The Path of Ascension - Book Summary, Info & Review

The Path of Ascension
C. Mantis
The Path of Ascension #1

The Path of Ascension Summary

Matt Alexander is a 13 year old orphan on the planet Lilly. He has been eagerly awaiting getting tested to learn what his Tier 1 talent is, something that can define a person's life. To Matt’s horror, he gets a talent marked as “Detrimental”. It stops him from cultivating to increase his maximum mana and give hims an incredibly slow regeneration rate, outside of when under 1% of his total mana. The only positive it seems to have is he regenerates incredibly fast when under that 1% threshold. Getting marked as detrimental puts his life on hold, as the guild he was planning to sign with backs out and he is basically forced onto the streets. He gets a job working long hours as a handyman at Benny’s Inn, hoping to someday earn enough credits to delve a tier 1 rift and eventually get to tier 3, when he will get a second talent that may fix him enough to be combat worthy.

Matt lives in the empire, a massive society of thousands of worlds, ruled over by the tier 50 emperor. His planet, Lilly, is a tier 4 world which is very weak, but it suffered a “rift break” years back resulting in his parents' deaths. Rifts are like spatial wormholes where “essence” creates monsters to try to kill humans, and if humans don’t go in and fight them often enough they can eventually open up allowing their monsters into the real world.

While working at Benny’s, Matt has continued to train his marshal prowess every day, focusing primarily on the longsword. One day, when Matt is 15, a couple of high-tiered strangers who are staying at the inn ask to spar with him and he forms a friendship with them. Eric and Dena Thorne seem to be about tier 5 which makes them very strong for this world, and they tell Matt he has promise. One day a group of rift delvers bring in a cracked skill shard, a rare special variant of a skill. After learning it is too expensive mana wise to be much use they throw it across the room and start a bar fight. Matt manages to steal and hide the skill, since the way it works combos perfectly with his tier 1 talent. The skill is [Cracked Phantom Armor] and for a constant mana cost it surrounds and protects the user with ghostly armor. Because Matt generates Mana so fast under 1% of his total, he can actually use the skill constantly (although he won’t be able to generate any extra to store up), giving him a great defense.

Eric and Dena tell Matt they want to sponsor him on the Path of Ascension, basically a fast track for promising young people in the empire. Being on the Path means he has some protections and is given free access to certain rifts, but he can not accept any outside help, and he has to hit each tier before a certain age or he is kicked off the Path. He duels Dena and manages to scratch her, so they sponsor him and send him on a train heading to a PlayPen, basically a protected training ground for young people on Tiers 1-3. They also provide him with a credit card so he can go into some debt getting himself equipped early on. On the train ride Matt integrates his new phantom armor skill into his core.

He arrives and is shown around by the Tier 15 Griff, second in command at the PlayPen. Matt meets some Tier 2 kids on the path, Matthew, Melinda, and the rest of their team who help him learn about the PlayPen.

Matt begins delving the tier 1 rift, which is a series of caves with more and more goblins, and then a boss room featuring a hobgoblin. His cracked phantom armor makes him basically invincible to weak monsters of his own tier, so he is able to delve often and gain a bunch of experience despite going solo. Matt continues to delve and gain essence and experience fighting. One day upon entering the tier 1 rift he is shocked to find all of the goblins are hobgoblins. He remembers from one of his classes in the PlayPen that, although rare, rifts can sometimes give an upgraded version of themselves with better rewards. Matt decides to keep fighting despite the increased risk and is successful until he gets to the boss room. He initially is going to turn back but gets greedy thinking about the reward and decides to fight. The orc boss is able to use skills, something you don’t normally see until tier 3 and Matt takes a bad hit to the side, but is barely able to kill the boss and win the fight.

His reward is a strange blue egg but he sends a message to Melinda (who is a healer) to ask for help. After exiting the rift another healer tries to steal his egg, then when told to stop she plans to smash it but Griff kills her before she can. He freaks out at Matt for trying to survive an enhanced rift, but Melinda heals him and he is fine. The egg is for an Ice Fox, and is worth a ridiculous amount of money but Matt decides to keep it and bond with the fox. Shortly after a small fox hatches and Matt names her Aster. As Aster progresses she is able to use ice magic to help him delve rifts.

Melinda and her team hit Tier 3, and her tier 3 talent is so unique and powerful that they get a video call from the emperor himself. Every healing spell she uses can provide overheal, which is a really good form of regeneration. Once you hit tier 3 you only have 6 more months in the PlayPen, so Matt’s friends will be leaving soon. He already hit tier 2 and focuses all his energy on getting him and Aster to tier 3.

Eventually Matt makes it to tier 3, and when he gets tested he is ecstatic to learn his tier 3 talent says that if he absorbs double his max mana, his maximum will permanently double, giving him a way to fix his biggest handicap which is his inability to increase his max mana. He circumvents his limitation by filling a large mana stone (with his ability to continuously give/generate mana as long as he is nearly empty), then reabsorb it all from the stone. This increases his maximum mana up to 10 or 20 at Tier 3, and he has the potential to double it every tier. Because this increases how much / fast he generates when at less than 1% of his cap, his mana potential just skyrocketed. He does the math and once he gets to tier 15 or so he will have more mana than almost any other mage. Now that he knows he has the potential for a broken build Matt is even more dedicated to progressing.

Matt gets a personal AI installed, but has to get a special model that takes a continuous stream of mana due to his talent. It helps him analyze fights, predict enemy moves, message other people, etc. He also now has the ability to cultivate his physical abilities, and since he can’t cultivate mana due to his talent, he is able to get stronger than most people his tier.

