I woke up in a hospital bed for the second time, technically third. I got up and looked around, happy to see the doors were still barricaded, no nurse was hovering over me, and despite myself, that the sky seemed to be dark and unnerving.
It meant I wasn’t in the dream world. Maybe. Probably.
I also felt the necklace that apparently houses a samurai ghost around my neck. I could see and understand it, a ghost specialized in helping me actually get good with my weapon, but that was still crazy. That was insane but… but a really good care package. All of the care packages had been good really. Well… except for-
I winced, feeling my fucking tail. I shivered, feeling every ounce of it as popped out from between my clothes and touched open air. That was… weird. Really weird. Too weird. But, alright, sure, fine. Whatever. Just a tail, I can roll with it. Next was-
I turned, waiting for a moment, and then a care package popped into existence. I took a deep breath, made sure I had my armor and sword prepared, then opened it. It opened to… nothing. I blinked, staring at the empty care package. There were other times it had been empty but ever since my magic stat increased, I could sense what they were. But now I just felt… nothing? Staring down into it, I eventually saw a piece of paper. A small thin thing of paper, like you’d get from a fortune cookie.
“Meta change.” I said, reading it. That was all that was written.
Huh.
Well, nothing for it, I can’t do anything about something that affects the ‘Meta’. I assumed that meant it changed the game show overall somehow. Maybe. I took a glance at my status just in case… and smiled.
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Name: Matt
Level: 7
Free stat points: 30
Qi points: 17
Qi Rank: Qi Condensation Rank 4
Achievements: [Welcome to The Gameshow] [The Royal Road] [Humanity’s First Fear] [Creative Care] [Boned] [Anti-Deus Ex] [Legs For Days] [Bleed To Bleed Another Day] [Centennial] [Millennial] [Challenger] [Enter The Dream] [Find The Backrooms] [A New Dimension] [Escape The Dream World] [A Good Monster?]
Titles: [A Good Sport]
Skills: [Body of Darkness]
Strength: (9) (+10%) 9
Speed: (11) (+10%) 12
Endurance: (16) (+10%) 17
Magic: (15) (+10%) 16
Mind: (18) (+10%) 19]
Level 7! Two levels after one day?! The only way that could happen was either a sudden surge in popularity… or that time desync the Goddess mentioned. Part of me wished for that time desync to grow more if these were the type of gains I could expect.
But the levels weren’t the only thing catching my eye. Look at those Qi Points! 17?! I quickly did some mental math. I’d been in there for six days… plus the one Qi point I had before. But… I’d opened two care packages that gave Qi points so… five each? Care packages gave 5 points each? That was… incredible.
That was almost enough for two skills. I had to think this through though. The skills were amazing but… I still needed to increase my actual Qi Rank. Those would also directly improve my stats. Not to mention whatever happens when I break through to Foundation establishment. Decision set, it was time to act.
[Would you like to spend 6 Qi points?]
“Yes.”
I had barely gotten the word out of my mouth, before I felt like I was being remade in every conceivable aspect. I wanted to scream, as I felt not just speed or endurance or even my mind change, but my soul itself. Every single part of me felt it was being reforged, as if it somehow had been broken down into the smallest atoms of creation and made stronger, only to be put back together. If before I was flesh, now I felt like I was being remade out of something otherworldly.
[Foundation Establishment reached!]
[Please choose your foundation! This will have long lasting consequences!]
A Foundation?! What on earth was I supposed to choose! I’d barely read up on that. I panicked, mind twirling, body feeling like it was being remolded out of something divine before… something appeared in my head. Something clear an obvious to me.
The Path. The Endless infinite path we had walked in the Astral realm, going on forever, but with an exit waiting. The Path stretched out backwards, beyond when we had entered, and beyond where I had exited, stretching to infinity, but there was still a beginning and an end. It felt like… it was calling out to me, that single vision. I was more than what was happening to me, but I was also less than it. I had a before and I’d have an after, but my path would eventually End.
