Chapter 171

Chapter 171

Matt readied his sword and his buffs. [Mage's Retreat] was the one he was most familiar with, having had outright decades to get used to the Tier 8 strength-boosting skill. It wasnt the only channeled physical-cultivation skill, but all the others were Tier 14. For a normal Tier 11 delver that would make them fairly rare, but hed been delving Tier 15 rifts for so long, he possessed Tier 14 skills by the bucketful.

Matt hadnt gotten any of the others as drops himself, he had actually traded for them. Regardless, with the full suite of Tier 14 skills in his possession, his fights had become substantially more complex.

Gone were the days of throwing as much mana as possible into [Cracked Phantom Armor] for defense, a bit into [Endurance] for stamina, and the rest into [Mages Retreat] for strength Well, mostly. It was still his favorite way to fight, for all that Luna kept pushing for him to expand his horizons. But for this fight he wanted to beat Queen as Matt the swordsman not Matt the mage.

Still, these days he needed to balance [Acrobats Finesse] for proprioception, [Rangers Sight] for his visual perception, [Barbarians Hide] for durability, [Sharp Mind] for mental acumen and reaction time, [Willow in the Wind] for flexibility, and [Lesser Regeneration] for healing.

All six scaled at the same basic rate as [Mages Retreat], but hed never truly re-mapped how much of a boost he got per second with his well modified skill. His old chart didnt account for his mana concentration or the armor hed gotten that enhanced self-buffs, let alone all of the changes hed made to [Mages Retreat] to make it more efficient and powerful. But his estimates were accurate enough for the newer skills that he hadnt been able to cycle into his core spirit and manipulate.

2 25%

10 50%The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

50 75%

250 100%

1250 125%

These days, 50 MPS provided at least a 100% boost to his new skills thanks to his underarmor, let alone to the well-loved and well-modified [Mages Retreat], but the table still served as an excellent base while he figured out what tactics he wanted to use in any given fight. As he was fighting Queen, and wanted a good, fun, sword duel, he probably wouldnt push too far from his normal role of a strength-based juggernaut. At 50 MPS across seven skills, he was spending a baseline of 350 mana each second, which would drain most mages of his tier completely dry two times over in less than a minute.

But for Matt?

He barely even noticed it next to the 2,560 mana that he generated every second.

Still, even after experiencing it so many times, the rush of power that washed over him as he activated his baseline buff was like the best drug, hitting him almost like a Tier-up.

Everything was so much clearer and sharper, and his body almost felt like it moved before he gave it a directive.

When Queen dropped from her en garde position to a slash, he felt like he could see the mana build on her blade before it spat out in a crescent wave.

He slid to the side and dodged the first attack as he flooded his own blade with mana to return the [Mana Slash]. Queen didnt let him attack without responding, and slashed her blade upward, sending her own spell into his.

Their skills exploded in a wave of energy.

Susanne flew out of the mass of energy like a loosed arrow, and Matt readied to block her thrust, but he noticed the mana building in her blade and activated [Cracked Phantom Armor] to block her [Mana Thrust]. Instantly, blue armor materialized and covered his entire body, with filigree building itself in seemingly-decorative swirls and patterns. In truth, they were carefully designed to concentrate the armors second layer as much as possible, while still protecting his entire body. The more his original armor skill grew the simpler it became but at the same time the second layer grew even more ornate.

While the thin beam of energy that Queen shot at him didnt look like much, it hit as hard as some of the Tier 15 monsters hed gotten used to fighting. Still, he could and did dump a lot of his mana generation into his armor. Hed maxed the skills mana throughput with a bit above 2,400 MPS in total these days, half to the first layer and half to the mutable second layer, and it handled Queens attack without much trouble. It was second nature for him to flick his boosts down for a heart beat to take the hit, then increase his physical buffs once again.

He still made sure to block her actual sword with his own, though. He was far less confident at taking the womans full Concept-powered attacks than her standard skills. Their first impact showed Matt what he expected; he was physically stronger than Susanne. Between directing all of his cultivation to the physical side, and getting an additional 75% boost on top of that, he didnt really expect anything else. Especially now that he knew for a fact that her Talent didnt help out in that regard. But it was impossible to truly know what other tricks she might have up her sleeve.

He deflected her blade to the side and was moving in to kick her knee when a second version of her weapon chopped out at his leg.

