The Path of Ascension

Matt and his friends panted as their break neared its end. He didn't know if he had the energy to do more physical activity after barely finishing the obstacle course. His arms shook involuntarily, and he had drank too much water, which now threatened to come back up.

He, like everyone else, had taken a lesson from Aster, and dug a small pit to the much cooler sand a few inches down. They all let it leach the heat out of their overworked bodies.

Luna hovered above them, and as her countdown reached zero, a building rose out of the sand.

“Our next training exercise was supposed to be more physical conditioning, but I don't think you have it in you to perform up to my standards.” She gestured to the building. “This is a proprioception training house. Make it out of the room and to the next one. Complete all five sections. That's it.”

Matt forced himself to meet the woman's eyes and was unnerved by the glint in them. They spoke of someone ready to enjoy watching them fail.

All of them filed in. They were exhausted, but were in slightly better condition with the break. They entered and lingered in the first hallway they came to, as they waited for Luna to appear in her usual fashion. Ever herself, she appeared hovering near the ceiling as if she was peering over the edge of a bed.

She pointed to the rooms. “Pick one and enter. It should be self-explanatory.”

After entering the closest door, Matt found himself in a dimly lit room with nothing to explain anything.

A whooshing sound was his only warning. Before he could react, a fist-sized ball struck him in his sore leg. Between the unexpected impact and tenderness of his leg, he crumpled in a heap, clutching his leg as his muscles seized up uncontrollably.

When the whooshing sound happened again, Matt rolled to the side. He heard the projectile bounce off the floor and a whispery voice called out, “One.”

Matt had just climbed to his feet when the next woosh broke the silence. This time it was louder, and he was struck on both his hip and shoulder simultaneously.

Ready for the impact, they didn't hurt nearly as much as the first had, but the double impact still sent him reeling.

When he successfully dodged the first attack, he heard a repeat of the same message. After dodging the second volley with two projectiles, he heard the whispery voice call out the expected ‘two’.

Matt survived five volleys in short order, when the already dim room went completely black, and a ball nailed him silently in the chest.

Instead of lighting back up, it seemed like he had reached some checkpoint, and didn't have to start over completely.

This new exercise was a thousand times harder without the benefit of an auditory indicator for the attack. He was a twitchy mess when he finally reached the end of the third session, when the number of projectiles doubled and increased speed.

He was set back half a dozen times in that round, and his success was more pure chance than skill. The final test in the room counted ricocheting balls which hit him as failures, and he had just gotten lucky by freezing after rolling out of the initial trajectories.

He expected another exercise, but a door on the far side of the room opened. Awaiting him was another training room situated deeper in the building.

Here, Matt was presented with a pad and had to repeat color patterns that flashed in increasingly more complex patterns. His task was to tap their corresponding area on the pad and say the color out loud.

Matt wasn't proud of the fact that he debated using his AI to memorize the patterns. In the end, he refrained. He was sure that Luna could see what he was doing, and wouldn't approve. Her displeasure was a larger deterrent than having an advantage over his friends, so he controlled the impulse to cheat and performed the task as intended.

Unlike the last room, there were no negative consequences, except the pattern resetting to the lowest level and a change in the pattern.

Having to perfectly replicate eleven different increasingly complicated patterns took nearly an hour, but it was a good break from the physical training he had been doing all day.

The third room was a footwork training room where he had to dodge the flashing red tiles that moved around.

Dodging the moving red light was easy for him. He practiced his footwork as a matter of course with his melee training. A slow melee fighter was a dead one, after all.

At least, it started that way, until it built to a brutal dance he had no way to beat. This room thankfully had only minor variations in its challenges, and eventually, he was able to complete the last challenge with a massive leap to the final safe area. It wasn't pretty or the intended route, but the only one he could think of on the fly.

Matt sat in the empty room for ten minutes while he caught his breath. He had gotten over confident with his early success, and paid the price with the later levels of the room.

Room four was again physical training, just less intensive. Matt had to navigate a blind maze that changed around him. In and of itself, that would have been fine, but Matt kept getting shot by balls at random intervals. Which after many failed dodges, he learned was the trigger for the room to shift, which meant he was thoroughly turned around by the time he stumbled out of the maze, and found himself surprised when the sudden light glared into his eyes.

When Matt entered the final room, he found a lounge room with Liz and Tara. He had plopped down to rest when his attention was drawn to Tara.

He froze in an air squat while she looked back at him and asked, “What's wrong?”

