Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

A woman stalked through the grass. She looked to be in her early twenties, with dark skin, darker hair, and eyes the color of amber. Her lithe body was covered in green leather armor, painted with yellow splashes to fit into the terrain, while her hands held a flexible spear.

Ebele’s ears twitched. She fell to the ground, crawling the last few feet. A thick tree stood in front of her. She grabbed the bark and peeked from its side, her eyes catching the glint of metal. Vertical bars sandwiched by wood. Cages. Inside which, a collection of pink boars oinked in distress.

Her eyes narrowed. “Damn,” she spat a whisper.

The creatures of this forest were highly desired as both pets and materials. However, since this was Academy territory, no outsiders could enter. Stealing animals was illegal even if they could. The Academy strived to maintain a healthy ecosystem, promotion of biodiversity, and smooth allocation of differently-powered beasts to facilitate the safe and timely training of its students, who could wander this forest freely.

Some of these students were assholes. The ones Ebele faced now, laughing with greed as they counted the number of cages over and over, were one such group of people. Poachers.

Three, four… she counted. I can probably take them.

She stepped out from behind the cage. The others spotted her instantly, shooting to alertness. “Who’s there!?” they asked.

“The forest,” she replied. “Coming to reclaim its own.”

As she stepped into a column of light piercing the foliage, she saw the students’ face go from panic, to relief, to wariness. “Ebele Rust,” one of them said with a frown. “We want no trouble with you.”

“Oh, but I do. Poaching is a serious offense—you face anywhere from disciplinary action to direct expulsion and imprisonment. Release the pinkoars and follow me to the Enforcement Hall immediately.”

The students glanced at each other, realizing they outnumbered her four to one. “No,” they said.

“Yeah. Thought as much.” She flourished her spear, the tip cutting a smooth path through the air. “Prepare to suffer.”

Her opponents were full of tension, but they didn’t panic. No student of the Academy was a weakling. They fanned out, each brandishing their own weapon as they slowly surrounded her. The pink boars watched with hope.

“You’re a Foundation cultivator, just like us,” one of the four disciples said. “Don’t think you’ll beat us just because you carry your father’s name.”

“Of course not. I’ll beat you because you’re honorless, low-life thieves, and I’m this year’s first-ranked disciple.”

Another student snorted, his features contorted in rage. The blue cloak he wore—standard student uniform—rose to an unseen gale, the stars painted on it almost dancing. “Get off your high horse,” he spat out. “I need this money.”

“Sure you do. To fuel your coredust addiction?”

“To take my family out of the Evergrove slums.”

Ebele shook her head. “I sympathize, I really do. However, torturing and killing innocent creatures is never okay. Surrender, and I swear I’ll give you the money to help your family—after I turn you in.”

“Shut up! Someone like you has no place speaking here!” the student shouted, lunging. His rapier stabbed straight towards Ebele’s abdomen. Her brows narrowed dangerously. No student would dare kill another—especially inside Academy grounds—but a serious injury here would cost her weeks of cultivation.

She twirled, letting the rapier scratch her armor to make some distance. Her spear stabbed out. It broke through the opponent’s guard in a single strike.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. The other three disciples coordinated well, and their flurry of blows fell on Ebele, forcing her back. She stabbed and dodged. The tip of her spear entered someone’s forearm, while its body broke a knee—both injuries could be easily healed.

She ducked under a club and jumped back to avoid a spray of poison. A nunchaku crashed into her head from behind. All her body tempering couldn’t save her from such a blow—she recoiled, almost falling forward, and was beset by four people at once. Her Dao of Heroism erupted, pushing them back and giving her a moment’s respite to reposition, but they still snuck a hit at her lower back. She gritted her teeth. �

“What’s going on here?” a voice asked. Ebele glanced over, suddenly filled with hope, only to have it instantly demolished. The new arrivals were two students holding a squealing pinkoar upside down. As they scanned the situation, they let the pinkoar drop and escape to pull their own weapons. They turned them to Ebele.

“There were more of you,” she said sourly. “Of course.”

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“Should have done your research, Ebele,” a disciple said. “Now get fucked.”

Six people attacked her at once. All were close to the late F-Grade. That was how the old-timers—those who had been adults when the System arrived—called the first realm. The younger generation of cultivators, who started their journey outside System space, preferred to call this realm Foundation Establishment.

Ebele was slightly higher-leveled than them. She was far stronger than each, but against six talented people, there was little she could do. Even her newfound Dao was of limited use. They left her sprawled on the forest floor, groaning and bleeding, with a healing potion placed far enough away that she’d need some time to reach it.

“You’re lucky your father is who he is,” one of the disciples said as he spat on her. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t even get the potion.”

Killing other disciples was an absolute taboo in the Academy—the enforcers had ways to know. Dying by yourself in the forest was a different story, but not when it came to the daughter of Jack Rust. If anything happened to her, D-Grades would get involved, and the truth would come out instantly. These disciples couldn’t afford to cause any real damage even if they knew she’d tell on them.