Reflexively, Matt shifted all the filigree that made up [Cracked Phantom Armor]s second layer to reinforce the exact area that the attack was about to strike. Queen may have been fast, but hed been fighting faster foes than himself since even before he could double the potency of his perceptions on command. Her attack rebounded off of 1,200 mana perfectly positioned to block it, though even then it very nearly broke through his primary defensive ability. In retaliation, Matt brought his own sword down on the smaller woman after stepping forward to close the distance.

Queen slipped to the side as if the ground was ice while chopping upward at his extended arm.

Matt was forced to retreat, cutting off his armors second layer and redistributing its mana to [Mages Retreat] and [Sharp Mind] for maximum speed, and he didnt stop until he was out of her reach and had a moment to recuperate. [Lesser Regeneration] and [Endurance] both flared up, relieving his physical strain and refreshing his mind, allowing him to consider his options.

He cursed internally.

Queen was still a better warrior than he was.

But he wasn't just a warrior.

He was so, so much more.

***

Susanne swore internally as Quill retreated.

After hearing his Talent, she hadnt expected to beat him in a battle of strength, but she hadnt expected to be so substantially outmuscled, even with [Mana Strength] reserving a fair portion of her mana.

Her AI did the math for her, and she realized she had to adjust her battle strategy to treat Quill like a Tier 13 swordsman.

As he retreated, he started throwing [Mana Slash]es as if they were going out of style. It reminded her of Quills endless fireballs when she was fighting him in the tournament.

Knowing his Talent explained how the man was able to cast so many spells and make so many talismans, but the endless waves of attacks still stood out to her as just unfair.

She blocked, dodged, or cut each of them apart as she raced after Matt trying to force him into a standing battle. But he kept retreating, and was just so stupidly fast. She had to bend space to just barely keep up with him, and even when she matched him using [Dash], he just sped up even further, forcing her to drop her skill to avoid draining all of her mana only a minute into the fight.

She noted that he was very good with his Concept, able to hover just half an inch over the ground and speed himself up, even in retreat. Not a lot of people below Tier 15 could do that. While there was no technical restriction on moving in any direction with a Concept, humans natural instinct was to move slower in a direction that they normally couldn't.

But she was better, she could already tell. Matt used his body and mana well, but for all his skill, she had just spent the last three years learning all the tricks she could pull with her Concept from Carol.

Shed been taught by the best, and it showed. And for this fight, shed need to go all-out.

She used her Concept to compress space and shortened the distance between Matt and herself, skipping and dodging the final few [Mana Slash]es.

Susanne brought her blade down on Matt and tried to cut through his incredibly hard armor, but found that he had cast [Sword Doppelganger], and a mana version of his longsword blocked her attack.

She remembered how the skill had felt three years ago, and was once again surprised, but this time by how much more solid and durable it was now. As she focused on making her manifestation sharper, she brought her main blade around while creating a second copy to strike out at Matt's true blade as it descended.

Before she had met Carol, creating the second copy of her blade was all done on instinct, and difficult to keep active. But now, it was second nature, albeit only for a few seconds at a time. Her Concept was meant to empower a single sword that she always had active, so pushing it to create two blades felt odd.

She activated the enchantment on her bracer and a blast of air surged out to strike Matt, sending him flying, but he was only knocked back a few feet before his Concept began halting his movement.

She felt where his Concept tried to affect reality and struck out at it with her greatsword.

Carol had explained it to her in simple terms when she asked why stabbing one of Adams illusions had hurt him, and it all came down to her Concept.

Any weapon Concept could make a weapon manifestation, but in the end, they weren't real blades. That came with a few drawbacks, like the fact they couldn't be enchanted or over-Tiered, but they had their own advantages.

Concept manifestations weren't real. That meant they could strike out at things that a normal blade couldn't hit.

Like illusions.

Or someone else's Concept and its workings.

When she cut the edge of his Concept as it was trying to stop his momentum, Matt was again sent flying as all the force he was resisting hit him at once.

She was already closing the gap as he slammed into a wall, and she pushed her second sword to cast [Mana Slash] in the last moment before it vanished again, while her main blade cast [Wind Cutter]. The air spell was incredibly sharp, and was perfect for bypassing hard armors.

Susanne was almost on him when her spiritual sense felt something wrong, and she retreated out of instinct.

Matt was standing there with his blue sleek armor as if nothing was wrong, even without the more ornate portions that seemed to reinforce the skill.

