Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack walked down the streets of Integration City. On his right was Brock. On his left, Karvahul. The streets were mostly empty right now since the fights had just finished, so if they kept their voices low, nobody would overhear.

“It isn’t looking good, Jack,” the djinn said, shaking his head. “You spent everything we had at the auction. I want to bet, but our funds are just miniscule now. So are our profits.”

“Mhm.”

“Plus, the fights are easier to predict now. There are no black horses anymore. I can’t earn much each fight, at least not without risking big.”

“I see. But we got the hundred thousand from Edgar’s victory, right?”

Karvahul nodded. “That helped,” he admitted.

Every fighter got a hundred thousand credits for every victory in the final phase of the tournament. The only exceptions were Jack and Rufus, whose monetary earnings were confiscated by the Hand of God.

Edgar had entrusted Jack with his wealth, who in turn, entrusted everything to Karvahul.

Jack stopped and took an earnest look at his manager. “Give it to me straight, Karvahul. How much do we have?”

The djinn took a deep breath. “Two hundred fifty thousand, give or take.”

“Okay.”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

Jack considered the issue. “I have something in mind…but I will need to ask you a favor.”

“Me?” Karvahul was surprised. “Listen, Jack, if it’s about borrowing, I can only—”

“Not that,” Jack cut him off. “I plan to send some credits to my faction. They might need it to protect themselves, but I don’t have a way to send it over a large distance.”

“Oh. Okay. I could send some to Ar’Tazul, who’s still in your town, but then we’d get taxed.”

“Taxed?”

“Yeah. The Animal Kingdom levies heavy tax on all transactions in the constellation. You are still protected by the one-year grace period, but we aren’t. If I send money to Tazul, 50% will be taken away.”

“50%!?” Jack almost jumped. Even Brock protested, though he didn’t know the numbers.

“I know,” Karvahul replied bitterly. “It’s the maximum tax allowed by the Star Pact. They’re bleeding us poor merchants dry…”

“Well, fuck the Animal Kingdom. Isn’t there a way to cheat them?”

“Of course. If we send the money through a native, it should fall under the grace period term… But we’d need someone we can trust. Someone who can reach that place in a reasonable period of time. It’s half an ocean away, after all. Any ideas?”

Jack thought about it for a moment.

“I might have one,” he finally replied. “The Flame River doesn’t have a jet, unfortunately, but I know someone with a starship. Does it count?”

“Only if they can ride it. It’s not easy.”

“I suspect my person can ride it just fine,” Jack replied enigmatically. “And he’s trustworthy, I think. Problem is, I already owe him multiple favors…but this is important. I guess one more won’t hurt.”

“Lots of people have jets here,” Karvahul suggested. “You could ask one of them. With your status, I don’t think anyone would refuse.”

Of the people who had arrived here after the tournament started, most had come in private jets. There were landing strips on the back of Integration City, and Jack had even seen a US airplane carrier docked in the distance.

“I don’t want to owe favors to strangers,” he replied quickly, shaking his head. “And I want to keep this a secret. People might be out for my faction.”

“Okay, then. I suppose the person you’re talking about is the Sage?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll contact him discreetly on your behalf.”

“Thank you, Karvahul.”

“No problem. How much should I give him?”

“All of it.”

“All of it!?” Karvahul almost embraced the Dao of Heart Attack.

Jack nodded seriously. “I’m afraid for the safety of my people, Karvahul… I have friends and relatives there. I want them to be as protected as possible, and there are many defensive mechanisms that credits can buy. With two hundred and fifty thousand and their own strength, they should be safe against anything short of a scion.”

“Are you sure, Jack? With this kind of money, you—”

“I’m sure.”

The djinn struggled for a moment, then squeaked, “But what will I bet?”

“You have your own money, right? Use those,” Jack replied, smiling.

Karvahul’s feet now dragged against the ground. His eyes alternated between gold and sadness. Since he was short, too, he reminded Jack of a disappointed child.

“It’s all those scions’ faults…” he finally muttered. “Damn the System and its stupid blind spots!”

Jack raised a brow in interest. “Blind spots? Does it really have those?”

“Of course it does. When the Ancients created it, they neglected many things, and now the Immortals lack the skills to patch it up—or so the legends say.” Karvahul turned to him. “The System may seem like a God to you now, but in truth, it’s neither omnipotent nor omniscient. It’s just a very complex, gigantic machine, and it has many limitations.”

“Really?”

Karvahul shook his head. They had reached the edge of the participant district by now, but being an alien, he couldn’t enter, not even as a guest. Therefore, he leaned against the fence and motioned for Jack to do the same. Nobody else was nearby.

“Listen, Jack,” he began slowly, taking a deep breath. “The System operates based on the Dao, but its functions consume energy voraciously. For that reason, they are limited. It barely keeps tabs on the Classless, for example, and it stops tracking them when they exit System space. They just aren’t worth it.”

“System space?”

“The part of the galaxy that has been terraformed into a System-friendly state. If you ever go outside it, you will notice that your powers decrease, and many System functions fail. Anyway, that is how the scions arrive at a planet. If their home force can discover an inhabited planet manually, they can use a space-warping starship to transport some of their talented youths over. Then, they conduct a System expansion in the nearby space. When the planet is Integrated, these scions are assumed to be natives, since they weren’t tracked outside System space.”

“Oh, so that’s how it’s done!” Jack replied. “Does that mean they revert to Level 1, too? Can they level up to 14, move outside System space, then re-enter and re-level to gather more stat bonuses?”

“Yes and no. Not everyone starts at Level 1. The System makes adjustments based on your species and personal power. The method you describe could grant them an extra three, maybe four Levels at the most, and it would only work once.”

