The Path of Ascension

Chapter 310

Lila snorted as she watched the rift entrance.

Going off Susannes normal delving times, the girl should be coming out of the rift any minute. But others, not Lila, expected that the girl would stay within the rift for a few months yet, pushing for an Inspiration. If she managed to find one, and emerge as Tier 24, people would politely ignore questioning when, exactly, the inspiration happened, and allow her to continue on the Path.

But those people werent Ascenders, and Lila knew that Susanne would never bother with such trickery.

The girl was like her blade. Like Lila. Sharp and to the point. All tooth and claw.

Petty little games like that were beneath her.

Fifteen minutes before she was expected to come out, the rift rippled and Susanne stepped out. She still wore an eyepatch from where shed lost the organ a year past, there was a hole in her chest where something had nibbled on her, a streak of green embedded in her flesh that Lila could feel eating away at her spirit and flesh, and three of her vertebrae were fused together. But despite it all, Susanne stepped out of the rift under her own power.

She stepped out as a Tier 23. One hundred and eighty-three years old, and just under two-thirds of the way to Tier 24.

Queen had officially fallen off the Path of Ascension.

Lila couldnt pierce the mask the woman wore, but she didnt need to. Susanne never hid anything but the bare minimum needed to conceal her identity.

Raising her gaze, she tilted her head at the silent woman, just waiting. She wanted to see how Susanne would react to knowing she had failed within spitting distance of her goal. That it was the hardest step meant nothing when one was that close.

Others had wanted to come and do this, but Lila had put her claw down and inserted herself. She wouldnt say that she and Susanne were one and the same, they werent long lost family members who just needed to meet once to grow close. No, it was far more simple than that.

They were dragons of a scale.

Some compared Queen to Duke Waters, two Domain prodigies clawing themselves forward one bloody step at a time. But that wasnt quite right. Aiden was an utter maniac, throwing himself into the deep end like there was nothing else worth living for. If hed failed forming his Intent and killed himself, drowning in the self-same depths he sought to drag others down into, he would have done so with a grin on his face, thrilled just as much by failure as success. That he had survived his ordeals was less effort and more happenstance.

That wasnt who Susanne was. No, Lila saw herself in Susanne. Wings squared, fire in their throat, and an unquenchable determination that if reality had deemed them worthy of a mundane, meaningless little life, then it was reality which was incorrect. Neither of them were particular exemplars of their species by birth, it was the way in which they acted which distinguished them.

If Susanne needed some comfort, Lila believed she was the best one to deliver it.

Susanne looked up and met her eyes before she reached up and pulled off her mask and tossed it to the side.

I failed.

Lila nodded.

Susanne took a deep breath before letting it out.

It hurts. I saw it coming a while ago, but it still hurts.

Lila raised a wing and shifted her legs to create a bit of a seat under her wing.

Susanne dragged her broken body over and flopped onto Lilas leg. Lowering her wing, Lila poked her head into the little tent and blinked one massive eye at the younger girl, getting ready to keep the girl from falling apart.

Susanne looked at a blood and dirt-covered hand and flexed it. I almost wish I made a mistake. Then I could blame everything on that, but there were no mistakes. I thought getting my Talent to work on my sword would do it, that if I did everything right, it would be enough. It wasnt. I wasnt.

Lila nosed the girls leg as a few tears slid silently down her face. She was expecting the floodgates to open, but they didnt, and Lila just waited.

Eventually, she offered a suggestion. I wont waste words on telling you how well you did, but you can do anything now. Take a decade or three off and go explore the Empire. Spend some time with your brother. Go fight in some blade tournaments. Do whatever is what that you werent able to do with your delving schedule.

Susanne cocked her head at Lila, her tears already stopped. Is that an order? I expected the Empire to bring me directly into the war when I fell off.

Lila shrugged a wing. Who cares what they think. You have spent your entire adult life chasing their dream. Do something for yourself.

Susanne shook her head. That sounds awful.

Lila couldn't help it and snorted a laugh.

If the Empire doesnt expect me to join the war, I dont know what I would do with myself. It seems the natural place for me. Im a combatant, I fight to live and live to fight. I wouldnt know what to do with myself if I wasnt fighting.

