Chapter 7

“Killing monsters won’t affect your Karma.” The guide said it like it was reassuring. Danny heard, but he wasn’t listening. He was somewhere else. Some-when else. “Native, there is no other way. It was always going to turn out this way.”

“Maybe you’re right. This was always how it would turn out for me.”

“Listen kid, there was nothing you could have done. Would you keep taking it apart piece by piece until it couldn’t move? Would that have been better? They aren’t animals, or people, nor do they have any semblance of thought. Monsters destroy. They corrupt. That’s all.”

“Yeah.”

The guide left it at that. He gave Danny a long look before he fluttered out of Danny’s bedroom. He had retreated here after the ordeal in the courtyard. It struck him how, in the course of less than an hour, tranquility turned to chaos so quickly. Going from the top of the world after his breakthrough to a new rock-bottom, his world was turned upside-down, something that happened frequently nowadays. He knew that the guide was right. That thing never stopped, never gave up. It would be him or the monster. All the choices he had made, the cultivation technique, fighting style, even his weapon had been in search of a way to avoid this kind of conclusion. A way to avoid the bloodshed that he had been assured was inevitable. It all felt so pointless now.

Danny smushed down the defeated feelings. No, he thought, I just didn’t know everything. My way can still work. Monsters were an exception to the rules that guided Karma. His cultivation would be unaffected if he fought and killed them. The true test for Danny’s path would be when the Tutorial ended and he encountered other people. But how could he even know what actions would yield good or fell Karma? Was it based on the results? His intent? What made something right or wrong? Danny grappled with these questions. Part of him still doubted if he made the right choice when he picked out the Gentle Body, Heavenly Soul method.

Inhale. Exhale. The rhythm of cultivation calmed the chaotic course of Danny’s mind. Even if his Path wasn’t perfect, the feeling of cultivating always relaxed him. That was something that never changed. It was much harder to doubt when he felt the connection with the world around him. He had just broken through, so it surprised him with how much more he could draw in. Roughly double. That was the amount of Qi that Danny’s core could now contain. It was incredible. If this was what happened after the first set of gates, Danny was excited to see what would come of the others. The horror of the day melted away as Danny reveled in the feeling.

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“Here it comes!” Aspen shouted a warning. A Level 2 Vernian Horror scuttled out of the undergrowth. Danny stood at the ready with his staff. Right in the path of the monster. Danny inhaled. Sun Rises on the Willow. Danny exhaled. He was ready. The monster quickly caught sight of Danny and decided to go after the easier prey rather than keep chasing the fluttering fairy that had been flying circles around it, leading it here. It pounced. Willow Dances. Using the footwork of sequence three form two, Danny sidestepped gracefully. The Horror shot through the air where Danny’s head had been moments before. Striking Thunder. The staff whipped through the air as Danny delivered an overhead strike to the monster’s head. A sharp cracking rang out and the creature collapsed in a mess of limbs. This had been the fourth one today. It was the first that Danny had managed to fell in one hit. A shaky sigh of relief escaped his lips. His hands were locked, white-knuckle on his staff.

Staring at the unconscious Horror, Danny considered how far he had come in the month since the Tutorial began. He no longer struggled to face down the monsters. It was necessary, like pulling weeds. They consumed without ever giving anything in return. They were never satiated. Like all the others, Danny slammed down hard with his staff, directly onto the head of the Horror. A sickening crunching was heard, then squelching, the butt of his staff reached the insides of the monster. Danny wiped it off with a rag set aside for this purpose. It rubbed him the wrong way, killing a defenseless creature like that, even a monster, but the guide rightly related to Danny that an unchecked monster population would eventually form a horde. A horde that Danny would have no hope of surviving. So this was how their days would go. The guide was still researching what steps to take toward improving Danny’s class.

Now that he thought about it, Danny wondered what he would do when the tutorial ended and he was by himself. Fighting monsters would be intense without the fairy as a safety net, but what would he do with no one to keep him company? Danny shelved the thought. No use in getting myself worked up over it now, Danny thought. We still have two more months till we cross that bridge. Plenty of time to get things figured out. I hope.

“That’s the last one for today.” Aspen said as he looked to the sky. “Sun’s going down. You want this one, or should I dispose of it?” Normally when Danny finished off a monster Aspen would snap his fingers and the corpse would disappear in a flash of blue. Ever since the second day of drilling, however, Danny had asked to keep the last kill of the night for his own project. Aspen had raised an eyebrow at the request, but he granted it without any questions. They were pretty much Danny’s kills anyways, and the Level 100 didn’t have any reason to collect Level 2 and 3 monster parts anyway. Danny had found a use for the carcasses though, one that made him feel a little better about the slaughter. Just a little.

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He bounded through the clearing. He was very careful not to crush any branches or leaves as he kept a moderate pace through the clearing. The setting sun made it easy to keep an eye on the surroundings. A rustle in the underbrush halted him. His eyes surveyed the area. Whatever disturbance there had been had hidden itself away. He resumed his trek towards the clearing. He could smell it now. Food. He could hear the crackling embers and saw the orange light cast shadows on the trees. He slowed to a cautious creep. He had traveled this path before, but still he silently snuck closer. He had been caught off-guard by one of those creatures too many times to be careless. They always struck when he thought he had caught a squirrel or a rabbit, writhing and twisting into something horrific. But the smell…the smell from the clearing was making his mouth salivate, unbiddingly. He could barely contain the growls from his stomach. In the clearing was the animal with blue and white fur. It was a strange one. He had never seen an animal like it before, but there were a lot of unfamiliar animals around the forest now. He stepped into the clearing. Without the cover of the grass and shrubs he was exposed. Vulnerable. But the blue and white one gave off a feeling of gentleness, harmlessness. Like prey, but not like prey. The scent carried him forward, maw dripping.

