For the remainder of the day, Kevin ran, killing morankia as he had the first leg of this journey, but not going especially out of his way for it. He stopped that night, deciding that he needed a real night's sleep. He was absolutely exhausted, rung out like a wet rag. He couldn't afford a nap after the day he had. He mourned the lost time, but his strength had been flagging since the fight that morning on the aircraft carrier. He was certain that his pace was closer to an average of 10 miles per hour today than the likely near 15 from yesterday.
Kevin hoped that a good night’s rest would give him the strength he needed to get a solid 15 miles per hour. If he didn’t make it to the end of the bridge by tomorrow then … well he didn’t know what he’d do, he’d have to cross that bridge when … well he was already crossing the bridge that was the bloody fucking problem. Kevin shook his head, clearing it of the fog of fatigue and cleared what looked like a large whaling vessel of all the morankai on board.
He found a cabin towards the top. He checked the water, unlike in the cities, the water and electricity on the boats didn’t seem to work. It was no different here and so Kevin opened The Shop drink menu, purchased several large bottles of water and gave himself a bit of a sponge bath. Bought more clothes from the shop, deciding these ones were wore out enough. He got dressed in his pretty typical spandex athleticwear and then he settled down to checked his status again.
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 107,129
Race: Human
Soul Quality: ✪
Age: 35
Stats: Strength: 150
Endurance: 127
Recovery: 88
Soul: 31
Abilities: 6/8
Soul Tracker
Ki Cultivator Earth Tier (Middle)
Basic Shield Mastery (5/5)
Intermediate Axe Mastery (1/5)
Ceaseless Mind
Conqueror's Spoils (Uses Remaining: 1)
His point value was still going up. That was extremely pleasing to see. The barest whisper of a plan started to settle around Kevin, but he didn’t want to get his hopes too high yet, he needed to know what his new level cap was.
He ate a Thanksgiving Dinner amount of food, despite the nerves of trying to cross this damnedable bridge and make it to Katie. Exhausted from nearly two full days of constant running and fighting, Kevin drank his recovery potion, huddled up under his tower shield and fell asleep.
The next day Kevin awoke to his early morning alarms feeling refreshed and ready to go. He opened The Shop and pulled out a carb heavy breakfast including drinking a pretty thick wheat beer The Shop oddly provided.
He was feeling sore but generally pretty good, so he topped off breakfast with yet another recovery potion, and a low-tier healing pill. He went through a stretch routine to help get him ready for more running and more fighting. It was the longest half hour of his life, but he wanted to be sharp and true to form today.
While he stretched he checked his stats again. Kevin routinely worked out so hard that his stats would grow while he recovered during a good sleep. Rest was sometimes just as important as the work after all.
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 107,129
Race: Human
Soul Quality: ✪
Age: 35
Stats: Strength: 150
Endurance: 127-128
Recovery: 88
Soul: 31
Abilities: 6/8
Soul Tracker
Ki Cultivator Earth Tier (Middle)
Basic Shield Mastery (5/5)
Intermediate Axe Mastery (1/5)
Ceaseless Mind
Conqueror's Spoils (Uses Remaining: 1)
Somewhat unsurprisingly, his endurance stat had gone up. Kevin grunted with satisfaction, Kevin bounced on the balls of his feet as he opened the door to the cabin he had stayed in. He immediately got hit in the face.
If Kevin’s strength stat hadn’t been two times higher than the average normal morankai, that blow might have killed him, as it was it only surprised him and left him flat footed. The morankai came in swinging and Kevin ducked under the blow with a slip and then retaliated with a heavy hook into the creature's stomach, it took a step back to correct its balance and Kevin followed it with a step and hook across its chin. The morankia’s head jerked violently and it swung at Kevin with a backhand swing. Kevin slipped under the blow and hit the creature with two lightning fast jabs to the stomach again. The creature took two steps back and then lunged at Kevin with an overhand blow. Kevin stepped into the attack and took the arm over his shoulder using the morankias momentum and his own to hip toss the creature to its back with a loud thud. He held fast to the long arm of the creature and kicked down onto its head as hard as he could while pulling up on the limb. The creature's neck broke and it flopped bonelessly to the cabin floor.
