Chapter Seven: Where There is Smoke

I spent a good hour with the Alpha Squad listening to what they remembered being taught by Yorgefan’s Lord, teaching them what I’d learned about the Tutorial’s second phase, and then just chatting. It turned out that Lock and Brady were brothers, while they, Annice, and Diana had all known each other for over five years. Having four soldiers under my command who were good friends was, for the most part, a great boon. I could expect them to look out for each other well. Unfortunately, that same kinship might prove dangerous if one of them needed to do something dangerous that the others didn’t approve of. A mutiny would quickly occur if they thought I was putting any one of them in harm’s way a bit too much, which wasn’t necessarily impossible. If someone among them was more talented than the others it was natural that they’d progress faster and be forced to find greater challenges than would be appropriate for their peers.

After the hour spent with my squad I was pulled aside for the promised private meeting with Mr. Scott and Agatha, who despite watching me kill that crocodilian beast with such ease, still tried putting on airs in my presence. I understood on some level that they were right to put pressure on the random kid who’d acquired demigod-like power so that he didn’t let his accomplishments get to his head, but at the same time it sure didn’t feel good being treated like a kid.

I had the urge to pressure them with my aura so that they understood just how far beneath me they were in terms of cultivation, but in the interest of keeping myself humbled so that I didn’t lose touch with reality I kept myself in check, trying not to act up. I had put Agatha in her place yesterday, but that was before the Lord brought everyone up to speed when I was the only one who knew what was going on. Since that was no longer the case I had less right to claim I knew what was absolutely best.

The meeting was mostly about what I’d learned in the Tutorial’s second phase and how that affected our community’s plans. I told them about Cycling Techniques and everything else of importance that could be bought from the shops, as well as the fact that I might buy the Elder Ironwood Heritage and a few more specialized ones, for everyone who couldn’t manage to buy their own personal Cycling Techniques. With what little knowledge they’d gained from Yorgefan’s Lord on that subject they could only agree, since all the Lord had said was that acquiring a good Cycling Technique from the Tutorial was necessary, and that their only other options to get them were to make them, earn them from rare Quests, or learn them from Races who’d been on Yorgefan longer—as it turned out, not all Races on Yorgefan stood on equal footing. Some were almost as new as us, and others were waaay ahead. Thankfully there was an as-yet-unknown period of protection.

We ultimately decided that we didn’t have enough information to decide what our community’s plans would be, except for exploring, which was obvious and necessary for giving everyone hope of finding their loved ones. If there wasn’t a source of fresh water present nearby it would be foolish to plant the City core here, and from the Lord’s explanations, having a System-sanctioned community wasn’t an immediate answer to any of our problems because we completely lacked any of the multiverse’s currency—System Coins—for making purchases. Apparently every level of community cores had within them the method to generate wealth, but we needed to place it to access it, and we weren’t yet sure whether the grocery store was a good location. After all, it would be incredibly annoying if after placing the City core we discovered a much larger pocket of Humanity nearby that we could relocate to. The Lord said moving community cores was possible but not easy, thus we had to be absolutely sure we needed it before committing.

Before concluding the meeting we three decided to hold another community update the next sunrise and until then I would hunt the local spirit beasts alongside Alpha Squad, basically acting as their insurance policy if a creature they couldn’t handle appeared.

“Sounds good. But, umm, is it okay if you only take me, Diana, Lock, and Brady for the first perimeter run?” Annice asked upon hearing that we’d go hunting. All nine members of Alpha Squad were present and standing in a circle, and a few of them looked at Annice with questions in their eyes, including her friends. Chuckling, Annice scratched the back of her head, saying, “Well, I’d prefer that you go out alone for the first run, Niko, since you’re apparently super fast and super strong, so you’d easily be able to determine whether there’re any dangers to us. But since this is supposed to be training for us we might as well limit the amount of people you have to take care of, and I’d like to take this opportunity for you to get to know us more, since I presume you’re already acquainted with your ex-coworkers.” She looked between our matching—though tattered and bloodied—uniforms, which we hadn’t changed out of yet.

I slowly nodded, figuring that she had a point. Better to take care of four people than eight when I wasn’t sure about what dangers lay ahead, yet. Then I remembered that we had a new member. Five instead of eight.

“Sure, makes sense to me if the others are okay with it. Though to remain consistent with your logic, we’re taking Ming, too. I remember his name, but we never really spoke outside of taking my orders and learning he’s from South China.”