The group ran away with the cages in tow, the squeals of pinkoars reaching Ebele for some time still. It took her a while to be able to move. When she finally reached the healing potion and gulped it down, the poacher students were long gone. She smashed a fist against a tree, breaking her hand. She relished in the pain. In her opinion, it was well deserved.

“I must get stronger,” she said through gritted teeth. “And smarter. I should have waited to see if they had more people. If this was a real battle, I’d be dead.”

Retrospection didn’t lighten her self-blame. She stayed on the forest floor for a while, lamenting her failure, apologizing to the creatures she’d failed to save. She’d inform the Enforcement Hall, of course, but without proof, all these students would get was monitoring from the school authorities. It would stop them from poaching, but they wouldn’t get expelled.

“Damn it,” she said, bruising her other hand against the ground. Tears left her eyes. “Damn!”

If one looked at this forest from above, they’d find it fist-shaped. Thin clouds interspersed the blue sky. Currently, far higher than where Ebele could see, two people stood on a pair of little clouds. One was a woman in flowing red robes, her eyes shimmering with rage. The other was a shirtless man with his aura fully withdrawn—yet, even like this, he commanded the respect of the elements.

“I don’t believe you,” Vivi said. “Those guys just beat up your daughter. Are you really just going to stand there!?”

“Ebele needs tempering,” Jack’s clone replied calmly. “A little bit of bruising is nothing. If I take away this lesson from her, she might make the same mistakes in the future, when I’m not there to watch over her, and then she’ll suffer for real.”

“She’s a child!”

“Which is the perfect time to fail and learn.”

“She’s lying on the floor! She’s crying!”

“She’ll be fine,” Jack insisted. “Look at her eyes. See how they’re clear? She’s healthily frustrated, that’s all. All that bothers her is her failure, not the pain. She experienced far worse when she insisted on diving into the Ice Pond as a child. This is nothing to her.”

Vivi crossed her arms. “I don’t believe you, Jack Rust.”

“This is necessary. Trust me. The world is harsh, so we must be as well. That said…” His eyes turned towards the ground again, looking slightly to the side of Ebele, where six disciples were hurrying through the forest with cages in tow. A few of them were injured.

Jack snapped his fingers, and the squealing pinkoars disappeared, teleported back to their nests. The disciples took a few moments to notice. When they did, their eyes went wide, and they fell to their knees, looking around and at the sky. Jack ignored them completely. A few moments later, the disciples stood and bolted away at top speed, letting the few injured ones fall behind.

Jack shook his head. “We can’t play gods, Vivi. If we smother the world below us, it will grow weak, and weakness brings pain and sin. The same goes for our children. Since Ebele is determined on entering the cultivation world, we should encourage safe failures like this one, because only they can give her the lessons she needs to survive later in life. I could tell her to plan for hidden enemies a thousand times, but this single day will teach her the lesson far better than I ever could. If it seems harsh, blame her, not me—I’m just preparing her for the road she chose.”

Vivi snorted. “Then why did you save the pinkoars, if we can’t play gods?”

“That was just payment. I prevented some enforcers from reaching the area before, so I had to make up for it.”

Vivi tried to remain angry. Finally, she sighed. “Do you promise you love her?”

“More than anything in the world,” Jack replied, his gaze growing distant. “I would destroy the galaxy before I let anything happen to my daughter. However, I won’t always be by her side. That’s not how life works. She needs to become strong.” He sighed. “I just want her to be happy…”

Vivi smiled, hugging him tightly. Her anger was gone. She was a cultivator, too—she realized the importance of personal strength, as well as the fact that a little bit of pain was nothing to the tempered mind. “For the ruler of a galaxy, you’re pretty soft,” she whispered softly.

“Really? I thought you said I was mean.”

“That, too.”

He laughed, then looked down. “Ebele is reaching the Academy gates,” he said. “The danger is over. Wanna go prepare dinner?”

“No. I want to pay her a visit and see how she’s doing.”

“You know she doesn’t like us appearing uninvited.”

“I don’t care. I’m her mother, I just saw her receive a painful lesson, and I want to make sure she’s okay.”

Jack chuckled. “Fine. Just send her a message we’ll be visiting in an hour, if she’s free.”

“...I can do that.”

“You know I love parenting with you, right?”

“I love it too. But you can be so stubborn sometimes.”

“That makes two of us.”

They kissed. “What about your other body, anyway?” Vivi asked. “It’s been gone for fifteen years now. Any news?”

“No,” Jack replied. “I get a vague sensation from my inner world, however. Something happened. Something major. I suspect we’ll be returning to this world soon, and then I get to beat the crap out of Elder Hero. Can’t let him be a bad role model for Ebele. They do share a Dao—for now.”

Vivi laughed. “I’m sure she’d love to hear this.”

The two teleported away, and the sky remained peaceful, as it always was.