Chapter 14

Thirteen hours later, Matt lounged in the chair. Aster curled in his lap as he watched a movie on his pad. Sitting around and transferring mana was incredibly boring and didn't take much concentration at all.

The only problem was, he couldn't sleep. He could doze, but if he fell asleep completely, the mana left his control.

He was interrupted by a message from Simeon letting him know they had enough mana, and that the teleports would start soon.

He woke Aster and they left to go to the local teleporter. As they walked to it, they passed the interplanetary teleporter that was still running.

The teleporter was much smaller, and from what Matt had been able to find out, it operated under an entirely different set of principles than the planet to planet teleporters. The exact details were hidden, but it was an interesting concept he wanted to look into in the future.

As he arrived, he found a sign posted that stated the rules of the teleporter.

All times are subject to change only once. All times within two hours of teleportation are unchangeable. If return teleportation is used, no teleportation is allowed for one full standard day. Payment must be paid in full before the second teleport. If non-random teleportation is desired, price is doubled.

Matt was glad he didn't have to worry about nearly any of the rules. Being useful had its perks.

He and Aster cut the already forming line. Inside he found more guards, and with a brief scan they let him bypass the line, to the grumbling of those waiting.

Matt found Simeon bidding a group goodbye. The fleeting feeling he got before they disappeared was that of Tier 5s and strong ones at that. They would be the guild's young elite or best connected to get that treatment from someone as high as Simeon.

When Simeon saw him approaching, he handed him the transponder that would allow for emergency transportation back to the city. It was a lifesaving measure and a practical one. The planet was 1.5 times larger than standard, and with no oceans, the expanses of land were massive. Walking, or even traveling with a vehicle was impractical with the terrain being so jagged.

“Do you know where you want to go?” Simeon was all business, though Matt saw happiness hiding in his stern expression. Instead of saying it out loud, Matt transmitted it through his AI.

He had a particular spot picked out. He had scoured the historical records he had gotten access to with the special privileges Simeon had given him.

Simeon saw the chosen location and just grinned. He didn't say anything but clearly understood what Matt was attempting to do.

Matt was hurried onto the platform and found himself and Aster in the blistering cold after a crackle of light. Activating [Cracked Phantom Armor] as protection from the elements, he looked around.

He seemed to be where he wanted, and with Aster yipping at his heels he took off along the rim of the canyon.

According to the guilds, this was the fourth or fifth most populated area of rifts in the Fourth Tier.

He had chosen it over the top three for two reasons. The first was that it was an area cut in half by a canyon over three hundred miles long, and at the most shallow three miles deep. The second was the area’s latitude near the arctic circle of the planet, and the year-round bitter cold. Those that were ok with competing over the better locations usually chose to avoid this area altogether.

Matt was happy to use his [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s defense against the elements to sweep this area before others became more desperate, and headed this far north.

The masses would swarm the more tropic latitude, with their relatively mild temperatures, as the random teleports weren’t calibrated to arrive near the poles for safety reasons.

Essentially, he should have free pickings here for the nearest rifts. Even if another team or two came this far north, there were more than enough rifts to go around.

With a sweep of his spiritual sense, he felt two rifts within a mile of his location, and headed for the weaker one. It felt like a weak Tier 4 rift, so either a newly advanced Tier 4 rift, or one that had a rift break recently. Either option made it perfect for his final delve to breakthrough to Tier 4.

As they ran, Aster yipped in pleasure at the -50 degree weather. To his spiritual sense, the cold seemingly condensed and swirled around her in blue-white streams with each step.

Matt was slightly unnerved as they ran because he could feel his skill drawing slightly more mana to rebuff the cold. That had never happened at any point in the Tier 3 rift on the PlayPen. It wasn't quite a concern. The cold was well within tolerable limits, and his camping gear could handle this weather, but he hadn't expected the cold to be so overbearing.

The view was amazing. He had to admit that. The cold gave the landscape a sharp edge that added to the gray, making what would be a drab scene into something enticing.

