The Path of Ascension

Chapter 271

Matt descended into meditation, calling up first the image of a white hole, then constructing several layers of shell around it that could quite reasonably be referred to as Minkalla. It wasnt anything close to the original, if he was being honest. That was simply too great a task, too much for any Intent image. But, that didnt matter. An Image didnt need to bear any similarities to reality, it simply needed to be real enough to him.

His Minkalla, the result of years of refinement, wasnt anything close to the idea hed approached with wide-eyed enthusiasm at first. Oh, it was still a planet with seven layers that could rotate the floor that was deepest, and therefore closest, to his empowering white hole. It was still covered with hissing gears and gleaming brass, but it was no dungeon capable of infinite variation. It didnt have twenty-one floors to call upon, only seven. They were, ultimately, similar to the seven hed encountered, and while he could change their order, he couldnt properly conceptualize the floors he hadnt experienced.

At Tier 21, Matt shouldnt be in a rush to complete his Image, but with Liz having claimed her blood as her Anchor and Aster successfully settling on an image of a vast snowscape with glimmering auroras in the sky, he was feeling the pressure to keep up.

It wasnt like they were judging him, but he had never really struggled in the Domain department, and with the others taking the lead, he was having old feelings of inadequacy creep back up. Except this time, it had a clear answer.

Catch up with the others.

Still, personal feelings of inadequacy were no reason to rush things. That was just asking for a failure and would waste even more of his time as he rebuilt his proto Image.

Gathering himself, Matt started to resonate with his Image.

The words didnt exist to properly convey the experience, but he descended into the portion of his spirit where his Domain resided. There, a white hole hovered in the depths of space, solitary in its Endless march, spewing mana out into the cosmos. It was absolutely massive, until he took a step back and cupped it in his hand.

There, the little point of light looked so fragile, so small. It needed a home.

Crystal formed around it, not quite mana crystal, but similar, and held it within an infinite void. From there, he physically assembled the cogs and runes needed for structure and motion, suspending it at the center of what quickly became a nested brass sphere. Within that, he impressed his spirit.

Mind Over Matter was the floor hed encountered at the very bottom of Minkalla, and the pseudo-real domain took shape. Hed had to content his image with only being populated with the rifts and challenges hed personally encountered, but that was more than enough.

So, he impressed that same desire into his spirit. But just as his white hole spewed mana in place of mundane mass, so too would his floor affect mana instead of mass.

Once upon a time, he would have prioritized mana concentration above all other effects that he wanted from his Intent, but things had changed somewhat. In just a few decades, there had been a solution presented to him in the form of the mana concentration array. Sure, it was still only usable once a tier, but he believed that would eventually be overcome.

He was immortal, and even if the mana concentration effect was minuscule, he would eventually get whatever he needed from it. There was no time limit, and he had a better idea for his strongest Intent power. With the promise of getting full access to the concentration array when he completed The Path, he could wave off the intermediary losses to his mana concentration from the normal potions deficiencies. He knew he could get all of that progress back and more.

For his first floor, the one most likely to remain even if his modular idea didnt work out, he impressed on it the idea of his Mind Over Matter stripping away everything that didnt matter. He focused in on just the impact his mana and will had.

Currently, his biggest limiter in a fight was his skills and their inability to handle the amount of mana he could feed them. Oh sure, he could pour Endless amounts of mana into [Cracked Mana Spear], but hed run into the unusual issue of having too much mana to throw at it. After about 400,000 MPS pushed into the skill, extra mana didnt do much. Or at least, nothing practical. It practically blinded the spirit to study it, and gave off some very impressive light shows while it lasted, but the penetrative power simply fell off. And that was after keeping it as his innate skill for several years.

[Arcane Powershot] had practically eclipsed [Mana Bolt] for him. His modifications had all but annihilated the normal maximum mana per second charging rate at the cost of efficiency, but that didnt matter when he could just slam a million mana into it and be done.

[Lightning Torrent] was still doing just fine, able to easily handle a half-million mana before it started getting showier than was needed, but that was largely thanks to its higher-Tier status.

