Path of Ascension by C Mantis. A Western Xianxia inspired progression fantasy with Litrpg elements.
- Thread starter Dahak
- Start date
That would be really helpful! The chapter titles only being numbers really makes it difficult to find anything.
I think they were right at the age of awakening (13-15 if the same as the Empire) when they first appeared in the story so they should be younger than Matt.
I am surprised that reflected lives aren't being used and exploited. Unlike the crafting trial you seem to retain full memories of the experience, and after you regain your sense of self, you can assert control. You don't get skills from inside the reflected life, and likely AI knowledge is not retained too, but memories still seem fairly detailed. So, for example in Matt's guild life, he could spend a hundred years abusing his AI to create new rune designs. It's also surprising that there's not Imperial policy for "we are a MInkala's reflected life iteration, let's exploit this reality for the benefit of the prime one".
I mean the test is about experiencing different perspectives to create a new concept. It's a waking dream not dimensional travel. Is it worth diverting away from the path meant to create and empower your new concept to focus on runes when Liz mentioned she didn't know if her blood runes would work in real life.
the concept the life is meant to develop is based around the life the place creates. which means that being a leader and mage probably helped develop a concept that can share his cultivation.
If he'd switched away from cooking to runes when he woke up wouldnt that have hurt his developing food concept.
Interesting Datadumps
The Shattering and the Great Powers, talk of war past and future- Chapter 109
Minkalla origin and rewards- 172 and 173
Other main Minkalla delvers, Long Zhiyuan and the Rune Kids- 169
Folded Reflections lives- 205 to 207, Shattering in 206.
Inspector Gregor goes to the Path council, meet Luna- 71
Aster talks Beast Bloodlines and mana types with Helen- 120
Matt meets the Royals- 143
Frederick considers Melinda and Matt- 162
Meet all the tier 50s, President Dicomaty and Sword Saint Hastor ascend- 168
The various great powers Elite programs- 213
War preparations- 212, 229, 255
President Janet muses on Elites- 270
Foreign leader POVs- 278
Of logististics and elites- 295
Guild explanation of 'powers'- 300
Meet the Harmonies- 311
On Ascenders and Death- 317
Harmonies talk Matt's abilities and get a situation update- 325
There's probably some other good ones but those are some nice lore heavy ones.
Minkalla origin and rewards- 172 and 173
Other main Minkalla delvers, Long Zhiyuan and the Rune Kids- 169
Folded Reflections lives- 205 to 207, Shattering in 206.
Inspector Gregor goes to the Path council, meet Luna- 71
Aster talks Beast Bloodlines and mana types with Helen- 120
Matt meets the Royals- 143
Frederick considers Melinda and Matt- 162
Meet all the tier 50s, President Dicomaty and Sword Saint Hastor ascend- 168
The various great powers Elite programs- 213
War preparations- 212, 229, 255
President Janet muses on Elites- 270
Foreign leader POVs- 278
Of logististics and elites- 295
Guild explanation of 'powers'- 300
Meet the Harmonies- 311
On Ascenders and Death- 317
Harmonies talk Matt's abilities and get a situation update- 325
There's probably some other good ones but those are some nice lore heavy ones.
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- Location
- Canada
I mean, Matt didn't even have his mana talent in that life, Yog was talking about the life where his origins were still the same as the start of the story, but he managed to get into a guild instead.
For one thing, it would probably be difficult for Matt to prove and convince everybody that they and the world they live in are all fake.
For another, he speculated that Minkalla may have directly interfered with events to ensure the scenario went in a certain way. Like despite having his broken mana talent still in that life, and not being subtle in its use at all, no greater powers ever interfered or approached him, instead he was allowed to live that life entirely as his "guild life". Assuming he was correct, then Minkalla probably wouldn't allow for too much excessive shenanigans of that nature. You could do whatever you wanted within your own actions, but Minkalla probably wouldn't allow for you to get the entire world involved.
The stuff I mentioned above aside, about probably not being able to get too overt with shenanigans under Minkalla's watch, Matt if he just by himself spending one or two hundred odd years just throwing mana at runes probably wouldn't have actually been worth it. The thing with Matt is that his talent is exponential, and immortals have a lot of time. A hundred years worth of his mana at tier 14 could be accomplished by him in like a decade at tier 17, or even less accounting for the increasing concentration of mana. Spending a lot of time now on things is wasted opportunity cost that could be used for advancing his growth and then doing those things later in a more efficient manner. And while you could say that the "free time" in these lives given by Minkalla, kitsune has a point here:
This is a training opportunity that will make Matt stronger. Diverting from the intended purpose of it may lessen the intended effects. Something that makes Matt stronger will help him push through tiers faster and with more certainty. And as said before, the better/faster Matt can tier up, the more mana he can throw at random things sooner.
If he botched this in some manner and didn't get what he was supposed to learn out of this, and that subsequently makes him weaker which holds him back later, that could snowball to a larger loss in the long term. Spending his time here throwing mana at runes would be a short term gain at the potential cost of Matt's growth as a long term investment.
