The Path of Ascension Chapter 526

Chapter 526

Lawrence winced as Esther slurped up an escaping noodle while they watched the video Maya had reshared in the war chat.

Apparently, one of the higher Tier Gladiators had put together a highlights montage of their peers’ raid in the Federation. They'd have thought the act of sharing the video was a provocation from their fellow Republic Gladiator until Matt and Ellen had reacted to the message positively a moment later.

When they’d gotten over the shock of such casual sharing, they’d had to deal with the shock of the recording itself.

Their peers were worryingly impressive in ways they couldn’t easily counter.

Esther grumbled something around a mouthful of food, that, if he was being generous, could almost resemble the question, “What’s our plan for that?” in relation to the ichor spells homing in on essence sources.

“Maybe we can shift our cores forward in time? If we can remove them from the present, I bet the homing loses all of its effect.”

After she finished chewing, she shook her head. “We’d probably need to do a full shift, not a veil, and that’s way too much to do mid-combat. She can be a hundred fully independent entities, even if she doesn't have that much blood, we’ve never seen her fight with a single body in any information. And—” She paused to shove more noodles into her mouth, continuing to talk while she chewed. “She likes to cover the gaps and play at all three ranges. Better to not get targeted in the first place. Besides, I bet an essence suppression band does the trick.”

That would be risky but he agreed it might just work. Most tracking spells didn’t have ways to reacquire their locks, so if you could slip it for a moment you were as good as free.

“What about Wraith’s Spirit Space?” He tossed back.

Instead of responding, Esther shook her head as he felt her fiddling with time.

He realized why as he saw her bowl was empty at the same time she spoke. “Let’s jump through timelines. I want more of that and someone, I won't say who, ate one of these in reality like an asshole.”

When they’d discarded that timeline and spun up a new one, he picked back up right where they’d left off as Esther was occupied with a familiar bowl of noodles.

“Yeah and that same asshole is having the lasagna for dinner tonight! I want to actually digest my food, it's a normal request no matter how much you twist it. Now moving on, what about Wraith’s Spirit Space? I’m thinking we throw her in a local time lock? That should lock down local space as well as most stabilizers if not better, but I’m just not sure that method will work on her. Our real best approach is that she doesn't have her Aspect yet. That feels like our best angle for victory but they know that too.”

Esther sighed as she pulled out the shiny black raven’s feather they’d found on their ship after a seemingly ordinary battle.

They’d reported it up the chain of command only to be informed the Corporations Tier 50, JR, had made them an offer to exchange their war contribution for an item personally made by him.

Esther broke first as she said the words they’d both wanted the other to speak. “Maya was right about wanting something he can make after seeing what Titan’s armor can do. A fight with our peers at the end of this war might give us the perfect place to see what we really need to push ourselves further.”

Now that he wasn’t the bad guy for suggesting they step outside the Republic’s banner so soon after their return, Lawrence ran with the idea. “And an item on that caliber would be a great start. Hmmm? Remember that clock tower we wanted to make when we reached Tier 25? Keith did say it was something only a Tier 50 crafter could manage when he shut us down. Maybe we should revisit that base idea?”

***

As they tore out of real space, Matt felt that while they’d destroyed the Federation Dankor system, they still had the hardest part of their mission left: getting out. He didn’t need his [Actual Insight] to know the Federation wouldn’t take their losses lightly, just as he didn’t need the Ascender Chat to know that what felt like all of their Tier 35 forces were converging on their location.

Like a kicked over ant nest, every unit that had been guarding a secondary location was being gathered to try and repel them.

With the particular blend of powers possible with having two Ascender teams, he felt their odds of fighting through were good, but he really didn’t want to test that feeling. The Federation could send armies at them hourly for months before the losses started to cripple them. Worse of all, all that killing wouldn’t even end the war quicker, it would only force the Tier 35 bracket into a win.

Matt knew that could be useful and might even be required, but he hated the idea of slaughtering so many people that had no hope of fighting back. He just hoped it wouldn’t be the outcome of their current predicament.

When they ripped into chaotic space, he nearly flinched. They were uncomfortably close to the Tier 50s, who’d never moved from their previous positions by the Tier 46 world node.

They were so close, he could see Virgil's expressionless face and the eyes that contained smoldering cinders of hatred and rage as she watched the seven of them.

He had no idea what thoughts were going through her head, and he was confident he didn’t particularly want to know.

