The Path of Ascension

Chapter 5

Matt was standing in front of the rift, a jagged tear in the fabric of reality, at least to his spiritual sense and a slight shimmer to his physical senses. It was like a multi-colored heat haze.

It screamed of wrongness and hate. He wasn't sure if that was his hatred of the things that destroyed his city and killed his parents or what most people felt.

The rift was in a building with three guards. Two melee and one ranged ready for a breakout, mostly redundant as this rift needed resources, so it wasn't over delved and dissipated.

Matt drew his sword off his back, braced himself, and walked through the rift.

The world bent and blurred for an instant, then snapped back to normal. Except now he was in the rift, standing near the wall of an underground cavern, exactly where the guide said he would be.

This was essentially a safe room in the rift. No monster would appear here unless led by someone. Matt took stock of his surroundings, the ceiling was fifteen feet tall at his best guess, and lit torches lined the wall providing light.

All was as it should be.

Looking behind him, Matt saw the rift portal shimmering. His escape if the monsters proved too difficult for him to handle. Perfect.

Activating [Cracked Phantom Armor] Matt stepped into the adjacent room. The feeling of mana coursing through the skill's structure in his spirit was an odd sensation. It felt like water rushing through a pipe, except it was inside of his spirit.

One lone goblin waited for him, as the guide said it would be. Matt had decided to take his time on this fight, test his limits and that of the goblins in this rift.

When he crossed the threshold, the goblin charged with a shriek and wildly swung the shank in its hand. Sidestepping the blow, Matt had to stop from slashing down at the passing goblin and ending the fight instantly.

Letting the goblin swing, Matt got a feeling for its speed and agility. Both would be good baselines for the entire rift. Matt analyzed the monster at about four feet tall if it wasn't hunched so badly. The green creature had only a ragged loincloth on and a pointy rock with a bit of cloth wrapping the handle.

Matt let the next blow land on his left forearm, testing his skill, the monster's power, and weapon. The rock fractured on [Cracked Phantom Armor], which left the goblin stumped until it tried to lunge, hands outstretched.

Dodging to the side again, he swung at the goblin's waist. He expected to severely injure the monster in the first swing then finish it on a second backswing, but the goblin was bisected by the attack.

Matt stepped back, dodging the blood and entrails splattering the floor. Using his sword to push through the viscera, he saw the goblin's bones were thin, far weaker than a human at that size would have.

After the kill, Matt felt a small amount of essence trickle into the band on his wrist and then into his spirit, waiting to be assimilated and distributed. It wasn't much, but he finally felt progress. After the last year of only being able to train physically a few hours a day and working brutal hours, he was advancing.

Matt proceeded to the next room, where three goblins stood mindlessly until he crossed the threshold. From what he read, this was a characteristic of Tier 2 and below rifts only. As a rift's Tier increased, the realms became larger and the monster more natural. A Tier 5 goblin rift would have had the entire clan attacking and retreating with strategy and cunning.

These goblins just charged mindlessly. Matt still took the time to dodge and with a slash to the closest monster. He cut deeply into its chest. The two remaining jumped at him, and with a heavy cross-cut, Matt made two more corpses.

The next room had five of the goblins, but they proved no challenge. Unable to break his skill and so weak, they were crippled with even glancing blows.

Passing into the fifth room of the rift, Matt saw this goblin stood straighter and had an actual iron dagger. Though for its size, it was closer to a shortsword. Repeating his test of the first goblin, Matt determined the monster was no faster or stronger, just better armed.

The soft iron dagger was noticeably misshapen where it hit [Cracked Phantom Armor], but the iron was useful to the outside, so Matt placed it in a separate bag for collecting loot. These small pieces of iron weaponry and the armor on the last monster were the only things of value this low Tiered rift had to offer.

With the same repeating pattern of one, three, then five goblins. The first three sets of rooms offered no challenge to Matt. The only improvement the third set had was they were wearing clothes not quite thick enough to call armor.