Annice excitedly nodded. “Of course!” She turned toward Ming with an apologetic smile, “Now I feel bad for forgetting. Sorry, Ming!”

The young man shrugged. “It’s okay. We only just met today.”

“So when are we doing this and for how long? What supplies should we bring? We’re definitely not going to stay out there overnight, right?”

“Nah, ‘course not. Until our base is strong enough to repel spirit beast attacks without casualties while I’m gone, everyone will always return here for night time.” In the hour after returning from the Tutorial, the crocodile hadn’t been the only creature to snoop. Some random forest beasts had gotten a little too close, caused people who noticed them to scream, and required I kill them. “And we’re leaving as soon as possible. On the subject of supplies…”

I felt a bit embarrassed because I hadn’t considered bringing anything but weapons…so a hypothesis began to form. Part of the reason why the Tutorial’s second phase had been so simple was probably because our bodies had been fully energized at the start, our bodily waste was removed from us, and the place entirely lacked normal wildlife like bugs so that they didn’t distract from the objectives—I hadn’t tired despite not sleeping well last night, I never had to go to the bathroom between fights, and I didn’t receive a single mosquito bite or swat away a single fly.

“Besides grabbing knives or hammers or shovels for weapons, I’ll bring a backpack from my trunk with stuff like toilet paper, hand wipes, water bottles…bug spray, sunscreen…and probably something else I’ll throw in there.”

“A compass,” Ming added.

I snapped my fingers. “That’s it! I think there’s a tiny compass attached to a survivalist knife in my car, but it’s good I was reminded I had it!”

With Malachi, Sam, and Kate agreeing to be left behind for the first spirit beast extermination mission we all began running around gathering what we needed. Kate suggested that Annice take her sword treasure for the hunt but Annice rightly pointed out that Kate might need it to defend from attacks while we were away. And while I was filling up my backpack with supplies the rest of the extermination team made a trip to the grocery store’s weapon closet. As it turned out, Agatha had ordered all possible melee weapons from the store like kitchen knives, modified rakes, and frying pans to be gathered up in one spot. The rakes had been transformed into spears by having knife blades stuck into a wedge at the end of the handle after removing the fan portion, then being covered in as much duct tape as possible with super glue thrown into the mix for extra measure.

Gathering supplies took all of ten minutes before we departed from the parking lot straight north and made our first very discovery: this entire time we’d been absolutely surrounded by spirit beasts.

“This is a good thing!” I assured the team as they were harassed by low-Level beasts, all of whom I just dodged with my normal mortal athletic capabilities, refusing to scare them away with my terrifying aura because I didn’t yet have a way to keep it hidden. ‘Maybe that’s the kind of Cycling Technique I should look for? Agility and stealth?’ . “If there are so many weak beasts around being active, that must mean that they’re not too afraid of attracting the attention of something much stronger! That must be why so few beasts have attacked so far!”

At this point I was sweating. Some kind of tree rodent and a small bird were pestering me, forcing me to slap them away so that they didn’t land too many bites and scratches. Meanwhile, my team was cutting and slashing fruitlessly. Annice and Diana had makeshift spears, Lock had a frying pan, and Brady had a knife. Only Lock had caved in a spirit beasts’s skull, so far, and though I had wanted to let them figure out how to fight small creatures on their own, they had all received some manner of flesh wound and were now screaming.

I powered up, and as my Level 1 aura backed by over 480 total Attribute Points caused all the feisty critters to freeze in place from shock, I flashed between them like the wind and backhanded them all to death. As the team recovered from their own moments of surprise I asked simply, “Did you guys see me smash them with my mace?”

“I barely…saw you…at all,” Annice admitted with a nervous chuckle after catching her breath.

“… No,” Diana answered.

“Now do you guys understand what went wrong?”

Recognition flashed through their eyes as they looked at each other, and Annice mumbled, “Oohhh… They’re too small.”

“They’re too small,” I confirmed.

“And we’re already stronger than them with our 10 in every stat,” Ming added.

“Correct.”

The team looked between each other for a little longer in embarrassment before looking to me.

“Now that the lesson’s been learned, can all of you walk? Anyone bleeding excessively?”

They all had some cuts or bites, but when delivered by rodents, oversized insects, and tiny birds, nothing had hurt them too much. They all shook their heads.

“Onwards, then!”