I'm pretty sure you can only nudge things. A voice a the back of your mind that goes "Hey, make sure to write your parents". They can't take direct control like that, or you basically "succeed" and get kicked out of that life.
- Location
- Canada
This implies quite strongly that you can take control if you want to.
Both those options could be done by subtle nudges.
Another issue is that Luna made a point of saying that the Minkalla alternate lives are illusions and to not get too hung up on what you see because there's no guarantee that it would have turned out that way if you really had lived a life with the alternate premise. Any people you meet in the illusions most likely don't actually exist.
So any rune designs that alternate Matt comes up with might not work in real life, especially if Minkalla thinks that he's "cheating". Chef skills and fighting for different weapons probably don't have any discrepancies with the real world. On the other hand, any ettiquette that Chef Matt learned might or might not apply to the real world, depending on how much Minkalla learns from its delvers, how much its delvers know about current chef ettiquette, and how much Minkalla altered things to make the alternate life go the way it wanted.
So any rune designs that alternate Matt comes up with might not work in real life, especially if Minkalla thinks that he's "cheating". Chef skills and fighting for different weapons probably don't have any discrepancies with the real world. On the other hand, any ettiquette that Chef Matt learned might or might not apply to the real world, depending on how much Minkalla learns from its delvers, how much its delvers know about current chef ettiquette, and how much Minkalla altered things to make the alternate life go the way it wanted.
- Location
- Reading, Berks, UK
Word of God on the Discord is you can't get Folded Realities in a Minkala run in a Folded Realities Life.
- Location
- Reading, Berks, UK
Chapter 207 is split in two and both are up.
Several lives are just mentioned in passing
Aster's version of being Matts younger sister, Liz as a Fire Mage for example.
On the exploiting the extra lives discussion:
"While Minkalla prevented lives from being too derailed, it was distinctly possible to make fairly small changes. She couldn't say things her simulation didn't know, or go somewhere that her other self didn't know existed or had no reason to go to. But she could help make choices that her simulation was already considering. Like what shirt to wear, how much time she spent with her mother, or push harder when trying to convince her mother to take them all to therapy. "
And on to the last Floor.
Several lives are just mentioned in passing
Aster's version of being Matts younger sister, Liz as a Fire Mage for example.
On the exploiting the extra lives discussion:
"While Minkalla prevented lives from being too derailed, it was distinctly possible to make fairly small changes. She couldn't say things her simulation didn't know, or go somewhere that her other self didn't know existed or had no reason to go to. But she could help make choices that her simulation was already considering. Like what shirt to wear, how much time she spent with her mother, or push harder when trying to convince her mother to take them all to therapy. "
And on to the last Floor.
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Whoever said that the alternate lives would hit Liz the hardest was absolutely correct. I wonder why she had so many difficult lives, compared to the others. Maybe Minkalla thought that she was avoiding her issues more than the others and decided to "forge" her by making her face them?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Liz has issues with herself. It seems pretty clear that, at core, she's not naturally a particularly good person, who's managed to stumble into a life where, following Matt's lead, she can basically be a "good person" anyway. She represses lots of herself, and has very particular ideas about who she is that aren't all that accurate, and that she carefully doesn't examine. Her entire self-image is very brittle, and as soon as she gets shifted out of the niche that she's carefully set up for herself, it gets badly disrupted.
Like, they're not even terrible people or anything. The Blood Contract lady wasn't mistreating her employees - that would be stupid. I'm quite certain that she was aware of the value of loyalty and how to go about ensuring that she received it. It just wasn't at all the Liz that Liz has convinced herself that she is. The Blood Queen was similar.
That whole "live your fantasy life" test was a pretty obvious sign here, after all. When freed of the constraints that she desperately wants to be freed of, Liz just isn't particularly nice.
I would take it with a large grain of salt. It's not so much that she's by nature a bad person, it's that she's worried about being a bad person, because blood mages are either healers or huge monsters, and she finds neither of those actions attractive. So Minkalla showed her as a proper Blood Mage monster, various versions of blood mages that aren't (even if they're not nice), and as the fire mage she could've been if not for her talent.
Minkalla is going to show you whatever hits you hardest, and doesn't care about the truth or lie of it. It just wants you to question yourself.
Matt is most impacted by his fear of getting stuffed into a box because of his talent, and a little by his childhood. So he got one life of living parents, a life of living in the box, and other ways he could have gone with his talent. And he got a life as a monster too.
Queen's hangups are mostly centered around her family, the way her father abandoned her and her mother killed herself. So her lifes were variations on that theme. Having a brother, having her mother surive. But she also got one on her less hangup of her talent not matching what she wants to do in live.
Aster, because she's by far the most put together, had an easy time with it. But it applies to her too. She got the "what if you were fire" life as the most direct "you're not gonna like it" life. But there was also lives as a wolf and kitsune, which are the "standard" development paths for her bloodline that she both rejected.
