Chapter 117

Chapter 117

When Matt crawled out of the rift exit, his only good leg was doing most of the work. He was quickly scooped up by Mathew and Kyle, who dragged him over to where his team and Melinda. She had clearly started casting spell after spell at the sight of their condition, unwilling to stop until they were whole again.

Knowing she was burning through mana at a prodigious rate, Matt used his Concept to keep her mana topped off, though he barely had any willpower left in the tank.

Despite his exhaustion, he knew she would need the mana.

Yes, she had Overhealth, but her skills still needed to be powered if she was to regrow their flesh.

And considering that Liz was more like half a corpse than a living person, he would make sure that she was able to keep healing.

Mathew asked, Dude! What the fuck happened to your hands!?

Matt managed to grunt out, Stupid sword had some skill on it. Damn thing absorbed attacks and shit out damage.

Still, he kept his eyes on his teammates as he spoke.

Aster was covered in blood, but was asleep, and seemed to be fully healed. Liz, on the other hand, was being regrown before his eyes. Her torso healed, then filled out.

It was slightly disturbing to see her hip bones form under the skin, then fill out, and eventually sprout into legs that extended to their original form.

In mere moments, she was whole, and Melinda turned to him.

Matt, trying to lighten the mood after seeing the dark expression she wore, waved his stumps.

Can you give me a hand?

He was still hurt, but his family was healed, and they would be fine.

They had officially completed Lunas task as well.

He had a plethora of reasons to be happy.

Melinda didnt even smirk, only saying, Drop your armor on three.

Matt was about to speak when he remembered that back in the PlayPen, she had also needed him to drop his armor to heal him. She quickly counted to three, and he complied with an effort of will.

With the sudden disappearance of his armor, and with it no longer keeping pressure on his missing limbs, he slumped over as lightheadedness overtook him.

He wasn't so out of it that he didnt feel the calm energy of Melinda's spells, and it rushed to all the injuries in his body.

He expected the energy to rush to his apparent wounds, but the rush to his kidneys was unexpected, and brought on a sudden urge to urinate.

As the feeling overwhelmed him, Matt stumbled to his feet and pushed everyone away. He waddled off until he put a few feet of distance between them, and pulled off his tattered armor.

He was still luxuriating in the relief of emptying his bladder when Vinnie asked, Why is your piss purple? That cant be good

That caused Matt to snap his eyes open to see what Vinnie was talking about. With a pang of nervousness, he quickly asked, Melinda, why is my piss purple?

He was pretty worried and disturbed by the implications.

She called back, I don't know Maybe the massive amount of poison your body was trying to process? Did you ever think of that?

Matt finished and pulled up the remainder of his pants as he cast [Create Water] to wash his hands and clear the foul-smelling urine away.

Turning back to them, he said, I did get poisoned, but we got it healed. The dark color vanished along with the pain as we healed it. As he considered what they had done, he added, I even used a ton of [Endurance] to ensure I was healed.

Melinda gave him a flat look while Sam just smirked.

The healer was the first to speak. You stopped most of the damage, yes, but it was already in your body and needed to be processed out. It also did quite the number sitting in your kidneys as they tried to break it down.

Sam was more interested in the poison. You didnt happen to keep the poison, did you? I assume it wasnt from an animal.

Matt shook his head in the negative. No, it was on a dagger. I didnt pick it up either.

Mathew asked, How did you guys get fucked up so bad?

Vinnie chimed in as he held up the gauntlets from the reward distortion. I take it you beat the boss?

Matt went over to inspect his armor and said, Yeah, we won, but we also got our asses kicked doing it. The boss was Tier 10 and really good with his sword. We He trailed off for a moment, We paid a hefty price to win is all.

They quietly chatted while the others slept, and when Matt saw Aster start to wake up, he moved over to his bond and gently rubbed her head.

She licked his face and asked, Ice cream?

Matt sighed and scooped her up. She was fine.

Seeing that her ploy for treats went unanswered, she opened her eyes and scampered up over his shoulder, then gently jumped onto the bed Liz still slept in.

After sniffing her for a long minute, Aster jumped into Melindas arms and started thanking her as well.

Matt took the hint and did the same.

Melinda just brushed it off, refusing to acknowledge the help at all.

Half an hour after Aster woke up, Liz did as well. After washing up, they sat around and joined in telling the story of how they fought through the rift. Melindas team was far more interested in how they fought the two new sub-bosses, and how they defeated the Tier 10 boss.

They inspected the armor set, but were unable to determine the effects just by feel. It was far more complicated than anything they had discovered before.

A part of him had expected Luna to show up and talk to them, but she, Kurt, and even Erwin were absent from the camp that evening.

Taking it as a sign that they were being given time to rest, the trio did exactly that.

The following day, Luna gathered the three of them up first thing in the morning.

Well done.