Manny, on the other hand, was speaking to the emptiness where Matt felt another gaze originate from with a controlled polite cheerfulness that gave nothing of his true feelings away.

Thankfully, practical matters distracted him before he could start trying to analyze the Tier 50s.

Brian pulled out his frog and withdrew their ship and crew in two quick motions before crying out. “Time to fuck off! We’ve got angry people behind us! Run for our lives!”

The dwarven crew moved impressively fast after hearing the words, but the chortles from the rest of On The Last Line told him it wasn’t a new position for them to find themselves in.

He hoped it would be the Empire crew’s first and last, but they needed to get out before he could say that.

Without needing more than a few words of discussion, they followed one of their pre-agreed upon contingency plans. They’d hardly warmed the engines up when they were intercepted by two teleporting ships crewed by peak elites with long range capabilities.

Liz didn’t even look at Matt before shaking her head when the captain asked if they should chase.

They intended to save his [Portal]s for when they inevitably got surrounded. With the possibility of the spell, they always had the option of being able to outrun any other ships, but if they strained Matt too early, they might get bogged down. That would be death for almost everyone else involved, but the seven of them hadn’t needed to personally see Virgil’s expression to know she didn’t care about something like an average soldier's life or death in a population war.

The only things she’d care about were elite losses and they’d already inflicted serious damage onto those troops. He felt it was likely the result of those actions meant common soldiers wouldn’t even be an afterthought.

Retribution was clearly on Virgil's mind.

Except that wasn’t what happened at all.

They were definitely harassed as they beelined the border region where the Empire, Clans, Federation, and Monster Collective butted up against each other, but there was no large-scale attempt to stop them. The pressure did increase anytime they deviated off their course to hit a target, with new units immediately being rerouted, but the Federation seemed content to let them leave.

The main irritant was the teleporting ships that hammered them from their particular elite's maximum range. They then teleported away, repeating the process any time they left real space. The teleporting ships never entered real space to defend the locations they hit on their way out, but they were always there to attack when they tore into chaotic space.

When it became clear they wouldn’t chase the ships, they stopped teleporting away and continued to attack for longer and longer. After that didn’t earn a response, they started teleporting after them once or twice to extend the engagements for their elites. It was annoying, but became a lot rarer after Brian and Aster managed to hide a zombie crocodile’s appearance for long enough it was able to sneak up on one of their attackers.

With one more peak elite seriously wounded by them, the Federation's orders changed. From then on, the teleporting ships kept a careful distance after a small amount of harassment.

Sadly, the Federation hadn’t given up. Rather, they’d used the absence of both Ascender teams from the frontlines to try and regain the ground they’d lost by pulling back their elites. Those efforts should have been difficult, if not impossible, due to their most recent top end losses, but the Federation struck back with a surprising amount of strength.

Matt watched as reports of the bone enchanted elites arrived to act as replacements for the troops that had been rerouted. As individual cultivators, most of the new troops were weaker than normal elites, but their artificial domains made them on par with the average Tier 35 soldier and partial losses only strengthened them. The troops were clearly trained, but it was just as obvious from their fighting styles they’d spent more time in rifts and sparring rings than in real combat.

Against anyone at their Ascender level, the groups were pathetic, but as members of each rune squad fell, the remaining ones grew that much stronger. For those that were able to survive the initial battles, they started to rapidly grow, which was mildly concerning given the Federation had been able to deploy teams across all of the war Tiers.

When Matt saw that, he reached out to Ellen and Brian. Normally, he’d have to do so through the Ascender Chat, but he was able to poke the two of them to get their attention.

“Have you guys noticed the oddity with the Federation's rune soldiers?”

“You mean besides the general funkiness of them? Yeah, actually. Virgil is throwing them around like they are free. I know we all knew about the new improvements from the early parts of the war, but these are improvements over what we saw earlier and closer to what we fought. That implies it's a new batch. We proved that if you can interfere with their bones they still pop, but it was harder for all of us, with you having the easiest solution with your Meld, Matt. Where is she getting these people from? Even if we assume she used every trick in the book to raise people up to Tier 35, which we know is possible from reports given she already did so for the first batch she sent at Aiden, that's a lot of effort thousands of years ago to have over a dozen Tier 35 elite teams ready to throw into battle.”

Ellen pointed out things Matt had only just started to think about, but Brian drove the point home succinctly. “So they’ve expanded and advanced the project.”

