The Path of Ascension

The next week was spent sleeping and charging Wrangle's personal mana stone reserves.

The stones were different from what Matt was used to seeing. The shape was the same, but these stones had a greater weight. Not physically. Or at least, not when they were empty. It was more like a spiritual weight, combined with a sense that the massive crystal was more real than the surrounding materials.

That didn't stop Matt from dumping mana into the ten foot tall mana stone. It devoured his mana just fine.

Creating just one unit of the Tier 24’s personal mana consumed nearly a hundred of his own. That revelation was slightly disheartening. It showcased the gap between Tiers all too clearly.

Still, he just had to sit there, feeding a constant stream of mana into the boulder of a mana stone. Boredom would have overtaken him if Luna didn’t repeatedly send his friends in to get their mana topped off by his Concept and have him do mana manipulation exercises. That at least gave him people to talk with until he ran out of Willpower, at which point, they’d be recalled to continue lighter training with their Concepts.

Matt expected to get a break when they boarded their train after jumping planets, but Luna broke that feeble hope as she gathered everyone together to continue working on their mana manipulation skills.

As Luna pushed them to work through increasingly difficult exercises, Matt was reminded how much utility his Concept and Talent offered him, and by extension, the people around him. Without the need to rest and regenerate mana between exercises, they squeezed weeks of intense practice into mere days.

Luna had finally sent them off to their rooms, with orders for Matt to fill more of the mana stones she had provided for him. Like the ones he had filled for Wrangle, these were a higher Tier version than the ones he was used to. Luna’s personal stone, though, gobbled up thousands of his mana to produce even one unit of hers, and he was unable to even put a dent into the void of the stone during his breaks.

Having done the math, Matt stopped to ask Vinnie, who was eating next to him, what their normal training routines looked like before this.

That earned him glares from everyone in Melinda's team. Tara even pelted him dead center on his forehead with the crust of her roll.

Vinnie just squinted at him before saying, “Matt… Fuck you… Just fuck you, dude.”

The grin he shot Matt before he dug back into his soup took any sting out of the words.

Melinda added, “I have to agree with him, Matt. This is your fault. We would only be able to do a few hours of this training every few days, unless we wanted to burn through mana stones. We’re only able to push this hard because of you.” She added with a false whine, “I just want a break.”

Even Mathew shot a mock glare his way. “Bro, I really wish you could just, like, run out. Maybe then we could get a break. Half of us are meatheads that only have internal skills anyway.”

Tara added, “Yeah, this is good training, but we aren't getting as much out of it as our more delicate mage companions.”

Matt returned to the topic he wanted to talk about. “But mana manipulation, if done right, only burns like one mana every ten minutes. You all should be able to do this even without me. You’re just sloppy.”

He stifled a grin as he threw an exaggerated glare at Melinda. “And we wouldn't be able to go nearly as hard if not for little Miss No-Healing-Cooldown always patching us up either.”

There was a round of good-natured ribbing at Melinda until Sam tapped on the table. “Sure, Melinda’s also a dick. But you’re worse, you enable her as well. Sure, the team mommy can fix our boo-boos, but she can’t normally do it indefinitely like this. Even without that, your endless mana nonsense is still so much worse. First off, I’ve never even heard of anything remotely like half of these training methods. So either Luna concocted them herself, or they’re normally reserved for higher Tiers. Considering she had us all doing different things, I'd wager a mix of the two. Secondly, we would normally be delving to train, and would need to save our mana for that. It's just not usually plausible for us to burn through all our available mana in a single day, let alone multiple times. And lastly, my feet fucking hurt. I’m not sure how that's your fault, but I'm gonna blame you for it anyway.”

Matt then got facetiously blamed for all of everyone's little problems. It culminated with Aster being actually upset that Matt hadn’t made her a bunny ice cream rift yet. She had made her request months ago, and he was a failure of a bond for neglecting her vital needs for so long.

That, in turn, led to another repeated argument between Kyle and Aster about the best flavor of ice cream. He insisted that all ice cream was built off of vanilla, and therefore it was the best flavor. Aster disagreed because all ice cream was good, and therefore equal.

The rest of them left the fox and fighter to it as they moved on to the train's workout room. With their cultivation back, they didn't have to do much to maintain their fitness levels, but it was a nice way to relieve stress.