Ironically, what was once his most profligate skill by far, his trusty [Cracked Phantom Armor], was now one which didnt waste most of his mana when fully empowered. Each layer could handle fifty thousand mana per second, and under Lunas focus, that was a hundred thousand thousand mana spent on proper defense. There legitimately wasnt another skill that he knew of which had a better mana to toughness ratio for his Tier, outside of reserve skills, which didnt count. Even combining a few skills wouldnt outscale it, and Matt couldnt help but feel proud of his hard work. For other skills, being replaced was something natural and to be expected, upgrade orbs could sometimes be used to push a lower-Tier skill farther, but there was usually a reason higher Tier skills were preferable. But for his oldest skill, Matt refused to allow something like that to happen. Minkalla had proven how pivotal [Cracked Phantom Armor] had been to him by showing him the lives where he never got it. That was why his oldest spell had spent a good long while being modified to be more efficient, and he had to say, the results were dramatic. At full power, hed managed to tank a hit from a Tier 24 monster without so much as cracking the outer layer. Part of that was thanks to its properties as a cracked spell, but another part was how the upgrade allowed the skill to have two channels, with the second allowing him to selectively reinforce an area.

Having 2,621,440 MPS to throw at spells was a unique situation, but it was Matts to solve.

And his answer was to have his Intent do some of the heavy lifting.

He already had a large amount of willpower relative to others at his progress level, but that would be multiplied when he got his Intent. Having the next stage of a Domain didnt innately make the rest of the Domain stronger, but it did temper them and make one's willpower stronger and more robust, resulting in more power overall. If his prediction was correct, and the experts he talked to said it was entirely possible, even his initial Intent could double or triple the amount of mana a skill could take before destabilizing.

As a team, they had already tried to once more push into Tier 25 rifts. They struggled mightily, and just couldnt overcome the Tier gap without Intents of their own. The general rule was that fighting with an Intent against someone who didnt have one was roughly worth between a Tier of combat power to three on the highest end, and rift monsters were usually in the middle. Frankly, most people got at least one and a half Tiers of combat power out of an Intent, even crafters who fully specialize in crafting. Only those with a terrible connection to their Intents got just one Tier of combat power out of their Intent. Most landed in the Tier and a half range, with Domains that perfectly matched the users giving two. A three Tier combat power boost was reserved for those with combat Intents like Susanne or Duke Waters, who also had perfect compatibility, but that was rare and very much the exception to the rule.

Still, that meant they would need to be Tier 22 before they could push into Tier 25 rifts. But if they could create part of their Intents, they would get a small but noticeable bump in power, and currently, the others had that power boost.

Which was why Matt wanted to form at least part of his Intent. Aster had already noticed a small but noticeable improvement to the power of her draining spells, and Liz had noticed any spell she delivered with her blood as a medium was comparably more potent. Meanwhile, Matt was stuck using yet more mana without a good way to turn that into raw power.

Even just getting the ability to increase the mana his spells could take by a few percent would give him a massive boost in power, but to do that, he needed to make his Image.

With Mind Over Matter stabilized, he spent more time working on the interchangeability mechanism, then began filling Folded Reflections with mists.

Matt asked himself what his next biggest need in a fight was after utilizing his mana, and his answer was twofold, which forced him to make a decision. More physical power would be fantastic, but he also wanted to protect himself and his allies. Ultimately, he chose to prioritize his allies, the two most important people in his life, over his own physical strength. He could get more power from skills, but if the others died, they would be gone forever, and that was unacceptable. Instead, he pulled on the idea of the clones within Folded Reflections, and because they were part of his Intent, they were a part of him. That part was finicky, but ideally it would grant him some form of damage absorption, taking injuries in place of his allies.

It took what felt like weeks for that floor to solidify, but that was purely his conjecture, as time was ethereal in his meditation. It moved both as fast as a perfect dream where even unknown fantasies were satiated, and as slow as a nightmare when being chased by some unseen and unstoppable horror.

