The Path of Ascension

Chapter 217

Matt slowly flexed, carefully controlling his motion as he pushed the weight off his chest. The fairly substantial difference in proprioception and strength between Tier 11 and Tier 13 was in full display, both allowing him to lift substantially more weight and feel each individual muscle fiber twitch and tense. The net effect was almost meditative, and aided him in relaxing.

He wasn’t lifting anything heavy for his new cultivation or even trying to get a good workout. Rather, he was just trying to stretch his unused muscles a little before his date with Liz.

The two of them were now mobile, and with their newfound freedom, had decided to do something nice for themselves.

The planet they were convalescing on was only Tier 15, but that was high enough to have a wealth of activities to keep them occupied for a single day, as long as they stood in the main travel-hub city.

Being a Tier 15 planet, it had a burgeoning population through both growth and immigration, but as the planet was relatively new, the largest city only housed a few dozen million people. The entire planet was Awakened, of course, assuming they were at least teenagers, and nearly half were in the Tier 12 to 15 range, like them.

Once Matt finished his set, he wiped off the bench he was using, waved goodbye to Susanne as she stretched for her own warm up, and then left to shower.

His prosthetic leg made a clicking sound as he walked through the halls of Luna’s house, which reminded him that he still had at least another week with the false appendage. Honestly, he didn’t even mind it that much after his AI had learned to properly integrate its assistive controls with his normal walking gait; the relevant software simply wasn’t compatible with his barebones researcher AI. His pseudo-skill had developed in a manner completely alien to the established programs, so there was an adjustment period. Nearly stumbling every time he took a step had not been a fun learning process, especially with Aster laughing at him with every pace.

Liz was still getting ready after he put on one of his nicer sets of clothes, so he went to bother Aster. His bond was doing what she had been for the last three hours or so, playing with her newest ice cream maker.

The thing was gargantuan and took up an entire room in her new house. A house which Matt now suspected she had only wanted in order to keep all of her ice cream making equipment set up permanently.

Not that Matt minded her using it in their shared home, of course. But unless she wanted to make her igloo in the living room her permanent abode, it was just too small for something like her ice cream maker to not be put away after each use.

As he walked in, her ears flicked to tell him he was noticed, but she didn’t turn her full attention away from the small glass viewing port. Aster had originally been annoyed when Luna said it wasn’t worth it for her to get a prosthetic tail, but fervent arguing had changed almost instantly to wholehearted agreement after she’d seen the tails on offer. Matt had jokingly suggested they tape a feather duster to her hindquarters, which had only gotten him a sniff and a comment that ‘at least it would be fluffy.’

Scratching her ears, he leaned down and looked inside to try and see what the flavor of ice cream would be. It looked like a dark purple mess, which told him very little.

“What's this one?”

Aster wilted slightly. “Test four of my Berry Surprise. The flavors are getting too mixed, but I want it to be more unique than just vanilla ice cream with chunks of berry inside. I just haven't been able to get the flavors to stay distinct.”

Checking the fridge, he found the other three test bowls and stole a bite from each. “Yeah, two was the best, but it's more that the chaos it made tasted good than anything else. It's definitely not what you’re going for.”

As her next concoction pushed itself out of the mixing chamber and into a bowl, Matt stole a spoonful and let the ice cream melt in his mouth.

“Peaches? Doesn't seem to fit the berry theme. It's good though.”

Aster shrugged as she licked up her own taste test. “I thought it might help balance things out.”

While Matt liked the ice cream, it still didn’t quite scream ‘berry surprise’, so he wasn’t exactly shocked that she put it away. Instead of letting her return to her ice cream science, he asked one more time, “Want anything from when Liz and I are out?”

Aster rolled her eyes. “No, nothing food related will last long enough, and Susanne and I are going to go see a movie in a few hours.”

That was a new plan he hadn’t heard about, so he asked, “Which one?”

