Chapter 26

Liz set down the backpack with Aster in it, and let the fox free. Finally liberated, Aster sauntered over to the remains on the floor, and waited for her hearts to be extracted.

After the spoiled fox had her fill, they dispelled the reward distortion. It was a small reward of only four mana stones. Not great, but they were here for the essence, not the monetary rewards.

They started poking around the empty hut Matt had smashed through. Matt went over to the dead lizardman and inspected its hand. On one of its fingers was a ring that fashioned as a worm biting its own tail, creating a circle. He tried to slip it off, but it wouldn’t budge.

Liz peered over his shoulder and said, “Don’t bother. That won’t come off. It’s a rift storage ring. In theory, it’s a rift reward as well. It’s a special unbound growth item. And it’s usable at low Tiers if the rift makes it.”

“So if we delve this enough, we might get one?” Matt wanted a spatial ring. It would be so much more convenient to be able to summon and dismiss his sword at will.

Liz scoffed, “Psh no. Not a chance. They are incredibly rare.”

Matt stared at the ring and asked, “And this isn’t worth anything?”

The armored mage was already walking to her backpack. She called back over her shoulder, “Not really. It used to be useful to enchanters who were trying to make spatial rings, but now they all use the same few templates.”

Sighing, Matt stood and got ready. This rift wasn’t fully cleared as they walked to the exit. Since they were trying to gather essence, it was worth their time to attract the rest of the bears and maximize the returns of the delve.

On that thought, he turned to Liz and said, “Give me a few minutes. I'd like to allocate the essence we picked up.”

He sat against the wall of the hut and focused inward. Once he was in touch with his physical core, he fed the essence to cover all of the attributes evenly. It was tempting to direct cultivate, but he wasn’t even at the quarter mark for Tier 4.

After the essence in his spirit was distributed, he came out of his trance. He checked his AI, and found that only five minutes had passed. It was a far cry from the first time he had cultivated at the PlayPen, then he had wasted half the day away.

Looking at Liz, he motioned to the place where he had been sitting, and she took his place. He found she had started gathering wood, and he finished the task, while keeping a lookout for any prowling bears. They were huge, but the forest was their natural home. Getting attacked out of nowhere was very possible, and would be incredibly dangerous.

It was easy enough to pile up broken tree branches near their resting place. He also used the lumber from the broken shack. Soon, he had more than enough for a good fire.

Job finished, he stood on the small hill the boss encounter had been on, and surveyed the surroundings. This rift was large, at least the size of a small city. The hill they were on provided a decent vantage point for scouting the area, and from the distortion in the air, he figured there remained at least a third of the rift monsters.

A moment later, Liz popped up, and backpacked Aster. The fox’s head poked out from behind the armored shoulders of the blood mage.

Holding a small bottle, Liz asked, “You ready?”

At his nod, she grabbed a stick and put the smallest drop on it. The concoction would attract and enrage the already hostile rift monsters. They’d be rushing here en masse, in a tidal wave of muscle and fur. The only problem was spreading the scent, which is where the bonfire came in.

After dropping the imbued stick on top of the pile, she clicked the fire starter at the base of the wood. After a moment, the magical flames caught and climbed up the pile. The smoke was dark from the greenwood mixed in, but the flames billowed and came to life when the imbued stick caught fire. The flames were now a brilliant golden hue, and a strong musk wafted from the rising smoke. Matt noticed Aster restlessly stirring in Liz’s backpack. He wasn’t sure if it was from the scent itself, or from anticipation of the carnage to come.

“Well, here we go.” With that, Liz gathered the surrounding blood into a sphere, and took her place on the other side of the hill.

As he waited, Matt checked the ring on his finger. It was sitting at 2000 mana again. He had filled it as he cultivated, but double checking helped to ease some of the tension of the moment. His HUD even displayed its current charge, but it was like a sore wound. He felt the need to keep poking at it.

His distracted musing was interrupted with a roar from the distance. The scent had reached a bear, and boy did it sound angry.

The next half hour consisted of the swordsman and blood mage slaughtering the bears that remained. It was gory work, as the potion enhanced the rift given rage of the monsters. It pushed the bears to almost suicidal fury, rampaging along with no regard for their own mortality. They would not stop their assault under any circumstances, and the only way to subdue them was decapitation.