Taxing Skills would hopefully result in a boost in physical power, as Matt tried to tie that particular interpretation of the floor theme by emphasizing the route that he and his team hadnt been able to really take during their run- raw physical strength. No skills were needed for punching out monsters or navigating intricate labyrinths, just more physical strength.

Courtly Warfare was dedicated to defense. It was an endless battlefield, and that meant it required endless defense of vulnerable places. But, he still wanted something which he could use for offense, and the generals served as an excellent reference point for his hopeful effect. They were mobile fortresses, spawned from unassailable defense and sent forth as unparalleled offense. The war itself tied in as well, a push and pull between attacking and defending, which suited his Intent well, particularly given in that reality that he had been the one leading the armies to victory.

Back to Basics was a bit of a gamble.

His Intent was already meant to be modular, but he knew that once he set his Image and Intent as a whole, he would be locked into those choices, and he really liked the idea of versatility. After all, it was a core part of his very being. Thanks to his mana, Matt could do anything. Crafting? He might never be as good as a dedicated crafter with a Talent and Domain for it, but he could be passable. Magic? He had more mana then a squadron of mages, and thanks to Minkalla, the Innate skill slot to really abuse a skill. He would never match the mages who specialized in a single element, like Liz did with blood, but that was fine. He didnt need to match them, but counter them. And thanks to his mana and Luna ensuring his breadth of skills was as wide as possible, there were few things he couldn't counter. Melee fighting? Matt wasnt Talented with his longsword like Tara was her bow, but he was damn good with a blade. He also couldnt match the raw physicality innate to someone like Kyle, who had a Talent to double his physical strength, but Matt had enough mana to outpower Kyle by stacking buffs. He could even throw Girang around with physical superiority when they had fought. He had ultimately lost that fight, but that didnt change the raw physical advantage his Talent afforded him.

Versatility was in his blood, and he wanted to capture some of that.

To that end, he doubled down on the way Back to Basics reset a persons cultivation. An unawakened person could be anything, after all. An orphan could be an ascender, a princess of fire could be a warrior of blood. A random schoolgirl could be the greatest healer ever seen. Awakening, and cultivation itself, enabled one to become anything.

It came together quite easily, all told.

With Genesis Cultivation, he was finally able to work in mana concentration. After all, essence was just hyper-concentrated mana, and Genesis Energy was practically hyper-concentrated essence. While he was on that floor, he imagined all of his mana being replaced with genesis energy, but also slowly refining his mana into Genesis Energy. Even if it didnt directly enhance his concentration, it should enhance his overall spellwork.

The logic had sounded a bit shaky to Aster, but hed spent months reconciling the ideas. It would work. Luna, Kurt, and April had all assured him that what mattered was his understanding of the concept, and he could feel it in his bones.

Eternal Darkness only had one real possible effect, but one that was undeniably useful. In theory it could resolve into some kind of general stealth or invisibility power, but Matt was nudging it towards making his spirit and mana harder to sense. The former was just a natural consequence of Tiering up, as the spirit naturally became harder to nudge in the right ways to gauge the properties of a persons Talent, Domain, or skills, but he wanted it strengthened. The second would obscure just how much mana he was making, something he was quite understandably concerned about people noticing. His mask was helping with that, particularly his self-buff spells, but as he used more and more mana in external attacks, it was only getting more likely that someone would notice just how much mana he was putting out.

Even that wasnt the worst fate. As Matt, his Concept publicly gave him even more mana regeneration than it gave to those around him, but he was getting to the point of having more mana than could be explained by even that.

The compatibility of a floor meant to hide everything and his desire to hide his mana slotted together fairly easily.

As his willpower infused the Image he had so painstakingly built, Matt reveled in success. Or at least, the first portion of it.

Forming the Image wasnt even half the battle. He had created and discarded dozens, if not thousands, of Images in the last few years before really settling on his modular Intent. The next step to check compatibility was filling the Image with willpower. If the Image fell apart, it could mean two things. Either the Image itself was built poorly, or the Image didnt match well with the individual trying to make it.