Their travel was easier because of the lack of space for Luna to really work with them. Those two months were a nice break from the intense physical training.

What was mentally tiring was the tactical training. Things started simply, with examples seemingly pulled from their time in the vassal kingdoms’ war, but they continually grew in scope and difficulty.

Their hypothetical tasks ranged from acting in small scale units, to forcing them to complete virtual missions in larger scale conflicts.

Matt didn't need to be a genius to piece together that they were being trained for the time after they finished The Path, and started fighting in the Empire's wars for real.

That realization gave Matt pause.

He had long known that the purpose of The Path was to create powerhouses like Duke Waters, or Light and Shadow. But having now fought in the subjugation of a planet, the golem ruin incident, and the follow-up training war, he held a better appreciation of what war really entailed.

The fighting wasn't like how it was depicted in the movies or books. Real wars were brutal, and next time, a safety net of higher Tier people wouldn’t be in place. There wouldn’t be anyone standing by, ready to rescue them at any second.

Death was a very real possibility. He had to confront that, as he fully realized that Luna was trying to teach them how to do things like go behind enemy lines to kill high Tier commanders, or disrupt supply lines.

He’d already been ‘killed’ in the vassal war. It might have been only once, but it was a moment that he saw in a new light, now that he knew what he was being trained for. Once was all he had from here on out.

The lessons of fighting through pain and missing limbs also took on a more serious tone.

Luna fully expected them to have to deal with that one day, and wanted them to be ready.

Matt wasn't sure if he was comfortable with taking up that responsibility. He enjoyed the physical training and pushing himself daily, but he didn't know if he truly wanted what that led to. Still, he knew himself well enough to understand that he was prone to floundering and relaxing without a goal.

In his free time, Matt looked into the news sources, and when that didn't answer his question, directly asked Luna what the future entailed after a group lesson on mana manipulation.

She didn't sugarcoat her answer. “War is coming, Matt.” She looked to the others, clearly meaning that they were not exempt from the consequences of this answer. “The other Great Powers are eyeing the Empire and its changes. They see us rising above them, but it's too late to stop us. They’ll still try though. They can’t afford not to.”

“What do you mean? Can't they just do the same as us?” It seemed like the easiest answer to Matt.

Luna wiggled her hand. “They are, some in different ways but they are. The problem is they’re too far behind the curve. Meanwhile, we’re growing exponentially. Even if they start now, or had they done so centuries ago, they have no hope of catching up. Unless of course, we run into a major roadblock, or get taken out at the knees.”

Matt didn’t understand, and after looking around, he could tell that his friends didn’t either. So he asked, “But why? Why fight to the death at all? Rifts give us everything we need to live. Why doesn't everyone just work on expanding their borders and just leave each other alone? It seems so wasteful.”

Luna floated down from the ceiling where she was lounging and met everyone's eyes. “Because we are human. Even the beasts are still human in emotion and desires when we hit Tier 15. We are greedy and stubborn. Why spend millions of years building up your planets slowly, when you can take someone else’s already established planets?”

She tapped the train's floor as she said, “We don't lack for food and such, but we are a mana starved society. All the Great Powers are.”

This time Tara opened her mouth, but Luna continued. “It doesn't seem that way because you haven't spent much time on higher Tier worlds. The capital is at a mana deficit even being fed mana of a thousand other worlds citizens. There are too many people with too many enchantments for the planet. It’s essence rich, but not mana rich. Think about crafters. They burn tens of thousands of mana to make a single item at the lowest Tiers. That applies to every craft. The higher the Tier, the more we need mana. We hoard our mana stones from rifts to spend when we need an item crafted, or a sudden rift to delve. That doesn't even account for the mana we need to spend actually delving a rift which drains more mana stones.”

Luna pointed at them. “Think about immortals. It's only Tier 15, and bam! You never die. Unless you do something stupid, or just get tired of living. Tier 15 isn't that hard to reach, and it's where the resource scarcity starts to hit. Every five Tiers, the amount of essence needed to Tier up again spikes, and that’s beyond the normal increased essence requirements between Tiers. Meanwhile, the rifts take longer to naturally recharge, even on a mana-rich world. Time isn't the issue, but there are so many mortals having children that there are more and more immortals every year. Add the invention of bottled Concepts giving people longer to find their Concepts and it's a growing problem. All of that is increasing the demand much faster than the supply. Consequently, it's becoming harder and harder to advance. People are spending more and more time waiting around, saving their mana to buy items or rift slots. Sadly, wars are a common way to cull the immortal population, and remove some of that burden from society. It's also how Tier 15 through Tier 35s are incentivized to fight. More resources.”

