Body Cultivation Hurts - Chapter 16

Nathan walked through the western gate into the ancient runes section of the first floor. The ginseng he found would eventually turn into a cash cow, but to earn some in the short term, there was no faster way than killing monsters. The common monsters in the ruins were the zombie-demons. They had different grades just like they had in his pre-initiation trial. That was not what he was here for. There was one specific region boss that he had come for. He was confident it would still be around because in his last life it hadn’t been defeated until a year after initiation. There were reasons for that. His Poison Resistance wasn’t just chosen out of fear of the unknown.

At the exit to the Staging Facility were thousands of people yelling and trying to create parties for hunting. There was no true group or party system like in a game. Paths that didn’t advance through cultivation, but through absorbing energy from monster they killed were rewarded naturally according to how much help they provided during a fight. If one person in the party went up and beheaded a psycho-squirrel, for example, they would get all the energy the monster gave because they killed it without help.

If a person used a crowd control ability and it affected the battle, they too would get experience. The only typical game-type path that didn’t receive experience in this way were healers. However, healers could also cause damage generally through light spells and the like, so they could participate and receive energy in that way, just not by healing. But if they had to heal, the energy rewarding them would come from the world itself. To use healing spells, energy had to exit the body. This left a vacuum, and the surrounding qi quickly to fill it. In a sense, the act of healing was a unique progression method itself. And yes, just going around practicing healing magic would earn a person energy. In the near future, it would be common for healers to just hang out on popular battle grounds and heal combatants from all the surrounding parties.

Mages were fairly powerful starting out. Energy cultivators basically had to wait until their first major rank up to the Blood Realm before their techniques could really be used. On the other hand, mage’s physiques were inferior to cultivators as need arose.

Nathan squeezed through the craziness and took the straightest path into the ruins. It was as crowded as an amusement park, but that would only last for so long. The zombies here were much easier to fight than the low-level, zombie-like demons.

He looked up and saw some people flying overhead. Soon enough he’d be able to use certain techniques to travel through the air. It wasn’t the same thing as flying, but he could compete with them in speed. He sighed.

Once he was a mile from the western gate, there was enough room on the swerving path that he started to jog. Some of the stronger and more courageous groups were this far out, but he was the only one alone. He spotted an exception.

Some guy had taken a giant path, and even had the big club to go with it. He was nine feet tall if Nathan had to guess. It was a pretty good idea for him to come out here by himself if he just focused on zombies. He could literally baseball bat swing through the small hordes with little danger to himself. Unless he lacked stamina.

Finally a few miles out, things really cleared up and Nathan reached his full speed. He’d just gotten started when he heard a scream.

“Don’t tell me someone tripped into a zombie’s mouth?” he mumbled to himself.

Diverting his heading, he jumped up from stone to stone until he got to the top of a side-fallen building. Once on top, he saw where the noise had come from. There were about six people playing tug of war with a big stomper, the boss zombie-demon he’d defeated in the trial. It had one of their tanks in its grasp.

To their credit, one woman was pulling while throwing weak fireballs in its face. It just didn’t care.

There really wasn’t any such thing as immunity to elements, magic, or damage types. This wasn’t a game. Her fire simply wasn’t strong enough to do more than give the mob’s tough flesh an instant sunburn.

Speaking of sunburns, Nathan’s skin was dry and taut from spending so much direct time in the sun.

He hopped off the building and sprinted over. He couldn’t help it. They were being so kind to hold it in place and the creature’s arms were preoccupied. Flying in from the flank, Nathan jumped from twenty feet out. He flew in toward it in an arch. On his descent, his lungs filled to their max and he launched a superman punch to the side of its head. His fist landed followed by a spectacular ka-thunk.

Skidding across the ground where he landed, he rushed back to the boss zombie, grabbing ahold of its wrist and felt for a pulse until he realized the thing had gone slack. He wasn’t confident it was dead, so he threw a full-weight elbow to its throat. Not even a gag. It was definitely dead.

Picking himself up, he turned to find the entire party fallen over on top of each other. He started to chuckle. “Well, that was fun.”

There were a few of them that looked like they were about to respond, most of them kindly, when the tank that had been grabbed started to groan.

Walking over, Nathan grabbed the well armored guy under his arms and pulled him to his feet. The guy was a few inches taller than he was.

“Your bracer isn’t dented,” he observed.

“I think it’s my shoulder.”

Reached up, Nathan knocked on his helmet. “What were you thinking. If they get ahold of you, let it pull you in and poke it with your sword.”

“I. Uh.”

