Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 406: Three Years

Jack’s eyes slowly opened. The moment they did, reality shuddered around him. Faint ripples spread in the surrounding timespace, and his body seemed to become deeper, drawing in everything like the focal point of the universe. Just by looking into his eyes, a mortal’s mind would easily fall into illusions.

Jack had meditated on these spacetime runes for the last three years. In this time, his fourth fruit had risen to full maturity, and he had also tempered his body a little. Brock’s cultivation had reached the exact same boundary, while Min Ling had developed her ninth fruit.

The turtle inside the Life Drop still hadn’t awakened, so Jack couldn’t pay it back the life energy he owed. Thankfully, Min Ling and Brock had agreed to let him have the green bean they’d gotten from one of the smaller cubes—it should be enough to roughly pay off his debt so the turtle didn’t kill him. Of course, he couldn’t hog all the benefits—he’d promised to repay them with interest.

However, his greatest harvest from these three years had been his comprehension into spacetime. It was simply incomparable to before—in the highly stable space of this cavern, just his aura alone could create ripples.

“I think I got it,” he whispered. His voice was low—yet, it grew stronger with distance instead of weakening, flying straight into his friends’ ears.

“Finally!” Min Ling cried out. Her body was half-submerged into the lava lake, enduring the impossible temperature. On the other side of the cavern, a large golden brorilla slowly dissipated, revealing Brock levitating in its midst. His feet lightly touched the ground—a white mantle with golden rims fluttered behind his back, formed out of pure bro power.

“I am happy for you, bro,” he said slowly, his eyes shining with golden embers. “Go on. Make us proud.”

Jack chuckled. He rose to his feet, letting the dust that had accumulated on his body tumble down. He banished it with a simple thought. Then, he raised his hands.

The spacetime runes on the tree were as mysterious as ever. They were green lines, criss-crossing its bark like natural patterns, yet holding infinite mysteries. In the past, Jack had found them incomprehensible.

From the start of his cultivation journey until now, six years had passed. Three of those had been spent in meditation in this simple cavern. A mortal would have long turned insane, but to a cultivator of Jack’s caliber, this was nothing but a longer meditation session.

But it was still three years.

By now, his hair hung to his shoulders, smooth and silken. His eyes were tinged with calm wisdom, yet his body contained such bottled-up power that he was like an unchained wild beast, an avatar of primal savagery about to erupt. Meditating for this long hadn’t dulled him in the slightest. His fists were far harder than they used to be.

Jack took a deep breath. He raised his hands, probing the air with his fingers.

Space wasn’t uniform. It contained denser and thinner areas, constantly moving and changing at such speeds that they might as well not exist. Yet, now, his fingers accurately traced their trajectories, capturing the weakest points. With a sudden move, he pierced into them, poking his fingers into the fabric of spacetime.

Then, he pulled. The curtain wasn’t parted, but as he poured his Dao into it, it changed shape. No longer was space flat. It was a sheet curved to Jack’s will, manifesting into shapes that seemed unreasonable. Space itself turned into runes. For a time, the cavern shook; parts of the lava floated upwards and in all directions, the stone was warped, and even the massive tree groaned as it experienced the effects of Jack’s space curving. Brock and Min Ling almost lost their footing. They could have used their own Dao to stabilize space around them, but that would disturb Jack’s precise warping.

Jack molded space like dough. He turned and twisted it, folded it, stretched it, and turned it inside out. The cavern’s multiple spatial locks groaned as they were resolved one by one, restoring space here to its normal state.

Jack’s forehead was drenched in sweat. Manipulating space to this degree took everything he had. His body, mind, and will were fully immersed in the task. He couldn’t afford a simple mistake.

Space here was covered in a series of spatial locks, and resolving them was the way to passing the trial. Of course, these locks had been set by Archon Green Dragon. Jack couldn’t even come close to forcefully unraveling them. The only reason he was succeeding was because the spacetime runes on the tree contained precise instructions on how to deal with each lock, illustrated as lines and angles that Jack had spent many months learning how to read.