Liz asked the same thing, and patted the chair next to her while asking him to sit down.

Still, his instincts screamed something was wrong, and he reanalyzed Tara.

Liz asked with a voice that promised danger, “Are you checking out my competition?”

Matt ignored her and fixated on Tara when he finally realized what had raised his hackles. It was her shoes. Even back in the PlayPen, Tara had a weird habit of lacing her shoes left lace over the right. She had just been complaining about it on the train, so while he hadn't paid attention to her shoes, the incongruity stood out.

Here her shoes were laced haphazardly.

At that realization, everything in the room started to blend together, like water on fresh paint.

Clapping sounded out next to him and Luna stood in the white room with him.

“Well done, that was the fastest anyone figured out that they were in the illusion array. I had to start introducing other oddities before they caught on.” Luna actually smiled at him.

Despite the woman standing on the floor and being two heads shorter than him, he felt like she was looking down on him.

Matt was too tired to really process that, as his mind was still focused on what she said. He asked, “An illusion array? I thought those were restricted.”

“You really think I don’t have permission?” Luna pointed out the door. “They’re too perfect for training to not use. Get going. Out, out, out.”

Matt met the older woman's eyes, and with every bit of energy and will he could muster, said, “Don't use my parents in one of those.”

Luna just met his gaze for a long moment before she quietly added in a gentle tone, “You’ll have to deal with that eventually. And more than one person has found comfort in even their self-made illusions.”

Matt vehemently shook his head. “No. Just no. If the information I read is even half true, you should have control over what is shown. Just don't. Please.”

He half expected Luna to push him on that, but she just nodded and pointed to the door that appeared when he completed the room. “You are waiting for Aster and Sam to finish their last rooms. Then you all have a slightly longer break. Take that time and settle yourself. If you're not mentally here for the training, it's worthless. I want to push you to the breaking point. Not actually to break you.”

He had no idea if that was true, as his experience with the woman was nearly zero, other than her orders during the war. But even then, that had been precious little to go on or gather any perspective from. Matt had little other choice but to take her at her word. When he entered the room, he found his friends already chatting about their training. Needing to center himself and quell his roiling emotions a bit, he stretched while listening. Or he did, until Aster barreled into the room.

She honed onto his location and burrowed into his chest, complaining, “The ice cream rabbits were all made out of sand! It's not fair! I want ice cream rabbits!”

Matt just laughed. If nothing else, Aster's antics were adorable.

“If you knew they were made out of sand, why did you keep trying to eat them?”

Aster flicked one ear while looking at him like he was dumb. “If I found the real one, it would have been good to play with and tasty. That would be the best!”

He felt her push ideas of ice cream rabbit rifts at him. The mental pleading was paired with puppy eyes and a droopy tail. It was just too cute to resist.

“I’ll try, but I'm surprised that you even left willingly.” His joking words caused Aster to flop over and kick at the air.

“I wouldn’t have if the stupid cat didn't kick me out!” The indignation was too much for everyone, and even Liz started to laugh.

Aster hopped up and headbutted Liz. “Foxes eat cats! I’ll eat her one day. Took my ice cream. Big meany! I'll take her ice cream one day.”

Aster’s grumbling devolved into more threats about stealing Luna’s ice cream while Matt asked Liz, “Luna is a cat?”

His phoenix girlfriend shrugged. “Her nose is better than mine, so I wouldn't doubt it.”

Matt thought back and couldn't pin anything non-human on her except her slitted eyes, but after Tier 15, that didn't mean that she wasn't human, just that she had different aesthetics.

He wondered if he could get her to lighten up on their training if he got some catnip, but expected that joke to fall flat. So he kept it to himself.

The comedic timing would be better when Aster is strong enough to bully Luna.

The thought made him laugh enough that he was able to push away his melancholy at the mention of his parents.

Sam came out of her room red-faced.

When Tara asked her why, her blush deepened further until her neck was red. That lasted the entire half hour break, but any further teasing was put on pause when Luna got them training again.

Going back outside into the heat from the cool indoors was brutal, and the next training consisted of fighting without their cultivation bases against more summoned monsters. The combination made for a miserable time.

This time, instead of beetles, they each had to fight individual chimps half their size. In what should have been a one-sided fight, they were getting brutalized by the monsters that were at least Tier 5 to their effective Tier 0.

No matter what they did, they were quickly defeated. Matt looked around only to notice that something was off.