“That was our fault,” a black girl with long curly highlights admitted. She was the one casting fire during the fight. He spied her trying to look remorseful and alluring at the same time. “We grabbed his sword arm…”

Nathan just blinked at her. After a moment, he strode over and gave her a tap on the forehead.

She gave him a constipated look.

“At least, you did more than just try to pull your friend’s arms off with your fire. Still, do better.”

“As for you guys,” he said, giving the group a once over. Their group comprised of five mages and one tank? “Just don’t do whatever it is you just did. Here.” He fetched his bottle of recovery pills from his pack and handed the injured guy one. “You should spend some points on recovery pills in the points shop if you’re going to run around without a healer. They aren’t expensive.”

“Do you want to join us?” The fire mage asked, giving him full on flirt-eyes. She was cute enough, but…

His hand shot out and he tapped her once again on the forehead. “No.”

Putting his bottle away, he turned back the way he’d come and took a step to leave before stopping short. The memory of his breakthrough during heat tempering was still fresh. He had to admit that the relief he felt reliving initiation after the way his first life had ended left him rather bipolar. Half of him was still under the impression he should be mourning, while the other was giddy that everyone was still alive. So much so that he was having trouble taking things seriously. For him, there was little challenge here at the moment. That would change soon enough, but he’d seen too many people die. He was about to run off on this group that didn’t have a fraction of the confidence he did. The wrong monster and they could end up dead.

Glancing back, he called out. “Take some time to think through what you’ll do next time you face such a creature. Mistakes happen. After a few thousand, things become easier. Just be sure to learn from each and every one of them or you might end up dead.”

“You don’t make mistakes?” One of the more offended mages scoffed.

He gave the guy a pitiable look. “I’ve already made mine.” He looked up at the artificial sky, thinking of the upper floors.

With a wave, he left them behind.

***

The western ruins were easily the size of the biggest city Nathan had ever seen on Earth. The Staging Facility didn’t count. Its residential areas were in independent spaces for one. Secondly, what city was designed by one designer and built all at once? The inefficiency of Earth cities built over time didn’t apply.

Even this far away from the gate, there were several parties he spotted. Most of them were fighting or readying to engage zombies. There was no longer a main thoroughfare, so they were scattered about.

Ultimately, the Monarch’s mimicry of game systems made initiation easy for most humans to understand. There were differences between the tower and traditional game respawn systems, however. Each of these zombies came from who knows where, and were living somewhere in the tower, waiting for the already “spawned” zombies to die so that they could be released into the wild. Such spawning areas were like teleport hubs for monsters. In a few years, new people to the tower would be taken to these hubs by clans and guilds to “grind levels”. It was the go-to method for offensive mages and many non-cultivator melee paths. There were common advancement bottlenecks they’d reach periodically, but the guilds and clans would learn how to deal with those in time as well.

Nathan skirted around every party as he ran. The deeper he got into the region, the more competent the parties were. They mostly ignored him.

His destination was approximately four miles from the gate. Drawing near, he’d noticed the number of parties were growing sparse. That reassured him. He’d already had one of his secret locations discovered. The icy cavern had been easy enough to find, though, and he’d never had much hope of keeping it to himself for long. This next destination wouldn’t have that problem. Even if a party found it, no one would be able to kill this region boss for months. This early on, it was a dangerous entity. Its main defense was exhaling a large cloud of poison. It wouldn’t kill someone outright if they caught wind of it, but if someone got trapped in it for too long then the outcome was certain.

It worked like a hemotoxin, attacking blood cells, causing them to rupture while preventing clotting. Internal bleeding would occur. With healing or recovery pills, a person would generally recover without problem. It would depend upon the amount inhaled. Stronger physiques could take more. It would also stick and can cause the smaller vessel closest to the surface of the skin to burst, so it would frighten off even the toughest paths for a time.

There were a few partially collapsed buildings arranged in the shape of an accidental coliseum. From the outside, it was just a large cluster of buildings that appeared that way, but Nathan knew that inside it was more like an arena than anyone would ever guess.

There were a few parties in the immediate area. One of which was directly in the path of his heading. Eight individuals had placed themselves in a narrow gap between buildings. It was difficult for him to see how many zombies they were facing, but one taller monster stood above them all. It was similar to the big stompers he’d taken care of for the group he’d just saved. However, this one was an elite amongst them.

A man shot into the air from the back of their party, slowing ten feet overhead. Power was already accumulating in his palms. The man threw them out together, launching a spike of electrical energy downward to crash into the elite.