However, a single mistake could cause unknown changes to these locks, rendering the instructions obsolete. If that happened, Jack would be as good as trapped forever—resolving them with just his own power was impossible.

The unlocking process lasted for ten whole minutes. Brock and Min Ling didn’t dare breathe too loud in fear of disturbing Jack. When a spatial twist tore off part of Brock’s calf, he didn’t even make a peep.

As for Min Ling, her eyes remained glued on Jack. Before entering this cavern, she had wholeheartedly acknowledged his talent, and they had adventured together, each saving the other’s life.

After that, they had spent three years together. Those weren’t spent entirely cultivating—the three of them would often interact with each other, chatting or relaxing together, even playing games. They had become close during that time. They had talked about many things. She had seen into his moral character, his virtuousness, his decisiveness. She admired and respected him from the bottom of her heart.

All those factors, coupled with Jack’s rugged handsomeness, were enough to birth emotions into her heart. She wasn’t completely sure what she felt—it was only now, as she watched him resolve the spatial locks and release them from this sealed chamber, that she realized she didn’t look forward to leaving. These three years had been peaceful and beautiful—a beacon of happiness in her difficult life. She would remember them fondly.

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Jack had no idea about the thoughts running through Min Ling’s mind. His full attention was devoted to warping spacetime. The entire cavern was bent now, with even time flowing differently in various places. Jack gritted his teeth. He took a step forward. His foot sank into space, disappearing, quickly followed by the rest of his body.

As he maintained utter focus, he followed a weird path. Sometimes he stepped forward, others sideways, even backward. With every step, his body would teleport, reappearing in some random part of the cavern. Finally, he reappeared at his original spot, took another deep breath, and stepped in two directions at once.

His body broke apart. One half of him was standing on the rocks, but the other was on the branches of the giant tree. Yet, not one drop of blood was spilled. Jack’s body wasn’t really torn; it was space that was malfunctioning. After two, his body broke into four, then eight, and then finally recombined as one.

The moment it did, he finally relaxed. All tension left him. Space shuddered as it reverted to its original shape, but all spatial locks were now missing. The only peculiarity was that the entrance hole still hadn’t reappeared—Jack had long realized it wasn’t really a tunnel, but a small wormhole knitted into the surrounding space. There was nothing to reappear. If he wanted to exit that way, he would need to craft his own spacetime tunnel.

Jack was now standing right in front of the massive tree, looking up at the green runes that filled his mind.

“Is it done?” Brock asked, looking around. “Did you succeed?”

“I did,” Jack replied, throwing back his head to relax for a moment.

“Then…”

Brock’s puzzlement was natural. In his eyes, nothing had changed. The cavern remained as it was. Where was the inheritance?

“Can you see something we don’t?” Min Ling asked.

“No,” Jack replied with a smile, “but I know it’s there.”

His palm gently touched the tree, then kept going. His arm submerged into the trunk. Jack smiled, waved at his friends, and entered the tree fully, passing through a spatial corridor to reappear in a small, sealed-off chamber.

Ancient wood surrounded him in all directions. The air smelled of time. He was clearly inside the tree, with no entrance, exit, or window visible. It was just him in a small hole.

Yet, this hole was the very heart of the tree, the very heart of the hidden realm. And the reason Jack knew it was because right in front of him, inside the tiny chamber, was a pulsating realm heart.

Realm Heart (A-Grade)

A dense collection of spacetime runes. A realm heart can only be constructed by those who have reached the peak of the Material Dao, and it is considered the height of sophistication.

Realm hearts contain a set of instructions and energy patterns that can simulate and support the existence of an independent timespace. It is, in essence, a permanent Dao enchantment that can be used to create a separate dimension.