Instead, between them was a five-foot-wide and seven-foot tall wall of mana.

Her AI recognized it before she did. [Bulwark].

A Tier 20 skill.

After a moment, she caught herself. It synergized with his Talent well enough that it probably was one of his tournament rewards, if not one of the Cracked skills that hed likely gotten as a reward from King Frederic. Shed gotten two herself, after all. Still, that meant he potentially had one more Tier 20 skill on-call, though she was confident that he wouldnt have any more than that.

After all, she had needed to put every mana stone that shed pulled out of her rifts into buying more delving slots and essence stones to complete Tier 11 in such a short time. And he had two other people to share essence with. They wouldve been incredibly lucky to find an extra Tier 20 skill on their own, let alone one that they could trade for Bulwark instead of selling it for rifts or essence stones.

She had been fortunate beyond anything shed hoped for to get a second Tier 20 skill that perfectly fit her. It would be absurd for them to be so lucky as well.

Quill stepped forward, and the shield of mana moved with him, brightening as more mana flooded the skill. As the skill was becoming opaque thanks to the sheer amount of mana, he slashed his longsword, and a [Mana Slash] cut out at her through the shield.

Susanne cut it in half, but while her return [Mana Thrust] made the shield dim a little, it quickly restored itself and grew even brighter.

Shed been eyeing [Bulwark] for herself eventually, so she knew that it needed a set amount of mana to cast, which was what dictated the size and strength of the shield. But it needed mana channeled into it to work as anything more than a temporary block. Every attack that landed on it drained some of the stored mana, and battering through it was normally a perfectly viable option.

But when Quill used the skill, that weakness was completely covered, thanks to whatever crazy cracked effect it possessed to make it even better for him.

Still, she had to try.

It wasnt in her nature to not batter through any obstacle in her way.

Using her own new skill, Susanne sent mana into [Hypersonic Edge] before linking it with [Wind Cutter], then doubling it to cast with both her main and secondary blade.

Unleashing both empowered [Wind Cutter]s, her mana dipped noticeably, but she rushed forward to capitalize on the destruction of [Bulwark].

[Hypersonic Edge] increased the cutting power of any weapon or skill that it was cast with, but if cast with another skill, it acted as a multiplier of the mana cost, which made it difficult to use too often.

Still, its negative effect was well warranted as she saw [Bulwark] explode, and the skills continue onward to hit Matt.

Susanne expected him to be heavily wounded, but exactly where the attacks landed, his armor instantly grew ornamentation.

When the metaphorical dust settled, the ornamentation was gone, along with her attacks, but she had closed the distance, and started battering away at him with her sword skills.

A small part of her was grateful that she was still better than him in blade skills, and she kept on him to press that advantage.

He was stronger than her, yes, but she fought opponents even stronger than him on a regular basis. His attacks were heavy, but they were still less than a Tier 15 wyvern or giants would be. Skill could close that gap.

So many people only relied on magical skills, but neglected the mundane. She wanted both.

Matt was better than most, and as they exchanged blows, she found herself enjoying the fight, but it was only his superior physical cultivation that allowed him to keep up with her.

At one point in their fight, his entire style changed. He stopped smothering her with his heavy attacks and moved to a faster, more fluid style, but she was more than used to fighting faster opponents. A single, powerful blow countered Matts new tactic, pushing him back far enough for her to pick up her offensive. He seemed to give up on speed after that, returning to his normal, heavy attack style.

Luna nodded. That could have worked, but maybe not. What you need is to finish modifying your skills and get used to casting them. I also need you to integrate with the team, so we will start you on training scenarios.

She looked to the side and Kurt appeared with his blade at the ready. The four of you will start fighting Kurt. Do your best to kill him.

Kurt must have seen something on Susanne's face as he wrote, Worry not. Im Tier 35.

Susanne hopped to her feet, and her sword sprang to her hand.

She didnt rush into the fight, though, and instead looked at Matt and Liz, asking, Battle plan?

Matt smiled.

This was going to work well.

***

Luna watched as the children threw themselves at the wall that was Kurt.

They had been fighting for two hours now, and had still not managed to land a single attack on the Trainer's form.

In the beginning, she could see Susanne starting to get frustrated at their inability to touch him, but the girl had quickly discarded that useless emotion, and focused on finding her place in a team battle.

