Chapter 154

Aster yipped a hello to Matt, but he wasn’t in the mood for her diversion. She had no reason to be feeling that bad if she had only been playing with her new best friends, as her messages had indicated. Aster had done something to her very spirit, and was now recovering.

Still, he trusted his bond, and first asked what she had done before yelling. “Are you ok, Aster? You feel as bad as I look.”

Through their connection, he felt that Aster was different, but in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

She was still Aster, but she felt like a new flavor of Aster.

At least that was the best way Matt could describe it. He just couldn't identify the exact difference.

“I had to upgrade my bloodline because the dragon bloodline was starting to push me in another direction.” Aster tried to shrug but mostly flopped down. “So, I chose a direction and went with it. I'm now a winter fox instead of an ice fox. I’m me, but better.”

Matt had hobbled over to his bond by this point and scooped her up before running his fingers through her fur and giving her a good scratch as he felt for any injuries.

Feeling nothing obvious, he asked, “What does that mean?”

He looked from Aster to Liz, who both just looked at Aunt Helen as if for permission.

Matt glared at the old phoenix, sensing that she was the gatekeeper for this information.

Aunt Helen just smiled and asked, “Are you going to force the issue, Matt? There are good reasons for not telling people until after Tier 15 after all.”

Matt clenched his jaw and let his expression do the talking for him.

Aunt Helen chuckled and shook her head. “Matt, it’s actually illegal to tell you. Humans have bad reactions to this information before Tier 15. Just know that Aster has grown in power at the cost of some blood and pain. She did it to better keep up with you. The dragon’s blood you found was strong, and with her bloodline being simple, she ran out of space to grow and had to evolve or sidestep. She chose to do the latter, and changed her existing bloodline from ice to winter, and gave herself a better foundation to grow from. Myself, Mara, and Luna were all there to make sure that she didn’t hurt herself.”

That last bit of information was a relief, but Matt chafed at the secrecy. Without thinking, he asked, “Why is everything always seemingly restricted? Liz kno—”

Thinking of Liz made Matt turn and ask, “Are you going to have to do something similar? You’ll take on a phoenix form at Tier 15, right? A blood phoenix?”

Aunt Helen laughed slightly and shoved a plate of cheese and crackers in front of them, saying, “These will help with the spirit strain. And no, Liz will not be turning into a blood phoenix. How easy that would be if a standard Talent like hers could affect her bloodline? Sadly, it's not so easy. If Liz wants to turn into a blood phoenix, she's going to have to do the same thing Aster did. But that isn’t until Tier 15 or beyond, which means we can explain more then. You’re still young, and cling to certain ideas and beliefs. Given some more time, those will fade, and you’ll be more accepting of the different things out there.”

Matt took a deep breath before he counted to five, then to ten as his irritation at being kept in the dark spiked once again.

He couldn't change anything, and despite the anger at being left out of the loop, he did trust those who were keeping said secrets. He decided to let the matter rest. Not that he had much of a choice.

Not yet, at least.

Nonetheless, he decided to drop the topic and move on.

Turning to Liz, he asked, “How was your Legacy?”

She smiled before she frowned. “The lady inside was a right bitch, but I ended up beating her finally. What about you?”

Matt smiled and thought about reaching for his new skill, but stopped at the pain that lanced through his spirit.

Looking at the plate of cheese that Aster had more than half demolished on her own, he snapped some up and ate it.

As the cheese hit his tongue, he was surprised at how tangy it was, but before he could fully process the flavor, he felt the effects.

The cheese was like cool water to his sore and irritated spirit. But while it felt good, Matt could tell that it wasn't solving the underlying issue, only masking it. Still, it was a pleasant sensation, and he gobbled the rest of the plate down.

Aunt Helen seemed to have timed their appetite correctly, and almost immediately had a small soup ready for them.

This dish was beyond words in taste, and Matt felt it strengthening his sore spirit directly.

