Spring Step skill check: Critical success! You are one with the forest. Your enemies are far too distracted to worry about the likes of you!
The words washed over Alex as he stood in perfect stillness while the world roared and shook all around him, Gold-tier auras and Silver-tier devastation generating a perfect storm of absolute chaos as fire breathing Stone Dog and disemboweling Shadow Cat fought against each other with everything they had.
Because his interface was absolutely right. When battling one’s obvious mortal foe, why bother with a puny mortal so week he was still a half-step from Silver, so well cloaked by forest as new skills embraced all the perks of old that one seemed hardly significant at all? No more significant than the terrified monkey shivering in his arms. How it had even gotten there Alex wasn’t even sure, his hand gently stroking it’s head before putting it down as he thought very strongly of being one with the forest.
A forest that surrounded the twisted configuration fused to bloodstone that was even now sending pulses through the football -field-sized clearing that was growing ever larger from the fearsome collateral damage inflicted by vorpal-tier claws and obliterating fire.
Yet not one lick of flame or feline claw dared nick the heart of that clearing, six evenly placed obsidian jewels from which rust, or perhaps blood, seemed to pool from the bloodstone it had somehow been embedded in.
Yet no matter the metaphor of his thoughts, the tormented scream of the entire delve, all it’s permutations being forced to exist and fuse in one never-intended whole was nothing less than the darkest of truths. And one that would very shortly have catastrophic consequences.
Nothing compared to the fate of a certain gate, of course.
But the difference was only by degree.
Alex’s heart quailed, struck with the same dismayed disbelief of someone being handed a life-sentence for a misdemeanor intended as a lighthearted prank by a judge who clearly despised them.
Because as much as he had wanted to believe in a heroic arc with a happy ending… the pulsating discordance now radiating from that hellish artifacts as it strobed with ever growing power inciting the spirit beasts to a frenzy wouldn’t just spit out Gold tier abominations.
It would destroy the caldera in its absolute entirety.
Malice to an unthinkable degree.
Whoever had set up this configuration wasn’t trying to dominate or subjugate Qianshi.
They wanted to destroy the city entirely.
An example, perhaps.
The most violent and vicious imaginable.
For just a heartbeat, he was filled with a killing range for a certain smirking Gold. Wondering if this was how he would get back at the city for daring to defy him. Oath kept, he would do nothing to attack the city outright. Because the seed of its oblivion had already been planted. A seed he might have had every intention of removing… though Alex wondered if even he would have survived Gold tier killing shadow or dragon-tier flame.
FUCK!
“Alex! Alex, I can sense it! Everything! It’s a death trap! This whole place is a… a Quark bomb?!? No, Alex, we have to leave now! NOW!”
Alex’s gut twisted at the panic in Linnea’s mind.
Because she was right.
“Gather all of them and tell them to leave NOW! This place will go in less than 24 hours.” He thought back at her as hard as he could.
“How? How do you even… oh. That’s right. Your impossible artificer skill just went up another rank. Congratulations.”
Alex flashed a bleak smile. “Go to Qing Wu’s house. She can fly your family and hers right off the wall and out.”
He knew damn well how unfair it was. Because there was no way in hell half a million would successfully flee into the desert in less than 24 hours… but at least his closest friends would have a chance... Make that 12 hours, he thought, as another spike of Spiritual Energy wildly sprayed from the cursed configuration and a third Gold tier creature manifested. A Second Stone Dog, which made it quite clear why the beasts were fighting so furiously, so desperately for control. Wise enough to sense the configuration’s power… utterly unaware it would lead to all their destruction.
Alex flashed a bleak smile as any chance of his survival went from miniscule to infinitesimal as the newly summoned stone dog turned it’s massive ground shaking presence around to face not the cats striking the smaller dogs with wild abandon when they weren’t being burned alive in desperate howls… but toward Alex.
As if the twisted configuration sensed the threat Alex posed.
But that was okay, he thought, as he continued to stare at the pulsating bloodstone. Because his hesitation might have just cost him his life…
But at least he had gotten bang for his buck.
Find Weakness skill check made! You sense the flaw in the infernally aligned artifact 100 paces away!
“Alex, please! You have to flee! You have to!”
“Too late, beautiful,” he whispered under his breath as the massive abomination of stone and liquid magma sprung through the clearing to slam into the forest where Alex had been hiding far faster than physics should allow.
But it didn’t matter. Because Alex was already one with the forest once more.
Bullrush. Bullrush.
