The First Store System

It has been nine years since Aakesh arrived in this world.

After nine long years of a continuous journey filled with a mix of failure and success, Aakesh was now finally able to see the silhouette of the stair. It wasn’t blurry, signifying that Aakesh was only a few hundred billion km away from it.

To be precise, the distance between Aakesh and the stair was four hundred fifty-six billion, six hundred seventy-eight million, eight hundred ninety thousand, twelve km.

In the last nine years, Aakesh’s agility had grown at an unprecedented rate.

When Aakesh had started his journey to the stairs, even taking a single step in the time the grey-colored light dots joined together, he found it challenging. But now, Aakesh could take one hundred twenty-five steps in that amount of steps.

His release rate for the Apocalyptic Blast had also grown at high speed.

At the start, Aakesh could only travel fifty-four thousand meters in a sec after the combined time taken by his skill release and a single step. But now, after a struggle of nine years, his travel journey in a single second if he were to take a single action was six hundred seventy-two thousand meters, with all the restrictions on him.

If not for the ground throwing him more than a trillion km with every failure, Aakesh would’ve already reached the stair.

After Aakesh succeeded, the force by which ground would reflect him would revert to the original, but since it would throw him twice the distance of the last throw, Aakesh knew that he couldn’t fail many times.

If he failed when he was only a few hundred/thousand/million km away from him, the distance between him and the stair would again cross the length of a trillion km.

After crossing the first trillion km, Aakesh noticed that the ground only threw him a trillion km back, forgetting his last throw.

Since Aakesh didn’t want to further increase the distance between him and the stair, for the past five years, Aakesh had been traveling without attempting to grow his steps count in the amount of time the grey-colored light dots joined together.

Aakesh hadn’t stopped for even a second in his journey to the stair up to this point, so he didn’t stop here and straight away got ready to make his move again.

Aakesh raised his hands with his palm facing the sky.

The next moment, a dark energy ball started gathering in his palms. It stopped when it reached its peak, which was much larger than the size it had when Aakesh had entered the world.

Now the dark energy ball created after the activation of the Apocalyptic Blast had reached almost thrice the size of Aakesh, making the scene look weird.

“BOOM!”

The next moment, a loud explosion rang in the area, devouring every other sound in existence.

The explosion also devoured the sound made by Aakesh stepping on the land in the midst of the blast.

Since Aakesh had been traveling with the same agility for the past five years, Aakesh didn’t even need the skill ‘Energy Overseer’ and could walk.

Time flew by, and further three days passed.

“Eh!” Aakesh couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise as he, for the first time in his life, got the sense that his energy was on the verge of reaching a dangerously low limit, and he needed to replenish it.

After Aakesh’s intuition warned him, Aakesh decided to stop and replenish his energy.

Even with the amount of energy Aakesh currently had, he could reach the stair. But since Aakesh had no idea what would welcome him when he arrived there, so Aakesh didn’t think of taking a risk and replenishing his energy here when his intuition warned him.

“Hey, system, give me a mat for meditation,” Aakesh requested the system.

The system didn’t speak, but not long after, light particles started gathering an inch above the ground, and soon Aakesh’s sight welcomed a mat.

The mat was rectangular in shape. It was a plain white mat made up of the same materials used in the making of the cushion on his chair and the bed.

The reason for the mat floating an inch above the ground was if the ground sensed anything below one inch, the grey-colored light dots would make a move.

Aakesh then stepped on the mat and sat on it. His back was completely straight. He had his legs crossed with both his feet resting on the opposite knee, and his hands were open as he put them on the top of his feet respectively.

Aakesh then closed his eyes. Even though it was his first time meditating since Aakesh’s energy stocks had never reached such a limit, and yet Aakesh didn’t feel uncomfortable.

It didn’t take any effort for Aakesh to calm his mind. A few seconds later, all the sounds vanished from the area as if Aakesh was a dead body sitting in a meditative posture.

Time flew by.

Eleven hours later, the silence in the area broke as Aakesh opened his eyes.

If anyone living in the Primal dimension were to be here and look at Aakesh’s eyes, they would have lost their soul on the spot.

Aakesh’s eyes returned to normal as he stood up from his meditative posture. After only a meditation of eleven hours, Aakesh fully replenished his energy.

Aakesh didn’t leave the mat as him leaving it would create a movement in the grey-colored light dots, turning the ground into a rubbery surface, and then it would throw Aakesh a trillion km back, making his journey even more time-consuming.

“BOOM!”

The next moment, a loud explosion rang in the area as Aakesh threw an Apocalyptic Blast at the ground while continuing to stand on the mat.

Since the explosion created by the Apocalyptic Blast did no damage to Aakesh, Aakesh had taken a step forward when the skill crashed.

One second passed, two seconds passed, three seconds passed, and just like that, a minute had passed. Minutes then turned into an hour, hours into a day, and then several days had passed.

“BOOM!”

A loud explosion rang in the area as the Apocalyptic Blast crashed to the ground.

Aakesh crossed the explosion and completed his one hundred twenty-five steps without looking back.

Aakesh’s eyes finally had a change in their expression as the scene of the stair became clear to him.