Limitless Path

"Okay, so, explain this Grand Palace thing," Beth said.

"Alright, well, a bit of history," Sera said. "There's two reasons my family chose to make this planet the home of the Black Dragon Clan a few million years ago. One is that it was already a very mana dense planet, which presents its own dangers, but that also acts as a status symbol. Settling on a world where a level eight hundred beast might just show up randomly is highly dangerous, but being able to not just survive but thrive on such a world is a display of wealth and power."

"Not that I fully agree, but I understand the logic," Beth said.

"The second reason," Sera continued after pulling Beth into her lap on the couch, "is that the Grand Palace was already here. My ancestors recognized its value instantly and were determined to control it. That's why my family's compound is here in the first place. We control access to the challenge dungeon, not that anybody is going to sneak by us and go in, which is as good a segue to explain the dungeon as any.

"Challenge dungeons can come in a bunch of different varieties, but there's a kind that's locked that needs something to open. It can be a challenge in and of itself to get the keys or pass the entry requirements, but then the dungeon itself is often still a major challenge. The Grand Palace isn't quite so demanding, but it is expensive. We have to use an array at the entrance to sacrifice metals, gems, beast cores, and mana stone to get it to open, and we're talking adamantine coins worth, if not a neutronium coin worth of materials."

"Thus why somebody can't just sneak in," Val said. "Kinda hard to come up with a fucking neutronium coin worth of materials and then activate an absorption array stealthily on top of it. Not easy."

"Right," Sera said with a nod. "So, we pay and open the dungeon. A lot of factions have something like this, and they will even pay to use a different factions, as the challenges and rewards inside can be unique. Not really totally one-of-a-kind, as I'm sure there's other dungeons out there that are similar to the Grand Palace. It's a big universe, after all. That's also the problem, though; think about having to travel to a galaxy a billion light years away to get a similar experience. It would insanely expensive or time consuming or even both."

"We do have a starship now," Blood cut in, obviously dreaming of flying such a long distance.

"It's not that simple, dear," Val said, caressing Blood's ears and stroking her hair. "Our ship is fine for flying around a system like this one or Earth's, or jumping a couple systems over, but it would even have trouble with flying across the galaxy, and the Milky Way is fucking small compared to some. If we wanted to fly from one side to the other, it'd take multiple years in that shitty little cruiser, and we'd have to take extra fuel along cuz that thing ain't flying that long fuckin' continuously on just shitty ambient mana."

"Right, most people that move between galaxies either have insanely powerful, and insanely expensive, ships, which are crazy rare, or they are already extremely powerful," Sera said. "A Manumitted or someone like that wouldn't travel between galaxies just to do a challenge dungeon, and the expense is prohibitive for anyone else."

"Okay, so, challenge dungeons are functionally unique because shopping around between galaxies to find even a similar one is a fool's errand," Beth said.

"That's right," Sera said, curling her tail further around Beth. "Anyway, we got slightly off track, but the Grand Palace is a challenge dungeon where there's a payment to enter, a restriction to below Ascended, and people can only challenge it once in their lifetime. Tons of people have studied it, including Mortaine or people like him that specialize in dimensional magic and weird esoterica, and nobody has figured out a way to bypass the once-only rule without just breaking the dungeon."

"So, we get one shot?" Blood asked.

"Yes, so we can't waste it," Sera confirmed with a nod.

"But, we're set up pretty well for it," Beth said. She clarified when the others sent her questioning looks. "Think about it. The highest rank of people that can enter are Enlightened, which we are, but most Enlightened just aren't nearly as strong or skilled as we are. People like Tazeen or someone are the exceptions that prove the rule, not the other way around. Plus, we've got me, and I'm basically a cheat code, though I'm trying not to let the whole 'mini-Exalted' thing go to me head."

"And you've been doing such a fucking fabulous job so far," Val quipped sarcastically.

