The Path of Ascension

In their preparations for taking on the endless rift, Quill and Torch spent a large portion of their time on the Jungle side of the planet, further honing their skills and earning points. Currently, they were tracking a Tier 14 death knight that had been wandering around the adjacent zones. They wanted to take it out for the massive bounty of forty points.

Matt and Liz, or at least those identities, were currently in a rift to help make it all the more unlikely that the two identities were the same. Quill and Torch, on the other hand, were just returning from the safe side of the planet. There, they had spent nearly thirty points at the Pather lounge to burn the points that Kurt and Luna had earned for them.

That was actually where they heard the news about the roaming death knight and its bounty. The expensive and private lounges had exclusive contracts that rewarded the team that completed them a ton of points.

Most were reasonably challenging bounties that the top ten percent of teams could complete, but some were too hard for the average team on the second floor. Quill and Torch had only learned of the death knight because a Tier 13 Shadow Sparrow had been released, with a point reward of thirty points to the team that successfully captured or killed it.

None of them had any desire to track down the bird itself, but it clued them into the existence of the open contracts as the news spread to the Pathers around them. Checking into the lounge’s job board themselves, they were able to sift through the various postings, like the one on the death knight. When they came upon the forty point reward, they immediately wanted to go after it.

Quill kept his eyes forward as he watched the death knight walk around a tree and kept his attention conspicuously on the target.

Through his AI, he asked Torch, “Are they still following us?”

His partner, positioned on the other side of the hill, replied instantly. “Three on you and two on me. I get the feeling that there are more coming. Should we take them out now, or wait until their help arrives?”

Quill chewed his lip. They had felt the hostile gazes the instant they entered the second floor lounge, and taking the contract was their way of luring out the team who had reasons to hate them so much.

Apparently, they weren’t alone in wanting to ambush the two of them. One other team had joined them, and both him and Torch sensed a third team that would be arriving shortly.

The real question they wanted answered was how the teams had followed them through the teleporters. They were supposedly random. The fact that the other teams arrived at the same place suggested something was amiss. At first, they thought the other teams took the same contract, which would include a direct teleport to an area near the wandering boss. But there were no extra team names on the contract, so that couldn’t have been their method.

Now, the teams were just waiting to strike at the opportune moment.

If they wanted answers as to why the teams were targeting them, they needed to take them alive and uninjured enough that they weren’t taken away by the Gardeners. Both he and Torch knew were watching, ready to intervene in an instant.

The rules of the Tier 10 tournament were similar to the rules of the vassal war, but there was far more leniency given to these contestants. Being both stronger and older than the Tier 5 and 6s who fought those battles came with some additional freedom.

Quill and Torch loitered for another thirty minutes, ostensibly stalking the death knight, before he noticed the arrival of at least three more people. His [Air Manipulation] felt at least that many enter the barrier of slightly still air around them, but he couldn't be sure that was all.

Still, that meant their plan was good to go.

Stepping forward, he threw out three talismans meant to trap the death knight and slow its moments. It was far, far too little to stop such a strong undead, but they weren’t trying to fight the monster.

Not yet.

As he activated the talismans, he threw out two more [Fireball] talismans and rushed forward.

Death knights, a Tier 14 zombie variant, usually boasted heavily enchanted plate armor and an oversized longsword or sword and shield combo. They also had a variety of spells; far more than the average Tier 14, with their most prominent being an area of effect aura that hindered magical casting. It made any spells cast in the area cost more mana and produce a lesser effect. If that was all, they would have been dangerous, but the death knights usually had at least three other spells. A possible fourth depended on whether they had the longsword or sword and shield.

The sword and shield knights had a defensive spell that empowered all other undead around them, increasing their magical resistance to insane levels, while the longsword knights had an offensive version of the same spell.

They were a pain to kill when in a rift that produced them; the buffs stacked with each knights’ cast. But alone, it wasn't anything they couldn’t handle.

