Chapter 42

Matt opened his eyes and saw.

It was like the world had been hidden by sunglasses that were finally taken off. The world was sharper. Colors had distinct edges where they changed hue. Removing his mental finger from his Concept, the world returned to normal. Matt took a moment to play with this new ability.

It was a stronger effect of what the Emperor did when he spoke with Melinda.

That thought made Matt shiver. Intellectually he knew the man was a monster at Tier 50, but he had created the same effect through a call.

And Liz grew up with these monsters.

Matt looked around and saw that Travis was the only one still sitting in the chairs they had placed in the open area around the house. Quietly, he walked inside, jumping when he kicked a finger long shard of what he thought was glass.

After looking at the Tier 17 and ensuring he wasn’t bothered, Matt scooped it up. He could feel the same energy that had permeated the air during the ascension. Some still lingered, but in a much smaller quantity. Here in this shard, the energy was condensed. He could even see a part of the ascender’s calf captured in the shard.

He walked inside, and noticed that Aunt Helen was holding Aster. The fox was shivering. Now that he wasn’t so absorbed in his own thoughts about the success of his Concept, he could feel his bond in distress.

He crossed the intervening distance with hurried steps. As he reached out to scoop up the white fox, Aunt Helen shifted slightly to deny him.

He looked to the Tier 24 Phoenix with concern. Her feathered hair swooshed in an arc as she moved.

Quietly he asked, “What’s wrong with her?”

He trusted that the older woman had her reasons for preventing him from taking his bond.

She smiled, but it was one filled with what he interpreted as remembered pain. Or maybe a shared experience.

“Beasts who advance usually do so without complications from Tier 1 through 4. Tier 5 is a monumental change. Little Aster is having her mind forcefully enhanced. She is going from Sentience to Sapience. And it hurts like nothing else.”

She looked down, and kept stroking the little fox, whose flank was now violently quivering.

Matt wanted to clarify. “So she’s becoming more human? And that hurts?”

Aunt Helen smiled. “I remember mine, though it was so very long ago. It’s excruciating Matt. And there isn’t much that can be done without hurting her more. Her mind is growing and creating new connections. I’m using my powers to soothe her, but I can’t interfere any more.”

“Is this going to happen every time she Tiers up?”

His stomach rolled at the idea, and he tried to send warm, comforting thoughts to his bond. But she was curled up tight, even mentally. She let nothing in, and Matt was getting desperate to help.

“No, Matt. This will be the worst. Tiers 5 through 10 are all about the mind evolving, and Tiers 11 through 14 are about feeling your body feeling... wrong. Easier advancement has its drawbacks. Beast’s minds will grow, which makes it so that we start feeling trapped in our own bodies. It’s why we create a more fitting form once we reach Tier 15.”

She gently rocked the ball of white fur in her arms. “This is the worst of it. She’ll get better in a few more hours. It’s almost over.”

Matt opened his mouth to ask a question, and Aunt Helen spoke over him. “When she finishes this, she’ll need a good cuddle and sleep with the people she cares about. The next few days will be hard for her. The world will be a completely new place to her. It will be up to you and Liz to guide her through this. But, I’ll give Aster some advice before I leave. She’ll come out of this stronger. It’s painful, but natural.”

He still wanted to grab his bond and hold her, but he respected the phoenix, and would wait for Aunt Helen to finish. Matt wasn’t so arrogant to think that he could do something that a million-year-old cultivator couldn’t do.

Trying to change the subject, he asked, “Aunt Helen, was the ascension enough to form your Intent? Liz said you had some problems, but the ascension seemed very helpful.”

He petered off as he realized that he was bringing up memories of her long-dead family, but the woman just laughed slightly, and reached up to stroke his sandy blond hair.

“No dear, not yet. But it helps. I’m trying to piece a shattered vase back together. My Concept shattered when my son died, and then was ground to powder when my husband couldn’t handle it either.”

The Tier 24 looked off into the distance, before murmuring, “I already discarded my Concept once. I, like most fire beasts, had a fire Concept. But that wasn’t me. I am family. So I destroyed that one, and created my family Concept. I could have cleaned out the fragments of my shattered Concept and easily created a new one, but that would be removing the last bit of my husband and son that I have left. So I've been rebuilding this one for the last few million years.”