I don't really see Liz as being a worse person than Matt or Queen. Matt likes helping people in the abstract and when he feels sympathetic to their situation, but he's not particularly empathetic to the people he's dealing with directly (a lot like me so I'm not blaming him for it). He's also the one who beat up someone for information they didn't have back during the disappearances investigation. During the challenge room, his ideal life had him above everyone else with no one allowed to go against him. I'm glad that we got a scene of how much he cares for Liz in the latest update because it felt wrong that she was missing from his ideal life.
Liz focuses on improving herself and cares about Matt, Aster, & her family, but Queen also focuses on improving herself and supporting her brother. I don't remember any scenes of Queen really caring about anyone other than her brother until the recent realization that she likes being friends with Matt, Liz, and Aster.
Thinking more on the situation, Liz's lives tended to be worse than the others' lives in part because she was always in a position of power. When Aster lost Matt, she struggled to keep going. Same when Queen was the "cause" of her family's destruction. I have to wonder how the rest of Mana Battery Matt's life would have gone because he probably would have reacted a lot like Terrorist Matt if he ever had the opportunity to lash back.
- Location
- Reading, Berks, UK
Liz is worse at making friends than Matt. But she has a sense of Nobless Oblige.
Also new chapter. Liz is sad, then Matt and Aster are less sad, Also Floor end and we have the Last Floor
Mind over Matter. Obviously, Matt will do best since his name is in the Floor name
MInkalla Floor 6 should be on Wednesday.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
So... let's look at the gains that Minkalla is offering...
- Eternal Darkness: Improves spiritual senses
- Genesis Cultivation: a fair quantity of cultivated essence is transformed into Genesis Energy
- Back to Basics: Concepts empowering the body become stronger. Other concepts gain effects that empower the body. Also lets you rebuild your cultivation... and Genesis Energy drops to the core rather than floating around the top.
- Courtly Warfare: A growth item gains a new effect. Also, it's possible to gain blessings (and they did)
- Taxing Skills: get a bunch of bonus skill slots
- Folded Reflections: Get a bunch of extra ways to use your Concept
- Mind over Matter: reduces willpower cost of Concept effects, especially core concept effects.
So... kind of a mix, really.
Various thoughts
- Matt's repulsion power is going to get terrifying. Just in general, though level 7 Mind over Matter after a level 6 Folded Reflections is very strong, especially since the willpower discount strongly applies to any additional concept abilities gained in Minkalla.
- Paladin is going to be a sad Paladin. Blood hand or blood claw or whoever it was is probably also going to be in for a bad time of it.
- The rune kid "super-tough bones" effect isn't going to do them a lot of good here. Also, having them visible mostly on a conceptual level might reveal (or at least imply) some interesting things.
- Anyone who failed their Faded Reflections final is going to get screwed.
- Eternal Darkness: Improves spiritual senses
- Genesis Cultivation: a fair quantity of cultivated essence is transformed into Genesis Energy
- Back to Basics: Concepts empowering the body become stronger. Other concepts gain effects that empower the body. Also lets you rebuild your cultivation... and Genesis Energy drops to the core rather than floating around the top.
- Courtly Warfare: A growth item gains a new effect. Also, it's possible to gain blessings (and they did)
- Taxing Skills: get a bunch of bonus skill slots
- Folded Reflections: Get a bunch of extra ways to use your Concept
- Mind over Matter: reduces willpower cost of Concept effects, especially core concept effects.
So... kind of a mix, really.
Various thoughts
- Matt's repulsion power is going to get terrifying. Just in general, though level 7 Mind over Matter after a level 6 Folded Reflections is very strong, especially since the willpower discount strongly applies to any additional concept abilities gained in Minkalla.
- Paladin is going to be a sad Paladin. Blood hand or blood claw or whoever it was is probably also going to be in for a bad time of it.
- The rune kid "super-tough bones" effect isn't going to do them a lot of good here. Also, having them visible mostly on a conceptual level might reveal (or at least imply) some interesting things.
- Anyone who failed their Faded Reflections final is going to get screwed.
- Location
- Reading, Berks, UK
Paladin is bound to have an Armour concept. Which has been buffed multiple times. Plus she's happy because her Armour bonded and she got extra powers for it, more is extra cake but every floor reward is good.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
It was more that the floor itself is going to be a serious hassle for her to deal with, given that it turns off her entire schtick. Admittedly, it's true that there are enough floors like that they'll have some sort of responses on hand.
Also, she's near-guaranteed to have gotten some gear-boosting effects out of Folded Reflections, too.
The author said in the comments that whether additional Concept abilities get the discount depends on how closely they're related to the person's core Concept. However, the vast majority of the additional abilities are connected so I'm expecting most of them to be boosted to various extents.
I'm really surprised. I thought that the last floor would be Blood is Thicker for sure, in part because that would boost Matt's group over many other groups on the floor, which would help justify them staying at Tier 11. However, someone pointed out in the comments that they might not have healing cooldowns any more so I'm now wondering how dealing damage and healing works with the "spiritual" versions of people. Is it all just clashing Concepts?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Okay, so the quote on the matter from the text of the fic itself: "If that weren't enough, according to some of Carol's further explanations about the floor, it also strongly applied to any additional abilities which Minkalla granted to their Concepts, provided they were close enough to some of the original abilities."