The death aura flared up in a fifty-foot radius, and Quill threw two more talismans out before jumping to the side and rolling.

He had timed it perfectly, as a lance of energy shot directly through where he had been standing.

Springing to his feet, he turned and pointed his staff at where the attack came from, and seven people stood infront of him in two distinct formations.

He didn’t bother talking, and cast [Jolt] through the staff as he removed an overcharged [Hail] tasliman and threw it into the air.

The rain of ice interrupted the two incoming [Fireball]s and [Mana Bolt], but did little to stop the arrow that slammed into his upper chest.

It thankfully only pierced a lung and didn’t hinder his arms, but the pain was nearly blinding as the arrow started to burn inside of him.

Unable to appreciate the new enchantment or spell that he hadn’t seen before while roasting alive, he twisted his staff and sent a small talisman array of three into the holders that ensured his talismans were arranged in formation.

He was forced to dodge a second arrow inside the hail storm, but he still got the makeshift [Tornado] spell off.

From the side, a stream of fire entered the newly formed spell, and the two elements fed on each other and merged, exactly as they had practiced.

Quill smiled under the mask at the look of shock on the faces of two of the attackers, who had clearly expected Torch to be locked down and unable to come to his rescue. If only they knew how much they’d practiced for scenarios just like this. They would have never tried an ambush.

All it managed to do was to piss them off, ensuring that the pair didn’t play nice.

There was a screeching sound from the now unengaged death knight, and a second aura that looked like inky darkness slithered out. Tendrils of darkness that resembled hands clawed at the ground, as if searching for victims.

Under the mask, Quill’s grin grew. The second skill of most death knights, [Hungering Darkness], was a dangerous skill; it formed an aura that drained the vitality of anyone in the zone. The effect was doubled for anyone hit by the grasping hands on the outer edge of the area of effect. Getting grabbed meant months of healing to return the energy that the monsters stole, and any injuries inflicted when affected by the skill took far more energy to heal.

It would have been the perfect skill for the monster, except one didn’t even need a Concept to fend off the aura. A cultivator's natural spirit was more than capable of warding off the effect.

At least, as long as the cultivator was healthy and uninjured.

That was why they had decided to take this mission, allowing their enemies to gather together, rather than crushing them piecemeal.

The two of them were tired of being ambushed by their fellow competitors, and figured that the best way to make a statement was to cripple their assailants’ chances of doing well in the points ranking. They knew that the Gardeners would step in before the death knights' aura hurt the other teams to the point that they couldn't fight in the big three. But those didn't start for another five months.

They had checked with Luna, and got the green light for their little operation after confirming that it was within the rules of the competition. Maybe it wasn’t in the spirit of the rules, but interpretation worked enough in their favor that even the ancient cat had smiled after learning about their plot.

The attackers weren't amateurs, and only blinked at the monster behind him, keeping their attacks solely focused on him.

Quill slapped on a physical enchantment talisman and started running while using a touch of [Air Manipulation], creating pushing force in the middle level winds. He was able to override the natural air currents, thus directing the flaming tornado towards the group attacking him.

The two groups split, and Quill ran through the flames at the team with the archer.

He had proven to be the largest threat with those specialty arrows.

The team he rushed was prepared, and sent a barrage of attacks at the spot where he exited the flames, but Quill was one step ahead of them and threw himself over the attacks.

A second arrow slammed into his prepared [Barrier] talisman, and the attack imparted enough force to change the trajectory of his jump. He was forced directly on top of a melee fighter who managed to raise their sword in time to skewer him. Unable to dodge the blow, he took a deep cut to his hip. But in return, he pressed his staff to the man's head and cast [Jolt].

The spell hardly went off before the man under him vanished; the Gardeners were not willing to risk brain damage.

On his mask, opposite his feather pen, Quill put up a tally of 1 to 0 and let a smile grow across the mask.

Except this time, the smile had teeth. Sharp teeth.

To the team's credit, seeing their teammate taken out so quickly didn't phase them, and they kept attacking while a melee fighter rushed forward from the second team. To this point, that group had been cut off by the flaming tornado.

