Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 401: Fishing for Benefits

In the black dragon’s cavern, everyone inspected the three cubes and meditated. The doors were closed. They would not open until the cubes did.

Like this, a month passed.

Meditating on some lines was not a quick process, but it also wasn’t a hopeless one. The more abstract the subject, the more ways to see it. The B-Grades had not lost their vigor—if anything, the challenge had ignited their competitiveness, causing them to dive even deeper into their attempts at comprehension.

This was also true for the weaker B-Grades present. Though they didn’t have much hope of actually earning anything inside the boxes, the lines themselves hid insights into the Dao. Meditating on them was a slow process of enlightenment, as if some wisdom was carving itself into the backs of their minds.

To B-Grades, this feeling was priceless. They had eventually realized that, let alone the treasures, even meditating on these lines was a lucky chance.

As for Min Ling and Brock, they too spent their time gazing at the lines. They held infinite complexity; there were 999 of them across the three cubes, each of irregular depth and width, and all of them intersected in a million different ways. Each tiny change was a clue, and all of those together would form an image. They wanted to see it.

Spacewind and Uruselam were right. Given time, they would indeed decode these cubes. It would take anywhere from half a year to three years.

However, that applied to most people. Jack was different.

He had seen these lines before. He possessed the death cube—a cube also covered in 999 lines of irregular depth and width. Though the death cube had many differences to these three, they were clearly similar.

Moreover, the death cube was much easier to comprehend. Its insights were richer and more condensed, each line forming a complete system. When he had meditated on it for a few days before, it had been enough to gain a significant harvest. By using the death cube as the key to decoding the other three cubes, his progress was much faster than everybody else’s!

After a week, though he wasn’t halfway there yet, he had taken significant steps. He now understood that, while the death cube concerned death, these cubes of similar origin concerned life.

When contrasting the two side by side, many things became clear. The death cube’s lines were all perfect loops with no end or beginning. That was because each line signified a life, and since the death cube spoke about death, each of those lives had already reached its end and returned to the starting point.

On the other hand, these three cubes represented the concept of life. Each of their lines represented a life, but unlike the death cube’s, not all of them were over. Some were depicted at the prime of their youth, in the decline of old years, or in various other states. That was why these cubes had lines with beginnings and ends, while the death cube only contained perfect loops.

Of course, these three cubes were far inferior to the death cube in quality. The main reason for that was their imperfections—the lines of the three cubes were not perfectly carved, containing various tiny differences from the real thing. Perhaps a carving was one inch too shallow, or half an inch too wide, or slightly more angular than it should have been. On such a profound system, however, it was difficult to distinguish which of these were carving mistakes and which were intended as part of the cube.

These all originated from the fact that these cubes were not natural, like the death cube, but artificially carved. It was like someone possessed a genuine life cube and had tried to duplicate it. That was why they were so much larger than the death cube—to give the sculptor more space—and also why they contained imperfections—when carving such complicated lines, even an A-Grade engraver could make mistakes.

As it was, these mistakes greatly increased the difficulty, mostly because nobody had realized they existed. Everyone else took the mistakes as part of the puzzle; they had no way of knowing better. Only Jack could contrast the two systems and find the minor inconsistencies.

These cubes, by themselves, were a great lucky chance. That was especially so for Jack. He cultivated life and death, but for death, he had the death cube and Elder Boatman’s crystallized insights. His attainments in that Dao were currently low, but they would climb meteorically. As for Life, he had no such shortcuts. All he could rely on were his Life-related accumulated insights from practicing the Fist, but those would eventually be outpaced by his comprehensions of Death, and then his entire Dao system would be imbalanced.

He was in dire need of a way to comprehend Life…and these cubes were exactly that.

Gazing into the lines, Jack lost track of time. Everything else disappeared—the cultivators, the cavern, the treasures, everything turned to smoke. It was just him and the three cubes, which he restlessly scanned with his eyes. Every line was a story. He traced every change in depth, every widening and narrowing, every curve and intersection with others.

999 lives. None of them were ordinary. As Jack understood more and more things, he realized that the lines were talking about kings and gods, about devils, martyrs, heroes, and those who suffered most. Each life was extreme. The insights hidden inside them were far richer than in a regular person’s.

There were three cubes, but in truth, they were all part of a whole. The two small ones held 250 lines each, and the larger one held 499, for a total of 999 lines—999 lives.

Jack sat cross-legged in front of each cube for a long amount of time. He entered a completely pure meditation state, where the entire world melted away. The only hints of movement came when he stood up and moved to a different side of the cube or to a different cube.

Meditating on those lines was somewhat similar to experiencing the Dao Chamber of Mortality but incomparably more effective. Moreover, he observed them for far longer. During this time, his understanding of Life shot up. Without knowing it, his Fist of Mortality skill had risen from the first to the second tier, bordering on the third, and the Dao Fruit of Life in his soul was growing ever brighter like a green star.

