Chapter 109

Chapter 109

The next week was spent sleeping and charging Wrangle's personal mana stone reserves.

The stones were different from what Matt was used to seeing. The shape was the same, but these stones had a greater weight. Not physically. Or at least, not when they were empty. It was more like a spiritual weight, combined with a sense that the massive crystal was more real than the surrounding materials.

That didn't stop Matt from dumping mana into the ten foot tall mana stone. It devoured his mana just fine.

Creating just one unit of the Tier 24s personal mana consumed nearly a hundred of his own. That revelation was slightly disheartening. It showcased the gap between Tiers all too clearly.

Still, he just had to sit there, feeding a constant stream of mana into the boulder of a mana stone. Boredom would have overtaken him if Luna didnt repeatedly send his friends in to get their mana topped off by his Concept and have him do mana manipulation exercises. That at least gave him people to talk with until he ran out of Willpower, at which point, theyd be recalled to continue lighter training with their Concepts.

Matt expected to get a break when they boarded their train after jumping planets, but Luna broke that feeble hope as she gathered everyone together to continue working on their mana manipulation skills.

As Luna pushed them to work through increasingly difficult exercises, Matt was reminded how much utility his Concept and Talent offered him, and by extension, the people around him. Without the need to rest and regenerate mana between exercises, they squeezed weeks of intense practice into mere days.

Luna had finally sent them off to their rooms, with orders for Matt to fill more of the mana stones she had provided for him. Like the ones he had filled for Wrangle, these were a higher Tier version than the ones he was used to. Lunas personal stone, though, gobbled up thousands of his mana to produce even one unit of hers, and he was unable to even put a dent into the void of the stone during his breaks.

Having done the math, Matt stopped to ask Vinnie, who was eating next to him, what their normal training routines looked like before this.

That earned him glares from everyone in Melinda's team. Tara even pelted him dead center on his forehead with the crust of her roll.

Vinnie just squinted at him before saying, Matt Fuck you Just fuck you, dude.

The grin he shot Matt before he dug back into his soup took any sting out of the words.

Melinda added, I have to agree with him, Matt. This is your fault. We would only be able to do a few hours of this training every few days, unless we wanted to burn through mana stones. Were only able to push this hard because of you. She added with a false whine, I just want a break.

Even Mathew shot a mock glare his way. Bro, I really wish you could just, like, run out. Maybe then we could get a break. Half of us are meatheads that only have internal skills anyway.

Tara added, Yeah, this is good training, but we aren't getting as much out of it as our more delicate mage companions.

Matt returned to the topic he wanted to talk about. But mana manipulation, if done right, only burns like one mana every ten minutes. You all should be able to do this even without me. Youre just sloppy.

He stifled a grin as he threw an exaggerated glare at Melinda. And we wouldn't be able to go nearly as hard if not for little Miss No-Healing-Cooldown always patching us up either.

There was a round of good-natured ribbing at Melinda until Sam tapped on the table. Sure, Melindas also a dick. But youre worse, you enable her as well. Sure, the team mommy can fix our boo-boos, but she cant normally do it indefinitely like this. Even without that, your endless mana nonsense is still so much worse. First off, Ive never even heard of anything remotely like half of these training methods. So either Luna concocted them herself, or theyre normally reserved for higher Tiers. Considering she had us all doing different things, I'd wager a mix of the two. Secondly, we would normally be delving to train, and would need to save our mana for that. It's just not usually plausible for us to burn through all our available mana in a single day, let alone multiple times. And lastly, my feet fucking hurt. Im not sure how that's your fault, but I'm gonna blame you for it anyway.

Matt then got facetiously blamed for all of everyone's little problems. It culminated with Aster being actually upset that Matt hadnt made her a bunny ice cream rift yet. She had made her request months ago, and he was a failure of a bond for neglecting her vital needs for so long.

That, in turn, led to another repeated argument between Kyle and Aster about the best flavor of ice cream. He insisted that all ice cream was built off of vanilla, and therefore it was the best flavor. Aster disagreed because all ice cream was good, and therefore equal.

The rest of them left the fox and fighter to it as they moved on to the train's workout room. With their cultivation back, they didn't have to do much to maintain their fitness levels, but it was a nice way to relieve stress.

Their travel was easier because of the lack of space for Luna to really work with them. Those two months were a nice break from the intense physical training.

What was mentally tiring was the tactical training. Things started simply, with examples seemingly pulled from their time in the vassal kingdoms war, but they continually grew in scope and difficulty.

Their hypothetical tasks ranged from acting in small scale units, to forcing them to complete virtual missions in larger scale conflicts.