The woman shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but Matt could relate to her, at least a little bit. He had lost his parents at such a young age, he had trouble even remembering their faces.

Matt pulled the smaller woman into a soft hug. “It doesn’t get easier, does it?”

She only shook her head, and they stood there for a long moment, before Aster’s renewed shivering brought them both back to the present.

Aunt Helen started petting and rocking the little fox again. “Two happy things; I’m almost done rebuilding, and you have a Concept. What did you settle on?”

Matt grinned and touched his Concept. It was like a toy he yearned to play with.

“My phrase is ‘I am Endless’. And it’s paired with a white hole image.”

Matt scratched the back of his head. “Though I don’t know what it will do.”

Admitting that felt far more awkward than he expected.

Shouldn’t I just know? It’s my Concept, after all.

Aunt Helen just chuckled. “Oh, Matt. You are hardly the first to have that issue. Go explore your new power with BethBeth. She’s insufferable. Just bouncing around, waiting for you to finish.”

As he turned to go find his partner, Aunt Helen stopped him again.

“What do you plan on doing with that shard in your hand?”

Matt looked down at the reality shard that he was still holding. He had actually forgotten about it in their discussion.

“I figured I’d give to Keith and Travis as thanks for letting us stay.”

Aunt Helen rolled her eyes so hard Matt felt it.

“Matt. You are the second to last person out of the trance. If we wanted it, any of us would have taken it.”

He paused at that.

So they are leaving it for a reason. But what reason?

Matt looked at the shard. It was good for helping people recreate the environment of an ascension on a small scale. It was valuable, but he didn’t need the money. Liz, Aster, and he could use the money, but he doubted the higher Tiers would leave it for something so simple.

Matt knew what he wanted to do with it, so he half asked, “Can I send this to a group of my friends?”

Aunt Helen’s smile was radiant. Clearly, he had said the right thing.

“I knew I liked you. Sharing what we have with those close to us allows everyone to evolve. If you write a letter, I’ll deliver both to The Unbroken.”

That made Matt pause. “How did you know their team name?”

The older woman winked at him. “Having rebuilt most of my Concept gives some advantages. I can tell when influential people are growing, and I have a sense of what they need and when they’ll need it.”

Matt opened his mouth, but the woman’s arm stretched the nearly five-foot distance, and she pressed a finger to his mouth, before scratching his scalp. The sharp talons were perfect at hitting all the right spots, and he had a hard time formulating his question.

Aunt Helen chuckled at his slack face. “Matt, I would have pulled you to the side whether you met my niece or not. Don’t be afraid that you’re not holding your own.”

That somehow put him at ease. Matt didn’t think it was from arrogance, but to think he hadn’t gotten special attention of his own merit stung his pride a bit.

I need to watch that. Who am I to think I’m special?

She continued, “You run along now. I’m waiting for Travis to come out of his trance. I’ll leave tomorrow sometime, so write up a nice letter to your friends. I’ll deliver it sooner than it would otherwise get to them.”

Matt nodded and thanked her, then went to find Liz. The ring on his finger pulled him towards her room, so he went and knocked.

“Come in.” Liz’s voice came through the door, and he found his redheaded teammate sitting on her balcony, looking over the valley.

She turned to him, and her grin was infectious.

“I beat you by six hours!”

Her yellow eyes reflected her grin, and Matt shot back, “I didn’t rush.”

That wasn’t exactly true, and the look he received in return told him that she didn’t buy it for a second.

“Ok, I tried to form my Intent.”

Matt flopped down next to his teammate and chuckled at himself. Even with the extra power granted by his Concept, he had felt nothing.

“Ha. Yeah, we need years with our Concepts to even be able to feel that.”

Matt knew that the way Liz was kicking her feet meant that she was nervous.

“You tried as well, didn’t you?”

Liz just nodded and coughed, changing the subject. “So what did you settle on for your image?”

Before he could answer, the woman blurted out, “I was able to insert myself into the image!”

“That’s great! Congrats. I know you wanted that. What did it give you?”

Liz shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for you to finish, and for Aster to recover from her own ordeal.”

That touched Matt, but Liz quickly asked, “What did you settle on? Was it the sun? Or were you able to make something more abstract work?”