One day, Jack finished observing the last line. His mind snapped into focus, returning to the dark cavern with the closed doors. Looking down, a faint layer of dust had gathered on his legs.

How long was I sitting for? he wondered.

Slowly, he stood, finding that the space around him was filled with other meditating cultivators. None of them had entered the depths he did—the imperfections of the carvings would create contradictions, constantly shaking them out of their spiritual focus and preventing them from achieving the same state of nirvana as Jack. Even Spacewind and Uruselam had faint creases in their brows.

Jack looked around, finally discovering Brock standing in a corner, slowly reading from a golden book in his lap. As he approached, Jack saw that the book only held images, not letters—Brock had never learned to read.

“Hey,” he said.

Brock looked up from his book. “Sup,” he said. “Are you winning, bro?”

“I, uh… Kinda? Those carvings are complex, but I think I may have understood one line by now,” Jack replied out loud. Through telepathy, however, he informed Brock of his real progress. He had fully comprehended the lines. Or, at least, enough that he was confident he could unlock the cubes.

Brock nodded.

“How long was I meditating for?” Jack asked.

“Three months.”

Three months… Jack shook his head. Cultivation really is timeless. I wonder how my kids have grown. Perhaps I should go out and see them.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He spoke into the brorilla’s mind. “Are you ready to go?”

“I was born ready, brother.”

Jack smiled. “Alright.”

He then turned back towards the cubes. He was confident he could unlock them. The problem was that, even if he did, all those B-Grades would just take the treasures and give him nothing. He wasn’t willing to let that happen.

He needed a plan.

And, thankfully, Jack had a penchant for imaginative, unlikely, yet oddly successful plans.

But first, he needed to get Min Ling on board. They were friends now. He didn’t want to share with all those cut-throat B-Grades, but he would with her and Brock.

***

One day later, Jack sat and gazed at the cubes alongside everyone else. They were meditating on them. He was trying to solve them.

Life and death… he thought, letting the connections happen in his mind. Two parts of a whole. One without the other is incomplete. To solve the cubes, I must simulate the progression of all the incomplete lines until they form a perfect loop—until they die and return to their starting point. That is how I prove my comprehension. That is how I solve the riddle.

He smiled. The Sage had once said that divination was part of the Dao of Life. Jack hadn’t understood at the time, but now he did. By observing and understanding all these complete lines, he could infer the ends of the incomplete lines as well. He could predict their future.

Of course, he was still a novice. He couldn’t do it too well. But after meditating on these cubes as well as the death cube, he felt a degree of confidence—and, even if his predictions weren’t perfect, neither were the lines themselves. Whoever set this puzzle should have left a generous error margin.

Jack stared at one of the smaller cubes. It contained two hundred and fifty lines; of those, only twenty-five were incomplete. He slowly extrapolated their future course, confirming his predictions over and over again until they were as good as he could make them. Then, he held the complete solution in his mind…and waited.

One hour passed. Then another. Jack was patient, like a hunter stalking his prey.

The other cultivators couldn’t completely immerse themselves in these lines like he had. They would often stand up to stretch their legs or reset their thoughts. A few cultivators did, but Jack still waited. He let time pass.

Finally, five days after he’d locked onto the solution, Spacewind also moved. He dusted himself off and walked away, strolling to the large hole on the far side of the cavern. He often looked at it. Perhaps it stoked his greed.

As soon as Jack saw Spacewind rising, he knew the time was near. He waited until the other man was over the hole, gazing into its depths. Then, with a single flex of his mind, Jack constructed twenty-five perfect lines of Dao and plastered them at the end of the small cube’s incomplete lines.

It happened too quickly for anyone to realize who did what. The entire cube shone like a green beacon. All the lines disappeared, and the stone of the cube melted away, revealing a green bean underneath.

Though this was just a tiny bean, it emitted intense amounts of power. Jack’s mind was almost shaken. This was absolutely an extreme treasure! A treasure that would make even peak B-Grades froth with greed, let alone these early B-Grades!

Everything had happened too quickly and without warning. Most cultivators remained stunned. Spacewind, who was in the distance, had just turned his head, his mouth wide open in shock.

Uruselam, however, was right next to the small cube. His face hardened. His eyes shone with avarice. He shouted out loud, unleashing a massive wind that blew everyone far away. His hand snaked forward.

The bean entered Uruselam’s space ring. He then shot to his feet and flew towards the doors quickly enough to create multiple sonic booms. Spacewind was also flying over, but he was a bit too far away—the distance would be hard to cover. “Stop him!” he roared.

Two Church cultivators flew in Uruselam’s path.