Kurt held up a sign that had a bunch of fireworks and confetti drawn around the same sentence.

Matt expected a comment about how they hadnt cleared the rift well enough, but Lunas following words surprised him.

Completing a rift higher than your own Tier is always dangerous, and a full rift, even more so. With the boss being four Tiers higher than your own, any victory is beyond reproach.

Aster fluffed up at the compliment, and her tail started slapping hard against his side.

Luna then poured a bucket of cold water over their heads. Do you think you can do it again?

Matt wanted to say they obviously could, but paused. They had fought hard, but they had only succeeded by making a desperate move. One that only paid off because everyone had immediately reacted to the plan, and had thrown everything they had into it.

He wasn't confident that things would play out as cleanly as they had the first time.

But they had learned a lot with the practical experience.

There were counters that could be prepared.

Liz answered for them all. Yes. With proper knowledge we can plan better. We know how the boss fights, and have an idea about the full rift now. So I think we'll do better in the next fight, with some preparation.

Kurt wrote, Yes, that's true. Are you confident in a full clear of the rift?

Matt answered, With some more practice, I think it's possible.

The older man smiled, and Luna said, Good. Thats my goal before we Tier you up. Once you fully clear the rift with a clean fight, well push to you Tier 7, then directly to Tier 8 without stopping. Once were there, that's where youll sit for the next two decades or so. I want you to have more mana to throw around, and let you cast other spells with an initial cost of over 100 mana.

Kurt added, This little break will also let us gather the materials for your mana concentration potions Matt.

That was when Luna pointed at his hand. So, do you want to know how to regrow that ring, Matt?

Matt looked at his hand, and finally noticed the teleport ring that he had exchanged with Liz so many years ago was missing. He hadn't even noticed it.

Instantly, his body locked up as he asked, How? It felt like he had swallowed an entire egg, but he pushed through it to get the question out.

Her grin was evil as she said, Youre going to need to regrow the ring from Lizs, and that's not easy. You need to find a material five Tiers higher than the rings current form that it actually wants, and then pour it in. Sometimes, it only needs a pinch, and sometimes it needs a thousand pounds of material. Fixing broken growth items isn't cheap at all.

It didn't seem that bad until Kurt wrote, The materials to regrow missing parts of growth items are never cheap. Theyre rare, and hard to find.

Matt wanted to complain, but not because of the price. He was pissed that the ring was gone. That was one of the things that had bound Liz and himself together. He had offered the ring more on instinct, and it had paid off better than he could have ever expected.

It wasn't about who Lizs parents were, or anything else.

The gift of the ring had earned him Lizs friendship and company. That was worth more than any tangible benefit.

Still, it was a price he would pay. Now that he knew the ring was missing, his hand felt empty.

That would be the first thing he rectified.

Luna then said, We need to set up a plan for your mana concentration potions going forward. The next one is easy enough with your current funds, but that's about as far as they will travel.

Matt shook his head. Cant we discuss that when were Tier 8? I don't need to use the potion immediately, and the extra generation can help cover the cost. And Tier 8 is so far away.

Luna looked like she'd wanted to say more, but refrained and just let them go.

***

Through nearly a year of testing, they discovered a way to semi-reliably create rifts with Aura of the simplest elements.

The first ingredient that the rift needed was mana of a compatible type, and a subtype that could work as a weapon, or some way to attack. The latter was a hard requirement that they found no way to subvert.

Fire mana with a hot sub-aspect was essential to create fire Aura on monsters like fire aspected salamanders and firebirds. With the proper sub-aspect, the fire aspected monsters back scales and wings, had wisps of fire Aura, more than a quarter of the time.

If things had been simple, they would have discovered the second ingredient to making rifts with Aura in the first week. After two months of testing, they finally narrowed it down to Matts personal mana being the factor that made the Aura more likely.

It threw them for a loop. While Matts Concept had been slowly converting his essence, he hadnt noticed any difference with his mana. However, with testing, they isolated his mana type and sub aspect. His mana was primarily neutral, but with an endless sub-aspect.

The effect was minute, as only the smallest portion of his mana was converted, but it was still noticeable. When his mana was used in charging items and runes, they lasted a little longer than they should before running out of energy.

After observation, they saw that the percentage of aspected Mana was always the same, at each step of observation. They even planned for Matt to take some extra time sitting at 0.1 when he used the next mana concentration potion. With a mana pool that small, his mana would quickly aspect that small portion, which would then be kept through his expansion of his mana pool.

His mana, like himself, was endless.

At least, it tried to be.

The efficiency boost was less than a single percent, and only noticeable when they had light rune tests that lasted more than an hour. At that quantity, the light lasted a second or two longer than the control test, every time.

