The Path of Ascension

Chapter 111

As they neared the third month of their training, Luna returned and gave them the okay to delve a Tier 9 rift, as expected.

What Matt and Liz didn't expect was for Luna to have a counter offer and additional conditions.

I dont think either of you are ready.

Seeing both of them about to react, their manager elaborated. No, its not that I think you aren't strong enough to fight in a Tier 9 rift. I think you should both leave The Path.

This time, her upraised hand did nothing to stop the torrent of questions they had.

What? Why? Liz sounded almost frantic, and a part of him shared the sentiment.

Matt was more confused than upset, and added, That came out of nowhere

Luna pointed at the two of them, Neither of you are challenged by The Path. Your mana means it's not a race at all; theres simply no struggle. You could coast through The Path with zero effort. The only real hurdle you have is obtaining your Intent, but given how your Concepts have progressed, I dont see even that as an issue.

That irritated Matt enough to say, I'm working my ass off. We all are. It's hardly fair to put us through that training then say that were coasting.

Luna just met his gaze. I only said that you could coast. I will ensure that you do no such thing. The problem is the restrictions on The Path. I want to pour the best mana concentration potions in existence down your throat and get you the best skills for you now. But I can't with the rules set in place.

Matt didnt think that it was all that important, and Luna seemed to sense that sentiment. She continued, Think about it. Better resources to craft rifts and better concentration potions. Better trainers all at once instead of drip-fed to you, as we have to do now. If you step off The Path, I can train you without restrictions. I can ensure that no inefficiency is left unaddressed. You're going to need a Tier 14 mana concentration potion to get your mana to near zero at your next Tier. When you're Tier 8, youll need approximately a Tier 16 potion. Eventually, we'll need Tier 35 plus natural treasures to ensure that we get the most out of your Tier ups. If you dont max your mana concentration out at each Tier by bringing your max mana down to near zero, your mana will end up only seventy five percent as strong as it could have been if you used better potions. And your mana will then end up dozens of times weaker than a normal mage of your Tier. Theyll eventually have more essence to allocate per Tier than you will, even with the best potions we will eventually not be able to get you down to zero mana so these Tiers where we can are critical for your future growth.

Her words actually swayed him. He really didnt have any challenge on The Path that Luna didnt intentionally put there. It also didn't sound like she would make it easier if he left, they would just have better resources to use.

Luna then added, "Right now things aren't a huge issue. Just your delving speed and mana generation are enough to buy items above your Tier. But remember that mana stones increase in value and mana capacity massively as they Tier up and you don't have growth items to let you jump Tiers of wealth anymore. Even if you just sit in a box right now and charge batteries all day every day it will take you over a year with the rift mana stone to produced mana value difference to buy a Tier 17 mana concentration potion at Tier 7. We are ok for the next few Tiers but why wait? If you don't reach zero in your current mana when you Tier up you are wasting potential mana concentration. That's where the weakness will creep in. Tier by Tier you will grow weaker the more you don't maximize your mana concentration."

Matt was honestly tempted, but a glance at Liz told him that she wasn't willing. She wasnt saying anything, but he could see it in her eyes. Shed agree to it if he wanted to leave, he knew she would, she had said no many times before but that wasn't her desire.

Liz was on The Path to show everyone, including herself, that she wasnt relying on her parents and their influence.

They had even had a conversation where she worried about relying on him and his Talent in the same way.

He could see it in her eyes that she wanted to remain on The Path. Her being willing to let it go for him wasn't enough of a reason for Matt to take Lunas offer. And while in theory, they could break their team so that Matt could leave the Path while Liz remained, neither of them wanted to do so.

Staying on The Path was better for Liz, and Matt didnt think there would be that much of a difference in the effectiveness of their training in the next few Tiers. After they had participated in the tournament for Pathers at tier 10, they could reevaluate. But he couldn't think of anything better that would prove to everyone that Liz was strong in her own right.

She was willing to sacrifice for him, but a good partner didnt force someone to make that choice. And Matt wasn't willing to let Liz lose one of her largest goals for him, in exchange for only an extra bit of training.

Knowing it would make no difference to ask Luna to leave, he asked Liz, What do you think?

Liz shrugged. If that's whats best, we should do it.