Nathan then saw the telltale signs of a teleporter’s energy. They wouldn’t need his help, so he leaped up the ramped side of a fallen building and ran up. Once high enough, he saw they were facing off with more than thirty zombies. The party had two meaty guys in front. One was wielding a man-sized shield while the other pounded the monsters backward through a series of fluid swings of a poleaxe-sword hybrid. It reminded him of a Japanese Naginata, but the pole was shorter than any traditional recreations he remembered seeing.

There was one stop he had to make before heading for his primary target. He’d been hearing gunshots for a while now, and at least periodically he heard a high-powered rifle. He needed to get an idea of the caliber used and if they were hostile. Against average handgun calibers he was confident in blocking them, but even after reaching the fourth stage of the Body Realm, rifle calibers were different. Muzzle energy, velocity, bullet weight… He’d known the thugs he’d beat down exclusively used 9mm because he’d dealt with them in his first life, but he wasn’t invincible. The last thing he wanted was to get shot in the back with a big-game cartridge while fighting the region boss.

Scaling up the fallen over building, he got a good view of a half-standing building towering above a large open area all around its perimeter. It was a great location for sniping. It wouldn’t gain the people inside it much energy if their paths gathered it through combat, but the system would still reward them points. The more they killed, the more they would earn. If he hadn’t had better methods, Nathan would be doing the same.

As far as he could tell, he was approaching the building from a blind spot. It didn’t seem tall enough to look down into the coliseum, but he’d have to pass them by to reach it from this angle.

He increased the speed of his breathing as he jumped off the side-fallen building he was on into the space between them. In case he had seen wrong, he increased his internal qi to the max as he sprinted through the low-lying area. Zombies were prevalent in the area, so it required him to go straight through a loose group of them.

He didn’t have time to give them his attention, so instead of taking them out quickly, he lowered his shoulder and plowed through one after another. He didn’t slow. Reaching what remained of the building standing over the rest, he climbed some rubble before leaping to a second-floor window. He braced his weight against its ledge but didn’t fully trust it, so he made sure to catch himself with his arms. It was sturdy enough, so he began to climb. Reaching the very top somewhere between what would’ve been a third and fourth floor, he slowly pulled himself up.

Back in the more crowded areas near the gate, he hadn’t needed to worry too much about others attacking him. It wasn’t just Americans he was likely to find here, but people from all over the world. That included average law-abiding citizens as well as criminals—peace-loving people as well as militants. What’s more, those who had once been weak now had strength to defend themselves unlike ever before. People that had known each other before the initiation were just starting to come together. In most part, it required them to complete the Contact System trial. For many, it was the first thing they did after initiation.

Poking his head above the edge of the building, he looked down to find four men with rifles and two women reloading. The women were wearing hijabs.

Noticing they didn’t see him, he pulled himself the rest of the way and sat there watching them. Terrorism would eventually become an issue in the tower, but there were too many Islamic factions to even know what part of the world they were from, let alone their ideology. So he just sat there for a while to observe. What was left of the building had boxed them in so high up with a few portholes they could make use of. In all, they had maybe just over one-hundred-and-eighty-degree vantage between them. They were using it well.

The first sign of any hostility, or lack thereof, came when the man closest to him hesitated for a moment before taking a shot. The man had a clear view of the group Nathan had just left in the gap between buildings. He wouldn’t be able to see the entire group, but the tanks were visible and so was their flier when he went to attack. Instead of firing at them, he picked off a zombie that was heading in that direction, causing a small mob of monsters to change directions. It could be seen as a selfish move to steal kills, but also one to relieve the other group from additional pressure.

They were each using Fateh assault rifles. They were fully auto where the ARs he’d used pre-initiation had only fired one shot per trigger pull but used the same 5.56 cartridge. The one exception was one of the men in the middle also had a M24 which was a bolt-action sniper that fired the larger 7.62x51mm. The fact they were using Iranian assault rifles spoke to where they might be from, but it also might just mean that they were cheaper rifles that used the cheapest ammo. The bolt-action sniper’s ammo was more expensive. Twice as much if he remembered correctly.

By the time someone advanced to the Blood Realm, firearms would lose their effectiveness almost across the board. Even mages could survive indirect surprise shots that didn’t strike the heart or brain. And their auras would take care of them if they were prepared.

As for him, Nathan wouldn’t want to try fending off either round until he advanced further..