The chimps were too fluid in their movements, too natural in finding their weakest spots.

Wrangle was clearly controlling each monster, and having it pick apart their fighting style. That realization changed the paradigm, and he focused on eliminating his own flaws in his style, instead of actually defeating his enemies.

As soon as he made that realization he turned to tell the others, but an apparition of Luna’s face shushing him appeared in his view.

Prevented from telling his friends, he started to protect himself, with his only goal to endure and not lose any more fights.

It felt like ages, but in reality, it was only half an hour when Luna called for a halt and lunch.

Matt and everyone else tore into the meal with a voracious appetite. The food just seemed to disappear as nine hungry people dug in. Having some experience cooking, he knew that it wasn't simple low Tier food after the first bite, even though the others didn't seem to notice. It took him half the meal to pinpoint the ingredient, but he identified a green leaf to be the item that was sending what he could only describe as a lesser form of Melinda’s healing energy through his body.

His sore and tired muscles eased up, and that relief almost sent him into a stupor.

Luna clearly expected that, and had them all get up and start stretching as soon as the table was empty.

It was an easier half-hour, where they were able to digest their food under the shade of the two floating houses while solving mind twisting questions.

Matt still had no idea how to answer the question, ‘If a ship is perfectly situated in a drydock, how much water is needed to make it float?’

More but lighter physical training followed where they were sent through a second, obstacle course. This one was a course where they couldn't use their hands while completing various challenges. Of course, the challenges were all tasks in which the use of hands was critical. Climbing a large tunnel was nearly impossible without being able to use their hands to brace themselves.

Aster breezed through it, but the two-legged humans struggled while she watched on. Her yips of encouragement seemed to transform into laughter as they failed to accomplish the feats that she had easily managed.

Finally, they rounded their training out with Wrangle directly teaching them about how he managed to control his monster hordes. It was nice to avoid the usual beating that they earned while wondering how he managed thousands of summoned creatures all at once. They were all thrilled to not be on the receiving end of a beetle bite for a change.

This was more a general and informal tactics training class than an introduction to being a summoner. Still, it was enlightening to hear him and Melinda talk about various ideas concerning theory on the subject. She, having prior training in tactics, was able to offer suggestions and observations that the others couldn't. While everyone else had their own bits to add, it was an interesting look into what they could have done to better survive against the initial test.

What Matt took away was more how to disrupt other parties' formations, both human and rift monster.

Several scenarios were presented through their pads, and their designated roles in each situation changed. Sometimes they were attacking a fortified position, and others they were asked how they would deal with defending.

Matt, Liz, and Aster seemed to exasperate the Tier 24 man when most of their tactics were, ‘Matt goes in first, and Liz and Aster kill anything he hadn’t managed to.’

After Matt confirmed with his AI that he and his party could actually tank and kill Tier 7 monsters at Tier 5, he started making them do the scenarios with different teams.

That's where their lack of planning and structured coordination made their defensive efforts fall apart.

They were used to everyone being set in their role and reading the flow of combat, already knowing what they needed to do. Not having their own abilities caused them to hesitate and fumble over each other's orders. Combined with having to direct simulations with only pads, instead of their much more intuitive AIs, it was a disaster that only marginally improved when they acclimated to the controls.

Matt wasn’t used to the thought process of a role outside of his usual one, let alone the multiple roles that were covered during the training.

Aster was the only one given access to her AI, with a change in setting on her band. She did only have her paws to work with, after all.

Melinda and her team, on the other hand, were seemingly naturals. Even when placed in teams other than just themselves. Or at least, Melinda knew what she was doing well enough that she could cover for her team's fumbles when they were sitting next to each other. But they still followed her directions, and simple orders from her would successfully direct them through an entire fight.

Once the sun was well below the horizon, and the moon was bright, Luna sent them for a cooldown jog around the edge of the oasis. With no restrictions or rushing, it was an easy jog where they chatted and exchanged tips from what they learned throughout the training.

Matt was afraid that he wouldn't be allowed to share his findings with their duels against the chimps, but Luna didn't prevent him from telling everyone else as she had earlier in the day. Either she didn't care anymore now that the first training session was over, or she wasn't paying attention.

Considering the stack of notebooks in his spatial bag, he was quite sure that it wasn't the second option.