Matt smiled. He was proud of what he had done after all. “No, I was able to create a white hole image.”

Liz’s eyebrow reached for her hairline, so he explained. “They aren’t real as far as anyone has found, but it’s a theory about what’s basically the exact opposite of black holes. Where black holes pull everything in and absorb energy and matter, white holes are the opposite. They put out energy and repel matter at their event horizons. I just tweaked it to push out mana instead of matter and energy.”

Matt shrugged at the confused look on her face. It felt amazing to understand something that the woman raised by two Tier 48’s didn’t.

Her next question hurt slightly. “You already make mana. Why not make matter? That could be really cool.”

“I, uhh... It felt right. And mana can make matter and energy, so it’s better.”

Liz narrowed her eyes. “You just thought of that, didn’t you?”

Their bickering lasted for a few minutes, before Matt gave up and turned his attention to the valley around them.

The crowds were gone, and where tens of thousands were just two days ago, now there were only a few scattered people. Almost all of them were still in trances, like Travis.

It was a massive contrast to the view just days ago. Thinking of the time, Matt’s stomach rumbled in protest of the nearly two days without food. He had been sitting down forming his image the entire time.

Liz hooked his arm and said, “Aunt Helen has a spatial ring full of food. Let’s go raid it.”

Watching Liz raid the woman’s spatial ring was a sight Matt wouldn’t soon forget. She snuck up on the older Phoenix with large, exaggerated steps while crouching. After grabbing her hand, just shook her hand over a plate.

The Tier 24 pretended that she didn’t notice, and food fell out on the waiting plate.

When Liz returned with her spoils, he had to question her methods. “That seems wholly unnecessary. I’m sure we could have just asked her for the food.”

Liz gave him a pitying look. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Matt ignored the woman next to him and dug into his plate. Aunt Helen had loaded his plate with turkey and stuffing with asparagus and warm gravy.

It was divine. The turkey moist with a crispy skin and the gravy added that slight bit of additional flavor to the meat while the asparagus were full of what he guessed were steak flavors, like they were from an entirely separate meal.

The woman had reached a level in cooking he only hoped to come close to someday.

When they were done, he washed and dried the plates while Liz talked. “We have a ticket out of here in four days. It’s good that we got one when we did. The backlog is months long. And that’s even with most of the Tier 15s and higher just flying out through chaotic space. Otherwise, it would be years. Speaking of leaving are we still on for hitting a club tomorrow night?”

Matt finished his meal and asked, “What’s taking so long then? It was mostly Tier 15s here, right? And yes I'm up for it.”

Liz shook her head, “Not really. Remember, the ascension is good for people awakening too, and all the planets near here brought over every kid they could. I’m sure they were cranking out teleports as fast as they could manage.”

Matt responded, “I did forget about that. It makes sense, though. Not as much of a rush to bring them back. Lots of mana wastage to save time.”

The usual month-long teleport time was a long enough delay that ambient mana could be gathered and used to fuel the teleport. Matt was sure that a lot of the mana he had sold to the Baroness was being used to get the interlopers off her world.

Matt sat with Liz and asked, “Aster already broke through into Tier 5. Are you ready to do the same?”

They didn’t have any essence in their spirits, but they could still perform a single crunch, and break through now. They would just need to finish the remaining crunches when they had enough essence to power the consolidation of their power bases. It annoyed Matt that any unused essence only lasted for a few days. If he could have kept the essence from the Tier 5 rift they had delved, he could have finished all ten crunches of his core right at this moment.

With an effort of his spirit, he compressed his core, and all of the gains from his Tier 4 essence allocation surged through his body. The newfound power of his advancement rushed through him, and the sensation made Matt want to move. He needed to move.

“Let’s go spar.”

Liz ran back up to her room, and Matt did the same. He changed into work out clothes and grabbed one of his mana crystals, filling it to hold 40 mana.

It only took a thought for him to reabsorb the mana, and thus, his Maximum Mana increased. It doubled the 20 mana limit he was restricted to before. With 40 mana per second regeneration at under 1% of his maximum mana, he now had mana to spare.

