Apocalypse Cultivation 2, ch 1

I haven't actually named this book yet.  :P

Sorry for the delay.  I've been taking care of some personal stuff and plotting out this book as well as Secret of the Old Ones 2.  It's been a lot of work.

I should start posting chapters of SOO2 soon.

As always, thank you for your patience.

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“Fifteen hundred years...”  Ever since Jake had fallen into a hell dimension in his first life, he felt like he’d been constantly reacting to crazy new things.  This one was  a doozy, though.

Only a moment ago, he had seen what looked like an enormous phoenix in the sky.  His cultivation teacher from his first life had already disappeared.  The crotchety old man had left him some contact information and more questions than answers.  Now Jake was all by himself in another world.

Unfortunately, sitting on the floor wasn’t solving any of his problems.  Nothing had changed from a few minutes ago, like finding out how he’d signed away 1500 years of service to a dark goddess.  He’d thought he’d been clever, limiting his deal to three years.  It hadn’t worked out that way.

He was still a monster.  Maybe being inhuman with strange, natural abilities would help him survive his new job as the champion of a goddess.

What looked like smoke rose off of his body.  One hand, his real one, went up to absently rub one of his horns.  He’d been human before.  That had been before he died, got sent back to the past, and turned into a monster by a vengeful, evil god.  Now he was a shadow ghoul, which he was rapidly beginning to understand was probably a lot more impressive back home than the world he was in now.  This was the murim world, where strength went beyond what Jake could imagine--at least his teacher had always said so.

Jake wasn’t sure how much time had actually passed since he’d been back in Macon, Georgia, on earth, stopping an evil god from bringing vampire-flavored hell on earth to the American south.  Ultimately, it probably didn’t matter since he was on contract with the goddess Morrigan now.  Time moved more quickly in the murim world compared to on earth.

Part of him wasn’t surprised that his old master had vanished after a very brief, very annoying chat.  Jake was all alone in a nearly empty log cabin.

He slowly pushed himself up from the floor.  The artificial hand he’d gotten through his deal with The Morrigan flexed when he willed it to.  It felt like a part of him, even though it obviously wasn’t.

Everything that had happened over the last couple of weeks was overwhelming, but Jake was becoming practiced with overwhelming situations.  His experiences had become a grueling sort of training in mental toughness.  So when a screen popped up in front of him in mid air, he barely blinked.  What was one more weird even when he’d just seen a phoenix the size of an aircraft carrier flying around in the sky outside?

The screen said:

Welcome to the integrated Eternal Struggle reward system for heroes and champions!

Jacob Hessian Mazzariello

Champion of The Morrigan

Origin world dimension rank 2, name: Earth

Please acknowledge this message to finish logging into the system and to update your profile.

There was a smiling face emoji after the last line of text.

Jake had never seen anything like this before, but he’d heard of challenge portals that used similar prompts.  With only a second of hesitation, he said out loud, “I acknowledge the message from the integrated Eternal Struggle Reward System.”

The screen flashed, and the lines of text updated.

Jacob Hessian Mazzariello

Champion of The Morrigan

Origin world dimension rank 2, name: Earth

Current path to power: Cultivation (variation)

Current path level or rank:  First rank Gold Body Refinement

Renown points:  5

“What the hell are renown points?” he mumbled to himself.  A moment later he noticed the drop down menu next to all of this information.  One option was a help section.

He skimmed most of it quickly, familiarizing himself with the basic commands of accessing basic information within this new system.  Helpful that there’s a readme, he thought.

It turned out that being a god’s champion gave perks merely from having the status.  Renown points were some sort of resource that allowed champions to buy items from a store.

Morrigan never said anything about this!  He moved to open the store, but an apparition appeared in the cabin before he could.  The figure looked like a glowing stick figure.  It spoke with a feminine voice,  “Attention intruder!  I am the autonomous security array of this home.  The great master of this house has left.  Be advised that you have five seconds to vacate the premises before a shield array is erected and the interior is flooded with aura to kill all biological and undead life.”

“What the fuck--” Jake gasped.  “What are--”  His question was cut off when five big balls of light appeared.  Then the five lights became four.

Jake immediately left the cabin.  He didn’t doubt the array for a moment.  This was exactly the kind of thing his teacher would do.  The unpleasant old man wasn’t really big on diplomacy.

Once he was outside, Jake didn’t stop outside the door, he kept moving.  This turned out to be wise when a moment later, a glowing green energy field appeared around the house, extending out about ten feet per side.

He turned to watch the thing and shook his head.

“You probably shouldn’t stand still,” came a voice from behind him.

Oh what now?!  Jake spun, his single remaining claw extended and reinforced with his other fingers, he stopped in confusion mid-turn.  Nothing was behind him other than a crow sitting on a stump.  It didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on.  After all, a cat had given him some advice back on earth when he’d first turned into a zombie.

“Who, or what, are you?” he asked.