“Out of my way!” shouted the monk. A massive golden palm appeared, slapping the two cultivators at full power. Their defenses burst apart. Both of them spat blood and crashed into the walls, letting Uruselam fly past between them. With another shout, that golden palm slammed into the giant double doors, smashing them open so abruptly they were almost ripped from their hinges.

Uruselam flew out at maximum speed. Spacewind followed an instant later. By now, every other B-Grade had reacted as well, and they activated their movement skills to rush after their leaders as quickly as they could. Shouts and shockwaves came from afar—the medicine garden was torn apart, the entire mountain shook, and the B-Grades disappeared into the tunnels at multiple times the speed of sound.

Only three people were left behind: Jack, Brock, and Min Ling.

Everything had gone according to Jack’s plan.

When the cube opened, nobody cared who or how achieved it. They only wanted the treasure. They were ready to erupt into a bloody battle, but thanks to Jack’s calculations, Spacewind had been away. Thus, the strongest person present was clearly Uruselam, who easily took ahold of the treasure.

After that, he wasn’t an idiot to stay there and wait for Spacewind to catch up. If that happened, they would be forced to split the treasure—if they fought instead, one would die, and the other would be so weakened that someone else might kill him afterward.

Therefore, Uruselam rapidly calculated everything and chose the only sensible option: flee to the nearest exit portal. He could directly leave the hidden realm, keep the bean, and then invite stronger people to compete for the rest of the treasures.

After all, just this bean was an extreme treasure. Taking it was far better than striving for the contents of the larger cube and probably dying in the process, not to mention the benefits he would receive from his faction if he notified them about all these.

But Spacewind couldn’t let that happen. As soon as Uruselam had fled, he followed at high speed, using everything he had to catch up. If Uruselam really exited the hidden realm, Spacewind would get absolutely nothing!

As for everyone else, staying here was meaningless. They could only follow their leaders and participate in the battle, if it occurred.

All those conditions resulted in the cavern emptying in the blink of an eye. The only ones remaining were Jack, Brock, and Min Ling—the three C-Grades. Nobody found that weird, either. Why would they want to rush into a B-Grade battle?

As everyone ran away, Brock and Min Ling converged to the remaining two cubes. Jack was already there, meditating on the second small cube with every ounce of concentration he possessed. Nobody disturbed him. Only a few seconds later, a Dao construct of lines fell on the second cube, smoothly melting it and revealing a second green bean.

“I’ll keep this for now,” Min Ling said, drawing it into her space ring. Brock didn’t disagree, and Jack was already meditating on the largest cube.

They wouldn’t take just one treasure. They would take everything!

But, they were also against the clock. Jack had calculated everything many times. He had concluded that, after Uruselam took off, Spacewind would catch up before they reached the nearest exit portal. After all, space and wind both focused on speed. The B-Grades of both factions would engage in a brutal melee, and that would give Jack the time he needed to open both cubes, take the treasures, then rush to another exit portal and leave this place.

After all, they had walked for a long time and arrived at multiple exit portals. To reach the nearest, the B-Grades would exit the medicine garden cavern and turn sharply to the right. However, Jack kept the three-dimensional map of this temple in his mind, and he knew that if he turned sharply to the left after exiting the medicine garden, he would also arrive at a portal. It would just be somewhat farther away than the right one.

The portals had confused Uruselam’s divination as they explored the temple, making them work in circles. Those circles now worked in Jack’s favor.

He was fairly certain this plan would work, but anything could go wrong in the process. Perhaps Uruselam would make it to the exit portal. Perhaps any B-Grade would catch on and return to the cavern.

So, they had to hurry. Jack had already simulated the opening of the cubes until they were muscle memory, which was why he was so quick, but he still needed a few seconds. The large cube, in particular, was the most challenging one. Constructing all those lines took enough time that Jack felt like he was suffocating—every second brought them closer to death.

He hastily completed the lines and sent them onto the cube. They latched on—he looked on with bated breath. After all, he wasn’t perfect. In this situation, he only had a sixty percent confidence in resolving the cube on the first try.

The lines glowed for a moment, then a particular spot darkened. They all died down and disappeared.

Jack’s heart reached his throat. He had failed! However, that short darkening had shown him where he was wrong. He was confident there were no other mistakes. He could unlock it on the next try. But did he have the time?

“Go for it,” Min Lin said quickly. “We should make it. We have to risk it!”

He nodded. The construct gathered in his mind, a mass of swirling lines undergoing a thousand variations every second. His eyes scanned the cube. This was his last chance. He had to get it right.

The lines smashed onto the cube with force. The entire thing shone—then, before their eyes, it melted. Jack cried out in relief. His hand shot into the cube before it even melted completely, grabbing a small wooden key and shoving it into his space ring.

Then, without a word, the three of them shot away!

All the treasures had been taken. The exit portal was nearby. It was time to run!