The Path of Ascension: A LitRPG Adventure, page 37
“Start the fight, Ref.”
The referee looked bored and, frankly, as sick of the kid’s shit as Matt was.
“This is a fight of honor between Daimian Woods and…” he looked at Liz and repeated her name when she gave it, “Elizabeth Moore. The fight is to the opponent’s surrender, or if the healer or I call it. No intentional killing or crippling of the spirit. The prize is this spear or Miss Moore spending the evening with Mr. Woods.”
At that, he looked at Liz and asked, “Do you agree with the stated terms?”
At the bubbly agreement from the challenged, he asked again, “As sexual favors were one of the terms, I must confirm you have not been pressured into the duel. If you have, the Dual Stars guild will deal with it. You just have to say the word, and I'll stop this.”
That got Liz to look at the referee, and she gave him a genuine smile.
“No force, and even if I lose, it won't be the first time I've been disappointed in bed.”
The referee just shook his head and said, “I'm activating the protective shield. On the count of zero, the fight starts.”
When the count hit zero, Daimian reached out his hand for a shake and said, “No hard feelings.”
It was so obviously a trap, Matt couldn't believe it when Liz just stuck her hand out to shake. She was falling into it. No, jumping into it.
When she gripped his hand, he laughed and slapped a band around her wrist.
“Hahaha! You arrogant bitch! You thought I would forget your bloodline is stronger than mine? Ha! With that suppressor on, you won't be able to use even a tenth of your power! Now, let's get you on your knees. That ass of yours will look excellent in my bed tonight.”
There was a rustling from his clothes like he was in the center of a breeze.
Liz just turned her hand, looking at the band like it was a pretty bracelet.
Matt looked for worry or fear, but her face was cold.
“So, this was your plan. Huh, I guess I don't have to play nice, then.”
Daimian dropped to his knees, and then to his face, as his hands couldn't catch him in time.
Liz squatted and looked at the prone figure as if he was a new rift creature she had dissected. It was slightly unnerving observing her expressionless face. He never wanted to find out what it was like to receive that look.
Liz watched the struggling boy, and Matt looked on with a hint of fear as blood leaked from his eyes and nose.
She ran her hands through his hair in an almost gentle and kind movement. It seemed so, at least until she gripped the back of his head and ripped it upwards to face her.
“What was that about kneeling, doggy?”
Daimian gurgled at her. Only blood came out where words would normally.
Liz waved the bracelet in front of his face as she said, “Were you really counting on this? Traps only work when the trapped doesn't have overwhelming power. Ten percent of my bloodline is more than enough to break a weak little doggy like you. Even 1% is.”
She ran her manacled hand over his face. Most probably saw it as a tactic to humiliate Woods further, but Matt saw the blood sticking to her hand.
“What do good doggies do?”
When Daimian didn't respond, she violently shook his head, bending his neck at a painful angle.
“I asked a question. What do good little doggies do?”
Blood seeped from the kid’s pores. What is she doing to him? Is it her Talent or bloodline?
Matt looked from her cold face to the crowd around them. The healer appeared shocked, but the referee looked like he had been run through and gutted.
The rest of the crowd was silent. They had been expecting a fight. Not this one-sided humiliation.
“Doggy, answer me.”
Daimian finally succumbed to the humiliation and loss and did what she wanted.
He barked.
Like a dog.
Liz smiled and said, “Good doggy.”
Then she ran her thumb across his neck.
She dropped his head, with his throat cleanly sliced through. Matt saw the white of his spine as Liz walked away.
The healer was quickly on Daimian and tending to his wounds, hands glowing with a skill.
Liz walked to the shocked referee and put out the arm with the shackle. With a bright smile, she said, “Can you take this off? Oh, and where's my new spear?”
21
Matt stood there with Aster in his arms. He looked at Liz like she was a completely different person.
He shook himself free and walked over to the smiling redhead. She had gotten the manacle off and examined her new spear with an air of affection.
That was the Liz he was used to. Happy and seemingly carefree.
He came up and congratulated her. “That was one hell of a fight.” He didn’t know what else to say.
She just waved him away. “Nah. That wasn’t much. I just had to show someone playing dirty has its consequences. That little trick with the bloodline shackle is incredibly underhanded. He’ll be spending the next few weeks unable to delve with the damage a slit throat does. Or I guess he can risk the chance of the healing not taking if he doesn't give his body time to acclimate.”
That shocked Matt. “If that was dirty, then why didn’t the ref call the match? And why would he use it? There were so many witnesses.”
His methods didn’t make sense to Matt. If you had to do underhanded things, you didn’t advertise them, let alone carry them out in front of dozens of people.
“I don’t know. I can’t read his mind, can I? Really stupid of him. It really pissed me off in the moment, though.”
“It didn’t affect you, did it.” A statement, not a question.
Liz shook her head and started toward their hotel. “Nah, it did. But that shackle was a very limited one. Meant for impure, weaker bloodlines. I was playing it up for the crowd, but that thing only reduced my power by maybe 2 or 3%.”
“And the whole bringing him to his knees? How did you manage that?”