You have SUCCESSFULLY Chained Spell Cleave with Enhanced Storm Strike!
Storm Strike successfully triggers Lightning Blast!
You have successfully destroyed gold-tier configuration of oblivion!
A single heartbeat and Alex was before the artifact radiating such bitter cold malice, promising power and violence within every creature to reforge itself in hatred’s image.
Of course it was utterly impervious to any lesser cultivator’s attacks. Truly, part of the most vicious of gambits to assure absolute submission at the hands of a Gold, or oblivion so utter it would prove a horrific lesson to anyone who dared protest the hidden mastermind’s designs from that moment forward.
Even in that instant, Alex couldn’t help but think of Dongfang Hong and Shalu. Which only made his hatred all the more blinding as he channeled all his fury into an abomination of an artifact that mocked him on every level imaginable.
An absolute study in contrast and extremes, power generated by malice and abhorrence, inside and out.
For even if the cursed configuration inspired hatred and loathing in all thing summoned, that too was a reflection of itself.
Hatred beyond imagining within every cursed rune carved into once noble rock’s pores… obsidian rotten teeth that throbbed with twisted power such that its artificially constructed soul was itself a thing of torment without end.
Torment that ached for only one thing more than the destruction of all that would dare to exist in the same world as it.
And that was simply to be free of the awful burden of its own existence.
A desperate wish granted with a single cleave and the cleansing power of lightning, as a solid ton of stone and six pristine obsidian cores were, for a single heartbeat, permitted to slip free of the infernal bindings linking them all together.
All it had required was for every binding rune to be covered in cleansing lightning for a single moment in time. Weaking the chains of binding just long enough for things to slip free.
Everything to slip free.
As the entire forest roared and shook with a pressure wave that tore through acres of forest, sending shredded cats and shattered dogs flying through the air even as a certain ghost of the forest flittered past branches and trunks so fast that it was always the tree right behind him that exploded as the ground was torn and shredded by the inconceivable pressure wave as a panicked Alex Bullrushed from trunk to crown to wildly swinging branch to patch of Shadow blossoms to peach tree to a countless other incarnations of the lush green that seemed without end as time seemed to stretch and blur as much as space in his desperate panic… knowing that had he not evolved Spring Leap to serve as a Bullrush so efficient that it cost him almost no Qi Reserves at all, he’d almost certainly be dead.
And the way space itself seemed to stretch in all directions as Linnea’s desperate panicked cry washed over Alex from what seemed an impossible distance away… he already understood what happened. What must have happened.
“The configuration ruptured and the instances are separating! GET OUT NOW! While you still have access to a gate!” Alex mentally screamed.
He could only pray that she had heard him, because her panicked mental cries had just faded to nothing at all.
And Alex had just been struck from behind.
You have been AMBUSHED by Silver-tier Shadow Puma!
You’re already moving at the speed of Bullrush!
You have saved versus crippling blow!
You have taken one medium wound!
You have successfully blinked to another tree!
You have a successfully chained 37 additional Spring Leaps!
Alex’s eyes bulged as furious blinding pain ripped along his back, and all he had done was pause for a single heartbeat to shout his mental warning to Linnea.
Yet an eyeblink in time was far more longer than he could spare.
Even as he thought the words, he was flittering as fast as thought through the trees once more, now sensing dire peril just behind him.
His teeth curled in a rictus of a grin, somehow knowing that the blow he had suffered to his spine should have killed him. But his bones were indestructible and the Gold-tier claw had skittered off the vertebra even as he was blinking away.
The only reason why he was alive.
Because no fucking doubt, the creature that had chosen to chase him with every intent to kill absolutely had to be a Gold.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck!
Mental thoughts Alex shrieked, because he didn’t dare utter a word allowed even as he began to sweat a thick viscous liquid that was a combination of universal lubricant and a contact poison made of the most monstrous and venemous horrors he had run into in his most recent pair of lives. At least those that wouldn’t deplete nutrients he really couldn’t afford to lose at the moment, flittering through the jungle in a chaotic random absolutely desperate attempt at evasion… only for his instincts to scream as he DUCKED!
Just a heartbeat before impossibly fast and deadly gold-tier Shadow Puma could rip him open from crotch to belly.
A creature just as malicious as it was aware, and most definitely determined to make Alex pay.
You have successfully Bullrushed 56 times!
You have suffered two Light Wounds. You have suffered two Medium Wounds.
You have successfully saved versus crippling injury!
You have successfully saved versus disembowelment!