The fights themselves weren’t hard, as Matt was able to rely on [Mages Retreat] to outmatch the bears with his speed.

Only when the trio went five minutes without any more volunteers for their new head removal service, were they convinced that the onslaught had concluded. Liz went back down the hill and practiced with her spear, so they could avoid the mad dash to get to the lizard mage in the future. That, and she absolutely refused to hear any more lip from Matt about missed throws.

Matt took her lead, and pulled out his small crossbow. After drawing several dots on the wall, he practiced hitting his makeshift targets.

He was having a hard time hitting the small dots, even at ten feet. Using his off-hand wasn’t helping, but he wasn’t going to drop his sword to use the small, ranged weapon.

His AI was indicating wind patterns and giving prompts for when he should pull the trigger, but he was hitting inches away. That wasn’t necessarily the end of the world, but it could be the difference between missing and hitting a moving target.

He felt that he should be hitting dead center at this close of a distance. According to his AI’s analysis, he was jerking the trigger, which was causing his shots to go wild.

Half an hour later, Liz decided she was done. She walked over and said, “This was a lot less of a pain in the ass when my spear’s shaft was full of blood. It was so much easier to control. Now it’s just a spot at the back, and I can only shove it or pull it back.”

“It'll get better. Besides, this rift is amazing. A full clear gives me a solid chunk of essence.”

“Yeah, a high volume of large monsters is great for progress.” Liz hefted her bag, with Aster now out and having her fill of hearts, and asked, “Ready for the next one?”

He wasn’t. The second rift they had picked out was also a peak Tier 4, and was a swarm rift containing tons of small monsters. It was perfect for Liz, but the exercise would consist of Matt getting constantly pelted, while she did the heavy lifting.

When they exited the bear rift, they found themselves back in the gray, cold landscape of the training planet.

Aster enjoyed it, but Liz rubbed her armored gloves. Seeing her distress, Matt made a display of stretching and running his hands through his hair. He earned a swift kick to his armored shin as a reward.

The second rift was not far away, it was in the same cluster. After a five minute walk, they found the rift they had decided on. It had a beacon outside. After a quick scan with their AIs, they found that a Republic team had claimed it for one delve a day.

Standard procedure was ten delves per rift a day, so the rifts could get completely plundered for their rewards. The training planet didn’t have the luxury of rift maintenance or scheduling, like an inhabited world, but no one wanted the potential rewards to drop too fast. To prevent that, a slight ration was set up for delves per day, so the rifts wouldn’t degrade from unsupervised over-delving.

After putting their names on the slot, they checked the timing of the other team’s entry. Seeing it was more than half an hour ago, they entered.

They found a rift with a tall waving grass as far as the eye could see. Matt, with Aster in his backpack, walked forward, and Liz began using [Create Blood]. As gobs of blood began splashing around her, Matt brought his sword down on a blur that flashed directly in front of him.

His sword missed the intruder, and stuck into the ground. The unidentified speeding object hit his armored leg, but bounced off without putting any strain on [Cracked Phantom Armor]. It had speed, but the monster had no mass or strength to put behind its attack.

Before he could get more than a glimpse of it, the rift ferret darted off into the grass.

He looked at Liz and asked, “You ready for this?”

Instead of answering him, she lifted off the ground, and was quickly encased in a ball of blood. The sphere rolled forward through the grassland like a blender of death.

The scent of blood attracted all of the surrounding ferrets’ attention, as they rushed to defend their home. Matt and the fox in his backpack had to fend off the occasional speedy monster, but most of their attention was drawn to Liz and her one woman wrecking show.

The field was flattened, and the more the little speedsters attacked, the more their blood enlarged the spinning mass of Liz’s blood sphere.

Whips of blood started lashing out, as she hit a volume of blood that she felt was sufficient.

As she continued her bloody work, the screeching became somewhat disturbing, as waves and waves of ferrets swarmed to Liz and died. Matt would have never been able to do this rift on his own. Even with their lacking attack power, the thousands of little buggers could easily overwhelm his defenses. He shuddered at the thought of what they would do to Aster.