On the fourth set, Matt got his first challenge. This single goblin was a bit faster, less hunched, and of a slightly heavier build. It was not so mindlessly aggressive as Matt tested it. He discovered it wasn't trained, just better with its decision making.

The room with five goblins got bloody. Matt was flanked by the little green monsters, and while his reach and reflexes were still better, it was the first time Matt felt his skills pushed.

Two of the three that came straight on were taken out easily, but Matt had to deflect the last's dagger, stepping in and kneeing the goblin in the chest and sending it stumbling back. Matt was fighting as if the [Cracked Phantom Armor] wasn't active, treating every swing as a possible threat.

The final two that had attempted to flank him were easy to take out, the left with a thrust and the right goblin with a slash that took off its outstretched arm.

Matt finished the goblins off before collecting the essence and loot.

Taking a drink of water, Matt pondered on his skill. It was completely permeable to air, his clothes, and backpack. While it also stopped, the goblins blows completely. It didn't even have eye slits. Matt was just able to see through the skill perfectly.

It was amazing how a single skill turned this rift into a joke. Matt wasn't arrogant enough to imagine that he could be this aggressive if he didn't have the skill to rely on, but when they couldn't even harm him, it was hard to treat the fights seriously.

Melinda's parties' notes talked about how they got injuries the first few runs they did, and the increased intelligence of the goblins made the backline take injuries despite the front line's best efforts.

Even still, Matt hadn't taken a single blow he didn't allow to land. They were smaller, weaker, and slower than him, which let Matt dictate the pace of combat. And without others to worry about, Matt didn't have the usually limited movement of melee fighters who couldn't dodge every blow because then the mages, archers, and supports would be open to attack.

Matt proceeded through the rift. He fought five more sets of goblins, collecting essence and iron weapons along the way. His sack was getting heavy to the point he placed it before the entrance of each room.

An hour later, Matt arrived before the final room and peered in. Five goblins in scale armor, just thumb-sized pieces of metal attached to a long shirt, stood in front of a sixth larger foe.

The final occupant of the room was a hobgoblin, 55 and bulkier than his lesser counterparts. It had actual plate armor even though it was only iron and had large gaps between the pieces.

This was one of three variations the final fight could take. It was also the most common appearing around fifty percent of the time. The other two variations had a goblin mage and archer, respectively. Much harder fights because of the suppression the ranged fighters could put on a group.

Matt smiled, happy he didn't have to fight a variation his first delve.

Stepping through the doorway, the five goblins charged but in a loose formation with the hobgoblin trailing behind them with an axe in hand.

As the group approached, Matt circled left, so their formation was unable to flank him as easily. Matt lashed out at the first goblin to reach him and disarmed the goblin, who fell to the ground clutching at his stump.

One more obstacle in their way staggered the goblins out farther, so Matt had all of them dead or incapacitated by the time the hobgoblin approached. This was a fight Matt was anticipating.

The hobgoblin had a near-human size and with low Tier 2 strength and peak Tier 1 speed and resistances. Matt was not willing to underestimate this opponent; he had no one to help him if he messed up. With Tier 2 strength and a solid weapon, this hob could probably injure him, unlike his lesser cousins.

Backing up while circling, Matt brought them back to the center of the room where there were no bodies to foul up his footing and stopped retreating. The hobgoblin continued his approach at the steady walk he had maintained the whole time and swung his two-handed axe.

Matt stepped back, not trying to match the opponent's strength. Matt went to lunge at the armored foe, using his straight weapons ability to pierce armor. He had to jerk back as the hobgoblin reversed his swing and tried to impale Matt with the spike on the rear of his axe.

Matt used his aborted thrust to strike the handle of the axe, sending the weapon over his head while stepping under and past the hob's arms. But was unable to get a blow in as the hobgoblin retreated and reset his stance.