With a test, he found that [Cracked Phantom Armor] was able to handle 20 MPS. [Mage’s Retreat] was able to take as much as he could give it, but with 10 MPS, he was getting a fifty percent boost to his strength allocation. He was content with keeping it near that level.

That still left 10 MPS for his AI, his sword’s runes, and his sword’s skill, [Mana Charge]. Now, he could channel the skill without any strain, and would be able to use it in combat without exhausting himself.

Matt paused. He also needed mana for [Hail], the skill he had never even used. Then, he would also be getting [Endurance] as a reward for being on The Path of Ascension at Tier 5.

Suddenly, Matt felt like he could already use another doubling of mana.

If he lowered [Mage’s Retreat] to 2 MPS, he got an extra 8 MPS, which he hoped would be enough to cover the two new skills.

It would mean that he would only be able to count on [Mage’s Retreat] for a twenty-five percent boost at Tier 5. But that was still considerable.

Matt then remembered potions that Aunt Helen had given him. They would increase his Mana Concentration, which in turn would increase the efficiency of all of his skills. He made a note to check in with the older Phoenix about whether he could use another now, or if he should wait until he finished his other nine crunches.

Using his AI, Matt saw a message blinking in his inbox.

It was a message from Dena and Eric, his Sponsors.

The message was a surprise. He had tried to message them on more than one occasion, but it had always failed. The only thing that changed was that he hit Tier 5.

Matt opened the message and found a video.

He opened it, and it played instantly, overlaying his vision. He saw a heavily armored Eric, and lighter armored Dena. They had taken their helmets off and were splattered with blood, but their faces were clean and clear.

They were sitting on a mountain top. At first, it seemed normal, but as it was the first frame of the video, he had time to notice some discrepancies. Behind them was a land of death. They had slaughtered enough of something to dye the entire valley red. The recording didn’t have enough detail for his AI to identify what kind of creatures they were.

As he was about to start the video, Liz knocked. “Are you ready?”

“No. I got a message from my sponsors.”

With that, his partner pushed her way in and plopped next to him.

“Oooh. Let’s watch.”

Matt flicked the video to the screen on the wall, and he took special notice of Liz. He wanted to know if she recognized them. He had told her about them, but never had a picture to show.

She didn’t react, so he played the video.

Dena spoke first. “Heyyyyy, Matt! Nice to see you. If you’re watching this video, you hit Tier 5 while on The Path. And fast enough that we haven’t recorded a second video.”

His Sponsors both laughed at that.

Eric picked up the thread. “Sorry about that. We’d have liked to be there for your advancement, since it’s a big deal. Tier 5 is where you can start learning deeper secrets of cultivation. But first...”

He trailed off.

Dena said, “You’ll learn this eventually, but we didn’t find you by chance. A detrimental Talent gets flagged by planetary AI’s, and the person is watched. If they don’t seem like bad people, they get a team sent to meet and scout the detrimental Talent out. That’s how we found you. We’d rather tell you ourselves now that you’re Tier 5, and are more likely to learn it.”

Eric cut in, “That doesn’t mean we don’t like you. You’re a great kid, and we meant what we said about you having skill. That’s also why we blocked you until you hit Tier 5. You’re on The Path. You should have no doubts that you earned your place. You had no guidance other than what you found on your own.”

Matt was touched. They couldn’t have known that he met Liz, who was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. He didn’t know how he would have reacted if Liz hadn’t been there to answer his questions. But still, the idea that he would question whether or not he had earned his place on The Path wasn’t far-fetched.

He had been emotionally fragile back then. He wasn’t perfect now, but he had grown a lot with Liz and Aster.

Matt looked at Liz, while the two on the screen looked awkwardly at each other.

“Do you count as guidance that I found on my own?”

Liz just shushed him as Dena spoke up. “We wish we could have been there for your Tier 5, but we’re running back-to-back rifts right now. We have neither time nor privacy.” She gestured around them. “That’s why we’re recording this in a rift. If you watch the entrance, it’s one of the few places that you can be assured of privacy in.”

Eric changed the topic. “We were able to scout you because we were on a break, but now you’re Tier 5. We’re sending you an information packet with this. It will introduce you to some… things. The potion you took to break into Tier 5 isn’t the true way to advance. It’s like a prosthetic, and it’s good. Don’t misunderstand, but now that you’re Tier 5, you can start thinking on something called a Concept. The packet explains more. Read it over.”