If it was the second, they had two options. Change the Image or themselves. Intents were, like Aunt Helen said, all about where you wanted to go, but just because it was about a direction to go didnt mean you were in the right place to set out on that journey. Sometimes, you needed to get to that starting point before you could start, and other times, you realized you just werent cut out for that journey in the first place, and started looking for another.

If the Image took the willpower without crumbling, that didnt mean you were in the clear. No, there was one more step, and it was, without a doubt, the hardest step.

Locking the Image in while also keeping the idea behind it in place. It was the step where most failed, and even the smallest mistake or lapse of thought could send everything tumbling down.

He needed to keep everything in mind about his Image, which was a hard enough task with a single idea, but his modular Intent had seven other ideas inside of one and he needed to juggle all of those at once.

As Matt pulled the Image deeper into his Domain, letting his willpower wash over, around, and through it, he kept the idea of a modular Intent front and center without losing sight of the seven floors he had in mind and all of their many intricacies and minutiae. It was like trying to juggle a dozen different weighted objects with his feet, all while blind folded, but that was why they had practiced this. It was why Luna, Kurt, and April pushed them to understand their prospective Intents so deeply. It was why they played mind games where they needed to keep track of a dozen ideas. It was why they played around with their Intents, even in the middle of a battle.

All to be ready for this moment.

A moment where nothing could go wrong, and they needed to be perfect.

As things started to settle, Matt felt a creeping feeling of foreboding.

Something was wrong, but he didnt know what.

He checked his Image, and it was stable.

He checked his understanding of his many floors, but they were also solid.

Slowing down, he kept a steady progression of claiming his Image.

It was when he was nearing the halfway point Matt knew something wasnt just going wrong, but was wrong.

His Image had started to turn thin and fragile between one heartbeat and the next.

Taking stock, he knew he needed to make a choice.

Should he push on, or should he abandon this Image?

Every lesson he had been taught told him pushing forward was a bad idea, and despite his obstacle and desire to create part of his Intent, he knew it was the smart play. Even as he tried to stop and retreat, he found that the damage was already done, and his Image was collapsing in on itself.

He felt like he shouldnt know why it was collapsing, but he knew exactly why it was doing so.

His modular Intent wasnt perfect. At least not perfect for him.

It was that simple.

His Domain wasnt rejecting it entirely, it had been partly successful. But his Concept was perfect, and a non-perfect Image just couldnt survive being built upon such a foundation like he tried to do with having his white hole power the Intent Image.

He wanted to scream, yell, and rage at the realm, but he was too busy trying to frantically hold his Image together to manage that. Decades of work and visualization was falling apart in front of his eyes and he couldn't do anything about it. The weeks spent perfecting a floor layout, the months spent shaping each unique copy of himself inside a floor. The years spent embodying a floor's idea and ensuring it was both important to him and would be useful going forward.

It had been a waste of effort.

Pointless.

Trying to stop a catastrophic collapse which would damage his Domain and spirit, Matt gripped the shattering fragments of his Intent. He was slowly backing away and pulling his energy out, trying to limit his injuries to just a lungful of blood and a migraine, when he had a flash of insight.

It wasnt an Inspiration like when he had seen a white hole in person. Just a normal, mundane idea. A gut feeling he knew to trust.

Part of it was Liz and seeing her reviving. Part of it was Aster and how she found beauty and life in frozen wastelands. Part of it was Luna, who pushed him to limits he didnt know he had. Part of it was Kurt, whose silent support was always there to make sure Matt knew a path less walked might be more full of obstacles, but could still be walked. Part of it was April, who was learning just as much as he was, and who showed him that one never stopped advancing until they chose to. Part of it was Mara and Leon, who gave him unwavering love despite their station. Part of it was the Emperor, who held up the sky and enforced justice and morality on everyone underneath him through power and example. Part of it was Aunt Helen, who didnt mind doing things the hard way when others would have given up long ago.

Sometimes, it was only through the ashes that new life could grow.