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Spring Leap is now Rank 7!
Alex’s world became one of terror and transcendence as he danced with death at a pace he had never fathomed before as his arms were shredded, his skull mauled, and his abdomen so close to being ruptured that had thought and action not become one, he would have already perished.
Had his pours not covered his body in universal lubricant and the most toxic of poisons as well, he would have perished.
Had he not been communing so deeply with the woods as a whole as vindictive shadows that seemed always a split second ahead tore open his thigh, gouged his ribs, scraped at his ankle… he would already be enduring the most excruciating agony being digested in the stomach of a Gold tier monster before coming to in the choking bitter cold of the eternal river, strangled in Shui Jun’s coils once more.
Instead Alex embraced the perilous dance that this truly and eternally was, dodging death with near supernatural cognizance as cruel injuries meant to cripple and torment became furious strikes that only just hit as a Gold’s furious roar of frustration shook the forest as Alex darted about at speeds he last recalled a lifetime ago.
Daring to smile even through his terror as limbs fueled by dread and desperation found it ever easier to dodge, dart, and Spring Leap away from claws that were no longer intending to merely maim but now wished to outright kill the vile interloper who’s ears were now filled with the endless thrum of his supercable shrieking through the spiritual ether at ever greater speeds, saturating his body with the potency of so many who had died in the final act of the Fox and General’s most recent battle.
Power that was slowly becoming Alex’s own.
Congratulations! You have successfully dodged Disemboweling Blow!
You have been critically struck by Shadow Puma!
You have taken one Serious Wound!
You have saved versus stunning blow! (which would have been a death sentence!)
Legendary Shadow Puma fails to rupture your skull!
Alex’s fierce smile became a mask of horror once more as a single instant’s blinding pain became his world... jaws snapping from everywhere and nowhere snapped against his skull.
Before sliding right off, Universal lubricant and indestructible prismatic tier bones allowing Alex’s most perilous foe to tear off half his scalp and his left ear before sliding right off his divine-tier skull a screaming Alex was Bullrushing so fast and far that the entire forest seemed to blur as he poured every iota of his focus and being into moving FASTER than he ever had before.
And by some miracle, it worked.
Or at least his momentary flash of agonized panic had turned to unbreakable focus once more… once more he was one with the endless jungle as he sprung from tree trunk to lush thick foliage to branches rustling with the passage of death as the massive spirit beast moved to intercept him once more, massive shadow claws lashing out with fury to shatter the stout trunk of the tree Alex was about to spring to before abruptly twisting about and Spring Leaping to the very crown of the tree because he was finally listening to the desperate rustles of the countless leaves warning Alex of peril… and salvation, just a single sliver of oblivion away.
You have successfully dodged FATAL PERIL!
Spring Leap is now Rank 8!
You have had a breakthrough!
You have ASCENDED TO SILVER!
You spot a gate just ahead!
The messages stunned Alex for less than an eyeblink, having no time for joy, hesitation, careful planning, or any other move at all save to dart with all haste and fury right for the shimmering rift of obsidian darkness crackling on the treetops just ahead.
Of course he knew what to expect from a Gold tier monster so impossibly fast and deadly that it had managed to strike at Alex and rend his flesh over half a dozen times would certainly be waiting to end him, at just the moment he thought himself free.
Yet Alex didn’t bother trying to dart around while changing position and altitude with the use of his Spring Leap and Forest Sense. The cat had already proven far too skilled at predicting his movements. Whenever he landed on a branch or perch was when he was most vulnerable.
So he kept his vulnerabilities to an absolute minimum was he charged forward with one final Spring Leap now every bit as great as his original movement skill had once been at it’s prime, having ascended up to Rank 8 in this one excruciatingly deadly encounter.
Allowing him to clear the distance in a single leap.
But because he took absolutely nothing for granted, the split second leap was done with a howl that was more a furious scream of defiance than anything else, Alex whipping his Fangtian Ji around in a Darkness Infused Storm Strike that tore right into the furious snarling maw of the Legendary Shadow Puma that of course was right where it needed to be to tear Alex’s throat out and finish him once and for all.
Only it was somehow the puma gazing at Alex with eyes bulging with disbelief as the air exploded with impossibly bright obsidian lightning that tore right through Alex’s monstrous foe… and himself as well.
You have critically struck Legendary Shadow Puma!
Legendary Shadow Puma has taken: Serious Wound!
You have suffered 1 additional Medium Wound!
Prismatic Bones ground (& absorb) Dark Qi backlash!