Aster kept to the backline and near one of the others, usually Liz when she was acting as a mid-range mage, or Matt when he took his turn as spell support.

Those three had long learned to read each other and react immediately, and while Susanne was a new addition, she was a good one who thrived in a fully offensive role.

Luna found it interesting how quickly the girl adapted to Matt and his Concept, as it had only taken her a few rounds of Kurt knocking her around until she started using all of her skills as fast as she could.

They finally were able to see some more of her skills, like [Sword Gale], which sent dozens of small wind blades out from her attacks. It wasn't a particularly strong skill, but it could do serious damage to weaker enemies, or otherwise serve as a distraction.

Kurt's skill blocked or dodged all of the attacks, but it was good to see Susanne had more in her arsenal than she showed.

The girl had most of the skills she would have expected, and a few that she didnt, which was good. Well rounded kits were always important, even beyond Minkalla. They were the defining feature of Ascenders, and doubly so for solo ones.

After fighting Kurt, Susanne took turns fighting each of her proteges, and while she still lost most of the time, struggling to keep up with the groups incredible array of skills and powerful items, still managed to eke out wins more and more regularly as she caught onto their tricks and favored tactics. In one particularly notable instance, shed learned to cut through Matts [Cracked Mana Spear] beam.

At first, it was only for a fraction of a second, but a week later, she was going for nearly ten whole seconds. Two weeks after that, it was twenty. A month later, she wasnt quite able to go for thirty seconds, but with dedicated practice, she was getting better and better at resisting the beam with her Concept and parting the attack around her until her sword outright broke under the strain. It was the only time Luna ever saw the girl without her Manifestation, but it never seemed worse for wear whenever she re-summoned it afterwards, which meant that she had an impressive level of control and abundant willpower.

Because of their bet, Carol was taking a back seat. But as the days passed, Luna let the other manager give a few Concept lessons to Matt, Liz, and Aster.

They were learning well under her tutelage, as sometimes an outside perspective could have unexpected benefits, and Carol was good at figuring out how each Concept worked and how to improve them. Matts flight had already sped up by three point two percent, and his whitelist ability was stronger. Lizs blood was six percent stronger when empowered, and Asters ice was a full four percent colder than before.

The next few weeks, she spent time drilling the kids for fighting other cultivators before switching to simulated monsters that had appeared in Minkalla in the past.

For all that most people died to the other humans inside the Forge, the monsters and traps were still quite dangerous.

Changing up the lessons ensured that they had no obvious weaknesses, and Luna was more and more confident as the time to enter Minkalla closed in.

During the first two weeks, she pushed them hard before easing up and then forcing them to take some down time as a collective.

That was the best way to ensure that they bonded well in the short amount of time.

Luna looked up and to the planet that loomed over them.

Minkalla seemed to be on track, but even her cultivation was unable to pass the barrier that surrounded the planet. If she tried to enter, she would just appear on the other side, as if it didnt exist.

But the walls between them were easy to see through, and she could see the Minkalla tracking station and their readouts. Everything was right on time.

Two weeks left.

Next week, she would stop drilling the kids beyond two hours a day, and start beating all the rewards she had hidden from them so far into their heads. She would let that excitement drive them forward with their team-building exercises.

She just hoped they would all come out alive.

It would be even better if they came out at Tier 11.

***

Susanne enjoyed her time with Matt, Liz, and especially Aster. They were good people, and were fun to be around.

Having unlimited mana to spar with competent fighters and practice her skills had also been a boon she had never expected.

The last few weeks would have been perfect Would have been.

But the fact was, while she could fight Matt to a standstill in melee, and even win sometimes, she lost as soon as he transitioned to a mage style. She did win against his mage style sometimes, but her victories were few and far between. Each time it happened, she learned how to counter him just a little bit better, but it was irritating nonetheless.

Liz, she fared better against. It still stung every time she lost, but the woman seemed to have a bag of tricks as deep as her ocean of blood, and couldnt be simply overpowered or outlasted, which were the normal ways to beat mages.

Beating Aster just felt like bullying with her more support oriented style, but the fox had caught her off guard and stolen a few wins against her. But that hardly counted, and didnt serve to bolster her mood at all.

The three of them never rubbed it in, and were happy to help her learn how to counter their tricks, which was dramatically different from most of her training partners. But it still only showed the difference between them. It wasnt like they werent getting better against her, after all, and it felt almost like as soon as she made any progress, theyd move even further away.