— Points Obtained: Points 14 —
“Fuck.” Kevin said as he took a few big breaths to slow down his racing heart. “That was surprising.” Kevin did what he should have done when he first woke up and activated Soul Tracker to check for nearby morankai. There was a normal morankai but based on the distance, Kevin guessed a ship's distance away. There were no golden morankai, and Kevin couldn’t check for abnormals. He figured, given his luck, he’d probably run into another pack of them by lunchtime.
Kevin kept a great pace, definitely fifteen miles per hour on average today. The number of morankai out and about that he had to handle seemed like a lot less than the first day to say nothing of the hordes from yesterday. He had a few abnormals he dealt with plenty of normals, but nothing totally obscene. Kevin paced himself a little better than the previous days, taking breaks a few times during the day for food, recovery potions, plenty of water from the shop, and a low-tier healing pill … or two.
So, when the sun set on Kevin still running along the, what seemed to be a never ending ship bridge. Kevin had activated Soul Tracker off and on all day, pinging his mother, who he was pretty sure was getting farther from him with every step, and pinging Katie, who he knew was getting closer. The angle hadn’t really changed, but Kevin could still tell it was different than before. She felt closer and that was all he wanted.
He kept a ping out for golden morankai, or even another one of the black orbs, but neither were close enough. Kevin had also grown close enough to ping Cameron and several others from the first wave with his Soul Tracker power. He could feel them all behind him. It felt like Cameron and the others were on the bridge now. He couldn’t really tell who had stayed at the city, but some folks were definitely still there.
Kevin put on his advanced mask and kept going deep into the night. Four hours before the sun rose Kevin stopped again. He had sort of been holding out for a smaller ship, like the whaling vessel, the larger the vessel the more he’d have to clear to feel comfortable bedding down, but he couldn’t seem to catch a break with a smaller ship so he settled for what was probably a natural gas tanger. It was huge, but the cabin space was compared to a cruise ship.
Kevin cleared the vessel, another sponge bath, another meal, another recovery potion, and another low-tier healing pill. Even with all the extra ones he had made while he was trying to cross the grasslands, he was running low on his personal brand of recovery potion. He was going to have to make more, hopefully he would have enough to make it to Katie before he ran out.
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Kevin snuggled up under his shield and went to bed. When he woke up a bit more than three hours later, the sun was just cresting the horizon. Kevin stretched, ate, and prepared to leave the cabin. He activated Soul Tracker and verified that there weren’t any morankai directly outside his door, fortunately there weren’t, there were some in the cargo area though, which didn’t matter because he was going up.
Kevin climbed all the way to the top deck of the ship trying to get a better view of the bridge before him. What he saw almost knocked him down. It was still far away, but at a distance measured in tens of miles not hundreds. What lay before Kevin, from horizon to horizon as far as he could see, what an absolutely MASSIVE city skyline. He could tell almost nothing else from where he was, except that this city went on for miles and miles and miles.
Kevin gaped and he looked to his left. There was another ship bridge several miles from Kevin’s bridge, and another beyond that and another beyond that, those too going off in the distance as far as Kevin could see. To the right, the same; ship bridge after ship bridge as far as he could see. They all seemed to lead toward the central city cluster. Kevin’s mind boggled at the scope.
He reflexively pinged Katie. Could she be in the city? Kevin didn’t know, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t think so though, he thought she might be in in another cluster yet farther away. Kevin’s resolve firmed. If he had to run a thousand of these ship bridges, he would find her. Kevin didn’t bother climbing the steps down. He jumped over the edge and used the Cloud Step shoes to sprint down to the deck.