With a second team on him, Quill started going for debilitating attacks.

Five talismans flew out of his spatial bracelet and into his staff before he slammed it into the ground, channeling the attack.

The grassy earth quivered for a second while the five thousand plus mana pulsed through all at once.

Dozens of stone spikes shot out at knee level; they emanated out in a swirling circle with Quill at the epicenter.

For all their preparation, none of them had expected the new move, and four of the remaining six were hit in their legs and taken for a trip as the spell started to rotate.

A second arrow took him in the arm as he found the archer dancing above the moving spikes, until a flaming meteor flew out of the tornado and crushed the sharpshooter in the chest.

Torch had arrived.

Quill, knowing that Torch had already dealt with the three on the other side, changed his counter to 4 to 0 and started casting again.

With the spikes moving around him, the immobilized attackers had a hard choice to make. They could either sit around and wait to be saved by the Gardeners, or they could wrench their legs free from the impaling stone spikes and try to fight him.

They made the wrong choice, and decided to take the leg injury. Exactly what Quill was hoping for.

The spell’s stone spikes were designed to shear off with any lateral pressure, creating long shards of stone that cut through flesh as easily as any blade.

Most of the attackers were screaming and clutching their now shredded legs. Sadly, the melee fighter was not one of them, and charged at him with a glowing shield and growing sword. Quill recognized the skills as [Mana Shield] and a standard size rune.

He was forced to pay full attention to the onslaught in order to dodge the series of combination attacks. While he was caught up with the melee fighter, he took a [Wind Slash] in his side from his blind spot.

Quill's light armor held up as well as he could have hoped, but the attack still left a massive wound that rent him from his thigh to his shoulder. If not for the armor, he was pretty sure that he would have been immediately removed from the fight.

With the pain and mobility reduction from the latest attack, he was too slow to dodge a shield bash, and was sent stumbling back. After taking the hit, he was left hopping on his one working leg to remain upright.

Growling, Quill cast [Jolt] through his staff once, then twice, then a third time, forcing the melee fighter to hunker down behind this shield.

The [Jolt] talisman that Quill threw out for his fourth attack caught the man off guard, and the overcharged talisman destroyed the man's shield.

Glowing hot metal fragments peppered the area, as both the spell and internal enchantments were overloaded and couldn't resist the attack. That was the risk of only relying on a durability enchantment for a weapon without pairing it with a repair rune.

If the threshold of the durability rune was exceeded, the item had the tendency to explode, and Quill had gotten a good feel for the shield after the fighter smacked him in the face with it.

The man looked down at his missing arm and dropped to his knees as he screamed in pain. The half of his face that Quill could see was shredded, agonizingly peppered with still glowing shards of metal.

Disregarding his suffering opponent, Quill threw out three [Bandage] talismans and an [Earth Wall] talisman to stop the death knight from approaching too quickly. One of the [Bandage] talismans landed on him and helped stop the bleeding, but did little else besides ensuring that he wouldn't bleed out.

Still bleeding from his wounded side, and with the now cool arrow in his chest, Quill looked over to see Torch choking the archer out with their own bow. It was twisted and wrapped around their neck as she bent backwards to put more pressure on the archer’s neck.

His shuffling steps took him towards their mage, who was trying to muster the energy to cast something with his shredded legs.

“Oh no-no-no,” Quill grunted, and punctuated his statement by slamming his staff into the man’s injured knee. “We can't have that now, can we?”

The scream was overbearing and shrill, but he kicked them in the face twice to put an end to it.

“Enough. You don't get to scream and bluster. You attacked us. This is going to get a lot worse, don't worry.”

There was no smile on his mask now, but he had updated the counter to show 11 to 0. Just to rub it in.

One of the others cursed at him before calling out for a rescue. “Fuck you, you piece of shit! You may have won this fight, but we’ll pay you back for this! I surrender. You won't be able to torture us now, asshole.”

