Chapter 113

Chapter 113

They got out of the rift and were debriefed by Luna while Melinda healed them, and the three of them received quite the shock.

That wasn't a sub-boss. It was just a stronger variant of the normal monster. If you weren't delving the rift at full mana, I don't think they would appear. Their trainer sounded smug as she finished.

For a second, Matt wondered if he could get away with not charging the rift to full before they delved, but didn't want to waste the experience. The rift was pushing them to grow.

Liz flexed her new arm and used it to pull Melinda into a quick hug before saying, So where are the sub-bosses? I assume they should have been close.

Luna pondered her answer for a minute, but then said, One is in the city, yes, but you weren't that close. She seemed to debate saying more for a second before adding, Anything else you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Matt did want to know one thing, though. You said these rifts are bigger. How far did we make it into this one?

His instructor grinned. About twenty percent.

Matt wanted to curse at that, but he didn't have the energy.

Aster did, though, and started yipping and yowling in protest. Just getting that far had taken them hours, and they hadnt even reached the one-quarter mark.

Matt had wanted to avoid using his flying sword to map out the labyrinth of a city, but he started planning on how to take advantage of their vertical capabilities. He would just need to plan for dealing with any flying monster they might encounter.

After that revelation, they doubled down on their training.

Liz and Sam pestered Erwin into giving them alchemy lessons. His only condition was that they buy the herbs themselves, instead of letting Matt create new rifts with the herbs they needed.

He was adamant that they were too far from that goal with their current setup, and didn't want to skip any steps. As they were mostly focusing on Tier 6 and Tier 7 potions, the cost was negligible.

He and Liz also got everyone to agree that they needed better armor, and after arguing their point, Luna and Kurt jumped to the central planet and it's larger cities. There they found a married armorer and enchanter who were happy to work on a large order of Tier 8 equipment.

Matt decided to change up his setup, and ditched his lighter armor in favor of something a little heavier and tougher. The armor slowed him down a fraction, but it didn't impact his flexibility in the slightest, since he requested the joints to prioritize flexibility rather than defense. After all, he had [Cracked Phantom Armor] and its second layer to protect his joints.

The purpose of this armor was more to protect his limbs and chest from the Tier 9 monsters than anything else. From this rift alone, he had already experienced a variety of weapons, spells, and abilities breaking through his armor. His body and spirit werent strong enough to keep up with where he was and where he wished to go.

At least, not yet.

The armor being two Tiers higher than himself meant that it was heavy on both his physical body and spirit. The physical weight was the lesser of the two problems, but the spiritual weight meant that he could only use the armors enchantment for a few seconds. Otherwise, it started to hurt badly enough to force him to drop the power.

His growth sword was also upgraded to Tier 9, and he hoped that it wouldn't get so damaged in his subsequent fights.

Finding the item that the sword required to Tier up led them on a chase across every auction house the planet had. Eventually, Matt took a recommendation from Liz, and they visited the local noble house.

Count Petros was a cheerful enough man, and hosted the nine of them while taking Matt into his personal vault to find the item that resonated with his sword.

Eventually, they found it.

His sword wanted to go against the grain for a change. Instead of a metal or other monster part, it desired Tier 9 Tears of a Weeping Willow. They were an extremely rare ingredient that were the secondary byproduct of the natural treasure Weeping Willows of Watery Widows. They grew as a grove of trees, and had the nasty habit of killing anyone that was below their Tier who entered their domain. When cut down and harvested, the actual trees were incredibly valuable for mages staves, as they could channel far more mana than most other woods without degradation. Their capacity for enchantments was nothing more than average, but a mage wouldn't need to get their items reenchanted if they used them for a long time.

Oddly enough, women were completely unaffected. The story that the trees got their names from told of widows safely grieving under the trees, and their tears creating a pool where even the most grievous wounds could be healed.

More than a few unwarranted, and probably avoidable deaths proved that the legend wasn't true, but the name stuck.

The trees actually pulled water from deep underground and secreted it from its branches, only for it to return to the soil and rejuvenate the area that the trees grew in.

The tears were rare and mostly useless, which is why Matt had such trouble finding what his sword wanted. Not to mention that growth objects made of metal typically wanted harder materials, which ended up leading him astray. While it was interesting to see that even metal could take water into itself to grow, Matt found himself wondering if there was more to the byproduct than met the eye.