It was Tara who gave everyone a somewhat workable answer to the first proprioception training room, where they were shot at silently in the dark. The pattern for the last set of attacks was just the previous two combined, but the first set was mirrored along the diagonal for the final round of shots in the dark. So, it was possible to know exactly where the shots were coming from, even without the warning sounds. That wouldn’t help them with the ricochets, or if the pattern changed, but it was an interesting tidbit.

They went to sleep almost immediately after they showered. An exhausted Matt didn't even notice that his band was deactivated until the morning, when he woke with his body in far better shape than it should be, considering the brutal training they had been put through.

After a light breakfast, they were sent into more training.

***

Luna watched as her charges fought their monster opponents, and signaled for Wrangle to increase the difficulty to a full dozen monsters against each individual. His creatures weren't quite up to her standards of melee combat, but they were good enough for the training she needed.

Now, to sow seeds of doubt that could lead to the revelations she needed each of them to obtain. Just enough to make them angry, or to push themselves harder.

Seeing Mathew struggle, she sent her voice into his ear, “Melinda will be dragged down by you like a weight around her ankle, like the rock you try to be. If you want to protect her, you need to be faster and stronger. Smarter. Why are you letting your enemy flank you? In a group fight that means death for your team.” She decided to add a bit of help with the boys Concept, “A strong rock is solid from all sides but that is not necessary.”

She paused, seeing the anger flare up in the boy. She didn’t particularly like this training method, but it was effective in the early stages, and this group could handle the extra pressure. If they couldn't, they would die when an enemy taunted them. Or an illusion array showed their family turning against them.

After praise must come the truth.

“Or maybe you'll just wait for your wife to save everyone. Again”

As the boy’s rage flared bright and fueled his attacks, she turned to Samantha.

“You rely on poisons and venoms, but without your Talent, you are more of a danger to your friends than your enemies. What will you do when you get taken out early? You could die happily, knowing that all your friends would follow you soon. If you're dead, your poisons will rip through your team like the reaper. Oh yes, that's right. You'll just have Melinda save you. She's always been doing the heavy lifting in the team, hasn't she?”

That was enough to send the girl into a cursing frenzy so she hit her with one final fact she knew the girl hadn't thought of, “Can Melinda’s healing last long enough to get them out of your poison? Or will she run out of mana first?”

Kyle was next on her list. “You're so strong, but you can't even protect your friends. You rely on Mathew and Melinda to protect everyone. Matt doesn’t even have a melee Talent and you can't even beat him half the time when he's not using [Mage’s Retreat].”

The boy didn't react outwardly, but she didn't miss the signs in his body. His heart rate increased and his swings became slightly sloppier.

Tara required a different approach, but no less devious. “Are you afraid that you’ll leave them too? If you are too strong or fast? What will you do if you outstrip them? Will you sacrifice your own future for theirs? Or will you let them die because you are afraid of being too strong?”

The girl was so afraid of the rest of her family dying she was stunting her own development.

To Melinda, she whispered, “Why do you fear death so much? You are death given form, no matter what your Talent lets you do. I see the hate still inside of you. Will you use that darkness? Purge it? Ignore it?” She paused to allow her words to sink in just enough. “I think you know the truth. You like to see the violence. It lets you be the savior and earn all the praise. But what good is a healer when no one needs healing? You need and want the violence. It's not the dark reflection of you. It is you. I think a portion of you wants to fully embrace your Concept.”

With Vinnie, she was more direct. “The way you are performing right now, you might as well retreat underground once you get into danger. You couldn't even save your friends if their lives depended on it. You can save yourself, but will you risk saving them?”

Luna turned her attention to Aster as the little fox half-heartedly wrestled with a tiny beetle. She yelled, “Buck up, or I’ll wash your fur in red ink that can only be removed with hot water!”

That turned the fox’s effort into overdrive. She understood how hard it was to keep fur clean. She also had no problem with using the method to get the slacker to work harder.

Matt was easy. “Do you want to get locked into a room? The Emperor will try to protect you, but without personal strength, you’ll eventually be snatched away and shoved in a cell. When they threaten Aster, will you not give up and give them your mana? Hmmm? What about Liz? Will you let them kill her to motivate you? If they aren't afraid of you coming and glassing planets, you will never know freedom. Only personal combat power will protect you.”

Liz slashed with her spear before using its butt to crush a second beetle, and Luna waited until she was fighting two beetles to say, “What will you do when Matt leaves you behind? Will you be able to keep up with the man who can cast siege-level spells as if they are free? Will you cling to his leg and hope he pulls you along with his glory? Will you rely on him like you relied on everyone else in your life? What if the other Great Powers find out about him? Will you be able to stand by his side and protect him, or will you be a liability?”