Lila inspected Susanne, and with her tail scooped the fallen Queen mask. Dropping the mask in Susanne's lap, Lila poked her with her tail. Sand filled the Tier 23s wounds where it roiled and bubbled for a moment before falling away to reveal perfectly healed flesh.

Uncoiling, Lila transformed into her muscular human form and stared at Susanne.

Walking around her, she made a show of inspecting the young girl.

Susanne tracked her every movement, but never did more than turn her head.

Youve done well, better than anyone could possibly hope for. You started this journey a small, scared little girl who wanted nothing more than a way to provide for her brother, and oh how you have ever succeeded. Youve found yourself, molded yourself, tempered yourself in the fiercest forge the realm has to offer. Fate has smiled upon you, to be sure, but nobody makes it this far on luck alone. There are few in the entire realm who can boast a sharper, surer blade than yours, and yet even as one Path is closing, a new path has opened before you, one wider than you can possibly imagine.

You live for the fight, the struggle, because that has been your entire life. Yet it is not where you define yourself in your core, isnt it? You desire to be reliable, to be useful, to never give way. Right now, your Domain is presenting you a choice. Youve pushed forward, never faltering on the Path for your entire life, but that is not the only place in which a sword may be useful. You yourself have learned that, havent you? Your sword is your pen, your instrument for writing your legacy upon the fabric of the realm itself. And now, its an open book, ready for you to tell any story you desire. So what shall it be?

Susanne blinked at her, then her expression firmly set itself. I dont know about all that. I guess so? But a sword is a weapon, I dont know what kind of story I can write if I stop now, though. The fights not over yet.

Lila laughed and tapped the gem embedded in her chest before crossing her arms. Well, I suppose that only leaves how you want to fight. Do you want to stay where you are, stay at Tier 23, and be the scourge of the Tier? Do you want to advance to Tier 25, fight at some of the fiercest battlefields of this war? Join the Ascenders. Or push to Tier 35, and keep sharpening your sword for the next war?

It sounds like I have options?

Lila manifested a tail out of sand and smacked at Susanne, not bothering to uncross her arms. I already told you, no one will tell you what you must do. They can offer suggestions, but they wont force anything. Ill make sure of that.

Ascenders?

Lila nodded, not bothering to look up the information she knew she didnt have access to. If you want, you could join the Ascenders on their little team. You get along well with Matt, Liz, and Aster, and you and Light can sit there in silence perfectly fine. You might try to kill Shadow, but everyone tries to do that at some point, so youd be in good company. Is that what you want? Do you want to join them? Finish the sprint to Tier 25, maybe through essence stones, maybe with a group of soldiers pushing up the Tiers themselves?

Susannes eyes tracked Lila as she moved to step in front of her. It sounds like there is another option.

Lila grinned. Her human form had human teeth, but she had worked hard to pull as much draconic aura into this action and knew its unsettling effects on most. Her own human was sometimes unnerved by the sight if she caught him off guard.

Susanne didnt even blink. Spend some time with me. Youll get the pinnacle elite treatment. The Empire will stuff you with every resource you can dream of while me and you will do what you like best. Fight. Fight every day, for everything. Im not exactly a trainer, but I can make sure youre ready for the fight no matter what. Interested?

Susanne looked down to the Queen mask but didnt immediately speak. Instead, she rubbed a thumb over the screaming face before the mask vanished into a spatial ring.

Her greatsword seemed to turn even more real before Susanne looked up and nodded to Lila.

With a flap of her wings, she broke into sand and swept over the area, pulling Susanne into a timeless moment. Then, because she was no Shadow, Lila broke through the barriers to Chaotic Space, effortlessly navigating the shallows until she reached her destination, a Tier 40 rift sometimes used for this very sort of training. She swept inside, cleared out a planet-sized chunk of the rift, and returned to the entrance.

Then, she released Susanne from her stasis.

The girl stumbled slightly, but looked around at the sandy dunes all around them.

I feel like I shouldnt be surprised youd go to a desert, she grumbled.

Lila bared her teeth in a grin, There are no prying eyes here, and I daresay youll be ready to surprise them when you next emerge.

Then, she roared.

The motes of time, already stretching one moment into sixty, flew into the gem embedded into her chest before flying out, slowed a hair more before they repeated the cycle again and again. She needed to pace herself, yes, but she could manage this at least. Within the bubble of further-slowed time, sand swirled around them, erosion seemingly running in reverse as a massive stadium rose from the ground. Stone walls and stone floors, pillars and trees, and finally enemies.