Shadow Puma has FLED the vicinity!
You have touched Wild Gate!
Do you wish to port through?
Warning! Exit point is currently: Unknown!
Alex didn’t hesitate. He knew damn well that it had been surprise as much as anything else that had allowed him to wound the Legendary Shadow Puma to the extent he had. Because as much as he gloried in the speed and grace with which he had swung his fangtian ji, he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d get in an other swing before that monster had pivoted around him and struck him from behind, jaws clamping not on his skull but his throat before it disemboweled him with endless rending kicks. Such would have been his fate the moment after he had dared to disrupt that cursed configuration, had he not spent every moment wisely fleeing for all he was worth. Because in this jungle he was most definitely not on top of the food chain.
And when death was a sure thing behind them, then pushing forward was the best option there was, no matter how perilous the unknown.
You have chosen: YES!
You have successfully accessed Wild Gate!
Shadow Puma FAILS to crack your skull before you leave the area!
And save for a final awful jolt that disappeared almost as soon as he felt it, making it damn clear what his fate would have been had he hesitated for even a moment… Alex slipped free of that chaotic dungeon instance now forever separated from countless thousands of others, never to return.
***
You have successfully achieved Rank 1 Silver! How do you wish to ascend?
A bemused Alex found himself drifting in what seemed endless starry heavens that he could sense in all directions. For some reason he was neither anxious nor afraid, and much to his relief, he was in no pain at all. It was as if he was a drifting spirit whose isekai privileges allowed him to bypass the River of Souls shenanigans entirely and did he but wish it, he could peacefully ride these starry currents for eternity.
An instant later he snapped himself out of that dreamy reverie, realizing he hadn’t felt like he was drifting in the heavenly skies so much as taking a warm gentle bath… and that soothing hypnotic drift was definitely something he had experienced before. Because on some level the river was the spiritual drift of the entire galaxy, and all the countless billions of souls upon billions of worlds drifting from incarnation to incarnation… or at least that’s how he thought of it.
And perhaps the same handful of gods that had tried enticing him with honey instead of bitterest vinegar this time around might be devious enough not to drown him in frigid cold waters when the gentle soothing warmth of a delicious tale drawing to a satisfying conclusion and get him out of their hair from centuries. Because hadn’t he effectively just saved Qianshi twice over in just a handful of days? Not bad for the end of a hero’s journey! So why not take a soothing nap of a thousand years before feeling any urge to leave these luxuriously warm waters at all?
Alex winced, now fearing that wonderful sense of warmth and ease he was now experiencing just might be another trap of sorts.
His heart… did he still have a heart? Was now pounding in his chest. Or it might have been… Alex quickly shook away his wildly racing thoughts that did him no good at all.
Because he certainly had no time to waste! Just a handful of level up points to invest before springing out the other side of the gate… absolutely no time lost at all.
Certainly no more months, years, or centuries lost between incarnations, with his friends, or even the memories of his friends, increasingly lost to the cycles of time, rebirth, and reincarnation. Or so he fervently hoped as he desperately tried to pull up his character sheet, feeling heartfelt relief that he could do just that. Because that meant he was still alive! Still in his latest life… right?
Still, his character sheet looked solid. Spring Leap had ascended to Rank 8 after that absolutely insane dash away from that Gold ranked Shadow Puma that would have absolutely slaughtered anyone else that had tried to fuck with the configuration Alex had successfully disrupted, he was now damned certain of that. And how sweet it was that Spring Leap was so effective and efficient that he was basically able to Bullrush for just a tiny fraction of a Qi point, a near unlimited number of jumps, at least with his Qi Pool. Which was really the only reason why he was alive at all… and those hundreds of leaps… had it been hundreds? Thousands? Was all that had allowed it to grow at an exponential pace as he honed himself in the crucible of absolute peril.
Spring Leap was Rank 8, and his Quickness, much like his Strength and Vitality, were now at a glorious Silver tier rank 1! And now he had 12 points to play with.
He then froze… the memory of his eyes widening as it finally clicked, the boon he had been granted… it appeared that he had been granted a Rank of Quickness without having spent any of his 12 points at all...putting it on par with his Draconic Strength and Vitality… which implied that were he to invest another four points… it might rank up again! Or had that ascension to Silver been the limit of just how fast he could become for this level? He couldn’t be sure. Not until he spent the points.