“That was his bloodline reacting to a larger, stronger predator. It instinctively protected him by submitting. He was sort of reaching out with his power at the same time, trying to flatten me. When he did that, I was able to grab hold of it. Once I sunk my teeth in, he couldn't pull back or stop. If he wasn't waving it around like a jackass, I would have never been able to do that much damage. I got a better sense of his bloodline during the duel. It’s some wolf type. That’s why I kept calling him doggy. Wolves hate that more than anything.”
Liz chewed on her lower lip before finishing, “Wouldn't have worked on a dragon bloodline, or even a pure and high-Tiered wolf bloodline.”
“And that treatment won’t come back to bite us?” Matt was concerned that Daimian or his father would try to get revenge. Matt didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to try while they were on The Path, but the Empire could only punish their killers not reverse their murders.
“That bloodline skill won’t work on his father, will it?”
Liz was still smiling and walking, inspecting her spear.
“Nope! It only works around my Tier. Don’t worry. We are all under the Monster Kingdom. This is how things are done. If a weaker bloodline tries to throw its weight around without power, they get humiliated. If it wasn’t a duel, I would've had full rights to kill him and demand resources from his father. When we get back, we’ll get a very sincerely worded apology for his actions with gratitude for being lenient.”
She looked at him and punched his arm. “Relax. I know how far to push things. If his father does come and kill us, there’s nothing we can do. Besides, like my dad always said, if you’re gonna teach someone a lesson, make it one they’ll learn the first time.” Liz laughed, and it actually made Matt feel a little better.
It was true. There wasn’t anything a pair of Tier 4’s could do if someone above Tier 7 tried to kill them. It was a surprisingly comforting realization.
Liz immediately ruined his mood with her next words, “Someone called my mom a broodmare once, and my dad ripped her in half in front of the entire Imperial Court.”
“That’s murder!” Then morbid curiosity got the better of him as he asked, “Umm, how did he rip her in half? Like a burger or a sub?”
Liz tittered, “More like a grilled cheese. Diagonal, shoulder to hip style. And he had to pay for her healing. Got slapped with an aggravated assault and battery charge.”
After a moment, she continued, “We got off topic. It’s far more likely some of his guildmates will try and ambush us out of a rift. That, or we’ll get endless challenges while we’re in the city.”
She laughed while twirling her spear.
“This isn’t a joke, Liz. This could be trouble.”
She was taking this far too lightly for his taste.
Liz turned, and she was more serious when she addressed him, “We can’t do anything about what’s done. I’m not going to let people walk over us. And, besides, this is more my area of expertise than yours. It’s all a game, to a degree. The higher-Tiered people are watching after the show I put on. They might not have a bloodline to feel how strong I am, but the Tier 25 guarding this place should know what a bloodline like mine means. He’ll stop anything from going too far.”
Matt chewed on her words and acquiesced that her logic checked out.
With a sigh, he let the worry go and asked, “What will they think your bloodline means? Seems almost…” he mulled over the word he wanted, “threatening.”
“A little, yeah. The Dual Stars are a Tier 25 guild that want to become a Tier 30 guild. That means they’re playing politics. They have to be scheming for a position in the fight when another Tier 30 world is found. Either that or trying to get permission for a guild war with one of the existing guilds.”
She shrugged.
“They don’t know who my parents are, but with how I crushed the idiot back there, they know to be wary. Even if my parents were Tier 5 weaklings, my bloodline strength guarantees I’ve gotten attention from higher-Tiered people. Everyone’s always looking for marriages to improve their bloodlines, or they simply attach themselves to anyone they see as a rising star.”
That boggled Matt’s mind. She was only a few months older than him and had been given marriage offers? All for her bloodline.
He wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse. It seemed reductive to her as a person. She was more than what her bloodline could do to benefit others. He thought it might explain her stance on her independence. So long as she stayed on The Path, the Empire would protect her. If she fell off before making a point of her power, her parents might not be able to protect her.
A Tier 25 did not have any more of a chance against a Tier 30 plus than Matt or Liz had against Daimian’s father.
Once again, Matt tried to lighten the mood. “So, what, you had the other kids all following you around?”
That got the smile back. “A bit, yeah. That was more because I was always getting us into trouble.”
Matt could easily imagine a young Liz leading other kids on all sorts of fool’s errands. He had seen those types at the orphanage and had avoided them like the plague. Now, he was stuck with one.
Practice and doing what he was supposed to do hadn’t gotten him into a guild or on The Path, taking risks and stealing the skill shard had.
Taking risks had also almost gotten him killed with the rift challenge.
Okay, maybe I won’t turn into a wildcard after all.
Optimistically, Matt said to Liz, “The auction was a success I’d say. We made a lot of money. Enough that we might even be able to buy a third skill, if it’s weird enough. Two Tier 7, and 26 Tier 6 mana stones isn’t anything to scoff at.”
“Yeah, if we’re lucky, we can look at the exchange tomorrow. But we aren’t the only ones who made it big today. And other people brought outside funds. Skill for skill is the best way to trade right now.” Liz had all but crushed his dreams of buying a third skill.