WARNING: Realm hearts are regulated objects. Do not disturb it. Report its existence to the nearest Hand of God branch to receive generous rewards.

Jack chuckled at the warning. The System could be cute sometimes.

Waving away the screen, he took his own look at the realm heart. It was a transparent crystal truly shaped as a beating heart, but instead of blood, what it circulated was a large amount of extremely tiny runes. These runes were so tightly packed inside it that they seemed about to burst apart. Every beat of this heart released a number of runes into the air, where they merged into the hidden realm’s space and disappeared, and then the contraction of that beat pulled spacetime energy into the heart, where it could be used to produce new runes.

The System had called this object the height of sophistication. Jack had no grounds to disagree. The sheer complexity of such a device made his head throb, and it was so far beyond his level that if he spent ten thousand years meditating, he still wouldn’t grasp even its tiniest corner.

At the same time, this realm heart was not just made of spacetime. Jack could sense a powerful source of life energy inside it, a bottomless pool of vitality. His breath caught to his throat. Though he couldn’t see it through the runes, he suspected that the Archon had forged a Life Artifact and part of his own body into this heart, giving it the ability to not only support a separate dimension, but also fill it with life. This was what had resonated with the Life Drop when Jack first gazed at the hole so long ago.

Such a creation was unimaginable. If Jack’s guesses were correct, this realm heart was the sole reason for the hidden realm’s continued existence, as well as the reason why it was filled with draconic and plant lifeforms. Archon Green Dragon must have been a plant-type dragon himself.

This was an unsurpassed treasure.

A heavy voice filled with majesty suddenly echoed in the chamber. “Three years. That is barely acceptable.”

Jack looked around in surprise. Yet, he didn’t feel anyone’s aura—this was still a pre-recorded message, though how it knew he spent three years here was beyond him.

“By resolving the elementary life cube and the spacetime locks, you have received the qualifications to attempt to receive my inheritance. This is a great opportunity for you. However, be warned: my inheritance is not so easy to absorb. The greatest test lies ahead. Understanding alone will not be enough—you must possess a powerful body, unyielding will, extreme battle power, and enough perception to scale the heavens! If you are willing to continue, touch the Dragonlife Realm Heart and attempt to refine it. Otherwise, cut open a space tunnel and return where you came from. I only ask that after you leave, you reinstate the spatial locks of the heart cavern.”

Jack’s mind shook. So far, the tests of Archon Green Dragon had been cold and cruel. A single mistake would leave one dead or stranded for life. Why would he offer a way back now? Was it a trap? Or did he really fear that someone would fail here after resolving the locks, rendering his tests null for the next challenger?

It didn’t matter. Jack had worked three years for this opportunity. He wasn’t going to give up now.

He touched the realm heart—and, suddenly, he was whisked away.

The world changed again. He found himself in a white land. There were no trees, no stones—just an endless white plain stretching to infinity under a blue sky.

A bright light flashed. Jack felt seen through, as if all his secrets had been uncovered. In the next moment, twelve figures appeared around him, each different than the last. The most eye-catching were two; a strict yet kind-looking man radiating extreme life energy, as well as a creature that resembled a blob of dark, sinister aura.

As for the rest, they were humanoid, but not really—more like bundles of energy in a vague humanoid body with featureless faces. One was made of fire. Another, of stars. A third comprised of many small spheres tightly assembled into a humanoid shape, and a fourth seemed normal, but everything around it was warped, as if it was drawing them in. The fifth creature was made of lightning, the sixth of blue and red sparks, the seventh of explosions, and so was the eighth, except fewer but larger ones. Finally, there were two creatures that only appeared as bodies of water, one resembling a rippling pond and the other a steady current.

Twelve creatures in total. A number he’d encountered before. It instantly made him draw connections, but he actually didn’t need it to recognize these creatures because he’d seen them before. Their appearances were engraved in an iron door in the bowels of Trial Planet.

They were the twelve Old Gods.