It was all foggy, but Damon could see a young boy in an orange martial arts school uniform climbing up a delicate tower, one that was tall enough to reach far into the distance, past the lower heavens and into the celestial skies even higher above. It made Damon recall how it must not be fog, but actual clouds that the young boy was climbing past.
The boy had never climbed so high before, and his every muscle ached from the strain of his furious rise, and he was going to have to fight once he reached the top, but he was doing it all for his beloved family and the planet they called home, and so he could not ever stop. Not while breath remained.
He never let neither youth nor ignorance stop him, to save everyone he would simply become the very strongest, always trusting to the next step on his journey.
Damon’s subconscious gathered enough clues to put together that this was a dream, one clearly inspired by one of his early childhood memories. And as dreams so often do, once caught the vision decided to change its shape, to take on a new unfamiliar form; one that is convincingly real enough to make you forget about the earlier realization you had in the first place.
Damon was closer to awake now, yet the new vision kept playing. He saw the way a brave man from his own country went abroad to represent his fellow citizens and their ideals, winning symbolic prizes sought by a great evil, only to have that country turn against his people despite his triumphant return. He’d kept his head high throughout it all. Likely knowing that to display excellence in the face of adversity was always worthwhile in the service of a greater good that was envisioned further ahead. He’d kept faith that his actions would never be for naught, no matter the lack of appreciation shown nor progress gained during his lifetime.
Damon remembered the tale shaping him as a young one, and the way a certain coach had taken him under his wing that year, taking full advantage of his blazing spirit to turn Damon into one of the best young men competing in his age group nationally.
Damon was very nearly awake by now, yet his exhaustion was bone deep and he found he did not quite want to wake yet.
The final memory that played in his mind was a more recent one starring the old man Ken, showing him during the very start of the Integration. Damon had been busy at the time, sweating his guts out from the exertion of trying to move during the System’s initial time freeze. Now, the memory was replaying from a dreamlike 3rd person perspective, allowing Damon to spot how Ken was wearing a stunned and extremely disturbed expression at first, while everyone else remained busy figuring out what the hell had just happened to them—one that he quickly covered with a palm, before resuming his usual stoic mask. Then he’d appeared to be back in complete control as he started assessing their situation, even raising his voice over the buzz of the Shuffle to try and calm everyone else.
Damon could see now how Ken had been badly affected at first, going so far as pressing a tight fist to his chest, almost like he was stemming a bleeding wound. Yet he’d still decided to push his dread aside, refusing to be cowed in the moment when it mattered, instead doing what he recognised needed to be done to keep the others feeling a measure of safety and calm, all to prevent his team of co-workers from running off to commit stupid mistakes. Unfixable ones.
Damon slowly came to an understanding of what all three of these people, stuck in such challenging and vitally important situations, all had in common—it boiled down to a willingness to never shy away from paying the price, from being the one to suffer the cost of a burden even greater than your life’s allotment. These people made a choice and decided their shoulders were broad enough to handle even more—to get what needed to be done, done. Perhaps hoping to become better positioned for the future, or to maybe find themselves with enough strength to make a difference and avoid paying far worse later. Whatever the underlying motivation, these three were willingly pushing through any obstacles that would appear before them, deciding to embrace the tribulation head on, to transcend it in the hopes of winning the safety their people deserved.
It was supremely human, requiring a high level of foresight when done so intentionally. It took some true bravery, being forced to push ahead and put your life on the line, never knowing if that hoped for gain from all those sacrifices you’d made along the way would ever truly materialize. Damon realized a truth about himself in that sleepy state, how this was something that had always inspired him when he saw it, and something which he wanted to make a habit of in order to improve himself. Is that who I’ve always wanted to be? Or what mom taught me a man is, perhaps. Or maybe it takes someone special.
Then the light shone through the window into Tyler’s garage, and stung his eyes.
When Damon finally awoke the earlier exhaustion was somehow completely gone, in fact he was feeling surprisingly light and invigorated, where he would have expected phantom pains and weariness first and foremost, and he couldn’t figure out why at first, not until he saw the System had a new message scroll waiting for him:
[Dao Vein claimed – Sacrifice: +15 Str, +5 Per, +5 Mana.]
[Title collected: Groundbreaker.]
[The Groundbreaker churns the topsoil: Mark of distinction placing you among the first of a newly Integrated populace to gain enlightenment on your Path. All stat ratings +1.]
[Congratulations Damon Bishop. ⅓.]
“Now!? Why now!? What did I just dream!?”
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Tyler was wracked with guilt, and the sensation that maybe he shouldn't have found what they just did to be quite so exhilarating. What is wrong with me?
