At first, Shen's enemies were disorganized and confused, and he took full advantage of that. By moving fast enough, he reached many before they could even raise a defense. Unfortunately, that quickly stopped being the case.
Those who reached the sixth stage were mostly E-ranks who had proved their willpower against the Void. They were people at least as good as him who merely lacked his skills—and maybe his learning ability. Killing them was way harder than killing people at the third stage, where most had been F-ranks. Staying in the same place for a few seconds too long meant getting surrounded by elites, and he knew better than to do that, so he often found himself incapable of finishing his enemies.
It was still a net positive that would give him a lot of AP in the long run. Unfortunately, the stage had no infinite energy or boost to willpower. His qi reserves got low after only half an hour of constant expenditure. He escaped.
None ran after him. They were surrounded by sixteen-year-olds and fighting for their lives. If anything, to see him go was a relief.
Shen found Alicia resting not too far away.
"Hey," she said when he approached. "Do you know a girl called Evelyn Kora Livingston?"
"Yes, why? Wait, I almost forgot! I wanted to ask you about something that happened in the third stage."
"I don't like her," Alicia blurted before he could continue. "She just left a few minutes ago. She wanted to know about you but treated me like some random garbage on the streets."
"She mistreated you?" he clenched his spear. After all that talk of protecting Earth from the ill-intentioned?
Alicia shook her head. "No, I said garbage on the streets. She ignored me. Completely. Well, maybe not. She looked at me and saw a tool to learn about you and tried to use me just like that. She kind of reminds me of my aunt. They're not the same, but similar enough to make me distrust her."
"She tested me when we talked in the third stage's middle boss," he said, then proceeded to recount the episode. After he finished, he asked, "Is that normal in your culture?"
"Fuck no. She wants to use you as a tool too. Stay away from that one, I tell you."
Shen had no reason to question Alicia's evaluation. However, he wasn't as bothered by that as she seemed. His father had been the Feng Clan's leader, which made him sometimes use clan members as mere fulfiller of functions rather than individuals with feelings. That wasn't such a big issue in his culture, as cultivators were used to leaving their personal feelings aside to perform their duty.
However, they were not used to being disrespected as a test. Neither to being treated with discourtesy like Alicia seemed to have been.
"I agree with your assessment," Shen said. "But I also see no reason to burn bridges with her. I have no desire to join her anymore, but we might want to help if we see her doing good. I agree with you: power corrupts. That means the few who are willing to stand against abuse might have to put their differences aside for the greater good."
Alicia crossed her arms and pouted. "Fine," she said unwillingly.
Shen sat to cultivate and thus recover qi faster.
Half an hour later, he was good and stood up to resume killing. The fifteen-year-olds had organized a little better, but the initial charge meant they could only lose.
Shen advanced.
= - = - =
| Carl Simmonsmons (E) | 511,924 → 512,024 AP
Shen finally got the AP he needed and got away from the fight. About half the fifteens were dead already. He had only killed a little over a thousand of them, a far cry from his performance at the third stage. Crushing opposition from this stage onward would not be as easy anymore.
On the bright side, he had enough AP for his Skill. That's why he had left the fight. He bet getting the Skill would improve his performance.
"Buy spear art Skill," he said.
| Could not purchase the desired Skill. Too much time has passed since its evaluation. Please re-register it.
Shen immediately realized why that restriction was needed; Skill upgrades were free.
Without the time limit, someone could register a low-tier Skill, not buy it, enhance it to a much greater tier, and only then buy it at the original cost. The system would upgrade it to a higher tier for free, meaning whoever did that was fooling the system.
Shen himself might be unintentionally doing just that. He had improved his spear art with insights from his Concepts, though he wasn't sure if it had been enough for an upgrade.
"Register Skill," he said.
| Skill Register Process started. Showcase at least one minute of any ability you want to register.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He did as told. He hid nothing from the system, as it would be dishonorable to try underhanded tactics. However, he did wonder if it was possible to hide anything at all.
A couple of minutes later, he stopped.
=
Skill Register
Free slots: 1
Available Skills:
- Breath Control — E — 16,000 AP
- Spear Art — C- — 512,000 AP
- Cultivation Method — B- — 4,096,000 AP
=
The tier hadn't changed. C- Skills weren't as easy to improve.
"Buy spear art Skill," he tried again.
| Purchased: Skill (C-) | -512,000 AP
| Remaining AP: 24
=
Skill registered: Windstorm Spear Art
Tier: C-
Level: 2 / 10
Next level: 60,000 AP
A spear art based on the Windstorm Concept of the Laws of the Wind.
From the eighth level onward, it requires insights on the Laws of Wind to be practiced.
=
He noticed that spending AP to level up a Skill with AP became more expensive at higher tiers. When he got his footwork Skill, it had been at the D tier on level 2. The system had asked for 30,000 AP to upgrade it to level 3. For this C- Skill, it cost 60,000.
But what drew his attention was the last line of the Skill's description; insights on a Concept or a Law were two different things.
When Shen got an insight on a Concept and put it on his Path, he was dealing with a tiny part of a Law. It was like focusing on a single page of a book.
