Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Their eyes went wide. Waving goodbye to the apes, the three of them—four, as Harambe followed—took off for the northwestern part of the reserve, where the clear pond lay. They met no earth bears on the way. Harambe had cleared them all out.

They also picked up Brock, who returned ten minutes later looking all clean and happy.

Jack, the professor, and Harambe waited by the trees while Edgar and Brock lounged in the clear pond. They returned ten minutes later, Edgar’s clothes dripping from head to toe—they hadn’t brought towels—but exuding vitality. His eyes were the clearest Jack had ever seen them.

“That was nice. My Physical went up by five, by the way,” he commented. Brock nodded excitedly in agreement—he couldn’t use the System, but he felt the difference.

The professor went after them, and she had the same comments when she returned, all dried up. She’d brought a backpack which, for whatever reason, included a towel. Jack, who was carrying the backpack for her, could only shake his head in wonder.

They then moved to the High Speed Bush.

“You’re saying there was a goblin tribe here,” said the professor, looking around, “and that the System made everything vanish into thin air instantly.”

“Either that or teleported them elsewhere,” he replied. “However, it’s so weird; even the burnt logs from their campfire are gone, as well as every out-of-place rock and hole in the ground. How did the System decide what to take away and what to let be?”

Edgar cupped his chin. “Maybe the System had kept a copy of this glade from before it spawned the goblins. Then, when you despawned them, it simply replaced the real thing with its previous copy while not harming the lifeforms in the radius—or, at least, not the sapient lifeform called Jack Rust.”

“That’s time displacement with extra steps,” the professor retorted. “It sounds easier to manipulate mass into nothingness, remove what looks out of place, and fill in the holes in the ground.”

Edgar shrugged. “Maybe.”

Harambe growled, annoyed by all this complicated stuff.

“In any case, this is the High Speed Bush,” said Jack, pointing at the bush, which simply stood there like it wasn’t illegal.

They gazed at it, then raised their brows at the exact same time.

“High as a kite?” said Edgar.

“The System keeps surprising me.” The professor shook her head. “Here I thought it was just a cold-blooded alien machine of doom. Turns out, it’s not cold-hearted.”

Jack chuckled, but before he could say anything, the professor narrowed her eyes and kept speaking.

“Actually, I suspect this information is not produced directly by the System. It has access to our brains. Why brave its own descriptions when it can crowdsource the task to the trillions of sapient creatures under its influence?”

“What?”

“I mean, these descriptions weren’t necessarily written by the System itself. Maybe an expert provided them for a price, or it simply aggregated all the information and opinions people had on the bush. After all, the System is spread to at least an entire galaxy. It needs to be scalable, and the way to achieve that is using local resources to solve local problems.”

Jack and Edgar stared at her. She met their gazes and shook her hands from side to side as if swatting flies. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get this bonus.”

“Be careful though,” Jack warned them. “This is strong. I’m not joking.”

Both nodded, then grabbed a leaf each and licked it as Jack suggested. Brock tried to follow soon after but Harambe grabbed his leaf, cracked just the tip, and gave it to his disgruntled son. Brock looked at the leaf tip, then at the bush, then his father’s glare, and finally chewed on the leaf tip while pouting.

“That I’d end up doing drugs…” The professor shook her head. “Oh, the woes of alien invasions. Thank God Eric isn’t here to see me. Right, Jack?”

“I think dad would rather get punched by Harambe than use this bush.” Jack chuckled ruefully. His smile turned sad right after, and the professor put her last leaf aside before consuming it.

“This is enough,” she said with a frown. “I got the bonus. What about you, Edgar?”

“Mm?”

Edgar looked over, still sucking on his last leaf. He gazed into space. “Oh yeah, me too.”

Jack sighed. “Great. A high Edgar sounds fun.”

“I’m not high. And I’m no kite either.” He chuckled. Jack honestly couldn’t tell whether the bush got to him or not. Maybe he was always high.

The next moment, Edgar’s eyes widened. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Guys! This is amazing!”

Jack sighed. “Well, here we go. What is it, Edgar?”

“This bush! It helped me! My magic is based on imagination, and now I feel like my mind is totally free! I got a skill upgrade! Look!”

He extended a hand, and a blue bird appeared over it. It was rough around the edges and flapped its wings in jagged, not particularly lifelike patterns, but it was clearly a bird. Jack raised his brows; he hadn’t seen this trick before.

“I thought you could only make fireballs and levitate beer cans,” he said.

“I also have a skill for visualization. But look! I made a bird! I couldn’t do this before!”

“Be careful, Edgar,” the professor cautioned him. “If you base your powers on drugs, I can guarantee you’ll have a terrible time.”

“I know, I know. But look!” He waved his hand and the bird took off, flying for a couple feet before dispersing. He grinned widely. “I made a bird.”

Jack wondered whether the bush was addicting. He didn’t feel any inclination to try again, so that was good.

“Let’s keep going,” he said. “There’s one last thing to see, and it’s massive. I left the best for last.”

The professor looked at her wrinkled hands. She wasn’t getting any younger, but life was returning to her due to all the stat-ups. She turned her gaze back at Jack. “My Physical just increased by another five. I am stronger than young men used to be, Jack… Just what could be better?”

He only grinned. “You’ll see. But I have to warn you… It isn’t pleasant.”