But he couldn't deny how it had been a truly magical experience. No, not in the romantic sense either. More like, maybe the biblical sense? The badass healing miracle-sense.
Just, epic.
Seeing the way the metal fused to the bone, which somehow managed to resist the intense temperatures, despite how that should not have been possible without them breaking down, only to then watch as Damon recovered fully, inside a minute… Tyler quivered.
Is it all because of being a martial artist? If that's it, then those guys are way tougher than I thought, but I’m not sure the very bones of them could truly be that different…
And then the swiftly cooling metal had acted strangely as well, behaving… unnaturally. Tyler had ended up hardly having to guide it at all as he poured, rather the metal had dripped down and melted into a clearly designed structure all on its own before solidifying, as Tyler kept ladling more and more liquid Beralumin onto Damon’s knuckles, then along each finger from the wrist up—going fast enough to ensure that the healing never got a chance to begin and ruin the whole process. The pattern was not one that Tyler was accustomed to, yet once completed he’d found that it seemed quite familiar. Each knuckle, each joint and fingertip, shielded and supported by tiny, little structures organized into triangle grids.
He'd been planning something different, shaper ready, but when seeing what was happening in real time, he’d realized that the new design was uniquely formidable—the new shape enhanced the wrist, then began building towards something that ended up making the finger tips especially strengthened, until each one became virtually indestructible. Tyler’s careful planning had been shoved aside, no denying it. Which was really just as well since there was also no denying how Tyler had gotten completely lost in the moment. So, he wasn’t complaining about that part. Remaining free to observe had led to an inkling of insights, into the nature of this whole magic thing. As Damon squirmed he'd sensed a chance at a deeper understanding of what was going on, the process allowing him to visualize the very magic that was enabling Damon’s sacrifice to go down the way it did, as if his mind got stuck in a hyper focused zoom, providing him a with an easily memorized picture of all the deeper changes made to the hand’s enhanced structure.
It was… a marvel. The definition of a boon from above. Compared to before… Damon’s hands and fists had become unbreakable. Every little part of ‘em.
Tyler pushed his glasses up, while smiling to himself creepily, thinking ahead.
They were lucky to not have been discovered. Damon had not been able to remain quiet for very long once they started pouring. But hey, even staying so silent for the cutting phase was admirable. His squeals had barely left the room by that point. Pain tolerance on the level of his old man, or even crazier?
Still, Tyler couldn't rule out that someone had caught on to something happening, even if it didn’t look to have spread to the rest of the group yet… Damon had been fast asleep for more than sixteen hours straight at this point, and Ken especially kept looking at Tyler with a glint of suspicion. Maybe I fucked up the cleaning?
So, Tyler gave the old guy a devious smile and an innocent wave, which only made the japanese man narrow his eyes even further. Damn it, why can’t I smile better?
The mechanic was still in awe of Damon’s willingness to endure the pain. It was one thing to say to do it before knowing, but Damon had the grit to actually learn what it was like and then still ask for more.
Tyler found the whole idea ridiculous for the first couple of hours, remaining certain for way too long that his old friend was going to back out at the final stages, and then once they started melting the metal down, turning it into a seething white liquid; then he’d just thought Damon was very, very stupid. At the same time he’d realized how the younger man had to be used to gritting his teeth against some pretty intense agony, he'd grown up talking about constantly getting his ass kicked by black belts for crying out loud. But clearly there was still a world of difference between dealing with blunt force trauma in the heat of the moment, with adrenaline pumping through your veins, and sitting perfectly still as a dear friend took an industrial knife to your hands. Staying completely still was impossible, obviously. But Damon had stoically kept trying, and it mattered greatly for the end result. They would have been stuck in there trying to get past the first stage for ages if Damon didn’t keep pushing his tortured hands into position time and time again, forcing them to be as still as possible, even as the instrument of all that torture approached repeatedly. Somehow we made it through. Now I doubt his hands will ever be hurt, ever again. Hah.
Hahahaha—hahahaha.
Tyler remembered where he was, coming to a stop abruptly, forced to end his dark chuckling and morbid musings; but the behavior had not gone unnoticed, and now Ken was striding over with purpose to strike up a conversation with Tom, Abi and Sarah, all while the four of them pointedly refused to look over in Tyler’s direction.
Sensing the tide shifting against him, Tyler finished his now cold breakfast in a single inhalation, and then got up to go check up on Damon again. If people started asking uncomfortable questions, it would certainly help if the man himself was present to explain… He had no idea what Ken must be thinking, with Damon having been asleep for more than half a day by this point.