Matt shook his head. No. What do you think? What do you feel about it?

Liz repeated her shrug. If thats whats best, I won't hold you back. That would be too selfish of me. I refuse to do that.

Matt sighed internally, but was careful to keep that out of his voice. No Liz, that's not fair at all. You can't just sacrifice everything for me. Were partners. That means equals. If I just let you give up on your dreams for me, I'd be the biggest asshole in the world.

He looked to Luna. How much of a difference are we talking here?

The dark haired woman quickly said, Several percent to half as strong at the very worst case. There are a few risks that wed have to mitigate, but if I had my way, wed just shove the best Tier 35 plus natural treasures in you which will ensure you don't have any inefficiency in your mana concentration.

Liz pointed at Luna. See Matt, this isn't nothing. Ive said it before, I will step off The Path for you if we need to.

Matt had to refrain from snapping. But this isn't necessary. Its a minor thing that there are workarounds for.

Seeing Liz willing to give up so much for him reaffirmed his decision. No. Liz, If I asked that of you Id be the worst partner in The Empire. If we can't solve the problem before we run out of Aunt Helen's potions we can reevaluate then."

Keeping eye contact, he grabbed Lizs hand and squeezed to reassure her that it would be okay.

No, we'll stay on The Path.

Luna didnt seem surprised or angry as he expected. She just nodded and moved on. If you want to delve a Tier 9 rift, we do it my way. I choose the rift and the mana types you make it with, as well as the items used to seed the rift. I will not put any restrictions on you. There is no advancing until you beat that rift, and you will only get one attempt at the rift per day. Im going to make it hard. And if you want to keep on The Path despite the disadvantages, you need to survive this rift and not need rescuing.

Matt and a now smiling Liz were ready to agree when Luna shook her head. That's not all. If you want this, you need to have Melinda on standby. Tier 9 rifts are normally a large jump in difficulty. They usually have three monster types and are much larger. They can range between one hundred and five hundred square miles. But that's not what makes them hard. It's the first Tier where true sub-bosses appear. If you want to, we can continue, but you need to remember that if I have to pull you out of the rift, youll be kicked from The Path. Just like you would be if any other higher Tier saved you. If you do make it, I wont bring it back up, and will put my full effort into making the best out of The Path for you..

With that warning, Luna vanished. Matt grinned at Liz, who looked emotional.

Well, I guess this is her way to try and force us off The Path. If we don't leave willingly, she'll force us off if we aren't strong enough.

Liz ignored his comment and said, Thank you. I know it's dumb. But I

Matt pulled Liz into a hug and cut her off. Don't mention it. Were a team, and without exceptional reason, if one of us wants to do something, we should do it. I know you want to stay on The Path, and that's enough of a reason for me. No need for thanks. It's not like you don't help me all the time, and I think this is too large a sacrifice for you to make for something so small.

Liz pulled back and smiled at Matt. Thank you. Seeing that he was going to say she didnt need to thank him, she added, I do agree, thats Lunas plan for us, and its a normal rule for management teams. The logic is, if they weren't there and you died, you'd be dead. So with this, you leave The Path, but keep your life and potential. Well just need to be extra careful.

She pulled back, and they walked hand in hand to her alchemy area, which was now under a gazebo. She said, Luna did imply that if we passed this test, she'd find ways to not let you go without the stuff you need.

Matt didnt quite follow that logic and asked, When did she do that?

She said that she won't bring it back up, and look at her. She's a perfectionist. I don't think she can let what she sees as inefficiencies go unfixed. Think of her training. I think she needs to fix anything she sees as less than efficient, but it will just be harder to do while on The Path.

With Luna back, their magic control classes came back with new added twists. If they weren't training with Kurt, delving, or practicing some constructive hobby, she had them using an elemental manipulation skill.

With the skills they had been pulling from the rift and the cities on the nearby continents, they had all traded for enough skills to round out their Tier 8 wants. Kurt had told them that they should all get at least one elemental manipulation skill for practice, so everyone on Melindas team had saved up for them. Matt and Erwin hadnt progressed to making rifts to delve for specific skill shards yet, so they had to trade for or purchase them.