It was like a weight off his shoulders, and he sighed as he noticed the contents were gone, and relief flooded his entire being.

The slight lull in the conversation made Matt think of the dinner they had had with the wyvern meat on East Flower, and how they thought it was the best food they had ever eaten. Apparently, his taste buds had a short memory, as even this simple soup was miles better than the meat had been.

Matt didn’t know what his past self had been thinking.

Looking to Liz, he explained what he had seen in the legacy, but found himself limited in what he could say to an annoying degree.

All he managed to get out was, “I learned a lot but didn’t manage to beat my trainer. You must have done well.”

Liz teased him for a few minutes until Aunt Helen brought them around to the more important topic of conversation.

“I don't just do these little meals for you kids. I actually do this for all the victors to get them back on their feet a little quicker. But for you, Matt, we have less time than normal. If you want to get a chance to go back into a legacy, you need to go finish your fights as your other selves.”

The very thought of fighting as he felt now made Matt want to crawl into a hole and die, but he managed to keep eating.

It took a few spoonfuls of soup before he realized that Aunt Helen knew about their other identities, but he wrote that off as normal enough after thinking it over.

As they were being served a thick steak, and Aster was telling of the new rabbit friend she had made who was actually paired with Camilla, Matt raised a questioning eyebrow to Aunt Helen. She was the one who brought the woman here, after all.

Aunt Helen just smiled as she said, “Cammie has come a long way in getting her head on right, and wanted to come watch you two fight and say hello and sorry. But that’s for her to do, not me.”

She then finished up their meal with a brownie covered in hot chocolate, paired with a delectable ice cream that she whipped up in minutes.

Now that he was a higher Tier, Matt could see her using spells through each dish. He tried to memorize what she was doing, but he was too tired to really give it his all.

When they finished up, Aunt Helen put her hand on Liz’s back while asking her to cycle mana as if she was going to cast a spell.

Liz did as told for a solid minute before Aunt Helen patted her shoulder. “Your Tier 25 Talent is forming well.” She grinned at the younger phoenix and continued, “And from the way your spirit is forming, it feels like it will reinforce what you already have. But until you’re closer to Tier 25, I can’t really give you anything more.”

Matt perked up at that, and while Aunt Helen kept her hand over Aster, he joined her and asked, “What are you feeling for? I can't sense anything.”

She was unbothered by his question and answered, “Spirits are the place where everything magical happens, and we only have one after we are awakened to Tier 1. Talents are the uniqueness of every single person given form, and are ability manifested. The spirit grows a lot in those first three Tiers, which is why we believe that the next Talent comes so fast. The spirit is growing and changing rapidly, but for most of us, we have settled down quite a bit in our profession after Tier 3. As for why we need to wait for Tier 25 for the third Talent, we believe that it has something to do with the cultivator having an Intent, which allows for growth into a stronger spirit. While it's impossible to test, it's theorized that anyone without an Intent that reaches Tier 25 won’t get a Tier 25 Talent. But that’s pure speculation.”

She then pulled her hand off Aster's back and scratched her ear before giving her verdict. “Your new bloodline is changing your spirit so much, I can't get a good guess at what you’ll get. We’ll see again when you’re Tier 20 or so.”

Aunt Helen smiled. “That’s a perfect segue back into what we were just talking about. What we do know is that Tier 25 is the first Talent where the individual’s experiences plays a vital role.” She looked at Matt, and he took a half step forward so she could look at his spirit.

Her hand felt surprisingly warm as she pressed it over his heart.

“Spirits and Talents are hard to quantify without eons of experience. The AI that does so was created by using the Talent of a certain someone, and was then cloned. All the Great Powers claim that they were the true source of the invention, but even I don't know the truth. I heard of it at the time, when that was the big craze to try and quantify, but I thought it was just a fever dream of fools. A skill is obvious in the spirit and easy to measure, but a Talent is the spirit itself. They are one and the same.”