The sky was an odd mixture of night and day. The stars shone bright in the sky, even while the sun was still visible. Nebulae and other celestial formations added a beautiful backdrop full of color to his run.

When they neared the distortion in space, they saw hundreds of frozen corpses. Humanoid corpses. They stopped, and Matt took out a small flag that would designate that this rift was delved. It was common courtesy to place a marker like this by a rift and fill in information about its contents.

The practice allowed follow-up teams to either bypass the rift for unplundered treasure, or farm a rift that they countered.

While he didn’t expect anyone to follow his trail so soon, Matt wanted to be courteous to those that would follow.

He and Aster stepped through the distortion and found themselves in a forest at night.

With his longsword already drawn, he turned and struck out at the moan behind him.

The enchanted sword sliced the grasping arm of the zombie reaching for him. Two blows later, the walking corpse was a corpse again.

Matt was not enthused to find zombies. The Empire often destroyed undead rifts as a matter of practice, as they usually had diseases and terrible rewards to pair with it.

After a moment of consideration, he decided to complete the delve. This was still an opportunity to accumulate essence and advance. At Tier 4 he would be far more confident, and a rift of humanoid corpses was easy enough if he didn't get cocky.

As they progressed through the forest, encountering and dispatching more and more shambling corpses, Matt felt the moment his spirit was filled with essence.

He debated on whether he should retreat and breakthrough, or push through to the boss and finish the clear. After deciding, he and Aster retreated to a clearing they had passed.

With Aster on lookout duty, Matt firmly gripped the essence in his spirit and directed it to his physical cultivation core. He squeezed with every bit of willpower he had.

With a crunch, he felt the breakthrough. After seven more crunches he ran out of steam, opened his eyes, and saw Aster eyeing a twitching corpse penetrated with several hand-sized shards of ice.

“Thanks, girl.” He pushed thanks and love through their bond as well. He would have never risked breaking through in a rift without her to watch his back.

He still needed essence to finish the last two crunches to solidify his foundation, but he could feel the difference the breakthrough made.

He had done as Griff recommended, and only directed about a third of his essence to directed cultivation. He had focused on regeneration, proprioception, and senses.

As he felt the changes sweep his body, Matt flexed his muscles and did some stretches, finding improvements no matter which way he bent. The slight soreness in his muscles was vanishing with each heartbeat.

It felt amazing. The difference between directed cultivation and undirected was night and day. Matt always felt like a better version of himself after a breakthrough, but this was a completely different level. Because of the inherent imbalance created when not raising everything together, it made this breakthrough feel more impactful.

The sensory enhancements were more subtle. He saw colors more clearly. The smells in the air felt more vibrant, despite being of only pine and rotted flesh. Even the feel of his clothes had changed. Despite being in a snowy forrest with his range of vision limited, he was pretty sure he saw more details further away.

Those weren't the only changes, just the most obvious ones. Breaking through to Tier 4 had actualized the rest of his gains. The sword in his hand felt lighter, and the skill in his spirit felt more robust. He pushed more mana into his armor with a small effort of will, and the skill accepted it all without strain.

Matt smiled at the watching Aster as he pulled his rechargeable mana stone out and filled it with 20 mana. After absorbing the stored mana, he felt his mana capacity double.

That expansion was reflected in the increased generation he could feel as [Cracked Phantom Armor] sucked his mana pool down to under one percent.

“We did it, girl! Tier 4 has been achieved! And now, to hunt.”

Aster yipped back. She was ready.

***

The boss was a zombie. That much Matt was sure of. It was just a variant he hadn’t downloaded information about. His AI came back with question marks.

Its skin was the dark gray of a thunderstorm, and it had claws that didn't belong on any humanoid. It had the characteristics of a wight, but the color was off. Long, matted hair the same color of the snow covering the forest outside obscured the gory details of the zombie’s face. While the size of the boss wasn’t necessarily unnerving, it’s aura and aesthetic most certainly were.

