His big attack that warped both time and space was something Matt really wanted to see pop up in a rift, but knowing his luck, it would be a Tier 50 skill which they would never encounter. At least not for thousands of years, but he really wanted to play with it now. Few attack skills interacted with space, let alone time, in the way that Ra'thala's had shown itself to do so.
He also wanted to see what would happen when they shoved an upgrade orb into the skill.
It would also answer a question he had been thinking over as he watched the fights.
What Tier did a purely self-made skill count as?
Was there a possibility for them to abuse self-made skills that were unique to use both a Tier 14 upgrade orb and a Tier 26 upgrade orb on a skill that was clearly beyond those Tiers in terms of complexity and power?
If he could, that was awesome, and it lent itself to further exploitation. And if he couldn't, then why not?
Mm, right. How did new skills popping up in rifts work again? Does like, the realm itself just learn about them and it'll show up in a rift somewhere eventually? Or would it show up in an individual rift if you used the skill in it enough?
And yeah, upgrade orbs. What Tier do these skills count as? If they were like, Tier 1-8, or untiered or something, being able to stack multiple upgrade orbs on an already high-level skill would be broken.
It also explained why they all had to shift into something closer to a mid-Tier 25 perception speed when talking to Ra'thala. His baseline was a step lower until he spun up his cultivation cores.
That's a pretty significant drop. Fights at the level of a mid-high Tier 26 elite when trying, but is mid-Tier 25 when not actively in combat.
Matt did intend to talk to Luna about the method of spinning one's cores, as it was similar to the method she had taught them about pushing through cultivation suppressors. But he wondered, or rather hoped, that if there was a shared origin there might be a more advanced version that could not just reduce suppression effects, but boost cultivation in a similar way to what Ra'thala used. It was unlikely that there was a known method, otherwise they would have already been taught it either on the Path or in the army, but it was something to look into.
Mmmm. If there's similar effects that can be done with their existing cultivation as is, that could be used as a boost, that would be very very significant. If it's a widely applicable technique they could distribute to other top tier Empire fighters that would be a significant force multiplier. If it ends up requiring a specialized cultivation, eh, maybe Ra'thala can be the progenitor of a new specialized Empire elite track? Or at least this is an avenue for Ra'thala to explore to upgrade his own cultivation at least.
Having played an Ascender more than any other single actor, she had long become a household name and had her pick of movies, which was why most were surprised when she personally funded a lower budget script and elevated what would have been a small single-planet movie into an Empire-wide production.
Back to Cynthia and movies again. You know, I really do wonder how fucked the entertainment industry is for smaller players. Like just with one planet IRL, the handful of biggest names take the absolute lion's share of public attention. When you have an interstellar Empire, there's not a lot of spots for a whole heck of a lot of people in the running trying to make it in showbiz. I mean, certainly there would still be lots of B-list productions, and probably room for some local/planetary productions that don't compete at the same level, but still.
"We got a new ascender."
All three Royals clearly twitched as they increased their perception before lowering it to Tier 26 levels once more, giving him a very confused look.
Which was exactly why Matt had worded it that way.
"Ascender as in ascended from a lower Realm," he explained, eliciting a spark of recognition from his listeners. As Matt explained the adventure they'd been through, including how they'd last-minute needed to swipe the man from the Federation, Rusty belly laughed, not his clone but his real body, who waved away the person he was talking to to replace his Domain clone in the room.
Hah. Took long enough before somebody got confused by the terminology. And I guess they did need to grab him from the Feddies. But fuck the Feddies.
Matt did so and expected Rusty to make another quip but Tur'stal was the first to speak. "Now this is interesting. Making skills. I really want to get my hands on that create matter spell. Using ambient essence to condense into a temporary form at-Tier would mean less mana to reinforce the material than the normal create branch of spells make. Just how versatile is the skill creation process?"
Ah right. I forgot Tur'stal was also the type to want to make things better for everybody under her, and so would also be very interested in accessible low-Tier skills.
Frederic surprised Matt by disagreeing. "I don't dispute your comment about him not wanting to share but I doubt that Tur'stal has the time nor the inclination of trying to learn how to create new spells. Far easier to just commission Ra'thala to make what she wants and transfer it to her. I'd also assume that he might be willing to do that even if he isn't willing to share the exact creation method."
Matt opened his mouth to explain how that wouldn't work, but he didn't have one. Blank skill shards were pretty much useless, and he had nearly forgotten they existed and hadn't put two and two together in this context.
If these things existed before this, I also straight up forgot they existed.
Tur'stal asked, "Are you looking to sponsor an Order yourself?"
"No, not really. I'm already a bit stretched thin as-is these days. The guild got sued again for a perceived infringement. It will probably fail even before it sees a courtroom, but something Kees said stuck with me. If I, as a guild leader and a noble, worked on forming connections then less people would be willing to cross me socially now that it's clear I won't just murder anyone who tries to sue me." Matt gestured to the ballroom they were heading for, "So I'm trying."
So Matt (and probably Liz) are not shopping around for an Order. Makes sense. They are very very busy just trying to put together their own duchy right now. Introducing some arrogant high-tier elite into the mix probably won't help with establishing their rule.
His trek came to another halt when he saw a familiar face. Several in fact. Dominus Maniake stood with Sciath hEachaidh, Kiri Winiata, and Marco Winiata. All nobles who were working to take over their parents' fiefs in the coming years.
With an actual smile, Matt moved over to join them as they talked about the Orders they were interested in potentially sponsoring, their parents having left the decisions fully in their hands.
Ah yes, when Dominus Maniake is actually among the most reasonable and pleasant people in the room that Matt is actually smiling about when going to talk to. (I mean, to be fair, he was at least outwardly civil/polite the last time they met at the Ascension. Can reign in his ego a bit more than these knights.)
It was a bit far-fetched of an idea but Matt hoped his guild would eventually reach the point where they could create specific enough rifts that they could allow for target farming of Natural Treasures either through rift rewards or creating the correct rift environments that allowed for the Natural Treasures to naturally form. Both were possible but so far the guild hadn't even fully cracked Tier 8 skill rifts, let alone anything more complicated, but they were making progress and it would be both helpful to the Empire and the Orders as a whole if they were able to achieve any more success.
He wouldn't mind selling Natural Treasure rifts to specific Orders to make them more self-sufficient. It would also allow him a degree of leverage over the Orders which would help keep them inline more than an iron fist would.
Natural Treasures would probably be the major limiting factor for Knights I suppose. So this could supercharge an Empire elite track. Just hope the newer generations are indeed less of assholes.
Ra'thala was thoroughly unimpressed with the Empire's stance on things like office work. While he wasn't dismissive and Ra'thala clearly understood the need for such jobs, he saw them as useless at the scale the Empire used them.
Man, imagine ascending as the top of your entire realm at Tier 26, then finding like Tier 40+ paper pushers.
Overall, it was a fruitful and interesting two days that abruptly stopped when Ra'thala's [AI] finished being absorbed.
Pausing, Ra'thala wobbled slightly before looking around. "Now that is interesting."
Flexing his hand, he started feeling his way through the various functions while they called out helpful tips and tricks.
Oh yeah, since a major drawback of his cultivation is needing to concentrate on spinning it up, I wonder if an AI could help with that.