Liz and her aggro drawing roley poley of death turned this rift into a walk in the park for Matt. Well, maybe a walk in the park at night... In a park that had a high crime rate. He was still taking the occasional sneak attack from his blind spot.

When they reached the exit, a massive pair of ferrets came out of the ground. They were blindingly fast, and like their smaller brethren, charged right into Liz’s spinning ball of blood. The only difference between the boss ferrets and their smaller counterparts were the speed and volume at which they were eviscerated.

With Liz and Matt’s AI’s linked, she was able to keep track of the situation outside her blood sphere. When the AIs pinged her that little monsters were no longer kamikazeing into her death ball, she released the skill and relaxed.

Matt looked around. It felt so weird to have completed a rift while doing essentially nothing. His spirit was full to near overflow, but all he had done was walk and observe the carnage with Aster.

Liz plopped down in a small clearing, and started allocating her essence. Once she finished, Matt pulled out his camping chair and did the same. Once he finished, he looked down and saw Liz sitting next to him, surveying her path of destruction.

“I do good work.” She had removed her helmet and gloves.

Matt looked back to the trail carved through the tall grass. There was a rough, wide path cut through, with dried blood dying the landscape a reddish-brown.

“It was quite the show, but you kinda counter them. Feels a little unfair.”

Liz just stuck her tongue out at him, before getting serious.

“Ok. Let’s do the first lessons here, where we can’t be interrupted or spied on.”

She cleared her throat and said in a voice deeper than her own, “Theses are the secrets of skill expansion and Concepts.”

Matt interrupted her. “Wait, if they’re secrets, is it ok for you to tell me?”

The solemn air vanished, and she waved her hand around. “Meh. Uncle Manny wouldn’t care if I told you. Just don’t tell anyone else except Aster when she gets to that part... But I guess I’ll be doing that anyway. The important bit is, this is normally reserved for Tier 15s and higher. Expanding a skill can be done in two ways. The first is the same way you’re getting [Cracked Phantom Armor] to handle mana. You use the skill and push its limits. It’s slow but safe. Nothing bad can really happen with that tactic.”

She looked at his chest, and Matt took the hint and dropped his veil. She continued, “The other is focusing inward, and finding what each part of the skill structure is responsible for, then forcibly changing what the particular aspect you’re focusing on does. Best case, it works, and everyone’s happy. But the other outcome, and best case scenario if you fail, is the skill breaking and dissipating in your spirit. The worst case is the failed process crippling your spirit altogether. You’d need a Tier 40 plus to save you at that point, and you’d never fully recover.”

That gave Matt pause as he looked inward. He was much more nervous about fiddling with [Endurance] now. It seemed far riskier than he had thought.

“What about [Endurance]? I thought most expanded its range of regeneration from just a sub-aspect to covering everything under it.”

“Yeah everyone else uses a slower method that’s close to the natural one. There are AI training methods that show you where to nudge the skill structure to slowly expand it. What we’ll be doing is different. What I’ve learned is the basics of creating your own skill. We’ll be carving the specific changes into the skill as it enters our core spirit.”

That sounded incredibly dangerous, he had heard in books and movies about people creating their own skill. Still, Matt was having trouble getting past the rumors of the process killing a million delvers for every one that succeeded. Matt said as much, and Liz agreed.

“What we’re doing is basically the baby steps for that. Skills are the most malleable when they’re first entering the spirit. And the specific change is well documented. Here,” She pulled a black box out of her bag. “This is a skill manipulation cube, it’ll hook up with your AI, and let you send your spiritual sense inside to practice with the changes to [Endurance]. It’ll show you what you’re trying to change, and let you practice without any of the risk.”

He reached for it, but she dropped it back into her bag. “Nope, first you need to practice sensing facets of skill structures for the skills you already have. No point in practicing if you can’t even sense the different parts of skill structures.”

What followed was a long two hours of Liz coaching him on identifying the facets of [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Mages Retreat]. It was humbling that she was able to point out the skill structure facets of his own skills, while Matt couldn’t really feel them himself.

A part of him wanted to blame it on her upbringing, but his logical side put those thoughts to rest. She might know about the technique because of her family, but she had clearly practiced the skill quite a bit. That wasn’t something she could just inherit.

