Ch 5

I spent half of that second night in a tingly, meditative state, drawing in motes of energy into my body. The nascent energy of the layer entered my body. Then I pooled it in my dantain and cycled that qui that had been flavored in my own lightning aspect throughout my body, flooding my limbs to permanently empower my muscles and cells. This was an activity that I had made a habit of doing every night in my previous life in order to slowly build up my attributes. It would never stop; each cultivation rank would require more and more qui to reach the next, with 10 smaller subsets between each rank. Each layer had a maximum realistic height one could reach through cultivation. For the first layer, one could reach the peak of the second rank. The energy density was just not high enough on the first layer. There wasn’t necessarily a hard cap; just the purity and density caused an extremely drastic difference in the rate at which any new could be absorbed into your ever-compacting dantain. The heights you could reach in each subsequent layer grew as the nascent energy increased. Breaking through the barrier that was the third rank was possible on the first layer; it was just magnitudes more challenging to do so than to do it on the second layer with its higher energy density. 

I remember a few people breaking through on the first layer, but that was with the help of shop-purchased pills and specially coated rooms that enriched the density of the stored energy in the room for a short period of time. Those items cost tens of thousands of points, and there is still a chance to fail your ascent into the next rank. Spending those points on something that could be freely obtained by going to an energy-dense area on the second layer is just ridiculous unless you need to stay on the first layer.

After empowering and enriching myself with my new qui, I flowed most of it back into the core that was my dantain. Then, I allowed myself to sleep for the night. 

——-

The start of the third day after the summoning began with little fanfare. However, once I entered the common area, I noticed yet again that eyes watched my position as I ate the goat chimera sausages I got from a stall by the exit before leaving to hunt. 

Leaving the city for the wasteland to hunt for more chimera to boost my points, I jogged away from what little civilization there was; as the morning sun created the horizon, I expanded my speed with qui tremendously, using sigils to ascend into the sky to gain a better view in hopes of spotting some early morning prey. Spotting another group hunting chimeras, I veered off to the left, leaving them alone. After five more minutes of jogging, still keeping my eyes peeled, I hadn’t seen another soul or a single chimera. That is the issue with this region for me: trying to grow in power quickly. The safety and lack of chimera is excellent for newbies; being able to single out targets makes fighting them safer for beginners, but if you needed to get stronger, it was dull and a complete waste of time. ‘I need to head out to the tri-city area as soon as I get my weapon made.’

‘Though it definitely didn’t feel dull initially, every time you head out of the city, you risk your life when a single chimera could wipe an entire unprepared squad.’ I thought back to my first day’s hunting on the layer.

A minute later, I saw a duo of chimera that were the size of bison back on earth; they had the frames and bodies of goats with horns that curved behind them a foot and a half with long skinny scaled tails that curled over their backs like a scorpion. The green and black scaled tails ended in diamond-shaped snake heads; when their mouths opened three inch long white fangs could be seen. I ran through the sky and flanked the pair of chimera and, once behind, gave a mighty kick, sending the larger of the pair flying forward, its face smashing into the ground as it slammed into a trash heap in front of it. Then it proceeded to careen end over end, falling to a heap eight yards away. Immediately after dealing with the first chimera, I grabbed the tail of the second, using it as a sling to send it into the ground and disable its ranged snake bite attack. Rushing after it, I delivered a quick qui-powered fist to its side right behind its shoulder, ending it with a punch destroying its heart and lungs. Looking toward the first chimera, I prepared to intercept its charge, but it was lying in a lifeless heap, having had its neck broken in the collision with the ground.

-points gained: 24

“Oh sweet, those weren’t just basic chimera; they must have been early on their way to becoming aberrations.”

On the way back from the day of hunting chimera when I was four hundred thirty-four points richer, I felt the sensation of those eyes on me once again. “Well, let’s do something about it this time. Once I make sure it’s the same people, I suppose.” 

After breaking line of sight with the man using a valley and then looping back around the man, I confirmed it was one of the same men that had been watching me earlier that day, the tall, weaselly one. 

“Where did that fucker go to?” I heard him say to himself as he stalked the dunes of trash, looking for me.

“So....” I start, “Why in the hell are you stalking me?” As I get all of my words out, I am in the process of dodging to the side, out of the way of a duo of throwing daggers that the man instinctively launched out.

“You know you shouldn’t throw those at someone your first time meeting them; it may give off the wrong impression,” I said casually. 