That last comment caused Liz to lash out with a scream that was more of a growl.

Luna noted the damage accruing, and decided to let it accumulate. She would have Melinda heal them tonight. A missing limb or three was good training, but she would have to be careful to not let them get accustomed to perfect healing.

When it did happen in a rift, it was better they know how to deal with it. And there was no safer environment than with Melinda.

***

Days blended into weeks as the toll on their bodies started to show. They had all lost weight, even if just a little. The weight lifting regimen that Luna had them on put muscle on them like nothing had before. Their meals were filling, and they were focusing on different exercises than they were used to.

Matt, Kyle, and Mathew all showed the greatest changes without their cultivation’s regeneration to slow the degradation of their muscles during the day. They lost upper body mass, quickly becoming leaner with thicker legs. While their overall weight only fluctuated by a few pounds, their body composition had changed quite a bit.

Everyone else actually buffed up slightly, thanks to the increased workout loads they were put under. None of them were unfit, but a mage usually didn't undertake the same kind of strenuous training that a melee fighter would. .

With Melinda keeping them healthy and in one piece, they were able to train at a rate that was impossible elsewhere. Getting an arm eaten was a lesson learned for the next fight, instead of a month-long recovery process, or death in a rift. It was jarring, but Luna never let them forget that this was a special thing, and heavily punished any mistakes that led to a loss of limb with grueling exercises.

That was good, because at the two month mark, Luna put them through what she called a crash course in high Tier fighting. She practically tortured them by forcing them to fight with missing limbs, while burning, or having their flesh melted off with acid. The goal was for them to keep fighting through the pain, and if they were inevitably going to lose, to lose as slowly as possible.

Without Melinda, it would have taken years, but she was always able to heal them up perfectly. She even was able to give everyone the start of the perfect bodies she had copied from Matt. This let them push their physical boundaries to levels that they hadn't known were possible, and that excited Luna until her tail twitched in delight.

Sometimes, the training lasted days, and exhaustion was the true enemy and they had to keep fighting on. One particularly brutal training was getting themselves out of simulated capture, which usually meant sacrificing a limb to escape.

Extreme hot and cold were mixed with wet and dry climates to help them acclimate to surviving in any rift that they could encounter, and learn how to deal with those conditions.

They were given time with a local therapist and down time between each training method, but the thing that helped most of them recover was their friends knowing exactly what they were going through, and being able to share that understanding.

Matt was glad that this more brutal iteration of the training only lasted a month, because they were all breaking. There was just only so much pain, even pain that was perfectly healed, that the mind could take before the adverse effects would be too great. Luna pushed each of them to the edge of their personal cliffs, and then let them recover before finding it once again.

That second month was the worst of Matt's life, and he was happy when at the three-month mark, the training took a sudden turn. Their cultivation was returned to them for brief, but increasing periods of time. It was mostly for actual combat experience against the various monsters that Wrangle had in his arsenal, while each of their training times became more specialized for the individual and their weak points.

The overall difficulty was kept at more manageable levels, where they only lost when failing to quickly react to the ever changing situation.

Their teamwork as two seperate groups, and all together, increased dramatically. By the six-month mark, they were able to effectively defend against a large horde, just like the one they faced on their first day.

The rest of Melinda’s team had replaced their bottled Concepts with individualized ones by that point, which increased their morale to the point that they happily accepted all of the brutal training that Luna threw their way.

Mathew created a defensive Concept around that idea that he was a porous rock. In conjunction with his Tier one Talent, it allowed him to tag someone and absorb a portion of the attacks targeted at the tagged individual. He could take the damage into himself while remaining steady and stable. It was an incredibly draining Concept for his willpower, but it was a perfect pair to his role in their team.

Sam made herself a Concept centered around her Phrase, ‘the dose makes the poison’. It let her extend her poison control to nearly anything, at varying degrees of willpower expended, as long as she could control a toxic level of the material.

Tara’s Concept was focused on being a storm of blades that always hit their targets. With her mastery over all ranged weapons, it made her an even deadlier opponent to deal with. Her prowess was expanded by the slightly honed properties that her attacks possessed when empowered with her Concept.