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Danny watched as the fox shyly approached. [Level 5 Navigator Fox] was what the System Identified it as. Once Danny had realized it had a taste for the Horrors he began to save one for the fox each day. He had first gotten the idea on that fateful day of his first kill. When he had calmed down, Danny went out to the courtyard, and to his disgust, the fox was tearing off spider-like limbs and slurping up the meat inside. Danny had heard people rave about crab meat, and he wondered if it was similar. Those kinds of crustacean and insect looking things gave him the creeps, and after his experience with the Horrors, Danny seriously doubted that he would be trying crab any time soon.

At first, the fox used to not even set another foot in the clearing, so Danny would toss a monster carcass into the woods and watch it from a distance. Foxes weren’t the most attractive animal up close, especially when they were eating, but Danny always had a soft spot for any furry animal. Besides, compared to the Vernian Horrors, the fox looked downright heart-melting. Eventually Danny began to wonder if the monsters were even safe to eat. He never asked Aspen because Danny figured if they were, the guide wouldn’t keep conjuring food to eat out of thin air. He also doubted that the fairy would approve of his nightly activities. He would probably tell him to go train or cultivate. Because of his worry about the safety of monster meat, Danny began to cook the creatures before giving them to the fox. Once he did that, any restraint the fox had seemed to break down as it started to slink into the clearing, salivating, eyes trained on the roasted monsters. Danny found it kind of comical.

Squaw! The fox made a sound like a bird as it tried to get Danny’s attention. The sound did not fit the animal’s canine appearance in the slightest. Danny noticed that the fox had brought over one of the monster’s legs to him. It dropped it at Danny’s feet, head cocked to the side as it watched him. “No, buddy.” Danny said. “I’m good.” The animal stared at him. “Go ahead, I’m not hungry.” The fox looked at the leg. Then back at Danny. Squaw! Danny kicked the piece of the Horror into the fox’s direction. “All yours.” Danny insisted. That seemed to placate the animal. It didn’t bother to ask again. Danny found it cute that the fox tried to share with him, even if the idea of eating the monster leg made his stomach roll. After it had finished its meal, the fox snuck back into the trees, disappearing into the falling darkness.

Aspen watched from the temple entrance as Danny fed the Earth creature. The animal would be of little use in a fight, but it was good that the native was getting experience bonding with something. It would be integral to developing his Beastmaster class. Aspen held a small leather journal in his hand. All his searching through the library had paid off. It was a small manual, but it was the only one he found that had anything to do with beast taming. It was not a very common skill to develop. Most in the Multiverse preferred to rely on their own personal power than that of another. Maybe it was prideful, but one had to have a little bit of pride to strive for Ascension. As Danny began to return to the temple, Aspen couldn’t help but wonder if this native would have what it takes.

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“No drills today.” The guide said as Danny entered the courtyard, which was the standard place for him to train once he had finished morning cultivation. He tossed a black leather book to Danny. [Beast Breaking: The Art of Subjugating the Multiverse’s Wild Denizens]. Danny Identified it before he caught it. These manual titles are getting more pretentious by the second. Danny gathered that it should at least be relevant to his Beastmaster Class. Although, the connotations of the title were dubious at best.

“Read this.” He ordered. “Time to put that beast you’ve been buttering up to good use.” Danny wanted to say that he wasn’t just “buttering up” the fox, that it was the same as him, the last remnants of Earth in some unfamiliar, alien place. But the fairy seemed different today. Even more prickly than usual. The kind of different that meant something was wrong. Danny went along with the commands, but he attempted to pry the reason for the even grumpier attitude, if such a thing were possible.

“Sure, thanks. Is everything ok?” Not his most subtle work, but Danny figured that it would get the job done.

“We won’t have enough time.”

“Time for what? I thought you said we will have two months until the tutorial ends. What’s the rush?” Danny was pretty confused, they had made major progress. Danny had already opened eleven gates of the seventeen of the Awakening stage. He had picked up and become skilled with a notoriously difficult martial technique, and he had a powerful bloodline, base Soul stat, and Class Ability. Would even that be not enough? Danny’s thoughts were derailed when he saw the grave look on Aspen’s face.

“Have I ever told you what happens after the tutorial?”

“No, you only mentioned that it lasts three months. Nothing about after.” This is actually something that Danny was curious about. He had asked before, but the guide would always put off an explanation, usually forcing a training exercise upon him.

“After the tutorial, there will be three System Events. The System has developed a standard suite of these Events that it uses for Integration.” The guide dove headfirst into the explanation. “First will be the Monster Horde Event, next is the Hunts. Treasure Hunt and then Monster Hunt. Then there will be another waiting period until the First Wave.” That was a lot for Danny to digest. Horde? Hunts? Treasure? First Wave? The questions rattled around the inside of Danny’s brain.

“That’s true for 75% of planets.” Aspen continued. His brow was now set low upon his face. Danny could tell this was the part that was upsetting him. “24% of planets will have one of these Events replaced with an Experimental Event, where the System tries to find something more effective.”

“So we are going to have one of these Experimental Events? Is that bad?” Danny didn’t particularly like the idea of being an “experiment,” but he also figured that the System didn’t seem like it wanted to harm anyone, so what was the worst that could happen?

“No Danny. We will only have Experimental Events. That’s what happens to the last 1% of planets. The Wildcards, they call them.”