Matt didn't need to be a genius to piece together that they were being trained for the time after they finished The Path, and started fighting in the Empire's wars for real.

That realization gave Matt pause.

He had long known that the purpose of The Path was to create powerhouses like Duke Waters, or Light and Shadow. But having now fought in the subjugation of a planet, the golem ruin incident, and the follow-up training war, he held a better appreciation of what war really entailed.

The fighting wasn't like how it was depicted in the movies or books. Real wars were brutal, and next time, a safety net of higher Tier people wouldnt be in place. There wouldnt be anyone standing by, ready to rescue them at any second.

Death was a very real possibility. He had to confront that, as he fully realized that Luna was trying to teach them how to do things like go behind enemy lines to kill high Tier commanders, or disrupt supply lines.

Hed already been killed in the vassal war. It might have been only once, but it was a moment that he saw in a new light, now that he knew what he was being trained for. Once was all he had from here on out.

The lessons of fighting through pain and missing limbs also took on a more serious tone.

Luna fully expected them to have to deal with that one day, and wanted them to be ready.

Matt wasn't sure if he was comfortable with taking up that responsibility. He enjoyed the physical training and pushing himself daily, but he didn't know if he truly wanted what that led to. Still, he knew himself well enough to understand that he was prone to floundering and relaxing without a goal.

In his free time, Matt looked into the news sources, and when that didn't answer his question, directly asked Luna what the future entailed after a group lesson on mana manipulation.

She didn't sugarcoat her answer. War is coming, Matt. She looked to the others, clearly meaning that they were not exempt from the consequences of this answer. The other Great Powers are eyeing the Empire and its changes. They see us rising above them, but it's too late to stop us. Theyll still try though. They cant afford not to.

What do you mean? Can't they just do the same as us? It seemed like the easiest answer to Matt.

Luna wiggled her hand. They are, some in different ways but they are. The problem is theyre too far behind the curve. Meanwhile, were growing exponentially. Even if they start now, or had they done so centuries ago, they have no hope of catching up. Unless of course, we run into a major roadblock, or get taken out at the knees.

Matt didnt understand, and after looking around, he could tell that his friends didnt either. So he asked, But why? Why fight to the death at all? Rifts give us everything we need to live. Why doesn't everyone just work on expanding their borders and just leave each other alone? It seems so wasteful.

Luna floated down from the ceiling where she was lounging and met everyone's eyes. Because we are human. Even the beasts are still human in emotion and desires when we hit Tier 15. We are greedy and stubborn. Why spend millions of years building up your planets slowly, when you can take someone elses already established planets?

She tapped the train's floor as she said, We don't lack for food and such, but we are a mana starved society. All the Great Powers are.

This time Tara opened her mouth, but Luna continued. It doesn't seem that way because you haven't spent much time on higher Tier worlds. The capital is at a mana deficit even being fed mana of a thousand other worlds citizens. There are too many people with too many enchantments for the planet. Its essence rich, but not mana rich. Think about crafters. They burn tens of thousands of mana to make a single item at the lowest Tiers. That applies to every craft. The higher the Tier, the more we need mana. We hoard our mana stones from rifts to spend when we need an item crafted, or a sudden rift to delve. That doesn't even account for the mana we need to spend actually delving a rift which drains more mana stones.

Luna pointed at them. Think about immortals. It's only Tier 15, and bam! You never die. Unless you do something stupid, or just get tired of living. Tier 15 isn't that hard to reach, and it's where the resource scarcity starts to hit. Every five Tiers, the amount of essence needed to Tier up again spikes, and thats beyond the normal increased essence requirements between Tiers. Meanwhile, the rifts take longer to naturally recharge, even on a mana-rich world. Time isn't the issue, but there are so many mortals having children that there are more and more immortals every year. Add the invention of bottled Concepts giving people longer to find their Concepts and it's a growing problem. All of that is increasing the demand much faster than the supply. Consequently, it's becoming harder and harder to advance. People are spending more and more time waiting around, saving their mana to buy items or rift slots. Sadly, wars are a common way to cull the immortal population, and remove some of that burden from society. It's also how Tier 15 through Tier 35s are incentivized to fight. More resources.

When Matt opened his mouth to speak, Luna brought up a hand to silence him, but he ignored it and pressed on. But that's even worse! There are unlimited worlds out there. We can expand...

Matt noticed that he was looming over his trainer, so he took a step back and started pacing behind the space where his friends sat.