For a moment, Matt and the hobgoblin locked eyes, then Matt surged forward with an overhead chop. The hob, thinking he had an easy victory, back stepped. Letting Matt blow hit the ground, stepping back in with a heavy horizontal swing.

Matt raised the pommel of his longsword and stepped to the opposite side of the swing, using the planted tip to block the heavy blow. Dropping the longsword after the block, Matt closed in with an elbow strike to its unarmored face that made the hob stumble.

With the head of the axe still near the floor, Matt kicked at the handle, ripping the weapon out of the hob's hands. Before the monster could recover, Matt drew the dagger from its sheath and drove it up under the hob's chin into its brain.

Shoving the hob back, Matt retreated until he stepped over his fallen longsword, and without taking his eyes off the still body of the hob, he picked his weapon up.

Watching the corpse, Matt waited until he felt the rush of essence to approach and ensure the goblins were dead. The essence he got from the hob was worth half of all the essence of the preceding rift.

Matt tried to steady his breath. It had been an exhilarating fight. The hobgoblin had been smart and more experienced than any of the goblins preceding it. It also didn't have the mindless aggression that made the goblins easy to predict.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Matt pushed the energy down. The adrenalin was still pumping through his veins, and the accumulated essence created a rush Matt had never experienced before.

He wanted more. He wanted to exit, then enter the rift again.

After a few deep breaths, Matt settled his emotions, though his racing heart wasn't slowing. Matt grabbed his sack of loot from the entrance and stripped the goblins and the hob.

Matt then turned his attention to the real prize of the rift. The reward for killing the strongest monster was always random. It could be anything from the most common of mana stones to the incredibly rare skill shards.

This being a low Tiered rift, it didn't often drop skill shards. According to the official guide, Tier 1 mana stones could appear in quantities ranging from 1 to 100, with the average being around 7.

Matt could hardly imagine making 700 credits for an hour and a half's work.

It makes all the hours at Benny's feel like wasted effort. I can make more in two hours delving the weakest of rifts and make more than I made in a month.

This rift also could reward delivers with a few ingots of perfectly pure metals. Usually, only copper and iron there was the chance for steel or aluminum. The smiths prized these drops because they were easier to enchant when forging Tier 3 and above blades.

The iron weapons Matt had collected along the way were just melted then sold as mundane building materials. The Empire paid for the scraps, no reason to have expensive mines ruining land for mundane metals when most low Tier rifts created them endlessly for free.

Matt approached the area of distortion next to the exit rift. It was a purple color to his spiritual sense. Matt wasn't sure if that was because of the item contained within or it was just random.

Everyone's spiritual sense was unique to the individual. Matt could 'see' with his if he was close enough, and he saw purple on the distortion of the prize.

Matt sent a pulse of essence at the small field, and it shimmered before a small pile of stones appeared.

Mana stones. Jackpot.

Matt collected the small shards. They were only slightly bigger than the last knuckle on his pinky, in the shape of a hexagonal bipyramid. Each Tier 1 mana stone held 10 mana. Unlike artificial mana stones, once these were drained, they would turn to dust then even the dust would disappear after a moment.

At each higher Tier, they held more mana at the same size, that being the reason a ten to one ratio was standard at the lower Tiers.

Matt collected the small crystals and counted them from one hand to the other. Eight mana stones, one better than the average.

He couldn't stop smiling, 800 credits. 80 mana in his hands, the very power modern society needed to run was so small.

His instincts felt they should be fragile, even though Matt knew that was just an illusion from their resemblance to glass and size. The mana stones were nearly indestructible as long as they had mana remaining.

The only sad thing was if a mage wanted to convert the rifts mana stones to personal mana, there was a loss ratio of near forty percent, and it took time in special equipment to slowly match the mage's unique mana signature.

That was why mana stones were mostly used for powering daily life and only occasionally used to refill mages at great cost.

Matt pocketed the mana stones, stopped channeling mana to [Cracked Phantom Armor], then stepped through the portal, returning to the real world.