Aster squinted at him. “The scary one you didn’t want to see.”

“I like scary movies. I like slasher movies. I don’t like suspense movies. There’s a difference. I’m not scared of a movie.”

Aster rolled her eyes yet again. “Sure there is, scaredy-rabbit.”

The two of them bickered until Liz came in, and they caught a cab to the train station.

The hospital they were at was more of a long term care facility aimed at dealing with delvers’ injuries and other patients with long healing cooldowns, so it was on the outskirts of the city. There was plenty of room for everyone to put down their own portable house or rent one of the accessibility made apartments. The hospital was still technically in the city, though, and the train stopped six times an hour on its loop through the outer boroughs from their stop. Afterwards, they could transfer to the tram that would take them downtown.

Frankly, with their cultivation, the two of them could have flown or even run to the city faster than the train could take them there, but they had been warned against that decades ago by Travis and Keith, and then every other member of Liz’s family. Part of it was so they didn’t fall into the habit of expecting everyone else to move at high Tier speeds, but another part of it was so they could enjoy the little moments together.

Matt hadn’t really understood that until after they had exited Minkalla. They had spent a year with people of a similar or higher Tier fighting, moving, talking, and thinking at those high Tier speeds, only to stop by a Tier 2 planet where practically no one was stronger than Tier 3.

It had taken a considerable effort for Matt to control his perception of time, and furthermore, his expectations of others. Watching a Tier 1 woman pouring him some tea had taken so long, he had been tempted to do it for her, which caught him off guard enough to snap him out of it.

Talking to Luna, he had only gotten an eye roll in return. “How do you think I feel with you kids? I could take naps with how slowly you talk. Just suppress your mind and sense cultivation a little. You don't need to suppress it too much, even a bit will help cut the edge off. Eventually, you’ll be able to automatically adjust it on the fly, depending on who you’re talking to. If you don’t, you’ll lose your mind talking to people of a significantly lower Tier than you. How you distribute your cultivation is also exacerbating the problem slightly, and your rapid advancement makes it even more obvious.”

A slow blink told Matt everything he needed to know. Luna was dealing with a larger differential with him than he was dealing with a Tier 1, and if he was going to complain about that, she was going to complain about him.

That conversation had sent Matt on an information gathering spree, and after reading the accounts of others, he realized that he wasn’t alone, and that Luna’s advice was the only practical answer.

One person had proposed high Tier only cities and such, but that was just being Tierist with a different coat of paint. After seeing how the Seven Suns Vassal state had treated their low Tiers, it wasn’t something Matt ever wanted to be a part of.

That also had him realizing the advice of enjoying each other's company and the slow moments that everyone in Liz’s family had given them wasn’t just about enjoying the time where he and Liz just lounged around together or did something inconsequential together. No, it was also telling them to literally slow down and act like mortals. There was no reason they needed to complete a date in fifteen minutes, just because they could. They may not have been immortal yet, but it was only a matter of time. They had eternity, why would they rush?

Even Mara and Leon, at Tier 48, had eaten together at mortal speeds when they were just dining by themselves.

So the two of them went about their date like mortals riding a train, instead of just speeding through the boring bits. In doing so, Matt had to agree it was nice to just sit with Liz and watch the city slowly draw closer as they commented on their surroundings.

“I like that park. The light features must look spectacular at night.”

Matt agreed with Liz’s comments. “We should stop by on our way home. Could be fun. I haven’t been to a light garden in forever. Well, actually—”

Liz interrupted him with a snort. “No, the rift with light monsters and trees doesn’t count.”

Matt gasped in mock horror. “It most certainly does! It had trees and lights together. That's the ingredients for a light garden!”

“Light gardens don't try to eat you.”

“Only the boring ones. Ah, what if it's a haunted light garden. Then eating you would be part of the fun.”

“No way. That definitely doesn't count. Oh, an ice skating rink. Now that sounds different. We should get Aster and Susanne to come with us to a rink in the next few days. That could be really fun.”