From that moment on, Kevin didn’t kill a single morankai unless it was an abnormal, or directly in his path. Kevin’s strength being at 150 meant he was 10 times stronger than when he arrived, and 15 times stronger than an average person. That stat, coupled with his endurance approaching 130 meant that Kevin was in superhuman shape. He could sprint much faster than any olympic world record holder. He could keep up that grueling pace for as long as any marathon runner.
Kevin pushed his body to the limit. Up until this moment, the unknown had led Kevin to holding himself back. He couldn’t push too hard because he didn’t know what he needed to be careful of or how long he needed to push for. Now he knew. Kevin left his axes stored unless he needed to quickly kill morankai. He barely slowed as he utterly destroyed them while he ran, pushing his intermediate axe energy into the blade each time he wanted to waste a creature.
Sometimes he would just use the throwing axes and pick them up as he went. He ate up the miles remaining to get to the city. He slowed himself slightly as he approached the final ship, a fancy yacht that Kevin would have loved to explore if for no other reason than to see how the other side lived back on Earth. But he didn’t have time for that now. He threw his axe at the last morankai between him and the central city cluster, the throwing hatchet lodged itself in the miserable creatures chest, then immediately another smashing into its shoulder. Kevin came by less than two seconds later and took off its head. In less than five seconds Kevin had thrown his axes, approached and beheaded it and moved on.
— Points Obtained: Points 193 —
Kevin climbed the yacht which was angled up towards a balcony in the new city. Kevin reached the balcony and set foot on it. He stopped as he felt a stretching sensation in his soul that wasn’t totally dissimilar to when he destroyed the orb. He didn’t get any notification though so he ignored it and moved on.
He pinged Katie, she was clearly more south, maybe a little to the west now? She must be on the opposite side of this city, and then across her own bridge. Kevin didn’t care. The city would be easy. Another bridge would be easy. The destination was all but in sight. Kevin checked his status.
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 108,863
Race: Human
Soul Quality: ✪
Age: 35
Stats: Strength: 150
Endurance: 128-129
Recovery: 88
Soul: 31
Abilities: 6/8
Soul Tracker
Ki Cultivator Earth Tier (Middle)
Basic Shield Mastery (5/5)
Intermediate Axe Mastery (1/5)
Ceaseless Mind
Conqueror's Spoils (Uses Remaining: 1)
He still hadn’t reached the top of his points gap. He entered the skyscraper, the first in this new central cluster of skyscrapers and was hit with the familiar. The whirring of the air conditioners, the lights. This skyscraper could have come directly from his own cluster hundreds of miles away. He moved through the building like a ghost. It was no longer his job to kill these morankai. He only killed one as it got directly in his way, other than that he only ran.
He burst through the shed on the top of the building and found the nearest bridge, it didn’t go towards the south. Kevin didn’t even bother looking for bridges. He didn’t need a bridge. He had never been happier for his Cloud Step shoes. He ran south, he used the bridges when he had them available and weren’t too far out of the way otherwise he used his shoes.
He switched between pinging for Katie and pinging for a golden morankai and pinging for one of those black orbs. His range for finding golden morankai was getting better and he found one. It was a little out of the way but he didn’t care, he didn’t even slow down.
He jumped off the building, using the Cloud Step shoes to run at a slow to a lower balcony, then entered the skyscraper where the golden morankai was. He tapped his armor ring to put on his armor - there was always an abnormal morankai with the golden and he wouldn’t underestimate them. He pulled out his halberd, he had used a solvent to remove the weight from it already.
He rushed into the room the creature was softly glowing from. It never stood a change.
— Points Obtained: Points 8,847 —
— Points Cap reached: Points 116,000 Points —
“Fuck Yes!” It was just enough, barely just enough but it was enough.
Kevin blocked the porcupine like spines that were fired from the abnormal morankai’s weirdly distended belly by reinforcing his armor with shield energy, dodged the swing it took at him, kicked it once and then took off its head with his halberd.