Quill let a smile reappear on his mask as he hobbled over to the talking man, the image unfurling slowly as if to mock him.

An angry part of him relished the growing panic on his attacker’s face as he approached, and the man wasn't teleported out.

“See, that would normally work, but you ambushed us.”

“I want ou—”

Quill smacked the man in the mouth with his staff and tutted. “I was speaking. Please don't interrupt. That's rude.”

He rubbed his chin as Torch brought over the archer and threw his mangled body next to the man he was talking to.

“Now, where was I? Ah, yes.” He snapped his fingers theatrically before tapping his mask and pointed down to the man and his friend. “See, asking to be teleported out would normally work, but you ambushed us. Ambushes aren't very nice, and I have questions as to why you would ambush us. To that end, I already asked for an interrogation exception, and was granted it. That means, as long as your life isn’t in immediate danger, the Gardners won't teleport you out. Now, we get to have a little chat.”

While he was spitting mad under the mask, Quill let his evil smile creep outward until it split the mask in half, pulling out a fist full of talismans as it grew.

“Don’t worry. I have more than enough [Bandage] talismans to ensure that none of you die. I even have a few actual healing talismans in case one of you gets pushed too far.”

He used his good hand to point at the still bleeding wound that took up half his body. “I’m going to be on a healing cooldown for at least a week, and I want to make sure that I won't be the only one.”

With everyone gathered, Torch moved to engage the death knight and occupy it as he started to interrogate the prisoners.

He had learned a lot from Luna and Kurt about the distasteful act, but pushed that aside to get information.

“Okay, who wants the easy, less fun trip out of here, hmm? Who’s going to spill everything and avoid staying on a shit list that you really don’t want to be on?” He twirled a knife around as he asked for dramatic effect.

He had no intention of actually using it.

Pain was easy enough to resist. They were all delvers, and had fought for decades. The act with the knife was just theatrics for the watching audience on the other side of the planet. Quill had something far, far worse in store for them if these attacks continued after today.

One of the melee fighters with shredded legs growled at him, “Fuck you. You won't get anything out of us before you send us to the hospital.”

Quill used his staff to leverage himself up to his feet before clapping enthusiastically. “You are correct! Yes, you are. I'd be limited to a healing cooldown of roughly a month with just physical injuries. You’re certainly right about that.”

He stopped clapping before hobbling over to the man, when he reached down and grabbed the man's ruined leg and started to drag him to the wall he had built. He looked back to the others before speaking loudly to no one in particular. “You see, being a talisman specialist, unlike what your friends may tell you, is substantially more involved than just ‘throwing money’ at problems. When I’m making my toolkit and using it, I have to keep in mind an almost limitless number of possible options at my disposal. Unlike most warriors… or even most mages. It forces you to really, really consider your surroundings, and every tool at your disposal. Such as, shall we say… a death knight?”

The man, realizing what he was going to do, started screaming and struggling, but it was futile. Still, to humor him, he paused and looked back at his victim and muttered, “Something you want to say? Care to enlighten me on what’s running through your mind?”

The man quieted and began muttering that he had pull, and could get him good deals for certain items and information. He was just following orders, after all. It was all typical stalling tactics and swill that just didn’t interest him, so he tuned it out. Quill drug him to the edge of the wall before dismissing the magic that held the stone together and letting it crumble to the ground.

The others needed to see this if it was to be effective.

As he pulled the man over the rubble, he casually said, “You know death knight auras are easy enough to resist if you’re in top shape, but you aren't.” He made the smile on his mask shift to a mocking frown. “You look like shit buddy.”

“I have my Concept. I can resist its aura for weeks with just that. Let me go now, or when I get healed, I'm going to hunt you down forever. If you let me go now, we can pretend this never happened.”

Quill whistled as they entered the first aura, then the second, and grasping hands of darkness tried to grab the two of them.

“Remember, you ambushed us. Not the other way around.”

