Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack stood alone in the empty blue world. There was nothing here, not even a chair to rest on; only an endless cyan expanse, where the sky stretched from the horizon to beneath his feet.

He didn’t remember many things. His mind had been frozen on entering, and only his innermost reality had carried through.

As he stood puzzled in this empty world, without any distractions whatsoever, a desire sprung forth from the deepest parts of his being. He wanted to be like that man.

A vision appeared. A bald man clad in yellow punching through a beast taller than skyscrapers. He seemed tiny, and his movements inconsequential. However, the world shook the moment he moved, the air screamed, and the phantom of a fist crossed the air like a meteor to smash into and through the beast’s scaly chest.

“Still not enough…” he muttered, looking at his fist, and the vision disappeared.

Jack made it replay. It was engraved deep in his soul—he could review it at will.

He didn’t know how many times he saw the same vision. Setting, punch, destruction, finale. He reviewed it in slow motion and from multiple angles. He observed every tiny change in the man’s body and the surrounding environment as he punched. He saw everything, but he was missing something.

It was infuriating. All the information was there, right in front of him, letting him review it at will, and he still couldn’t figure out the secret. The destruction wasn’t caused simply by the man’s bodily strength. Where had it come from? And why did it feel so…natural?

It was like watching someone else play a game they were good at. It seemed easy, but when you tried, you couldn’t even take two steps without falling.

Jack was determined to succeed.

Think… a voice whispered in his head. It was his voice, but coming from far away. Remember…

Jack frowned. The vision disappeared, replaced by other images.

He saw himself screaming as he mauled a goblin before the ice pond. That was the first real battle in his entire life. He had discovered despair, and the power it could give. He’d realized how much power humans kept in reserve, the part of themselves that never saw the light.

He saw himself ambushing a goblin squad in the woods. He’d come to terms with violence, with survival of the strongest, with killing.

He ran away from an earth bear, barely escaping with his life. It was only proper. If he wasn’t strong, he couldn’t fight, and he had to run.

He ambushed three hobgoblins. He was unarmed, while they had shortswords but didn’t know how to use them. Power mattered little without the skill to apply it.

He warred against the goblin tribe. He snuck through, then massacred. He faced great pain and despair but broke through everything with sheer stubbornness. In the end, he won.

Jack stopped. He’d felt something in this last memory. A part of that battle, as he said, ‘fuck it,’ and ran through the burning flames, resonated with something deep inside him. At that moment, he’d felt complete, but was that all?

He sensed there was something more. He followed the feeling to another scene.

Jack faced off against the rock bear. After his partially successful ambush, the two had fought fiercely for a long time. During that battle, and especially during the end, what drove him? How did he feel?

Despair. Fear. Rage. Bitterness. Frustration. The rock bear was forcing him to dance on a razor’s edge. He had to dodge every single attack, hundreds of them, or he would die. He was on the weaker end. The world was suppressing him, trying to take him down, but he stubbornly refused. He stood his ground over and over, gritting his teeth and beating at the problem until he won or died.

There it was, again. The resonance inside him. This stubbornness, this undying will to make it, the headstrong approach to life that refused to take a single step back. It expressed him. It defined him.

Jack fought the big brorilla. His power was enough, and so were his skills. Yet, he’d almost lost. Why?

Because he was pressured, and he’d been trying to fight the problem as a scholar, like the pre-System Jack. It didn’t work. He couldn’t let the problem wash over him without affecting him. That wasn’t him. He wanted to face the obstacles head-on, set his jaw, and break through it. Punch through it.

Like a fist.

“Oh.”

Jack blinked. Something inside him finally clicked, and then, he was whole. He saw it.

The Fist.

This was his path to life, the path he would walk to the end of time. He would face the world with strength, like a thrown punch, until either he or any obstacle broke. Never defeat; only victory. Fist meant power and nothing else. This was his innermost truth, the way he was meant to be. This made him feel whole. This was him.

And not just him.

Riding the wave of realizations, Jack’s mind expanded. He realized what was missing before. This state, breaking through everything like a clenched fist, didn’t just resonate inside him.

It reminded him of the bald man.

He’d seen the vision so many times that he felt intimate with him. He understood it. Suddenly, he realized he’d never once considered the bald man a person, only a punching machine. But that wasn’t so.