When Matt opened his mouth to speak, Luna brought up a hand to silence him, but he ignored it and pressed on. “But that's even worse! There are unlimited worlds out there. We can expand...”

Matt noticed that he was looming over his trainer, so he took a step back and started pacing behind the space where his friends sat.

Luna’s next words didn't help his mood. “It’s human nature to want to expand and help the people near you. And we do expand all the time, Matt. It's one way to relieve the pressure of more and more immortals. If you aren't actively advancing or rich, Tier 15s and above are asked to move to outlying worlds that are under Tier 5. Their greater mana generation helps Tier up worlds safely, without crashing mortal economies. And if rift breaks do occur, they are hardly of any consequence. What else would you have the Empire do? Is it better to prevent people from becoming immortals? Only give bottled Concepts to a chosen few? That was done by all the political entities right after the Shattering, and before the political unification wars, when everyone was just licking their wounds. No one was finding new worlds, and the mortals were prevented from cultivation at all.”

Sam raised a finger. “I hadn't heard of that. What happened? What was the Shattering?”

Luna nodded. “The Shattering was what happened when there was only one Great Power, and they didn't have a sufficiently strong Tier 50. They were the only political entity around, and had a firm grip on their people. Things were apparently pretty good, despite the lack of some modern solutions like bottled Concepts and such. They had enough planets, and their slow and steady expansion ensured that more room and high Tier worlds were found. But their Tier 50 was a weak coward, only put on the throne as a puppet. However, the factions in opposition to him were far too strong to be held at bay. This original Great Power had seven Tier 47 worlds. You understand what that means?”

Kyle learned forward. “Those are the capitals of the current Great Powers? Wait, there are eight Great Powers now?”

Luna flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I'll explain that later. Now, yes most of the developed sections of space near these planets were heavily populated, and there was strength in that. But you need to understand how the wars started. Everyone thought that they could take over the throne, and with their planets being so strong, they created alliances and started declaring wars. Not our play wars, but legions of Tier 40’s fighting. It ruined planets, and destroyed spatial connections. Entire regions of space were broken off and drifted off into the reaches of chaotic space, never to be seen again. Even more planets were directly destroyed, or rendered useless.”

She sighed in an almost-disgusted way. “When the dust settled, everyone over Tier 30 was pretty much dead, and everyone kept to their corners to rebuild their strength. Eventually, that led to the unification wars, and the various powers with similar political entities banded together. These entities are what make up the current Great Powers.”

Matt thought that was interesting, but wanted to return to his original point. “But why war?” Seeing Luna narrow her eyes, he added, “I mean, why are the other Great Powers going to attack us? Shouldn’t the follies of the past show them that it can’t possibly be worth what they think?”

Luna’s apparent irritation vanished. “Now that’s a good question. What do you know about the other Great Powers? The current ones, I mean.”

Matt shrugged. “What I found on the EmpireNet. We’re the second-place Great Power behind The Unification of Clans, and just ahead of The Republic.” Seeing Luna nodding, he added, “After that, in order of power, it’s The Sects, The Conglomerate Guilds, The Monster Collective, The Corporations, and The Federation.”

He quickly checked his AI to make sure he didn't miss anything. Seeing Luna narrow her eyes at his use of the AI, he hurried to ask, “I couldn't find out much about them. What are they like? I know The Conglomerate Guilds are our ally, and that they use the guild structure for their general governance, as the name implies. But that’s pretty much it.”

Seeing that Matt was done, Luna said, “That's about all you'll find on public information channels. No one wants anyone thinking the grass is greener because of some propaganda. The reasons why we will have a war on our hands are manyfold, but the short of it is that we are about to overtake The Unification of Clans, and become the first ranked Great Power.”

Matt thought that was a good thing, and was about to say so when Luna shook her head. “Matt, you need to realize that three rulers ago, the Empire was in fourth place. In a little more than sixty thousand years, The Empire has gone from fourth place to first. That's not just unheard of, it’s incredibly frightening to the other Great Powers. Add in the fact that we have an ascender in Duke Waters, along with another team about to complete The Path. The other Great Powers are scared. Terrified even. They want to take us down a peg or twelve, so they have time to recreate our success.”