Status

Name: Nathaniel Kane

Age: 19

Cultivation: Fourth Stage of the Body Realm (Small Success)

Focus: Body (Toughness)

Talent: S

Physique: D

Strength: D

Agility: D

Stamina: D+

Energy: G

Spirit: G

He could probably tank a 5.56 from a distance, but up close… It wasn’t worth finding out. Once his physique reached D+, he could breathe easier. As for the high-powered rounds, he’d want to reach C before he was confident. He’d also be nearing the Blood Realm then and martial techniques would come into play. With a decent defensive technique, he could stand there at point blank range and let them unload on him.

So far, they seemed to be exactly what they looked like. A family out for a nice afternoon zombie slaughtering-fest.

There wasn’t much verbal communication going on, understandably so. It wasn’t until the group in the distance had finished their elite monster and moved forward that he got a good grasp of the situation. Once out in the open, the larger group waved. The man with eyes-on from the sniper group waved back. If he had to guess, he’d say the group near the gap was Caucasian and from the west, so American or Western European. While the group in the tower was middle eastern. Even if they weren’t actively hunting together, the respect they showed was clear.

Good enough.

He considered scaring the group below for chuckles, but that was a good way to get shot. He’d learned long ago that humor stuck around even after all he’d been through. It just darkened with his outlook. Now that he was thinking about it, he waved to the larger group that had just signaled to the snipers. He was sitting atop the building after all. They just didn’t have optics so his lack of movement hadn’t drawn their attention.

Falling backward over the edge, he flipped fully then kicked off the wall halfway down. Landing on his feet, he danced past a few zombies, then started running for the makeshift coliseum.

At the speed he was going, he came into the sniper’s view within a few moments. He was sure to run at a zombie and leap up, kicking it in the head, before waving so that they could be sure he was a monster. His gait was comfortable enough as he darted through and around many clusters of zombies, the group of snipers stopped firing entirely after spotting him. He was careful not to kill any of the zombies as he went. This group had a good setup, and he had no intention of ruining it for them.

It was a nice little run across the open area between ruined buildings, but he reached his destination quickly. Instead of entering a gap or doorway on the bottom floor, he jumped, kicking off a build to land on a second story platform. From there, he turned and held up his hand to the people in the tower. A few of them even gave him an uncomfortable wave.

He didn’t blame them. No one knew at this point what all the paths were capable of. In the beginning, there wasn’t really any balance between them either. Some would seem overpowered but would quickly be outpaced by others, while others started powerful and stayed that way. As for Nathan’s, if anything he’d say his was mid-tier with his current advancement speed. Only his experience pushed it past that. He was sure a few monster and superhuman paths had already reached their version of the blood realm, or second tier.

He thought to the goblin mage he’d met briefly. Unless the guy spent a lot of time mastering his magic, he was exactly the type that would probably advance like wildfire.

Nathan’s main advantage, however, wasn’t even his path or speed of advancement. It was his knowledge of how to use the power he had. The rest of the world was a bunch of toddlers learning to crawl. Zombies were simply fodder to help them figure out what they were capable of. Nathan didn’t need anything of that.

He was careful not to go too deep into any one building. Getting stuck in a hive of monsters, even those as weak as zombies, could spell the end of his second life quickly. Having the building collapse on his head was even more deadly. He slowed once inside, examining his surroundings carefully. There was a lot of light coming from one direction heading deeper inside. He took it.

After busting a few zombie heads and a few sharp turns, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel-hall. Once at its end, he looked down into the wide-open area between buildings. It was surrounded on all sides. What was missing were all the zombies. Instead, a single monster sat on a slab snacking on another zombie it had killed recently.

Nathan recognized it the moment he saw it. Unlike the other zombies, this thing was excessively boney. Its chest was as round as a barrel, and even though its stomach was rounded, the space between its ribs and pelvis was much smaller than any human. Its head was like an overly large skull, and neck was almost nonexistent. It had been known as the Putrid Undead Cannibal in his first life. All zombies would feed on other dead zombies. However, the gas this region boss let out killed not only enemies but also its own kind. It fed upon them constantly.

Because range attacks couldn’t harm its boney physique this early on, and getting too close to the gas was painful if not deadly, it had remained alive until many had reached the blood realm in his first life. Nathan would hate to remove such a fond experience from future challengers, but the poison sacks in its stomach would be perfect for his cultivation now that he had reached small success. Its entire body could also be sold for a small fortune. There were also the points the system would reward if he killed it.

Taking a running leap, he jumped from the second story down to the open space below. Knowing about the region boss’s presence, countless other zombies in the building didn’t dare to attack him. He found a little space between rocks and stowed his pack there. He took out an extra long-sleeved shirt from his bag and pulled on over his head. He knew both shirts would get ruined, but it would be worth it.

With everything where it strolled to be, he strolled toward the munching zombie.