life Matt was reliving didnt know that until he returned from his time on the battlefield, after the five-year campaign, to find a village trying to rebuild itself.

Filled with hate, he took his sword and rushed back into the enemy lands.

At first, he intended to buy his parents freedom, but he quickly learned that they were nowhere to be found.

No one was willing to admit where they had been brought to. Matt simply watched as the man searched high and low, before eventually finding a slaver who told him that his parents had been sent to the mines, and neither had lived.

The man reacted with rage and killed the slaver and his entire family before burning down a large portion of the city that he was in.

After that, he moved around from village to village killing anyone native to the county that he could find.

It was just him, his sword, and his grief as he slaughtered hundreds.

Finally, he was trapped and caught by that country's government, and tried for murder. In the end, he was killed with his own sword in some form of poetic justice. Or at least, that's how the locals thought of it.

The vision only lasted an instant, but Matt explained what he saw, and all the others tried the same, watching the same life with no variation.

After that, they found that the other pillars each had a unique weapon, and contained some version of a tragic, mundane life of struggle and blood.

There was a sword, an axe, a hammer, and an odd, metal bow.

Each statue was missing their unique weapon. After seeing the four lives, the forge made more sense, and Matt stepped up to the blaze. Along with Susanne as his assistant, they began to forge a size-appropriate weapon for each of the statues.

Susanne was only proficient in smithing to the point that she could do some general repairs to her armor, but she was a willing assistant to Matt. He wasnt as good a smith as he was an enchanter, but he had picked up more than a few of the tricks of the trade over the years.

It took him a few hours, but Matt made, refined, and polished the small weapons until they were as close to the items in the visions as possible.

He was sure that a dedicated smith could make something much better, but the veritable figurines were close enough for the task at hand.

When they placed one of the weapons on the pillar, the statue reached out and took it before testing it with a practice swing, or in the bows case, a draw.

After the weapon was tested, the statue sunk into the ground and vanished.

There was no Genesis Energy reward, but a door opened on the far side of the wall. They didnt know if that meant they only just passed the test or if there was something more to it. They looked around but found nothing so chose to move one.

They didnt leave until after they took everything that wasnt nailed down, which meant a few dozen bars of Tier 14 metals and the tools. They needed some reward after all.

Matt wanted to take the anvil, but it was rooted to the spot.

In the next room, they encountered another puzzle, and their AI completely shut down after the entrance door closed tight. They could only communicate with prepared hand gestures, which was annoying, but doable.

Seven stone sticks were extending off the far wall that pulsed with Genesis Energy in a flashing pattern. It only took a little trial and error for them to learn that they had to repeat the pattern back after it flashed in its entirety.

That would have been a simple and easy challenge, but they had to use their own Genesis Energy to light up the sticks. And while activating a single stick was easy, the patterns started at twenty lights, and only got longer with each stage passed.

Matt cheated shamelessly.

Using his channeled boosting skills along with his armor, he was able to increase his mental faculties and perceptions to a point that he could catch even the smallest flickers of Genesis Energy in the sticks, and with enough mana in [Mages Retreat], he was able to keep up with the patterns.

He actually had fun, as it was reminiscent of his training with Luna in the early days, when she took them to the desert. He and The Unbroken were put through her own little version of bootcamp.

Matt only messed up once, on his first attempt of the third pattern, which meant he didnt lose too much Genesis Energy. It was a worthwhile investment, though, as they learned that he needed to match the pace of the flashing sticks. He couldn't rush through it, or pause and take his time.

If their AI worked as usual, it would have been as easy as following its prompts, but that wasnt an option. By the time Matt reached the point where the patterns were fifty flashes long, with multiple sticks to light up at once, he had fallen into a near trance-like state.

When he beat the pattern with two hundred flashes, they were all rewarded with a flood of Genesis Energy.

Nearly half of it went to Matt, but none got less energy than their reward from the Queen ant.

The next room returned their communication, and with it, a sense of ease. Complete isolation was hard on him, and it wasnt something he wanted to deal with very often.