That was when the loud banging, and the heinous trumpeting started.
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Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
With more than two days spent adrift at this point, people had started forgetting to check in on their progress. They didn’t even know where their island was heading, and when they kept swerving every other island they got close to—
What was the point, soon became the prevailing sentiment.
They still checked in occasionally, but at the speed they were moving it was a completely new landscape greeting them out there every few hours when they went upstairs. Every other exit had been closed off. Meanwhile the shifting variety of islands with their fellow victims kept on shuffling by, becoming a blur after a while, one that nobody could stand watching for very long, despite the occasional random island also whizzing by.
You see, it was not just buildings that the System made these moving islands out of, sometimes it was Shuffling lesser landmarks, random pieces of underground infrastructure, or even entire meadows. Meaning it was entirely possible an island containing the Stonehenge or the Eiffel tower was somewhere out there. Mostly however, their island home kept going past large swathes of empty wilderness, with only the occasional herd of animals or flood of random materials to break up the monotony.
But now the last few hours had been getting hotter and hotter, and as they headed to the lobby to look closer at what was causing the banging, they noticed how their building’s island was becoming surrounded by a veritable savannah. One with a classical silhouette, in the form of their new, intrusive guest.
There was another loud bang. Then a hostile trumpet. Stuck outside was a particularly scarred specimen of the largest terrestrial on earth; a bull elephant in the flesh. And he was very clearly upset, trying his damndest to knock their whole building over. Apparently the great beast had become enraged upon seeing their approach, but somehow they must have missed when he trumpeted his initial warnings, leading the beast to charge and work himself into a rage.
Not that there was much they could have done. Apparently their islands were destined to connect.
By now the creature had fully lost its temper, and was busy bashing its huge, tusked head against their brick fortress, over and over again—slowly ruining their haphazard fortifications.
“Hey, hey! Raaah! Stop that!” Tyler and several of the other fellows tried scaring it off with shouts and sudden movements—and when that didn’t work, Tyler hurled a brick that had come flying loose and landed at his feet—which obviously did nothing to scare the beast off, and in fact only seemed to enrage it further. The beast’s charge had already destroyed the outside vestibule, and now it started breaking down the brick wall of the entrance to the hall, where it was never gonna fit. Despite the futility, this creature clearly wanted their building gone from its lands and would not be deterred; the tusked head stubbornly continued trying to break down the hallway.
An hour went by.
The beast wasn’t going to get inside, no matter how long it tried… he would tire eventually. But the huge bull was certainly making one hell of an opening for whatever came along afterward.
This… was not good.
Their enraging attempts to drive it off became subdued, until petering off completely. Eventually everyone simply agreed their best bet was to just leave the stupid beast alone, and save their efforts for dealing with the aftermath. Perhaps they would try to get some sleep in the meantime, and gather the necessary materials to start repairs once it was all over. They were all out of ideas that did not risk merely enraging it further, so for now they hoped the beast would calm back down once they were all out of sight.
Fat chance.
It could still smell them.
They tried it for hours, but leaving the creature alone only made it louder, and with the way it was acting so tireless; they started fearing he would eventually bring down enough of the walls to collapse that whole side of the building, which would finally allow the huge beast to get inside. If it came to that point they would all be forced to dash out the back exit, which would keep them safe for another day if they got lucky, but also end up leaving them fully exposed outside, which was an unacceptable situation with no way of knowing what sort of wild animals they might get docked with next.
They were reaching the conclusion they’d been trying to avoid, this beast needed to die. They were gonna have to get drastic.
And of course, that was when their island started moving off again—suddenly taking the bull elephant away from the unnaturally large herd he’d been so focused on protecting—another hostile act which was immediately committed to his long memory. These rude home invaders were in for it.
The people inside were watching from the roof and from inside the lobby in stunned disbelief at the turn of events. Now they were well and truly stuck with each other, all while the mighty elephant kept trumpeting with increased hostility, then kept on demolishing the broken structure in a rekindled rage.
Yes. At this point; enough was enough. They were clearly going to have to try and kill him off, since the beast was still refusing to budge after all their non-fatal efforts at driving him away.
“Abi. Get the tools.” Sarah’s glare was murderous. They all needed sleep.
Abi meanwhile had been eyeing the beast like a particularly stubborn spot of cleaning from the very start, and now she went off to bring them some options.