After leaving the grocery store’s immediate vicinity and remembering that I could climb trees better than any squirrel I did just that, and by hopping above the birch trees some thirty meters above the ground I saw a mountain relatively close in the direction we were already headed—north. The extermination plan had originally been to circle our complex several times killing everything of danger to normal people, but we hadn’t expected there to be so many Level 1 or 2 beasts and barely anything else. Only one spirit beast around Level 5 appeared, and Annice was given the honor of soloing it for the Title, which she did with relative ease upon getting over her nerves by kicking some weasels and bugs around.

So I elected to leave the team alone for a few minutes while I dashed around on my own, killing all spirit beasts over Level 3 and scaring everything else away. When the area within a hundred-meter radius or so of the grocery store was cleared I returned to the team and gave them my thoughts.

“It’s hard to judge distance without a lot of practice, but there’s a mountain between 10 and 20 kilometers to the north. I want to make that our destination instead of just walking around in larger and larger circles. What are your opinions? It’s fine to say no because I can probably explore the mountain on my own before it gets too dark. My Agility is over 100.”

The shock on their faces was worth revealing my little secret. It had been fine to show everyone my Status Menu when I was a mere weakling like them, but now that I was a true elite I had to take care not to reveal too much lest the information reach the wrong people. However, there was little risk to telling them anything about my Agility. They could tell it was high from how fast I was. Hiding my speed was a bit…impossible.

‘But I DEFINITELY can’t tell them I have 59 Attribute Points leftover. That’ll break their brains.’

Once they recovered from the revelation Diana asked, “Uhh, what is that in miles?”

I absently blinked, having forgotten we were Americans. “The conversion from miles to kilometers is 1 to 1.6. Work it backwards with division if you want, but as I grow stronger and lead more people, I’m going to impose the metric system. Not only do most humans already use it, but it’s so much simpler in regards to the unit sizes, compared to the Imperial System which is pretty random. Just like I got used to it by reading foreign books, you guys will have to work on constructing mental imagery of metric units, too. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the multiverse as a whole used a common measurement unit that also used a base of 10…and we did all start with 10 points in every Attribute, y’know. Get used to metric.”

After some joking complaints about Americans being too stubborn to change anything for the better, we were off, jogging through the birch forest at speeds only marathoners could comfortably keep up. Despite me being powered up, random low-Level spirit beasts still had the nerve to attack us, inspiring a hypothesis that my squad confirmed when I asked about it.

“Yeah, when you’re not using your Agility to its maximum effect your aura isn’t as strong. Though, I can still feel that it’s Level 1 and stronger than mine, somehow. It’s hard to describe,” Annice explained as we ran.

“It’s kinda like we can tell from your aura that you’re not doing your best,” Diana added.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Ming concurred.

……

[New Quest: (1/5) Taste the Rainbow—Slay the spirit beast guarding the juvenile Flaming Orange Tree.]

With my squad safely standing over a hundred meters behind me, I snooped around the edges of a small clearing, suppressing my glee at the prompt. Clearly this was the Dao-related Quest promised by my [Hard-Working Specialist] Title, since it was called “Taste the Rainbow”, had 5 parts, and I had at least that many techniques each with a focus on a specific magical element.

‘Maybe if I’d bought even more techniques this Quest would be longer? Might of lost a little bit of opportunity there. Oh well.’

A medium-sized tree with many branches and a very thick crown of leaves sat alone in the middle of the clearing. I slowly circled the area, not bothering to hide as I cycled my Chi as swiftly as I could. There was a beast somewhere nearby and I did not want to be attacked while not powered up, because all it would take to kill me was one lucky shot.

Unfortunately I saw no spirit beast around the presumed orange tree, so my nerves began to fray as the minutes passed and nothing appeared. It couldn’t be the case that I was in the wrong place, and it was unlikely that a beast guarding a natural treasure would venture too far away from its riches, so where was it?

‘Amongst the leaves, probably,’ I thought while eyeing the tree’s crown, but alas, my gaze could not pierce through to confirm any beasts within. ‘But I don’t want to open myself up to traps unnecessarily by getting closer… If nothing attacks me in the next few minutes I’ll bite the bullet, but until then I have a few experiments to run.’

While maintaining vigilance I erased the Sharpness meridians I’d drawn inside the Tutorial and replaced them with Fireball before trickling Chi through the new circuits, which gathered fire Chi into my upward-facing palm. The process took over twice as long to complete as it had within the Evergreen Zone, confirming that the Flaming Orange Tree was a fire-aligned spirit herb that was sucking all the fire Chi out of the air. Though I’d already been convinced I still erased the Fireball meridians and laid down those for Gust before beginning to charge the spell up, finding it working normally.