It was a matter of practice and patience.

Matt had both.

He wanted the advantage of the enhanced version of [Endurance]. It would be a crucial skill, allowing him to endure the strain [Mages Retreat] put on him. It was critical to his advancement, even while disregarding the skill’s potential to function as a self cast healing spell. A channeled one at that. It was a perfect skill for him.

He focused harder, trying to get his spiritual sense to go from a clumsy, mittened hand to a deft and delicate finger.

There was no real progress in the first few minutes, but it was a goal he could progress towards.

Stretching, Liz stood up and said, “Ok, on to part two. Meditation to find your Concept.”

She plopped down into the chair and began, “A Concept is made of two parts. The first is a Phrase. The Phrase narrows down the Concept. Something like ‘strength’, or ‘hammer’ are good examples. Using strength as the phrase can look completely different when in use by two different people, if their Images are different. The Image is how the Concept finds its usage. Cultivator one has ‘strength’ as his Phrase, but his Image is a bar of steel. His Concept functions will be different from cultivator two, who uses a person with the world on their shoulders for their Image. The first guy might get a much stronger defensive Concept, one that even touches on a durability one. The second will get a more traditional strength boost Concept.”

Matt thought that over, while Liz took a swig of water and handed him the canteen. He finished it off, and refilled the mana stone while she finished.

“The same thing goes for a Concept of ‘hammer’. A blacksmith might go for that, as well as a fighter. The Phrase might be the same ‘hammer’, but the crafter’s Image would be a hammer at a forge, whereas the fighter’s would be a warhammer on a battlefield. If their Images were that different, they would see completely different results from their Concepts.”

Matt took it to the logical conclusion, “And if someone did both, they could have the Image of both, and could be a crafter and a fighter.”

Liz nodded, “Yeah, but also, just because a smith’s Concept isn’t meant for combat, doesn’t mean they can’t brain you with a will empowered blow. It would just be less efficient, and take more force of will.”

“Ok, good to know at least. Is the reverse true with combat Concepts that can be used outside of combat? Like in crafting, or cooking, or building, or uhh something else along those lines.”

“For the most part, yes. But some simply have no equals. My sister’s growth Concept is useful in both. So would a fire Concept, but something like a wrestling Concept won’t have much carryover in crafting or non-combat activities.”

“Ok, and you’re sure you felt me touch on one?” Matt hadn’t felt any different, and while he wanted to awaken this as early as possible, he wasn’t sure he could do it. He didn’t feel anything besides totally lost.

“Matt, relax. I felt it. I’ve been able to sense Concepts since I was a kid. Concepts are easier to manifest when you get to a higher Tier. It’s part of the reason the bottled Concepts were such a good invention. More years with the prosthetic Concepts at lower Tiers helps people touch on their true ones faster. The mind protects itself from the power until you have either the strength to brute force it, or you find the perfect phrase or image. Then it will click into place, no force necessary. But that’s pretty rare, most high Tiers take the brawn approach, instead of the brain one”

He went to open his mouth, but she cut him off. “Matt I felt you touching on it. Trust me on this. Look, see if you can feel this.”

Something in the air trembled, and the blood around them seemed to turn more... real. It reminded him of when the Emperor’s words made the colors of reality get all weird.

After a moment, Liz’s nose started bleeding, and she fished into her bag while wiping it away.

“Ugh, that sucks. I have the Phrase and Image already, so I’m just waiting to hit the peak of Tier 4, where the core of your spirit opens up. Then I’ll be able to fit the Concept in. But as I’m not a peak Tier 4 yet, that shit really hurts to do. But anyway, the point is, Concepts can feel Concepts. I have one. I felt you brushing on it. Your mind is just protecting yourself because you aren’t hitting on it perfectly. You either have the Phrase or Image already, but not both. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have any problems remembering.”

Matt trusted and believed her. It just seemed so odd. He didn’t know what his Concept could possibly be.

“I don’t know where to even start. If I had to guess, I’d have thought it was a longsword Concept, but you said I was touching it when I wasn’t using the sword. Maybe it’s my armor?”