Even with Matt making endless rifts for them to delve every day, it still took an argument to get his friends to take skill shards and mana stones. It had finally come down to him refusing to take them, like a child, for them to accept that they meant nothing to him.

He wasn't sure what Melindas team ended up doing with the mana stones and skill shards that they didnt take, until he found them putting them in a box they refused to talk about. He and Liz ended up adding most of their unneeded skills in there as well, though they set up a bucket next to the box. Despite their prodding, neither Matt or Liz could get any inkling about the box from any of the six. All they could get was that the group wouldnt be keeping it.

Matts current training was with his manipulation skills and creating complex structures with their element. Luna's current task involved him creating pillars of earth with swirling ramps on the outer layer, as he and Erwin waited for a rift to finish charging. As of now, he could only make the most basic swirls. Meanwhile, Vinnie had a completely hollow tower made from interweaving, but not touching strands of earth that only met at the tip of the pillar.

Matt sent a pulse of [Earth Manipulation] over to Vinnie's tower and smirked at his friend, who just stared at the pile of rubble for a long second. In return, Vinnie created a replica of Matt being chewed on by a giant crab. It was well made, if gruesome.

Their good-natured banter ended when Matt's next rift creation had stabilized, and he and Erwin started going over the details of it.

The rift was one made with only air mana but with the sub-aspect of weightlessness.

When they entered, Erwin had to catch him as they started to fall, a reminder of why he had been so careful after the tree rift. Falling when you went inside a rift was dangerous. This just happened to be very slow. Matt pulled out his flying sword, and found it was even hard to fly down. That was a good thing, because he was quite sure that Luna would have been more than willing to pull him from The Path if his life had been in actual danger.

It was like they were being resisted in their downward momentum, but still falling. It was like falling without the acceleration force that was normally applied by a planet's gravity.

He and Erwin spent over an hour mapping the Tier 3 rift out. It was a cylinder shape about a mile across, but over fifteen miles tall. If they completed the rift as intended, they would have fallen, and wouldve had to fight various birds until they reached the ground. There, to their surprise, they hovered off the soil by a few inches while fighting a much larger bird.

Matt tried to forcefully touch the ground, but even with his flying sword and Concept, he could not cross the final few hair's breadths of distance.

Erwin, on the other hand, was able to easily land and scoop up some of the soil for later testing. To both of their dismay, the soil was perfectly normal. Even the reward was subpar, as they were both well above the Tier of the rift.

It was still an interesting enough rift. It was marked to not be destroyed, unlike most other rifts. They had started removing the less interesting rifts once they started having ambient mana issues caused by all the rifts trying to feed themselves.

A month later, or four months after they started training with Kurt, Matt and Liz had completed their preparations to delve the Tier 9 rift.

When they approached Luna, she tossed Matt a bag and said, Use this with the mana combination listed.

When he looked inside, he saw a jumble of swords, potion vials half-filled, clothes, and other single-use items that he didnt recognize.

The mana list was just as odd. Luna wanted nine mana types, all with careful ratios and specific sub-aspects to be used to create the rift. Thankfully, he had all of the mana types, but the combination was odd.

Pausing most of his other experiments, Matt spent the better part of two months making Tier 9 rifts for Luna. A large portion of the rifts unaspected before they hit Tier 9, and the rest, Luna simply entered for a second before dispelling the rift.

Every time that happened, Luna changed the items and mana formula until she found what she wanted.

It was late in the evening when Luna entered the seventeenth Tier 9 rift then called Liz away from her alchemy after exiting. She said, Not what I was planning for, but itll work if youre ready. Let's go.

Matt knew they were very much not ready, and went to get Melinda. She was to wait at the entrance in order to honor their earlier agreement. They got her quickly enough for Luna to force them to wait until the instance cycled.

Then, the three of them entered the rift.

The view that met them was picturesque. They were halfway up a mountain on a forested seaside island that overlooked a calm and peaceful bay. It was protected by two arms of shore, giving the appearance of crescent moon edges that almost touched at the tips. The strips of land were crossed by an ornate wooden bridge. Below, they saw a winding dirt path framed by trees with pink leaves. It stretched on into the distance, cutting through the forested mountainside, precariously bordering the shore of the bay. Clean and perfectly round boulders dotted the sides of the path to complete the spectacle.

