The Path of Ascension

Chapter 262

With it being his third time at a Tier 10 tournament, the first for his own and the second for the Ascension, Matt expected he wouldn't be that excited for the event, but on the contrary, he was looking forward to it. Part of that was seeing Leon's capital, Stormhaven, in the flesh and getting to see his in-laws once more, another was seeing Eleanor and Ethan, and another was getting to work another mission with Susanne.

She was one of the few people he had met who could keep up with his, Lizs, and Aster's abilities, and he had only come to really realize how unique a trait that was as he advanced past the rest of his peers. That and he wanted to make sure she was actually ok with the incident with her father. No matter how callously he had treated her and how much she had hardened her heart to him, his act of trying to out her must have hurt.

Arriving on Stormhaven was a treat for Matt as Leon apparently kept a lightning storm roving around the planet at all times, but instead of just dropping rain and making noise, the storm Leon created was as creative as he was. Looking up, Matt watched as two figures made out of lightning crossed swords before being dogpiled by smaller lightning figures until the entire display dissolved into the clouds and started showing a scene from a cartoon Leon, Liz, and himself had watched while they ate breakfast before Aster and Mara came back.

Knowing it was Leons way of saying hello, Matt and Aster waved even as Liz groaned and murmured about dumb parents, but they didnt miss her blowing a kiss at the sky after her comments.

Laughing, the three of them moved through the bustling city, and Matt took the opportunity to enjoy the light drizzle that was kept off their heads with shields that covered all the pedestrian areas. Instead of staying in the luxurious floating castle that represented Leon's seat of power, which Liz assured him was as decked out as the estate on the Capital, they were staying at a safe house sometimes used by Harper's agents. Matt was perfectly happy with the accommodations, and so was Aster after she set up a winter barrier Matt had recently designed and created for her.

It wasnt anything fancy, but it had been a unique challenge as Aster wanted a variable-size barrier that could contain the cold she liked to ensconce herself in, for when she couldnt stay in her own or Matts home. There were commercial options available, naturally, but this was something Matt could do himself at a lower cost, and he had been aching for an enchanting project to sink his teeth into.

Additionally, Luna had been harping on his enchanting recently, remarking on how inefficient and wasteful it was. His ability to throw most efficiency concerns to the side was part of how he had been able to advance his enchanting skills so quickly, but it rankled Luna that one of her charges would ever make something that threw mana around by the bucketful and only occasionally splashed the target. She was being hyperbolic, but she had something of a point, so he had tried to make something usable by someone with entirely normal mana reserves which made it an interesting project.

His reliance on his AI didnt help her attitude towards his enchanting. While he didnt look into the actual design schematics of the commercial versions, he had a good idea of how they functioned as there weren't that many ways to do what Aster wanted. That allowed him to be able to quickly sketch out a few designs, then slowly refine his ideas over a few days.

His first idea of a rune that combined the temperature control and isolation into one hadnt panned out that well. It worked, in a sense, but ten mana per second was horrifically wasteful for such a small task, and the cost would balloon even more as it encompassed a larger space. The shorter conduits between runes hadnt made up for the instabilities generated by combining too much functionality into a single rune. Ultimately, it was an idea for the trash bin, even if there were some lessons to be learned from it.

The second idea was much more feasible and had actually worked, as he was simply creating a barrier of mana that isolated the desired area and created a permeable shield along the perimeter. That shield was fairly efficient thanks to it being an old and specialized variant used for temperature isolation. That was where a lot of the commercial devices stopped; they created a bubble and let the buyer heat or cool the room as they so wished. Some went further and built temperature control into the units, but Matt wanted to go the extra mile for Aster.

Instead of just building a temperature control, Matt built in a temperature control which could get cold enough that even Aster was satisfied, and could also control the humidity of the room so she could perfect the temperature versus the amount of snow. Her room in their house got a similar but more permanent version of the device, and it was a constant ice cube in her room.

Compared to a commercial device that had been iterated on for centuries by dozens of experienced enchanters, and optimized for mana usage, it still wasnt particularly efficient, but by his standards it was downright economical which was the whole point of the exercise. Aster could fuel it continuously with a quarter of her own mana regeneration, or tap into the houses mana reserves for normal usage.

