Chapter 36

Chapter 36

The following day they were treated to a massive breakfast, and then Aunt Helen sent them on their way, through a portal to the teleportation station. Matt wanted to savor the breakfast, but they had only been able to get out this quickly because of the portal the Tier 24 had created for them.

There was a wave of people exiting the training world, and once they reached the teleporters, there would be no room to exit for months. Aunt Helen's help got them out before the rush.

Sitting in the lobby of the station, they found out what the guild leaders had been seeking Aunt Helen's help with. The news station feed being broadcast on the large wall screen that had been covering the returning delvers was suddenly interrupted.

"Breaking news. We just had a leak that the guild Dual Stars is being investigated for tax evasion. The Empire Tax Service just levied a freeze on all guild accounts. This is a shocking turn of events. The ETS is known for going after larger guilds and companies after all, but..."

Matt stopped paying attention and looked at Liz. The woman had an ohh look on her face.

"What did you do?"

She looked at him and poked her pointer fingers together.

"Wellllll... When the guild invited us to the secret rift, I assumed they had more secrets, so I messaged Dad."

Matt couldn't believe it. "How did he get them to move in hours? I've never heard of any bureaucratic thing moving that quickly. Even Mara moving instantly is hard to believe, but she's just one person."

Liz sat up straighter, "Ohhh. No, I told him when they first invited us to the special rift, in case it was a trap."

"How did you get a message out? The planet was locked down!"

Liz looked offended at the suggestion, "Pshhh no. They say that, but messages to higher Tier people don't use the same services as normal messages. Every month the guild operated a small teleporter for a data swap. I never heard back from them, so I assumed he didn't do anything."

"But why did they respond to them? Does your dad work for them or something?"

Now Liz looked embarrassed. "No... No, my parents are stupid. My dad's heads always in the clouds, and Moms a bird brain. The dummies forgot to pay taxes a few decades ago on a few dozen planets that they own. Now the ETS just comes and visits them to tell them what they owe."

Matt didn't believe it for a second. "They have AIs! How could an AI forget that?"

"My parents are stupid, that's how!"

Then the second thing hit him, "Wait, did you say they forgot about a few dozen planets they own? A few dozen? As in they own more than that?"

Liz looked around, and Matt pressed, "Liz, how rich are your parents? You've said they are strong, but you always imply they aren't that strong."

The woman next to him wiggled in discomfort. Her answer was to sputter, "I ugh. I..." Closing her eyes, Liz took a deep breath and settled down. Opening her eyes, she said, "I'll tell you if you ever ask again. I just want to be out of their shadows. It's so nice to be with a friend who isn't afraid of them or trying to suck up to them. But I trust you and respect you. If you want to know, I'll spill."

Matt thought it over. He did trust the woman, and with the hints she had dropped, he would assume her parents were Mara and Leon. That is, if the two weren't so antagonistic to each other.

He sent his AI to look for married couples consisting of a phoenix and a storm user. Public records were scarce, but there might be a mention on a report somewhere.

Focusing on the woman next to him, he lightly elbowed her and said, "Eh. Well, it's nice to see the guild squirm. Thank your dad for me, I guess."

The look Liz gave him for not pressing was worth being in the dark a little while longer. They were going to visit her brother after all.

***

As Matt quickly learned, Aunt Helen had a good reason to make Liz promise to keep on track. The woman, while a focused and driven delver and cultivator, liked to wander.

Liz didn't spend much of her time traveling by practicing her mana control or any of her shaping skills. Sure, she did practice here and there. However, most of her time was spent planning things to do at each teleport stop that would last more than a few hours..

At first, Matt didn't know what to make of her attitude. When he traveled to the Dual Stars world, he buckled down and worked on his skills, or he just relaxed.

Liz wanted to do things. She wasn't picky about what they should do. They just had to do something.

The second planet they arrived on came with an eight-hour delay. Liz insisted that they should do something, and she ended up finding a play with open seats and no dress code.

At first, Matt had to pretend to be interested. The story started slow, and he sated his boredom by pulling out his mana control orb. To his dismay, Liz caught his hand and held it, effectively forcing him to stop. He decided to give the show an honest shot, and if he didn't like it, he would bow out from further distractions.

As the second act started, Matt was enthralled. It was a retelling of an older story. It had been retconned so many times, and had been made into so many movies, that Matt didn't see a way for it to be interesting. He was wrong.

The acting was amazing. There was something about watching people go through the story live that created a new and exciting experience. The actors blended practical effects with skill to weave the story in a way that made it come to life. No movie had ever come close to being this entertaining.

Even limited to only a stage and no post-production, the way they embodied the story was new and special for him.

Leaving the showing, all Matt could talk about was the play.

Liz didn't gloat in her victory. Instead, she glowed.

It was worse.

After that, Matt was willing to participate in whatever excursions the woman wanted to drag him on. His only requirement was that they never be later to the teleport or train station. He wanted to be there no later than two hours before their next departure time. Liz had no problem with that, her own standard was an hour and a half, but she was happy to make the concession.

Most of their time traveling was spent in practice, but the moments in between were spent on adventures.

They had to pass through a dozen planets to reach Tintel, and the variety was a bit of a culture shock to Matt.

Once they reached the third planet, they had a fifteen-hour layover waiting for the teleporter to cycle. They used the time to visit TrueMind for his Tier 4 AI check-up.

They had messaged ahead, and weren't made to wait, but the testing wasn't as simple as his Tier 3 test had been.

He sat in a chair for nearly twenty minutes, where technicians poked at their pads with noises he didn't know how to interpret. Matt had a readout of what they were looking at projected on his HUD.

One of the techs asked, "So you made the AI create this identification program. Why?"