Was there something else that it could be used with? He noted his thoughts down in case they ran into any other obstinate growth items.

Still, once it was Tiered up, Matt was disappointed. With the sword needing such an odd item for the upgrade, he expected some type of improvement in his weapons functions. But the Tier-up only increased the swords weight and slightly increased its capacity for enchantments.

As he was still unable to self cast [Mana Slash] and [Mana Charge], with his maximum mana of 80, he was forced to reinscribe them onto the weapon until he could afford the 100 mana initial cost. It wasn't a huge problem, as he only put the Tier 7 variants on the Tier 9 blade, which left plenty of room for passive enchantments. It didn't strain his spirit as when he used a Tier 5 enchantment at Tier 4, so the same logic should apply.

He was much stronger then when he was back on the training world, after all.

For the rune setup, Matt didn't just stick to his standard repair, durability, and sharpness runes. He doubled up on all of them. It wasnt some revolutionary new tactic; the effects of the dual sets of runes werent just additive, but multiplicative. The problem that usually stopped normal warriors from doing the same was mana cost.

Kurts blade mage training had given him the idea. It was apparently common with fighters who used wooden weapons for their higher enchantment capacity and mana throughput.

It took Matt four attempts to enchant the blade, during which he had to dump mana and metals into his blade to repair the damage his missteps.

With the new enchantments, Matt was confident that he could cut through the defenses of the heavily armored orcs in the Tier 9 rifts. Not to mention the more defensive monsters that they encountered in the variety of random Tier 8 rifts they delved.

Everyone else upgraded their growth items as well, and were all equipped with new weapons and armor.

Aster even took the initiative to get armor that came with a blade for her tail. It wasnt as effective as she mightve liked, but she now had a less magical option for dealing damage. Matt couldn't really argue against it.

His gentle suggestion she get a claw or tooth attachment was shrugged off.

He used a sword, so why couldn't she?

Matt had no counterpoint, so he just gave up.

Liz, on the other hand, leaned into a much heavier armor set that was built to fuse with her upgraded Blood Iron and [Blood Crystal Armor]. It actually had room for Liz to cycle a layer of blood inside the heavy metal plates. It allowed her to control the armor with [Blood Manipulation], as the armor was built more for defense than movement. When she flooded the armor with Blood Iron, she was able to reinforce it to an insane degree. It was only compounded when she used [Blood Crystal Armor]; she was nearly unkillable when she used both of them in conjunction. The only downside was that the Blood Iron, once used for either purpose, was gone forever.

With Matt to keep her mana full, she didnt need to worry about the high mana cost for using the skills she needed to move gracefully.

When Liz used [Blood Manipulation] to supplement her movements, she was actually more agile than she was when using her old armor. She even managed to lift herself up and levitate for a short period of time, which let her use the weight of her armor in a devastating downward attack.

Her spear was also built with the newly Tiered up Blood Iron in mind. It could attract part of the Blood Iron, and use that to extend the spear or change the shape of the blade. The iron used was consumed by the spear, just as with the armor. However, Lizs natural treasure would continue to be replenished by the naturally occurring iron in her blood. Since Lizs growth glove let her store a swimming pool's worth of blood, she would always have enough iron to sustain her new equipment.

While they were waiting for their armor and weapons to be crafted, everyone took time to relax and decompress for a change. They were able to breathe for a bit without Luna and Kurt hounding them with lessons constantly.

Matt and Liz even took the time to go on a proper date to one of the newly constructed amusement parks. Everyone else came as well, but they split into smaller groups. Aster joined Sam and Tara, who wanted to ride in all of the biggest roller coasters.

They spent the entire day just goofing off and playing various games of chance. They even took their getting banned from the Tier 6 and 7 games as a badge of pride. Their training was so effective, they could easily beat games of skill meant to swindle people out of their money.

As the day settled down into evening, they all stood at the edge of the waterfall as the blue-tinged sunset painted a cascade of colors, creating a dazzling rainbow for them to enjoy.

To splurge a bit, and repay Matt for treating them to such a nice feast back in the war, Melindas team took them to the best restaurant in the city.