Matt remembered the look in Virgil's eyes and pushed things a step forward. “They’ve got a pipeline and she’s using up the surplus.”

That inadvertently ended the discussion as they all started looking for methods to counter the rune soldiers. There was the Domain to attack with how artificial they were, but while that was easy for Matt with his Meld, that didn’t help the warfront as a whole. Anyone less than a peak elite was unlikely to have a Domain that was strong enough to disrupt their artificial Domains, and that was ignoring the amount of control it took to do so in the first place.

There were other weaknesses, like the poison the Collective had, that were useful, but it wasn’t potent enough on its own at the scale the Great Powers operated on.

But their key weakness did seem to be in their Domains. They were solid, but inflexible. While disadvantageous in many situations, the Federation soldiers used their Domains like cudgels. Thanks to their training and preparation on how to maximize exactly that, they achieved reasonable amounts of success with such a brutish method in short order, turning the tide of battles across the frontline.

That advantage peaked in effectiveness in those first months, but it immediately started to diminish as counters were developed to the rune elite’s general style and deployed. With every fight, the Empire and Clans learned hints to the underlying training the Federation had used to make their armies.

That transition period was still painful.

Strong but inflexible Domains weren’t an insurmountable challenge for an elite unit to overcome. Backed by a strong core of normal peak and pinnacle elites, if the rune elites could reach even the high elite designation, they could start to shift the tides of even pinnacle combat. It wasn’t an unfeasible thought, even if it seemed unlikely. Their apparent relative ease of creation — combining the group’s collective power into a single body— meant they were a potent new tool in the Federation's arsenal.

At least in theory.

A lot would come down to the true costs required to create each elite rune solder. However, from the numbers fielded in the first wave, he suspected Virgil found it an acceptable one.

Thankfully, when it was clear they were on their way out and nearing the border region, the harassment vanished and they were all able to relax slightly. They didn’t let their guards down, but it did give them the opportunity to go over their harvest and decide how to split things.

Liz bumped Matt’s beer bottle with her own as she gestured to the representation of the planetary core. “Do you think we should hang it over our fireplace? Aiden keeps a fish head on his, maybe we can keep a Dankor moon’s core on ours.”

“If I recess the chimney and put a bend in it, I think we can make it mostly flush. I—”

His musings were interrupted by Krodag, who snorted, “Not a chance, you two. We’re taking that baby home and putting it in the bank! And by that, I mean the war chest! I’m sure the Federation will pay handsomely for this beauty. Look at it. Who could resist?”

Aster gestured to the very expensive formation core that was responsible for merging a cultivator's spirit safely with a moons, “I kinda figured one of our Great Powers would take it and make a new Dankor moon.”

“That’s possible,” Ellen shrugged. “But I doubt it. Look up the costs to run one of those things. Yeah building the fiddly bits is hard and expensive, but it's the maintenance that really burns their asses. While the Great Powers would love a fourth moon, they’d have made one if they wanted one. But all of that ignores the largest problem. Even with a full inspection, no one is going to trust a Federation core used in such vital equipment. Also you guys have to remember this bad boy is as close to maxing out war score contributions as it's possible to get since other Legends already abyss the obvious loop holes. Which is exactly why we should take it home. It's our last war and all. But more than all of that logical stuff, that bad boy is valuable for another reason.”

She trailed off, waiting for people to ask the obvious follow-up question.

However, none of them did, and the silence turned awkward then amusing as they all realized what had happened.

Matt buffed his nails on Aster’s tail while most of the others became very interested in their drinks.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Krodag turned to Liz and asked, “Soooo. How did Maya feel about winning the bet for when you formed your Asp—”

The dwarf hadn’t even finished his question when Ellen jumped off her chair and started yelling at all of them. “I hate every one of you! I do so much for all six of you and I can’t even get a single softball question asked? Is that really too much to ask? Let’s see who’s ready to help debug your brewing kit for the tenth time, Krodag? For the twenty ninth time— READ. THE. MANUAL. THAT'S WHAT IT’S FOR!”

As Ellen plopped back down in her chair, Liz finished turning to Krodag and spoke as if the outburst hadn’t happened. “She was smug as usual. She claimed I only did so well because of the pressure she put on me by making the date so early. I’m half tempted to throw the next bet she makes like that just to take her out at the knees. I think it could be funny.”

