Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack dived into the waterfall, arms outstretched.

He instantly lost his vision and all his senses. The world disappeared. There was only him and endless cold, so piercing and biting it encompassed everything. He couldn’t even feel pain, regret, or fear; all he felt was cold.

Jack’s body froze. Not metaphorically; it literally froze into an ice statue. His blood barely kept circulating, and his heart and brain slowed down to such a degree that he might as well have been dead.

In his own little world, Jack was alone. Everything had been lost, even his own thoughts were frozen still. He could only stand there, in a blue, empty world.

However, even though his body and part of his mind had frozen, a vestige of his consciousness remained. In that moment, as everything else faded away, Jack experienced absolute clarity. He felt like a God; his mental reserves were limitless, and he had no needs; he could devote everything to any path he desired, and he could travel endless miles in a second.

His mind was unfettered, lost in endless tranquility. He was acting on instinct. A scene appeared before him, the scene of a man punching through a mountain-sized beast. The vision he’d only glimpsed before was magnified, analyzed, slowed down, and replayed from multiple angles.

Jack barely had any awareness of himself. He was an empty shell, and that shell was freely flooded with the essence of that fist. He became the fist and the bald man that wielded it. He became the punch that tore through the beast, and he became the beast itself, sensing everything as his body was torn apart.

He felt everything, and there were so many things that didn’t make sense, so many things to learn.

That scene had been carved in his soul with all its details, but his mind hadn’t been capable of comprehending them. Now, it was; and though he only understood the tiniest part, he felt his world growing and himself on the cusp of a realization so massive it dwarfed every thought he’d ever had.

It was the same realization that had come to him with the original vision, the one that had slipped out of his grasp.

However, just as he was on the verge of understanding, something tugged at him. An annoying feeling rose from his legs, slowly spreading to the rest of his body, as if he was losing control. He frowned in annoyance, unwilling to lose focus over something so small, but the feeling persisted.

A voice in his mind whispered that he should leave. That he was in danger.

Danger? he finally wondered. Why?

And the moment he did, the whisper turned into a thundering shout. The vision dispersed as his own voice thundered across the little realm he stood in.

“LEAVE!”

Jack opened his eyes and fell back. He could barely feel his body. The cold had invaded his every nook and cranny, from the wrinkles of his brain to the marrow of his bones. Only the System’s magic—his Constitution—saved him. He felt terror.

I almost died, he thought. Everything was fast. When he fell back, his body practically teleported to the lake’s bottom. His lungs were swiftly losing their oxygen, and the water danced over him like crazy.

No, it wasn’t that the world was fast. He was slow; frozen. The only reason his lungs still held was that his bodily functions underperformed so greatly they didn’t draw much oxygen.

I will die, he realized. He’d had nightmares like this before. He was slow, much slower than everything. In those dreams, he’d try to rise from his bed, only to fall on the floor, unable to coordinate his body at such painfully slow motion. He’d try to speak, to call for help, but he could only make deep, unintelligible sounds.

His current situation was similar, but it was not a dream. He could not control his body. He could barely sense his thoughts. And the more he waited, the greater the pain became—everywhere.

Jack was drowning in more than one ways. He struggled to stand, but it was impossible. In the end, he turned around on the pond floor and managed to crawl forward, his arms uncoordinated but enough for such a simple task.

The pain kept growing. His head was about to burst. His eyes were frozen. His lungs burned. His focus narrowed on the simple motions of reaching out, dragging himself forward, and repeating.

Jack was sure he’d die, but for some reason, he pressed forth. He didn’t want to go quietly into the night. He would charge ahead, break through everything with overwhelming power, or die trying.

He was a fist.

Time passed. Jack didn’t know how he found himself on the shore, but he did. Next thing he knew, he was heaving and panting, his body surrounded by a little pond of his own. Time had returned to normal around him—he had returned to normal.

He was shivering, and not just because of the cold.

What the hell was that? he asked himself, still shaken to the core. What had happened? Just how freezing was that damn waterfall? And how had he survived?

He didn’t know. His memory was a jumbled mess. All he remembered was the empty blue world, the crawling through ice water, as well as a giant, world-encompassing fist…

What the hell just happened? he repeated the question, then turned to the one entity that might know. The System.

Ice Pond bonus: +5 Physical

Ice Pond bonus acquired!

That was all. Jack was left staring at the first screen. +5!?

An insane amount! He’d finally gotten all stat benefits of the ice pond, according to the second screen, and they were a total of 18 points in Physical—or 18 in each of his physical stats. That was the equivalent of nine Levels!

However, he’d paid dearly for it. He didn’t even know how close he’d come to death, but it couldn’t have been more than a hair away. If he hadn’t retreated at that final moment…

He spared a glance for the waterfall, which still poured down calmly as if harmless. Only Jack knew the incredible danger that hid below its surface, and he gulped. He swore not to approach it again unless he got significantly stronger. No matter how dire his situation, that was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.