Instead of stopping the collapse of his Intent, Matt rushed forward. He pushed. He twisted. He bent. He tore. He squeezed.

The pain was overwhelming, but even as he was blacking out, he saw his answer.

A planet's worth of mass collapsed into his Concept, but instead of being repelled like everything else was, it sank in and started absorbing. Condensing.

For a brief moment before the interaction of his White Hole Concept Image and the fragmented Black Hole Image started to fight each other, Matt understood.

***

Aster was sitting there with Liz and Luna as Matt sat in his meditative trance.

The lotus position wasnt her preferred style to sit, but it was Matts. Sometimes, he even sat like that on the couch, and when he was meditating, he seemed to default to it even if he started laying down, like he had this time.

She didnt really get it, but it worked for him, and her bond could do as he pleased.

When he had said that he wanted to create his Image last month, she had been surprised, but when his meditative trance had passed the week long mark, she had known something was odd. Not necessarily wrong, but not normal.

Luna had assured her things were fine, but as one week turned into two, then three, even Aster got worried.

Still, all of them could feel as Matt slowly condensed his Image. Aster could feel it through her own Image, despite not having an Intent Image of her own. Through their bond, she could even feel how careful Matt was being, and when he started realizing his Image, she had been excited.

When things had started to go wrong, and she felt him starting to pull back, Aster had figured that his Image needed a little more work, and he would retreat before making a second attempt in a few months. It had taken her two attempts to claim her Anchor, and it had taken Liz over a dozen, with her nearly exploding each time before she got it, her body not quite able to handle the transition. A momentary setback wasnt the end of the world, but instead of stopping the collapse like he seemed to start doing, Matt seemed to go crazy.

Aster felt it when he deliberately started accelerating the collapse of his Image and so did the others. Liz jumped to her feet, but before she took even a step, she froze.

Aster wasnt faster, but she was connected to Matt in a way that Liz wasnt, and she tried to pull on that connection to stop Matt, but before she could, Luna loomed over her. Not physically, as Luna hadnt moved from where she stood, but rather, the other bond had flexed her cultivation and pushed its weight at Aster. Like a kit once more, she instinctively retreated and shrunk back, unable to cross the stronger woman.

It wasnt a threat, but Aster damn well knew that if she continued to test her, Luna would have knocked her unconscious before allowing her to interrupt Matt.

Liz groaned out the words Aster wanted to as Matts flesh started to curdle like old milk before falling away in strips. Need. To. Help. Him.

Luna didnt even blink as she watched. You both felt it. This was deliberate. Dont interrupt him. You all learned from failure, and Matt clearly thought this was necessary.

Aster wanted to complain, but she was too lost in horror as Matt started to melt.

He was taking serious Domain damage that she could feel leaking into his spirit, and it kept getting worse until his Intent Image fully collapsed, and the failure was fully disintegrated.

The moment it did, the three of them appeared in a hospital room with two healers and a dozen nurses ready to start working on Matt.

They quickly healed his flesh, and while it removed the curdled look from his skin, there was still considerable damage, and she felt as his already stressed body and spirit rejected the healing.

Aster didnt know why Matt had done it, but even while he was unconscious, she felt the almost smug satisfaction from her bond.

Liz growled at Luna, That was reckless! You should have let us stop him.

Luna didnt seem to even hear Liz, but Aster wasn't sure if she was preoccupied or just flat out ignoring her.

Instead, Aster shared what she knew. That was intentional. I

I know, I Liz interrupted her, but Aster raised her voice a little to take back control.

I could feel even more than you could. He did it intentionally and understood something at the end there. This might seem bad, but I think it will be worth it.

Aster expected Liz to say something, but Luna turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow, clearly asking for clarification, so Aster gave it. Before he fell unconscious, he was smug about something. I mean, Matt is smug about a lot of things, but he had the same feeling when he had an idea that I said wouldn't work, and he proved it could work. It was like that, and that was the dominant feeling I could feel through our bond at the end.