After they settled down, the first thing they did was change into their masks and go check into the spy headquarters, where they were debriefed by a local head of security.

The man was short, balding, and on the older side, which, if on a mortal, would make him an unassuming man, but as an immortal spy working on counterespionage, let him slip into any crowd and blend right in.

The moment they sat down, the man started talking. You may call me Ezra, and I will be your handler and liaison while you are on this mission. If you have any questions, you ask me, no one else. I cant stress this enough, do not try and contact anyone else except me. Queen has her own handler, and while you will be working together, you have separate missions. Feel free to request her help as long as your management team allows it but dont try and reach out to her contact. People always fuck this up, and Id rather not have to deal with the fallout when you do it. So, please. Contact only me.

At everyone's nod, Ezra continued. Ok, first of all, our people have identified a dozen teams from the other Great Powers. Preliminary information gathering has one from the Clans, two from the Republic, and one from the Sects, though we are pretty sure there is a second Sect team somewhere that we just haven't been able to identify. Two from the Guilds, but they are friendlies and are using this as a safe place to train some of their agents; if you find their bases feel free to bust them and bring them in but don't hurt them as they won't resist. We are on good terms with the Guilds, so don't ruin that. Now, feel free to run the hell out of them for getting caught. Thats a time-honored tradition. There is one team from the Monster Collective, but we have no idea if they sent more teams. Great Powers usually, but dont always send at least two. There are definitely at least two from the Corporations, but theyre almost never found. We call them ghosts. Finally, the Federation, we know of two teams, but from the chatter we are getting, it's more likely they have up to four teams. They are who we are focusing on. If we stumble over any of the others, we will nab them, but the Feddies are our actual targets.

Before Matt could ask why Ezra explained. We are going after the Feddies because we have credible reports that they are planning something for the tournament, and if possible, King Leon wants them to join the executions at the start of the tournament.

At the surprised looks, Ezra smiled. Ask Queen. They are her prizes. Now, about the structure of the spy teams. The Federation usually sends teams of two to five agents. It's never just one, but they like to stay separated, so dont rush out the moment you see one thinking he's alone, youll just spook the other one underground. The best way to identify them is their mannerisms and tech. If you see

The debrief with Ezra took six full hours, but all of them made sure to commit the information to memory. Their job, for all that it was a training ground, was very real. The Guild spies might be friendly and here as practice, but the others were enemies of the Empire and needed to be taken to task.

After the meeting, they went to meet up with Queen.

The moment they saw her, Aster ran over and pulled the other woman into a hug. It's so good to see you. Im so sorry about your dad. We sent him a nasty gram. Bad gas and glitter are set to go off the moment he approaches. Fuck that guy!

Susanne snorted. He's a piece of work, but he was shopping around with that news story for almost a year before it actually got any attention. Hes not even the first person to try that stunt, just the first one to actually be right. I never hoped for us to reconcile after what he did to my mother and brother, so Im honestly quite ambivalent about it all. Why waste emotions over someone like that?

Matt and Liz joined Aster in the hug for a moment before they pulled away, knowing Susanne wasnt the tactile sort.

Liz growled. You may not be angry now, but you have every right to be. My parents were ready to go on the warpath.

Susanne had been told about Lizs parents while they were in Minkalla, and so Matt got to enjoy her mask's eyes going wide at the realization that two of the royals were mad on her behalf, but saying they were on the warpath was an understatement. When they had heard about the news, he was pretty sure if Susanne's father had been in the same system as them, he would have simply ceased to exist. The duo were so family oriented that it made sense, but it was the only time he had seen the two genuinely angry, and it had taken him aback.

As he pulled back, Matt added his support. We paid for him opening the package to be recorded if you want something to laugh at.

The normally screaming Queen mask morphed into a smile as Susanne agreed. Please. Id like to send it to my brother as well, he took the incident harder than I did and was quite angry so Im sure hell enjoy it. Not to say I won't enjoy it. I debated going and punching him in the nose, but he wants the attention, and I won't give him what he wants.