"Why, thank you," Beth said, doing a like faux preening at the rebuttal.

"Back on topic," Sera said, poking Beth's side. "The Grand Palace can only be entered once and it usually consists of some kind of scenario centered around a palace intrigue or court battle scenario. It's always just a bit different, if not varied by quite a lot, but it can be anything from teams having to assassinate targets to participating in a tournament to try to earn prestige or a courtly position for someone to undermining a political faction."

"Ugh, sounds lame," Beth said, rolling her eyes.

"No matter what we get, there's plenty of room for punching things," Sera chastised, poking Beth again. "Anyway, the thing that makes the Grand Palace so desirable is the skills. People who perform exceptionally well have the opportunity of either getting an extremely powerful, high-tier skill or having one of their current skills evolved and improved in a near-perfect way. The Grand Palace rarely gives out any other prizes and usually those only for people who don't score very well."

Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"You keep talking about score," Blood pointed out.

"That's right," Sera said. "The instance can be undertaken by multiple groups at once and it internally scores all participants. The better you do, both in figuring out the scenario, as it isn't always obvious, as well as figuring out any hidden objectives, combined with actually achieving those objectives, contributes to your score. The teams with the top score by the end of the instance, whenever or however that comes about, are the ones that get the best prize, though getting an even higher score gives even better prizes."

"I know you said it gives a skill, but that seems kinda…" Beth said, trailing off and wiggling her hand. "Even a high tier skill, we can just buy. Hell, I bought a high tier looting skill at the Seven Lights for a decent price."

"No, no, no," Sera said, shaking her head. "You don't understand what I mean when I say high tier. The best performer ever in the Grand Palace is from a man who eventually went on to become an Exalted years later and, as far as I know, is still alive, just not in the Milky Way anymore. He selected a new skill as his reward and was able to pick from a vast array of options, eventually settling on a tier nine skill. A skill of that tier would be almost effortless to raise to adamantine rank and is something practically unheard of, well, anywhere, even in places far richer than here."

"That's…I don't even know what to say. What the hell was the skill?" Beth said.

"It was a defensive skill that created a permeable barrier that blocked almost any kind of damage while allowing anybody the person thought of as an ally to fire skills or even projectiles through the barrier," Sera said. "The person was a fresh Enlightened at the time, similar to us, and he blocked a nearly full-power strike from a very powerful Ascended with the skill right after getting it. Oh, yeah, I should say he got the skill at Diamond[1] to start, as well, so there's also that."

"Wait, you mean he walked out of the dungeon with a brand new skill already in Diamond?" Beth asked, tilting her head back to stare at Sera.

"Yep, that's what I was told," Sera answered. "There's a reason the dungeon is considered so valuable, even with the expense of every single run of the dungeon. I've heard that the skills are basically limitless, in terms of what kind of skills, what they do, the tier, mana type, and more. The better we do, the better skills we can pick from, the more tailored to us they will be, and the higher the rank we can get before even leaving the dungeon. From what I understand, it's kind of like when you learn a skill from a skill crystal and you see the path laid out before you of how that skill can grow and get some deeper understanding to work towards, but it actually walks you through that knowledge and deeply imprints in into you. Now, was the claim of the skill being raised to Diamond[1] true? I don't know if that was an exaggeration or something, but it is known for a fact that you can get a skill reward to higher than Copper[0] before leaving the Grand Palace, so it's certainly possible that that old story is true."

"What do you mean by the skills will be more tailored to us?" Blood asked, lupine ears twitching.

"Just for a basic example, since you lean into your namesake, if we do really well, you will have not only a lot of strong blood-related skills as options, but even ones that focus on speed and precision," Sera answered. "For somebody like me, a good showing will mean a lot of skills for defense and body enhancement and negating attacks will show up. For Beth, it's likely she'll have multiple options for really good spatial skills and possible some really strong fire skills. Val is also speed and precision focused, with several skills for cutting and several wind skills, so you would get things for fast movement and attack, likely with wind element added in."