He interjected at the slight pause. “Why attack us? Isn't everyone afraid of Duke Waters? It seems like it would be better to sit back and let him advance past Tier 35.”

Luna shrugged. “Normally, when a Great Power has two sets of ascenders, it's when the first ascender has already been there a while, and is about to advance past Tier 35. Then, it's normal for the senior to show the up and comer the ropes, then move on. That's the problem. Duke Waters has been an ascender for less than a thousand years, and he's in no rush to move on. Two ascenders in less than a thousand years is absurdly lucky, and we have other promising prospects in the generations after Light and Shadow. We’ve proven that our method works, Matt. If the other Great Powers don't attack now, they won't ever have the chance again. But if they attack now, and force us to give concessions about expanding, our progress will slow enough that they can catch up.”

Mathew spoke up, “So war is inevitable?”.

From the tone, Matt figured that the man already knew the answer, but didn’t blame him for asking anyway.

“Yes, Mathew. We expect it to happen when Light and Shadow reach Tier 25, and officially complete The Path. That will give our enemies a reason to declare without looking like petty tyrants.”

“How can we win a one versus how many war?” Melinda sounded quite worried, and Matt understood her concern. “And why don’t they just attack us before Light and Shadow can complete The Path?”

Luna held up four fingers. “It will probably be a four versus two. The Guilds will support us since they're our allies, and have recreated most of our programs. They would have increased in ranking if not for a streak of awful luck, with new worlds not drifting by them. But they haven’t decayed in power either, which is telling. It would be us two against The Sects, The Republic, and The Federation. Possibly, we’ll have to contend with The Corporations as well. They don't particularly love us either. We know The Federation will join in, as they are the weakest of the great powers, and share a border with us. They've also never forgiven us for helping dismantle them, and creating The Monster Collective.”

“Wait, what?” Vinnie raised his hand while looking sheepish.

Matt only knew because Liz had said something about that when they were on the training planet.

Luna grinned, showing all her teeth. “Yes. We and everyone else jumped down their throats when they got too strong. They were assholes who deserved it, but don't mistake the real reason for it. The then third strongest Great Power got lucky, and found a natural Tier 46 planet deep in their own territory, not even near their borders.”

Matt had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't like where the conversation was going.

His trainer seemed to notice and looked at him. “Yes, Matt. No one could allow a Great Power to have the equivalent of a second capital world. They could have created more Tier 46’s than anyone else, breaking the current balance of power. Currently, everyone is limited by the fact we all have a single Tier 47 planet. It limits the number of higher Tier people that a Great Power can have when they need to raise up a new Tier 50 every thirty thousand years. The Federation having two was unacceptable.”

She raised two hands like a scale, and started to raise them up and down in counterpoint. “No one could allow them to have a fresh, mana full, rift full Tier 46 planet. Thankfully, there was an excuse to go to war. They had been treating Beasts, Evolved Monsters, and Bonds as second-class citizens. It had been going on for a while, and was only getting worse. That was the reason every other Great Power declared war on them at the same time. Or at least officially, we came to the aid of the beast liberation movement. That was our justification for war. We weren't taking the knees out from under a rival. We were saving the downtrodden.”

Matt was able to draw the parallel to his own Talent, and what it meant. The realization made his throat go dry, and he had to swallow twice to ask, “And what happened? Did the higher Tiers fight?”

Luna laughed, “The Federation got their asses beat, and most of their lands taken over. And yes, the war had combatants as high as Tier 42, but the battles were kept out of real space. None of the Great Powers could decide on how to split the territory, and with our official justification being the treatment of Beasts, a new Great Power was raised. The territory was split, and most of the lands were given to the self-named Monster Collective. The Federation was given the weaker capital planet, and the worst areas of land. They hate us enough to jump in a war to try and expand into better territory.”

Unwilling to say it directly, Matt asked while gesturing to himself, “What about…”

The shorter woman seemed to understand even without him spelling it out. “Our situation is different. We have an agreement with the Clans to stay out of any wars because of an agreement between Emmanuel and their current ruler. The next one up is unlikely to break that agreement. Then, we have very good relations with The Monster Collective, so they’re unlikely to join in either. But that's only the first war for Light and Shadow. I believe the current strategy is to cause enough damage in that war so that no one is willing to go for a second round so soon.”