Lunas next words didn't help his mood. Its human nature to want to expand and help the people near you. And we do expand all the time, Matt. It's one way to relieve the pressure of more and more immortals. If you aren't actively advancing or rich, Tier 15s and above are asked to move to outlying worlds that are under Tier 5. Their greater mana generation helps Tier up worlds safely, without crashing mortal economies. And if rift breaks do occur, they are hardly of any consequence. What else would you have the Empire do? Is it better to prevent people from becoming immortals? Only give bottled Concepts to a chosen few? That was done by all the political entities right after the Shattering, and before the political unification wars, when everyone was just licking their wounds. No one was finding new worlds, and the mortals were prevented from cultivation at all.

Sam raised a finger. I hadn't heard of that. What happened? What was the Shattering?

Luna nodded. The Shattering was what happened when there was only one Great Power, and they didn't have a sufficiently strong Tier 50. They were the only political entity around, and had a firm grip on their people. Things were apparently pretty good, despite the lack of some modern solutions like bottled Concepts and such. They had enough planets, and their slow and steady expansion ensured that more room and high Tier worlds were found. But their Tier 50 was a weak coward, only put on the throne as a puppet. However, the factions in opposition to him were far too strong to be held at bay. This original Great Power had seven Tier 47 worlds. You understand what that means?

Kyle learned forward. Those are the capitals of the current Great Powers? Wait, there are eight Great Powers now?

Luna flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture. I'll explain that later. Now, yes most of the developed sections of space near these planets were heavily populated, and there was strength in that. But you need to understand how the wars started. Everyone thought that they could take over the throne, and with their planets being so strong, they created alliances and started declaring wars. Not our play wars, but legions of Tier 40s fighting. It ruined planets, and destroyed spatial connections. Entire regions of space were broken off and drifted off into the reaches of chaotic space, never to be seen again. Even more planets were directly destroyed, or rendered useless.

She sighed in an almost-disgusted way. When the dust settled, everyone over Tier 30 was pretty much dead, and everyone kept to their corners to rebuild their strength. Eventually, that led to the unification wars, and the various powers with similar political entities banded together. These entities are what make up the current Great Powers.

Matt thought that was interesting, but wanted to return to his original point. But why war? Seeing Luna narrow her eyes, he added, I mean, why are the other Great Powers going to attack us? Shouldnt the follies of the past show them that it cant possibly be worth what they think?

Right! Training. I remember. One of you makes unlimited mana, yes?

His glasses increased in glow as he inspected each of them, before settling on Matt.

Yes, yes. Use a Skill, please.

Matt met Luna's gaze with a raised eyebrow, and when he received a nod, he pushed [Mages Retreat] to its maximum.

Erwin oohd and ahhed for a good minute before asking, So you never run out of mana? At all?

Not at all. Ive also got a Concept that gives people around me mana.

Matts Concept seemed to be less interesting than his Talent.

Interesting, and Im sure you can make good use of it given your Talent, but not that rare. Transferring mana is definitely useful, but rarely worth the hassle.

Matt, understanding his misconception, used his Concept on the man without lowering [Mages Retreat]s mana draw.

That got the man's attention, and Matt added, It doesn't take my own mana. It's a mana generation Concept.

Erwin nodded like a chicken, eyes focused off into the distance, Now that is much rarer, and is quite the interesting combination. I would have thought you just use your Concept as a supplement to your mana. But with this, I presume you must have copied your Talent over while building your Concept? That must have been quite the challenge.

Matt nodded, but the higher Tier man moved on before he was able to speak.

Anyway, I hear youve been making rifts with that? Then oh, unique Skill? Now thats interesting.

Erwin looked to Luna and asked, What happened to it?

Luna met his gaze as she said, I passed it to the Emperor.

Erwin deflated slightly at that before he popped back up and said, Well, if you made it once, you can make it again. Come on, lets get started on that now.

He vanished with a pop into the air, then a second later, reappeared and hurried out a different door than where they entered. Following him, they were outside, and he waved out at the grass next to the massive lake. First, let me see you make a rift.

Matt eyed the lake and asked, Is that creating a safe zone? It looks big enough to prevent rifts from spawning, like the seas do.

Erwin shook his head. No, nine percent too small. I do want to see what makes your rifts different from natural ones. Maybe theyre unaffected by the Coastal Exclusion Principle, and well test that later. But for now, I just want to see your process.

Not knowing what else to do, Matt brought out his concrete slabs and arranged them in a circle, after clearing the grass inside. As he arranged them, he realized how cheap and crude they were compared to the sophisticated machinery he had passed in the lab. If he had a few hours, he could make a better set with the things he learned with Kelley. That wasn't even taking into consideration the rune library he had in a partition of his AI.