One of the guards waved Matt through to a check-out area where he could leave the iron scrap he collected.

The attendant looked like she was bored but trying to hide it, she almost succeeded. "Iron scraps can go on the scale, and if you are willing to report what you received, please do so."

Matt didn't mind. The Empire spent far more running this place than he had just earned. "Eight mana stones was the only reward. Well, besides the scrap." Matt waved at the sack full of metal.

"We are willing to purchase the mana stones here if you wish, or you can take it to any of the banks." the young lady sounded like she said these same words hundreds of times a day.

Come to think of it, she probably does.

Matt thanked her and walked away, checking his new account balance, 6872 credits. Matt wasn't in a hurry to pay the credit card off as he didn't accrue interest being on The Path.

When he arrived back at the populated part of the island, he saw it was just after 12:30 and decided to go shower then eat lunch.

After eating, Matt didn't know what he should do with himself. He couldn't remember a time where he didn't have something on his to-do list. At Benny's, he was working or training. Even at the orphanage, he was in lessons or doing extra training.

Matt was at a loss.

He decided to wander the island. It was an island 10 miles across. It must have something to do.

What Matt found during his walk was people at the beach, it seemed to be the way to relax as parties lounged and larger groups formed around various sports and games. Matt thought about joining but decided he was still too keyed up from the fight.

That led Matt to the interior of the island. He checked, and there were no predators on the island, so he found a small clearing off one of the paths.

He found watching the slight breeze change the patterns of the shade cast by the trees was relaxing. For the first time since the alarms went off when he was eight, Matt allowed himself to fully relax.

An unknown time later, Matt drifted off.

***

Matt woke slowly, stretching as he did. He felt good, he felt light, so many worries were removed after getting a skill and a source of income.

Checking his pad, Matt hurried to the dining hall. Melinda's group said they'd meet him there, and he was eager to talk to someone about his delve.

Arriving only a little past six, Matt saw the group in line and waved at them as he joined the back of the line.

As he took his tray to their table, Matt could see the anticipation on their faces. Before he could fully sit down, Mat asked, "So how was it? You're still in one piece at least."

Melinda elbowed the other Mat and said, "Wait for him to sit down." As soon as Matt had situated himself, she blurted, "So how did it go? Don't keep us waiting. I didn't think to exchange numbers so we couldn't call you when we got out of our rift."

"Yeah, I wanted to ask how your rift went?"

He was cut off with a series of 'nooo's' and 'you first's'.

Matt acquiesced and told them, "It wasn't bad. Your notes and the official information made sure there were no surprises. My Tier 1 Talent and skill synergize really well, and that made it, so none of the regular goblins were able to hurt me."

As he spoke, he realized how weird that sounded. He was so used to thinking about his Talent in a negative light that he couldn't quite believe what he was saying.

"I took the fights seriously, but in the end, the goblins are so weak it was easy to not get hit at all."

Sam asked as soon as she could, barely getting her words out before the others, "What boss did you get? Did you pull a variant?"

"Not just the standard, a solo hobgo.."

"How did you solo him? We all did but not until we were peak Tier 1's and everyone else was ready to help." Kyle cut in this time.

The comment about peak Tier 1 jolted Matt. He hadn't cultivated his accumulated essence. He'd taken a friggin nap instead.

"Oh, gods, I forgot to cultivate." Matt made to stand, but Vinnie, who he was sitting next to, dragged him back down.

"Chill, man, it's fine. You won't start to lose the accumulated essence for a few days. Relax really, man."

Matt sat back down reluctantly. "I feel so dumb. How did I forget the entire purpose of delving?"

"Yeah, how did you?" Vinnie had a smirk on his face as he asked, but it didn't come across as unkind.

"I got excited about the mana stones and how much they sell for. And ugh took a nap in the woods." Matt blushed slightly as he said it.

When he didn't hear laughter from the others, he glanced around. They were blushing harder than him.