He looked at Aster and checked her confidence level. She wanted to proceed. Her confidence in him was endearing, but he wasn't sure it was well placed. This was the first time he had to fight a completely unknown enemy.

It’s a weak Tier 4 rift that just broke, and my armor should be able to tank a few hits with its increased mana throughput.

Matt stood from behind the small hill they were crouched behind and proceeded forward. As soon as he stood, the monster's head snapped unnaturally towards him, but the rest of its body didn't move an inch. It was still as the corpse it should be.

When he crossed the clearing, the monster shrieked. The sound was so high-pitched that he felt Aster wince in pain through their bond. His armor defended his much less sensitive hearing, but the screech was more than it seemed, as more zombies rose from the ground at the call.

Instead of staying back as a summoner should, the leader charged, with claws leading the way.

Now that he was close, his AI started giving more useful information. The monster was a lightning-attributed monster. The slight distortion on its claws was lightning mana of some type, and the probability gave it high chances of being a paralytic.

The analysis also predicted his armor should neutralize the effects, but Matt didn't want to test it.

This zombie was everything the preceding ones weren't. Fast and agile for starters, smarter if Matt had to guess. While it charged at him it was circling him, making sure he wouldn’t be able to land any ranged attacks. As the leader circled, more and more hordes of zombies clawed their way out of the earth, answering their master’s call.

Once some of the horde was close enough to follow up on a direct assault, the boss took off towards Matt at a full sprint. The zombie’s hair flowed behind it from the speed of the assault, and began to stand on end as the boss began to gather lighting mana in its claws. The charge revealed an eyeless, ghoulish face composed of rotting flesh and bone filled with maggots. Matt eyed the claws now glowing with a bright blue tinge. He knew he had to avoid those at all costs.

When the boss finally closed, Matt’s AI had a half-decent profile built on it. That allowed him to take a risk. He was betting the monster would fight like other higher-level melee undead, hyper aggressive with all out attacks. He could take advantage of that lack of balance. Matt jerked to the left at the last moment, and the feint was enough to have the monster veer left to counter the aborted movement.

That opened the zombie's side to a heavy blow that took its leg off. The now unstable monster tumbled to the ground. Matt took the opportunity to jump onto its upper back, slamming his blade through its head.

The rush of essence confirmed it was no longer undead, just dead.

The AI is so amazing. It was worth every credit I'll lose in the future.

He and Aster had no trouble finishing off the few remaining zombies. Compared to being swarmed by the wolfmen, weaving and slashing through the horde of zombies was child’s play. After the carnage, Matt received a disappointing reward of two Tier 4 mana stones. He knew this was a freshly depleted Tier 4 rift, but this was a bleak start.

The other rifts that hadn't used their accumulated essence to rank up or rift break should give greater rewards. At least he hoped they would.

The cold wind slammed into Matt as he stepped through the rift’s exit. Meanwhile, Aster reveled in it. With his fully consolidated Tier 4 spiritual sense, he reached out and found two other rifts.

The farther one felt like it was about to burst. Either it was right about to rank up, or have a rift break. If the latter happened, it wouldn't last long in this cold, but Matt wanted to delve it and get the greater reward.

After updating the beacon with the rifts information and lacking rewards, he hurried to the new rift. These first few hours were the most crucial for maximizing his benefits.

Others would have the same ideas to avoid the more contested regions, and while this was a massive area with many rifts, only the first few delves had greater rewards.

Matt took off in a jog towards the nearest of the two new rifts. It was a little over three miles away, and he covered the distance in just over twelve minutes. The new power of his Tier 4 body was exhilarating.

As he was nearing the rift, a flash of light marked the arrival of a new combatant. Matt readied his blade and shouted, only to find the wind stole his words before the new person could hear them.

He directed his AI to send a message and waited, blade at the ready and skill humming with mana. The message startled the armored newcomer, who whirled around and drew a wand.

‘Are you willing to fight for the rift?’ Matt's message was short, and he punctuated it with a step towards the rift.

