It took Nil three days of cultivation and exercising to get the necessary ranks for ascension. His insides still felt ravaged, but he powered through it, hoping the pain would earn him another rank of Might. Unfortunately, he didn’t get what he wanted. Nil finished circulating the Body Pill’s gifts, getting him where he needed. Katherine, Susan, Andrew, and his family wanted to meet him in the meantime to help him cope with the loss. But Nil assured them he was fine and focused on ascending. Symbiotech had summoned him in a few days. Andrew and he were ready to execute their plan, and that came with risks. As a result, Nil wanted his body to reach the Bronze Realm first.
Even though Nil refused to admit it to anyone, the loss frustrated him. It was like the qualifiers all over again. The vids suggested that lasting a handful of more seconds would’ve reversed the results. He would still be in the Gauntlet of Ten and wouldn’t have to start from scratch. It wasn’t as bad as Adam’s loss, but it still annoyed him and had a lot to do with him pushing himself.
The several attributes and ability boosts during the match somewhat softened the hurt. However, Nil wasn’t ready to face his friends and family while feeling weak and like a loser. He received messages from Selia and Adam asking whether he’d like to hang out, but he rejected their invitations. Nil only allowed one distraction.
Meatball appeared perturbed with Nil at first. His refusal to let her out during the match had displeased her. She rebuffed his attempts to pet or pick her up for the first couple of days. Whenever he gave up trying to win her over and returned to cultivating, exercising, or any other tasks, angry squeaks and chirps burst from the whelp. Meatball wanted Nil to know that she was mad at him.
It didn’t take the whelp long to get over her annoyance and crave his attention. Nil hoped her attention span wasn’t tied to age. He was sure he’d make mistakes in the future and piss her off again. The sooner she forgave her for them, the easier his life would be. Meatball ensured he took breaks to occasionally throw her—which involved throwing her across the room. It was entertaining to watch her roll around. Nil couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to get faster and more in control over her movements every day. The schema interface suggested she had grown since her hatching.
Ironroot Whelp: Iron 1
* Reinforce: Iron 0
* Regenerate: Iron 0
Meatball had grown, but her abilities hadn’t. Given the attached names, it seemed she needed combat and perhaps to suffer injuries before they kicked in and had a chance to gain ranks.
On the third day after the match, Nil got Finesse to Iron-Nine. It happened after running the obstacle course while supercharging speed. He pushed the ability using Energy Instinct and focused on his footing and reaction time. Nil found rhythm and accuracy and got the final necessary rank after his sixth perfect completion.
Golden Aegis ludus had a body ascension room. It was a tiled white room with a giant marble tub. Vents and extractors lined the ceiling. The space included several jets and a rain shower too. Apparently, it paled when compared to Wilson Ludus’ space, but still better than nothing. Nil entered in only a disposable robe. He used his Bronze Ascension Token and lay down in the tub.
Congratulations!
Your body is about to ascend to the Bronze Realm.
Please pick upgrade paths for your attributes.
Please pick a Feat:
* Keen Eye For Vulnerability: No matter how durable or armored a foe is, it almost always has a vulnerable point worth exploiting. Your ability to identify an opponent's weak points increases with Finesse. You also gain the ability to judge which weak points are the most vulnerable and how to exploit them best. Successfully breaking through one has a greater chance of disrupting one's focus and psychic integrity.
* My Body Is My Domain: None but the invited may enter your domain. Your resistance to harmful substances and presences significantly increases with Might. Alien magic also struggles to survive in your body, losing potency. Their chances and rates of success are significantly reduced. The trait only provides resistance to physical injury. Psychic and soul attacks will remain unaffected.
* Shaper’s Focus: Your mental threshold strains are significantly reduced when using spells that manipulate or shape the raw energies connected to your ability. External stimuli struggle to break your concentration and focus during the act as well. Your focus and resistance scale with Mind.
* Primal Origins: Only a few learn to tap into energies from the Beginning, and even fewer don’t automatically turn to magic to manipulate and bend it to their will. You have felt the primal forces that flow through all and have welcomed them into your body. Instead of forcing it into your control, you guide it and seek to become one with the origin of all. The origin wants to connect with you, too, but first, you must give up all possibilities and potential of using magic.
Your connection and mastery of internal energies grow with Spark.
The old trait options had returned but with greater benefits. Nil had heard they grew stronger with each ascension, and it was interesting to compare them to their lesser versions. The new and improved My Body Is My Domain was especially tempting after his match with Francesca. He believed the feat would’ve slowed if not prevented her salt crystals’ ability to grow and shred his insides.
Keen Eye For Vulnerability now felt useless to Nil. The raw energy born of Expend hadn’t yet encountered a defense it couldn’t melt or pierce. Now that his control of the ability had improved, he no longer needed the trait. In fact, it was often a struggle not to kill his opponents outright. Isabella often told him that he needed to get over such concerns since his opponents would rarely consider such courtesies. Nil knew she was right and needed to work toward getting past such hangups. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where to start.