The instant the technique finished forming above my palm a fiery aura blazed to life exactly where I’d predicted it to, and from the orange tree’s crown came a pillar of orange flames that warmed my skin as though I’d sat down next to a fireplace in the winter. I directed the Gust toward the pillar of flames shooting toward me before dodging to the side where I could watch the techniques clash, and to my surprise, despite having 68 Intelligence and Wisdom, my spell only blew through half of the pillar before being consumed.

As the spot I’d stood upon while testing the casting speeds of my techniques blackened from the heat I realized that even with my inflated stats, I could not stomp all over beings whose points spreads were specialized. Could I defeat them with my oppressive speed? Sure, but I couldn’t match them in their own fields, and had the pillar been a bit faster or my Agility lower, I might’ve been burned to a crisp.

The bird whose aura gave away a Level around 32 shot out from miraculously not-burned leaves before locking its beady eyes on me and launching another, thinner stream of fire. I dodged, but the stream of fire was consistent like water from a hose and the bird chased me with it.

Thankfully, while the bird seemed to have Attribute Points above mine in Intelligence and/or Wisdom, its other stats were lacking. The bird’s Agility was well below mine, allowing me to leisurely stay ahead of wherever it attacked, even when the beast stopped firing in order to gather its energy into an area attack that set a wide swathe of grass aflame—I was careful to stay away from the birch trees because a wildfire might devastate my land and my people if the flames were real instead of some kind of energy projection.

Eventually I decided I had enough of studying the creature and simply jumped up to it at speeds it could not dodge. It could and in fact did surround itself in flames, but since it didn’t have the time to properly form either a defense or attack, the hastily-gathered fire Chi was easily parted by my empowered mace.

Just like that, a spirit beast who’d probably ruled with an iron fist in the area for a long while was reduced to mush, and a prompt made itself known in my head. Unfortunately I did not receive a list of possible prizes, and instead just one, which I accepted right away.

[Quest reward: 100-year-old Flaming Orange Dao treasure.]

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

I blinked at the ping-pong-ball-sized…thing with a hard shell that sat in my hand. It sure was orange, but it didn’t look like an orange from Earth. Though, none of those details really mattered because the System had called it a “Dao treasure”. My heart rate spiked.

It was exactly what I had hoped for.

Resisting the urge to stuff it in my mouth I moved in to investigate the Flaming Orange Tree, finding its dense canopy filled with what I assumed were tiny Flaming Oranges that were not ready to pluck, yet. Unlike the Dao treasure in my hand, the fruits still growing on the branches didn’t emit any energy signatures. It was as though they were completely normal, and I took it to mean that as they were now they would provide little benefit as spirit herbs. The fiery bird who’d taken up residence in the tree must have lived here not because of the unripe spirit fruits, but because of all the fire Chi the tree was gathering. Or maybe both because it was waiting for the fruit to ripen? I couldn’t know for sure.

Satisfied with my findings I returned to the squad, who looked extremely…antsy. That had to change.

“You guys shouldn’t be so nervous when I’m not around,” I said as I burst through a bush—shredding it in the process—appearing in front of them in a flash. All of them flinched in some manner, and only Lock began cycling Chi in preparation for a fight. “If a hypothetical enemy, whether spirit beast or person, finds you guys cowering because you don’t think you have a safety net to fall back on then they’ll be more inclined to attack you. You guys gotta exude confidence instead of weakness. That change in mindset will help you survive in this new world.”

“Easy for someone with 100 Agility to say,” Brady half-heartedly complained as he dropped to the grass and sighed to the sky. “Over 100, actually. That’s a helluva lot more than 10.”

“Lol, are you forgetting that as soon as we were teleported here I ran out into the forest and got my arm ripped up with a smile? In middle and early high school I was a nervous wreck who couldn’t talk to girls without breaking out in a cold sweat. So I faked it until I made it. Now I’m so overconfident that I have to tone it down.” I gave them a look that stopped their retorts in their tracks. “I’m not saying that you’ll have to make this change in mindset overnight—this’ll be the first of many days of bettering yourselves.”

I studied their expressions, watching how some of them played out arguments in their heads but ultimately chose to keep their mouths shut. Whether they didn’t speak because they thought I wouldn’t listen or because they ended up agreeing with me, I wouldn’t know without asking, but if I asked I probably wouldn’t receive an honest answer, so I also kept my mouth shut. Raising a team who trusted my judgment but also thought for themselves and argued when necessary was going to be difficult.