“Go into your spirit and feel at your cores. The physical and mana are at the same spot. One channels your body, and channels your spirit. If you look past all the accumulated essence, you’ll find a small hole growing as you approach the peak of Tier 4. That’s where the Concept will fit in. It will exist in both of your cores, and give them a foundation to expand on. It...” She paused and continued “Links them together.”

Matt looked inward, and tried to peer past all the accumulated essence in his physical core. The mana core was easier, as there was no essence. He thought he saw a small speck of empty space at the center, but he wasn’t sure if it was simply his mind showing what he wanted to see or not.

Liz’s voice permeated down, “Once you’ve found it, you’ve done the first step. That’s where your Concept will go. Even the bottled ones. Once you find it, try and push your mind into the empty space. Getting inside of that will help your mind accept the Concept. Well to start, work on finding out your phrase. That’s easier for most people.”

Matt kept trying to feel around, but didn’t get much of anywhere. He didn’t expect this to be quick. They had at least the next five months here on the training planet, where they could delve without limits. He wanted to at least get near the peak of Tier 4 while they were here. These last few months were less about money, and much more about advancing while essence was abundant.

Standing, he said, “Alright, you ready? I'd like to set up for the night and get a workout done before bed.”

Liz nodded, but stopped after a step. “Wait, I forgot to mention this. We need to start being careful about assassins. We’ve both pissed people off with money. And there might be some people from various assassination syndicates mingled in with the masses. We’re known to be on The Path, so that limits the number of people able that can come after us. Anyone who wants to touch us has to also be on The Path, but that doesn't make us untouchable.”

Matt felt like the bears had launched him through a tree again. “Wait. Assassins? And they can only attack us if they are on The Path? It sounds like they’re sanctioned.”

Liz shrugged and slipped back into her armor. “Yeah, the Empire limits it and protects us from people outside of The Path. It will also charge anyone caught doing assassinations.”

“Why don’t they crack down on them?”

“Matt, think about it. Really play it out.”

At her prodding, he did so.

What would happen if they stopped all assassination? Matt’s first answer was people wouldn’t get assassinated, but his mind went to the Republic, and Light and Shadow. Griff had said they faced assassination attempts from the other powers.

Slowly, as he thought it out, he said, “Stopping internal assassination wouldn’t stop the other powers from doing it. And that might mean people aren’t on their guard. But what stops higher Tier people from just killing people under them?”

“It follows the rules of war. A high Tier assassin like Blink might kill anyone weaker than him, but he doesn’t because of the rules of war. And the assassin syndicates get their true government sanctioned targets in times of war. But if they get caught sending assassins of higher Tiers after their targets, it’s the same as if any normal high Tier attacked a low Tier. It makes the syndicate responsible vulnerable to reprisals.”

“Look at Blink. He’s got some intangibility skill that makes him nearly impossible to kill. He can even attack while most can’t touch him. But he’s only killed those at his Tier or higher. He’s pretty much the boogie man at his Tier and higher. People breathed a sigh of relief when he was confirmed to have advanced a Tier.”

“There’s nothing stopping a lower Tier from attacking up. A higher Tier just can’t hunt those weaker. He was on The Path for a while, before he disappeared for a few decades or so. Blink gets blamed for pretty much any deaths that are unexplained. Dude’s a literal ghost. Officially, he’s not performed any known hits in the last dozen or so years, so people argue if he’s dead or not.”

She waved her hands around. “That’s not the point. The point is that he, like all assassins, has to comply with current rules. If some Tier 5 comes after us, he’ll get his entire assassination guild wiped out. Along with whoever hired them.”

Matt finished for her. “So we should be safe for the most part, but still need to be careful.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

***

They moved their tent to a central area, where others had a small tent town set up. Someone had scraped runes into the ground in a smallish circle. It was a central gathering area protected by the runes, so people without cold resistance skills could be outside without freezing.

Matt, Liz, and Aster were eating with a small group of others. It was nice to be able to socialize while in-between delves.

A large woman with the rough hands of a melee fighter asked, “Find anything interesting in your rifts? We found a stupid purple cat that we couldn’t get to, and it would just smile at us from hidden places. Really gave me the creeps, that one.” Matt had forgotten her name and was hoping someone else would say it.