The next room had three stone gargoyles. When they entered, the stone mouths moved, but no sound came out, and after ten minutes, they were attacked.

As fresh Tier 14s, they were easy enough to kill, but the four of them complained endlessly.

Minkalla had clearly given them a riddle challenge, but with the floor theme, they were unable to hear said riddle, which meant that they were attacked for failing the puzzle. To add insult to injury, they didnt even earn any Genesis Energy from the gargoyles.

After searching, they found a number of pictures carved on the wall that they interpreted as the questions the gargoyles asked, but none of them were able to identify the question or guess the answer. The puzzle may have been theoretically possible but it might as well have been impossible.

Eventually, they succeeded and progressed on, spending another three days working through various puzzle rooms while climbing ever higher with each completion.

If they werent earning large amounts of Genesis Energy for each successful completion, they might have resented the time loss.

Still, they estimated that they were doing well in their collection of Genesis Energy, considering that they had only been on the planet for less than a week. Most people took months to complete a single floor, after all, though Pathers were expected to take less time. But a floor in this context meant the three sublayers that comprised each true floor.

Finally, after they solved a complicated puzzle room where they needed to direct a flow of water to a reservoir through a series of broken and blocked pipes, they were given an exit to the top of the pyramid.

They hadnt been able to see it from the ground, but along the top, near the peak of the pyramid where the two hands seemed to clasp each other, there was a little ledge for them to stand on.

Liz pulled out a mana stone, and before it was drained by Minkalla, she tossed it into the clasping hands. Once it passed the point where they met, instead of falling back to the ground at their feet, it fell onto the pyramid above them.

Gravity had righted itself on the other side of the pyramid, it seemed.

As the others discussed the best way to cross the plane of changing gravity with no ability to fly by either item or Concept, Matt was focused on the hands.

Even with just his spiritual perception, they seemed too real.

When they had been at the bottom of the pyramid, the hands looked as if they were made from Genesis Energy, and served as a connection.

Matt got a feeling these hands, or rather the gloves, were the real reward of the pyramid, more so than the Genesis Energy they earned.

Interjecting, he said, I think the gloves are the final puzzle, and if we complete said puzzle, we get the gloves.

That caused the three of them to pause.

Aster spoke first, That seems probable enough, but how do we get them? My Concept cant grab them at all.

Liz asked, Should I test it with blood?

Matt and Susanne easily agreed that it was worth a shot, but they found that Liz was entirely unable to get her blood to approach them. It was like she was trying to push two magnets of the same polarity together.

No matter how hard she pushed, they refused to touch.

Except, it was worse for her blood; it was unable to get closer than within five feet of the gloves.

Susanne tried next with her manifested sword, but even its non-physical self could approach the gloves any closer than Liz. Her spatial abilities got it two feet closer, but that was all.

Aster tried to use ice to encase the gloves, but her ice just shattered as she tried to approach.

Matt went through all his manipulation skills to the same result, and eventually, they decided it was better to just move on.

They secured a rope to the stone pyramid before tossing it up and through the plane of gravity change, where it fell down and kept itself pulled up from their perspective.

Liz tried to grab the gloves, but while her physical body could get closer, she was still repulsed by a few inches.

Matt went next, and paused between the gravity changes that let him hover with only an arm wrapped around the rope to anchor him.

His gut told him that there was a way to take the gloves, and he wanted them.

If his suspicion was correct, this was their reward, and they just needed to figure out how to take it.

When he got close, he could feel the Genesis Energy flowing from the pyramid they had exited and the one above him.

The flows of energy felt distinctly different. The one from the pyramid they had solved felt somehow completed.

It didnt take a genius to suspect that they were supposed to enter the other pyramid, complete all of its puzzles, and then return here.

That would have been the normal and acceptable answer, but Matt refused to spend another three days doing inane puzzles for the gloves.

On a hunch, he sent a little Genesis Energy into the gloves, but instead of being absorbed as he expected, it was just eaten by Minkalla.

Next, Matt tried mana to the same effect.

Cursing, he tried to reach the gloves once more, but he found that he was still repulsed.