“How are you so alert? Are you some sort of a-typical freak?” his raspy voice slithers out. 

“I don’t know you; you don’t know me. What is up with the instant antagonization and hostility also back to the stalking?” I asked him.

The man activated an ability that allowed him to dash forward rapidly, with red echoes following in his wake. ‘That looks like the ability dash of the blood lord.’ An ability that is drastically reduced in cost when you have any kind of vampiric bloodline. Though still available to others unless you have an opposing bloodline.

As he finished his dash, the man used a black dagger to swipe down from the shoulder, trying to take me by surprise. I used my already flowing lightning qui in my legs to evade and tested my sigil to deflect his strike. Not expecting either of the things, he was taken off balance when he found his blade deflected, slightly veering off course. I took that chance to take out his arm at the elbow with a quick qui-empowered jab with my left fist.

“AAaarghh!” he screamed after I heard the crunching of bone at the impact of my fist with his elbow. Shock could be seen in his eyes, then horror at the realization that his dominant arm was hanging limply past his bicep.

Taking that second that he was screaming flow into a kick from my right side, I targeted my left knee, giving the joint the same treatment. This hit, sending him flying head over heels, causing him to crash down hard, landing as a screaming pile of broken ligaments and bone.

“Tell me, do you know the Muffin Man?” I said, voice firm to the trembling man now covered in sand and blood from the broken bones and the collision in the earth.

“The Muffin Man?” he asked. “Yes! I know the Muffin Man!”

“Well, damn, that was just a joke, is there really a Muffin Man? Wait, ignore that. Just... just tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you! I promise it was just a test to see your grade!” The man said in a barely coherent jumble. 

“Who do you work for? What group?” I demanded. 

“A very powerful group! If you k-kill me, there will be payback!”

“Still with the threats? You are in literally no position to make threats to me. So, who do you work for?” I said to him, then applied a little killing intent toward him, pressuring his soul into submission with my own.

“The Golden Tiger Company!” The man screamed out, fearful for his life under the pressure of my healing intent.

“See, that wasn’t so hard! Sadly, you chose to work for a company of wanton murders and rapists that place no value on human life, valuing a person’s points for personal gain over humanity’s survival,” I said with a fake excitement that turned into words that I struggled to ground out. “Is there anything I should know about your company before I end your misery?” I asked, then placed my foot on his shattered knee, twisting to force it in the wrong direction.

“The Captain is powerful! He won’t stand for this! Killing me is your own death sentence!” he trembled.

“I suppose that’s a no; I guess I would have done this differently if I didn’t know everything I needed to end your company,” I told him. I then proceeded to finish him off with a trio of quick but powerful lightning-qui-empowered punches to the face, each time placing a sigil behind his head to give some resistance to deliver all of the power I could with each punch. 

‘Well, I suppose that I have added enemy number one with his death.”

I then gained a notification from the system.

-points gained: 4,423 

“Holy shit, he probably had close to ninety thousand points to spend in the shop. If he had been able to purchase whatever he was saving up for, then he would have been a much more difficult enemy to face. Though I suppose it’s somewhat hypocritical of me to be excited to gain all of those points by killing another person. I will definitely use them for more noble means.” pulling up my totals, I checked my points, seeing how close I was to my goals.

   Status Screen:

  Name: Adonis Newman

Points: 7,278

‘Only thing left is to see if he has anything worth keeping on him.’ I then stripped him of his now partially broken and bloody armor. 

Then I saw the golden ticket item. On his hand, attached to his broken and bent right arm, was a matte dark grey and rose gold ring, one I knew to be a storage ring. Removing it from my hand, I sent my mind inside the ring to see its contents and determine its size.

The ring was filled with a dozen throwing knives, several changes of clothes, a couple meals, water bottles, and the bodies of several rhilon. The ring was one that cost fifteen thousand points in the shop and was able to hold forty-three cubic yards of storage space, an upgrade from the forty cubic yard ring I had planned on saving up to purchase. 

“All in all, today has been a profitable day. The only negative is once this guy doesn’t return, the Golden Tiger Company will know something went wrong with his assignment and will know my strength is at least a B grade for me to be able to beat him. Though they would have known that if I’d let this guy go anyway. So, I am confident in my call. Now it’s time to head back and get these bodies to Gerties, drop the armor off to have it repaired, and get it resized for me. Then work on my cultivation again.” I said aloud to myself.