And knowing when I needed to listen to other people’s arguments would be tough for me, I assumed. Of course I thought I was intelligent, but perhaps I still had a shit ton of room to grow. I couldn’t know for sure until after I turned out wrong or right, and that wasn’t a viable strategy for determining how smart I was when lives would hinge on my decisions.

For example, maybe it took too much emotional energy to pretend to be confident? Maybe my squad would be perfectly fine if they cowered and only straightened their spines when a threat became known. Perhaps not everyone could make it from faking it—

“So what’dja find?” Annice asked with a carefully neutral expression.

I held up the Dao treasure in my left hand before explaining the Flaming Orange Tree, my Quest, and the bird that was now ground meat splattered across a burnt patch of grass. The squad was immediately excited to see the magical tree, requiring that I explain how, unless they could see the various elemental Chi types in the air, there would be nothing special to perceive, but they unanimously voted on seeing it anyway.

I reveled in their disappointment of the normal-looking tree before we all continued our trek north. At least the battlefield was somewhat cool, I consoled them.

……

Crouch-walking very slowly, Annice peeked over the edge of the small hill we stood upon for a long moment before turning back with wide eyes.

“Water,” she said simply—the weight of her statement produced not by her voice, but her trembling lips.

I also ambled forward to peek over the hill, finding a common stream burbling from northwest to east.

“Water, indeed. And no more freakish bugs given the lack of grass, to boot.” Bugs were the reason we were moving carefully. Really scary bug spirit beasts that hid in the dirt with their needle-mouths sticking out looking like grass until prey arrived, at which point they all simultaneously shot out of the ground screeching like whistles. Now that we knew what their proboscises looked like we could suss them out before walking into the middle of their swarm. Thankfully they’d been weaker than most of the other spirit beasts in the area—the average Level being low was probably because the fiery bird from the Flaming Orange Tree had killed all strong competition in the area.

Turning around to face everyone else I announced, “Alpha Squad, we’ve done it. One huge item on our to-do list checked off, just like that. We can rest easy tonight knowi—“ I cut myself off as sniffles erupted nearby, and I whipped my head around while powering up. “Crying?! Happily, I hope?”

I cautiously scanned the grass again as Annice wiped her face.

“I’m just glad we’ll…finally be able to get this stink off of us!”

“Yeah.”

“Same.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked, prompting everyone’s eyes to lock onto me as I sniffed my shirt. “I mean, we smell like sweat, but some of us probably showered yesterday morning before the apocalypse, so why are you guys…”

I didn’t finish my piece, realizing that the team of capable fighters I was trying to grow had yet to walk through rooms full of bloody corpses that could be tasted through closed lips from afar. Only Sam and Kate shared those experiences—not these greenhorns.

‘Greenhorns,’ I thought idly. ‘Where does that term come from? Whatever, doesn’t matter. They’ll have to learn to deal with awful smells during the Tutorial. Not gonna bother lecturing them.’

“Nevermind. Yay for bathing!” I stood up and stretched as my lackluster cheer was followed by genuine ones, and my squadmates began hugging each other. “You know what? I’ll check the stream out and watch our backs if you guys want to take this opportunity to go for a dunk. Don’t bother disrobing for it though, because our clothes probably needs washing more than we…”

My words slowly died in my throat as Annice and Diana’s embrace turned into a passionate kiss, and I found myself staring while imagining them going for a bath in the stream. As soon as I became lucid I struck the side of my own skull and shook my head. Such rude thoughts were unwelcome.

“That explains the rainbow hair,” I awkwardly laughed.

“Hmm?” The couple let go of each other and looked to me, and though they didn’t seem bothered by the admittedly clumsy joke, I saw something vaguely familiar and…out of place in their eyes. “Oh, I guess we didn’t introduce ourselves as an item, but we are!” Annice said with a bubbly voice that was just a bit too sweet. “Is that an issue?”

“’Course not,” I replied with a wry smile and a shake of the head. “Guess it’s luck you got isekaied together, since I know at least a few of my coworkers are separated from their significant others—might not want to bring that topic up around others, actually. How long ya been together?”

Strangely, instead of answering the conversation-starting question, Annice asked another. “Well, it’s just that you stared for a biiiit too long, is all.” The same too-sweet smile made her face almost like a mask. “Not that we’re bothered; we’re willing to accommodate anyone if PDA makes them uncomfortable.”

Again, I shook my head, inadvertently noticing how Lock and Brady were standing at my either side, both looking at me through the corners of their eyes and trying to look like they weren’t looking.