The sand never forgot what had been lost within it, nor did it ever truly let go.

A Tier 28 monster, effortlessly snuffed out some time ago for this very purpose, reconstituted itself from the sand. But, instead of instantly pouncing on Susanne with mindless fury, it held itself back, waiting for Lila to direct its every action.

Mere rift monsters were insufficient practice for one who would fight beside an Ascender, but monsters perfectly controlled by an Ascender, complete with essence for advancement?

Susanne may not have completed the Path of Ascension, but Lila would ensure that the Empires enemies still feared the name of Queen.

***

Emperor Emmanuel Sophron knew that scheduling a meeting with the capital's advisors right after open court was a bad idea. Open court was a duty he had to the people of his realm, as was actually managing their lives through his policies, so the two meetings happening back to back should have been natural.

The reality of the situation wasnt so pleasant.

The moment he entered the meeting room, the seven usual members of this meeting nodded to him.

When he had first taken over from his father they had stood and bowed, but that was wasted seconds he had done away with.

Even before he sat down, the first advisor, Fiona, administrator of mana, spoke. In the last year we have had to evacuate six hundred and fifteen low rent apartment buildings due to them dipping into their mana reserves. Fo

Fiona stopped as Emmanuel held up a finger and started diving into the documents that were waiting for him. He had his office mode Talent set active, and in less than a heartbeat, he had sorted through and digested the reports.

He didnt like what he saw, but that had no bearing on reality. For all his truly immense power, he had limits, both political and absolute. And this war put all of that into such sharp focus. He was juggling the worst mana shortages hed seen in his rule, generations of mortals growing up with a war hanging over their head, and his attention was spread so thin that hed simply been unable to intervene as much as he normally could.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Even the places where his changes were lingering hospitals with healing-strengthening fields that lasted for a century, parks whose aura could help blunt the strongest trauma, rifts whose rewards were enhanced and their danger reduced were being pushed to their limits. Mortals and immortals simply flowed into the opportunities he had left, spreading out their benefits, and he simply had to trust that they were generally better off than before. Reassurances that the other Great Powers were as pressed as his own made the situation no better. Not to him, and not to the millions whose lives had been upended in the past year alone.

Spatial expansion was a technology which countless people took for granted and relied on for a daily basis. It was the only true way to make more space, and for the trillions of people who called Sophron Imperium Maginex home, there was no alternative. But the more it was pushed, the more expensive it got. Personal storage rings could function just fine on passive mana consumption, operating nearly indefinitely for nearly no mana, but buildings

Emmanuel sighed as he read the report. Hundreds of apartment buildings had been evacuated as theyd begun dipping into their emergency reserves of mana. It could cost tens of thousands of mana per day to run the spatial engines for a smaller apartment alone, some of which had levitation costs on top of that, and that was before anything which was under any form of control, like stasis fields, resting-fields for sleeping, or personal enchantment.

Disastrously, the low-mana alert system in one of the buildings had failed, and while objectively casualties were low, that was little consolation to the dozens of families who had lost someone in the spatial collapse. Even that was its own form of miraculous, as a pair of Tier 42s had been able to evacuate most of the people still inside before the violent implosion. Technically, there could still be some survivors tucked away in a pocket dimension, but until the spatial debris cleared, it would take a specialist to properly investigate.

It was always the low-income, low-Tier buildings, too. Higher-Tier or wealthier areas could afford better spatial engines, reducing or outright eliminating the need for ongoing mana costs.

At least, he noted, there was one glimmer of hope in that for a good number of the buildings, their disastrously low mana reserves were due to simple corruption. Those could be salvaged easily enough with new management. What was trickier were the situations where it was simple mismanagement. It wasnt even true incompetence, just a lack of knowledge for the intricacies needed to run an apartment building properly. The hardest of all were the situations where the management was competent, and the engines were properly maintained, but they simply couldnt keep running without a shift in their mana allotment.

The real issue was the war. It added a drain on everything as healers healed the ships full of wounded, the crafters worked night and day to make replacement equipment, and floods of potions of every description needed to be made and consumed.

As much as it hurt the lowest rungs of society, the war and those who fought in it took priority. Wars were an economic drain for all the Great Powers, which was why wars usually only lasted two to five hundred years. Any longer than that, and any of the Great Powers would start to seriously struggle to keep up the efforts unless they wanted to dig into their foundations and start making hard sacrifices.