I, uhh. These are pretty old, but Umm.

Erwin didnt seem bothered, and just waved at him to continue on.

Matt sat down and started pouring mana into the formation. It took longer than he expected, but a rift flickered to life as the mana density increased. The monsters that flooded out were quickly minced by the formations he had built into the device, but Erwin grabbed one of the purple skunks and inspected it during the time it took Matt to Tier the rift up to Tier 2.

As the monsters remained the same, Erwins next inspection was much quicker. Even having heard about it, its still so strange to see such a low-Tier Rift here. Perhaps while I- while youre here, we can get some insights into more natural rift formation as well.

At Tier 6, his attack formation struggled to kill the monsters, but with a wave from Luna, the monsters pouring out of the rift just vanished.

As Erwin stepped into the formation and started looking at the rift with his glowing glasses, Matt noticed his friends were looking at him with weird looks.

What?

Mathew was the first to speak. I knew you could do that. And I've gotten a lot of your mana But this

When he trailed off, Tara picked up. It's wild. Almost unbelievable. That's like. Not really done.

Matt countered, I'm pretty sure a lot of guilds and nobles make rifts. It's not that weird.

Liz interjected. It's more that you do it all by yourself. A guild doing something is like a higher Tier doing something. It's impressive, sure. But theyre so powerful, it doesnt have the shock value that your rift creation does.

Vinnie nodded his head. Exactly. It's like you don't need anything but some space and time. You can delve as much as you want, wherever you want. We traveled around to go to places with rifts. Youre basically the opposite.

Matt actually felt quite embarrassed. He wasn't doing anything that anyone with unlimited mana couldnt do. And they hadnt even seen his rift experiments with items and mana types.

He had learned so much about mana types, mana aspects, and sub-aspects with Kelley. All of which should apply to rift creation.

When Erwin didn't come out of the rift after fifteen minutes had passed, and the instance would have cycled, Luna waved her hand, dissipating the rift.

Erwin was kneeling down like he had been inspecting a plant, and looked quite confused when he suddenly wasn't where he thought he should be.

Luna said, You don't have to inspect everything before you even see him make other rifts.

This is important! You never know what sorts of trivial things might end up being the key to some massive new discovery. You cant just rush this. Its not some scuffle where every second counts, this is science! Have a bit of patience!

Luna crossed her arms and set her stance. I sent you the information that we have on rift building. This shouldn't be anything new for you.

Erwin shook his head, tapping out points on his fingers. First, you sent me the information that you gathered on rift-building, not the sort of information that I can gather. Second, its not like we get that many chances to actually study fully-charged rifts, let alone artificial ones. Sure, we have detailed information about the first eight Tiers, but thats pretty much entirely done by guilds. Theyre just worried about how dangerous their training rifts are and their rewards. Nothing about the Essence content or

Erwin didnt stop until Matt asked, Should I make another rift? I learned that mana types matter, and so do items.

Erwin turned and nodded to Matt, who pulled out a short sword, set it at the center of the formation, and used one of the more neutral metal mana types he had gotten to charge the rune circle. With the lacking efficiency of the ring he stored his mana types in, and similar problems with his shoddy work on the concrete slabs, it took a lot longer to create the rifts.

When the kobolds came out wielding short swords, Erwin asked him to stop and entered the rift. It was only a Tier 1, and he was quickly out of the rift. He returned holding a mirror of the short sword that Matt had used to influence the rift.

One moment, I want to compare them first. Erwin then glanced between the swords before pronouncing, Okay, so not quite a perfect replica. Same appearance, but the internal structures are really different. Interesting.

After tapping at the air, he said, Go ahead and Tier it up.

Matt made it to Tier 4 before the sword was sucked up into the rift, and vanished.

He looked to Erwin for guidance as he said, This usually means Im screwed on this attempt. He brought out a pair to the sword he had used earlier and added, Ive found that if I use a sword nearly identical to the original , it helps keep the rift from un-aspecting. But they need to be rift reward levels of similar.

Matts attempt was unsuccessful, and despite the sword remaining in the center of the circle, horses with silvery hooves exited the freshly Tiered up rift.

He was going to start draining the rift to reset his attempt, but Erwin, contrary to his expectation, wanted to explore the rift. He was gone for close to half an hour, but came out with a smile.

It lost the sword, but there was clearly still some influence from it, and the metal mana you used. Fascinating.

Erwin rubbed his hands together, narrowing his eyes in thought. Let's restrict this rift so it can't Tier up and then move the formation and experiment with a clean slate. Its time to start some proper testing.