“No no, it’s cool,” I nervously assured as I brainstormed a response that was true, would satisfy them, and also give them a better opinion of me after my rude stare. “It’s just, uhh…heteronormativity, y’know? If that’s the right word. I haven’t had the most exposure to minorities outside the internet, so I still need time to rewire my brain so I don’t stare at things I’m not one hundred percent used to yet, y’know?”

Finishing my explanation I had gotten over my embarrassment and was paying enough attention to realize when all four members of the five-year-old friend group relaxed and even quietly sighed through their noses.

All the pieces came together as I watched them begin to amble about like normal again while Ming stood a bit farther away than everyone else, his eyebrows high as he looked on in confusion, having also noticed something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“You guys…were going to give me the Old Yeller treatment had I turned out to be homophobic, huh?”

Like a gun had fallen out of somebody’s jacket in a crowded bank, the air immediately filled with tension. Annice, Diana, Lock, and Brady all flashed toward each other while beginning to cycle Chi, keeping their eyes on me. With a glance I saw Ming trip over his feet in confusion and fear as he yelled, “I don’t know what’s going on!”. The poor guy crawled backwards with all his might, forgetting he was now a magical cultivator who could do a bit more than retreat slowly like a crab.

I couldn’t help but laugh, which caused the friend group to flinch and perspire, but to their credit they held their formation and didn’t attack. They were both cautious and good people, unwilling to make the first move in case they interpreted the situation incorrectly. Which, of course, they had.

“Lol, guys, it’s okay, I was just genuinely curious!” I reassured, holding back another laugh. Realizing that a group of fellow young adults who’d sworn me their loyalty—asterisk—had the guts to attempt an assassination on me was waaaay easier to handle than being found awkwardly staring at a lesbian couple kissing and having to explain myself. “Really, really! We’re cool! You guys had a good idea; I stan! You never want a bigot to literally rise to power because convincing them that everyone deserves the same human rights is a looot harder than it might seem. Trust me, I’ve been in a lot of online arguments.”

My reassurances seemed to have an affect on them, but they remained in formation, staring at me completely silently.

“However,”—I continued with a more stern tone, crossing my arms over my chest—“you guys made one very big mistake.”

I powered up in a fraction of the time it’d taken all of them—probably because of my higher mind stats or practice—and became a blur, appearing behind them and causing them to comically turn to gape at how quickly I’d moved.

“You guys should have tried this BEFORE the Tutorial began!” I chided them with a wagging finger as I flashed back to their front, forcing them to turn in a hurry to face me again. “I mean, I’m aware that you had no way of knowing the Tutorial would start when it did and that I would become unkillable to the vast majority of Humans after its first session, but the point remains; you guys gotta work faster than this. As you guys currently are, I’m just too overwhelmingly powerful to take down. Life isn’t fair, and I drew one helluva long straw.”

I gave the friend group a solid ten seconds to comprehend what I’d said before asking, “You guys knew I’m stupidly fast, so what was your plan? I’d just have dodged any stabby stabby attempts or fled after a knife hit me…not that any of you could even pierce my skin,” I smirked.

I gave them another ten seconds to calm down, look at each other, and formulate a response, but they remained silent.

“I’m not mad, just disappointed,” I said with a chuckle I failed to suppress. “That was a lie; I find this hilarious! You’re really not in trouble.”

After a few more seconds of staring, Annice finally piped up. “Umm, the plan was to hold you still with a hug or something, then make Caesar’s senators proud…”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer and fell to my knees with howling laughter.

……

After releasing all the jolly air from my lungs and personally giving everyone a hug, I allowed them the opportunity to hit me with my own mace, and after a lot more reassurances that they weren’t in trouble, caused them to pale when the weapon failed to so much as bruise me—while I was powered up, of course. Their 10 Strength just couldn’t compare to my 68 Endurance.

“But…how?!” Ming asked incredulously. “If you have so many points in Agility, how are your other stats so damn high?! Is there some secret to cultivation you haven’t shared??”

The friend group had similar reactions and questions, but seeing as their conspiracy to mutiny in case I was a bad person had been uncovered they were too uncomfortable to do little more than answer direct questions. Strangely, no amount of encouragement of their plan made them feel better, even after I explained that the ruthlessness they displayed would be extremely useful in the future when they had real Human enemies to face…which could potentially happen sooner than they expected given what had happened to me in the Tutorial and how the next session was in just ten days.