Kyle, in the same vein, created himself a greatsword Concept. It let him control his massive blade with grace that was present even when he wasn’t actively flexing his Concept. Something about the breakthrough had given him the insight necessary to handle a normally unwieldy weapon expertly. The proficiency was akin to those individuals whose Concepts centered around that particular weapon. This would be an interesting thing to become an Aspect, but the boy had to develop his Intent before that.

Vinnie was the only one who went with an internal Concept, defined as him being one with the earth. While it currently did little, Luna said that it would pair well with [Earth Form] once he reached the prerequisite Tier, or could afford the Tier 26 skill.

Their training also quickly started to incorporate mana control exercises. It was one thing to send the tiny orb through a glass obstacle course while sitting down and watching it move. But doing so while dodging projectiles in the dark was an entirely different matter altogether. It was more a matter of feeling where the ball couldn’t go, and creating a mental map of walls than of actually figuring out the maze.

Matt was the worst at it among the mages, but leagues better than the other melee fighters, who had never needed to do more than send mana into a skill. Vinnie, Liz, Aster, and Melinda all had the easiest time practicing their manipulation skills, and in the healer's case, her directed healing spells.

They managed to adapt to the various simultaneous training methods involving mana control much faster than Matt and the other melee fighters. Luna took the time to instruct each of them when they ran into a wall that they couldn't overcome themselves. It was another facet of the woman that Matt was impressed with.

He understood that she was older than the dirt on some planets, but the depth and breadth of the woman's skills repeatedly shocked him.

When it came to magical training, he didn't know enough to judge her, except that she helped everyone equally, and always seemed to be able to identify their problem in a single glance. Her knowledge of melee fighting was what shocked him the most, after she casually gave a pointer to him, Kyle, and Mathew in a single breath.

When he asked what weapon she used, she simply shrugged and said she preferred to fight at range, but was passable with most weapons.

He still struggled with the mana control she demanded of him, but when she explained it to him, he redoubled his efforts.

“You aren't like other mages. Your mana doesn’t increase at a slow and steady rate. When you gain a million mana in an hour, you will struggle to control it. The better your skills are now, the better you can recover them later. Though, I believe that until you finish The Path, or leave it and have a chance to pause in your advancement, you will struggle with your mana control.”

She then gave him a pointed look, and Matt was able to extrapolate the rest of the information from those few clues.

The problem would only get worse, as his doubling would be earning him billions of mana a Tier. He might be unable to adequately control his mana for years after a Tier up, and that would be a problem that was only exacerbated as he advanced.

Now was the time to create a strong foundation, when he didn't have too much mana to throw around.

Even with months of training, he was unable to match the mages and their own improvements, but he was at least as good as they had been before they started the training themselves.

It did have a tangible benefit to his usage of his element manipulation skills, and the precise control it took to use them.

An interesting tidbit that Matt learned with everyone else was when Melinda complained that her mana kept trying to aspect into a death mana.

Luna just shrugged and asked, “Why are you trying to remove something so useful?”

“It will interfere with my healing! I'm a healer at the forefront. I can't have my own mana trying to damage my patients.”

Luna actually swatted the girl over the head. “Don't be a dumbass. Split your mana pool, then. Baxter said you've seen it before in patients. If you split it, you can direct all that into a smaller pool.”

Melinda shrugged. “I’d rather just not have it at all.”

When the shorter woman just glared at her, she wilted and added, “I don't know how to do it.”

That was when Matt, who was only half-listening, perked up. That would be perfect for him. He'd have more mana than anyone, and being able to sling around perfectly attuned mana for every type of spell seemed useful.

Luna explained why she hadn't mentioned it to him or his team before. “You can't do it if your mana is already aspected, and the way to do it is to mentally section off an area of your mana core. Once you do that, you'll find a portion of your mana pool is split off. It's not easy, but it isn't particularly dangerous. You can also then merge the mana to form higher-level mana, if you have more than one split pool.”

Seeing everyone's excitement, she raised a finger. “Now that is incredibly dangerous. If you fuck that up, you’ll be lucky if you only taint your entire mana pool. It’ll turn into a mess that will take decades to clear out. But if done successfully, this is the first step to making permanent, high-level mana, like storm mana. When your control is great enough, you purposefully merge your mana pools back onto one. But again, if you fuck that up, you’ll be fortunate to avoid crackingyour spirit.”

Melinda now looked more hesitant as she asked, “But just making a partition isn't hard or dangerous?”

Luna glared at Liz. “Not unless you're like her dumbass father, who decided that he didn't want to wait to let things settle before making a higher level combination. The stupid truly are lucky, as the idiot created it in his first attempt.”