Both of them fended off the attacks, but as he whistled a jaunty tune, he crushed the man's Concept with his own.

The screams and pleas started as soon as the hands started draining the man of energy. Where the hands grasped, dark bruises formed, spreading slowly like visible darkness moving through the man’s veins.

In just thirty seconds, the man shriveled up like a raisin before the Gardeners removed him. That dark, angry part of Quill thought about using his Concept to resist the spell that the guards were using, but he crushed the impulse. Matt was still in control here, and as much as it would have served them right, he wasn’t like that.

Not without a damn good reason.

He needed to make a point, and he had. There was no cause to go overboard.

He was better than that.

Before he turned around, he watched Torch as she kept the monster's attention while dodging the purple glowing longsword attacks, along with the phantom images that the attacks left in their wake. It was an interesting skill that forced other melee attackers to keep their distance or be corroded by the purple energy, but Torch was just keeping its attention from the wounded, not trying to kill it.

Still, he knew that he didn’t have too long before the Gardeners pulled everyone out.

As he hobbled back to the group, he decided to skip the showboating and simply asked, “Okay, who wants to answer my questions now? I’ve got a friend who’d love to get his hands on anyone else that decides to be a pain.”

After seeing their comrade take enough damage to need healing for months, they were all too eager to talk and spilled the beans.

“We took the bounty that someone set up. One hundred points if we take you out. Two hundred points if we manage to destroy your spatial item with all your talismans. It was just a job, man.”

Quill nodded, squatting painfully to look the man in the face fully. That seemed believable enough, so he asked, “Who put the bounty up, and how did you follow us through the teleporter?”

A different man answered quickly, “We don’t know who set it up, but it lets us teleport to wherever you are.”

Quill paused at that. If what they were saying was true, this was officially sanctioned. Or at least, official enough to manipulate the teleporters. It also proved the rumors that they could create their own missions true.

That was something to look into later on. Right now, Quill and Torch had to set the record straight, and raise the bar for what was expected of their fellow Pathers from here on out. Afterwards, they had a death knight to kill.

Once he confirmed everything about the ambush that he could, Quill smiled, then bowed his head to everyone. “Well, thank you for your help today, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry to say that we won't be seeing each other soon though. All of you will be spending a long time in the hospital.”

He stood up with a soft sigh, and clapped his hands as if trying to dislodge dirt and dust from them before speaking again. “After all, I need to send a message to those watching from where it’s safe, don’t I? Attacking us can't be seen as worth it. Otherwise, I’ll be dealing with this shit anytime we come out to the Wild Side. And before anyone complains, you were all enough of a pain to earn it.”

The pleas and screams didn’t stop him from signaling Torch to lead the death knight over to them, and soon, the aura started to drain each of them. Quill made sure to stand there with a look of glee on his mask through it all, before looking up into the drone that followed them as if he were looking into the souls of those watching.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he tilted his head and put up the number of attackers that he and Torch had sent the hospital on his mask. He held the pose for a few seconds before allowing himself to turn away without further comment. The statement would be clear enough. If anyone else came, their end would be just as brutal and creative, limited only by their imaginations.

Despite not always having a death knight around, they were quite capable of finding other ways to make their opponents’ healing cooldowns as long as possible.

Once the injured were removed by Tur'stal’s Gardeners, he and Torch focused on killing the death knight. It took them a while with Quill's injuries, but they managed to slay it before retreating to the nearest rift to teleport out of the wild side.

Once in the safe zone, they quickly found a healer and got treated. As suspected, Quill was put on a week-long healing cooldown.

The fallout from the news only really hit after he and Liz had been healed. To not blow their cover, they had been directed to a special healer, able to heal them without incurring a healing cooldown. It was drastically inefficient, and nowhere near as strong as Melinda’s healing, but it allowed them to keep delving without risking death.

The news reports they could see had the entire fight being critiqued, with most calling Quill’s interrogation overboard and excessive. Specifically his allowing the death knight to drain the opponents, and breaking their Concepts when they tried to resist.