Ellen went boneless at the words and slid off her chair and onto the floor, where she pretended to sob quietly.

The act was spoiled by the darting eyes that were hoping to rekindle her conversation.

They managed to avoid doing so until the very last minute, when the two Ascender teams separated.

Because, ultimately, Ellen was correct on the core's most likely outcome, being sold back to the Federation. Its return would allow the Federation to jumpstart the repair process but it would also cost them even more war score, negating more of the few victories they’d accrued.

Sadly, like all good things, their trip came to an end, and with heavy hearts, they gave the Dankor core to On The Last Line in exchange for taking seventy percent of the vault’s content. It was as close to fifty-fifty as Matt and Ellen could argue out, with their various augmented [AI] arguing the minutia long after the others had settled the distribution.

Matt handed her two dust bunnies and a piece of rubble with a heavy heart, even as he took an out of date potion that hadn’t been stored properly and half a plaque without any words on it.

With their goodies settled, they separated. They had to. After all, their next destination was one that the Clans’ former occupants of their ship weren’t allowed to enter, no matter how much they wanted to tag along for the ride.

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Matt wouldn’t have minded in theory, but he considered it better this way.

After all, if the Federation was mad about the jaunt the two Ascender teams had gone on, he was sure the Collective wouldn’t be any happier about the one they were going to do. Especially not when they made it clear they were aiming for the Collective’s Dankor system from the outset.

Aster’s idea had been a good one, and they didn’t see why they should make Manny make two trips to the frontlines. They might as well hit both in the same outing.

***

Jimmy was laughing along with everyone else as Tobias’ humanoid form gestured and articulated as he recounted their most hated foe’s recent experience for the second time.

“Virgil looked like she was a second away from killing the Alphas. I almost wished she had. I’d happily trade an Empire and Clans Alpha team for killing her and having a justified reason to finish that Great Power off.”

Tobias snorted in a laugh as he continued. “Emmanuel felt differently and was working to keep the peace, but that’s not surprising. Mmmm.”

As the turtle let out a contended sigh, Jimmy couldn’t help but notice how the world that existed on his shell seemed to brighten with his good mood. He’d been there before the turtle had achieved a Rank 3 bloodline and had helped him study the changes. As such, he knew the luminosity on his shell didn’t actually change according to his thoughts. It took concentrated effort for Tobias to alter the world on his back, which only served to showcase how happy the Tier 50 was.

“Still, you didn’t see the destruction yourselves. The recordings don’t do it justice. It was… extensive. Exquisite might be a better word. You didn’t get to feel Virgil twitch as Alpha Titan slammed into the first moon. Or how her teeth nearly cracked as Alpha Greathammer swung the second into the first. Or her unbridled fury as Alpha Legion infiltrated then slaughtered multiple armies on her own, before refining them down into additional strength for herself.”

Tobias chuckled as he looked to Kar’tan, who lounged languidly in a particularly nice sun beam on the other side of their private garden and meeting spot. “I know you are friendly with her parents, do try to see if there is a possibility of getting our hands on the original ichor phoenix bloodline. I know Armond made the conversion for us using the mana aspect, but that Alpha has depths to her.”

Kar’tan fluttered a wing as he chuffed without opening an eye, “No. I already asked and she declined. I’ll try again when they move to Ascend.”

“There is no real rush, as you say. Still, it was impressive. Speaking of impressive, Alpha Wraith put on quite the show herself. After seeing her fight in person, I’m far more intrigued to see how her theoretical ‘space ice’ bloodline turns out. A Rank 1 bloodline with such a high level aspect would be nearly unprecedented.”

Jimmy was enjoying the good mood when Tobias started to go into a third elaboration. “So much damage done. I can still picture the metal tearing. Hear it echoing through my ears as if I was inside the moon. I—”

The Dragon Turtle and everyone else in the room started to an upright position as they felt Tobias’ mood plummet. He wanted to let out a string of expletives as he felt the turtle's gaze snap onto him with his fury already well stoked.

He kept himself occupied by reading the message that had breached the garden's isolation wards. Even as a Tier 47 renowned for his defensive prowess, he didn’t like the feeling the Tier 50’s weighty spiritual perception had given him in that first look.

It told him exactly how angry the other turtle was.

“Why are three Alphas heading directly towards us, Jimmy? Do you think that is a coincidence? Or do you think their goal is to repeat the desecration of the Federation Dankor moons with our own?”