[Foundation Chosen! Foundation: The Infinite Astral Path]
Suddenly, I fell to the ground, breathing heavy. I hadn’t even realized I had been floating. I breathed out, deeply, but I felt… different. Stronger, no, more. Simply more. In every single element of my very existence. My eyes were sharper, my hearing better, my smell had improved, my overall health, even my mind… and those were just the simple effects. I could feel it now, in so much detail it practically hurt. Qi going all throughout my body, Meridians I barely knew how to use spreading through me, but intertwined around them was something else. Magic, or at least, whatever the word for Magical veins were. And in the center of that confusing double helix, was an empty space. Not completely, I felt like… my magic sat in the middle but it was… diffused for some reason.
And in the depths of it, but also spread throughout me, I saw an image. The Infinite Astral Path, resting in my… in my soul.
I saw blinking in my vision and pulled up my status.
[Achievements unlocked!]
[Qi Rank Increased!]
[The First Step: Did you know many don’t even consider Qi Condensation at the first step? You’ve reached Foundation Establishment and so now you understand why! +2 Magic]
[Name: Matt
Level: 7
Free stat points: 30
Qi points: 11
Qi Rank: Foundation 1 [The Infinite Astral Path]
Achievements: [Welcome to The Gameshow] [The Royal Road] [Humanity’s First Fear] [Creative Care] [Boned] [Anti-Deus Ex] [Legs For Days] [Bleed To Bleed Another Day] [Centennial] [Millennial] [Challenger] [Enter The Dream] [Find The Backrooms] [A New Dimension] [Escape The Dream World] [A Good Monster?] [The First Step]
Titles: [A Good Sport]
Skills: [Body of Darkness]
Strength: (20) (+10%) 22
Speed: (22) (+10%) 24
Endurance: (27) (+10%) 29
Magic: (28) (+10%) 30
Mind: (29) (+10%) 31]
I gaped at my stats. No wonder I felt like I could tank bullets and pick up a car… my stats had become insane in a second. My strength and speed alone had doubled and most of my other stats weren’t far behind. And the changed weren’t all stat related either. I could feel Qi coursing through my body, around my veins. Not only that… I could feel the… I didn’t even know how to describe it. Like… more. Energy in the air but almost like a presence as well. Like I had just walked away from space into an atmosphere for the very first time. There was Qi in the air, in the world, but I think I was feeling the… the heavens? No wonder the achievement said people feel like this is the first step. It was… ha…. It was heaven and earth compared to my just a few minutes ago. This was… insane.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I slashed my Katana and I heard a loud whistle as it cut through the air. I was positive, that my strikes were completely unlike they were before.
“Sloppy!” A voice called out and startled me, causing me to jump…. About ten feet into the air, slamming myself through the ceiling and hitting something metal in the process. I expected my head to hurt but it just… didn’t.
The… samurai ghost from before appeared in front of me. I think his name was…
“Shisho you ignorant whelp. I can see it all over your face, trying to remember my name. My god, what I have done to deserve such a shitty student? Who did I wrong? Truly, this must be punishment for being too good looking, too great, and being too much of a ladies man. Something you’ll never have to worry about.”
“Hey!”
“‘Hey!’ ‘Hey!’ What are you five? You must be with such shitty swings like that! You go through an awakening, opening yourself up to heaven, and then have the nerve to spit on her like that with such a shitty swing?! You should give up the blade, go lie down in a ditch, and save the world. Truly, it might just die a second time with you around to kill it with your mediocrity.”
I could feel myself getting angry but just took a deep breath. This person was apparently my trainer and… I’d take all the help I could get.
“Look… I… who even are you?”
Shisho gave me such an exasperated look that I hurried to correct myself.
“No, I mean like… in context. You seem to know what’s going on but were you like… a… samurai from ancient Japan?”
Shisho snorted so hard I had to remind myself he was a ghost and that he shouldn’t be able to breath. It was the only way his head probably didn’t pop right then and there from the air pressure.
“This Great Shisho was a Master Samurai but not in your pathetic ancient Japan. The spheres and worlds cross over greatly you whelp and I was from a far more… developed area. For example, I at least knew what cultivation was, unlike this abomination you’re abusing.”
“Abomination?”
Shisho shook his head.