“What I don’t understand is how someone who has such altruistic claims can sit here and laud himself as better than the Burning Hearts. How is he holier than a guild of people who founda life saving skill and created an item for anyone to use when he pulls stunts like this?” One reporter chuckled darkly, shaking his fist before looking rhetorically to his co-host for an answer. “I mean, dragging injured, fellow Pathers into something that would take them out of the competition for so long just simply isn’t what a truly for-the-people Pather should do. Rules or not.”

The co-host nodded empathetically and added, “You’re right, Shane. And to me, it seems like it could just be a cowardly ploy to knock off some of the competition, and make himself look better. I mean, at this point, Torch has what it takes to go all the way, and a budding following that could build to epic levels. How long will it be before Quill’s antics start to drag her down? I guess time will tell.”

Matt tuned the broadcast out, and focused on the people around him. From the chatter around him, Matt knew that his actions had only half worked. Some of the patrons were already talking about how they could shoot an arrow and send Quill on a week long healing cooldown as easily as anyone else. Meanwhile, the more sensible half of the crowd realized that Quill and Torch had managed to fight off an ambush while they were outnumbered by three teams in the top five percent.

His actions might have been excessive, but judging from the small sample of people who were getting mana from his Concept, he had dissuaded a portion of the people who thought coming after them was a good idea.

Matt still considered it a win.

However, some people continued to puff themselves up, saying how they could do much better than the previous assailants.

Matt just laughed internally. If they did try it, they would be in for a surprise. If they had to use more drastic measures, they would. But eventually, the attacks would stop.

Through their AI, Matt watched the video of Torch choking out the archer with his own bow. To his chagrin, Torch’s odd ‘kill’ was being hailed as a funny moment, unlike his own attacks, which were being called cruel. Someone had already called his earth spike circle, with the stone that created grizzly shearing wounds, excessive and unnecessary.

How was that more excessive than choking a man with his own bow?

Matt had no idea, but asked through their AI to ensure that no one could hear the question. “Why did you choke him with his own bow? I can see the edits to the video, but didn't really see the fight in person.”

He could always check her AI recordings, but that was unneeded with Liz next to him.

Liz smirked around the croissant she was nibbling on. “The shithead had some phasing ability that let him dodge most of my attacks, but I noticed that his bow was phasing with him, and I could touch that. So I just used that to beat him down, and when he tried to phase through the ground, I wrapped it around his neck.”

Matt rolled his eyes but let the matter drop. They hung out for a while longer, refilling people's mana and graciously declining those that tried tipping him a small number of mana crystals or materials.

People were more than happy to pay for a fast refill of mana, but he always declined, just saying that he had no need of it but appreciated the thought.

That, more than anything, seemed to help his image. Plus, as word of his abilities spread, his reputation increased.

People had even started to recognize him on the streets, which was a novel experience, considering that the same could be said of Quill for opposite reasons.

Throughout the entire venture of his mana distribution, Matt worked on chatting with people and trying to exclude them from his Concept’s ability to give mana.

He thought he had the start of an idea, but so far, he couldn't fully blacklist people from the effect. Still, he could tell that he was close. It was just a matter of wrapping his head around the idea properly. Once he figured out what he was doing, Matt was fairly certain that he’d master the trick behind excluding people. It was just the first step that he found so difficult.

When they had to leave for their delve, Matt was thanked by everyone, and not a single person complained about the free mana disappearing. It still surprised him every time.

They arrived early to the endless rift, preparing themselves to fight for their lives while holding back.

When they entered the rift, they found themselves on the same platform as everyone else in the recordings, with an endless expanse of darkness that seemed to extend forever in every direction.

It felt just wrong, but Matt couldn't exactly describe why. It just… was.

He was unable to ponder the rift's oddities any further, as the first wave of monsters appeared at the edge of the platform and rushed at them. A quick count put the number of flaming horse monsters at thirty seven.