“I see.” Jack mulled it over in his mind. Something felt off. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Wait. You said they were transported here in a space-warping starship, right? Only immortals can use those, if I remember correctly, and I bet the System tracks immortals even outside its space. Therefore, when the immortal arrived at Earth with the scions, didn’t the System see the inhabited planet? Why wouldn’t it Integrate on the spot?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Karvahul shook his head. “The System doesn’t have eyes. It can only perceive certain kinds of signals from you, like when you scan or kill something, or when you have an insight into the Dao. If the immortal didn’t scan anything here, the System would be none the wiser…and even if they did, it couldn’t just expand by itself. The System can’t teleport, nor is it bubbles around planets. It would need to advance slowly by terraforming all the space in between, which is very energy-intensive. It wouldn’t do so without a B-Grade faction’s assistance.”

Jack frowned. This was interesting information, but he still felt that something was off, even if he was unable to pinpoint it.

“I don’t know, man,” he said, shaking his head. “I understand that the System is trying to save its energy, but…that seems like a pretty big hole to me. If everyone sends scions to new planets, doesn’t that kinda ruin the entire Integration thing you have going on?”

“Oh, no. First of all, the System’s Integration only involves spawning monsters and dungeons. The Tournament isn’t a System thing.” Karvahul wagged a finger. “It is run entirely by the B-Grade factions, according to rules detailed in the Star Pact. The System’s only involvement is when the faction in charge uses some of its high-Grade functions to teleport the participants here and broadcast messages.”

“Really?” Jack’s eyes bulged. “I thought—”

“I know how it seems. But really, the System is very hands-off. Almost everything is run by people.” Karvahul shook his head. “However, even if scions were a System problem, it wouldn’t matter, because they are very rare. Manually scouting space takes time. Even with space-warping starships, and even knowing which planets are inhabitable and which are not ahead of time—we have that technology—you would need months to travel from one planet to the next, and only a tiny percentage of them are actually inhabited. It would take decades or even centuries to find one.

“Moreover, just one immortal isn’t enough. Not only could they get lost, but they would also be attacked by space beasts. You would need at least a full crew, preferably with a C-Grade in charge. Do you think a B-Grade faction can afford to send C-Grades out on such missions for decades? Or do you think any C-Grade would be willing?”

Karvahul shook his head, then continued. “No, they would only do so when they have already identified an inhabited planet. There are ways—divination, mostly—but it’s a rare case. You were just unlucky.”

Jack had stopped listening at one particular point. “Did you say space beasts?”

As a biologist, the subject intrigued him. The only animal he knew that could survive in space was a kind of micro-organism called sea bear.

“Yeah?” Karvahul raised a brow. “What? The sea has fish. Why wouldn’t space have its own beasts?”

“Because it’s a frozen void where nothing can survive.”

“Immortals can survive, at least for a bit.” Karvahul shrugged. “And it isn’t really empty. Where there is space and time, there is the Dao. And where there is the Dao, it can get spontaneously warped into a semi-sentient existence that instinctively hunts down bright sources of the Dao—for example, cultivators.”

“Wow,” Jack replied breathlessly. “Can they attack planets?”

“Not often, no. They don’t approach celestial bodies without reason.”

“Wow…” he repeated. “Space beasts, space pirates, immortals who can survive in space, the Dao, civilizations stretching over the stars… What a wondrous world this is, Karvahul. I had no idea!”

“Space is filled with wonders, my friend,” the djinn replied with a sad smile, “but also with danger. I pray that you never discover the latter.”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, then smiled with gratitude. Those were the kind words of someone who had experienced pain. He then realized something. “You said you pray, Kavahul. Who do you pray to?”

“The System, the Immortals, the Old Ones, the Universe…” He shrugged, then laughed out loud. “Where there is a will, there is a deity.”

Jack laughed, too. “Wise words, Karvahul. Say, what do you do in this town all the time? You don’t hang out with us often, and you don’t have a shop to run.”

“Oh, I own a wholesale business. I’ve recruited some amazing workhands west of here, and I provide all the souvenirs you see in shops. Why did you think there are so many action figurines of you?”

Jack looked over with surprise, then both men laughed. “Do you pay them justly, though?” Jack asked after a moment. Karvahul had mentioned workhands west of the Integration City, which was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That meant Asia, where people were regularly exploited before the Integration.

“Of course,” the merchant replied immediately. “Generous to employees, kind to partners, ruthless to customers. That’s the djinn way!”

“Wait, am I a partner?”

“Of course, Jack. My favorite on the entire planet.”

“And also the only one, I presume?”

“Of course not. I have dozens, though not as famous as you.”

“Oh. Well, you’re my favorite partner too!”

“And also the only one, I presume?”

Jack looked down. “Maybe.”

They laughed again. Jack realized that Karvahul was great company—just like Ar’Tazul, actually, the djinn merchant in Valville. No wonder they were cousins.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, “I have some training to do. Will you handle the credit movement we talked about before?”

“Of course. We’ll pretend the Sage sold and bought products worth 250,000 credits…if he agrees, of course.”

“I think he will. That guy loves favors.”

“Then, good. If he doesn’t, I’ll find another way.”

“You rock, Karvahul. Good luck!”

“See you around, Jack! You too, Brock!”

The merchant took off, and Jack walked towards his house. He had gotten a lot of interesting information, but now wasn’t the time to focus on that.

There was a one in three chance he’d fight Rufus next morning, and a two out of three chance he’d fight another very strong opponent. Even if he made it through tomorrow, the final would be on the next day after that, which meant that Jack had at most two days to reach his peak.

He would let no time go to waste.

It’s time to finally advance some Skills.