Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack materialized in a different hall. This one was also made of stone, but was noticeably far smaller. Barely a hundred feet separated the floor from the ceiling, while another hundred spanned between the right to left and front to back walls. The entire room was a box a hundred feet to each side, giving no indication of its position inside the pyramid.

Jack’s perception failed to penetrate the walls, while his ears caught no sound. Wherever he was, it was completely isolated. This was probably a separate fold in space, yet the flow of spacetime around him indicated no such thing. An exquisite application. His mind returned to the statues of the Space and Time Gods outside the pyramid—could they have participated in the creation of the Hall of Trials?

“Greetings, young monster,” a voice welcomed him. Jack turned to its source—the single other thing in the room besides himself. An entity of stone stood against the back wall, patiently waiting. Jack took the time to inspect it as he walked over—it seemed like a living creature yet wasn’t. In fact, it reminded him of Sparman, the sparring robot he’d interacted with during the Integration Tournament. Sparman had later become an important guardian of the Forest of the Strong.

“Hey,” he replied, stepping up to the automaton. “How do you do?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” the thing replied. It was humanoid and made of black stone, enchanted to endure the infinite flow of time. It wore no clothes and had no facial features, except for a single white eye in the middle of its face. Its voice was produced through vibrations—oddly smooth and pleasant to the ear.

“The name’s Jack. Who are you?” Jack asked.

“I am the automaton assigned to this hall. I will be the overseer and conductor of your aptitude tests. Are you ready to begin?”

“Wait,” Jack said quickly. “Can you give me some information first? Who created this place? For what reason? What exactly will I be tested on, and how?”

“I am not allowed to divulge information on the tests before you face them,” the robot explained in an even voice. “All I can tell you is that this is the Hall of Trials: a training place for the new generation of soldiers.”

“More information will become available based on your results. Are you ready to begin?”

Jack sighed. “Sure,” he said.

“Good. The first test concerns your understanding of the Dao, and will be adjusted based on your current cultivation level. Please stand in the middle of the room and release your Dao aura.”

Jack followed the instructions. He took position in the very center and released his aura to the maximum—a powerful gust blew out, smashing against the walls and shaking them. The entire hall was suffused with the aura of power, of Life and Death, of Space and Time. The robot, though carrying no aura itself, didn’t seem to mind.

Jack waited. A moment later, a strange feeling came over him—it was like the hall itself fell silent to listen, exploring his aura. The feeling disappeared as quickly as it came, and shadows manifested in front of Jack, quickly coalescing into a humanoid shape. Nothing was visible of it except its white eyes. Jack looked at it expectantly.

The shadow raised its hands. Jack braced himself, waiting for an attack, yet none came. Instead, the shadow deftly moved its fingers, dragging them through the air and leaving trails behind them to form what resembled ancient runes.

The moment Jack’s eyes met the runes, he was transfixed. To the untrained eye, these would be nothing more than squiggly lines—to Jack, however, they were something far greater. A manifestation of concepts, ideas given form as lines. He’d seen this before while inheriting Green Dragon’s legacy. They were Dao runes.

The particular set of runes before him spoke of spacetime. They portrayed a steady ripple of time traveling through flat space, then a massive celestial object appearing to warp them both. Every measurement was exact in the rune’s intricacies. The test was clear—a beginning state and an alteration were given, and he was to calculate the precise warping of spacetime induced by the celestial object.

Jack snorted. This was not a simple task, but to him, it was far too easy. He quickly waved his hands without much thought, easily copying the runes and adding in his own insights. The final state of the system became clear—he depicted the exact warping which could occur in both space and time.

The shadow observed his runes for a moment, then nodded in approval. If it was impressed by his speed, it didn’t show it.

All runes collapsed as the shadow started drawing a second set. This one was more complex, representing a person’s journey through life, all their formative experiences and important checkpoints. The shadow’s finger suddenly paused, having drawn the line until the person’s start of middle age. It dropped its hand and looked at Jack expectantly, the runes hovering incomplete.

Jack focused as he perceived these runes. They reminded him of the death and life cubes he’d previously meditated on, but at the same time, more than even the cubes, they reminded him of the time he’d spent in the Mortality Dao Chamber of the old Cathedral. In there, he’d watched the lives of a thousand mortals advance and shape each other. He’d learned to read a life. This rune was no different.

Slowly—respectfully—he raised his finger to the end of the rune and continued it. Unlike before, he took his time. This test wasn’t particularly difficult either, but there was a certain inherent complexity when it came to Life and Death. It wasn’t like spacetime, where everything was clear-cut and the final state was a result of precise calculations. Life contained a great element of chance, as well as hints of each cultivator’s personality, because the same reality seemed different to different people. The truth was subjective, to an extent—that’s why Jack took it slow, pondering on these truths as he drew them out, taking the time to fully insert his understandings into the runes.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

His lines were subtly different from the shadow’s. When he was finally done, having portrayed this hypothetical person’s emotional changes all the way to their inevitable death, he slowly removed his finger. The end result was two separate sets of runes, with clear differences between them, combining together to form a harmonic whole. Jack hadn’t just taken over, he’d made sure to incorporate and validate as many of the shadow’s insights as possible.

The shadow looked over the runes for a long time, then nodded deeply. Its white eyes flashed with what could be appreciation. Jack smiled—having your life’s work validated was always a pleasant feeling.

The runes collapsed, and another test began.