Mana.

It all came down to mana.

Theyd been able to offset some tiny fraction of the problem thanks to Matthew. Both the mans own mana contributions, and Emmanuels usage of his Talents in conjunction with a relevant Tier 25 talent of his own, for what few hours per day he could spare were making a difference. He was keeping more people in their homes and more people fed and healthy. But even that was barely more than the mana costs required to keep the palace in good condition, let alone Emmanuels personal delving.

None of that mattered.

Hed figure something out.

He always did.

Most of the displaced individuals had been able to find other housing, but that was no true solution.

Emmanuel needed a better answer that could cut this issue off as much as was possible.

Looking to Fiona, he nodded for her to continue as he thought. Four hundred and sixty-three factories shut down due to a combination of not being able to afford taxes, expansions, or wages. Tier 47 rifts are starting to show signs of instability. I have already pushed all rift slots back, but the guilds and Tier 46s are upset. Some are throwing tantrums and withholding some of their taxes on the pretense that they needed to use the mana to stabilize their rifts.

Emmanuel narrowed his eyes as he looked down the list of offenders.

He was tempted to go visit them in person, but he genuinely didnt have the time for that. Instead, he sent them all a message. It was simple. Taxation is not a suggestion.

A quick glimpse into the future told him that would be more than enough to get them back under heel, but he wouldnt forget their names going forward. If the strongest of his Empire thought they could shirk their duties, they were sorely mistaken.

That should be handled. Fiona, what are we seeing about the Exodus Plan?

We have seen a few million Tier 5 and below sign up, but few people are willing to leave the capital and its environments for the border regions. It helps keep numbers down, but it's little more than a rounding error when compared to local birth rates. In brighter news, food rationing for immortals has been a success. Overall mana expenditure on high Tier food stuffs are nearly half that of pre-war levels, and were hoping to drive it down even lower within the next few decades.

Emmanuel nodded his acknowledgement before thinking and deciding the risk was worth it. I will be bringing a Tier 30 planet into the capital system in the next six months. I want you to push the initiative for that planet in particular. That should be a more attractive destination for the lower Tiers. Push the incentives as high as you need.

Looking at Darrell, his maintenance and construction minister, Emmanuel almost grinned at the panicked look on his face at the news that there would be a new planet dumped on his lap. He was surely worried where the Empire had gotten a Tier 30 world and how he would be expected to not only pacify it, but get it ready for an influx of settlers.

Putting one of the Farms planets in the capital system was a daring move, but Emmanuel hoped it would shore up some of the failing systems. That much new land combined with untouched rifts would cause an economic surge in the Tier 30 range which would cascade down. The mana generation it could provide would hopefully make up the deficit for a few years, even a few decades if they were truly lucky, but then it would be swallowed up by the insatiable public once again.

Still, he didnt complain and say it was impossible, which was why he was here. It's an untouched world, so plan for that. Open it up like normal and make people pay for the privilege of subjugating it. That, and the resources pulled out of it should help all of our systems for a while as the new construction and settling helps stimulate those stagnant sectors of the economy.

Hopefully a while would be long enough that he was able to reallocate some more of the Farm's resources into the economy without tipping his hand. The Farm wasnt created with just raw mana, but resources that were hard to just dump into the economy without negative effects. Even the mana was hard to add into the capital without causing every spy to start digging into where the mana was coming from.

Darrell nodded but said nothing, even as his eyes flicked back and forth.

Emmanuel didnt need to waste the mana looking into the future to know Darrell would do a fine job. Instead he looked to Saanvi, the aide of his second kingdom. She acted like half a queen and half regent.

Things are mostly stable, but Duke Abelard experienced a catastrophic chain of spatial collapses on his capital world, killing fifteen million. And Duke Ull had a Tier 35 food rift vanish, greatly reducing their expected food reserves.

Emmanuel frowned as he reviewed the information. Fifteen million wasnt even a fraction of a percent of the population that lived on the Tier 37 ducal planet, but it was a lot of lives that had been lost for no good reason. It was inexcusable, despite the list of excuses the Duke had sent him.

After pondering the best way to handle this, he ordered the duke to arrive before him. He wouldnt kill him, but he was going to make an example of the duke to remind the others they had a duty to the lower Tiers.