A couple of minutes spent brainstorming later, they decided that a flamethrower should do the trick, and hopefully serve to force the huge animal off of the island even should they fail to kill it outright. They manufactured the thing surprisingly fast considering their limited means, since Abi already knew of a design for a home-made flamethrower which they happened to still have the rudimentary materials for. What they built was essentially an improvised jet blaster, fueled by one of their remaining gas canisters, with an added fireproof hose and pressure valve. Not an optimal choice by any means, but it was the easiest ranged weapon they could make in a hurry, since the bull was still actively breaking the walls down. They were risking a situation where they might be forced to forage without a reliable heat source later by spending the limited resource this way; but those were worries for later, the safety of their shelter came first.
Next up, they approached the beast carefully, attempting to measure the exact range of its attacks, to make sure they’d get the full effect with minimal risk. Which was when the huge beast ejected the liquids it had been saving up as it watched them work, dousing them in a thick salvo of saliva.
… It was hopeless, and midnight was fast approaching. They were going to have to spend all night with this aggressive beast, or so it seemed.
But as the moon rose high, so did rescue arrive. Namely in the form of a forlorn, sleepy Damon who made his timely return looking groggy still, and he was watching his own hands like they belonged to a stranger for some reason.
“Oh,” Sarah and Ken made their approach to see if he was alright, the earlier worries over strange noises and a creepy Tyler having been forgotten in the current mayhem. “Hello Damon. You’re up. I heard you and Tyler maybe got up to something, but I couldn’t find you in your room afterward. Is everything alright?”
Ken especially was looking at him curiously, muttering about missing ingots.
Right. Acting. “Oh, yeah, sure. Just fine. What were you worried for exactly? Everything’s good, uh, just System stuff acting up again. But I think I learned something new, possibly. But yeah. Should probably make sure it was actually real?”
He kept staring down at his hands, until a penetrating trumpet assaulted every ear in the room again. That’s when Damon finally noticed where all the noise was coming from, making his eyes widen in alarm. “What the hell’— don’t tell me we’ve seriously ended up in Africa? How long was I out for?”
“Something like that,” Ken was still looking at Damon in a peculiar way, and Sarah was looking like she had more questions.
Damon decided on ignoring them both as the safest option for now. Need a distraction. “Hm. Actually this is perf—”
—Damon didn’t say anything else. Without further ado he walked right up to the looming beast, ignoring the warning cries of his colleagues, who had been struggling with- and staying at a remove from the mighty elephant all evening.
Damon recklessly entered into its range while the bull kept staring down arrogantly at this new, only slightly larger human. The beast held back charging for just a second, only to get surprisingly technical by clearly using what it'd learned trying to get at them over the evening when Damon kept approaching, with a proper step in and lunge with the trunk to strike all the harder, the beast aiming straight for Damon’s face as he kept moving closer and closer. The stomp transferred a ridiculous amount of weight, which threw the limb out almost like a jab—a surprising amount of force behind the attack.
Still too slow. It was the last mistake the bull would ever make, whilst still in possession of a nose on its face.
Damon splayed his fingers and sidestepped the strike, throwing an overhand and ripping downward as he came into contact with the trunk. His enhanced fingers entered through the thick leather skin, tough enough to resist the attacks of lions and crocodiles alike, but rather than trying to pierce through to the other side, Damon’s aim was to grab on and reach all his fingers in deep into either end, making use of both hands to keep digging inside—then he started ripping.
It happened too fast, the trunk beginning to stretch, with the huge creature growing instantly panicked from the pain, and bleating off a strangled cry. Still, the tough limb refused to give. It was tougher than rope, thick enough to stop the fangs of lions, but Damon’s fingers also refused to stop wriggling, they kept pushing deeper and deeper. Suddenly the whole thing tore off as one, viscous blood spraying in quantities far larger than when the elephant doused everyone in saliva earlier. Its pained trumpet cut off in a strangled whine, before it started running off pathetically, making panicked, agonizing calls for its herd, just sounding pitiful. Almost childishly piteous, compared to earlier.
The bull turned and ran for dear life to the edge of the island as soon as the pain crescendoed and the trunk ripped free, which left Damon covered in blood and standing there with the limb in his hands, a deep growl slowly fading from his chest, while everyone else remained in full shock at the display.
Damon turned around with an equally shocked look on his face, having realized what he’d just done, then slowly let the trunk sag to the floor, before he took a deep breath and turned around fully to face them all. “I might have figured it out, at least the first step, the beginnings of… of something,” He said.
They all started shouting at once, all of them questioning his newfound powers, and how the hell they worked, and how to get them.
Meanwhile Tyler was laughing his bottom off in the background.
HAHAHAHAHAHWHATDIDWEMAKEHAHAHAHAHAHA.