“This is all wrong! Well… it’s… not right! Not how it should be! I have been ‘informed’ about current events and it truly must be the work of a God for this isn’t at all how cultivation works! I saw it, you know? The way energy just seemed to appear inside you, how you didn’t have to control a single ounce of it, how all you needed was a thought to build the perfect foundation… absolute insanity. Forget a golden or diamond spoon or being blessed by the heavens, with that system you might as well become a Heavenly Lord with no issues. What… monstrous designs.”
I had no idea what to say about any of that. It hadn’t escaped me that I had spent at this point nearly a week lying in bed. And that couldn’t continue but first…
“Shisho.” I bowed, bending my body. “Please train me.”
“Aha! Now that’s more like it you ignorant buffoon. Yes, bow to the great master and kowtow three times and I shall train you!”
My mind blanked. Did he really want me to… I breathed deep. This is for Jessica, Rick, and Spot. My Girlfriend, Best friend, and Dog. If he wants me to kowtow to actually train me how to use a katana… especially since apparently he comes from a world of cultivation… alright. Okay then.
Slowly I started to get onto my knees and-
“What do you think you’re doing you idiot?! Have some pride! Ugh. Utterly disgraceful. Get up, get up! Fine fine, this great Shisho will give you some training and pointers. But not now, find an enemy first. Damn kids…”
And with that, looking unsettled, Shisho disappeared back into the necklace around my neck. I blinked. Well, alright then. That works.
Shaking off that interaction for now, I focused. I needed to be ready for the nightmnares out there in this nightmare world but I really had no idea what I was going to face. That meant I really… didn’t have a good idea of what to use my 30 stat points on. As for my Qi points…
[Would you like to raise your Qi Rank for 3 Qi points?]
Well that answered that. From now on, to raise my cultivation, it would take 3 Qi points for every level. To raise all my stats by three, it would take 9 Qi points, or I could spend 5 in the store. Now that I had gone over everything… it was time to hit the ground running.
I shoved all the stuff I’d barricaded the door with out the way and walked outside my hospital room. I saw a nurse walking down the way, but it wasn’t Kelly. She looked at me… but just kept going. Were there other people here? I… I didn’t think so. And even if Jessica was here, how would I really know? This was a big hospital. And what I would do? How would I wake her up? I shook my head. That wasn’t important.
I knew what was.
I walked my way out of the hospital, Katana at my side, having a destination in mind.
Rick said I needed more ‘plot’, that I needed to have goals besides just ‘getting stronger’. I’d thought about it, really hard.
And I disagreed.
That was just disingenuous, I only cared about one thing. The increase to my mind made everything easier, more clear, more simple. Stress felt like it washed away from me and what I needed to do felt as easy as walking around and doing it. I’d literally had more stress picking up groceries. No, I knew exactly what I wanted and what needed to be done.
Levels meant I win. End of story. To get more levels I needed to be entertaining. That was why Rick was convinced I needed to do something more interesting instead of just running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. And maybe he was right on that. But he was wrong on what else I needed to do. The entertainment would come. I already had my goal.
Strength. I wanted to get stronger. As I got stronger, I’d do more. The entertainment would follow. And I knew exactly how to gain strength.
I began to jog, lightly, yet it was faster than an Olympic runner's all out sprint. I was faster than when I’d had my speed stat boosted to 3x what it was. It was intoxicating but it also felt… normal, natural. After my rise to foundation my body felt so much more… in sync. Like it was a connected whole almost, instead of just a bunch of random flesh together. Which was a really strange way to think of a body but it was just correct.
I sped down the street, the lack of cars helping me run as fast as I needed to. I saw zombies in front of me, wandering around, I passed right by them without slowing down for a moment. Seconds later, I knew for a fact their heads were rolling, cut off cleanly from swipes of my katana.
‘Sloppy’ A voice, Shisho’s, resonated in my head.
I kept moving. I knew these roads, I’d studied them with Rick in the dream world. Soon, I was looking at a familiar site. I was back where I’d started originally, a gas station and apartment buildings. They weren’t my target though, even if I looked at where the black skeleton had put a hole through the wall with something approaching… nostalgia. It felt like a life time ago already.