Matts mana seemed to be required to create Aura with any regularity, but they speculated that it was due to his mana acting as some sort of bridge, to allow whatever deeper factor happen regularly. Even all the information that Erwin had about rifts from the Empire stated that they had noticed no repeatable patterns to Aura rifts. Their best guess was that the Aura was the mana type in a more permanent and enduring form that was, without his sub-aspect, difficult to recreate in nature.

They did discover that the sweet spot for creating rifts with Aura was within Tiers 6 through 9. Outside of that Tier range, they were couldn't to get the Aura to form with any regularity, no matter how many times they tried to tweak the formula. Tier 7 seemed to be the Aura's preferred Tier, since it would continue to form there despite any deviations in their formulas.

That revelation forced them to return to the start of their tests, and repeat them all with the mana samples that Matt had gotten from the kids he had helped awaken, and then his old mana imprint.

Thankfully, his mana did not seem to change any of the results other than the Aura, but only when the conditions were aligned. Otherwise, the mana seemed to have no impact. To be careful, they only used the cleanest mana types for their baseline testing from then on. Though Matt had the feeling that he could create wave rifts with more experimentation, he and Erwin agreed to wait until they finished their Aura testing first.

Still, the Aura rifts were a closely guarded secret that even pulled Luna and Kurt into the discussion.

Matt passed nervously as Erwin unbotherdly studied a lizard with flame Aura rolling off its back like waves of fog.

Luna seemed bothered, and Kurt seemed like he wanted to say something, but kept stopping himself.

Matt looked to the older cultivators and asked, This is as big of a deal as I think it is, isnt it?

Kurt wrote, Yes. Aura is great for lower Tiers. It's a step between bottled Concepts and shards of reality. We need to keep this quiet. Maybe not even look into it.

Matt was relieved at the man's serious take on the situation, and was going to agree, but Luna squashed that hope.

No. Continue with the testing, just only do it when Kurt or I are nearby. We can't risk this information getting out, but we cant just avoid exploring this avenue.

With that proclamation, the conversation ended, despite Matt wanting more reassurance. From then on, whenever Erwin and Matt tried to create Aura rifts, one of the managers was always with them. As an added precaution, they would personally destroy the rift as soon as Matt and Erwin were done with their testing. Every time, they would collect a sample of the Aura, take one corpse, and then use their greater cultivation to scrub the area of life.

That was when Matt started to get nervous.

If two high Tier individuals were taking this many precautions, then he wasn't sure that he and Erwin should be creating rifts of this nature.

Erwin just looked at him like he had been replaced with an imposter when he broached the topic with him, only saying the science demanded they continue. And of course that they needed more testing.

That nonanswer forced Matt to seek out Luna and ask the same question.

She seemed to age a dozen years when he brought up the topic, but only said, It isn't up to us. We will find out what information we can, then pass it up to people stronger than me.

Matt cocked a confused eyebrow, and Luna explained further. This is big enough that well need to take our findings to the Emperor. Theres no question that he needs to be informed, but we can't trust any public information channels with this information. So, Ill have to make a trip to visit him. But Im not going to him empty handed. We will get what low hanging information we can, then give it to him so he can make a decision for everyone.

That didn't quite make Matt feel better, but he couldn't come up with a better answer.

Before Luna dismissed him, she added, Worry not young Matthew. Even if the Emperor is going to make this information public, which I doubt he'd do, it won't involve you. At best, hell ask for a few thousand mana crystals to be imprinted with your mana, and then sent around to be used in rift creation. You won't be involved.

When he talked to Liz and Aster about the situation while in bed, he was glad for the first time that Luna kept the three of them encompassed in her power at all times. If she didnt, he wouldn't even feel comfortable talking about it with his AI.

It was a secret, much like his Talent. It was big enough to get him shoved into a box.

Ignoring his mana sub-aspect, the Aura could allow more people to create their own Concepts earlier, reducing the reliance of bottled Concepts, and people being stuck at Tier 14.

With his mana sub-aspect allowing his mana to power standard runes and enchantments longer, he was now afraid to sell his mana without deaspecting it first. And that took a week normally; time he couldn't explain if he was filling a city's reserves.

Aster had the idea to just use his oldest mana imprint in his mana ring, and just deal with the inefficiency when selling his mana. It wasn't even a large loss, like when he converted his mana to other types, as it was only changing the sub-aspect of his own mana.

It was the best idea they had, but it still reminded Matt that there was an ever lingering threat over their heads.

His head.

The threat was entirely on him, with his Talent and Concept. Liz and Aster would just be caught in the crossfire.

A selfish part of him wished that his Concept was different, and he debated doing what Melinda did. But deaspecting his mana was out of the question, since he couldn't create a separate mana pool like she had done to keep the changes contained.

He was unable to do that, and was unwilling to sacrifice his uniqueness for safety.

It just lit a fire under him to get even stronger, and make sure that no one could threaten him.

