Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 409: Come and Take it!

Three years ago…

After long discussions, the B-Grades finally came to a decision. They would not explore the rest of the temple. The risk was too high, and the lower-level ones amongst them had teamed up and refused to be taken advantage of.

As for Spacewind, he had been relegated to a side role. He could speak, but nobody asked for his opinion any longer. That made the flames of bitterness inside him burn even hotter, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Instead of exploring, they would spend some time waiting. Perhaps this imprisonment was a periodic phenomenon, or maybe it would somehow resolve itself. If they died before that happened, they really would be fools.

Therefore, the B-Grades sat down and meditated. One year passed. That was also their deadline. After one year, nothing had changed.

Of course, one year was nothing to them. If they had to wait ten, a hundred, or even a thousand years, they could still endure it. The problem was their uncertainty. How long would they need to wait for? Would anything ever happen, or were they fools just wasting away their years when the exit lay in the next room?

Moreover, after a year, the C-Grades outside the temple were also growing restless. They had already scoured most of the jungle—they hadn’t expected the expedition to last this long.

The B-Grades reconvened. The nine of them took stock of the situation, calmly analyzing all possibilities. Finally, they decided they could no longer sit still. They had to explore the temple.

In truth, there were ways to do so which wouldn’t involve risking their lives. It was just that these methods were too time-consuming…but what choice did they have?

Beast taming was its Dao. However, it also served as a side-occupation of many cultivators, just like healing or formation mastery. There were people here who practiced it. With a heavy heart, the B-Grades retraced their steps to safely exit the temple, then used their communication devices to gather all C-Grades together.

“We are stuck here for the foreseeable future,” Uruselam declared, to the fright of many. “It could be tens, hundreds, or thousands of years. There is no way to tell. Our best hope is to fully explore the temple, but it is filled with powerful traps that even we could fall to. There is only one solution—we will subdue every single C-Grade and B-Grade beast in this jungle and use them as scouts!”

Though he said scouts, he really meant meatshields. Even if C-Grades had no chance of survival in the face of these traps, it didn’t matter. They could scout them out. With enough numbers, all problems would be resolved!

As for D-Grade creatures, those couldn’t even resist the temple’s heavy aura. Dragging them along was meaningless.

Therefore, the entire group settled down in an area of the jungle near the temple. The B-Grades would often spread out, looking for C-Grade and above beasts and capturing them. Anyone familiar with beast taming had their hands full—subduing even a single beast was a time-consuming process. Thankfully, they only used gentle methods, as high-level beasts were too powerful to yield to torture.

Two more years passed.

The cultivators had remained in their area, often cultivating. Rain came often, and it was annoying, so they built roofs over their heads. Then, nobody wanted to be looked at by the others all the time—they built walls. Gradually, a small village appeared inside the jungle. Since all treasures had already been taken, there was no point to infighting—everyone cultivated peacefully, gradually getting to know each other. People became closer.

Taming all the necessary beasts was a process that could take up to a hundred years. Even after that, when they explored the temple, there was no guarantee they would find a way out. They could be stuck here for life.

Though terrifying, nobody could discount that possibility. They thought they would stay for decades in the least. The village was built to last. Over half of the people present were humans, including both men and women. They could have children. If they really were stranded here forever, this little village would develop into a civilization of its own.

They even gave it a name—Green Cultivator Town!

And the only sore thumb was Spacewind, who stewed in anger in his tiny hut in this tiny little village.

***

Jack had no idea about any of those, nor did he much care. His hand touched the realm heart, and his mind was instantly whisked to a new world.

A green dragon coiled in space. Its size was impossible to judge. Perhaps it was a hundred feet across, or maybe a hundred miles. There was nothing else nearby.

The dragon had bright, verdant scales. Its flesh underneath was made of wood, and its horns were tree branches. Yet, its eyes shone with fierce intelligence, penetrating even the toughest barriers.

This was a tree dragon—similar to the one Jack had met at the start of this expedition, but unimaginably greater.

Archon Green Dragon did not seem to notice Jack’s soul presence. It raised a claw, gently dragging it through the void. Space tore open like a taut sheet, spilling out its mysteries, and the dragon cupped them all in its claws.

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It began to weave.

Endless runes flowed out of its claw tips. Its sharp eyes were mellowed in gentle concentration. Space and time warped around it, subdued by the dragon’s incalculable strength and shaped by its comprehension. The Dao yielded fully—it was nothing but a tool, clay which this dragon shaped.

Power alone was not enough to achieve this. The dragon wielded its power with extreme precision, curving the sheet without breaking it, affecting it in ways which encompassed the myriad changes of spacetime. Runes sprang into existence, folding in on themselves to create the beginnings of a material shape.

Jack watched with rapt attention. Every move, every tiny change of this dragon’s claws contained infinite wisdom. This sight was far superior to just observing some runes. Jack felt his own comprehension rising. He could understand less than a thousandth of the dragon’s moves, yet just from watching them, he was inspired—it was like an Archon was deliberately demonstrating its Dao for Jack, showcasing every single nook and cranny, every major piece and hidden detail.