Aster huffed out as she pulled Susanne to the nearby couch. Fair but boring. On a more interesting note, what is this we hear about executions?

Susanne snorted. After I hit a bunch of normal local tournaments at Tier 15, I was about to leave like normal, but this woman jumped down from the third-floor seating. I expected her to be an assassin of some sort, but imagine my surprise when she broke both her legs on the landing and, instead of worrying about it, just begs for me to listen to her. So I did. I was still expecting an assassination, but she genuinely wanted help. It turns out someone kidnapped and replaced her daughter, and the local officials were unable to find anything wrong and dropped the case.

Queen's fist tightened, and her Concept, hanging like a pendant on her wrist, started glowing faintly. I wish I could just say it was the local enforcers being incompetent, but it was far more sinister than that. While I was able to bust the local operation and rescue half a dozen kids, I wasnt able to recover much intact data, so I thought it was a single operation, but the data nerds pulled some Talent out of their asses and were able to reconstruct some of the information. It turns out the kidnapping ring was massive, and they were picking up kids from a dozen systems and replacing them with pseudo-clones that would last a year or so before dying. They suspected the situation had been going on for close to a decade at that point, and they were able to find almost a thousand cases of early childhood death.

Matt winced upon hearing that, knowing this situation was not going to be pretty, no matter how Susanne had already handled the situation. He couldn't imagine the shock that the grieving parents must have gone through, having thought their child had died, only to be told that they were alive and kidnapped. That was a horror story, no matter how you cut it, and suddenly, the executions made far more sense.

Sadly Susannes next words made it even worse. Having found the case, I was given priority on one of the bandit teams we located. I took them down, but a number of them surrendered. They plan to execute them before the Pather tournament to remind everyone not to mess with the Empire and the Path in particular. As it turned out, the kids the teams were targeting were people noted for their exceptional drive and abilities who were expected to be given invitations to The Path. From my understanding, the Emperor was pissed at the news and personally ordered the prisoners' execution. They believe that the Federation was behind it, but there isnt any concrete proof.

Matt looked to Aster and Liz as he now better understood why they were hunting the Feddy spies. The only question he had was why Leon or Harper wasnt personally making a move. He suspected it was because they doubted the spies were actually involved or even knew anything and just wanted the spies as someone to vent their anger on as proxies for the Federation itself. If any of them were involved, he didnt think it could pass the high Tier gazes. Another part of him whispered that it might just be because of their involvement, and the high Tiers wanted to train the four of them.

That or even the Emperor's anger was a farce, and the kidnapping of over a thousand kids was nothing to make the high Tiers move. Matt wanted to doubt that last one for no other reason than he had met Emmanuel, Leon, and Mara and knew they wouldnt tolerate such actions happening under those noses.

Still, he had a growing desire to see the Federation spies caught and executed alongside the bandits they had worked with. But why hadn't Ezra told them about that in the mission brief? He had clearly known. Was it just because he knew they were going to talk to Susanne, or was it because, as Ascenders, it wasnt their job to question why?

Matt wasnt sure he liked the reality of that last idea but knew it to be true and something he inadvertently signed up for.

Aster shook her head, her thoughts clearly following a similar path to his own. I wonder why our handler didnt mention this to us?

Liz shook her head. Probably thought it didnt matter. We are going to do the job regardless, so why does the fact the Federation is proven to be evil once more really matter?

Matt agreed. It doesnt. It might even make us reckless in our approach. Letting his Quill mask harden into a stern face, he added. That said, if we do catch the spies, we should do our damndest to ensure they arent able to kill themselves.

Susannes Queen mask grinned, the normal frown twisting into a comically wide smile. Agreed. Id love to add them to my execution list center stage in front of the entire Empire.

Matt whistled while Liz asked, So they are letting you do the honors?

Susanne nodded. Yup, that was my one ask from the mission rewards, and they granted it. That said, it would be nice for you guys to join me up there, but I wont share my initial catches.

While her mask was in its normal scream, Matt could hear the teasing tone in Susanne's voice.