Sure enough, the moment he tried to gently coax four of his Ascension Points into Quickness… it effortlessly blossomed to Silver-tier Rank 2 as a certain metaphoric super cable continued to pick up angular momentum… and a certain ancient being locked away in an even more ancient pod began to writhe and howl.
“It worked… Fucking hell, it actually worked! Rank 1 Silver and My Quickness is already Rank 2!”
Even if he alone could hear the words, he couldn’t help but crow his excitement. Because after his battle with a certain fearsome cat that had come so close to ending him, he was more humbled than ever by just how utterly vital Quickness was for pretty much every aspect of combat. Being able to process and react to your opponent’s movements before he had finished countering your own, then moving and striking before your foe had even readied his weapon or shield, and hitting so much harder with even the tiniest increases to Quickness.
Of course he’d be an absolute fool not to maximize the power that enhanced Quickness promised by increasing both his Strength and his Vitality. So that the weapon he held in his hands would feel light enough for him to flick about just as quickly as his enhanced stat promised, without inertia slowing him for lack of Strength, not reflexes. And Vitality was that which gave him the endless reserves he’d need to attack all out, and survive damage in turn.
And just as his Draconic blood promised, Each Silver-tier rank of Strength and Vitality cost him only 2 points to bring up a full rank. And best of all, as had been promised long ago, his efforts to keep in balance paid off once more when Finesse, pulled upwards along with 3 other enhanced physical stats, also ascended to the Realm of Silver. Which meant that he had managed to enhance 4 Silver tier stats for a total of 8 Ascension points with 4 more to spare.
Despite all he had endured up to this moment, he couldn’t deny that there was a tiny part of him that wanted to squeal with a gamer’s glee. So much potential! To push a given skill to new heights with just a couple points. For a single point, he could get Doom Strike to Rank 5, or Enhanced Storm Strike to Rank 10! Who knew how those skills might evolve, what useful perks might now be available to him?
Yet he quickly clamped his will upon the sudden delicious desire to spend his precious points. For the exact same reason why he had held off so firmly, so resolutely, during his previous life. Because he truly had no idea how many points he’d have to shape his soul once he hit Gold… assuming he ever hit gold. Would he have 18 or 24 points to advance with? Would stats cost 6 points to Rank up, assuming a 2,4,6, progression, or 8 points, if it doubled, or even 16, if powers were involved? Both chilling and humbling, even if also underscoring just how awesome a height he had reached to require so much potential to ascend in any one direction… and how fortunate he was that Dragon Blood mean that Strength and Vitality Ranks could always be purchased as if they were 1 tier lower. That alone would save him a heck of a lot of points.
But regardless, one fundamental truth still seemed to hold. If he could manage to get 3 physical stats to ascend in tandem, he’d get the fourth to increase 1 rank for free. And if he could rank up all 4 physical stats up to the cusp of the next tier, then they were all effectively primary stats for his class. And thanks to his blossoming in terms of his Qi Pool to the extend he had, his Boundless Path definitely meant that a Wujen’s Potential should be open to him this time around. He was already starting with Qi Pool at Rank 6 Silver!
It was then that he was struck with yet another delicious possibility.
His next level, if he invested his points as he had this level… would see him with 8 Ascension points banked. So why the heck couldn’t he invest all 8, right then and there, to ascend all 4 of his physical stats a second step in a single level?
He chuckled silently at the thought. Sure, it was absurd, gloriously so. Yet he sensed that one possible boon of him effectively having started over was not simply him recovering his former potential at what was truly an incredibly fast pace. It was finding new avenues of ascension and paths of possibility opening to him as well.
He was pretty sure he had never dared the wujen’s path before… or at least so rarely that those incarnations had been pretty much wiped from even history’s recall. Yet now he sensed potential like never before. So why not see all the other ways he might grow beyond even the limitations of his previous life, as glorious an ascension as that had been?
With a satisfied smile, he took a quick look at his condensed character sheet, taking a moment to appreciate just how far he’d come in such a short time.
_____________________________________________________
Alex Hammer
Class – Cultivator: Disciple of the Boundless Path
Rank 1 Divine Silver Cultivation Achieved!
Physical Characteristics
Strength – Silver Rank 2 (90)
Vitality – Silver Rank 2 (90)
Quickness – Silver Rank 2 (90)
Finesse – Silver Rank 1 (65)
Spiritual Characteristics
Scholarship - 14
Perception - 19
Willpower – Bronze Rank 2 (25)
Qi Pool – Silver Rank 6 (190)
Health Points: 785
Ascension Points Banked: 4
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