Tobias’ humanoid form put an elbow on the recessed circular table at the center of the garden surrounded by flowers and tasteful vines as he leaned forward. That forced everyone else to return to the garden's central feature as their meeting turned cozy hangout returned to an official meeting.

He wanted to complain that it wasn’t his fault they didn’t have Alphas of their own to call upon in the Tier 35 bracket, but knew reminding his boss of that longtime failure wouldn’t improve his situation in any way shape or form. He wasn’t the one in charge of those systems directly, but they all still fell well under his shell’s wide shadow.

Jimmy knew he needed to find a way out of the predicament, and he needed to do so fast. Thinking on his feet, he offered, “What if I slip over and bribe them to go away? They want valuables and war material, like every Alpha does. It might be expensive, but it’s still going to be cheaper than what happened to the Federation.”

That earned him a giggle from Evie, who swished a tail at the angry Tier 50, who didn’t bother to pick a fight with one of the oldest, and currently strongest, Beasts in the Realm. She’d been in one of the generations preceding Kar’tan’s in the Federation’s bloodline experiments and one of its many failures. But while she had failed to accept the Dragon bloodline the Federation scientists had tried to mix with her Kitsune heritage, she was one of the first to survive the rejection. Unbeknownst to the scientists at the time, the draconic bloodline had left its mark. It had seemed to influence both her mind and Talents and she’d become one of the fiercest fighters of the revolution.

It was how she’d gotten the Tier 47 position over everyone else from the inner circle.

However, Tobia’s unwillingness to engage didn’t mean the Kitsune wasn't willing to seek out a fight herself.

Unlike him, she snapped back at the turtle without a moment’s hesitation. “What? Am I not supposed to laugh when you show your asses like that? Jimmy’s right! We all know he’s right, but somehow you are still mad we can’t stop this? News flash, you fucking idiots! They are Alphas! And strong ones at that. Do you want to pay the same price Virgil just paid to extract them ourselves? The same one we were just laughing at? We could, I’m confident in our people to pull through in the clinch, but that means serious losses among peak and pinnacle elites. Do any of us want that? Let me say it another time to get it through your stone-thick skull! THEY. ARE. ALPHAS!”

That finally cut the tension in the room as Tobias sighed in resignation. “You are right like usual, Evie. Jimmy, didn’t you start this meeting by saying you had a Tier 38 upgrade orb that dropped recently? Go offer it up in exchange for our moons not being destroyed and their immediate return to Empire space. While I have an agreement with the Emperor, Evie is right. They are Alphas and will do as they will regardless of our wishes. Threats won’t work and it would be too expensive in blood to push them off. Given how they haven’t taken the effort to raid any of the locations they are passing, I’m…” Tobias paused as the words took appreciable effort to force out, “willing to play along.”

Jimmy finally felt comfortable enough to speak up and he quickly added. “It doesn't help that this is their best type of war, but we know they are eager for it to end. I think that means we can buy them off without too much of a problem.” Seeing his goal in sight, he refocused a conversation from their last meeting. “If our goal is to hit the Federation within three hundred years, we need to preserve our high end troops while hardening the lower remaining Tiers. This is still our best opportunity to widen the gap between us and the Federation by choosing a different path than them.”

Etta waved a barky arm as she added in her own support, surprising Jimmy. She wasn’t exactly anti-war, but she’d been staunchly in the camp that said the Collective needed more time before going into their next one.

“It may help to reframe this slightly. We are paying a current, but temporary, foe to avoid doing to us what they just did to a mutual but long standing enemy. The damage that the two Alpha teams displayed is more than a little worrying, and I will once more bring up our own lack of native Alphas. I know we can’t force one's creation but we must admit that something must change after so much time without a success on any front.”

The Mother of Dryads’ harsh words would have caused a fight then and there, had they been spoken by anyone else. But they, the surviving inner circle, knew her best and waited for her next words to fall before exploding. “I don’t think we’ve done anything wrong in our leadership, our various programs have made plenty of fine elites that run the gamut of pinnacle to low, but I think it might be time for us all to step back and shake things up a little. We’ve been in our positions for a while. Given how extended appointments are, we can’t afford to let things become stagnant under our auspice either.”

“We haven’t become stagnant! Even if we only look at the last few thousand years, we’ve kept up with everyone else by every conceivable metric!” Martin was as quick to counter as he was to anger when anyone took a swing at what he saw was the validity of their Great Power among the eight.