The dark-haired woman shook herself and added, “In theory, it can be dangerous, but the worst thing that can happen with a single partition is that you lose control and taint the rest of your mana pool. If you catch that quickly, it's just a few months of busy work separating them out again. If you want to make a second one, that's when you need to start worrying.”

Matt tried to partition his mana, but failed even with Luna’s direct help. With his mana pool and regeneration completely reliant on his Talent, he had nothing to work with, as he had no essence in his mana core.

Even trying to mentally pull his mana pool into two pieces had no effect, and they concluded that he was stuck with a single mana pool.

Liz tried to comfort him by bringing up the scary point. They had no idea how his Tier 3 Talent would react to him splitting his mana pool, and its effect on his regeneration. In the end, Matt just wrote it off as a sacrifice to his eventual potential.

They did learn a lot about Wrangle, who they discovered was in the desert because it related to his Intent. He waxed on for hours about how a desert was the greatest creator of life. The harsh sands being diametrically opposed to pockets of life, while creating a myriad of monsters for him to pull from. Matt only had a vague idea what the man actually meant, but it was good to get insights on someone else’s Concept and Intent.

While none of them really understood it, he also freely shared how he went about creating new skills. He sternly warned them not to try until at least Tier 15, and said that it was better to wait until Tier 30 or higher.

He was actually a fun person to be around when he wasn't actively pushing their limits. Liz likened him to her uncles when she was growing up.

Matt and the others all had a distinct lack of older relatives that quickly led to a change in topic.

The party was nearly at the eight-month mark with their training, when Luna told them that they were almost done, and would be engaging in a series of massive horde battles against Wrangle.

***

Matt stood with the rest and as they saw a larger horde of beetles charging at them, and he immediately used [Wind Manipulation]. One thing they had learned during their months of training was that the beetles didn’t react to what hurt them. They reacted to the elemental mana around them. It was why Vinnie’s [Earth Spear] was still effective, despite losing a portion of its damage. It was still a chuck of stone propelled with a point.

Using [Wind Manipulation] was still difficult for Matt, but he didn't need fine control. He needed to whip up a ton of mana to cause the beetles to change their defenses. That was well within his abilities.

Matt cast then channeled all of his mana into the skill, and pushed with everything he had.

Across the dunes, sand started to be picked up, and pulled into the cyclone that Matt was circulating. It was too diffuse to turn into a tornado, but it caused the beetles to turn a pale white.

That was the signal for everyone else to start launching skills. A barrage of skills raced out to intercept the incoming horde. Each of the attacks tore swaths out of the monsters.

When the beetles tried to adjust to defending against the incoming attacks, Matt’s movement of wind mana caused the monsters to quickly revert to their white forms, keeping them vulnerable to the attacks that his friends threw out.

As the beetles approached, Matt shrunk the area of wind that he was manipulating, and started to fuel his other skills.

When the melee started, a series of five arrows exploded out and took off the heads of the closest beetles.

A poisonous fog crept out from behind the front line consisting of Matt, Kyle, and Mathew. Out of the corner of his eyes, Matt saw Aster freeze one beetle, while savaging a second one with her teeth.

It was a testament to their training that she was able to fight in melee while also controlling her various skills. Half of her shots were carefully threaded in between everyones legs, or in the gaps between their melee fights.

Matt dedicated 10 MPS to [Wind Manipulation] while fueling [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Mage’s Retreat]. A kick sent a beetle flying into a cluster, and Matt brought his mana infused blade around in a slash that lashed out in a blue crescent. It tore a channel through the packed masses of beetles.

Mathew activated his newest ability, [Roaring Scream], and all the beetles began fixating on him. Even Matt could feel it. It was like a magnetic pull to the man, one that the monsters were unable to resist.

With them clumped up, everyone forced their attacks around Mathew. For a few seconds, they had a bit of respite.

Matt used his Concept to refill up some of the mana everyone expended during the first engagement, and waited for the second wave to reach them.

Sam’s poison seeped out and forward into the next wave in a display that reminded Matt of the shore and water meeting. The poison washed over the bugs in a wave, not unlike the monsters charging at them. He pulled his [Wind Manipulation] up higher, so he wouldn’t impede her progress. This time, the monsters were severely weakened and easy to kill when they reached them.

Melinda called out, “Liz take out that larger beetle!”