I ran, speeding down the streets, feeling the wind whip past me but break upon my body and face. At higher speeds, even now, wind resistance was going to stare seriously becoming an issue. But I’d deal with it. My mind felt like a razor blade, a well honed edge. It didn’t take long before the section of the town I’d passed before showed up, where I had run for my life and first killed a Black Skeleton.
I could see the Behemoth in the distance, but caution spread through me. Literally.
‘Not yet time’ A voice rang in my head and I had to agreed. Soon, tomorrow maybe depending on how this worked out, but not today.
The school came into stark relief first, the one I’d run through wildly. I threw myself forward at the doors, rolling across the linoleum, just as a pair of pincers longer than three feet each snapped shut behind me. Turning, I saw the horrible multi eyed combination of a scorpion and ant. I’d never fought one before, but I was already aiming towards it like an arrow even before I was fully up. Hesitation was death, I’d been thoroughly taught that. It was a lesson engraved on me.
I slashed, feeling my blade smash through it. Surprise colored me however. I had rushed between it’s pincers, slicing right through the front of it’s face and for the first time, even with my improved strength, my Katana seemed to catch for a moment on the horrible thing’s carapace.
But only a moment.
A second later, my katana cut through and for good measure, I cut horizontally, as two pieces of it’s head fell to the ground. I felt a pop up from the system that I ignored, rushing towards the stairs.
‘Sloppy! Adjust your stance, move your arms higher, increase your stride like this…’
Words rang inside my head, but it was more than that. I had a feeling, an absolute certainty of where and how to move, like a, like a ghost was overlapping with my body, feeding me their experiences, their muscle memory. I took it, glad and hopeful. I could already tell that the reason I got caught wasn’t because my Katana wasn’t enough but because I’d cut the carapace wrong. And even as I felt my stance adjust, my legs move differently, my grip change, the words of Shisho kept coming in. Kept informing me, teaching me, telling me the hows and whys. It was invaluable, I could tell in an instant. He was doing something, something so that I could move like him but also grounding it all with technical knowledge. I felt like a child being put in the body of an adult and then patiently being taught how to move it. Despite his personality… Shisho was a seriously good teacher.
The cafeteria was next and I ruthlessly cut apart the vines that I previously felt shot out like spears. Now, they felt slow. Another achievement popped up. I hit the stairs running. The next enemy wasn’t there, to my annoyance. But I began to methodically search the school, finding more scorpion ants and many more vines. Finally, I came across the shoggoth, the horrible black slime monster. I dashed, cutting it, but it did nothing. Just slid right through, even though teeth broke and eyes were slashed. It definitely pissed it off, but it was slow. I slashed again and again and again, causing superficial damage but not killing it, not even slowing it down.
‘Infuse your Qi.’
Shisho called out, and so I did so. Before, my Qi was just there, like water coming out of a bottle. Now it was more, an energy under my control, a part of me. I sent it spirally into my sword, a green aura washing over my black blade. My next slices did more, a lot more. The cuts didn’t heal and anger turned into fear as the shoggoth attacked like a cornered animal. But it was slow, so so slow. It was dead in a matter of moments.
Another notification, another achievement.
I needed strength, entertainment would follow. And there was a lot of low hanging fruit to abuse. The Black Skeleton had given me one the first time I killed it, so had the zombie. I’d also gotten one for killing 100 and 1000 Zombies. I was willing to bet achievements for every monster existed.
And the Behemoth? The terrifying walking mountain? I bet it gave a title. I bet that was something people would tune in to watch me fight. I bet me slaughtering this town dry to the very last creature (besides the good ones), would be something people wanted to see.
As I flew down the stairs and turned towards where I knew a horde of Black Skeletons were, a smile blossomed on my face. I didn’t like this place, I didn’t even care for fighting overall, but I could see how becoming more and getting stronger was intoxicating. Every step was another step closer. Another step down the infinite path, to the exit. To level 100.
I’d get the achievements, murder as many monsters as I could today and then… I turned, staring at the behemoth, pausing for a second.
For a second, I imagined it shuddered.
Soon, I’d slaughter you too.