Sighing, he climbed down the rope and let Susanne and Aster make their own attempts, but neither had any success.

The problem they found was that the door that had let them out on the previous pyramid was entirely absent on this pyramid, and they would need to climb down the second pyramid's outer steps to reach the bottom.

Liz looked up at the gloves but shook her head. I don't think it's worth going through the pyramid again. We need to move deeper.

Matt fully agreed.

He was about to step down and follow the others when he turned around and grabbed the rope.

Leaving the gloves was against everything he knew about Minkalla, and he asked, Give me five more minutes to do some tests.

He climbed the rope to reach an equilibrium and spread his spiritual sense in a tight net around the gloves, but found nothing new.

Matt locked down space, and while it didnt let him fly, it gave him a bit of leverage, and he was able to get within inches of the gloves.

As he strained to edge closer, he felt a repulsive force trying to shove him back, and he growled into the silence that Eternal Darkness put over him.

As Matt neared, he felt that there was a challenge he was supposed to overcome, and the very world around him started to warp as he broke the rules of the test.

Seeing that, Matt knew there was an answer, and used his Concepts repulsive effect to counter the power around the gloves.

Doing that set something off with the defenses, and they grew a dozen times stronger, but with Matts own repulsive power, he was able to get within an inch of the gloves.

At that point, he was at an impasse. He was giving everything he had, but Minkalla was pushing back just as hard.

Minkalla wasnt going to make it easy for him to cheat.

But he was so close.

I won't give up.

Matt narrowed his useless eyes and flexed with everything he had, both magically and physically, trying to push past the restrictions.

While locked in an intimate struggle with the planets restrictions, he was able to get a better feel for the forces at work that prevented his progress. With every centimeter of ground gained, he could sense that there was a way to get the gloves.

The first and most obvious was to complete both pyramids, but there was a second, hidden condition. What that condition was, he didnt know, but he could feel that it existed.

That knowledge was more than enough to spur him on.

Liz, Aster, and Susanne couldnt return to the top step, but they were able to send their Concepts to help him.

That actually made the restrictions stronger, and his fingers that were only an inch away were pushed to a foot away.

Through gritted teeth, he sent them a message to stop.

With their interference removed, the resistance he encountered lessened, and slowly, his fingers neared the gloves once again.

Whether it was the puzzle itself or Minkalla as a whole, Matt didnt know. But slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed through the restriction as he refused to give up.

I am Endless. I will not give up.

As Matt embodied his Concept, his fingers neared the gloves. He could feel that he was cheating in some way, and whatever mechanism Minkalla was using to make sure its puzzles were challenging was resisting his attempt.

At first, Matt thought that he was overpowering the restriction, but that was a bit too egotistical, even for his own private thoughts.

Minkalla was a place where even Tier 50s were rebuffed. His little Tier 11 power meant nothing in the face of Intents and Aspects, but he felt that something was making way for him.

It almost felt like Minkalla wanted to test him, but didnt necessarily care how he was tested.

Digging deeper, his fingers crept forward, and the strain on his spirit and willpower started to force his consciousness to slip. Feeling himself fading, and still acutely aware that he was literally holding on to his spot in the equilibrium zone by a thread and could easily fall. He dug deeper pushing past his limits until he finally touched the gloves where they clasped hands.

Just like that, the resistance was broken, and Matt started swinging back and forth on the rope wildly. That stalemate lasted for an instant before the restriction of flight and the gravity shenanigans vanished.

It also meant the giant pyramid that was on the ceiling was now affected by normal gravity, and started to fall.

On top of them.

The four of them were powerful for their Tier, with quick reactions to match. Matts most of all, with all his stats boosted by his channels. He cranked his speed-enhancing buffs as high as they would go and grabbed Liz, using his Concept to fly the two of them in the wake of Queens space bending to clear the falling debris.

They cleared the danger area easily and floated together near the ceiling, but not so close that anything could easily drop down and grab them.

Liz looked at the pair of gloves in Matts hand and chuckled. Well, you got them alright. Are they worth it?

Matt didnt know, but he wanted to find out.