Just as she gave the order, Matt saw the much larger beetle approaching them. They had experienced these before; they were Tier 8 variants of the summons. Only Liz and Tara could reliably take them out with their superior damage.

Liz darted out with her spear held behind her. She injured the beetles that tried to snap at her legs and back as she approached the larger beetle.

A trail of blood followed her, and it had the telltale dark look that meant she was concentrating her Blood Iron in it. Right as she thrust at the beetle, the blood became more reflective, and Matt could feel her Concept infusing the blood.

Her blood encased spear punched right through the monster, and as Liz retracted her weapon, she set herself and twisted. A whip of blood arced out and sliced the surrounding beetles into chunks. As Liz darted back into their formation, she carved out another large gap in the approaching hordes' advance.

Aster cast [Hail] behind Liz, and cut off more of the monsters from approaching.

Seeing they had a free moment, Matt called out, “Send another volley out.”

As he said that, he threw everything into [Wind Manipulation], and moved the skills control out far enough that his team could get several attacks off.

For a while, the fight settled into a lull, with them beating wave after wave back. But as time progressed, the Tier 6 beetles started to be replaced by Tier 7 variants, and their first injuries started to appear.

They fought on as the sun reached its zenith, then started to dip. But they continued on, with Melinda keeping them going as the Tier 7 monsters started to be replaced by Tier 8 monsters.

Kyle took an unlucky blow and lost his leg, which spelled the start of their doom. He continued to fight, but even Melinda was unable to get to him before he was overrun. To his credit, he kept swinging his greatsword until he was teleported out by Luna.

Down a man, and with only two dedicated front liners, they were slowly picked off. Even Vinnie’s walls and makeshift defensive fortifications were crushed under the weight of the approaching beetle horde.

Matt finally called for Aster to use her Winter's Embrace, and the sand flash froze in a wave. Sadly, even with his [Wind Manipulation], the beetles quickly adapted to the skill and ran through the portion of winter in the desert.

Once they lost Mathew to a Tier 9 beetle, the end of their attempt came swiftly.

Tara was able to take it out with a lucky shot into its mouth as it tried to eat Sam, but the damage was already done.

Matt, with Aster at his heels, managed to stall a second Tier 9 beetle, but they were overwhelmed before too long.

When they were teleported out, Matt found that everyone else was already hovering next to Luna except Liz.

His girlfriend was a whirlwind of blood and death in her armored golem form. She looked glorious as her [Blood Crystal Armor] reacted to the Blood Iron and created golden armor. Every punch or stomp killed, and he watched as she single-handedly eliminated two of the Tier 9 beetles before running out of mana.

Luna, for all her criticism, was equally willing to praise them when they did well, and only had a few pointers where they could have done better.

Hearing how well they had done was a shot of pride for all of them. They had fought for hours against monsters as strong as them, and nearly as long against ones that were stronger. Liz had even killed two monsters three Tiers above her. That was impressive, and Matt could see that Liz could barely stand still through Luna’s debriefing with her excitement.

She ended her speech with a pointed look at Matt, saying, “When you all start delving Tier 8 rifts, you’ll be able to round out your skills more to fix that.”

That perked everyone else. Matt, Liz, and Aster had been sitting at Tier 6 for nearly two years at this point. Liz was nearing twenty-one, while Matt had just turned twenty a few months ago. They had until they turned twenty-seven before they needed to advance to Tier 7.

Melinda and her team were older, but only slightly, and were in no rush either. They were nearly at peak Tier 6, and could Tier up in a matter of weeks. But Melinda had told them of the deal her team made with Baxter. As long as they didn't Tier up, they could remain with Matt, and use his mana to delve fresh and unlimited rifts.

Luna nodded. “Yes. The next person that we’re meeting will help you experiment with rift-making, and you with your healing Melinda. I think you will find that Erwin is a good wall to bounce ideas off of.”

Melinda rocked forward. “Where and when do we meet him?”

Matt had the same question, and brought up a planet chart of the sector of the Empire that they were in.

Luna sent everyone a data packet. “Two months travel into the border region. Erwin is on a Tier 11 planet which was just subjugated. It will be the perfect place to do some testing. One of the smaller continents was guaranteed for our use, so we’ll be free of prying eyes should we stumble into something… of interest..”

Matt rubbed his hands together. He was ready for this training to start.

He had so many ideas to test.

But first, he needed to spend the next week charging Wrangle's mana crystal stores, to pay the man back for all his help in the last nine months.