Insights on a Law meant getting an overall understanding of a book with dozens of millions of pages. Mere insight was not complete understanding, of course; it was something like knowing the first line of many, many pages. He wasn't sure how many pages exactly, but he bet on at least one percent.
It might not look like much, but one line from one percent of dozens of millions of pages was still a lot.
Shen was nowhere close to achieving something like that. He was still trying to read mere four pages from the Laws of Spear, and he didn't know where the pages started or ended. Who knew how long it would take him.
So, for the foreseeable future, his new Skill would be limited to level 7.
A moment after he concluded that, knowledge flooded his mind from the Skill he had just gotten. Two levels out of ten meant twenty percent of the Windstorm Spear Art was burned into his brain. The system also affected his muscle memory. He was taught new moves that he should have known at level 2 yet hadn't. The system made it so he had at least basic proficiency in them.
Within moments, he got a much better understanding of the basics of his spear art and acknowledged countless ways to improve his technique.
| Skill Sync Complete — Windstorm Spear Art (C-) — Level 2
With his newfound foundational knowledge, Shen was sure he should already be close to level 3. He also felt confident the Skill would deliver on his expectations of killing more effectively.
He clenched his spear and returned to the fight.
His spear felt lighter, stabler, stronger. He swung it, and death followed. His enemies never had any chance.
Shen became even more of a reaper with the new Skill. Where once he would be forced to stop or redirect his attacks because of imperfect moves, he now made them flow. He beheaded, dismembered, pierced hearts, and penetrated skulls with newfound ease.
Only the best or luckiest half of the fifteen-year-olds remained. They were harder to kill, and their attacks almost struck him.
Almost.
Shen danced among them, touching them with his spear but never being caught like a Zephyr. He broke through their encirclement and spells without ever stopping, for he was Boundless. He pushed his Combat toward effectiveness and his Sharpness straight into exploiting weaknesses. This was War, and he thrived.
Shen's Path made him a killing machine, and he found himself in it.
= - = - =
| Susan Brown (E) | 108,824 → 108,924 AP
He killed his 2,353rd foe and looked around, but only a few dozen fifteen-year-olds remained, all already being killed by the over four thousand sixteens. His group had done much better than the other.
As he had expected, he leveled up his spear art Skill in the fight, reaching level 3. Going by numbers, he had killed around one thousand people before the upgrade. That had been around halfway through to the stage. After the Skill, he had killed around thirteen hundred. That was a 30% improvement. And it was also important to note that the later half had been against enemies arguably more skilled than before.
The improvement might be even more significant than 30%.
That wasn't just his Skill's merit though. His E-tier learning ability let him improve much faster after the system corrected the moves in his memories and taught him some new ones. Without that, he wouldn't have improved so much that quickly.
Either way, Shen was glad he had purchased the Skill.
A few moments later, the last fifteen-year-old fell.
=
Tutorial - Sixth Stage
You have won.
Please wait for the completion of other people's stages.
=
Light flashed, bringing back to life every sixteen-year-old who had died.
Shen focused on his AP. He had enough to reach the D-rank, yet he wondered if that might bring negative consequences to his cultivation.
One's body changed on ranking up, just as it also did when cultivators broke through to the next realm. What if ranking up first interfered with it?
But a ninety percent discount felt too important not to take advantage of. This was his chance to save a lot of AP, and thus, a lot of time. Ranking up would also expand his mind, which might help in many other things.
In the end, he decided to do it. It felt like the gains outweighed the risks.
"Rank me up," he commanded.
| Attempting to increase rank to D
| Requirement not met: Mastery of a Concept
He had wondered before if the D-rank would have a requirement, and it did.
Mastering a Concept didn't mean knowing everything there was to know about a Concept. If each Concept was a page of a book, mastering it meant reading the entire page and understanding most of it. Shen wasn't sure of the specific threshold, but he knew there was one.
Unfortunately, he had no idea how close he was to accomplishing that.
He considered his other purchase options. F-tier armor would cost him 20,000 AP, which didn't feel worth it. Buying some pills for his future followers wouldn't be terrible, but it also felt wasteful. He checked the Guardian Store but found nothing worth the price.
He found another option at the Stat Store. E-tier stats cost 16,000 each—with the Pioneer Tutorial discount. Shen might just purchase them if he found nothing better to spend his AP on. He was decided to use the discount to the utmost. Even if cultivation could improve his stats without spending AP, saving time might be worth it.
Having decided that, he even forwent cultivating while waiting for the next stage. If he ended up buying the stats, fractionally improving them would be a waste of time. Moreover, he wanted the rank upgrade more than anything else, so he had to focus on mastering a Concept.
So Shen thought about what he had done right or wrong in his fights and practiced to fix his mistakes. He deeply examined every move he had made, trying to find enlightenment for his Concepts in them.
Alicia approached at some point, but he just nodded her direction, and she returned it before focusing on her fireballs too. He approved of it, and it even made him feel closer to her.
The system took them to the next stage after a long period of silent practice.