The mage fired off a bolt of lightning that sizzled up his blade in answer. Through the protective layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor], it only stung a bit. Matt charged while Aster launched shards of ice to the unresponsive man in front of him.

The man tried to retreat, but Matt was already too close and slapped the flat of his blade across the man's exposed head. Or at least he tried to. There were two tracks of electrified ground where the man's feet had dragged backwards from the skill he used.

Matt queried his AI, but it was dealing with issues that came with two AI’s trying to predict each other. Each would counter the other's moves, invalidating every new prediction as soon as the other could react to the changes.

Pushing the AIs overlays to the side, he charged again. The mage would either run out of mana or retreat when he saw he couldn't beat Matt in a straight-up fight. A solo mage wasting mana before a delve would be foolish.

The man launched another lightning bolt, and Matt decided to run right through it. His blade leading the charge, Matt quickly closed the gap between himself and his opponent. Seeing the rapidly approaching armored figure, Matt’s adversary raised his hands, retreating.

‘You win. Let me leave.’ The message Matt got was what he expected. What he didn’t expect was it being in The Republic's language.

Watching the man turn and run, Matt and Aster entered the rift.

They were in a building. It could have been any office building in The Empire, sterile cubicles and motivational pictures lined the wall.

Looking around, Matt found nothing out of the ordinary with his eyes or his spirit.

Aster sniffed, and smelled nothing that caused any concern. The air was stale.

As she approached a potted plant, it lashed out with a tendril of false wood. Aster got whipped across the muzzle and recoiled backward from the blow. Matt felt the pain through their bond, and with the shared pain driving his blade, cut the mimic apart.

Once he felt the essence rush into him, he knelt to check on Aster. The skin under her white fur was sore and starting to swell, but her beast body was made of sturdy stuff.

The fox was not happy. Her cold aura blossomed out from the little ball of fury and covered everything in a five-foot diameter in ice.

A wall and a poster started to screech in pain as the bitter cold hit their mimic bodies.

Matt skewered the poster as it launched itself off the wall toward the fox responsible for its pain. Tackled by the nearby cubicle wall as it came to life, Matt was forced to the ground. The wall tried to envelop him, but the cold made it brittle, and Matt's struggles caused the monster to crack and break apart.

Standing up, Matt and Aster made their way through the floor, killing various pieces of office furniture and other parts of the building as they went.

As they reached a small kitchenette, they were attacked by a fridge that launched plates far sharper than they had any right to be. [Cracked Phantom Armor] stopped them from penetrating, but that wasn't Matt’s chief concern. He had absolutely no interest in getting swallowed by the fridge, as each of the teeth in its giant maw were the same size as the plates.

The next kitchen oddities to be launched were rotted foods that stressed [Cracked Phantom Armor]. His AI registered that the foods the mimic was launching were acidic, and trying to eat through his skill.

His AI was having trouble predicting the fluid movements that the mimics were capable of, but he landed a heavy blow into the door that acted as the fridge’s mouth. The large mimic was enraged, and waddled back towards him. It was just slow enough for him to slice a large gash on its side that leaked a clear fluid, which bubbled the floor on contact.

He checked his swords mana, and saw that the blood of the creature was rapidly draining the slotted mana stone.

Sword: 148/200.

With a launching thrust, he punched the enchanted longsword through the other side of the fridge. He quickly withdrew the sword, and slashed hard to remove most of the acidic blood. He swapped the one in the pommel with a new mana stone. It was nearly drained from the single thrust.

The monster waddled forward to Aster, who was pelting its maw with shards of ice. One clearly hit something vital, as the imitation fridge locked up and fell forward, before completely melting into a pool.

Aster darted forward and ate the mimic's heart. Matt panicked for a moment, as he was afraid of the blood hurting his bond.

The fox didn't have any problems and swallowed the small lump of muscle. “Aster, NO! Don’t do that.” He picked the fox up so he could look at her in the face. “I was worried for you. At least let me know it won't hurt you.” The unrepentant fox just licked her chops and tilted her head at him before dropping her ears.