Matt's sarcastic answer of, "Because I was tired of forgetting names," was just nodded to, and the woman kept on tapping vigorously at her pad.

They continued to ask him questions about how he wanted to direct his AIs growth. They also asked if he felt that his AI was performing equally to the normal AIs of its Tier.

Matt answered what he could, but he just wanted to say that the AI worked fine, and not give much detail. That apparently displeased the technicians. They wanted concrete plans for his AIs growth. They also wouldn't give him any hard data on his AI stacked up against the other AIs of his Tier.

They put his AI through tests for the next two hours, and all Matt heard were tuts of seeming disapproval and sighs. The experience irritated Matt more and more, until he was finally able to leave.

They never even said that he could go, but he asked and was ignored for fifteen minutes. He, Liz, and Aster just walked out after that.

All in all, the stop was mostly useless, as Matt somehow felt that his AI wasn't living up to expectations. Their condescension was annoying. He felt like his AI was doing its best. His mood was completely ruined after the meeting, but Liz understood and was a good listener as he ranted about it.

The irony of the poor kid setting up a trust fund for his orphanage wasn't lost on him.

While they were waiting around, a woman in a multicolored blue vest approached them.

"Are you Matt and Liz?"

Liz seemed giddy and nodded, and one AI identity check later, she spun on her heel and was gone.

Liz flipped the package and sighed. "It's for you."

She looked sad to miss out on the opportunity to tear into the box.

Matt inspected the package. It was from Melinda's group.

Further inspection showed that it was sent with a courier service, called Aqueducts.

One AI search later, Matt found that Duke Waters had set up his own courier service, and apparently had a sense of humor. From the blurb on their website, they moved high-value goods between people and businesses.

They only employed people who had been on The Path, and services while on The Path were subsidized by the Duke himself.

Matt popped the package open, and found a handwritten note.

Hey Matt! It's Melinda and crew, we knew that you were on the training world, so this should catch you when you exit. Don't say no or try to give it back.

Friends help friends!

That was it. He found a second, smaller package that he needed to link his AI to in order to open.

When he did, a sliver of ice radiated so cold, he had to turn [Cracked Phantom Armor] on, localized to his hands. Aster, who had been napping next to him, shot up, all of her hair raised.

Liz read the note and saw the shard of ice, and whistled softly.

"That's a nice gift there."

Matt checked the packet of information that he had received with the package.

Shard of Primordial Ice Tier 4: A Tier 4 ice shard that can increase the potency of one ice skill or increase ice mana inside the body.

It was a perfect gift for the poofy fox next to him.

Matt murmured back to Liz, "Yeah, it is."

He made a note to be on the lookout for anything that the group could use.

Liz pulled him up and said, "We'll give it to Aster, and we need to send them a very nice letter back. This will save her months of time on a cold planet."

He asked, "What would this be worth do you think?"

His quick search didn't find any Tier 4 variants of Primordial Ice. Primordial Ember at Tier 4 sold for a Tier 6 mana stone.

"I don't know everything, you know." Liz glared at him. "If I had to guess, about the same as most Primordial elements at that Tier. It depends on where they got it. If it was a common drop in a rift they were in, it could be less. If you get one on a world that never drops them, it could be more..."

Matt nodded and finished for her. "Either way, it's an amazing gift."

"Yeah, stupid! Give it to Aster and send them the video with our thanks."

Matt did so, with the reaction of the fox captured for all time. She was still staring at the shard of ice, tongue lolling to the side.

Giving her the shard, she reverted back into a kit. She scampered around for a solid five minutes until she crashed, and collapsed onto the floor.

Liz even introduced herself and thanked the group. She had quizzed Matt for nearly ten minutes about each of them. And even more so about what skills and items they should be on the lookout for.

The video was sent, but Melindas group was on the other side of the Empire. Even data would take at least a few months to make its way to them. Traveling there in person would be a matter of a year's worth of travel or more.

For the next few stops, they tried to find something the group could use, but anything in their price range wasn't uncommon enough to ship that far. Melinda's group would be able to find whatever they had found so far locally.

What Liz did insist on was to send them some of the pretty views they saw and interesting things they did. At least one thing per planet. It turned the activities they did into fun messages.

Matt was rocking with the train, and looking at the cube in his lap, when Liz jerked slightly. She was in the seat next to him and spun to face him.

"My brother said that theyre going to be waiting for us at their house. They arent picking us up."

Matt shrugged. It really didn't bother him either way.

They stepped into the teleporter and entered a new planet. It was winter on this planet, but it was mild. Where they were going, it would be deep winter. According to his AI and the map of the planet he downloaded, they were near the equator. They needed to travel south, near the southern pole of the planet to reach Liz's brother Travis.

A train trip got them closer to their destination, but Liz's brother was over a small mountain range. Thankfully, there was a large city only fifty miles away or so. They just needed to trek the Tier 6 wilderness, and climb a mountain or six to get to them.

Liz grumbled the entire time, and when they left the city proper and stepped off the trail they were following, Liz screamed out, "I hate you, Travis."

Matt heard nothing, and didnt see anything either after looking around.

As they started up the incline, Matt asked, "Ok, so why do we have to walk to them. This feels..." He searched for the right word. "Pedantic."

Liz kicked a rock, saying, "It is. And I bet theyre following the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of it. If theyre so deliberately not helping us, it's for a good reason."

Having only one option, the trio hiked on. This mountain range was new, and full of sharp edges. Weather and time hadn't had their chance to smooth the rough crags down.

After hours of hiking, they crested a ridge, and not more than fifty feet on the other side, Matt found a house.

A three story house.

A mile above the ground.

A male version of Liz stood on the balcony and waved.

"Hey BethBeth."