Reading the tasting menu that listed out the meals they would be served immediately caused Aster's tail to start swooshing back and forth, and Matt had to repress a chuckle as he saw why.

There was savory ice cream on the menu for the entree.

Seeing Kyle open his mouth while looking worriedly at Aster, Matt kicked him under the table.

Matt wanted to see Aster's natural reaction to ice cream that wasn't a snack.

When the dish came out, Asters eyes locked onto the orb of white, and she stretched to get a better look as the waiter brought out the tray.

When the dish was set before her, Aster started to quiver in anticipation as the waiter introduced the plate and the origins and preparation of each ingredient.

Matt was honestly impressed that Aster had remembered the lessons in table etiquette well enough to wait for the waiter to finish.

As soon as the waiter stopped speaking, Aster attacked the ice cream and swallowed it up in a single bite.

Everyone waited as Asters energetic movements slowed, then ground to a halt as the flavors she was expecting werent what she tasted.

Slowly, Aster started to lap the air. Through his bond, all Matt felt was a sense of deep confusion.

As Aster came back to life, her disappointment grew until she let out a mournful yowl while her tail and ears drooped.

That was too much, and everyone started to laugh. Aster just sat in confusion as her friends guffawed.

Sam lost it to the point that she snorted out the wine she had taken a sip of.

They recreated the rift half a dozen times, to no success.

Finally, they started testing their other theories.

The item used to seed the rift didnt seem to have much of an influence on the reward, if the reward was a growth item. Normal items usually mirrored the item used to seed the rift, but growth items seemed to be random in nature.

They also confirmed that growth items could come from any Tier 5 rift, if it was fully charged and delved enough. They hypothesized that there was something intrinsic in all Tier 5 rifts that made them different from other Tier rifts, but they were still unable to isolate the contributing factor.

Rifts also seemed to deaspect at a higher rate if they had more than five mana types used in their creation. But the success rate in getting growth items equally increased with the number of mana types used.

Before they moved on to seeding rifts with growth items, they tried less combat-oriented items such as furniture, art, books, and even building a rift around a plate of dinner.

Matt insisted on testing the last idea, if only to see whether they could actually make an ice cream rabbit rift for Aster or not. But they predictably had no success.

The rifts made from furniture had a tendency towards creating mimic monsters, but the theme always leaned more to urban environments. It vaguely reminded him of the drain monster rift he delved at Tier 4.

The rifts made from books usually were set in libraries and chock full of mimics, and oddly enough, mummies.

Neither of them understood why the book rifts produced those specific types of monsters so frequently, but the books inside were always gibberish. Erwin said that it was normal, but they still cleaned out two dozen instances of the libraries so they could run the books through their AIs later.

When they gave up on cracking the secret of why Tier 5 rifts created growth items on their own, they moved on to the final phase of their testing.

Using other growth items to seed rifts.

It actually worked enough to be the solution to their problems almost.

Creating a rift with a growth item increased the chance of the Tier 5 rift producing one to a decent rate. The problem was, the rifts were incredibly hard to stabilize, and frequently deaspected or absorbed the seed item when Tiering up.

It was only because of the insane number of delves that the guilder teams had been undergoing that they had a decent supply of growth items to use as test subjects.

As a part of the agreement between Erwin and the guild, any growth item that didnt appear useful to any guilder was kept for their seeding of rifts.

With a little more than fifty unclaimed growth items, they had ample supplies to test some of their theories, just not as extensively as they would have liked.

A rift seeded with a growth item, if charged to Tier 5, had a better than twenty percent chance to create a growth item when it was delved at full mana. If it wasn't fully charged at Tier 5, that percentage dropped like a rock, but that was in line with all Tier 5 rifts.

It was just getting the rift to Tier up without de-aspecting that they had issues with.

If the rift was diametrically opposed on mana aspects to the growth item, they learned that there was a near-zero chance for the rift to successfully Tier up without deaspecting. After learning that, they expected rifts that mirrored the mana types of the item would always Tier up. But they actually had a harder time Tiering those up than the rifts with growth items and mana types were adjacently aligned.

With that knowledge, they started creating rifts by the hundreds. As long as a rift didn't absorb the seed item, it could be used seemingly endlessly, which made no sense to either of them. The seed item should have been doing something to influence the rift, and they expected it had to do with the essence of the item, but they were unable to prove it. Eventually, all of the items got absorbed.