Dena jumped over Eric. “Also, check out the free guide for Tier 8 skill shards. It’s a good source of information, but the best skill you want to get is [Endurance]. If you bring it into your core spirit, you can expand the skill’s abilities to make it a channeling self-healing skill. It won’t heal any more than the body can naturally do, but that’s enough to save your life. It could get you out of a dangerous situation.”

Matt was touched. If he hadn’t met Liz, this would be exactly what information he would need at this point. They may have been chosen, but while they didn’t say it in the message, Liz had told him that no one could be forced to scout a detrimental Talent. They had chosen to accept him, and spent more than the minimum time. They also didn’t say that they were Tier 15.

Or higher, Matt corrected himself.

Eric finished off, “We really don’t have more time. Sorry, Matt. Once we can catch a break, we’ll come find you. But now that you have your feet under you, feel free to send us messages. We’ll try to answer what we can. Just know, it might take time for us to get out of the rifts and be able to update our AIs. Rifts get a lot larger at higher Tiers.”

They both said their goodbyes, and Matt looked at Liz.

She spoke before he did. “They are so nice. We need to send a nice return message. That’s all really good advice for someone... without my, uhmm… advantages.”

Her stammering was amusing, but Matt didn’t press it. “You don’t recognize them?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “I don’t know everyone, Matt. Really, I don’t. We can check with Aunt Helen, though. Possibly Travis and Keith, but Aunt Helen is the best bet.”

Matt shrugged. Really, he didn’t care. They were messaging him, and he couldn’t fault them. They had been right. He needed to advance on his own, or he would have felt that any of his achievements were not his own. They had a better read on his mental state than he did back then.

He had been just one setback away from shattering back at Benny’s. He had never even looked into alternative ways to make money. He had simply found the first way out and worked for it. Things had worked out in the end, but they might not have.

Standing, Matt felt reinvigorated. “Come on, let’s spar a bit. I want to test my Concept.”

The two of them hurried to the training room and found Travis and Keith. They were lightly sparring at incredibly slow speeds. Which meant that Matt could only see blurs.

The couple stopped when they entered, and Travis called out, “The newly Concepted pair! How does it feel?”

Keith spoke over Travis and asked, “What images did you settle on?”

Matt and Liz looked to each other, and when they both gestured for the other to go, Liz rolled her eyes and went.

“I did what I wanted and got myself into my rebirth through blood image. It should let me get all of the increased power of an internal Concept, with none of the drawbacks. Since I use blood externally, I should get the best of both worlds.”

Matt picked up where Liz left off. “I made a white hole image.”

Keith cocked an eyebrow, but Travis nodded.

“I have no idea what it will do, though.”

“Well, let’s test it then.” Travis rubbed his hands together at the suggestion.

Matt focused inward to his new sense, and with something that wasn’t his mana, activated his Concept. He knew it was his will, but it wasn’t like mana or essence that he could feel. This was more ethereal.

He felt the energy surge forward, and quickly felt his will draining. Worried that something was wrong, he stopped.

Travis and Keith both looked surprised, and Liz looked confused. So Matt asked, “What? What happened?”

Keith said, “Huh, I got a boost to my Mana Regeneration. I’m not sure if it was flat or percentage based, though.”

He looked to his husband, and they clearly began sharing information with their AIs.

Travis spoke next. “We both got different amounts of mana regen. We aren’t sure if it’s because of our differing cultivation, or different amounts of our missing mana.”

Keith added, “Or distance from you.”

Matt thought that over and didn’t get any answers from his Concept. He did get the feeling that there was more that he could do.

“I think there’s something else. Let me try something.”

Matt activated his Concept a second time, but focused on the other feeling it gave him. His vision sharpened like usual, but he also saw white light seeping out of himself. The light was tinged blue at the base, and following his instincts from the Concept, he pushed it out with a surge of will. A sphere of bluish white light surrounded him.

Keith flicked something at him, but it slowed constantly, until it eventually reversed its direction, as if Matt had thrown it back at the Tier 17.

Matt coughed and felt something wet.