Liz smiled at that, but Luna nodded. Physically, he's fine. Hell need more healing, but the damage to his Domain is serious. It's not shattered, but it's more cracked than when you shifted your bloodline, Aster. Stay with him until he wakes up

She trailed off, and one of the healers answered the unasked question. Hes stable and should be waking up within an hour.

Aster didnt like it. An hour unconscious for an immortal was basically an eternity. Matt had taken quite some damage.

Luna nodded to show she heard the healers and their nurses filed out of the operating room, leaving the four of them to themselves.

Now, all they could do was wait.

Wait and worry.

Damn Matt owed her a new ice cream flavor for making her worry so much.

***

Matt groaned as he woke up, and contrary to what he expected, the first sight he had when he woke up was Luna staring at him.

She was in cat form and sitting on the nightstand next to his bed.

That seemed wrong, but his mind was foggy, and he struggled to place what exactly was out of place.

The cough from his other side made him blink as there was a second, human, Luna.

He was trying to figure out why Luna had cloned herself when his vision started to clear, and a blinding headache hit him like a runaway train.

That spike of pain cleared his vision completely, and he realized that the cat who was next to him was actually a water bottle with a logo on it, and the human Luna was the real one. He also saw Liz and Aster, who were giving him worried and questioning expressions.

The human Luna spoke first. She didnt ask him if he was ok or anything, which reminded Matt why Liz had such bad bedside manners as a healer. What happened?

Matt waved his hand and winced at the pain. It felt like his joints were filled with sand. Even flaring [Lesser Regeneration] did nothing to ease the pain, but pain was something he had more than enough practice ignoring and so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

When I was making my Image, it felt like things were going well, but then things started to destabilize and I realized the modular Intent wasnt perfect for me. I could have probably made it work if I put another decade of work into it, or reworked the power source, but first of all, I didnt want a subpar Intent, and secondly, I had the idea that I might be able to learn something through the failure. And I was right.

Liz grabbed his hand, and Aster transformed into her fox form and jumped on his chest as he spoke, and he pulled them both into a hug to reassure them he was ok. He knew how worried they would be, and he could feel just how worried Aster was through their bond.

Grinning, he was about to speak when he paused to cough up some blood. Spitting it out into a waiting cup, he continued, Well, I think I know what my Intent really is. Letting the anticipation build, he only continued when Aster started pawing at his side. My image didnt just fall apart, it collapsed. A shining star of brass, with a singularity at the center. Everything about Minkalla was built on the white hole, but it shifts and changes too much, moves about and Anyway, it wont work for me. But in that collapse, I saw my true image. A black hole, inverted from a white hole into something which the realm revolves around. At that point, I passed out, but I can feel it now.

Liz opened her mouth to speak, but Luna beat her to it. Im glad you learned something from the failure, but Matt, do you remember what I said about mirror Intents the last time you asked about them?

Matt nodded. He hadnt forgotten, but he simply didnt care. If any part of the Domain is the polar opposite of another part, it can be exceptionally hard to form, as the new portion will only be truly stable once its fully completed, so forming it is outstandingly hard. Also, using both parts of the Domain at once can be incredibly challenging if not outright impossible. I know all that. But Luna, it felt right. It was perfect. I could feel it. Even as the black hole Image fell apart, it was singing at me.

Luna didnt refute him, but instead nodded. As long as you know. Now that you are awake, we need to get moving. The healers say you are going to be out of commission for at least six months, probably closer to a year, before you can use your Concept.

Matt winced at the news. There were consequences he couldn't heal away with [Lesser Regeneration], and he was now paying for his reckless actions. Still, the price seemed worth it.

Or at least, it did until he tried to feel out his Concept. Even just feeling it felt like he had swallowed shards of hot glass, and he gasped.

Looking at his manager, he asked, Did you feel this bad when you slowed my Inspiration?

Her grin was feral as she said, Worse.

With that, she vanished and left him to Liz and Aster, who immediately started berating him for being so foolish.

He wanted to protest, but he really had earned it.

That didnt mean it wasnt worth it, and they all knew it.

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