“My name is Rishlay.  The Morrigan sent me.  My job is to help you understand some of your new reality now that you are a champion.  But all of that can wait.  For now, I suggest that you run.”

“Run?”

“Yes.  Because you are about to die.”

“How?”

“You are about to be attacked--”

A sudden surge of energy tickled his senses.  Jake didn’t wait around to hear the rest of the explanation.  He flash stepped away, moving to a nearby finger of rock.  A moment later, the vegetation where he’d just been standing wase shredded.  When the dust cleared, a giant, violet tiger with three eyes stared at Jake, unblinking.

I just can’t catch a break, he thought.  The creature was projecting an enormous amount of spiritual pressure.  It had to be a demon beast, unique to the murim world.  In general, demon beasts were sort of like super powered monsters that had begun life as a regular animal, or were monsters that cultivated.  They were generally far more deadly--and powerful--than anything Jake had experience with before. This demon beast was nowhere near as impressive as the phoenix Jake had seen a few minutes ago, but was still more than enough to turn Jake into mincemeat without much of a fight.

So the logical course of action was to run away.  Fast.

Flash stepping as quickly as he could was all that kept Jake in one piece for a few tense moments.  But as he fled, thought returned.  The first shock of being attacked after being effectively kicked out of his old master’s house didn’t last long.  If Jake couldn’t roll with the punches and focus on solutions, he wouldn’t have survived this long in the first place.

He had also been fairly cool headed back when he was human, even before becoming a monster.  The tiger demon beast was terrifying, its power suffocating, but Jake had experienced worse.

So he ran.

At first he was planning on heading down the mountain.  That was before hearing new growls, roars, and even seeing a flash of movement.  Something big.  His instincts practically screamed at him that heading that direction would be death.

Jake could practically feel the tiger’s breath on the back of his neck.  He made a quick decision to pull out the stops.  His career as a divine champion wasn’t going to last long if he got eaten by some random demon beast in the forest that made up his master’s front yard.

He phased, becoming immaterial for a short amount of time.  Then he flash stepped directly through a dense copse of trees.  Jake moved as far and as fast as he could while phased, but could hear the demon beast catching up again the moment he came back to the real world.  He’d bought himself some time, but not a lot.

Phasing directly into the mountain to find a hiding place had been tempting, but there was no guarantee he’d be able to find anything on the first try.  And Jake didn’t want to risk getting caught in solid rock.  He still wasn’t sure exactly what would happen if he phased out inside solid matter, but it would likely be very, very bad.

Every step that Jake had taken on the journey of cultivation, even his current, weird path, sharpened his mind.  This helped as he ran through his options.  Climbing one of the giant trees he was surrounded by was an idea, but he dismissed it.  If there were demon beasts on the ground, there would be bound to be some in the trees or in the sky as well.  And maybe the tiger could climb.

Jake caught sight of a gap in the earth under a root in the distance and made a mad dash for it.  Something inside of him, like a new sense, felt... darkness from the fissure.  He could feel that the crack extended deep into the earth.

If his pursuer had been a little less powerful, Jake might have tried hiding or even just continued running away.  But the big cat was stronger and faster than Jake.  And he knew from experience how much better his senses had gotten as he grew his cultivation base.  This demon beast felt like it was at least at the peak of gold rank body refinement.  Demon beasts were more powerful than human cultivators at the same rank to begin with.  The creature’s senses were probably incredibly keen.

The three eyed tiger had almost caught up to him again when Jake slid into the crack he’d spotted.  Its jaws snapped shut over the opening with a sound like a whip crack.  As Jake shimmed further into what turned out to be some sort of natural cave opening beneath the tree, the tiger dug until it hit rock.  Then it growled in frustration.

Jake had been afraid that such a powerful demon beast might have been able to still come after him, he’d been ready to attack with a Demonic Contradiction Wave and hope for the best.  But luckily the tree and the stone stopped its attempts to dig him out.  That was interesting.  Perhaps things really did work differently in the murim world than on earth.  He’d been betting on it, and he felt relieved--his hunch had paid off.

Once he felt like he was deep enough into the narrow cave to feel safe, at least temporarily, Jake settled back to meditate.  Considering the strange state of his inhuman existence, meditating could actually be more beneficial than trying to sleep.

He settled down and ran through events leading up to hiding in a random hole in the forest.  Again.  Except the last time he’d done something similar on earth, he’d been using smart phones to get his bearings.

With that drifting thought, Jake came out of his meditation and checked his internal clock.  About two hours had passed.  Then he removed one of the smart phones in his storage to check if it was still working.  It worked.  There was no reception, of course, but that was to be expected.

Jake listened intently for any noise outside his little cave but...nothing.  Going any deeper into the cave was going to be a problem.  The natural fissure seemed to just get narrower.

As an experiment, he found a decent sized stone and gently threw it up out of the hole.  There was a shimmer of motion and a growl as something massive moved outside.  Then there was silence again.