If they forgot that, he might forget his duty to them.

None of them wanted that.

Worse than fifteen million deaths were the billions that would starve unless more food was rerouted to Duke Ulls duchy. An investigation would need to be done as to why such a critical asset had been allowed to collapse, but food could be shipped in from nearby worlds for long enough to set up the infrastructure for a new farm rift to be spun up. It would cause some problems, but hopefully none would starve.

He was opening his mouth to say something when Carissa slipped into the room. That was so unexpected, his mind raced through a dozen worrying possibilities before he processed her body language.

While she seemed a little scared, the main emotion he read from her was excitement.

That didnt explain why she had arrived with no warning, but his wife never entered a meeting of his unless it was of the utmost importance, which worried him.

When she didnt immediately speak, his worry ratcheted up to eleven, and he followed her eyes quickly darting to the others in the room before snapping back to him.

Leave.

His single word sent the others scurrying, but that wasnt fast enough, and with a flex of his will and a spell, he teleported them out of the room.

What's wrong?

Carissa tried to smile but her lip trembled a little, which made Emmanuel send his spiritual perception out across the star system, and when he didnt notice anything wrong, he extended it through chaotic space to the nearest dozen worlds.

We did it. Or you did it. I kind of just laid there. A beast you are. Really. I

Her half trembling words hit him harder than a sword from Hastor ever could have as he registered what she meant.

Swapping to a combat Talent set, Emmanuels physical capabilities skyrocketed and he moved. The floor, wall, and everything behind him evaporated as they failed to handle his power, but he couldn't care less. All that mattered was reaching his wife.

Scooping her up, he spun her and took pleasure in watching as her eyes tried to track him and failed.

Her hands went to her hips, or more accurately, womb.

Careful there.

Emmanuel couldn't contain his grin as he flexed space and pulled the two of them to a garden he knew she loved. The fall colors contrasted nicely with the evergreens, but Emmanuel didnt feel the slight cold with his powers.

Carissa slammed one of her fists on his shoulders with her full strength, the other still holding her lower body, but Emmanuel barely felt them in his combat state and kept spinning her in a slow circle, just enjoying the moment.

After a moment, she stopped hitting him and pulled his head to her hips. Oh fine you brute. See what you did to me.

With permission, Emmanuel nipped her, enjoying the small yelp before sending his spiritual perception carefully inside his wife. At their Tier, just about anything could mess things up, but with his current Talents, he was unlikely to run into that problem. Still, he was as careful as a mouse who knew a cat was about, delicately running his awareness of the world forward.

There, he found a few cells which seemed like the entire world.

A fertilized and successfully implanted egg.

A little bit of himself and Carissa.

For immortals, the hard part was over. With the control over their bodies, manually fertilizing an egg was easy, but most of the time that ended up in a failed attempt. It was the curse of immortality and its lowered fertility rates. Potions existed, of course, but they only helped so much by the time one was dealing with a Tier 50 and 47. He also had Talents to offset the difficulty, but unless he wished to functionally grow his offspring in a potion flask, which he did not, many simply fell short of the momentous task of crossing the conception barrier for a Tier 50. That he could only try one at a time was a further hurdle, but one that was now crossed.

And now, they merely needed to allow nature to take its course, and they would have a child.

Their child.

He felt full of energy at the thought.

Manny could have trivially checked the sex of the embryo, but he and Carissa had talked about that, and decided to let it be a surprise. Instead of peeking, he wrapped his future child in a protective layer of spells that would both protect them and keep others from spying. A surprise would mean little if everyone else knew.

Alright, put me down. Enough is enough, Carissa said with an audible eyeroll. But she caressed his hair to take any sting out of the words.

Setting her down on a stone bench, Manny sat down next to his wife and noticed her grin matched his own.

Taking her hands into his own, he kissed them. We did it.

Carissa bounced her eyebrow. We? I dont know. I think I did most of the hard work.

Snorting, Manny pretended to take offense and pointed out her change in tune, Someone said otherwise earlier. Clearly it was all my mighty

Ok, ok, it was a team effort. So dramatic. Can't take even a small loss.

Manny smiled and looked down as he turned to the next most important topic. When do you want to have them?