He’d studied the bald man for a long time. He knew every tiny movement of his body as he threw the punch. Now, he understood that his state of mind mattered as well. If he could combine those, if he could reach the apex in both will and technique, if he could touch that absolute peak even just once…

Only a faint gauze of mist separated Jack from something truly world-shaking. Only a last, tiny step remained.

Jack put himself in the shoes of the bald man and imagined what he might be feeling, facing down a titan by himself. Fear. Helplessness. Stubbornness. Resolve. When he punched out, he must have felt ridiculous, punching something so large with such a tiny fist. Yet, he persisted.

What drove him?

Jack realized that, in the vision, the man’s attack left no way out. He didn’t hold anything back. He only punched, supremely confident that he could break through. It was a confidence fueled by his undeniable strength, but the more Jack considered it, the more he felt there was something deeper.

It wasn’t just confidence. Even if the bald man hadn’t been certain of success, he’d still punch out in the same unyielding way. There was a fire shimmering inside him that commanded him to act as such. He was a man that faced everything like a clenched fist. A man that could break but never bend. A man that went ever forward, laughing until he died. That was him.

And that was Jack.

Everything clicked. The thin gauze separating Jack was from the truth wasn’t lifted; it was broken through. He understood. For a moment, even the blue world disappeared, and Jack found himself facing a titanic fist, a Truth, a natural law. He was stunned by majesty.

He only withstood its presence for a single moment, but it was enough to know with absolute certainty that this was his Path. The Path of the Fist. The massive fist saw him as well, not even an ant in its eyes, but acknowledged him.

Jack returned to the blue world, but he wasn’t the same. He was a new man. Something shimmered inside him, burned like the bald man’s heroic heart. The Path of the Fist was part of him, and he was part of it. He could borrow its strength. He could understand.

Jack closed his eyes. He found himself hovering over a purple desert, facing a titanic scaly beast. He felt the heat, the fear, the excitement, the fast beating of his heart. His resolve hardened so much it filled him completely. He could do this. He would never take a step back. He would break through this enemy. Absolutely.

Jack clenched his fist and shot it forward with the absolute belief that it would succeed. He’d seen the vision so many times that his movements unknowingly copied the bald man’s to the last muscle. His soul did, too. They shared a vision.

The fist traveled forth, crossing the sky like a meteor, and smashed into and through the beast’s chest. Of course it did.

He had succeeded.

But he also realized just how far there was to go. His fist had pierced through a massive beast, but true meteors could destroy planets. The potential excited him. He sighed as he looked at his fist.

“Still not enough…”

Jack opened his eyes and found the blue world broken. He’d punched it. A large hole lay open before him, revealing stones and clean water tumbling over them. And he was so terribly cold.

Suddenly, two large hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back. A wail entered his ears as, like a mirror, the blue world broke into tiny pieces that dissolved into nothingness. Jack could barely move, but he could sense Harambe pulling him back through the ice pond. His body was almost failing. He must have stayed in the waterfall for far longer than last time…but he’d made it.

He grinned wildly. He was different. An aura shimmered around him like a clenched fist. He had found his path in life. All was well.

Celebratory blue screens flooded his vision.

Congratulations! You have developed the Dao Root of the Fist.

The world is endless, but your path is your own. Stride forth with vigor. Fist means power.

Congratulations! For being one of the first ten people on your planet to develop a Dao Root, you are awarded the Title: Planetary Frontrunner (10).

Jack was overwhelmed by cold and information. He would need some time to put everything in order, but, for now, he knew one thing: He’d found his path. He would tread it to the very end.

And the first enemy to know his true strength would be the Dungeon Boss. The Black Wolf.

Harambe took Jack to the shore and collapsed beside him, while the gymonkeys and brorillas rushed to help. Not that they could do much; time would take away the cold.

Jack managed to turn his head and look at Harambe. “Thank you…” he muttered, barely able to move his lips. “You really waited…until the last moment…”

By his side, Harambe’s monkey lips were drawn into a weak grin. He managed to form a thumbs-up.

Jack smiled. And then, he fell asleep.

***

It took some hours for Jack to wake up. The combined exhaustion from fighting Harambe, touring the forest, healing at the pond, and entering the waterfall had gotten to him.

Thankfully, the monkeys were good people, and they let him rest. They even stayed slightly quieter than usual.

It was morning, now, and Jack was finally putting things in order. He had a lot of information to go through, so he started with the easy ones.

System, he asked, what’s a Planetary Frontrunner?