“And if they are?” Matt really didn’t want to know, but needed to ask.

Luna seemed unbothered as she said, “Who knows? Maybe another high Tier war. We just don't know, Matt. All we can do is prepare.” She blinked and then turned to Melinda, “Forgive me, that explanation took too long and led me astray of your question. Why wait to attack for Light and Shadow to complete the Path, correct?”

Melinda nodded and Luna smirked wryly. “They likely assume that with the threat of two sets of Ascenders, others will flock to their cause out of fear that we could eventually become tyrants, and bully worlds from others. Attacking early makes the attack personal, and that leaves others with no reason to become entangled in the squabbling of two Great Powers. But if they complete it, they can see that we can replicate what others only dream of, and that should be terrifying to them.”

She cleared her throat, with her predatory grin softening. “Though, I will merely reiterate and impress upon you now, we can only prepare. And part of that preparation lies with all of you. Go now, rest. We have much to do in our time together, and I mean to accomplish all of it.”

After that, Matt went back to his room, and constantly thought things over for the next few days. He really didn't like the future that Luna laid out, but he didn't see any loopholes or flaws in her argument.

He himself would probably cause billions of people to die by his mere existence. He didn't see any way to prevent the eventual war. He even contemplated vowing to not advance past a certain Tier, to prevent his Talent from being useful to the highest Tier of planets. It only took a few rounds of his worried brain thinking things over to know that wouldn't work. He’d still be used, despite the lessened efficiency.

Eventually, he decided that he wanted to protect himself and The Empire enough to continue on with the training. If he didn't, he might not have the power to stand up for himself when push came to shove. Having more personal power was the best way to ensure his own safety, and thus, the safety of those he cared about.

If things got bad enough in the war over him, he feared that the Emperor would sacrifice him for the greater good. Liz would protest, but he could see a future where he was sent to world after world to Tier up planets for the other Great Powers to prevent war.

It wasn’t a comforting thought, but the only solution he saw was to get personally strong enough to prevent that from happening. If he was strong enough, no one would be able to use him as an unwilling mana battery. He had calculated that he would need to be Tiered up to at least Tier 45 to be truly useful for Tier 47 rifts, which meant that if he was a strong enough fighter, like Duke Waters, no one would be able to restrain him.

A Tier 50 might be able to handle him, but he did have the Emperor on his side, which meant that he only needed to fight the other Tier 45 through Tier 47’s.

After his realizations, Matt redoubled his efforts in the training Luna set up for him.

His future no longer looked as carefree as it had before.

As they neared their final destination, Matt and his friends discovered that there was no particularly high Tier world that had been found. Instead, it was a closely clustered collection of worlds that would make for an excellent future nexus point and jumping point. They would connect the next wave of expansions to whatever new and exciting worlds could be found on the border of the Empire.

While the planet they were going to was near the edge of the cluster, the central world had nineteen connected worlds. The EmpireNet said that it was the seventeenth most condensed cluster of worlds.

That in itself meant that the world would be heavily invested in. It was only Tier 6, but the surrounding planets had up to a Tier 16 planet, which meant that immortals would be drawn to the location, if nothing else.

Their destination was, as Luna said, an otherwise unremarkable Tier 11 planet. The only oddity was that the smallest island continent was completely restricted.

As they neared it, their AIs were sent a message that breaking the cordon on the continent would result in a high Tier representative of the Empire being sent to investigate. Not that Matt saw anyone watching the border, but the message stated that there was.

Luna led them right through without stopping, and no one came to investigate, so Matt assumed that she had messaged someone to show clearance.

It took them roughly five hours to reach an area that was a convergence of grasslands, mountains, and a massive lake.

Next to the lake, was a flying house that looked more like a simple cabin than anything grand. Luna just walked straight inside, and led the rest of them in a winding path through half a dozen rooms.

Everything but the dining room and kitchen seemed to be laboratories of various types, which Matt couldn't identify in the brief time they walked through them. Beakers holding concoctions labeled in scrawling script were scattered about, along with piles of notes that nearly threatened to fall as they all passed through. Another room contained all kinds of creatures in various levels of decay and destruction, where yet more notes were piled precariously. Luna moved with purpose and little care, the lower tiers moved more cautiously, if only a little.

