Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack teleported inside the bone throne room. White marble was all around. Black columns supported a high ceiling, while a massive, bone-adorned throne stood at the far back, atop a small flight of stairs. The middle of the room held a table with twelve seats, and at the first of those seats sat Elder Boatman.

He also sat at the second seat. There were two Elder Boatmans.

“Excuse me?” Jack said.

“Jack, let me introduce you to my clone,” the first Elder Boatman said. Both of them stood up.

“I remain one individual,” the second Elder Boatman said. “I just split a small part of my soul to create the low-power clone you see before you. As long as they are in the same dimension, my two bodies can communicate instantly regardless of distance. My clone will accompany you to the New Cathedral.”

“Oh,” Jack replied. Scanning the two Boatmans, he saw that the second was only at the early A-Grade level of power, while the first remained at the late A-Grade but had lost some intensity. “You know, this would have been very useful while I was alone in System space.”

“Creating clones is not easy, Jack. You weren’t worth it at the time. Plus, I didn’t know all this was going to happen.”

The second Boatman wore the same clothes and held the same weapon as the original body. On closer scrutiny, Jack found that his scythe radiated far less power. It felt like a replica.

“I understand,” he said. “Thank you, Master. I hope this wasn’t too hard on you.”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” the first Boatman replied. “We can leave as soon as your— Uh. They’re here.”

A door opened, letting in Brock and Starhair. The two were ignoring each other. Starhair had never shown animosity towards Brock, but he had towards Jack, so Brock naturally followed suit. “Hey bro,” the brorilla said with a huge smile. “Hello, Master Grandpa Dead. Hello, uh, twin bro of Master Grandpa Dead.”

“Hey Brock,” Jack replied. “That’s a clone. He’s still your Master Grandpa Dead, just in two bodies instead of one.”

Elder Boatman groaned. “If you could stop encouraging this farce, Jack, that would be great. Welcome, Brock, Starhair. I trust you’ve been informed.”

“Yes, Elder,” Starhair replied reverently. “With your clone by our side, we are certain to have an uneventful journey. Thank you for your protection.”

“What an ass-kisser,” Jack whispered to Brock, loud enough for Starhair to hear.

“Ass-kisser Bro indeed.”

“Uneventful journeys are the worst kind,” Elder Boatman replied, ignoring Starhair’s flattery. “Since you’re all gathered, there is no need to keep waiting. You can leave immediately.”

“Yes, Elder,” Starhair said as the space around them died, replaced with a different scenery. They were in a starship floating alone in the Bone Belt. The Death Boat was barely visible in the distance through a window. Jack whistled, impressed once again at the efficiency with which Elder Boatman manipulated space.

This starship was the sleek, metallic kind designed for security. The windows were small and enhanced, while the walls were extra thick. The entire thing was shaped as a needle. Spreading his perception outside, Jack also discovered that the exterior of the starship felt fuzzy, as if his perception slid right off.

“Anti-detection,” the clone of Elder Boatman said, not explaining further. The starship was empty when they arrived. It was just the four of them.

“Oh wow,” Jack said. “Our crew is one-fourth asshole.”

Starhair turned his head around so hard it could have cracked, while Boatman frowned. “You will be civilized, Jack. Don’t make me repeat myself. We cannot afford infighting.”

Jack sighed. “Yes, Master.”

Brock went around and knocked on the walls. They replied with muffled thuds—not the hollow kind. “Good ship,” he said. “What’s it called?”

“The Iron Maiden,” Elder Boatman replied.

“The hell? That’s an ominous name if I’ve ever seen one, Master!” Jack protested.

“There is a reason for it, Jack. There is always a reason. Now, I will handle the guidance of this thing. I don’t specialize in the Dao of Space, so while I am not slow, I am not as fast as Bottomless, either. Moreover, we’ll be operating in stealth mode. It will take us a few days to reach the New Cathedral. We’ll probably encounter space monsters on the way, as this galaxy is choke-full of them, but they shouldn’t be a problem. You are free to stay in your rooms or walk around during the journey, but no infighting. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Elder!” Starhair replied, standing at attention. Jack and Brock agreed a moment later.

“Good. Jack and Brock, I will approach you later to discuss your cultivation in the B-Grade. You are all dismissed.”

***

Despite Elder Boatman’s assurances, Jack felt that the Iron Maiden was not aptly named at all. There was no way it could be. The real iron maiden was a medieval device which killed the person inside it, and this starship was supposed to do the exact opposite. Sure, Jack could sense an odd Dao current flowing through the walls, but what function it could have and how it correlated to an iron maiden was beyond him.

The starship didn’t care for his concerns. It flowed smoothly through space like a propelled needle through the ocean. With Elder Boatman at the helm, space constantly warped around them, shooting them forward at tremendous speed. Stars twinkled all around. Despite the Elder’s warning about space monsters, and despite the war raging everywhere, this galaxy seemed oddly empty.

Jack’s mind was calm. He had his eyes closed, breathing to a steady rhythm. His chest rose and fell.