Within the year, they found the recipe for creating Aura of the basic mana types of fire, water, earth, and air, while also making more abstract Auras like sharpness. In their testing, they even created Aura for the other weapon types, like blunt weapons, staves, axes, polearms, spears, and such. Though, the more abstract their experiments became, the harder the intended Aura was to create.

They were able to create Aura for a few of the dual elements, but not all of them. Oddly enough, mist and magma were easy to create Aura for, taking almost no effort and being easily recreatable. The rest were far more hit or miss, for reasons they couldn't determine.

With thousands of rifts created, they were able to make at least one of each, but it was difficult, and took time for tweaking their formulas. To Erwin's irritation, they had more success when Matt simply followed his instincts regarding what to make the rifts with.

No matter what they did, they were unable to get Aura of the triple elemental mana types, no matter what they tried. The obvious answer was that Matts mana wasn't strong enough to create endless versions of those mana types, but they couldn't be sure without converting more of his mana. But that was normally a slow and laborious process.

They estimated that about one percent of his mana was converted, but that had taken him over four years, which was a result of his Concept being so large and robust. Keith and Travis had warned him that this would be a problem, and that this would be where Matt would feel the effects of such a massive Concept. However, if he spent time with nearly no mana, he could shorten the process down to a few days or weeks at most.

Aspecting his essence would still be an issue, they unfortunately couldn't find any shortcuts there.

Luna had just left after Erwin and Matt finished up the last of their Aura testing, when a brown-haired man came into their encampment, escorted by Kurt.

Erwin seemed to know the man, who he was introduced as Achlys, but said to just call him Ace.

When he said he could influence rifts, Matt knew that they were in for their final steps of rift creating.

Trying to create unique skills, and using skills as rift seeds.

***

Luna tore a tiny hole through chaotic space with a finger transformed into a claw, ripping into the defenses around the Emperor's palace on the capital, and then quickly retracted her power.

Her intrusion was instantly noted, and the familiar presence bled out into chaotic space, then locked the nearest three worlds down.

The Emperor looked as if he was ready to kill, until he saw that it was her.

Luna was quickly enveloped in his power, and then dragged into a sitting room inside the palace.

Emmanuel's first words were a curt, What? That was little more than a growl.

I need somewhere more private. Luna knew the importance of her news, and refused to speak more without greater security.

After The Emperor inspected her for a moment, she was pulled along as they went deeper into the palace.

Once she was inside, she felt that they were in an odd expanded space that was almost completely cut off from realspace. It was isolated to a degree that she had never encountered before. She could only speculate that it was a Talent from someone else that the Emperor was using, or a special rift reward that the imperial family had gathered.

Either one was just as likely.

It's safe here. Speak.

Luna tossed him a spatial ring and then sent the video of Erwin and Matt's experiments. The ring held a sample of each rift and its Aura, along with one monster per rift. In a corner of the ring was Erwin's preliminary hypotheses and theories about the phenomena on an information crystal.

Emmanuel's face visibly hardened as he reviewed the information.

Well fuck me a thousand ways from Monday.

Luna understood the feeling. It was beneficial information that they couldn't use for fear of creating waves. The entire Empires lower Tier rift setup could be adjusted to allow more people to reach past Tier 15, which would increase their power in a way not seen since bottled Concepts.

Emmanuel paced for half an hour before the ring vanished into one of his own spatial rings that could store more of its kind.

After turning to Luna, he spoke with a tone of finality and command that couldnt be ignored. Tell them not to mention it, and to cease all rift creation with his mana. Not until after the war, at least. Catching her eye, he added, I want you or Kurt near them at all times. Ill assign another half dozen Tier 35s through Mara and Leon. Make it seem like it's them being themselves.

The Emperor threw his head back and took a massive breath before holding it. He let it out with a laugh.

If we make it through the next few millennia, we will change the realm. With enough targeted Aura rifts, we wont need bottled Concepts, and well be able to make Tier 24s by the billions. Even if their Concepts arent perfect, theyll still be immortal, and we can always have them break their Concepts and reforge them when they figure it out later. The pure number of extra people well be able to create will help tip the balance for large scale engagements.

Luna disagreed with the macabre humor.

If was the keyword, and she hated uncertainty. She also didnt want to die in a realm war.

But she did agree. We must dig into our reserves, and hope our preparations are better than our enemies. If we lose, we won't live to regret it otherwise. The efforts of your grandmother and father will be put to the test, while your leadership will steer us through the next few centuries.

If they lost, Matt might survive if he sold his Talent, but she doubted that the child would be allowed to. For all his goodwill and kindness, she wasn't sure that Emmanuel would let him have the choice.

But she wasn't sure. Luna didn't know this new Emperor as well as she did the last. She knew for certain that Emmanuel's father would never let Matt fall into enemy hands.

At least not alive.