Wiping his mouth, he found his hand covered in blood. Keith and Travis both touched him, and healing energy rushed through him. Matt felt better, but the world seemed to have the colors drained out of it. He also found that his thoughts were hard to congeal. They floated just out of his mental hand.

Keith snapped in front of his face, and after a moment, his words came through. “You used too much will. Meditate. Think inward. It’ll help.”

It took what seemed like years, but he focused into his cores and entered the area where his Concept resided. The mental space that once felt full of energy was drained, and his image was dim in his mind. It wasn’t fragile, but it seemed to have no energy left.

Clearly, that last bit with the repulsion had overdone it.

Matt did find that his presence inside his Concept area was greatly speeding up the production of that energy. Once he didn’t feel light-headed, Matt exited, and found that his peripherals lacked the proper colors.

Liz was hovering over him, so he smiled at her. The movement cracked the dried blood on his face.

The look on her face showed that while she appreciated the attempt, it wasn’t very reassuring.

“You better, Matt?”

The concern put him at ease.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

That last one had taken far more energy than he expected.

Keith looked sorry, and when he opened his mouth, Matt spoke faster. “Really, it’s fine. Better to push my limits here.”

Travis laid a hand on Keith’s shoulder and said, “When you said white hole, I was afraid of this. Your image is what’s considered... larger. Huge, really, but that’s not an official designation.”

Matt knew about the designations, but hadn’t put two and two together. His Concept’s image was huge. His mental image of it was on a cosmic scale. Powering it was draining to his will.

With the size of the image in his spirit, he figured that he had made the image small. That would have given him a greater efficiency, at the cost of some oomph.

Having a larger image meant that he could eventually get more will than most, as he grew with usage and strain. But lasting only seconds was something Matt hadn’t even read about.

He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it. In the end, this is an advantage. Well, it will be the long run.”

Keith added what Matt didn’t. “Getting there will be quite hard.”

He looked at Liz. “Well, lets see your Concept.”

She looked at him weirdly, but nodded.

The blood mage summoned a small sphere of blood that hovered over her hand. She looked at it, but Matt didn't see anything change but the woman's smile.

Travis poked it. “I can't tell. Did you do anything?”

Liz kicked at his shin. “Yes! It’s stronger. I also feel like I can use my Concept to improve the healing that comes with my Tier 3 Talent.”

She lashed out at her brother's wall. The blood didn’t even scratch the Tier 15 materials that the house was made from, but there was a noticeable thump that she hadn’t produced before.

“It also seems to make my blood denser, harder, and less prone to splatter.”

Matt remembered that he had a skill he wanted to test. The fogginess still present in his head shouldn't affect his skills, so he filled a mana crystal. When it was topped off at two hundred mana, he quickly drained it. Before his AI could eat into his reserve mana, he cast [Hail].

It was a new feeling for him. All of his skills up until now were only channels. This one grabbed a chunk of his mana, and instantly twisted it into the shape of the skill structure that resided in his spirit. He was instinctively aware that the skill would be cast where he intended, but also found that its range could only be extended about ten feet from his current position.

When he let the skill go, a rain of small chunks of ice patterned down in the center of the training room. With a bit of effort, he sent more mana into the skill, and the size and volume of the ice increased.

Keith walked in and commented, “Seems to be working like normal. The skill is trying to slow me down. Also, congrats on having your first non channeled skill.”

He walked out of the mini storm, and Matt tried to move the skill to follow the Tier 17, but found it immobile.

All in all, he was happy with it. It would help in a fight, sure, but more importantly, it was a source of free ice for his bond. She could save a lot of mana with him covering the cost of creating ice. Manipulation of the ice was cheap in comparison.

While they were playing with their Concepts and Matt was exploring his new skill and its abilities, Aunt Helen came in with a weary Aster.

With that, Matt and Liz returned to his room, and they gave the worn out fox the attention she needed.

Liz looked at the exhausted ball of fluff in between them and rubbed her back. “Mom always said that Tier 5 was the worst. The others won't be great, but nothing in comparison. Sorry, I would have said something, but the worrying just makes it worse. It’s almost as if you try and resist the changes.”

Matt nodded. “Aunt Helen said it would get better, so now we just wait.”

They quietly turned on a movie and soon joined Aster in dreamland.