Despite them all wanting to immediately start kicking down doors, that wasnt really how espionage or counterespionage worked, which was why the four of them took over a meeting room and, after ordering enough food to feed an army, sat down and started going through all the casefiles the local agents had collected so far.

It was there that Queen gave all of them another shock as she almost offhandedly mentioned wanting to hit Tier 20 so she could test her Intent ideas as she was pretty sure she had the right ideas.

Matt groaned upon hearing that with Liz slumping down. Aster on the other hand peeked up. What are your ideas? I have a few for my Intent but nothing Im like super confident in.

Susanne leaned forward in her chair as she explained. So before I even started I knew I wanted to go for a created Intent and start creating my weapon manifestation as my anchor.

Matt cocked his head as he tried to process the logic of using something that already existed as an Intent Anchor and it not being a claimed Intent.

Susanne must have read his body language as she explained for them. It's a little mind bending but for all that I keep my weapon manifestation active all the time it always has been and always will be a temporary figment of my Concept. Im not the first person to think of or do this and it's always a Created Intent. Theres even some fun interactions, like being able to use my Concept on it for free, and actively using my Intent will be multiplicative instead of additive, because Im directly boosting my Concept instead of working alongside it. Carol introduced me to a couple of people whod done the same, and that helped.

Im hopeful that I can twist my Image into a shattered sword remade. First time I ever broke my sword might have been fighting you, but its become much too common lately, and I think its starting to affect the integrity of my Concept. Ideally, my Intent will help with that by providing continuity between manifestations. Even if one sword breaks, its no less reliable if its the same sword once reforged. My father actually helped there, as his complete lack of emotional support is helping me tie in coming back stronger after emotional devastation to the overall idea..

Liz nodded Not bad at all. Gives me a couple of ideas, actually.

Susanne tilted her head in acknowledgement, Still not sure what I want to go for as a Phrase. I could go with a generic Sword, but Id prefer something more active, you know?

Matt sighed. I know. Believe me, I know. Im trying for an image of Minkalla, more or less, but it keeps fighting me. Then Ive got some candidate Phrases and Anchors, but I have nothing that really resonates.

Aster puffed up her chest wanting to show off, Im trying to push for my tiara to be my Anchor, and its going pretty good! Because Minkalla gave it to me with Winter, and that helps me connect it to a winterscape of my own.

That started a not so short segue into everyone talking about their Intents and trying to brainstorm together. Nothing about Intents was fast, but every last bit helped. He was able to give some advice to Susanne about being Endless, a concept she was trying to work into her Image, and that made it all worthwhile on its own.

The four of them would have liked to talk for months about their Intents but they still had a mission to do and quickly refocused themselves. They initially started with the suspected Federation spies but moved through all the files just to get a better feeling of how the spies worked.

Admittedly Matt cheated, and even while he was reading things himself and going over the information, he had his [AI] cranking away at the same information looking for any connections the analysts might have missed. That even his [AI] couldnt find anything was a testament to the counterespionage teams working for Harper and the Empire.

Still, they pored over everything just so they would personally know the information before they went and started scouting the first possible spy locations, though one was suspected to be empty.

A slightly upscale location filled with Tier 20s who, while wealthy, were in a lower-income area wasnt the first place Matt might have chosen for his secret base, but that was the point. Even then, the suspected base wasnt where any of them would really have checked if not for a few reports of intermittent mana flickering in the building but not the surrounding buildings. In the maintenance room on the bottom level, there was a perfectly normal room with mana conduits that should have been sealed off, but even from outside, Matts spiritual sense could feel where new sealant had been applied to the door.

With how the reports came in, they were pretty sure the spies had already relocated, as the intermittent mana outages had ended a week ago. That said, it was likely the place had been boobytrapped and could explode if they kicked down the front door like fools.

Not wanting casualties, they had the building evacuated and the mana supply ready to be turned off at a moment's notice. The four had wanted to kill the power early, which invited the risk that the building was set to blow when the power was turned off, but they could contain that and have no risk to themselves. Ezra had vetoed that idea saying the possible information they might be able to gather was worth the risk of them going in first.