They just couldn't prove if something in the item's spirit was being used, leading to the seed item being eaten by the rift, or some other underlying method. Even with their precautions, the items rarely lasted more than half a dozen rift creations before they were absorbed. Even Erwin and his higher Tier senses were unable to find any degradation in the items before the rift absorbed them on Tier up.

They were still able to produce four other rifts that created growth items at a success rate of over fifteen percent, despite an approach that was more artistic than Erwin, ever the scientist, preferred. They called it a success and packed their bags, receiving more thanks from the guild as they removed the rest of their testing rifts.

As they drove off in Erwin's flying car, Luna appeared next to Matt,curled up in seat.

The instant she appeared, she asked, So what did you learn?

Matt knew that she had been watching, but answered anyway. It would help cement the knowledge in his own brain.

Creating a rift can be controlled, but it's more akin to an art than a science right now. We know that there are variables, but we havent identified enough to make any true headway. That only leads us to frustration and dead ends. Matt checked his AI while ignoring Lunas dangerous squint. Were at phase one of scientific discovery of Riftology.

Seeing Luna smirk at the name and Matt grinned back. No one else seems to have named the field before, so I made one up.

Luna burst his bubble. While Erwin might not have remembered to tell you, and the EmpireNet might not have the knowledge, the field is called Aperology. Aper as in Aperture, an opening, hole, or gap.

Matt frowned at that. It was far too pretentious, but he didn't argue. His idea wasn't any better if he was being honest.

In phase one of the process of scientific change and study of a field, it is characterized by several incompatible and incomplete theories. We have no existing framework that explains even a fraction of the phenomenon we see in our testing. We are touching upon the second phase, but we are only at the beginning, where normal science has begun. Where puzzles are being solved within the context of the dominant paradigm, which is spotty at best. We aren't even close to the point of refining our framework and creating more precise methodologies, which is the basis of phase three.

Luna, seeing Matt had stopped, snarked, That would have been much more impressive if you weren't reading off your AI.

Matt returned her attitude with his own. I'm not going to memorize obscure facts about the philosophy of scientific discovery. Channeling Aster and adding a smirk, he said, AI good.

Seeing the woman get a dangerous look in her eyes, Matt swiftly continued, What we learned was, we can get the results we want with massive costs. If we're willing to throw millions of mana at the project, and an equal number of material resources, we can eventually get a rift close enough to our desires. Honestly, I think with a better and more robust mana-type catalog, we could solve a lot of these issues. My gut tells me that its not the actual answer, but I think its a large portion of the answer. Im pretty confident that I can create rifts as payment, if that was your tactic to get me the items I need.

Luna sighed. Are you not willing to leave The Path? Even with the math shown to you?

Matt shook his head. He and Liz had decided on that already. After the tournament, we'll reconsider.

Pausing, he added, I do recognize the issue of currency that I will encounter.

Luna settled back and nodded for him to continue.

Personal mana is sold at a loss after Tier 25. Though, I couldn't find a hard reason for that. I only have speculation. He looked at her for an actual answer.

His trainer raised an eyebrow, not about to let him get an answer that easily. So, he said, I assume it has to do with mana stone sizes, but at my Tier that's not really an issue. Personal mana stones aren't our limiting factor yet, with 200 mana per stone. I don't even have 100 mana yet.

Luna shook her head slightly. Correct. It really depends on mana concentration and the aspect of your mana. The easier it is to convert into neutral, the more its worth for general applications. It also is about the size of mana stones. A rift mana stone is the same size from Tier 1 to Tier 50. To hold a million mana, you need a personal mana stone bigger than my house. You can't draw mana out of the stone while it's in a storage ring, so the size is the most valuable part of a rift mana stone during a fight, not how much mana it holds. That's why most people just use the less efficient rapid converters to drain a rift mana stone in the middle of a fight.

She sighed. So yes, trying to jump Tiers will require converting your mana into someone elses, who has a closer mana concentration to the Tier you want to buy at. Otherwise, the mana will be worth a lot less unit per unit, so it will take you more time to create enough mana to equal the standard concentration expected at Tier 20. It will only increase as whatever Tier you want to buy at advances, which leads us back to the original problem. You need to get every drop of concentration out of the potions while you can. Each Tier matters.