Matt looked at Liz and said, This is too nice. I don't trust it.

Aster sniffed around and yipped, Those trees smell like cherries. Too strong. . Can't smell anything else.

His bond then sneezed twice before growling at everything around them as her tail grew poofy, and she started to freeze their surroundings.

Liz asked, What's our vote?

Matt offered, Proceed with extreme caution after we test the place? We know she only chose this one because she thinks we'll fail.

Getting agreements from all around, Matt used [Earth Manipulation] and took control of all the ground around them, then shifted it a hair. It was a trick that Vinnie taught him. If something didn't move, it either meant that it wasn't earth, or was a single object too big to move. Either way, the test was a poor man's [Earth Sense]. Matt found nothing. Even extending into the boulders on the path, he felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing with [Earth Manipulation]... going to check with [Air Manipulation].

Putting actions to words, he repeated his test of grabbing the air and moving it a hair. It was harder than with the more static ground, but even though the natural air patterns in the rift, Matt felt nothing that his instincts or his AI noticed as off.

Looking between Liz and Aster, he said, Nothing. Any ideas?

Aster, to his surprise, yipped, I don't like the trees. Burn them.

If his ice bond wanted something burned, hed trust her instincts.

Using [Flamethrower], he set the nearest tree on fire, then used [Fire Manipulation] to ensure that the flames spread rapidly.

Still, there was nothing. No additional essence, and nothing moved besides the ashes floating in the sky.

Liz lowered her spear and tapped her armored chin. Nothing. Huh. I really expected some traps. She met his and Aster's eyes and asked, Continue on?

Matt nodded as Liz readied her spear, and a tendril of blood floated around her. Aster kept close to her heels as he took the lead.

Stopping after one step, Matt said, Let me clear the air.

Saying that, he used [Air Manipulation] to whip up a frenzy long enough to push the smoke away, and with the help of a few touches of [Fire Manipulation] removed the remaining fires.

With a clear path forward, Matt led the way, with most of his mana dedicated to both layers of [Cracked Phantom Armor].

As they passed the first copse of trees, nothing of note happened. Matt felt more on alert now, than if something had already attacked them.

After nearly two hundred feet into an open rift without being attacked, the trio became increasingly disconcerted. Add in the beautifully crafted scenery, and the whole thing seemed too perfect. The rift almost seemed to be purposely lulling them into a false sense of safety.

They were passing one of the perfectly round boulders when Matt looked back to Liz, about to ask if they should turn back. Something was wrong, and he could feel it.

As he turned, he saw the boulder swiftly and silently turn into a black-clothed, man-shaped monster. It kicked off the air and slashed out towards Lizs neck from behind with a glowing blade.

On instinct, Matt used their rings to swap places, and concentrated all of [Cracked Phantom Armor]s second layer around his head and neck, creating a shield as thick as he could muster.

His blade pierced the humanoid's chest, but at the same time, the glowing sword that had been aimed for Lizs neck adjusted trajectory, and cut Matt in the shoulder. The weapon skittered along his collarbone to his neck.

Even as his sword killed the monster, and he felt a massive rush of essence, he felt his armor breached, and could feel his windpipe fill with blood.

The next seconds were a rush of panicked emotions from Aster, who had frozen everything around them, and Liz, who was carrying Matt to the entrance of the rift.

It was only because of Luna's training that Matt managed to focus on not breathing, and using his armor to prevent the blood loss from being worse, or drowning in his own blood.

As the world changed colors, Matt quickly felt Melindas healing energy washing into him. Spitting and coughing out the blood took Matt a good few minutes, while he heard Liz explaining what had happened to everyone else who had gathered around.

That put a damper on any further training for the evening, and he, Liz, and Aster just snuggled together, recovering from the close call earlier that afternoon.

Liz held him tight and whispered, Thank you.

Matt shrugged but said nothing. He'd always willingly take a blow for Liz and Aster. That wasn't a decision that took any thought.

He shrugged. That's my job. Take the hits. You might not survive.

Aster quietly yowled a mournful tone that broke Matt's heart. Along with the sound came a mixture of emotions he had no words for, but were a mirror of what he felt when he realized that he was truly alone in the nights after the rift breaks.