After all, they were supposed to be ascenders, and if they couldn't handle one little explosion, what good were they?

The last part was left unsaid, but Matt had heard it clearly enough.

Slapping talismans on each face of the building, Matt was confident that even if the building came down, the neighbors who weren't actively watching wouldn't notice a thing thanks to the modified building demolition talismans. He hadnt made the talismans, something as complex as that being well beyond his ability even if the runes were of his Tier, no they were part of the normal counterespionage kit and had been provided to the four of them free of charge and would ensure the buildings fell directly inward and stop any debris from leaving their barrier.

Matt most certainly hadnt had his [AI] scanning the talismans the entire flyover to this building.

Not at all.

Once in the building, they slowly moved through the halls looking for any traps, spying devices, or oddities.

It took close to five hours, but they made their way to the basement, having found two hidden recording devices, one for visuals and the other for mana recordings. Two alarms, Matt and Aster were able to disable; he overloaded the first one, and Aster froze the second, preventing it from triggering. Three different variations of a noise trap on the stairs, each rigged to ensure you had to step on one of the rigged steps alerting anyone hiding in the safe room.

After all that, they reached the entrance to the maintenance room, and each of them slowly inspected the sealed door. When none of them found anything odd except the new sealant used to close the door, they checked it three more times but eventually concluded the door hadnt been tampered with.

That didnt mean they opened the door; instead, they retreated back upstairs while Matt sent a small drone up that would create a pinpoint-sized hole in the concrete wall, letting them bypass any spiritual sense befuddling arrays set up inside the room.

The spiritual sense was great in that anyone could use it, but it was also the easiest sense to block and fool, thanks to its ubiquity.

When the drone finished burrowing, Matt whistled while Susanne cursed.

Liz and Aster didnt say anything, but Matt could feel Aster's unease through their bond.

Unsurprisingly, the entire room was filled with explosives. Actually filled. Practically all of the air in the room had been replaced with Tier 25 alortia, a sticky, slimy brown ooze. If theyd tried kicking in the door, teleporting inside, even tearing open the wall, it would set off. If too much mana interacted with it, it would detonate, and that much would practically annihilate the bottom floors of the building, possibly even cause some of the neighboring ones to come down as well.

It was decidedly past what they were equipped to handle, but they were able to call in backup. They simply needed to keep the area clear until the bomb squad arrived in the form of a Tier 35 alchemist who happily siphoned off the explosives into a storage flask.

A quick debrief later, the four of them left to go find another possible base where they discovered nothing amiss at all. A false alarm, something they became intimately familiar with over the next two months.

Matt had hoped they would get someone, but even the Guild spies were impossible to track down, and while they were told this was perfectly normal it didn't help. Only the best of the teams were sent into enemy territory and especially for an event with such high security as the Tier 10 tournament.

They even encountered an ambush set up for them but either the team drastically underestimated their strength or the assassins werent expecting them at all as the team was easily taken out by the four of them, though it did raise questions of who sent them and what was the purpose.

That didnt mean they suddenly got any more successful on their hunt. Failure wasnt something Matt was used to, and he didnt enjoy it one bit.

***

Luna looked to The Seven tribunal members and kept her expression carefully neutral even though she wanted to smile.

She had told them the children would do fine on the tribunals' little test, but three of the colors had openly told her they expected the kids to fail.

The counterespionage mission at the Tier 10 tournament was a time-honored tradition and one that quite a few possible Ascenders failed at. Failing this test wouldnt sink an Ascenders' qualifications, but it was a black mark on them and their management team.

Completing the mission or even finding a spy wasnt all that important in the grand scheme of things and wasnt even a criterion of the test, though if the teams managed it, it was a positive mark on their report.

Instead, it was a test of Pather's ability to listen to orders, follow instructions from people other than their management team, plan operations, and then put those plans into action.

The fact that some of the tribunals thought one of her charges wouldnt be trained well enough to handle those criteria was almost insulting, but she understood it.