At the bottom of Tier 11, the monsters were comically easy to kill, but that wouldn’t be the case forever. The second they killed the final horse, a rift reward distortion appeared next to the single entrance and exit.

As they didn’t touch the distortion for ten seconds, the next wave appeared. This time they had to fight a dozen ape-like monsters with crab arms.

When they had killed the final monster in the fifth wave of bottom Tier 11 monsters, the reward distortion appeared for a full thirty seconds before a new monster variant appeared. With his spiritual sense, Matt quickly put the new arrivals at the middle of Tier 11.

This time, they fought waves of seventy two zombie rabbits that constantly turned into blurs of light as they increased in speed.

It was one facet of this endless rift that was different than other rifts. The essence used in creating the monsters was always the same amount per wave, so a wave with higher numbers meant weaker monsters.

At least, that was the general rule for every round inside the same five level bracket. During those intervals of five, the monsters’ power was kept the same.

Liz proved that true as she created a whirlwind of blood tendrils that shredded all of the bunnies that tried to attack them.

When they finished the five waves of mid Tier 11 monsters, they moved on to the high Tier 11s, then finally, the peak Tier 11 monsters.

Still, it didn’t matter in the least bit to them. Every Tier 11 monster died in seconds, and they blitzed through the waves as fast as they could without giving away too much information.

They repeated the same pattern of twenty waves for the Tier 12 monsters easily enough, before they started to show a struggle against the weak Tier 13 monsters.

The Tier 13 waves made for a great spectacle for them, though. With their restrictions, they had to fight strategically and slowly, but they still managed to whittle down the monsters and kill them.

When they reached the peak Tier 13 monsters' last wave, the sixty ninth wave, they only needed to exchange a look to know the next one would be their last.

If they were in their Quill and Torch persona, they could have pushed further, but they didn’t want to make a splash in their real identities. They had already shown their ability to fight in a rift that Matt’s Concept countered. It would earn them a decent number of points and recognition, but pushing past the first wave of Tier 14 would make people start to wonder what they were hiding.

So, as the seventieth wave came out, they readied themselves for a long and brutal fight.

The low Tier 14 monsters were, luckily enough, a type of slime monster which was weak to magical attacks and water. Attacks that they both had in spades.

Still, they put on a show and took over an hour to kill the fifty four Tier 14 monsters, before Liz dispelled the reward rift to end the challenge.

The rush of essence hit them like a truck, as all the essence they should have earned from killing seventy waves of monsters Tier 11 through Tier 14 came to them all at once.

To Matt's joy, it was all Tier 14 essence, as they had reached and completed at least a single wave at that Tier. The rift could be temperamental, and had a chance to give Tier 13 essence if only one Tier 14 wave was cleared. That would have been a miserable ending to the delve, considering how long they fought in that last wave.

As he was inundated with essence, Matt took the time to allocate it as fast as it came so he didn’t waste any.

While he focused on allocating, he received a message from Liz. “I want to ask Tur'stal to get us a delve in this rift without being watched. I think we can push past the peak Tier 14 monsters after wave ninety, even with this same power set. It wouldn't be easy, but we could do it.”

Matt agreed. He might need to pull out some talismans, but he believed that they could push to at least wave eighty five before resorting to that. If they merged their full fighting styles, he believed they could fight as long as they wanted, or until they found a monster that countered them.

It was frustrating to have to hold back, but if they wanted to be able to safely exist, they needed to keep up the facade.

Their reward from the rift was a Tier 14 mushroom that neither one of them could readily identify, so they stood to leave without waiting. When they left the rift, they exited to a crowd of people watching them, and his currently most hated duo of news reporters.

The fact that they were the only two news reporters he knew didn't really factor into his consideration.

Just like the first time he had met them, Page introduced the two of them. “This is Page Woodrow with Diego Heart, coming at you live from the Tier 10 Pather ‘Breakout’ Tournament. We’re here with the first interview from the biggest surprise from the endless rift, Matthew Alexander and Elizabeth Moore.”