But how dire was his situation, really? With all the ice pond bonuses and the other resources, Jack had secured a gain of over ten Levels worth of points. Given that he was Level 22, his current fighting prowess should be in the mid-thirties. In this forest, besides the wolf boss, who could stand up to him?

Only the monkey boss had a chance, but not for long.

Jack finally saw a glimmer of hope. If the monkey monsters gave him enough of a boost…maybe fighting the wolf wasn’t that far-fetched of an idea.

Jack lay there for a long time, putting his thoughts in order and letting his body readapt to the environment. He kept shivering, and water kept rolling off him, escaping his body from wherever it had entered.

Eventually, he felt ready. There was a battle to fight. No more distractions, no more bonuses, no more side-quests. Monkeys, then wolf. That was all.

Jack finally stood up, testing his body and finding it in perfect condition. He clenched his fists and prepared himself for battle. He took off.

However, before he left the cave, Jack spared a final look for the waterfall.

That blue world was not a dream… What did it mean? What was it? What secrets does the ice pond hide? And that fist…

He clenched his own. He hadn’t forgotten his insights while in the blue world. The fist was a weapon, a path forward. It was relentless, brutal, visceral, and primal. It represented strictness and discipline, the law of the strong, and how everything came down to killing and harming each other.

The fist was not a pretty thing, but it was necessary and natural. It represented the conviction that, in life, there was only path; ever forward.

Fist meant power.

These were pretty thoughts, if useless. And yet, he still felt on the cusp of…something. These ideas and concepts, if properly understood, hid special meaning. The bald man’s fist in his vision wasn’t merely a fist. It was a world of its own. A way of life. A path.

If only he could comprehend it, he had the feeling that his entire existence would ascend to a completely new level.

Jack shook his head. There was something there, he was sure, something vital and fundamental. Something titanic. His instinct screamed it was there, only a paper’s width out of his grasp.

Yet, as great as fist magic sounded, he still lacked something, a focus to complete his understanding, fill in the holes, and turn thoughts into reality—into magic. And the thing he missed wasn’t something he’d discover through thinking. He’d find it through punching.

As it should be.

Jack’s eyes shone as he exited his cave with steady steps; the steps of a warrior. His bare feet crunched leaves and snapped sticks. He arrived in the monkey area and stared deep into it.

He saw red eyes gaze back from its depth. They didn’t attack, only waited. And then, Jack hesitated.

The truth was, Jack wasn’t a murderer. A killer, maybe, but not a cold-blooded one. The goblins had made it easy by trying to kill him first and being disgusting little fuckers. The bears, too, had eased his doubts by being bloodthirsty, aggressive, and sadistic enough to torture the little animals in their territory even without eating them.

But these monkeys had done nothing wrong. If he massacred them, it would be cold-blooded, undeserved genocide.

Jack followed the law of the jungle. He would do it if he had to...maybe. But he didn't want to become that person. If there could be another way, he wanted to at least give it a shot.

When he’d invaded the monkey territory, they’d only thrown poop at him and chased him out despite having the strength to kill him. They’d let him go. Couldn’t he do the same?

But it might doom him.

These were Jack’s thoughts as he hesitated, debating what to do. The monkeys still stared from their trees. In fact, they’d approached enough that he could make out their brown, beefy forms.

Gymonkey, Level 9

A monkey variant from planet Green. Gymonkeys inhabit all forest biomes and move in packs, defending their territory with flying poop and great muscles. Their unique name comes from their habit of lifting heavy things to increase their strength.

While not particularly aggressive, they are highly territorial.

The one he scanned was of medium beefiness. The pack that approached him had seven monkeys, and they ranged from Levels 5 to 12, from normal monkeys to bodybuilders-turned-primate. He wasn’t afraid of them, of course.

They stared at him, and he stared back. What should I do?...

A deep growl came from deeper in the monkey area. Jack supposed it belonged to a gorilla—though, with how stupid the name Gymonkeys was, he assumed the gorilla would have an equally silly one.

However, as he observed the monkeys, Jack realized something. They were watching him, and they were magical monkeys. Could they be…intelligent?

The moment he had that thought, he sighed. He knew where this would lead, and he felt stupid for even thinking about it. Yet, what choice did he have? Between suicidal, psychotic, and stupid, he’d always choose the latter.

“Hello,” he said, surprised at the sound of his own voice. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in days, barring crude battle taunts. “I’m Jack.”

The monkeys looked at each other. One of them exclaimed what sounded like ooh-ah-ah to him, which he obviously couldn’t understand. They made sounds at each other, seemingly conversing about something.

Jack’s suspicions were further reinforced. These monkeys clearly understood him, or at least understood he was trying to communicate. They had some degree of intelligence. Moreover, they weren’t hostile.

The biologist inside him was intrigued. The survivalist, annoyed—but fuck that guy.

One of the monkeys finally turned around and motioned for him to follow. Jack, grinning, complied.

He had no idea where this could go, but he really wanted to find out.