Matt snorted. “I wonder if Aster still remembers that time she flooded the hotel bathroom trying to make herself an ice rink after she found out what they were.”

“I bet… she does, but she denies it wholeheartedly.”

“I am not taking that bet.”

“Oh really,” Liz assessed him, then tapped her lip with her fingers, “Even if the stakes are…”

She pulled him close and whispered in his ear.

“You know what, I think I will take that bet,” he shot back. He was pretty sure he could force the truth out of his bond one way or another.

Liz winked at him. “Hmm. Oh, I wonder if we can get Susanne to try and do her sword peg-leg while on the ice rink?”

“…What?” Matt cocked his head as he asked, feeling like Aster.

“Well remember at the end of… our last delve? When she replaced her lower leg with her sword?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Well, I wonder if she can change the angle of the blade she sticks out of her. Think she could make herself Concept ice-skates?”

As Matt thought about it he asked, “Would that even work with her prosthetic?”

“Hmmm. Well, if it doesn’t, that just means she needs to take it off for a few minutes.”

“Liz, that will definitely get us kicked out.” He paused before he grinned and added, “We have to get her to do it right before we leave.”

Their conversation flowed from one topic to the next until they reached the city center and entered the bustling heart of the city. Matt knew he shouldn’t be, but he was always surprised at how cities could look so different, but feel so similar.

The city he grew up in had the same atmosphere as this one did, hundreds of planets away, several Tiers lower, a different architectural style, and decades newer. Despite all those differences, it felt the same.

Liz leaned in and whispered, “You know, I almost feel bad for this planet. It's not a rough Tier to be at, but with its location…”

Matt agreed.

Normally, a Tier 15 planet would be packed to the brim with people wanting to break through to immortality, and by all accounts, this one should have been the same way. It almost had been as well. This region of the Empire was fairly new, having only been settled a few thousand years ago, and this planet had been the highest Tier one found in the expansion. But right as the place was starting to be settled, another Tier 18 planet had been found and tethered to this one, rendering it a forgotten backwater to the much more desirable neighbor.

That didn’t mean the planet wasn’t good or desirable. After all, it had dozens of times more people than his homeworld Lilly had, last he checked, but it was clearly outshone and nearly forgotten.

For all those faults, it was an idyllic planet for mortals who weren't in a rush to advance, which resulted in all three transport cities being as built up as any other city. Higher Tiers had a relative abundance of wealth and no need to spend it on anything but what they truly wanted, which inevitably brought in the mortals looking for opportunities and advantages.

After walking through the city, they stopped at a jewelry store to look around, where Liz ended up getting a new pair of earrings that she felt fit better with her dress.

As she did so, Matt looked over the ‘exchange’ gifts. Rings, bracelets, earrings, daggers, and more lined the shelves in every color, metal, and shape imaginable.

There were as many customs in the Empire as there were planets, but most modern weddings involved the exchange of something between spouses, or multiple things. Daggers had been coming back into favor over the past few centuries, but many couples who did so also included some form of shared mark to signify their bond that was less likely to be lost than weapons. Besides, mundane weapons would be out-Tiered eventually, and an insignia would be worn more often than a dagger. A matching lock of hair, tattoos, birthmarks, rings, necklaces, even eye colors had all been used as a way to signify one’s marital status.

Matt was inspecting the design of a silver, gold, and platinum weave ring when Liz came up to him and butt bumped him.

“See anything you like?”

Her smirk told him she knew what he was looking at, but he wasn’t embarrassed. It wasn’t like they’d avoided the topic of marriage, and this was all part of the process.

“I did, in fact, see something I liked,” he pulled her in for a kiss. “You.”

She returned the kiss, then pulled away. “Okay, but seriously.”

“Well, those earrings look good on you. They do match your dress.”

Liz tucked a lock of her hair behind an ear and struck a pose for a moment before laughing and heading for the door.