"And we can only get one?" Val asked, clearly dreaming of taking away a mountain of good skills.

"So far as I'm aware, the skill bonus only applies to one skill per person. And remember, you can enhance a skill, and that's no small thing or little bonus. You could take a skill you have that's mediocre and bump it multiple tiers, evolving it into a more powerful and more focused skill that suits you even better," Sera answered.

"So, if we perform like shit, just on the off chance, we kinda get screwed?" Beth asked.

"Well, sorta," Sera said. "There's other rewards, like enchanted rings or other things people have gotten, but most of that stuff isn't anything exceptional. The reward that makes the whole thing worth it is the skill reward, so if we fuck up and don't perform well, we'll get a shit skill reward and then some other small consolation prizes. The better we do, the better the skills we can pick from, or the better the upgrade to an already existing skill."

"Would the upgrade be worth it? We already have skills anywhere between Gold and high Platinum. Upgrading one of those would feel like a bit of a waste," Val commented.

"If we do really well, you could upgrade a tier three skill you have at Gold to a tier seven skill already in diamond," Sera replied. "The skill would be so much more powerful that it would be like you were an entirely new person; that's the kind of difference I'm talking about for a good performance. Upgrading some tier one skill stuck at the peak of Gold to a tier two skill at Platinum[0] isn't that impressive, but that's absolutely not what we're talking about. I've heard of a person that took a tier one Gold skill up to a massively evolved tier five skill at Platinum[9] that was easy to get to Diamond[0]. The evolution was so good the skill did multiple times more things, let alone who knows how much more damage, after the upgrade if compared directly."

"So, we need to bring our absolute best," Beth concluded.

"The harder we're willing to fight and the longer we're willing to push through, the better the reward, as with most things," Sera said with a nod.

"Is there anything we can do to prepare?" Val asked.

"Well, you're not going to like it…" Sera said hesitantly, trailing off.

"Just fucking hit us with it," Val grumbled.

"The only thing we really could do, since we're already quite good fighters, is to prepare for the scenarios we may encounter," Sera answered.

"Meaning?" Beth asked with a sinking feeling.

"Meaning we study the scenarios that have been documented in the past and try to learn what best to expect and how to navigate it," Sera answered.

"Fucking hell. I thought when the world changed and magic proved to be real, I'd be done with studying. I've studied way more after I got superpowers than I ever did in school," Beth groaned, flopping back against Sera as she expressed her immense discontent.

"Welcome to lifelong learning," Sera quipped.

"Screw lifelong learning. I just want to punch things, particularly people-shaped things, in the face. Other people can do all this damn studying," Beth groused.

"Well, we've got three days and not much else to do during that time," Sera said. "We might as well make the most of it. Just think of it like a small investment to get a huge return."

"I still protest more studying, but the thought of getting a powerful skill is really tempting," Beth grumped, shifting to sit up and focus.

"Let's review the basic material," Sera said, sending a bunch of data to the three other girls.

They spent the next three days studying the materials, starting with those basics that Sera had sent them. It was a lot of what she had already explained about the Grand Palace, including information about the skill rewards and how valuable and rare they were. It also covered the same basics of it being some kind of courtly intrigue or plot or something, which was interesting, but Sera had covered all that. They quickly moved on to the far more detailed briefings, which combined accounts of past participants with general knowledge about the dungeon. Most of what they learned consisted of how the main objective could be completed and how hidden objectives could be checked, but there was a lot of valuable information about how the instance worked. The thing that Sera hadn't really gone into was that multiple teams often went in at once and competed, though they didn't have to fight. It made the whole political and espionage dance that happened far more complicated, though it could also make it a lot easier if people in the instance weren't particularly good at such things. Beth was secretly hoping for a tournament arc, as nobody that would be going in with them had a snowball's chance in hell of beating her in a fight.