Matt nodded at the confirmation of his theory. And that will only make it harder to hide what Im doing. That, as I see it, is the real issue. Even with the best we can do, I assume it's hard to hide that much mana. I just want to help Liz as much as I can. She means more to me than a few years of easier resource gain. I know she won't let me run into any true issues, but I want to support her dreams until I can't stay on The Path anymore. It was always a means to an end anyway.

Luna gave Matt an odd look that he couldnt decipher, but changed the subject. Have you decided what cover you want to use during the tournament yet?

Cover? Like a mask?

His manager shook her head. Not just that, but a combat style that doesn't give away your trump cards.

What? Matt was loud enough that Erwin looked back to where the two were sitting.

Luna rolled her eyes like he was foolish. Matt, do you really think that The Empire lets the truly powerful delvers show off their actual abilities in the tournament? Not a chance. There will be more spies there than you can shake a stick at. No, the best fighters are given handicaps that will allow them to fly under the radar, while still displaying their prowess.

Matt shook his head. That doesn't make any sense. Light and Shadow still won their tournament.

Luna spun the ring on her finger. I will bet you everything I own that those two won despite the restrictions placed upon them. I can't see their actual abilities, but I guarantee that theyre hiding their true skills. We'll do the same with you. I expect you to win if youre going to be foolish enough to actually participate.

She let out a sigh that contained more frustration than Matt could understand. Though, I don't think The Emperor will allow you two to sit on the sidelines if you choose to remain on The Path. I believe he's trying to curry favor with the more neutral Great Powers by showing them that we're creating Ascenders at a prodigious rate. Combine that with a few concessions and territorial treaties, and he probably hopes to keep them out of the upcoming wars, if not pull them under our own banner as more permanent allies.

That seems risky. If we're too strong, won't it invite the Great Powers to gang up on us? Matt felt a kernel of fear settle into his stomach.

Luna nodded. It's a possibility. No doubt about that. But I do agree that it's a risk that we should be willing to take. When Light and Shadow reach Tier 25, there will be a war. But no one expects it to be a war that breaks the rules. As long as we aren't outright crushed, we will at worst lose some territory, and have to make some concessions. But if we have promising ascenders in the later generations, we can ensure that we will rise again. And there are at least two other teams who seem like they can make it. Or are least close to being powerful enough. Not quite on a Light and Shadow level, where they're able to easily fight up three or four Tiers, but able to fight up three with some preparation.

Luna shook her head. If you don't fuck up in the Tier 9 rift, we will talk about this after the tournament. What else did you learn?

The guild was nice. Like a large extended family. At least on the surface, everyone was friendly and helpful to each other. It was nice to see. I think I want that for myself one day. Set up a crafting guild where I don't need to hide my Talent, and create wondrous rifts and items. Create without the normal constraints of mana. I saw how the crafters were limited in their ability to make items and improve their skills. I could remove all of that. One crafter cried when he completed an item two Tiers higher than himself. Matt didnt think that was what Luna was quite looking for, but he felt that it was important to say.

Luna just gestured for him to continue, and they talked about what Matt learned until they reached their normal base.

He was surprised to find out that Luna believed The Empire would step in to buy the excess growth items. It was to prevent the local prices and economy from crashing more than anything else. She said that it was a fair price to prevent the guild from being attacked from all sides. It was a reminder of what his Talent actually meant. A target on his back.

Matt spent time with his friends, who he hadn't seen in over two months. While they chatted with AI, there was no substitute to being there with them in the flesh.

The next day, he and Erwin started on their own project seeing what would happen if a growth item was used to create a Tier 6 rift. It was commonly accepted that rifts past Tier 5 didnt produce growth items at an appreciable rate, but that was for normal, natural rifts. Rifts in nature didn't have growth items used to influence their makeup.

They discovered whatever special property that made the rifts create growth items disappeared at Tier 6, even when they used a growth item as a seed for the rift.

It was disappointing, but not unexpected.

While they tested their rifts, Matt, Liz, and Aster prepared to delve into the Tier 9 rift once again. They wanted to prove once and for all they had what it took.