He was cultivating.

An endless expanse comprised his inner world. It was so large he almost couldn’t see its limits, though he knew it was exactly ten thousand miles across, shaped as a perfect sphere. A fist-shaped meteor floated in the very middle, while Jack sat cross-legged on it, meditating.

His real body was still in the outside world, and always would be, but he could manifest his willpower as a second body inside his inner world. Here, he was a god. Everything bowed to his desires. He wasn’t cultivating either of his bodies, but the world itself.

The inner world had once been filled with energy, but Jack had expended it all during his breakthrough. Now, the remaining energy was pitifully sparse. That didn’t mean it was little in quantity, but that the area over which it spread was just humongous.

In fact, the energy density was so low that it couldn’t even condense into matter. It was just lonely, fist-shaped particles floating around.

Jack focused. He took another deep breath, using his powers to draw in the ambient Dao particles of the real world, filtering them so they were compatible with his Dao. He then poured those particles into his inner world. They immediately dissipated into their surroundings and disappeared. Jack persisted. His real body became a funnel similar to a black hole, relentlessly drawing in the energy of the universe and absorbing it into his inner world. The surrounding space stirred. Vacuum strips trailed behind the quickly-moving starship. Had it been sitting still, Jack would have already sucked dry the surrounding few miles of space.

The volume of energy entering his inner world felt great. Yet, the moment it actually arrived, it dissipated, not even a drop in the bucket. The inner world was ten thousand miles across, with a volume of over four trillion cubic miles. That was just absurd. It was double the volume of the Earth. It felt like using a teaspoon to fill the ocean.

Jack sighed, running out of patience. This is pointless, he realized.

In the B-Grade, the System quantified one’s progress using two metrics: Inner World Size and Matter Condensation. The first was self-explanatory. It indicated the diameter of one’s inner world, with Jack’s being a round ten thousand miles. The second metric, as Jack found out after asking Elder Boatman, was a fancy name for energy density.

The B-Grade worked as follows:

A cultivator started with a certain world size and abysmal energy density. To progress from one tier to the next, e.g. from the early to the middle B-Grade, they had to absorb energy into their inner world to increase its density. Once it reached a certain point—which was at 100% matter condensation, or double the starting density—the inner world would be dense enough for the energy to condense into matter. That’s where the fancy name came from.

After matter appeared, the inner world’s stability would increase. The cultivator then utilized that extra stability to expand the world again, increasing its diameter by one fourth and therefore, due to math, doubling its volume. That had the effect of reducing their energy density, pulling it back to 0%. The cultivator had stepped into the next minor tier, and the process began anew.

In short, he had to cultivate until Matter Condensation went from 0 to 100%, then break through and double the volume of his inner world, then do it all over again. After completing the third cycle, he would have reached the peak B-Grade, and he could then proceed to break into the A-Grade.

It was simple in theory. Easy in practice. The problem was that it was damn time-consuming.

Inner worlds possessed enormous volume. Even the smallest inner world with a thousand-mile diameter had volume counted in the billions of cubic miles. Jack’s volume was a thousand times that. He was extremely powerful for his level, but the drawback was that breaking through each minor realm would be far more difficult for him than for other cultivators. Even with his deep foundation and Dao insights, which allowed for faster accumulation of energy, cultivating was simply pointless.

Inner World size: 10,000 miles

Matter Condensation: 0%

He had spent an entire day cultivating, and all he’d managed was to activate the Matter Condensation metric, turning it from a - to 0%. He wasn’t close to 1%. He wasn’t even close to a thousandth of a percent. The volume he had to fill up with energy was so massive, so endless, that he could spend his entire hundred thousand years of lifespan cultivating and only reach the middle B-Grade.

He grumbled and sat up. Regular B-Grades often spent tens of thousands of years in cultivation between each minor realm, but he had neither the time nor the patience for that. He was at war. If he wanted to have any sort of impact, he’d have to break through within a few years at the most.

Cultivating like this is a waste of time, he decided. I will progress by killing others to level up or using treasures. My time is best spent on the Dao.

That was the real path of cultivation. The Dao. And Jack, having just broken through and surpassed a heavenly tribulation, had a bunch of things to meditate on. He also had a Dao Vision to cash in. First, though, he wanted to get some fresh air.

He exited his room, finding himself back at the bridge of the starship. Elder Boatman sat cross-legged at the very front, facing a window flashing with the light of teleportation, while Brock stood before another window to the side. He seemed relaxed and casual. He’d even found some peanuts somewhere and was chomping them down.

“Hey Brock,” Jack said, approaching his little brother. “You’re also bummed out, huh?”

“It’s pointless,” Brock said. “The world is too big. Waste of my time.”

“Yeah.”

“Peanuts?”

“Yes, please. Where did you even find these?”

“Master Grandpa Dead gave me.”

Jack threw an amused glance at Elder Boatman. Another door slid open, revealing Starhair, who was shaking his head at something. The moment he saw Jack, his face soured. He chose a different window and approached it without a word.

Jack rolled his eyes and walked over.