Heirs in the Sophron dynasty technically had less importance than in dynasties past, and if none of his children were fit to rule, he wouldnt hesitate to pass the throne to someone else, but that was unlikely. Like himself and his siblings, his children would be raised with the expectation that one of them would rule because it was their duty. Their responsibility. Time would tell for certain, but even among nobles who swore to pass their holdings to a worthy successor, not inherently a related one, it was rare for it to genuinely pass outside of the family.

He was only a few thousand years into his rule, but the question of heirs had already come up. The nobles of the realm wanted to know who their future ruler might be, and so did the rest of the populace. It was human nature.

The matter of heirs was never in question, but this was the best case scenario. He hadnt needed to use a less conventional Talent, nor any particularly rare potions or natural treasures. In a genuinely worst-case scenario, the Imperial vaults had a set of Destined Trueseeds, which could be used to absolutely ensure a healthy offspring exactly the way they wanted one. But they were rare enough that he was glad they hadnt needed to use one.

Ideally they would wait, but he didnt want to. He wanted to be a father now.

Carissa hummed while giving him the look. I know what youre thinking, and it's a bad idea. You are a baby Emperor who has barely warmed the throne for two thousand years. Your older brother was born around your father's five thousand year mark, right? I think we should wait a little longer than that. Maybe six thousand years? That gives all the nobles a good four thousand years to get pregnant themselves.

Carissa caressed her abdomen. I want our child to have a lot of peers of the same age. The longer we give the nobles, the more kids of a similar age they will have.

Manny shrugged that suggestion off. The nobles will figure out a way to get their children into an immortal generation whether we wait one or four thousand years. This can be a political decision, but it doesn't have to be, it shouldnt be. It's our child and we can have them whenever we desire.

Carissa smiled, but disagreed. I still want them to have as many people their age as possible. I think three or four thousand years gives everyone who wants enough time to have a child a fair chance. It just seems nice to have everyone raising a child at the same time.

Manny shrugged. If that's what she wanted, it was fine with him. He was just excited for Carissa to be pregnant.

He was about to ask about names when Carissa leaned in and asked, What about an announcement? When are we going to do that?

Manny raised an eyebrow at the devious look in her eyes. Whatever do you mean, my love?

Well, I happen to have a lot of fertility potions and items that I no longer need. They could go for a polished mana stone if I put them up for sale right before the announcement, as everyone starts trying to conceive as fast as possible.

Manny laughed. That was his wife. Carissa, despite being the wife to a Tier 50, couldnt stop thinking like they were still low Tiers, and was always looking to save or make money. Even if it was effectively a rounding error to the actual issues he had as Emperor.

That thought made him pause, and he smiled. Lets announce it right now and declare a ten-day holiday. You can put the items up for sale, and I can use this as an excuse to dump a lot of the mana that should be going into the Farm into the capital. People will question where the mana is coming from, but with our announcement, they won't look too hard into it if we make it look like were liquidating a reserve in celebration.

Carissa tsked at him. Our child isn't even born yet and youre already using them to further your own agenda.

Manny pecked her hair. We could try for twins if that makes you feel any better?

It would be fun to try. Then, as if catching herself, Carissa smashed him on the chest. I mean no! You are a beast who has already had his way with me enough. I do like the idea of a celebration, though. It could be good for morale, and adding more mana into the atmosphere is always a good thing.

Grinning, she added, And you have a destroyed meeting room to repair. Someone couldn't help but flex their powers to try and win me over, eh? Getting me pregnant wasn't enough? Have to win my heart as well? No, not heart. My desire for a strong mate?

Manny grinned. A meeting room was a small price to pay to get to you even a moment sooner.

His wife grinned at him. You have a way with words. I bet you use that tongue to seduce all the ladies.

Only one.

Good answer.

A few minutes later, when they came up for air they didnt need, Manny started sending out announcements.

A ten day holiday for the Empire starting next week to celebrate the Royal Heir to be born in approximately three to four thousand years. All non essential work was to be paused during that time, and taxes on recreational activities were suspended for the year.

The news went over like an explosion. It instantly became the number one talked about story and as Carissa hoped her excess fertility potions sold for astronomical prices.

Manny even took the rest of the day off work. He couldnt really afford the time off, but he did it anyway. This was a monumental moment for him, and he wanted to enjoy it with his family.

Work would always be there, but it was good to remember what he was working for.

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