“I’m talking about us as individuals, Martin, not the Great Power as a whole. The latter is doing well, but I fear we’ve been becoming more stagnant as each day passes. We are only a third of the way through our appointments, and we need to remind ourselves of that before we are so stuck that nothing can extract our roots.”

Jimmy paused along with everyone else as they considered her words, but it was Tobias who ended the conversation with a decision. “If we need another shake up, then let us have one. I do think I’ve come around to the arguments about elite systems needing to flourish under proper native Collective leadership, not us old fossils. I was hesitant to divert funds away from uses that the general public can take advantage of, but I think we can spare it now. Our repeated wars and internal regulations have improved our wartime efficiency to the point I believe we can make several campaigns against the Federation before our remaining time runs out and we all ascend. One and a half immortal generations feels like such a long time, but we’ve barely gotten the seeds of a proper World Farm up and running. I don’t know where the time goes.” The Tier 50 paused before he nodded to Evie and her words. “Let's start with our elite programs. Two of you investigate all of them. Make sure they are doing their jobs properly. In fact, do it in the shadows first to get the real truth of the matter. Then do the investigations again, but publicly, and eat those who have attempted to perverse our efforts to their own desires. If we are going to do this I want real results, and that means real effort.”

Jimmy took the dismissal the same way as everyone else and he hurried to leave the room. He did so with a belly full of indignation but he swallowed it along with their oldest mantra.

It was still as true as it had been during the rebellion, but that didn’t make losing his Tier 38 upgrade orb any easier of a pill to swallow.

Wanting to hide the shame of what he was doing, he intercepted them in chaotic space, but that also meant being in beast form. At almost half a mile long from the tail of his turtle body to his draconic nose, his raw physical durability was more than enough to protect him from the ravages of any chaotic space near calmer settled territory, and he swam through the eddies petulantly.

In that mood, he briefly considered dropping in on the Alphas suddenly in an effort to get a better negotiation position, but he wasn’t stupid enough to go through with it. As a Tier 47, he knew better than most how scary a Tier 50 was. Let alone a Tier 50 Talent thief who could mix and match Talents at his whim.

He didn’t want to risk his scaly neck on something so dumb when he didn’t need to.

His prudence probably wasn’t necessary, but it meant he didn’t know what the smirking invitation he got offered by the eager fox who opened the hatch for him implied. No matter why, he knew the expression would harm his bargaining position and resigned himself to his fate.

Seeing the other two standing just behind Alpha Wraith, he spoke directly to her. “I’ve come to see if we can reach an agreement where you three won’t break our Dankor moons.”

Then before they could set ludicrous conditions, he presented the Tier 38 upgrade orb.

“If you turn around and don’t repeat this, we are willing to offer this up as a war prize.” He quickly continued as he saw the gleam in their eyes. “No negotiations. It's take it or leave it.”

“What? You mean you won’t give it to us now?”

Jimmy didn’t bother to hide his snort at the audacity on display by the fox.

As if he was that dumb. “And see you ask for another as you continue on raiding? No, it goes into the war chest and only remains there if you fulfill your end of the deal. You are hardly the first Alphas to find themselves bribed mid-war.”

Legion smiled at the reminder. “What? Didn't you guys enjoy our redecorating of Feddie space?”

Jimmy was torn between a laugh and a wince as he deflected. “We enjoyed it quite a bit, until your choice of a new target. It couldn’t have happened to more deserving people. People I’m not sure we are.”

He wiggled the upgrade orb in his hand to remind them what he was offering but held a firm grip on the precious object.

Wraith nodded, which took a weight off his shoulders, but only until he heard her next words. “But only if you put Albert Wittelsbach’s top level treasure chest opening up for war spoils as well.”

When he only blinked at her she added. “For me obviously. I want it.”

Jimmy didn’t need to check who she was talking about before shaking his head at the audacity of the request. “Albert is far too in demand for something like that. His Talent’s maxed out reward is probably worth more than a single Tier 38 upgrade orb. I’m not allowed to give you that.”

“No, not give. I want it to go into the war pool. I’m confident that I can earn enough to cover the contribution. Given how many Collective elites I’ve frozen, I might have already done so, but there is a lot of war left. We can start killing them instead of capturing them if his treasure chest isn’t on the table. It's pretty cold in my spirit space. One slips up and whoops. Sorry about that.”