All the understandings together wove into a puzzle represented by the gathering runes before the dragon.

Jack couldn’t tell how much time has passed. Perhaps he had been here for a day or a month. The dragon kept weaving, slowly exhausting its strength even as the surrounding spacetime was sundered apart. The clump of runes before it had slowly taken the shape of a heart, beating at a painfully slow pace. The more runes that entered it, the faster the heart beat, until it finally reached one beat every three seconds. Tiny runes streamed out, and the surrounding spacetime energy was drawn in between beats, refilling the heart runes.

Seeing this, the dragon was finally satisfied. A small smile of appreciation appeared in its eyes. Yet, though it was satisfied, it was not done.

With a decisive move, the dragon turned its head and bit off its own shoulderblade, tearing it out in a shower of wood and green blood. With a pained grunt, it brought the shoulderblade close to the heart.

Before this wooden shoulderblade, the realm heart was just a tiny speck—yet, the shoulderblade shrunk, magically changed to an even tinier size than the heart as it flew inside its core and nestled there.

The heart beat again. This time, a faint pulse of life radiated alongside the runes. Only now was the dragon’s work over, and its exhausted body relaxed as it observed the fruit of its labor.

Jack could sense that the dragon was weakened. Though its shoulderblade had been removed, such an injury should have been nothing to a being of such caliber. He suspected that, alongside the shoulderblade, the dragon had torn off something else from its body, something more vital.

In forging this realm heart, Archon Green Dragon had really gone all-out.

A moment of calm came. Jack remained too shocked to think clearly. The insights he’d just witnessed made up an incalculable wealth, as if a god had descended from the heavens and patiently laid out a path of progression. If this vision remained inside his head like all the others, the benefits would be inestimable. By using it as a template, his progress in spacetime would be fast beyond belief!

The vision warped as if about to end. But then, something changed. A strange force grabbed the vision and held it in place, suddenly making it clearer and more vivid than ever before. Jack could see every little scale on the dragon, every Dao particle in the surrounding space.

The dragon was alarmed. It released a low growl, scanning the world around it. “Who’s there?” it demanded to know, shaking existence with its willpower.

“Retribution.”

Spacetime shook, then shattered. The sheet was completely torn away. All remaining spacetime particles rose as a vortex which slowly formed into two phantasmal beings—each resembled a body of water, one constantly rippling and the other ceaselessly flowing in one direction.

Jack drew a deep breath! He’d just fought these beings; they were the Space and Time Gods!

However, even these were not the real bodies. They were avatars formed of spacetime, mere projections of the Gods too far away to arrive in person. Yet, even like this, their aura was staggering. Each of the two avatars approached the weakened dragon in power—if their real bodies were here, they would be even stronger.

Was Jack about to witness the power of true Gods?

“You wield our power,” said one of the beings, its voice carrying an indescribable quality.

“But without permission,” added the other. “Enas opened his domain. We did not. That which you have created is ours.”

If the dragon was shocked at the appearance of the two Old Gods, it did not show it. Though its aura was faintly suppressed, it still raised its proud head to glare at them.

“Empty talk,” it declared. “The only language I speak is power. If you want something from me, come and take it!”

Come and take it… What a phrase to speak to Gods!

“Very well,” they responded in one voice, and then attacked.

Unfortunately, this battle was not one Jack was meant to watch. Before it even began, one of the two avatars waved a finger in Jack’s direction without looking. A tremendous power struck him. The vision shattered, throwing him back into his own body.

That was also expected. In a previous Dao Vision, back in the Exploding Sun, even the A-Grade vampire had noticed someone watching. These two Old Gods, even in avatar form, could easily achieve the same. So could the dragon, but it had let Jack watch—it had been the one to create the Dao Vision this time, not the ever-present System.

Jack was shaken. Two Old Gods… An Archon creating a realm heart… A forbidden power…

The Old Gods, the Immortals, the Crusade… Those were all things Jack was faintly aware of, but they were too far away to affect him. Yet, the more he rose in power, the more he approached these entities. If he advanced his Dao to the peak, would the Old Gods arrive to stop him like they had with Archon Green Dragon?

But, since the realm heart was right in front of Jack, the Archon had likely won that battle.

Jack shook his head. Looking inside his mind, the Dao Vision remained, but only up to the point of the dragon finishing the realm heart. The attack of the two Old Gods was only a faint memory—and the difference was that, while he could recall it, he could not observe it for Dao understandings.

It was fine. He had inherited the legacy of an Archon. The benefits this would bring… The honor…

But Jack quickly composed himself. His goal was the peak of cultivation—and he suspected that an Archon, while close, was still a step away. If he really could reach the peak, receiving such an inheritance was only a matter of course.

“Thank you, Archon Green Dragon,” he said, respectfully lowering his head at the realm heart. He then raised his eyes.

He had not perfectly inherited the legacy yet. The Archon had spoken of refining the realm heart. For a third and last time, he raised his hand and placed it on the heart.