The shadow’s challenges grew exponentially more complex. Its next test depicted an entire solar system, with its sun and planets and moons and meteors and all sorts of little things. Jack had to accurately chart all their interactions with spacetime and each other. It took some time, but he succeeded—not quite a challenging task, but far more difficult than the first one. Thankfully, his foundation was solid, so failing here was impossible.

The fourth challenge concerned Life and Death. The shadow drew out an entire village of people, their lives and deaths plain for all to see, if they knew where to look. Jack used the presented lives of these people to draw out their future generations, assuming the village unaffected by outside factors. He chose to draw one of the brightest possible futures. The next generations slowly washed away the mental burdens passed down to them by their elders, eventually creating a stable and expanding, happy village.

By the time he was done, he didn’t know how long it had been. He’d lost track of time while drawing. The complexity of these runes had increased massively, from the starting set of three to the village encompassing hundreds of runes, so the time it took to complete them had also increased. Jack assumed it had been several hours.

At the fifth test, the shadow changed its tune. The darkness crept away from its face to reveal a faint smile, sharp teeth glinting through. It raised both hands and drew spacetime runes faster. They didn’t just hang there this time—as soon as they were drawn, they flew at Jack like attacks.

He could obviously use his cultivation to destroy them, but that wasn’t the point. Instead, excitement rising inside him, he raised his hands and drew runes in return. They clashed against the incoming ones. Lines met loose ends, completing them. The runes fizzled out of existence, neutralized.

The shadow accelerated, but so did Jack. Their runes turned faster and more complex—yet, every attack of the shadow was perfectly neutralized, Jack matching it in speed and grace. Its smile widened.

Life and Death runes crept into the battle. A mess of concepts now launched itself at Jack, each attack a question, each defense a perfect answer. Jack realized he was grinning. This was exhilarating. To meet someone who could match him and battle them in such a way… It was like meeting a soulmate. Someone who walked the exact same path as him. He wanted to keep going until he dropped, no longer caring about tests and floors.

His hands accelerated. His Fist shone through, igniting his fighting spirit. Jack could sense the creeping difficulty, but he wasn’t satisfied. He accelerated further, going all-out against the shadow. Facing its barrage of questions, not only did he draw perfect answers, but he incorporated his own testing questions and shot them back. The moment the first such rune reached the shadow, it paused for a second, stunned—and then its smile turned into a full-on grin. Its hands blurred as it accelerated to match Jack’s pace, the previous slow scaling all but forgotten. It accepted his challenge.

The stream of attacks turned two-way, Jack actively fighting back against the shadow. Questions and answers clashed in mid-air, the runes turning constantly more complex, constantly more complete. They were operating not on a surface level, but in deep concepts wrapped around each other, testing their opponent on the most hidden nuances. Jack was feeling genuinely challenged by this level, but all he knew was that he loved it.

Adjusted to my cultivation level my ass, he thought. No other B-Grade could do this. But fine. Let’s see what you got!

As the shadow jumped to a new level of complexity, Jack had to really zone in. Everything else disappeared as he went completely all-out, pulling from his arsenal concepts he didn’t fully grasp. A question about Death headed his way. His fingers flashed, drawing a perfect answer and a question furthering the subject, then shooting it right back. There wasn’t only Death in his question—he’d included an aspect of Space, gradually combining the two concepts, using his understanding of black holes to foil the shadow.

The shadow opened its mouth and laughed out loud—the first sound it made. Death and Space entwined, jumped from its fingers. They met Jack’s question, answered it, and pushed through. The shadow kept going, fusing Life and Time in the next question. They were now discussing the deepest secrets of the universe, an area where Jack wasn’t fully knowledgeable, but neither was the shadow. Both were struggling now, reaching for more than they could grasp. Jack felt his genuine joy mirrored in his opponent, and he could sense his understandings skyrocket through this battle, missing pieces falling into place.

Their answers turned imperfect. Light washed over Jack every time he failed to defend, and the same happened to the shadow, the shockwaves of Dao pushing back its darkness to reveal a pale face, featureless except for its eyes and mouth, which sported a creepy, abnormally wide grin.

Runes flew back and forth. Time, Space, Life, Death, all combined into an imperfect mess glued together by Jack’s understanding of the Fist. He charged through any problems he couldn’t solve, while his own attacks pierced deep, threatening just like a fist. Their runes were so many and so complex that they spread from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, every rune a soldier in a massive battle. Ethereal blue light filled the entire hall.

The shadow finally showed signs of exhaustion, its finger light sputtering as if attempting to draw concepts more complex than it could muster.

Jack saw his opening—and knew he was also reaching the end of his rope. He forced his hands to move faster. Exquisite runes appeared, the crystallization of Jack’s understanding into black holes. The shadow’s runes began to collapse. The two-way battle turned into a single-sided barrage of runes, against which the shadow desperately tried to defend, but most punched through its resistance. Flashes of light now covered it constantly. Jack had gained the definitive advantage.

Finally, the shadow raised a hand, using raw energy to disperse the runes. Everything came to an abrupt pause. “I yield,” said a voice, tinged with both joy and frustration. “Good job.”

“Well fought,” Jack replied, nodding deeply at the shadow. It may have lost, but it had provided Jack’s most enjoyable battle ever. His Dao and heart were soaring.

A chuckle escaped the shadow’s lips as it dissipated, turning into thin air, leaving the room as empty as it once was. The flying runes might as well have been a dream. Jack struggled to cope with the sudden lapse in action. He fell to his knees, panting, the tension still not completely out of his System.

“Congratulations,” the automaton at the far wall said. Its voice was slightly deeper than before. “Dao test result… Eternal!”