She pursed her lips as she asked, “Matt, would you be kind enough to cycle your mana through a channel skill, please?”

Once he put his entire generation into [Mage's Retreat], she continued, “Reading a Talent is more an art than science, and I won't hear differently no matter what the AI reader says. All it does is what I do. Compare what you are seeing to what you have seen before. Reading a Talent is like trying to read the patterns made in the middle of a storm, but you’re working with something more like colors and flavors. Colors and flavors that I can guarantee won't be giving you anything to do with mana concentration. If I had to make a guess, your Tier 25 will be something more—” She paused for a second searching for a word, “—external than your Tier 1 and 3. Those both exist entirely inside the region your mana core that generates mana, so that’s really not saying much. There are simply too many possibilities to consider based on ‘more external than something affecting your mana’ alone. Maybe if I had a better frame of reference for this kind of Talent I could narrow it down, but I’ve never seen such an extreme mana regeneration Talent before. Remember that external doesn't mean outside your body necessarily. Just less contained than what you have so far, only affecting your mana pool.”

Matt frowned, but Liz asked his question before he could. “Is there nothing he can do to edge his spirit in the direction we want?”

Aunt Helen removed a chair from a spatial ring and sat down next to them as she explained. “Now you’re coming onto the larger question as to whether or not Talents in their entirety are present at all times, or even fated. I don't believe so, because I’ve seen enough people who get Tier 25 Talents that don’t quite fit the expected pattern, and better fit what the person needs or wants. But then there are other times, like yours, where the spirit seems to have a more rigid path to travel. If you can figure that out, you will be the first one to have an answer. Sadly, I don’t have one for you. Perhaps it will help you control mana that isn’t yours, or it might allow you to draw in mana from your surroundings for your own use. It might allow you to fuel your physical cultivation with your mana, similar to what you use [Mage’s Retreat] for. Or you might even be able to overcharge magical items. It could be anything from easier mana manipulation to an innate Skill, or even something more exotic, like your body turning more invisible the more full your mana pool is. Hah! If you’re extra lucky, it might just turn all cooking Skills into channeling skills. You and I could have some fun with that one. All I can tell you is that it will effect more than your mana pool again, which is why I don't believe you’ll be getting a mana concentration Talent.”

Matt tried to think what his Talent–but more external–would be, and the first idea actually seemed useful.

He turned to Liz. “Hey, maybe I can more freely share mana with you with my Talent. Maybe get rid of the range limit for my Concept. That would be cool. You two could be as endless as I am.”

He was shooting Liz a knowing smirk when Aster jumped in, “Think of all the ice cream I could make with your mana! All of it!”

Her tail turned into a fan as she got more and more excited.

Aunt Helen poured a cup of cold water over them. “Maybe, but I don't know if that lines up with what I’m seeing. But then again, I’m not exactly sure what I’m seeing. If you want my opinion, don't worry about it. Just do what you enjoy. What will be, will be.”

The three of them ignored her advice and tried to come up with the coolest ideas for their Talents they could.

Aunt Helen even joined in on the silliness for a while before looking up and saying, “Sadly, our time together was limited, and is now over. You two young punks need to go fight in the top one hundred for your second legacy. Wouldn’t look good if the victor of the whole thing didn’t earn themselves a place with a legacy, but took the top spots home, now would it?”

Before Matt could respond, he found himself in a small room where Kurt stood off to the side expectantly. His teacher immediately started debriefing him on how the starting rounds of the general mage tournament had been going for Quill.

As Quill, he had easily pushed through the early rounds of testing that only involved completing various magical puzzles and the like; all subjects that the talisman-wielding mage persona would have crushed easily.

Most of the competitors had little difficulty in the early stages, as this was one of the last competitions and had the fewest restrictions. The leftovers from the other mage competitions flocked here for any Legacy at all, swelling the numbers for one last chance.