Finally, they found an average-looking man inspecting what Matt could only call a miniature world. He was pretty sure that it was a spatially expanded crystal orb that somehow had what looked like a full forest inside of it.

The man, who he assumed was Erwin, was inspecting the soil from under the globe with a microscope.

He called out, “You didn’t have problems getting here, did you?”

Luna peered into the globe and said, “You have too much nitrogen in the soil.”

The man shrugged. “Yeah, it’s the ferns. I found a variety that can fix nitrogen and wanted to see if they could be used for natural fertilization, but they don’t have a wide enough root ball to properly distribute everything. I was hoping that I could use the ants from Altar Prime as a way to help distribute it more, but they’re dying out. Maybe with a few hundred more generations I can…”

The man finally seemed to notice the rest of them and fiddled with a pair of glowing glasses. Now that he could see them, Matt could feel the enchantments on the glasses from where he was standing.

He stuck out a hand and said, “Oh, hi. Um, right, Luna did say that she’d be bringing you all. Well… I’m Erwin, but I guess you already knew that? Anyway, welcome to my humble abode, I suppose?”

Luna grabbed his outstretched arm and said, “Your gloves are still covered in the ant's venom. Don't kill the kids.”

Erwin’s gloves vanished, and he shook everyone's hand while he grinned sheepishly, “Right, right. Sorry. Still, they’d probably be fine, I know I have the antitoxin around here somewhere, but proper— Oh! Actually, now that I’m thinking about it…” His attention moved back to the spatial terrarium and was only pulled back by Luna’s cough.

“Right! Training. I remember. One of you makes unlimited mana, yes?”

His glasses increased in glow as he inspected each of them, before settling on Matt.

“Yes, yes. Use a Skill, please.”

Matt met Luna's gaze with a raised eyebrow, and when he received a nod, he pushed [Mage’s Retreat] to its maximum.

Erwin ooh’d and ahhed for a good minute before asking, “So you never run out of mana? At all?”

“Not at all. I’ve also got a Concept that gives people around me mana.”

Matt’s Concept seemed to be less interesting than his Talent.

“Interesting, and I’m sure you can make good use of it given your Talent, but not that rare. Transferring mana is definitely useful, but rarely worth the hassle.”

Matt, understanding his misconception, used his Concept on the man without lowering [Mage’s Retreat]’s mana draw.

That got the man's attention, and Matt added, “It doesn't take my own mana. It's a mana generation Concept.”

Erwin nodded like a chicken, eyes focused off into the distance, “Now that is much rarer, and is quite the interesting combination. I would have thought you just use your Concept as a supplement to your mana. But with this, I presume you must have copied your Talent over while building your Concept? That must have been quite the challenge.”

Matt nodded, but the higher Tier man moved on before he was able to speak.

“Anyway, I hear you’ve been making rifts with that? Then… oh, unique Skill? Now that’s interesting.”

Erwin looked to Luna and asked, “What happened to it?”

Luna met his gaze as she said, “I passed it to the Emperor.”

Erwin deflated slightly at that before he popped back up and said, “Well, if you made it once, you can make it again. Come on, let’s get started on that now.”

He vanished with a pop into the air, then a second later, reappeared and hurried out a different door than where they entered. Following him, they were outside, and he waved out at the grass next to the massive lake. “First, let me see you make a rift.”

Matt eyed the lake and asked, “Is that creating a safe zone? It looks big enough to prevent rifts from spawning, like the seas do.”

Erwin shook his head. “No, nine percent too small. I do want to see what makes your rifts different from natural ones. Maybe they’re unaffected by the Coastal Exclusion Principle, and we’ll test that later. But for now, I just want to see your process.”

Not knowing what else to do, Matt brought out his concrete slabs and arranged them in a circle, after clearing the grass inside. As he arranged them, he realized how cheap and crude they were compared to the sophisticated machinery he had passed in the lab. If he had a few hours, he could make a better set with the things he learned with Kelley. That wasn't even taking into consideration the rune library he had in a partition of his AI.

“I, uhh…. These are pretty old, but… Umm.”

Erwin didn’t seem bothered, and just waved at him to continue on.

Matt sat down and started pouring mana into the formation. It took longer than he expected, but a rift flickered to life as the mana density increased. The monsters that flooded out were quickly minced by the formations he had built into the device, but Erwin grabbed one of the purple skunks and inspected it during the time it took Matt to Tier the rift up to Tier 2.