Cocking a brow, she stood, new spring in her step. “Then, let’s go,” she said. “We want to be back before nightfall.”

Edgar stood as well, still manifesting little blue animals on his hands. They quickly got more recognizable as he practiced, until he could even have a little dog walk beside him. Dispersing it, he formed a bird and sent it flying to a branch, perching right next to a similar bird, except alive.

The living bird took one glance at its blue counterpart and flew away.

“Look at that!” Edgar laughed wildly. “I’m a real wizard! I’ll call this spell…Formus Fakus.”

“Don’t your Skills have names, Edgar?” the professor asked.

“They do, but they’re boring. This one is supposed to be called External Visualization. Bah.”

“Are they real?” asked Jack. “Can they touch us?”

“Well, no…but maybe, in the future, they will can!”

“They will can?”

“Yeah, what do you want? I’m a wizard, not a thesaurus.”

A little blue monkey jumped next to Brock, who looked at it suspiciously. The blue monkey looked back with the same gaze. Brock punched it, making the illusion break apart, then snorted, raised his head, and proudly returned to his position beside Jack.

Harambe excitedly asked for his own copy, but unfortunately, he was too big. Edgar made him a palm-sized version, which completely horrified Harambe; its muscles were tiny!

He skulked the rest of the way.

Between banter and playing with illusions, they made it to Jack’s cave—or rather, the Ice Pond cave. He stopped them before the entrance.

“It’s down there,” he said. “This is an E-Grade pond with extremely cold water. Its potential benefits are larger than all the other resources put together. You will see its description, but I have to warn you… This is completely unlike the F-Grade resources. It is painful; agonizing, even. Don’t go too far or you’ll be in danger of dying. And no matter what, don’t touch the waterfall.”

He was certain they couldn’t make it that far with their stats, but you never know.

The professor’s eyes hardened, as did Edgar’s. They nodded. Jack looked at the professor; she was his adopted mother, and to willingly put her through pain… It felt wrong. Absurd. But the apocalypse had come, and everybody had to make hard choices.

“You can go first, Edgar, Brock,” he said. “Harambe will be there to save you if something goes wrong, but I think the rest of us should stay outside. You might want your privacy.”

“Understood,” was all Edgar said, while Brock stuck his chest out in pride. Then, both walked inside, Harambe squeezing through the crevice to follow them. Jack took the professor away and sat on a pair of flat rock.

Ten minutes passed in silence. When Edgar finally returned, he was pale and shivering from head to toe. His teeth were gritted so hard they might break, but his eyes held a victorious look. So did Brock’s, despite the wet fur clinging to his body. Harambe’s eyes were filled with pride.

Jack didn’t need to be told anything else.

“Good job,” he said, nodding. “Professor?” He turned to her, and his eyes softened for a moment. He almost blurted out that she didn’t need to do this, but she did; they needed every edge they could get.

Reading his worries, she smiled. “Don’t worry, Jack. I won’t push myself too hard. Besides, a little bit of pain is nothing—I’ve been through childbirth twice.”

He nodded, and she went inside, where Harambe waited.

Fifteen silent minutes passed. Jack almost went in thrice, but the thought of Harambe kept him steady. His bro was there; if anything went wrong, he would shout, and Jack would arrive instantly.

The professor deserved her dignity.

“How many steps did you take, man?” he said. He hadn’t planned on asking, but he needed to get his mind off things.

“Five,” Edgar replied, and Jack raised a brow. He expected way less.

“Have you invested in Physical?”

“Just two points. I’m at fifteen.”

Jack tried to remember if he’d made it five steps in when he had fifteen Physical. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like a lot. The pain must have been excruciating.

“Good job,” he said.

Edgar smiled. “Thanks!”

Finally, after fifteen minutes, the professor came out. Her eyes did not seem victorious like Edgar’s. She was haggard, shivering, sneezing, and coughing. She looked like she could barely stand.

Jack practically jumped up to support her and realized she was cold to the touch.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did you go too far?”

“My old bones are just unused to the cold,” she replied with a forced smile, still shivering. “I’ll be fine with some rest.”

Jack forced himself to nod, then led her to the rock, where he helped her sit. Harambe walked out of the cave as well, crossing eyes with Jack and giving a nod.

A moment later, when the professor stopped shivering as much, she said, “I think moving here is a great idea. We can have the protection of the primates, and these resources will help our faction members grow quickly. In this System world, the name of the game is getting ahead of the curve.”

Jack found himself nodding.

Edgar added, “We could even let others use these resources for a price. Who will dare antagonize us then?”

The professor nodded. “Let’s start the move the day after tomorrow,” she said. “I will inform our faction members. We can also gather supplies, vehicles, and anything else we might need. The construction shouldn’t take too long, given everyone’s System enhancements—but we’ll respect the forest in the process, of course. We should also bring some proper gym instruments for Harambe and his friends; we can’t take their bananas and protection for free.”

Harambe’s eyes shone. He growled in thanks.

“No problem.” She smiled. Her shivering had mostly passed by now, and Jack heaved a sigh of relief. She then looked at him. “I have to admit, Jack, I thought you were our faction’s single defining quality. However, with these resources, and the strength of the gymonkeys… The Bare Fist Brotherhood might truly become one of the strong in this world.”

Jack met her eyes, then smiled. “You betcha, Professor!”