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The final two trait options pulled him in two opposing directions. One tempted him with magic, and the other forced him to give it up to access something ambiguous. Even though My Body Is My Domain would give him the most survivability, Nil gravitated toward Primal Origins. It scaled with his best attribute and sounded like it would meld well with Energy Instinct and his growing understanding of cultivation. In the end, it wasn’t a challenging decision. He made his decision, and the ascension process soon knocked him out, giving him just enough time to inform his friends, family, and Symbiotech about the upcoming unreachability.
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* Might: Iron 4
* Finesse: Bronze 0
* Mind: Iron 0
* Spark: Bronze 0
Brutal Battery: Iron 4
* Absorb: Iron 4
* Expend: Iron 4
* Toggled Supercharging: Mortal 9
* Energy Instinct: Iron 1
Feats:
* Haunting Visage
* Armsmaster’s Disappointment
* Through Sheer Grit
* The Power Of Belief
* Restless In Body And Mind
* Primal Origins
It took three days for Nil’s body to reach the Bronze Realm. When he woke, he could feel how his energy channels had expanded. His core felt denser too. As he circulated his internal energies, using the Mangrove Tiger Refinement Technique’s imagery, Nil felt amazed by how easily the imagined feline navigated through the caves and reeds. He used the remnants of energy contained in his Qi Absorption ring, and the opposing current grew more robust, slowing its progress. However, the tiger seemed stronger and had an easier time pushing through it.
The black slime that filled the tub was more acrid than Nil remembered. Voice commands activated the extractors and the rain shower. They sucked out the stench and forced the sludge out through the tub’s drain. The ice-cold water soothed Nil’s body. The post-ascension sensation had left him running hot. It wasn’t uncomfortable like trickling energy through his skin. Instead, he felt powerful and almost intoxicated, like he was having a merry time after downing his favorite cocktails. The euphoria brought him back to his college days when Aisha was still alive, and she’d force him to go dancing. Nil hated the clubs, but after a few beverages, he thought of nothing besides having a good time with her. His amorous activities with Katherine were a close second.
The ascension room had a wide variety of personal care products. Once the sludge was washed out and the room appropriately ventilated. The air-tight cabinet containing them unlocked. Nil first shampooed and conditioned his hair. The latter almost felt unnecessary. His hair had grown during the ascension, and it felt silky smooth. His locks were almost as luscious as Katherine’s and good enough to show untreated in haircare advertisements.
Several famous Summoned—mostly arena fighters—often acted as spokespeople for beauty brands. Nil doubted that most of the civilian population understood that beautiful skin and all else came from ascension instead of whatever chemicals the corporations were peddling.
After washing his hair, Nil took his time scrubbing his now extra-smooth skin. His new and improved body almost felt alien. The man in the mirror had better-defined muscles and stood approximately five-foot-eight, two inches more than Nil had prior to his first summoning. The ascension tub had filled with scalding scented water while he cleaned himself. It beckoned to him, and Nil spent close to an hour afterward just soaking and cultivating. It was a soothing environment, and he doubted he’d get a chance to enjoy it sometime soon.
Meatball stirred as he relaxed. All the manuals advised storing spirit companions in one’s core during ascension. Apparently, they benefited from the energies born of the process. Nil let her out and was amazed to see a handful of changes. She was marginally bigger, and her previous fuzziness had disappeared. The whelp’s woody carapace still looked like treebark but had the smoothness, color, and luster of polished mahogany. The metallic spikes covering her were just as magnificent.
Ironroot Whelp: Iron 5
* Reinforce: Iron 1
* Regenerate: Iron 1
The little whelp sped around the tub, chirping. She seemed in a state of euphoria too. Nil was glad to see her numbers go up. It didn’t mean he was ready to let her run loose in the arena, and planned to trial her in quests first. Meatball occasionally rolled over to him, and he threw her across the room. She chirped when landing and squeaked loudly after finishing her celebratory laps around the room. Thanks to their weak psychic connection, it didn’t take Nil long to figure out that she wanted to throw him harder, and he just did that, increasing the force behind each fling with each go.
He heard concerning cracks a few times, but the sounds Meatball made told him she loved the experience even more. Energy Instinct highlighted the green-gold energies radiating from her. They filled in the damage on her carapace, and it rapidly recovered. He finally got to see her Regenerate ability in action.
“I’ll throw you even harder if you use Reinforce,” Nil told her, and the whelp seemed to understand.
Luminous red veins spider-webbed across her carapace as she tightened herself into a speer and drew in her spikes. When he threw her with all of his unenhanced strength, Meatball bounced around, squealing gleefully. Occasionally, metal spikes flew off her body and shot across the room. A couple of them embedded themselves in the wall to make contact. One grazed Nil’s shoulder and left a clean, shallow scratch.
“Holy shit, Meatball.” Nil gasped, rubbing the wound as she returned to him, chirping gleefully. She had suffered no damage this time, and new spikes rapidly grew out of the few empty holes. “I should’ve named you Cannonball instead. You’re meant to be a little weapon, aren’t you?”
The carapace came apart, and the woody tentacles danced. Meatball used them to launch herself off the ground and into the pool. She used them like an octopus would its limbs and swam circles around Nil, singing gleefully.