Jimmy wanted to curse whatever idiot convinced him to help guide their rebellion into a proper Great Power as he heard the words, but the three had put him over a barrel. Images of the Federation’s Dankor moons flashed before his eyes and he hated the accompanying chuckles of Tobias’ reminiscing that bubbled up in his ears.

Rebuilding the fragile inner cores alone would take centuries, and that would be the easier part when compared to making new elites. All of that time would be years spent where no one could safely risk creating their Aspect at Tier 35. It would weaken their Great Power for thousands of years.

Before the deal could grow any worse, he let out a growled, ‘Fine!’ and ran back to tell Tobias what the Alphas had demanded and shove the problem onto the Tier 50’s plate.

***

Villard, newly promoted Head of Genetics at the Chimera Research Lab, turned down the lights as he entered into one of the smaller labs on the floor. It was, in fact, only a lab because the space was there and the entire floor was dedicated to the purpose. Originally a general purpose room, it had become the unofficial lab for the new Head and Tail of the Genetics department when they didn’t want to be bothered.

Kar’tan may have stepped down from day to day operations but he’d kept his paws in the practical side of the research which meant they hadn’t had an office to move into. By the time they did receive one they’d already picked up their current habits and it was too late to change after over two decades in the role.

Once inside, Villard didn’t waste a moment in loosening his collar and kicking his feet up as he leaned his chair dangerously far back.

He enjoyed the illusion of silence enabled by the sealed lab and its darkness.

It didn’t last long as he felt the air pressure rise minutely, signaling his guest’s arrival and the implied resumption of work.

Villard didn’t need to open his eyes or spread his spiritual perception to know the grunt his second in command let out meant he’d flopped onto one of the lounges meant for those whose body types didn’t fit well with upright chairs. It wouldn’t stop the large white and gray lion, whose mane never stopped moving as if it was windswept, from looking majestic as he did so. But such was life.

Gilberto, Gil to his friends, had all the looks and none of the charm to go with it. It was almost funny how someone that natively attractive had absolutely zero inclination for anything in that department.

As a younger man who’d only just started working with the lion when the Collective was still in its growing pains, Villard had struck up a friendship with the other oddball that had only grown stronger over the years. So much so that thousands of years later, the two of them now had everything they ever wanted. Namely, the ability to shape the next generations of Chimera.

“When does the drop come in?”

“Two minutes. I told them we’d moved buildings.”

Villard sighed but neither of them remarked on the attempt at a joke as the sound was picked up by Gil’s mane and recirculated until it vanished.

Together they sat there in weary acceptance as they waited, listening to their own quiet breaths.

Just over two minutes later the message they dreaded came through.

Bloodline allocations.

The two of them sat up even as the room lights returned to full brightness.

Far away from them a delivery had just docked, and with its arrival came the list of its content.

With the backing of the Monster Collective military, the two of them had a theoretically unlimited supply of common bloodlines. Things became much harder, or rather political, when it came to the rarer ones.

Rather than potentially waste a sample of heartsblood on the possibility of a Chimera who might or might not have a bloodline rejection and die young, people would rather use the sample to convert one of their own. In the case of the rarest, the offer was usually put forward as a way to get theoretically endless amounts of the rare bloodline, but in practice, those same bloodlines then became protective of outside threats and suddenly there was never any of that rare bloodline.

More than that, Villard had been in his position long enough to know that the choice was very often subject to Tobias’ whims as he chose to strengthen one faction over another.

Which was why he was surprised when he saw the list they’d been given.

It was extensive. It was almost double what they’d been last decade, but the increase in quantity hadn’t decreased the quality. In fact, they’d made out amazingly, with two Level 3 mana aspects in the batch. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The first was noted as being brought from deep chaotic space as a Strange Realm reward, which left a lot of the normal information blank. It had been identified as a Rank 1 Butterfly with the rare Level 3 Emotion mana aspect, which explained why it hadn’t been used in deep chaotic space. There weren’t any known bloodlines that matched that unusual combination of a low Rank with a high Level mana aspect.

The second bloodline didn’t come with much more information than the first, but there wasn’t even an attempt at an explanation. Not that Villard needed one after seeing a Rank 2 Buffalo with a Level 3 Gravity mana affinity. He did still wonder how no one had intercepted such a valuable bloodline as the Cloud Quaker Bovine before it reached them.