Liz continued, I really dont want to find out what its like to lose my head. She looked over at Matt, then nodded and simply said, Thank you.

None of them slept until nearly dawn, but no one bothered them for the normal morning training.

***

Luna watched them sleeping only for the first few moments, pride and suffering plaguing her as she stared. Theyd made it out of the rift better than she could have hoped.

Better than I hoped at all. Her soft whisper blew off on the breeze, and she turned her attention to the next regimen of training, and how all of them needed to improve. The way forward was clear, but The Path was muddied and treacherous after all. There was no telling when one might slip and fall off without a guiding hand to catch them.

Their preparations and testing of the rift were as good as she could ask for from Tier 6s. Even if Matt had used [Earth Manipulation] on the boulder that the monster was hiding in, he wouldn't have felt anything amiss. The monster had been the stone before it transformed.

The rift was better than she expected when she had Erwin design the hardest rift he could think of. It was harder than an average Tier 10 rift. The only reason that it was a Tier 9 rift was the monster's lack of corporal forms. If their armor or clothes were broken, they had little holding them together. Or at least, that held true for the normal monsters. The sub-bosses were a different matter altogether.

It also helped that the rift had a constant danger of assassination, which would help the children in the upcoming years, whether they stayed on The Path or not.

Knowing that the kids would bounce back from this, she started to create a training regimen that would ensure they had the skills to successfully complete a rift as tricky as this one. She was stacking the deck, but she had to make the task presented possible.

If she was lucky, they would get overconfident and need rescue.

***

The next day Matt, Liz, and Aster threw themselves into the training presented.

When that was done, before he moved to start examining the rifts with Erwin, he asked Luna how to increase his defenses with [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Her answer wasn't what he wanted to hear. You need to work on your mana manipulation and stressing the skill. I would also work on changing the base form's shape more. If I were you, I'd even try to change the color. If you can remove the color entirely, you'd have the best armor in the Empire.

After she gave him some extra mana exercises that would help him, he went to join Erwin.

They had intended to work on reducing variables in rift construction, as they had most of the base elements tested.

To start, they created ten rifts with neutral mana. In theory, all of the rifts should have been identical, but they were anything but. Each rift was unique and varied. That was a problem with their elemental rifts, but they hadnt been testing for that.

The results were okay because they were just their baseline.

Then, they removed all the ambient mana from the enclosure and created ten more rifts. These rifts had slightly less variance in their features, but there was still a wide variety of aspects. They could clearly see that some of the rifts were even elementally aligned.

That particular detail stumped them for a while. The new rift creating plates that they had made actually created a flat portion at the bottom of the rifts, which should have prevented any mana from coming up through the ground. But there was clearly still something influencing the mana.

Their theory was that Matts personal mana wasn't completely pure anymore, despite Erwin, Luna, and Kurt all agreeing that it was unaspected mana.

They even made a special trip to the largest city on the planet, and found a group of kids being awakened.

To isolate that as a variable, they brought with them a struggling Tier 1 monster pulled from the most neutral rift they had made so far. For the first time, Matt got to see the other side of a mortal's awakening.

A monster was placed in the machinery connected to the awakening chairs, and then killed. The killer then shunted the essence into the machinery, where it was transferred to the teen, and then absorbed so they could step into Tier 1.

It was incredibly efficient. One Tier 1 monster could awaken two dozen mortals. The machinery was that good at splitting the essence into the smallest of portions, as only the tiniest amount was needed.

Then, they had all the kids donate their mana for a Tier 2 mana stones value in credits. It was quite the reward for them doing nothing, but Matt and Erwin were able to discern that the kids mana had no differences to Matt's. At least, none that either of them could detect in a dozen tests.

They still repeated their tests with the new mana types, to no appreciable variances.

After that failure, they redesigned their rift creating formation plates, and added a barrier as a way to keep out ambient essence, thus removing it from the formation. That required six iterations of formation plates, since they needed the plates themselves to be outside of the formation. It was similar to the designs of their earliest versions.

When they tried to create a rift with that set up, they were left scratching their heads. Even when Matt pumped in nearly a million mana into the formation, they still had no rift.