He placed her on the ground before pointing an armored finger at her. “You can't use the pouting skill I taught you. You were only supposed to use that on Griff, not ME.”

Realizing that the fox didn't care about his protest, Matt put his indignation aside. They walked through the kitchenette and found a set of stairs. They led both up and down. Using his spiritual sense, Matt could feel the exit rift on the upper floor. Still, his gaze was drawn to the downwards stairs.

Why have a lower floor? I can't feel anything down there.

With hesitation, Matt stepped downward. He didn't know why there was a lower floor, but the lack of any response to his spiritual sense intrigued him. He was too interested in finding out.

The dark stairwell was being frozen over as Matt and Aster made their way down. The worst-case was the stairs turning into a mimic, but Aster was using her AOE powers to find any hidden monsters.

As they continued down what must have been fifty feet without finding anything but more stairs, Matt debated turning back up to just head to the exit. He stowed that line of thinking since they had already gone so far.

Right as he was about to turn around, a brightness came into view as he rounded the next corner, and the duo found themselves descending into a small room with a giant furnace. Wary of the giant metal contraption being a mimic, he had Aster blast it with her cold power. When nothing happened, he proceeded forward slowly, blade ready to strike anything down that moved.

When nothing came to life, and Asters cold had thoroughly blasted everything, he lowered his blade and examined the furnace. It looked old and had an open door that he carefully peered into. Seeing nothing, he retrieved his lantern and peered deeper into the darkness.

All he found was a normal area to place flammable materials. It was clean with no ash or debris. He was wary of sticking his head inside, so instead he used his longsword to check the reflection of the entirety of the inside of the furnace.

When he was done his inspection of the innards, he checked the outside, and found just a normal-looking furnace. The only thing that stood out was an emblem missing from the door. A quick search of the rest of the room yielded nothing out of the ordinary.

Shrugging, they retraced their steps up to the floor they started on, and proceeded to the floor above. There was an empty floor with just a single wooden treasure chest in the center.

Matt looked down at Aster and back at the obvious mimic.

“Do we spring the trap?”

Aster just pushed out her cold aura and launched a handful of shards of ice at the sitting chest.

It burst open with a massive maw and long spindly hands, while loping at the duo standing at the bottom of the stairs. Matt ran at the sticky legs and swung his longsword, enchantment active. To his astonishment, it bounced off with only a small knick cut out of the leg.

The mimic decided that Aster was the bigger threat, as its full focus was on her and her alone. The little fox was faster and more nimble than the lumbering chest on legs, and easily kept out of its reach.

Matt gripped his blade and kept hacking away at the same spot, while being ignored by the mimic completely. When the wound on the hard leg was enough to curl it, he reached back and swung full strength, chopping clean through. Silver blood sprayed out of the stump. Now he had its attention.

The boss monster tried to fall on Matt while he was still standing under it, but it was too slow in its pain-filled fall.

As it slammed down, Aster sent a wave of cold that hardened the mimic's false wood exterior, causing it to become brittle. Matt slammed down his sword, and the exterior shattered. Asters shards of ice pierced the pulsing mass of interior flesh.

As they felt the rush of essence, Aster dove in to get her snack of monster heart, while Matt made his way to the center of the room. He dispelled the distortion that contained the reward of the rift. Out of the green distortion dropped a jar with a mercury-like metal that was in constant motion, even while the jar was still.

Aster pulled his attention with a tug on their mental bond. He walked over to see the fox with silvery blood dripping down her muzzle, and a bloody piece of metal in her mouth.

Wiping it clean, he asked, “Was this inside it, girl?”

Her yips were an answer in the affirmative. Looking at it, a suspicion crept up his spine. Checking his AI, he found the little piece of metal was an exact fit to the missing emblem on the furnace.

“Wanna go investigate or head out, girl?”

The white fox looked at him then pranced over to the stairs.

Together, they made their way down to the furnace, carefully slotted the emblem into the door, and jumped back, blade at the ready.