As the monsters remained the same, Erwin’s next inspection was much quicker. “Even having heard about it, it’s still so strange to see such a low-Tier Rift here. Perhaps while I- while you’re here, we can get some insights into more ‘natural’ rift formation as well.”

At Tier 6, his attack formation struggled to kill the monsters, but with a wave from Luna, the monsters pouring out of the rift just vanished.

As Erwin stepped into the formation and started looking at the rift with his glowing glasses, Matt noticed his friends were looking at him with weird looks.

“What?”

Mathew was the first to speak. “I knew you could do that. And I've gotten a lot of your mana… But this…”

When he trailed off, Tara picked up. “It's wild. Almost unbelievable. That's like. Not really done.”

Matt countered, “I'm pretty sure a lot of guilds and nobles make rifts. It's not that weird.”

Liz interjected. “It's more that you do it all by yourself. A guild doing something is like a higher Tier doing something. It's impressive, sure. But they’re so powerful, it doesn’t have the shock value that your rift creation does.”

Vinnie nodded his head. “Exactly. It's like you don't need anything but some space and time. You can delve as much as you want, wherever you want. We traveled around to go to places with rifts. You’re basically the opposite.”

Matt actually felt quite embarrassed. He wasn't doing anything that anyone with unlimited mana couldn’t do. And they hadn’t even seen his rift experiments with items and mana types.

He had learned so much about mana types, mana aspects, and sub-aspects with Kelley. All of which should apply to rift creation.

When Erwin didn't come out of the rift after fifteen minutes had passed, and the instance would have cycled, Luna waved her hand, dissipating the rift.

Erwin was kneeling down like he had been inspecting a plant, and looked quite confused when he suddenly wasn't where he thought he should be.

Luna said, “You don't have to inspect everything before you even see him make other rifts.”

“This is important! You never know what sorts of trivial things might end up being the key to some massive new discovery. You can’t just rush this. It’s not some scuffle where every second counts, this is science! Have a bit of patience!”

Luna crossed her arms and set her stance. “I sent you the information that we have on rift building. This shouldn't be anything new for you.”

Erwin shook his head, tapping out points on his fingers. “First, you sent me the information that you gathered on rift-building, not the sort of information that I can gather. Second, it’s not like we get that many chances to actually study fully-charged rifts, let alone artificial ones. Sure, we have detailed information about the first eight Tiers, but that’s pretty much entirely done by guilds. They’re just worried about how dangerous their training rifts are and their rewards. Nothing about the Essence content or…”

Erwin didn’t stop until Matt asked, “Should I make another rift? I learned that mana types matter, and so do items.”

Erwin turned and nodded to Matt, who pulled out a short sword, set it at the center of the formation, and used one of the more neutral metal mana types he had gotten to charge the rune circle. With the lacking efficiency of the ring he stored his mana types in, and similar problems with his shoddy work on the concrete slabs, it took a lot longer to create the rifts.

When the kobolds came out wielding short swords, Erwin asked him to stop and entered the rift. It was only a Tier 1, and he was quickly out of the rift. He returned holding a mirror of the short sword that Matt had used to influence the rift.

“One moment, I want to compare them first.” Erwin then glanced between the swords before pronouncing, “Okay, so not quite a perfect replica. Same appearance, but the internal structures are really different. Interesting.”

After tapping at the air, he said, “Go ahead and Tier it up.”

Matt made it to Tier 4 before the sword was sucked up into the rift, and vanished.

He looked to Erwin for guidance as he said, “This usually means I’m screwed on this attempt.” He brought out a pair to the sword he had used earlier and added, “I’ve found that if I use a sword nearly identical to the original , it helps keep the rift from un-aspecting. But they need to be rift reward levels of similar.”

Matt’s attempt was unsuccessful, and despite the sword remaining in the center of the circle, horses with silvery hooves exited the freshly Tiered up rift.

He was going to start draining the rift to reset his attempt, but Erwin, contrary to his expectation, wanted to explore the rift. He was gone for close to half an hour, but came out with a smile.

“It lost the sword, but there was clearly still some influence from it, and the metal mana you used. Fascinating.”

Erwin rubbed his hands together, narrowing his eyes in thought. “Let's restrict this rift so it can't Tier up and then move the formation and experiment with a clean slate. It’s time to start some proper testing.”