Torch was fighting for a more specific elemental spear Legacy, and Matt had little doubt that Liz would be able to finish what Luna had started. While she wasn’t naturally gifted with the weapon, years of training with the best and harshest trainers Luna could find had worked wonders. Earning a place in the top three wouldn’t be an issue for her.

When they came back in for their second usage of a Legacy, they wouldn’t be restricted by the tournament they entered into now, but they needed to enter to win legacies that they could fake with their current skills.

That was why Quill and Torch had both saved a few skills from the public eye.

As Matt slipped into his Shawn persona, and in turn, his Quill identity.He thanked Kurt and exited into his next match.

Unlike the normal tournaments, where they competed against each other in combat, the generalist mage category was more a showcase of skills and magical competency than about direct fighting.

The round they were in now was a version of chess, where each piece had its own elemental alignment, and you had to ensure that your element had either an elemental advantage, or was a stronger mana type.

Each piece was chosen beforehand, and had an associated cost that was multiplied by the mana type.

That meant a void pawn was much cheaper than a void queen, but more expensive than an air rook or knight.

With a mirrored but randomly generated point total, the game was insanely popular, and Matt had played it quite a bit after learning the mundane version of the game. For the tournament, an additional rule was implemented in order to create an appropriate challenge for such a grand stage.

Any time a piece was taken by your opponent, they were free to attack you directly, and you could only defend yourself, not retaliate.

It changed the entire game to one of attrition and strategy.

Quill would have been undefeatable, except for his inability to use his talismans. That led to his already strained spirit having to manually cast spells to both attack and defend himself. Thankfully, his first opponent hardly had sturdy defenses. He was able to blast them out of the competition after sending his knight into their advanced pawns. It would have been reckless and stupid in a normal game of elemental chess, but since he just wanted the opportunity to attack, he didn’t care.

The next two bouts were far harder, as both opponents had defenses that he had to batter through, but he eventually won through careful moves that limited his opponent's ability to take pieces without being hit in return. That was enough to let him win with a few well-practiced attacks and defensive spells, when paired with their lacking abilities to play chess without their AI.

Once he beat those final two people, Quill was entered into the finals, where he needed to contend with the others in a game of magical tug of war. If it had just been about raw output, he would have easily claimed victory, but there was an element of finesse and precision in pushing the floating orb around. It made victory more of a challenge than a simple game of ‘who could throw more mana at the problem.’

Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue, but the aftermath of the Legacy meant that even for him, sustaining a channel of mana felt like pressing his spirit against a hot stove. Even without the limitations placed on him of not spending more than 7,000 mana over the course of the competition without faking a recharge, he didn’t want to spend more than a few mana each second. At least when he was on defense, the orb being closer to him meant that he needed to spend much less mana to keep it away.

Still, it didn’t take Quill long to learn the tricks of the competition, and how to put pressure on the side of the orb. While the orb couldn't be pushed too far off a straight line, it had some small amount of wiggle room that allowed for one of the participants to shift them, and change the direction that their opponent needed to push on the orb from to stay even.

Sadly, he wasn't the only one to figure that trick out. His battle with the top twenty five contenders for the final six slots devolved into brutal, drawn out fights that no one was willing to lose.

Despite his aching spirit, he managed to get into first place through sheer force of will. Matt could lose, but Quill the Ascender couldn’t afford that, no matter how badly he felt.

When Kurt swapped places with him, Matt collapsed to the ground, dry heaving.

Having to pretend to be fine had taken its toll, and he was absolutely spent.

Liz was already on the bed, and had a wet towel covering her face. Matt found a bowl of ice water and a towel ready for him on his side of the bed, and joined her before passing out.

***

The next morning, after the two of them were functional enough to get out of bed and start moving, they rejoined their friends.

For the ones who didn’t manage to squeeze their way into a bracket, they could only watch on as they suffered. But as the month neared its end, most everyone recovered and were stronger for their ordeals.