After 6 months Matt is required and ready to leave the PlayPen with Aster. Griff helped him find a training world which will be opening up soon run by the Dual Starts guild. This is a fantastic opportunity for Matt to progress to tier 4 and get good items and skills. He travels to Bladehold, where he will teleport to the training world. Both the empire and the republic (Another nation/political entity) will be occupying it, as sort of a friendly competition between their lower tiered people. There are rules against killing and stealing but Matt is prepared and knows some will do so anyway, especially against a solo delver like him. Being on the Path offers some protection but he still needs to be careful.

Matt is able to get into the good graces of the guild on the training planet by donating a ton of mana right after arriving, so he gets some preferential treatment along the way. He teleports out and Aster is delighted since he heads to a distant area that is freezing cold. His phantom armor protects him from the cold and Matt hopes less people will be out here due to the chill. He does some delves, which give better rewards than normal due to the training planet’s excess mana, and advances to tier 4. He has to duel a couple of other people over rifts but everything stays professional. Matt delves one rift where realizes after finishing he is on the back of a massive dragon, and quickly exits.

At one point he is fighting a blood mage, when another group shows up and tells them to teleport away, they will be taking this rift. Matt and the blood mage team up and beat the arrogant team, but their last member throws a bomb which causes a landslide. The blood mage protects Aster and Matt is fine from his armor, but the blood mage lost their spatial backpack with all their supplies. She reveals herself to be a woman, Elizabeth Moore, and Liz and Matt decide to team up for now. Matt is grateful for her helping protect Aster and offers to share his supplies. Together they raid a bunch of rifts and find some really good items and even one skill shard.

After the first week they head back to the main camp / city for an auction of all the early loot. Liz has been teaching Matt a bunch of stuff he didn’t know before, especially about advancing past tier 5 which requires a “concept”, basically a central idea of who you are. We also learn (although Matt does not know yet), that Liz is the daughter of two tier 48s Mara the Phoenix and Leon the storm mage, some of the most famous people in the empire. This means she has a bunch of beneficial knowledge for advancement as well as a “bloodline”, since her mother is an evolved magical beast, like what Aster will become after tier 15. They make a bunch of money auctioning off items they don’t want and are able to trade their skill shard for both [create water], which becomes [create blood] for Liz, and [Mages Retreat] for Matt, which allows him to augment his strength for a constant feed of mana.

They each have to fight a couple of challenges from arrogant idiots, and Liz reminds Matt to remember being weak so when they are strong they can help enforce rules and keep a fair system in place. Matt also gets a new enchanted longsword after his old one gets destroyed. Matt decides to give Liz one of the paired growth rings they found, an item that can power up with the wearer and lets them swap places with each other for a lot of mana. This means they plan to team up for a long time, as they form a good pair.

They head back out and continue doing rifts, pushing to reach tier 5. They get invited to a secret challenge rift by the guild thanks to Matt donating mana. In it they face many waves of enemies and then at the end a Tier 5 boss, which is a very challenging fight. They manage to kill the giant snake-beast but it bites off Matt’s arm in the process. They rush back and are able to get it reattached and Matt feels good as new, just an expensive process. Aster did earn a skill that lets her gain strength from eating opponents' hearts which is super valuable. Liz kind of freaks out when Matt tries to shrug it off and after working it out he agrees to go to therapy to process some of his childhood trauma associated with his parents dying.

When they return to the wild rifts they find a group of tier 5 has been robbing other delvers, and when they eventually follow them into a rift they kill them in self defense. Nothing else really happens besides them gaining essence and working on skills for a while. A week before the training planet is set to close and they will go back to the real world, they all have enough essence to advance to tier 5, Matt just needs to figure out his Concept, consisting of a phrase and image. He knows his phrase is “I am endless”, but the image needs work.

There is a small, controlled battle between the republic forces and the empire forces, and if Matt, Liz, and Aster perform well enough they can earn skill shards so they compete, and they each earn some more skills. After that they exit the training world and meet up with Liz’s Aunt Helen, who is older than the empire and the best cook in the empire. She is super friendly and makes them dinner, then provides Matt with a tonic that condenses his mana. It also shrinks his mana pool back to tier 1, but due to his ability he can just charge a mana stone and fill his core with it a few times to get back to where he was.

They then head out to meet Liz’s brother Travis and his husband Keith on a different world. After a leisurely trip they arrive and learn the reason for this visit was someone is planning to ascend (to another plane / realm) on this world soon. Being near an ascension makes it easier to advance, especially with figuring out your concept which Matt needs to hit Tier 5. They spend 6 months going to local college classes, training, and relaxing. Matt and Liz acknowledge their mutual attraction but don’t want to rush into anything and risk hurting their team dynamic. They do realize Matt can charge rifts, which is a super powerful ability and one they need to keep secret. Liz tells Matt her parents are Mara and Leon and he still accepts her.

On the day of the ascension there are millions of people packed into the planet to be near the event. When the guy ascends, Liz is able to hit tier 5 with her concept of being a blood phoenix, Aster does with the concept of cold, and Matt finally does with the image of a white hole (opposite of a black hole) constantly giving out mana.

We get an epilogue of sorts where we see a group of high tier individuals consisting of the Emperor, Mara, Leon, and a few others go to the training planet after everyone leaves. They received a message from Matt via Liz about the rift he entered on the back of the dragon. They spend a year reactivating it then moving it to another planet to harvest dragon essence from. We see from the emperor’s POV that there are large scale political dynamics in motion, and peace relies on a balance of power which the empire will probably be breaking soon due to having too many powerful individuals. We learn Matt and Liz plan to go conquer a new planet for a vassal kingdom. THE END.