The theories they were tossing back and forth were becoming more and more esoteric. Or they were, until Liz wandered over to observe and help get them back on track.

She looked from between the locked-up formation and the pair of mad scientists, and asked, Isnt it just like the saying, Life makes mana. Mana makes essence. Essence creates rifts. Rifts convert all three? You don't have any essence in there. So no rift.

Matt and Erwin looked at each other in bemusement at their stupidity.

I can't believe we overlooked that. Matt scratched his head as he tried to laugh off the shame as Liz walked away chortling.

Erwin shrugged. Thats just how it goes sometimes, you miss the most obvious stuff. We were simply too deep into the weeds, as they say. Thats why assistants are good. Also breaks. Mostly breaks, actually.

Matt looked back to their bubble of mana and asked, So what do we do now? New formation plate time?

Erwin looked to the ring on his hand and then to the rift. He repeated that action half a dozen times, before withdrawing an essence stone and meeting Matts eyes.

Well, I guess we just add Essence? Even the older man seemed unsure.

Matt figured that nothing bad would happen as Erwin tossed the essence stone inside the barrier.

The world went blue as the mana reacted to the introduction of essence explosively.

Instinctively, Matt activated [Cracked Phantom Armor] and protected his face, but Erwin was as fast as his Tier befit.

He stuck a hand out, and instead of washing out in a fury, the energy was directed upward in a geyser of mana.

Everyone else came running as Erwin started cursing, as his hand had been almost entirely scoured of skin.

Matt was just impressed the man had been hurt at all. He never shared his exact Tier, but he had in passing mentioned his Tier 25 Talent, so he was at least that strong. To have his flesh stripped off by touching the explosion was impressive. Scary, in fact, It meant that Matt wouldnt have teeth left if the older man hadnt stepped in.

Melinda moved forward despite Erwin waving her off. Dont worry about it. I make healing potions by the ring, and you dont need to go wasting all your mana trying to patch me up. Theres a few Tiers of difference at play, after all.

The healer of the Empire ignored that entirely, and cast a [Healing Touch] on the man.

To only Erwins astonishment, the hand regrew its skin in a matter of seconds.

Erwin blinked at his hand twice before turning to examine Melinda closer, with his glasses flaring to life.

Wait, wait, wait. How did you do that? The man's eyes flicked off to the side. Wait, I got a message about that? Oh. Hm, where did those go ah. Hmm Overhealth, oh yeah Oh Oh!

He stepped forward and started murmuring as he examined Melinda. I thought that was a joke. How does that even work? Hm. Essence isnt really

Mathew asked the question that Matt was thinking. Did you really not notice that before now? Melindas been healing all of us from crippling injuries for months now.

Erwin blinked several times at all of them. Ummmm I was of course I um. Look, whats important is that theres some experiments I need to run now!

That derailed their rift experiments for a few hours, until Melinda explained her Talent and demonstrated it for the man again.

Hearing that Melinda wanted to heal old age, Erwin immediately became interested, and started drawing up plans for her to try and attack the problem. Most of his ideas had been fueled by the suggestions of Baxter, but Erwin came up with a few points that were new to Melinda, and she was happy to workshop them with the higher Tiered man.

The session ended when Erwin became more enthralled with the black goop that her Concept left behind when used on a rift monster than interested in her Talent.

After the man planted a few seeds and young plants in soil, mixed with Melindas Concept goop, Matt tried to pull him back to their rift experiments and the explosion they had set off.

When the seeds he planted instantly grew green, and then wilted to brown, he ran to drag Melinda back to take a look.

Melinda, who watched the entire process, hunched into herself. She said, Yeah my Concept is all about death. I didnt need to see a plant die in seconds.

Erwin looked like he wanted to shake her as he said, No, no This is amazing! So I call this stuff Mayfly Grass. Normally, it grows and dies in a single day, with decent soil. But it can be sped up slightly by good soil quality. Theres a few simple tests to run once it dies, which we can learn more about the chemical and magical balance of the earth from. Really good soil, even fertilized, might take a few hours. Not five point seven seconds. Anyway, the stuff your Concept makes is absurdly good at fertilizing

Erwin peered at Melinda. I dont suppose I could persuade you to make me some for my biomes? Actually, would you mind if I got you some attuned monsters to use it on? Ill need to run some tests, but what Im hoping is that this stuff might even be Essentially aspected, and that I can use that for a bit of minor terraforming. Let me get some ice-attuned potting soil. Or, I suppose, if it doesnt impact the soil attunement, then I could just get normal, low-quality stuff. I can use this to bring it up to a much higher grade, and get my garden to really flourish.