“We’ve talked a lot about getting married, but we never really discussed getting a wearable for it.”

Liz looked at her hand, its slightly flushed hue the only sign it had been regrown just a few days prior, and sighed. “Speaking of which, we need to get my ring regrown sooner rather than later, which means a trip to the nearby planet.”

Matt hooked her arm and only nodded. They had already tried to see if they could find the item their paired rings needed to regrow from the chipped bits of his own, to no avail. He’d already repaired his mana-aspecting ring and upgraded it to Tier 12, thanks to a higher Tier Liquid Obsidian Drop a local auction house had in stock, which had helped put a part of his mind to rest.

Liz continued, “I’ve been thinking about that anyway. I think our rings are perfect for our daily wear and act as a good set of engagement rings. I already know the dagger I’m getting you.” Her smile was evil and made Matt start to wonder. He personally had no idea on what to give her for a dagger. Its shape wasn’t a problem, but the material most certainly was.

He didn't even know what Liz would be getting for himself, let alone have an idea for her.

“I don't have a clue. Everything seems too cliche or impractical.”

“Oh you don’t?” Liz mock gasped and leaned back as if she was swooning. “I’m heartbroken and devastated. How ever shall I recover?”

Matt smirked and offered, “A box seat to see The Bird?”

Liz popped back upright and laughed. “All better! Oh, did you get the charcuterie board package? I know we mentioned it, but I don't remember if you got it or not.”

“Of course I got it. I wanted to try it as well. They said they even have a few imported wines from East Flower itself.”

The two of them then hurried to the opera house, where they were led to their seats and they settled in to watch the performance. They spent the next three hours laughing along with the routine until the end, where the titular bird finally was able to escape and return to its forest home.

Matt made a note to see what Mara had to say about the play when he saw her next. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought the whimsical bird was Mara, but the story was far, far older than she was, so it didn't check out.

Beyond that, he was more than impressed with the cast and crew's ability to weave their spells into the play without damaging anything. They all very obviously had better control over their manipulation skills than he did before his rapid doubling of his mana pool, even rivaling Liz in their flame-dances.

Floating lights illuminated the park surrounding the theater, bringing light to the pathways as they wound around, over, and under fish-filled streams and ponds. They found their way to a higher-Tier establishment, allowing them to let their cultivation loose and dance without worrying they might hurt someone who wandered a bit too close, or accidentally crash through the wall when sitting down.

They ordered a lavish, nine-course meal at a Tier 13 restaurant behind a waterfall, with Matt only getting a little distracted by the enchantments keeping the roaring water silenced and away from the patrons. The food was delicious, far beyond anything Matt could make in this life, and left them stuffed and tipsy by the end of it.

Careful balancing of their cultivation suppression kept them functional enough to stumble into a hailed cab, though they giggled the entire flight home and during subsequent scramble to their bed, only stopping when they fell asleep in one another’s arms.

***

“Domains are one of your most important tools as cultivators,” Carol began. “They’re the most flexible tool in your arsenal, and can do damn near anything. Not everything, of course, but anything. What you can do can be expanded by training, and while the further you push your Domain the less effective it is, there are a few things which any Domain can do, even if you only have a Concept. Flight, for example, can be accomplished with even an internal Concept, though most people wait until they have an Intent. It just requires a slightly different frame of mind. And this kinda stuff is what I excel at teaching.”

The blonde manager then picked up a ball and dropped it from one hand to the other.

“Space, and by that I mean real space and chaotic space, can be visualized like a fabric. Everything is moving along it like an image on a 2d plane.”

Saying that, she brought out a sheet embossed with a grid, then dropped the ball in front of it.

“Everything moves through each square as it normally should.”

Matt nodded, as it made sense and fit with everything he knew of physics and such.

Carol then said, “But a Domain is your bit of the realm, and you can tell it to do whatever you want. It’s the place where you hold ultimate dominion, and the only thing stopping you is how much you can twist and bend reality to your whim.