They reached their suite and decided to lay low for the evening. The recording of Liz’s fight had spread all over the LocalNet, and she already had half-a-dozen people challenging her.
She ignored the provocations and, the next morning, they went to a blacksmith. Liz wanted to make a modification to her spear.
The blacksmith didn’t even bat an eye at the odd request to put a metal cap on the butt of the spear, with a small chamber that screwed shut.
It had barely taken him five minutes to finish and, afterwards, Matt and Liz rented out a training room for the morning.
They practiced with the bonded rings’ swapping and teleporting features. The ring took 1,000 mana to swap places, with a range limitation of nearly ten feet. The base teleport was expensive, with the price scaling with the distance the rings were away from each other. Every few inches after that, the price doubled.
They wouldn’t be using the rings to do anything more than dodge to the side.
It took Matt fifty seconds to dump a thousand mana into the ring at his full output. With [Cracked Phantom Armor], [Mage’s Retreat], and his AI, it would take twice as long, at best.
Matt became lost in thought while considering the adjustments he would have to make after adding [Mage’s Retreat] to his arsenal. He realized he wasn’t sure how much mana the skill could handle. From what he read, it should be able to take anything and everything he could throw at it. There were lingering doubts deep in Matt’s gut that no one had the skill, and even more about anyone wanting to trade it for [Puddle Jumper].
Breaking free of the trappings of his mind, he refocused on their training. The next limitation of the rings was their mana capacity. They could hold 2,000 mana. After that, any mana over the limit was slowly bled off. Liz said that was normal for rift items.
They theoretically had unlimited storage capacity, but there was still a soft cap. Matt, with his regeneration, could get the storage to a little over 3,000 before the loss was greater than 10 mana a second. That number was half of his Tier 4 Mana Regeneration under his 1% total. In other words, this was the first time he’d need to budget his mana.
[Cracked Phantom Armor] was able to handle 8 mana a second, and his AI took about two mana per second in a combat situation. If [Mage’s Retreat] worked like he had read, it could handle the rest of his mana throughput with no problems.
Liz assured him that both aspects would improve as they advanced the rings. When they looked up some of the common items growth items needed, the price for even Tier 5 materials made Matt sick.
Tier 5 materials should never be sold for Tier 8 mana stones.
Liz, seeing his face, just laughed. She pointed out they wouldn’t even know which materials the ring needed until they advanced with the rings. So, really, it might need exotic materials that cost far more.
She suggested they visit a proper auction hall, which would have a collection of materials the growth items usually wanted. They'd have to bring the rings close and wait for them to react to a material. It was a common testing method to figure out what a growth item wanted at each Tier.
Even with all the limitations, the rings were still useful items that would let them surprise their enemies.
The teleport was unlike any of the planetary ones Matt had experienced. It was smooth, and as far as they could tell, nearly instant, with no disorientation from the magic itself.
Despite his complaints, he could see how even higher-Tiered teams would want a growth item. Especially if they were as powerful as the rings, or the sword they saw at the auction.
As they continued training with their weapons, Liz wreaked absolute havoc with her new spear. Matt found her idea of creating a place on the weapon to store some blood to be genius.
It allowed her to recall the weapon if she threw it, and that along with the bleed effect was a deadly combination. He refused to let her play target practice with him, despite her insistence it wouldn’t hurt.
Her last spear had a reinforced, hollow core along its length. That let her fill it with blood after each blow, at the expense of a bit of mana and mental concentration.
She couldn’t risk losing the enchantment on her new spear by hollowing out the inside. Instead, she had a hollow sphere mounted on the bottom end of the spear. This only allowed a simple recall, which was still a potent ability, especially considering it only took five minutes of work and few Tier 4 mana stones.
Matt also bought a small crossbow so he could add to his ranged options, at least until he got a ranged skill of his own. Liz and Aster were good, but a mundane backup was a safety net he didn’t want to leave the city without.
He had to dedicate a lot of time in the future for practice. He could hit a stationary target at ten feet, but if the distance increased, or the target was moving, a successful hit would be through luck more than skill.
That was even with his AI helping as much as it could with predictive tracking and wind calculations. He still had to pull the trigger, and he jerked the weapon enough that even the best AI could only get him in the general vicinity.
The skill exchange was later that evening, and Matt and Liz were in their combat clothes. Armor for Liz and his usual form fitting clothes for Matt.
The skill exchange was both a place to get new skills and a place to show off the ones you had.
Seven arenas would be available with both referees and healers on standby.
The event was more dangerous than Matt had originally thought as it took place on a massive floating platform in the neutral lake. Delvers from both the Empire and republic would be attending.
There were various competitions of both martial arts and crafting skills. Matt figured it was essentially a dick measuring contest between Dual Stars and the faction the republic sent.
They arrived at a large ship docked at the wharf. The ship consisted of multiple levels of furnished platforms with large staircases connecting each level. After their identities were verified, they climbed aboard and walked to the roped-off edge. It was serrated and had clamps ready to bind the platform to another.
Matt and Liz claimed a couch and waited for their platform ship to fill and get moving. They watched and whispered to each other about the various teams and individuals that boarded.