Melindas eyes went wide at the realization and mouthed what Matt thought was, only through death can new life flourish, a few times, before she pulled herself out of her trance and looked to Matt. She asked, Is he always like this?

Matt just grinned. Yeah. We lost two days when he found a new algae. It's fun, honestly.

When they finally got back to their rift explosion, they hypothesized that it was the unnatural buildup of mana. When suddenly introduced to a Tier 28 essence stone, it reacted. Badly.

Matt glared at the man for using such a strong essence stone, but he waved it off. It was the only one I had on me! I didnt expect any reaction, let alone something like that.

When they went to investigate the rift, Matt let Erwin go in first. It was the first time he saw the older man don armor. It was sleek, and looked to be made from wood, but Matt could feel the enchantments giving off a feeling of power.

He reappeared after a second, and gestured for Matt to enter.

The rift was perfectly ordinary, except for the fact it was Tier 8 from the outset. But other than that, it had no anomalies.

That discovery led them to recreate their initial test, albeit far more carefully. They still pulled most of the mana out, but Erwin redirected the tiniest fraction of essence from a captured rift monster to insert into the rift.

They added greater reinforcement to the newest iteration of the rune plates, but as they were far more careful with the amount of essence they added, there was no explosion.

There was a rift created, which they rushed into immediately. They discovered that there was nothing unique about the rift. It was a simple grass plane rift with rodent monsters.

The next rift they created had a similar general structure, but with different monsters.

They had finally been able to create a rift that had a repeatable feature.

They did the same test again with elemental mana, which proved less predictable, but they were able decrease the variability by forty percent. Still, they were unable to get a rift created through this process to Tier up without unaspecting.

Having run into another roadblock, they simply pulled back, and started to use items with no essence and elemental mana inside of the rift.

That created nearly identical rifts, as long as the rift was created in the same spot, with the same item and mana. If those conditions were met, the rifts were near clones physically. The monsters were usually similar, but not to the same degree as the terrain. The rifts were able to Tier up without unaspecting, but it was a coin flip on whether it remained the aspect that they wanted.

Their next idea was to create an essence filter, to only allow certain essence aspects to remain in the rifts creation formations.

Matt knew that cultivators and their Concepts could affect the essence in their cores, but he hadnt realized that even ambient essence could be aspected. Erwin explained it as the essence that settled around or inside the element in question. Essence that settled in the ground would be earth essence. In water, water essence, and so on.

Matt had no way to filter essence, and even Erwin struggled with it. They spent two weeks getting the first prototype set up, then over a month on improving it, before Erwin gave up and used the one they had cobbled together.

Their success at creating an essence filter was fleeting, as they failed to make any improvements to the rate at which the rifts were deaspecting.

Using the filter, barrier, and the formations analyzation function, they got an answer that they should have expected.

They already knew that essence was produced by rifts, but the problem was that the rifts created pure, neutral essence. That led them to their next hypotheses.

The rifts were deaspecting because the non-aspected essence interfered with the Tiering up process.

Even with that knowledge. they currently had no way to prevent rifts from doing exactly what they were meant to do.

Their testing with elemental rifts gave them another glimpse at what was happening. A fire rift didnt give out pure fire essence, it was about eight parts pure essence to two parts fire essence.

In retrospect, it made sense, as it explained why cultivating with ambient essence was so slow and difficult. It also explained why monsters in rifts didn't have any type to their essence. Even a fire rift would make mostly neutral essence.

Matt didn't understand that, but Erwin hypothesized that the ratio was how planets with a single rift didnt become singular elemental planets. If rift only produced elemental essence, it would eventually spread and change the whole planet.

Their testing continued for another two months, along with Lunas training, before he, Liz, and Aster decided to train in more rifts. It was time to prepare for a second attempt at the Tier 9 rift.

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