Melinda, with red cheeks, raised her cup and said, "here's to growing up poor and fixating on the money."

Everyone, including Matt, drank to that.

Matt broke the silence after that he wanted to follow up on that statement. "I grew up in an orphanage after a rift break. What about y'all?"

That seemed to ruin the mood even more. It was Mat who answered this time, "Same with us and a lot of the Sponsees here. The Junipers haven't been doing their damn job and rift breaks are at an all-time high. They should be..."

Before Mat could continue, Melinda covered his mouth. "Yes, we were orphaned as well, but talking bad about the nobility isn't smart without the power to defend yourself. DO NOT get us all in trouble, Mat."

That finally stopped Mat's struggles. Sam said, "My evasion instructor said he heard rumors that the issue was being passed up."

Mat scoffed around Melinda, covering hand, "That means we'll see results in twenty years if we are lucky. All the nobility are above Tier 15, and immortality makes bureaucracy take forever."

"Enough, we can't do anything. Matt, you were talking about the hobgoblin. How did it go?" Melinda forcefully changed the subject, and Matt took the topic shift willingly.

"It wasn't a long fight, honestly. While he was a better fighter than the goblins, he wasn't that good." Matt described his fight in detail, and everyone oohed and ahhed at all the appropriate parts.

"What about you guys? How was your delve? And what do you do on your off days? I haven't had free time in forever."

Melinda said with a bright smile, "Our rift was easy. We've reached the peak of Tier 2 and, in the next month or so, will advance, but we are balancing out our essence so we can advance together. And our days off, we usually spend the remaining time after the rift cultivating. That usually takes up most of that day, but we have a strict no work policy on delve days."

"Humm, the day after for us is training both group and solo. We all have hired combat instructors for personal lessons. It's good, and when you can afford it, you should look into it. They are all Tier 7 or higher, most are here on extended R&R, either someone in their party got so injured they can't delve safely and are waiting for the cooldown on healings, or they are taking a break. They are all vetted and know their chosen fields."

That piqued Matt's interest, "Cooldown on healing? What is that? I thought it was just you are healed and back to normal. Just do it and done. All better."

The entire group looked to Melinda this time, "Na, well, for small injuries, that's exactly how it works. But if you get ripped in half, regrowing and acclimating to the new parts takes time. I don't want this to be a lecture, but I'm assuming you don't know how healing actually works, do you?"

At Matt's confirmation that he didn't know, she continued, "Don't feel bad none of us knew either till I got a healing Talent. There are two types of healing spells. One is undirected. Cast the spell, and it does its thing. Each spell will be different, but it just heals, the problem is, get a limb chopped off and only have a basic healing spell, and it will just seal the wound. It's technically healed."

"You need other spells like [Regrowth] or [Regeneration] to heal missing limbs, though [Regeneration] is a self-cast spell. The point is, they will save your life but are kinda limited in their execution."

"The other type is a directed heal, it's like.." Melinda paused and pursed her lips before continuing slowly. "The best way to describe it is if someone gets their head chopped off, an undirected heal won't do anything, the spell will just consider them 'dead'. Despite the fact you don't instantly die with decapitation, even mundane medical technology can reattach a head."

"A directed healing skill is able to reattach ahead, it just takes dozens of times more mana and absurd amounts of control and knowledge of anatomy. The spell doesn't guide you if you mess up. You just killed somebody while trying to save them."

Mat continued for her, "I like to think it's like patching a blanket, a hole can just be stitched together, and a directed healing spell can easily do that, but a blanket that was ripped in half is harder to get back together."

Melinda smiled at him and said, "We got distracted. The point is after a lot of healing, the body needs time to recover, or the next healing will be even harder and might not take, so parties wait, and that gives PlayPens combat trainers."

"The day before a rift, we attend classes, math, science, and pursue a crafting hobby. Do some group training at some point. It's the recommended schedule, but you can flip the days if you want."