She pointed to Matt and Susanne. “How do you two move faster than the air around you, without causing a sonic boom?”

Matt nodded to Susanne, letting her speak first. “I cut through the air with my Concept like it's my sword. It's a smooth blade that isn't affected by wind resistance.”

At Carol's nod, Matt explained, “I zipper the air around me, making a bubble of no air resistance around me.”

“Those are two common methods, with Matt’s method being the most common, thanks to how general it is. If you can do it to air, why can't you do it to space?”

After checking their expressions, Carol continued, “There are a few ways to think about this, but they all have basically the same effect, in practice. The first is to choose a point over there, and to pull it over here, then release.”

Carol demonstrated by dropping her ball again, but this time, it simply appeared at the bottom of the sheet rather than falling the intervening distance.

“The second way is by taking the intervening space and compressing it. Think of it as making a tunnel through space, which is shorter than going the long way.”

This time, when she dropped the ball, it still fell the intervening distance, but it did so much faster than the first time. It warped light and the blanket’s grid around it, but had an even slower speed at the end of the fall. She nodded to Susanne. “The third way is to visualize ‘cutting’ the intervening space out, where you strike at a point out of your reach with a weapon, then insist that you were in reach for your strike. It’s a bit harder to visualize with a ball, but I’ll do my best.”

This time, the ball itself seemed to stretch out as she dropped it, with the front of the sphere falling at a much faster rate than normal, until it hit the ground, at which point it was instantly a perfect sphere again.

“That leads us to the fourth method. Essentially, it involves visualizing yourself as the center of the universe, completely unmoving. Where you are, is where the universe is. Now, the universe also exists somewhere else, but because you are where the universe exists, you must be over there as well.”

This time, when the ball dropped, for a split-second Matt could see the ball both falling through the air and resting on the ground, before it settled on the ground.

“As you can probably guess, this technique can also be utilized when learning how to create Concept clones.

“The fifth method, and the last one I’m going to cover for now, is by dissociating yourself from your body, and instead saying you are your Domain. Thus, wherever your Domain is is a place where you already are, and all you need to do is choose where in your Domain you manifest.”

When she dropped the ball this time, it seemed to expand into an image of vague ball-ness, inflating past any physical existence and passing through the space in front of the blanket as it grew and then shrank, now on the floor.

“Now, all of these methods- and a thousand and one other ways to think about it- all have fundamentally the same effect. You compress space between yourself and some other place, whether partially or until they fully overlap. Then, you release your control and simply stay in your new location.”

Carol gestured at Liz. “Methods four and five will also help you with learning to fly without picking yourself up by your blood. Your Domain is internal, so it’s very tied to your presence. By establishing yourself as the center of the universe, you can decree that the center of the universe ought to be in the air. Or, you can decide that your Domain, and thus you, manifests itself unbound by gravity. There’s as many ways to do it as there are cultivators, but those two are some of the most consistent starting points.”

Carol then went on to have each of them try to do one of the methods she previously explained, with Luna appearing from nowhere to add her own advice.

Susanne was familiar with the lecture, having received a full course on Concept usage between the tournament and Minkalla, and was the most skilled of the four of them by far. However, that just meant Carol had her practicing without using her sword, and that was proving to be an incredible obstacle for the swordswoman, unable to warp space by so much as an inch.

Aster struggled with the entire idea of shrinking space, as she was so used to using her ice and icey thoughts to lock down space that it took her almost an hour to even get her Concept to grip space.

Oddly enough, once she did get that initial grasp over space, she had the first actual use of her Concept to shorten space.

Sort of.

Aster called it ice skating, and was able to speed herself up by believing the world was slippery like wet ice, but she wasn’t able to do anything more than accelerate.

Liz, on the other hand, was on step zero, and was working with Luna to try and figure out how to fly with just her Concept.