“Uhm… I guess it’s fine to reveal that some Titles give percentage increases to your stats, so if you have 100 points in Agility and a 10% bonus to it, then you’ll have 110 Agility. Hopefully you all will acquire at least one in the Tutorial, but I’m doubtful of that. They’re hard to get—I got mine from soloing several Objectives, which I could only do in the first place because of my Titles from before the Tutorial began. I have a percentage increase to all my stats, and it’s pretty high.”

I realized in that moment that because of my +70% to all stats and my available Attribute Points that I could bring my Agility all the way to 200 without even completely bankrupting my stash. The temptation to do just that and potentially gain a successor Title to [Hard-Working Specialist] was nearly overwhelming, but I restrained myself. Even if I had the same speed as a spirit beast or cultivator of a MUCH higher Level than I, that didn’t mean I could defeat them. The Sharpness technique had been the main reason I defeated the ice golem in the Tutorial so quickly, since my Strength was lagging behind my Agility by a lot at the time.

Thus my best course of action was to keep those points available, because although I could put half of them in Strength and half in Agility to keep my damage output relatively close to my speed…I didn’t want to hit things hard as much as I wanted to wield magic! If a situation arose where I needed Strength to defeat a dangerous foe, I’d allocate them like that. However, I wanted most of all to find an Agility and Intelligence- or Wisdom-focused Cycling Technique that would let me be a speedy mage of some kind. The specific elements I’d use didn’t even matter to me that much, though I supposed it would be fantastic to wield as many as possible.

I brought the Dao treasure close to my face, inspecting it with my eyes and nose, taking in its perfectly spherical shape and sweet, tangy scent. Hopefully my Taste the Rainbow Quest would make it easier for me to become the kind of mage I desired.

Carefully cradling the treasure in my hand, I returned my attention to the real world, a bit embarrassed that my passion for being a kick-ass wizard had consumed my attention in a daydream out in the wilderness…after some of my own people had proven their ability to conspire against me.

‘I was right: too much confidence.’

I shook my head and returned my attention to the stream.

“Onwards, cultivators! To the death of our stink!”

I powered up and flashed down the small hill toward the water source, expecting to scare away or kill a few spirit beasts before guarding everyone while they bathed.

‘Is that…?’

After a gentle leap that carried me some ten meters over the water and onto the rocks on the other side, I carefully walked downstream towards the man-made structure whose presence gave my mind an electric jolt.

“This could mean…wow. How did I not think of this before?”

My squad watched me from the top of the hill I’d left them at. From where they stood I knew they could only barely see the asphalt and might not even recognize the dark substance for what it was or represented. With a huge smile adorning my face I flashed back toward them.

“By the way, there’s a piece of a road over there,” I announced neutrally, not giving away my excitement.

Everyone turned to observe the piece of a street that ended abruptly at the edge of the water some ways downstairs.

“Yeah, Earth’s landmasses were scrambled, remember?” Annice replied, before furrowing her brows in thought. Her reaction was understandable, because on our way north we’d found tiny remnants of civilization in the form of singular, run-down buildings that looked like they hadn’t been occupied in decades.

“OH!” Diana shouted next to her, causing all eyes to turn to her. She seemed ready to explain what the discovery meant but said instead, “Actually, I’ll let you guys figure it out for yourselves.”

Next to figure out what the big deal was were Lock and Ming. Last were Annice and Brady.

“Ooooohhhh,” Brady muttered. “The road might be connected to something important like a town! Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s check it out!”

At that I shook my head. “Nope. You all are staying here and bathing while you can. I’ll go run down the road for a minute or two in case there’s something of interest close by, but after that we’re all heading back to the compound. Judging by the sun, we only have a few hours until it gets dark, so if we travel any farther from the base than we already have, we’ll be heading back without light.”

I didn’t give them a choice in the matter, powering up and running a few laps around the area to scare away any unseen predators before jumping over the stream again and alighting upon the road.

A few minutes into speeding down the long, crumbling, and weathered road it occurred to me that characters in fiction didn’t often have such impressive movement capabilities like mine so early on, even when they were also speedsters or had physical might comparable to a superhero, which got me thinking.

‘Authors…got that part wrong on purpose, I think. When the cultivating main character has enough physical strength to kick a boulder to pieces with one blow, they should also have the strength required to leap very far distances…yet they don’t. They don’t jump over the chasms or rivers that bar their path, they don’t jump out of deep holes, and for some reason, when their bodies are tougher than steel, they still die from falling at terminal velocity when even some REGULAR humans in REAL LIFE survive if they land on something that breaks their fall a little, which could be anything that isn’t sharp. The authors got that wrong in order to justify lazy plot developments when their main characters should not have had issues where they did.’