The rest of the bloodlines they were allocated were notable either because they were unknown, were a rare mana Level 2 aspect, or were an unusual breed with either a Level 2 or even rarer, a Level 1 mana aspect. Though the latter were exceptionally rare and they didn’t have any such in the current batch.

Villard and Gil scanned through all of the bloodlines and started loosely pairing bloodlines together. They both understood they’d risen to their positions, Villard especially as a human in the Chimera program, because they were good at knowing what combinations wouldn’t work.

It was half intuition and half guess work, but it all came back to experience built on their predecessor’s failures.

While their teams were working from the other perspective, trying to create strong combinations, they started looking for problems.

Chimera were delicate balances that required consideration between both bloodlines. Sometimes matching two similar bloodlines helped stability and other times it was wholly impossible.

Thanks to their prodigiously robust [AI], they were able to run deep simulations in days and light ones in minutes. It was expensive, but helped them sort through the previous generation's work, seeing if a combination had already been tried.

When they were done identifying things they knew wouldn’t work, they ran that list against what their teams had put together and started looking over the results.

While some of the decisions would require more deliberation, like the Level 3 mana aspect bloodlines which would need Kar'tan’s direct sign off, most of the choices were easy enough to tentatively accept as obvious strong and stable combinations. However, neither of them liked any of the pairs their teams had come up with for the Umbral Octopus and Prism Chameleon bloodlines.

Blackwater mana was already rare, and bloodlines surrounding it were basically non-existent. So much so that Villard was almost as surprised they’d gotten it, as they had the Level 3s. Umbral Octopi were a known and very strong stealth and camouflage bloodline, with relatively few numbers historically, but with a reputation for succeeding in assassinations.

It was also a very difficult bloodline to pair with most others. The most recommended path by their teams had been to pair it with a more common and robust, but still hopefully compatible, Mud Dwelling Octopus. While the match was most likely compatible, it offered very little extra in the way of advantages for the potential Chimera.

Prism Chameleons, on the other hand, had the slightly more common crystal mana aspect but the bloodline itself was rare to see in settled space, with less than a dozen members of the species in total. It was known for having a very powerful affinity for interacting with light without actually having light mana, and the thought gave Villard an idea.

“Hey Gil, what would you say if I said I solved our dilemma of who to match these two up with?”

“Let’s go back to our nap? Is that an option?”

“As much as we’d like that, no. Once we make the choice it means going into Deep Sims and then testing. That was all the break we get for the next five years and you know it.”

“I do, but if you wanted to be wishful, why couldn’t I be?”

“Because I wasn’t being wishful.” Villard groused, “I was being serious. What if we mixed the two together? Umbral Octopus and Prism Chameleon in one bloodline. Mixing shadow-water trickiness and light trickiness. I think it might work. There is no reason it shouldn't at least.”

Instead of shooting him down, Gil rumbled as he thought the choice over. “It might solve the inherent fragility of the Umbral Octopi too. Prism Chameleon aren’t frontline fighters, but they are some of the tougher illusionists. Let's run some Light Sims.”

Villard watched as the [AI] ran and ran. The longer it went the higher his hopes became, until almost five full minutes later it reported there hadn’t been any simulated failures. That wouldn’t prevent the longer, more thorough scans from finding one, or reality proving all simulations wrong, but it was good enough for the two of them to finish their task.

In many cases, even the best cultivators the Collective had to offer weren’t enough and the bloodlines failed to merge or complications emerged. More than that, it was rare for the merged forms of the bloodlines to be exactly as their designers envisioned. Others still had no complications from their merged forms and could be born from their vats without any issue.

The unlikely pairing between the Umbral Octopus and Prism Chameleon wasn’t in either category. Only two months in there was an adverse reaction between bloodlines, and while it had been solved, they’d needed to use stabilizing agents they knew further increased complications and risks.

However, despite that hiccup, seven months later a small newly birthed octopus instinctively swam his way to a dim nook at the bottom of his temporary home. Once there, the gem-like protrusions along his arms and body shimmered slightly. In only a moment, his outline was broken up and distorted enough to make identifying his presence by sight difficult for someone who wasn’t already on the lookout.

Then, almost as quickly as his body had hidden, the dimness turned into darkness at the bottom of the container as the young Chimera sought to make his home more to his liking.

Above the tank lay a placard that read out its occupant’s name: Horatio Duskstar - Umbral Octopus | Prism Chameleon.