In an interesting turn of events, the teams who topped a rift leader board had a massive change in the rankings. Nearly all the teams who won a spot were new teams who had taken advantage of the former top teams' fixation on winning the legacies.

That caused a cascade of changes in the new and ever changing points ranking.

As the fifth month settled into its first weeks, Matt and Liz focused mainly on their alternative identities earning points in the Jungle while baiting out assassins. At the same time, they were trying to keep their true identities in a top one thousand ranking, but without showing off too much. Their doing so well in the Legacy contests had sparked an increase in their popularity amongst the general population and news stations.

There was a small pool of people that expected them to climb to the top one hundred, or top fifty in the solo and group tournaments.

Neither of them wanted that attention, and they purposely held back a touch more in the next month, letting the furor die down.

Both of them intended to fall out of the competition in the top one thousand bracket after fighting a poor match-up.

For both their team battles and solo fights, they were simply told something was planned for them already, and not to worry.

Most of their free time was spent watching the crafting Pathers' tournament that was starting to heat up.

Groups consisting of tens of thousands of contestants were battling it out in various professions.

Liz focused on watching the alchemy competition and trying to learn what she could from her professional colleagues in the art. Matt, on the other hand, spent more time watching the other crafters, and even spent time watching the smiths and how they worked. Anyone could hammer metal or pour a mold, but these people made it look more like an art form in most cases.

The enchanters were always a popular venue, but this year, the stands were packed after Quill’s recreation of various runes that had been locked down under patents, or were too expensive for widespread use. That publicity and the help he had gotten from some of the various enchanters had brought more idle combat Pathers into the stadium to watch the show, despite Quill himself not participating.

Quill and torch had just recently left the Jungle after a week of wandering around while defending themselves and fighting through various rifts and Tier 14 monsters. During their latest stretch of downtime, he decided to make an appearance in the competition as a special guest.

Originally, he wasn’t going to do anything important with the event, but he had the idea to release his new rune in conjunction with this bracket of the tournament. He heard that the judges were willing to adjust one of the tests. Instead of having the competitors using a more established rune, which could give some participants an advantage through prior experience, they were using an entirely new rune to level the playing field.

His newest rune was a water concentration and purification rune based on [Create Water], which was hardly a new idea, as there were thousands of variations of the rune already. Instead of just trying to simplify one of those preexisting runes, most of which were in the public domain already, Matt took a step back and had his AI analyze the skill. He had it in his outer spirit, so he was able to start building a new rune from scratch, instead of basing it off of the single existing variation.

It had not been an easy task, but he had managed to create an entirely new base rune that extracted water from the air, purified it, and then condensed it. If needed, the rune, like the skill, could create water from pure mana at a higher cost. But that was a secondary feature that Matt felt was superfluous in most modern cities.

Matt wasn't sure if the new rune base was exactly an improvement on the preexisting ones, but he wanted to see if he could make anything good out of it. He knew it was possible, as some other skills had different base runes, but the simple Tier 8 skills all only seemed to have the single rune as far as he could find.

He had directed his AI to focus on the condensation and purification aspects of the [Create Water] spell, since most habitable planets had more than enough atmospheric water to be forced to create water through mana.

While the runes he had managed to create weren’t actually better than the older, more specialized rune combinations used currently, Matt hoped that the new rune base could eventually be expanded upon in further iterations to be a cheaper, more specialized alternative.

After seeing the new rune, the judges became excited. After learning he had already scaled the rune from Tier 5 to Tier 10, they immediately jumped on the idea of having the contestants use the new rune for a challenge.

That earned Quill another round of interviews with Diego and the now returned Paige, but most of the attention was focused on the competition itself.

Quill enjoyed watching the competition where the enchanters needed to work in small groups to create and then build a working water purification plant for a simulated forward military base. The new rune threw them all for a loop, and caused a few of the formerly more composed competitors to fumble and make mistakes. Meanwhile, a few of the previously middle of the pack Pathers were able to roll with the changes and adapt.