Tara spoke up, "The night after a delve is for partying. There are clubs and parties every night, but most only go after a delve to blow off steam, which is where we are going next. You will come, right? Let us show you the scene."

Kyle chimed in and said, "Yeah, you don't have to stay long, just have a drink or two, play some pool with us, and then you can head home. It's too late to cultivate anyway. Better to wait till morning when you can do it properly."

Matt wanted to decline. He felt the urge to rush back to his room and cultivate. The pleading looks they gave him finally decided Matt.

"Sure, I'll go, but just for a little while."

***

Matt and Kyle were playing doubles pool and getting their collective asses handed to them by Sam and Tara. Mostly Tara.

"It's still unfair that your archery sense works for all projectiles. It's cheating, Tara," Kyle whined, and Matt agreed.

The archer girl was even using her non-dominant hand, and they had limited her to two shots, and she was still clearing the table.

Her skill felt superhuman, which it was. Talent's were unique and wondrous. From what Matt understood, Tara had a projectile sense of some type.

If it made her this good at pool, Matt wondered what she could do with a bow.

Melinda and Mat were snuggled together in a dark corner, and Vinnie had met with a woman then disappeared.

Matt nodded at Mat and Melinda, "So they are together then?"

Sam answered with a shake of the head. Kyle used words, "Nope, our sponsor heavily suggested that we don't get in any relationships in the team until after Tier 5. It wasn't quite an order, but Melinda and Mat would just jump off a cliff if Harper said to."

Tara scoffed at him, "Like you wouldn't?"

"True."

Matt understood that. If Dena or Eric had 'heavily suggested' something, he would have taken it as an order as well.

"Did he give any reasons?"

"Yeah, he saw how Melinda and Mat looked at each other. He said the risk of young love not working was pretty high, and young mistakes could break up a young couple, and that would destroy our team. So they are waiting." Kyle took his shot and missed while answering.

"I was meaning to ask. How does being sponsored as a teamwork?"

"Pretty much the same, but we can't add more people to the team without our sponsors' approval. Other than that, nothing really different." Tara had flopped backward onto the table, beer forgotten to the side. "How did you get picked by a sponsor Matt? Were you top of the class or something fancy like that?"

Matt wasn't sure he wanted to share his failure, but he got the feeling they were honest and kind, so he decided to share a little. "No, I was orphaned like you all, but our orphanage was so overcrowded we got awakened at thirteen and pushed out."

All three of them winced, "It wouldn't have been that bad. They tried to ensure we had some face time with guilds and corporations at the Awakening Center. I almost got recruited to a guild, but my Tier 1 Talent is..."

Sam chimed in, "You don't have to say more."

"Na, it's ok. It's limiting. Yeah, limiting is the best word for it, I can't cultivate mana at all, and that broke my provisional contract. I got lucky, and the recruiter was a good dude and helped me at least find a path forward. I just needed to make money then buy a delve slot. So I got a job at a shitty inn. Worked there for over a year when Dena and Eric came in."

Matt had all of their attention now. "They were stronger than anyone I had ever met at the time, Tier 6's, and they were kind." he gave them a look. "I'm sure you know how high Tiered people can be."

Tara and Sam nodded while Kyle had a dark look flash across his face.

Matt got murmurs of agreement, then continued, "I was working twelve-hour days as a general handyman with only some time before everyone else woke up to practice, so that's when I did it. When they checked in, they came down to spar roughly the same time I did".

"Dena asked for a sparring partner while she worked on her staff technique, and that's pretty much how the next month went. They sparred with me in the mornings and said I had good talent and could feel my Tier 3 would be a pair with my Tier 1 and fix my problems."

"So they had me spar with Dena at low Tier 3 strength" three intakes of air made Matt paused as he remembered the fight. "It wasn't even close. She was so much faster and stronger, I was barely able to eke out a tiny hit, but it was enough."