On paper, Liz and Matt were both charge-in and bash things fighters if you only looked at their kits. While she did her best to make her charges well-rounded, neither of the children's fighting styles were conservative or subtle in nature. For that matter, even Aster, a nominal support mage, focused more on area debuffs than single-target debilitation, and even had a fairly wide array of direct attacks. But that was simply the byproduct of delving with Matt, and having the benefits of his Talent and Concept to utilize far more mana than most could ever hope to.

Overkill was the right amount of kill.

Luna had worked to hammer those tendencies out of them in the beginning, and if she said so herself had done a fantastic job. That the children had found their own styles, and they were bombastic and seemed more like blunt instruments than the precision instruments the Empire liked.

The utterly unstoppable force that was Duke Waters was an undeniable boon, but he was such a monstrously stereotypical Ascender, unconcerned and unskilled in anything but brute-force application, that the more covert skills which Light and Shadow had cultivated were nearly as desirable. Aiden alAegir proved the upper bounds of useful combat capability by being limited to Tier 31. That he could still fulfill the role of an Ascender in checking the Gladiator and Legends that were his peers with a four-tier disadvantage was a testament to his strength, but Zack Varon and Allison Spein would be just as capable of that role when they were Tier 35 and would return from the frontlines when recalled instead of galavanting behind enemy lines as they pleased.

Her children and Susanne had done wonderfully. Beyond failing to capture a team, they hadnt even caused an incident, blown up a building, or even slipped and showed their masks being at the event publicly.

Watching Purple, Green, and Red apologize for underestimating the kids in front of everyone was especially gratifying, especially seeing that Carissa had been at the meeting, which meant the Emperor would be getting the information forthwith.

It also meant the children were getting special rewards for their Tier 20 prizes. Normally the prize was more training with Harpers undercover agents and then them being sent to one of the neutral Great Powers as a short sightseeing vacation, but that wasnt really possible with the pressure of the war looming over their heads, and that was why she was here to argue for her charges' prizes to be converted to items, additional research opportunities, or skills.

That, and she was fishing for information about Light and Shadow. The two had been seen in conjunction with a fairly consistent group of individuals, many of which shed been involved in training. A rotating roster of Academy Graduates, near-Ascenders, and ace veterans told a story of a team built around the duo, and she wanted to know if her charges would be joining them or forming a counterpart of their own, to better prepare them beforehand.

Sadly her efforts were in vain, but she did get some concessions from the tribunal to increase the kids' Tier 20 rewards. She hadnt managed to arrange for a second full Concentration for Matt, so his potions would actually be weaker than they had been for a couple of Tiers now, but she had to admit to herself that it truly wasnt the priority. Not now that the proof-of-concept formation had been tested and shown itself to be a viable method of raising his mana concentration beyond what a normal potion could manage. The inefficiency irked her Domain but it was easily ignored.

There was also the issue of explaining why Matt kept getting concentration potions as rewards, and the final stretch in particular would raise more questions than they wanted to answer when they verified the children's time on The Path so him taking the small hit to prevent the other Great Powers from digging at his mana too early was worth it. Beyond those failed rewards, there was nothing too extravagant so as not to push the limits of what The Path of Ascension program allowed, but she had gotten them each a Tier 35 trainer of their respective fighting styles for an entire year free of charge for the kids and video chats with a few experts with a variety of Intents that they could bounce ideas off of, which was more than she expected.

The trainers would even be coming to them instead of the other way around, which showed her just how much the tribunal valued her charges.

That was good, because they were almost Tier 20 and still delving up five Tiers without an Intent. That would stop quite abruptly once the monsters they started facing had full Intents of their own but it was still impressive. No amount of mana, blood, or ice could cover that jump, as Duke Waters could attest to.

Ideally, it would only take them a few decades to form their Intents, but so long as one of them managed it in the next fifty years, they could manage. They were all making progress, but they still needed to accomplish in mere decades what took most people centuries to do.

But progress was progress, and she was proud of them and their versatility. Shed let them have the rest of the tournament to their own devices and to spend with their own Pather charges and Susanne before they left to return back to delving.

Then there would be no time for friends or relaxing. Not if they wanted to finish The Path. This was truly her favorite part of being a manager.