The furnace rumbled to life, with a fire appearing in the large potbelly. The door slammed shut while it heated up. Matt prepared for a fight, with Aster sending shards of ice, but the furnace was just active, not a mimic.

Looking around, they found nothing different. Matt and Aster both nosed around looking for anything that had changed, but they found nothing.

As they re-traced their steps, they searched the boss room, and found nothing different from when they left it the first time.

Going to the trashed office floor, they finally found something different in the bathroom. Where there once was a blank wall, there now was a shower room. As Matt and his fox wandered into the room, the world enlarged.

Once they reached the shower, they were only inches tall.

Or everything grew. How can I tell the difference?

Out of the drain, a gurgling sound appeared with a spray of water.

With the geyser of water, a massive tangle of hair came out and rolled towards Matt and Aster. She sent a wave of cold out to slow the mass clawing towards them with slimy tendrils of multicolored hair, and Matt lashed out with his sword. He was only able to slice away a few strands of the animate clog.

As it bored down on Matt, who tried to repeat his movement, the ball began to hop around off of large columns of grimy mess. The giant clog could clearly manipulate every strand of hair at will, and its irregular jumps made it hard for Matt to predict its movement. With the ball approaching, he stood his ground and lowered his shoulder.

The disgusting hair tangled him and pulled him in, wrapping around his limbs, trying to pull the sword out of his hand. Matt tried to stab into the center of the mass, but the random jostling made him miss each strike.

Aster sent a panicked wave of ice over, and it slowed the tangle of hair long enough for Matt to cut his way down deeper into the core of the monster. His blade bounced off something hard. [Cracked Phantom Armor] was draining more and more mana as the strands tightened, but his newly strengthened spirit was able to handle the increased mana flows.

The mass of hair and gunk released Matt, and launched him into the giant tiled walls of the massive shower. After bouncing off and picking his weapon up Matt charged the stinking heap of hair and sludge.

Aster had it slowed down by freezing its wet tendrils to the floor, but it was breaking free slowly. Her cold aura was strong, but it wasn’t strong enough to freeze the monster completely.

As Matt arrived, he was swatted at by twisted ropes of wet hair that tried to launch him again.

“Aster freeze my feet to the ground!” Matt also sent a mental picture to the fox behind him.

He felt the chill as the wet tiles froze over and ice started creeping up his legs. The clog monster approached again and tried to knock him back, but was unable to with the stability Aster gave him.

The fight turned into a slugfest, with Matt relying on [Cracked Phantom Armor] to tank the whip like hits, and cutting anything that came close to him.

“Step right foot!” Matt shouted to the fox behind him and felt the ice around his right foot release him.

After taking the step and being frozen into place again he shouted, “Step left foot!”

They repeated the process until Matt was able to hack his way into the center of the mass. It was dank and disgusting, but getting deeper into the monster let Aster concentrate on freezing more of the monster to the ground. With its attention on Matt, it couldn't get the leverage necessary to break free.

With several more chops into the center, Matt felt the core again. When he hit it, the monster shuddered and tried to wrench itself free, but its entire lower half was completely frozen to the tile floor. Matt reached as far back as he could, with the pommel of his sword touching the square of his back, and shattered the core with an overhead slash. The entire mass of alive hair fell down and was motionless.

Standing up with a pounding heart, Matt found Aster tearing at some of the frozen strands on the outer edge. He ran the enchanted longsword down his armored body to clear the grime and entangling strands.

“Well, that was a shit show. Let’s see what we got.”

Stepping back into the tangle of hair, he cut away to the center of the monster and found two rings that were intertwined. Locked together.

They were massive, easily large enough for him to step into. As he lifted the rings, the duo started walking back towards the door. They grew bigger and bigger while the rings stood the same size. As he cleared the door, he and Aster were their normal selves again, but they had a pair of normal-sized, intertwined rings. He tried to separate them, but when he couldn't, he placed them into a pouch in his spatial bag and left them .

Sending essence into an item whose function he didn't know could be incredibly dangerous.

With a slow march, they climbed the stairs to the boss room exit for the last time.