"They said hitting a Tier 3 at Tier 1 was special enough with my determination that they'd sponsor me. Though I didn't know what that really entailed. A few hours later, I was on a train here. Shit, that was only last week."

"Wow. If we didn't have a rule against sleeping with friends, I'd take you to my room right now." Tara's words made Matt blush a bit before everyone laughed. She paired it with bouncing eyebrows, cutting the tension of the story.

"What about you guys?"

Sam answered, "We were all friends in school when the rift break happened. It was bad..." She took a long pull from her bottle, "We were close to the initial hit area. Our teacher died, killing the monster that pushed through the door. That turned out to be a blessing because it blocked the door mostly, and only small monsters were able to just barely squeeze through."

They all looked to Mat and Melinda at that point. "Mat took charge and got everyone to pile stuff in front of the door and block the entrance off. He took a blow that nearly shredded his back. I still remember Melinda holding bloody rags to his back, crying. I know there isn't any way to predict Talents, but at that moment, I knew she would be a healer, Talent or no talent."

"Out of the twenty-three kids in our class, we were the only ones who lost everyone. The others had someone to go to. But not us. That made us close. We've been inseparable since, when our Awakening's happened at fourteen, we all got pretty lucky, nothing detrimental."

Tara winced and said, "Sorry Matt, I didn't mean..."

"It's fine. Really. It happens to some and that some included me."

Clearing her throat, Sam finished the story, "We had already decided to team up from day one, so we had spent the entire time training together. The problem was Melinda."

Matt looked at the blonde, giggling into Mat's shoulder. How was she a problem?

Seeing where he looked, Sam said, "Yeah, Melinda's Tier 1 Talent was rated as exceptional in the healing category. It made a massive stir."

"Fucking shit show is more like it," Kyle grumbled.

"Yeah, well, everyone came. There were hundreds of guilds and groups offering to pay massive bonuses to attract her. Our sponsor heard about it, and seeing how they were acting put a stop to it."

"Harper's a Tier 7, and he was like a walking storm. His very presence made them all scurry back to the holes they crawled out of." Her disgust at their actions was paired with a scowl.

"Harper tried to take Melinda aside, but she refused to let go of Matt and Tara. Literally hanging on to their clothes. So Harper brought us all to a room and explained what was going on. Apparently, there is something of a finders fee for low Tier guilds to get rare Talents for higher Tier guild's or noble families." Sam said.

"They recruit them then basically sell them to the highest bidder. The guilds were trying to turn Melinda into a cash cow."

"Harper gave us EmpireNet access, and everything he said was true. The Empire doesn't technically allow it but, it's really hard to police on low Tiered worlds so they can get away with it."

Kyle saw Matt's expression and added, "Not that the people are treated badly it's just they don't get a say on where they go. But sometimes it's the only way off of these planets."

Tara finished, "So Harper offered to sponsor us if we could meet his standards."

They all shuddered at that. "It was a very tough few months, but we are better for it."

Matt had a thought pop into his head and asked, "Why has everyone been so friendly here? Not that I mind, but it seems odd."

"Easy answer is ninety percent of the people on the PlayPen this time of year are all Sponsees, and most of us come from poor backgrounds, and we are hot shit. In. Oh. I don't know. In four or five months, we'll have another wave of newbies come in, and most will be the kids of the rich here to spend money and die. It's usually a ten to twenty-five percent death rate amongst the non-sponcees. That's why the Empire gives spots to people running the cities. They pass them off as favors, and the rich help pay for the rest of us."

Matt looked at Sam aghast. How did people die in that rift?

Reading the question on Matt's face, Kyle answered, "The non-sponcees don't get the discounts or anything, but they don't have restrictions either, so they throw themselves to the Tier 2 and 3 rifts way too early then get killed."

Tara chimed in, "Also, you never know who's going to be a powerhouse in the future. It could be anyone here. Besides, we aren't competing for spots on The Path or anything. The higher everyone climbs, the better, no reason to cut each other down."