The damn thing is waiting for me, thought Jake.  What a crazy world.  The Morrigan had been true to her word--technically.  He’d been safe when he’d arrived.  It hadn’t lasted long, though.

He eyed the narrowing cave and decided to try another experiment.  Jake withdrew one of his sabers from his storage ring.  He intentionally avoided withdrawing his special saber, the one that Morrigan had transformed.  Using that weapon wouldn’t be smart until he’d had a chance to properly examine it.  He didn’t distrust Morrigan, per se, he just expected her to act with her own best interests in mind.  Being tricked into 1500 years of service had been a powerful lesson.  As Jake laid in the dark, in a hole in the ground, hiding from a massive demon beast, he reflected that things could still be worse.

Now he had over a millennia to make a name for himself, learn how to fight better, and get stronger before returning to earth.   Even his current situation wasn’t all that bad.  Sure, he’d almost been destroyed earlier, but the tiger had failed to get him the first time.  And the fact the beast couldn’t get past the rocky ground or the tree covering Jake’s hiding spot meant he had time to think, to plan.

And for someone with a phase ability, Jake wasn’t actually trapped all that badly.  In fact, unless some snake or similar creature came along, he was actually fairly protected right now.  Of course, demon beast snakes likely did exist, maybe even worse things.  Jake wasn’t exactly safe, just able to take a breather.

The way the demon beast tiger  had been stopped by the rock had been a good example of how the murim world differed from earth.  The creature would have been able to smash through concrete back in Macon like it was nothing.

Jake carefully spun his cultivation base, mindful of some of the changes he still hadn’t gotten used to in his meridians, and applied Lunar Dao Polishing to his blade.  Then with the best swing he could manage from his constricted position, he struck at the rock surrounding him.

“Really?  That’s it?” he said out loud.  He hadn’t expected much, but the sword had barely cut deeper than a fingernail.  Even with full armed swings, cutting stone this way now would take forever, and that’s if he didn’t wear himself out or destroy his blade.

Good thing he could phase.  The changes in how he could cut solid rock was kind of a non-issue for the current situation, but he wondered how many other adjustments like this he was going to have to make.

“Okay,” he said out loud.  “Let’s make a list.”  Jake pulled a pen and a pad of paper out of his storage ring.  He’d acquired quite a bit of random odds and ends on Earth.  Some materials from Georgia might be weak and shoddy compared to matter in this world, but his pen and paper worked just fine.

He made a list of current problems:

-Don’t know where I am

-Master Zi is gone

-Don’t know where Master Zi’s grandaughter Alix is

-Don’t really have a plan

-Enemies will be more powerful

-Stuck in the murim world for a long time

-No local money

-I am still a monster.  Don’t know about local reception (people)

-Other heroes and champions exist.  Will probably want to kill me

-Demon beasts are powerful

-Need to revisit evolution path intentions for monster race changes

-Need more information on cultivation

-I need to get stronger

He circled the last line about getting stronger.  Even though he wasn’t in immediate danger anymore, the close call with the giant tiger would not have happened if he was further along in his cultivation journey.  Of course, there were likely more powerful demon beasts than the tiger out there.  Much more powerful.

That was a sobering thought.

Jake shook his head and made a to-do list:
-Get monster cores to get stronger

-Escape this hole

-Learn more about demon beasts (I know they make monster cores.  How strong?)

-Find out where Alix is and meet her

-Get away from this mountain

-Figure out what Morrigan did to my saber

-Learn about my new hand

-Figure out the Eternal Struggle Reward System

After a moment of hesitation, he made a third list, titled, “Tools and ideas.”  He frowned, made an arrow, and added, “strengths.”

Tools, strengths, and ideas:

-Tool: Lots of time

-Tool: Everything in the storage ring

-Tool: Rishlay the crow

-Tool: Audiences with Morrigan (precious, don’t  waste)

-Tool: (maybe) powerful sword, transformed by Morrigan

-Idea: Buy monster cores with money

-Idea: Learn a way to make money

-Idea: Find out what I have that has value

-Idea: Find a way to trade

Idea: Buy cultivation information

-Strength: Food is not really a problem if I can find monster cores

He gave all three lists one more critical look before nodding and deciding to take care of what he could in his little hidey-hole before setting out again.  And to do that, he had a good idea of where to start.

“Rishlay, are you there?  Rishlay?”

Jake watched the opening of his cave for flapping wings, but nothing happened for a while.  He was actually beginning to wonder if the messenger had just left when a pair of small, glowing eyes materialized in the darkness, deeper in his cave.  “Are you prepared to talk now so that I can deliver my information and be on my way?”

The crow seemed...embarrassed, or maybe frustrated.  Jake quirked a smile as he imagined the divine messenger being too nervous to come in the guarded entrance of the cave, instead choosing to sneak in.  Of course, he could be imagining it, too.

“I think so,” replied Jake.  “What can you tell me about the Eternal Struggle Reward System?”