With the mental image that the world itself was shifting around her, she was able to almost hover for a few moments, but she struggled to take it beyond that.

Carol praised her efforts, but Luna only huffed that it was to be expected, which made Matt smile.

That was Luna.

Even when she first introduced herself and was teaching them how to control skills after casting without manipulation spells, she expected nothing but the best from them, which meant they only ever really got praised for their efforts rather than results.

At first, Matt thought that was mean of her, but with hindsight and age, he appreciated that she didn’t really care how good they were at any specific thing, as long as they were actively improving themselves.

Closing his eyes and meditating, Matt tried to feel the space around him like he did air.

When he learned to zipper the air around him, he first needed to be slowed down from moving too quickly by the air resistance. Once he had a good feeling of that resistance, it had been fairly easy to learn to stop that same feeling.

The visual of parting the air in front of him while mending it behind had come from his early attempts, where he created gale force winds in his wake by not controlling the turbulence his passage generated.

At first, having to close the air back up to a still form had made his work dozens of times more difficult, but as he got used to it, even that had become second nature.

He felt like this just needed something similar.

With his eyes still closed, he waved his hand through the space in front of him, relying on his proprioception to feel his hand moving through the distance in front of him.

It moved in a steady arc, not skipping any of the intervening distance.

After a few more failed attempts, he opened his eyes to see amethyst-like purple eyes staring at him with their noses almost touching.

Jerking back, Matt yelped as Carol laughed and pulled away.

“I was wondering how long you would sit there for.”

Matt scrambled to his feet and looked around, seeing the sun was almost set and everyone else was gone.

Carol explained, “Everyone else went inside an hour or so ago. Started to get headaches, and we don't want you guys pushing too hard, but your little nap wasn’t hurting yourself, so we left you to it.”

Matt brushed himself off and ignored Carol’s comment about taking a nap to ask her a question of his own.

“How do you feel space? When I started zippering the air, it was because the air was slowing me down. Resisting that seemed natural, easy… a normal extension of my powers.”

Carol nodded and slung an arm around Matt’s shoulder.

He thought she was being friendly, but soon realized she was trying to give him an example as she guided him around the small lawn. Her arm was like a vice he couldn't escape from, while her spirit was like a blanket smothering him and making it hard to breathe.

He could still walk, in fact he had to walk as Carol guided him, but like a man desperate for air, her guiding wasn’t what he needed. He needed to break free and threw his Concept at her and her own Domain.

He felt like a single ant trying to move a tree, but as she backed her Domain off him, he felt like he might have understood something.

As she let him stumble free, he spun on his prosthetic leg to balance himself.

After taking a deep breath, he thanked her. “I think that helped. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I felt something there.”

Carol laughed. “When you manage it, you can buy me a drink. Until then, don't get your hopes up. I’ll reiterate the speech I gave the others when they finished up. We are teaching you this not because you are ready to learn it, but because your bodies are still healing, and there’s no reason to let you stay too idle. This is good to learn, but no one expects you to learn it today, or even this decade. If you figure it out before you get off the Path, I’ll be surprised. Also note it’s something that becoming higher-tier won’t help you with, not these initial steps at least.”

Matt nodded and went inside to join the other three for dinner and a conversation about what they learned today, but couldn’t help shake the feeling that he really had felt something.

A week later, when he was getting his prosthetic leg removed and his own regrown, he felt like he understood the sensation, and when the surgery was over, he rushed over to Carol and Luna so he could try his process out.

It took him a few attempts to fall into the mindset he had had in the hospital, but when he did, he waved his hand in front of himself, felt his conception with his Domain, and pushed.

Except instead of speeding up as his Concept shortened the space around his hand, it slowed down and seemed to travel more distance than was actually there.

Luna rubbed her face with her paw while Carol outright laughed and said, “Well, now you just need to learn how to do the opposite of that. I was almost ready to call you a genius. Glad you proved me wrong.”