She put the mic between them as she started the interview proper.

“You both have set one of the top runs for the endless rift this month; one that would even rank in third place for last month. And as some of the youngest competitors at this tournament, no less. In fact, you’ve only just turned 39, Elizabeth. Is that right? What’s the secret of your success? Why not wait until the next Tier 10 tournament, where you could have ensured your domination.”

Liz laughed and smiled into the camera while whipping a strand of hair that was stuck to her face away from her eyes. “Where do we start?” Liz looked up to Matt and said, “We chose to advance and participate in this tournament because we have a beast bond on our team, and so we’ll be taking a break at Tier 15, when she receives the necessary training and schooling in the Beast Kingdom. We recently took a large break after we got a lot of skills in a vassal war, so we didn’t want to stall a third time, in between those two breaks. I guess our secret is that we counter this rift perfectly. Matt’s Concept ensured that we never ran out of mana, and it was just a matter of whittling down the monsters. That rift was just a perfect matchup for us. ”

Page nodded along, but didn't ask another question, letting Diego lean into Matt and ask, “We have reports that you’ve been using your Concept, a Concept that gives out mana to anyone around you for free. Why give it for free when so many would pay for mana at any given time?”

Matt smiled at the duo, who were much less confrontational than with his Quill persona. He said, “It's hardly free. It's practice for me. I can't really use the Concept if other people aren't around, and I’m working on limiting and changing the rate at which I give mana to everyone. All of that is stuff I can't really do if someone isn’t low on mana. Helping them is really just helping myself.”

Diego laughed and looked at the camera, twisting to open up his shirt as he said, “A generous competitor, how rare! Matt, our viewers want to know how you think you’ll fare against the other top contenders?”

Matt laughed before scratching his head, putting on a bashful appearance. “I doubt we’ll win. We knew that coming into it this early, and at a low Tier 10 level. But I think the items, experience, and the essence we earn will help speed up our progress through the next Tier. Anything we can get to help with that gap created when my bond goes to the Beast Kingdom at Tier 15 will be so useful. Then, we can settle down and work on further honing our skill for a bit while burning our age lead and delving a bit slower.”

Page took Matt's breath to interject. “Our fans and analysts don't think you guys show too many weaknesses with a missing team member. How do you rate your own performance? Is your bond very strong? Our reports say you have an Arctic Fox bond, which isn’t a breed known for their combat prowess. With having a friend like Fen, who just hatched a dragon bond, how do you feel your own compares?”

Matt and Liz both shot the woman a nasty look, but Matt spoke first. “Azure is a fresh hatchling, and a baby for one. That seems incredibly unfair to put that kind of expectation on her. And second, my bond isn't only valuable because of her combat abilities. Aster, my bond, is an ice fox, and she’s incredibly helpful on the battlefield, despite the breed being rated less than ideal for combat. Even more than that, she’s as much a living being as you or I, and she’s as helpful as any other teammate I've had. She’s hardly the tool that you just portrayed her as. How rude can you be? Even if she just sat there and ate ice cream all day, that would still be out of line.”

Diego covered for his partner and hurriedly asked Liz, “You have a unique fighting style with blood. Our viewers want to know how that changes your style from a standard water mage?”

Liz let the duo off with a glare to Page, who kept silent for the rest of the interview. Liz, on the other hand, answered Diego's questions with a blank expression that turned into a smile over the course of the interview. They pretended to loosen up as the overly attractive man's questions continued.

When both he and Liz had been pumped dry for any soundbites that they could’ve produced, they were finally let go. Matt hoped that the interview had actually been live, and they hadn't been dumped off the air when he tore into Page a touch.

Still, it was a good interview, and they were proud of their showing. He had even earned a message from Mara saying how happy she was when he had smacked down the rude question from Page about a bond’s worth.

When Quill officially came off the healing cooldown, they intended to do the endless rift again. But this time, they’d go farther into the waves, and would complete the rift until it started repeating the same peak Tier 14 monsters.