Currently, she was still trying to counter Matt when he used [Create Water] to flood the area, a talisman to flash freeze the ice, and finally [Ice Manipulation] to entomb and crush her.

Susannes spatial abilities had gotten a workout, but they weren't a natural part of her Concept, so her growth in that area was slow, which forced her to think about other options.

Nothing in life was fair, but with Matts Talent, they had earned themselves more items, growth items, and even skills for themselves and that helped keep them ahead of her.

Thankfully, Carol and Luna both mentioned that Minkalla would be a blessing for her. At least they had indirectly hinted at it.

They said if she really wanted to win, challenge the trio after Minkalla.

So that was her goal.

Minkalla.

The Forge.

Her forge.

***

Matt kicked his feet up and watched as people rushed to and fro from his spot near the bay window in their portable house. Hed finished tidying up the place already, and they had a nice view from Lunas front yard. Tomorrow, hed keep expanding the enchantments to enable hanging paintings on the walls with no fasteners, but right now, he just enjoyed some of the most enjoyable people-watching hed ever experienced.

Liz was more interested in the pad she was reviewing news in, but Susanne was also watching the crowds along with himself and Aster.

As if reading his mind, Aster said aloud what hed been thinking. So many old people...

And she was right. Around fifteen percent of the cultivators who had arrived on the moon were old. White and gray hair abounded, all of them peak Tier 14 cultivators pushing to enter the planet.

They had managed to overhear a conversation that Luna hadnt blocked, which gave them their only hint about a reward of Minkalla.

If the old cultivators reached the fourth floor, they would almost certainly be able to form a Concept.

A cultivator at the peak of Tier 14 was able to live for a little more than a thousand years, but after that, if they weren't able to form their Concept and reach Tier 15, they would eventually die. Physical immortality only truly started at Tier 15, when the body was able to wholly run on essence, regardless of food, water, air, or age.

But the problem was, the bottled Concepts which so many people used to reach Tier 5 and Tier 10, only existed at those Tiers. They were perfectly useful at that point in a cultivators life, but eventually, they would find themselves lacking a T15 potion that just didn't exist. So, the cultivators who hadnt formed their own Concepts beforehand had no other choice but to do it the hard way. Overly long-term reliance on the bottled versions tended to make that even harder than normal, but it bought them so much more time that it was generally a net benefit. Still, there were always those that just couldn't figure it out for themselves, no matter how much they worked.

If they knew where an Ascension was going to happen, they could go and use that to kickstart their own Concept, but they were rare, and usually came with so little warning that most people couldn't reach the planet in time.

That left a sizable portion of cultivators just one step from reaching Tier 15, and Minkalla seemed to have its version of an Ascension buried in its depths.

Considering that was the reward for floor four out of seven... Matt was giddy to learn exactly what was in store for them beyond that.

Nothing they had done had gotten around the cat's restrictions, but it didnt mean that they couldn't do their own research on the other Great Powers' competitors.

The Sects as always, tried to hype up each and every one of their Young Masters, but there were a few who were notable enough to reach the Empires ears, and the information brokers had gathered that information and sold it.

They spent a lot of their break times looking at their greatest competitors and trying to plan out fights with them based on their reported skills.

They had done it for all the other Great Powers when they realized their oversight.

The four of them had effectively jumped generations, and all of the other Pathers who were going into Minkalla this time were from the Tier 10 tournament before theirs.

It left them with a massive blind spot where their own side was considered, and they were taking this break to go over the past records of the Tier 10 tournament.

Or rather, Liz was.

She hadnt been happy with how the three of them compiled their parts of the information, and had taken over. Most of the information was bought from the various information brokers, but they all had different ways of rating everyone, and different criteria for said ratings.

Liz was trying to aggregate it all and unify the formatting before organizing it herself, then briefing the rest of them on her findings.

They had tried to help her, only to be turned down at first politely, then sternly.

Once Liz set her mind on something, it was better to let her have the reins, so the others were left at odds.

Liz raised her head and said, Ok, done. First, let's grab

Luna appeared next to them and interrupted her. You can do that at my place. It's time to learn just what youre trying to find.

All of them hopped to their feet as Luna brought them to her living room.

Carol and Kurt were there, and a screen was illuminated on the far wall with a title card reading, Bounty of the Forge: A Comprehensive List of Minkallas Rewards.