I thought back to how easily I had jumped over the stream, powered by my Agility stat which essentially pushed me forward through the air instead of pushed off the ground with Strength. So, in that sense, I had flown…though I instinctively knew I couldn’t just leap forward forever and really fly. I just…didn’t have the necessary power.

I stopped running down the road, realizing nothing was stopping me from performing more experiments. I located the closest tree with a trunk wider than my arm span before easily scaling it with my Strength like a chipmunk, using my fingers and shoes to pull and push myself up. That much I had already known was possible, since I had climbed trees in the Tutorial.

“Now, the hard part.”

I hadn’t climbed to the tree’s top—only about ten meters up, as high as the stream we’d found was wide. After taking in a deep breath…then several more, using a whole minute to psych myself up…I jumped.

Although I was used to the wind rushing past my face and howling in my ears, when those sensations accompanied the dreadful sinking in my stomach, fear found it easy to take hold, and the fall felt twice as long as it probably was. Then my feet landed on the grass with a thump and I bent down instinctively, letting my knees absorb the kinetic energy.

“HolyshitI’mfine,” I let out in a short breath, heart racing and beating hard in my ears. “I mean, I knew I’d be fine, but DAMN it’s still scary.”

After a short rest I returned to the thick tree’s trunk.

“Now…is it possible to climb the tree with Agility alone? Is it possible to fly? Agility releases energy behind me for propulsion just as Strength releases energy wherever I direct it with a strike in order to slam into my target. I don’t think I can actually fly with my current Agility, but if I can glide along the ground like a ghost, why can’t I glide up a tree? And maybe with a lot more Agility I’ll just be able to glide through the air?”

I placed my hands onto the tree’s bark and recalled how it felt to run at superhuman speeds. This would be the same, if a lot slower, but I’d be running up.

I kicked off the ground and urged my energy to push me upwards as I ran vertically up the tree with my body parallel to the trunk, treating the bark like very narrow stairs. I made it about five meters before something went wrong and I fell backwards. Lacking the grace of a cat I failed to turn my body in midair and landed with a thump on my back, unharmed.

Technically, I had failed, but my spirit was not doused. If anything, I was invigorated, knowing I had discovered something.

“My feet guide my body as Agility propels me. On the ground that’s easy enough, but if I try to run up a tree, then the force of my feet against the tree, as slight as it is, still pushes me away from the trunk until I’m too far to kick again. I can run on the ground because gravity keeps me on it, but when I run against gravity there is no force keeping my on the tree. Balance is also hard to maintain without my feet on solid ground.”

I shot to my feet and returned to the tree again. I closed my eyes and imagined what I wanted. I’d never tried using Agility to push me in any direction but forward…but what if it could?

After taking a deep breath in, I shot up the tree once more, forcing my Agility to propel me mostly upward but also enough toward the tree that I didn’t let go of it.

And slammed into the ground once more.

The urge to drop every point I had in Agility was nigh insurmountable, but the fear that even…75+59 equaled…134 plus 70% equaled…at least 200 Agility wouldn’t be enough to accomplish what I wanted held me back.

I could feel it.

I sensed it.

I tasted it!

With enough Agility, not only would I be able to run straight up or down any surface I pleased, I would be able to soar through the skies unimpeded by expending Chi alone. I would not need to balance myself on winds, I would just push up with my energy and I’d hover.

However, either my lack of Agility or my lack of control over Agility prevented me from fulfilling my dream of unrestrained flight. I had not succeeded in my attempt to run up the tree, but I had felt, if only barely, that I could urge Agility to push me in a direction that wasn’t just where my feet pushed me toward.

Perhaps with 250 Agility I could run as quickly backward, or any other direction on the ground, as I could forward. Perhaps at 500 Agility I could fly like Superman. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling reality was something like that.

“Oh yeah, I was kind of out here for a reason. Exploring…”

I had spent too long away from my squad, and though I wanted to run down this random road’s length for a bit longer in case something special was just outside of my current view, I compromised with myself by fully climbing the thick tree.

“Oh hey, would ya look at that.”

Although I hadn’t expected to find anything, I was still excited to see what I thought was a thin trail of smoke rising above the forest canopy some ways to the east, which I hoped was the result of people cooking food over a bonfire or something. I decided then and there that I would return the next day—or maybe even sooner—to explore the area on my own. The grocery store’s denizens likely didn’t need my protection after killing everything stronger than Level 3 in their immediate vicinity.