He had messaged Liz to ask, and she just responded with a laughing face, to his dismay.

Brandon was the shorter, dark skinned man next to her. He rubbed his palms into his face at the woman’s words. “Ugh. I tried to hit it with every spell I knew. Completely impossible. It was like it was made of mist.”

Whatever he was going to say stopped, along with the rest of the bustle of the camp, with everyone looking over Matt’s shoulder. He dropped his empty bowl and spun, trusting Liz to have his back if this was a trick.

It wasn’t. He found a group in the colors of the Republic’s version of a guild. He checked his AI and found that their name was The Worthy. A bit pompous if you asked him, but he didn’t get a say in that.

The group slowed at the edge, and Matt received a message his AI translated to, ‘We just want to set up a cooking station. No fighting in the common area.’

That caught Matt's attention. A monster chef? That was rare at this Tier from his understanding.

But even if the chef just purified the meat and made it safe to eat, Matt would kill for something besides the stew they had. Liz may have complained about the food cubes he bought being plain, but the ones she had were only a little better. It was still stew, and he was already tired of eating it.

With rapt attention, he watched the group of Republicans pull from their spatial bags a long thin sheet of metal. They quickly set up a spit with what looked like a gutted deer draped over it.

Aster had less self control than he did, and pattered over to them, before sitting and begging for scraps. It made Matt nervous, but his spiritual sense said they were only Tier 4, and Aster could handle herself at her own Tier.

They just laughed, and gave her a quick scratch on the head. They weren’t using their AI to message everyone, but he had downloaded the translation software for speech, and they were telling her to wait.

After the hunk of meat rapidly cooked, everyone received a message that they would sell a meal’s worth of the meat for a single Tier 3 mana stone. It wasn’t expensive, but it was a bit more than food without essence should cost.

Matt went over, and gave them a Tier 4 mana stone, so he and his gluttonous fox could eat for a few days.

They refused to make the little fox pay, and just gave her a plate with a larger chunk of roasted meat, along with a head pat.

Matt saw love in the little traitor’s eyes. He brought over his plate of food after thanking the chef, and promptly had it stolen by Liz. Sighing, he got up and got another one. When he finally got to eat it, he was surprised at how good it was. The meat was tender, and the spices were subtle, but they enhanced the flavor of the meat.

It was worth every credit the mana stones added up to.

At a Tier 3 mana stone, he had no problem with giving the group a profit. Especially if it meant he could eat real meat instead of bland stew.

The food brought the attention of other groups in the area, and soon the little common area was bustling with comradery and conversation. Most groups were segregated between Empire and Republic, but some were intermingling.

Matt just sat back and watched. Aster was drawing a crowd, which proceeded to lavish attention on the fluffy fox.

It wasn’t long after when a man with a portable chair made his way over and asked, “Mind if I sit over here? It’s a little crowded away from the edge.” His AI translated the republican speech for him.

Matt just waved him down. Most of his attention was focused inward, trying to sense his skills structure better.

He didn’t mind the man chowing down on his steak next to him. He kept [Cracked Phantom Armor] ready to use in a split second, especially with this many people near him.

Seeing the man finish up eating, he turned and asked the burning question he had since he had seen his first Republican. “So, weird question, but how do your elections work?”

The man looked at him and said, “Every so often, people of the area can vote for positions. But they are limited by Tier for the position. The president has to be Tier 50. So only Dicomaty runs for the presidency right now, but the secretary of defense is growing fast. So there might be another election in the next few hundred years.”

They talked for the next few hours while the common area turned into more of a party. Someone had the [Brew] skill, and used it to make some quick beer.

Their conversation turned to the disasters each political entity had dealt with recently. In the end, they were arguing against their own countries. Matt brought up his own planet, and Chun brought up how the lower Tiered candidates of the Republic never stood in office long enough, or came in with the right mindset to accomplish anything. Their time was mostly spent canceling anything their predecessor did, while pushing their own agenda. None of them really were around long enough for anything positive to be finalized.

The last thing Matt had expected out of the training planet was becoming friendly with a Republican, but Chun was a cool guy who just wanted to better himself.

It was a fun night.