— Points Cap reached: Points 116,000 Points —
Kevin used the but end of his halberd to knock the face off one normal morankai, and kept the swing moving to literally cut the face off the other before he was sprinting up the stairs again. The whole process had taken less than five minutes since he had pinged the golden morankai.
He found a room, and locked the door with the door stop all rooms had. He tapped his ring. He pulled out one of his two storage backpacks. He pulled out an empty mid-tier storage ring. He tapped his ring and pulled out an older suit of armor, one with its own storage ring, he set it on the bed. He moved a different, no-ring extra set of armor and the extra storage backpack in the extra ring. He put the pelte shield from his ring and put it in the extra ring, as well as a small buckler shield. He pulled out his viking dane axe. He pulled out his double bit ice axe, both went in the ring. He pulled out an older axe he had, one that resembled a fireman’s axe but with a particularly nasty bit and the beak was quite a lot larger, as well as two old daggers. That all went into the extra ring. He pulled out an older bow and some good arrows, and the sniper rifle from The Shooter, those went into the ring. He pulled out some clothes and left them on the bed with the armor ring. He pulled out shoes and a hat and put them on the bed. He pulled out a spare artifact - one of his several lucky rabbit’s feet which he attributed to his surviving in the early days of the first layer. He put it on the bed. He pulled out one recovery potion and stored it in the extra ring.
Kevin pulled up and entered the Shop. It took him a moment to find the ability he wanted.
The Divine Doppelgãnger - 115,000
The Divine Doppelgãnger, manifests divine doppelgãnger. An exact duplicate of you is created. The nearer the doppelgãnger is, the more effective it is, losing up to 10% of its stats based on its distance from you.
You may reabsorb your doppelgãnger at any time, regardless of distance, however the closer the doppelgãnger the more effective its absorption will be, including adding to your completed strength, experience, knowledge obtained etc.
While your doppelgãnger exists, if you die the doppelgãnger becomes the new you, but at the stats it has at the time of your death, and with only the knowledge and experience it had at the time of your death.
Kevin hesitated for only a moment, doing some mental math at how strong his doppelgãnger would be. It should be enough.
“Ability Select” “Yes”
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 1,000
Race: Human
Soul Quality: ✪
Age: 35
Stats: Strength: 150
Endurance: 129
Recovery: 88
Soul: 31
Abilities: 7/8
Soul Tracker
Ki Cultivator Earth Tier (Middle)
Basic Shield Mastery (5/5)
Intermediate Axe Mastery (1/5)
Ceaseless Mind
Conqueror's Spoils (Uses Remaining: 1)
Divine Doppelgãnger (0/1)
Kevin activated the ability without hesitation, having the same innate sense of the ability as all his others. How many doppelgãngers Kevin could have was related to his soul strength. He wasn’t able to have two, and didn’t think he was anywhere close to being able to have two.
Kevin felt a tearing in his soul, a wrenching that was easily the most painful thing he had ever felt in his life, and that included the time an abnormal broke his jaw.
He took a knee, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain wracked his body. As he took a few deep breaths he felt something touching the tips of a few of his fingers. In an exact mirror pose to Kevin, there was another Kevin. Also down on a knee, tensing at pain. The only real difference was - it was naked.
Kevin and the Doppelgãnger stood up facing each other. It wasn’t exactly like looking in a mirror because he had a face that was perfectly the same as Kevin’s, including the scar on his eyebrow and the mole on the left side of the neck. The pair of Kevins looked at each other for a moment before speaking at the exact same time.
You’re “Kev” Kevin said.
I’m “Kev” the Doppelgãnger said in perfect unison to Kevin.
“Do you have all our abilities?” Kevin asked.
“Yes and No. I have the main five, but I don’t have Conqueror or Doppelgãnger.” Kev said.
“Can you use Soul Tracker?” Kevin asked.
“Yes, and the rest too, Kev said, “though I think Ki Cultivator is tied more to your body than mine based on how I feel.” Kev responded.
“Good.” Kevin said. They stared at each other for another moment before Kevin kicked the door stop out of the way and dashed out of the room.