He was watching on with interest as the clones of the judges walked around and supervised while their real bodies sat around with him. Despite not knowing exactly which cloning skill they were using, none of them seemed bothered by splitting their attention, and all of them eagerly tried to engage him in conversation.

They were all trying to recruit him to the various guilds and noble families they represented, both subtly and openly. It was amusing, as he was vetting them in the same way. Matt knew that having older, more experienced hands in his guild would go a long way towards creating a stabilizing voice to measure the radical ideas he wanted to try and implement.

With his crazy mana generation, he could fuel dozens of intensive projects, and intended to do exactly that. But enchanting, and its applications in every other profession, would be his most important cornerstone.

Currently, Brenda Woo, and Alejandro Eltoro were highest on his ‘people worth recruiting' list. They had made their initial offers to join their corporation and noble family, respectively, and when he politely declined by mentioning his desire to stay on The Path of Ascension, they dropped their recruitment efforts, and started talking shop about the rune and his methodology behind creating it.

While his AI had done the heavy lifting, Quill still knew everything it did about the practical enchanting it had applied for him. He had the advantage of unlimited practice and a near unlimited supply of resources, which put him head and shoulders above even most of the noble heirs’ and guilds’ chosen.

They had the advantage of higher Tier backers, but their resources were usually split between half a dozen or more people, while he got everything he created for himself. It didn’t hurt that he was pretty good at it, and had learned to love the craft over the years. He eventually embraced the fact his mana gave him the perfect foundation for enchanting work.

Alicia Day and Genghis Quarter were in turn at the bottom of his shit list for near-identical reasons. They kept trying to recruit Quill and pry into exactly how he was making the runes so quickly. When he didn’t answer their questions, they started trying to pry into who he had studied under, and generally trying to find out who was under the mask. Not at all uncommon, given the circumstances, and the likely rewards they could earn if they had found out. But they weren’t subtle about it at all, which was annoying to say the least.

It made him quite happy that he was, in fact, wearing two layers of masks, and had the Shawn identity to fall back on, because those two would do anything to get leverage against him. Whether or not they would survive the ensuing fallout depended on what they did with that information, but he didn’t think they were stupid. Just greedy.

The final three judges mostly kept to themselves after their instructions, and he was unable to get a good grasp on their personalities.

When that round of enchanting ended, everyone got quite the shock.

Robert Seed, one of the three general overseers of all the crafting tournaments, came out and made an announcement. “Instead of the normal next round, we will be taking a slight break in our testing for Queen Tur'stal’s upcoming auction at the end of this month, to signal the start of the solo and team matches. We will be having all of you build, create, and then sell an item for the auction. You may work in teams or by yourselves, but know that any team divides the points among the members based on the contribution they gave toward the final project. Also, we have been given generous mana allocations. You have the final three weeks of the month to make your arrangements. Points for advancing in the competition will be based on two criteria. The first being how well your item performs, judged by all the respective judges. The second? How much profit your item earns at the actual auction itself. Assuming you can even secure a slot for it on the auction block, that is. The auction house wouldn’t dare disgrace our beloved Queen Tur’stal by accepting substandard goods into her auction. And make no mistake, Her Most Bountiful Majesty's standards are fittingly high.”

After that shocking news, the man vanished as a portal opened under his feet. He sank through it gracefully, leaving behind a shocked crowd and competitors. The judges were cursing while scrambling to get both groups under control.

Quill hopped down and moved out of the mad house that the stadium had become.

The news was spreading through the entire planet, and all the materials that the combat Pathers had been gathering were suddenly in the highest demand. Every crafter was trying their hand at making something valuable for the upcoming auction.

Matt was excited to see what would come of all this, and enthusiastically ear-marked the names he had chosen to keep an eye on, if only to see if they would continue to impress him.

He had high hopes for a few of them.