Ch 6

Six hundred miles away from Adonis and his city, Ryan Romero had been summoned near the city of Estalia. He followed the guide left by the mystery blogger Adonis. ‘Was he an alien, a psychic, some sort of god?’ Alex thought to himself. ‘How could he possibly know exactly what would happen in the future with so much detail?’

“Personally, I’m leaning towards whatever alien civilization set up this whole abduction of humanity.” He mumbled to himself.
Ryan had been deemed an A-typical by the people he met when he was summoned. He had started out with just over one hundred twenty-six thousand points to spend in the shop, and thanks to Adonis, he could spend them efficiently and effectively. His first purchase had been the 1st realm of qui cultivation aspected in metal. That consumed a whopping 75k for the basic first realm plus another 4.5k for the metal aspect. Qui cultivation doesn’t start with the first realm; it begins at 0, the Spirit Seed realm, the true beginning. Then goes to the 1st realm, 2nd realm, etc. A start at the seed realm would have only cost 25k points in the shop, then another 1 to 5 thousand for his aspecting. Though cultivation is a growth ability, it would eventually reach the first realm if you put work into it; that was time spent that you could have the strength you may need to save your life.

Another suggestion was a good movement ability to evade attacks. Sure, healing is faster the greater your constitution is, but unless your plan is taking hits for the rest of the team, it’s by far a better idea to avoid the blows and strike back faster.

For the people with an extra 100k points to spend picking out the initial stages of a quality bloodline. It was a hard choice for Ryan to decide whether or not to spend almost all of his initial points on a bloodline. It would take a long time to save up for something that costs that much, and you wouldn’t have that powerful ability that whole time. However, if you got the cultivation ability initially, you could be growing in strength the entire time that you were saving back up to purchase the bloodline of your choice. So, it boiled down to what kind of person you were. Apparently, spatial artifacts were a thing, too, and the guide helped boil down what is useful and what’s a waste of points. The cheapest ones are a relatively useless gimmick compared to the other available options. Though having the opportunity to shrink things down to a tenth of their size would have been very useful back on Earth, the fact everything needed to fit through the mouth of the bag and the lack of being able to see what you were removing made it very difficult to use, and impossible to use in situations that required fast access. Ryan had decided to spend a large number of points on a tier 2 bag of holding, one which cost 8k points.

Then, he went for a basic level of polearm mastery and purchased a spear. That’s because the spear was supposed to be one of the easiest-to-use weapons without training, and he hadn’t really trusted the shop’s ability to beam enough knowledge of how to effectively use a weapon into his mind without immediately dying to a monster. The spear was, after all, one of the first weapons ever made by humanity and had been working for tens of thousands of years. Though realistically, Ryan knew he would probably die to anything if he had to face something alone. Luckily, he had spawned in an outer city district and was quickly included in all of the introductory lessons, resulting in being recruited into The Lost Company. The Lost is one of the largest groups throughout the layer. When he found people or rather was found, he was initiated by being shown what the monstrous chimeras were like, massive heaps of muscle, blending monsters from Earth and creating creatures from lore.

Talking to other people, Ryan was glad that he had found that blog all those months ago. Not wasting the hard-to-come-by points was a major boon that many didn’t get their most important chance to take properly. Whether it was the decision made by some of his new group members or their previous friends to take abilities that were supposed to allow you to weather blows from those monsters and survive, which seldom worked for those people. Or those that ended up taking similar abilities on the misguided decision that they had some desire to become a tank that absorbed blows. At the same time, the rest of the group got the hits in, then realized that getting repeatedly wounded absolutely sucked. Still, now they were at least temporarily shoehorned into that role for the foreseeable future. Also, being warned that the layer would essentially be the Wild West, keeping your possessions from just being taken while in a position of weakness was impossible. Spending half of your points on high-powered items in the beginning, while they could save your life unless you were an especially strong a-typical with experience fighting, the items would most likely be going to another person rather quickly. Plus, there was the fact that besides enchanted items similar to a storage ring or modern earth products, many of the weapons that were purchased could be crafted on the layer by other humans and traded for a far lower cost, saving you points that way, too. Then there was knowing that unless you were going to be only eating chimera meat, all food and water had a point cost, so saving some of your initial points for emergencies or food was a good idea, especially considering the possibility of being summoned into a barren wasteland instead of a city.

“-ey, rookie, I’m talking to you! Break is Up! It’s time to prove all your talk about having a leg up because of this Adonis character. I am going to have all of you new initiates do some sparing before we call it a day.” the drill sergeant who trained most of The Lost’s new recruits called out to Ryan. He was a tall man with tanned skin, and a well-muscled physique gained from spending the last two and a half years fighting chimera throughout the layer. Seargent Chetwood was his name; he was a peak B grade fighter known by other names gained from his transformation ability, though, The Ember Born and The Lost Inferno. The ability limited to three purchases across all of humanity is a transformation-type ability called Conflagration of Flame, costing 146k. The ability turned his body from meat and bones into a torch that he used to devastating effect, burning through both enemies of the same grade and most chimeras quickly, with massive strength to follow through behind the blazing attacks.

“Yes, Mr. Inferno, Sir!” Ryan replied strongly.

“Zimmer and Ryan, we will continue on the basics today. No weapons yet, keeping it hand to hand, no lethal abilities. This is a spar, not a death match; keep that for the chimeras. Zimmer, I want to see all of those last 6 months of training put to use. From you, Ryan, I want to see if those good ability choices translate to anything. Now, get in the designated area. When this hits the floor, the spar has begun.” The Lost Inferno stated.

“Yessir!” They both said in unison.

Focused on the bit of cloth falling to the floor, Ryan was not as prepared as he thought.

Before he could figure out what was happening, Zimmer’s fist connected squarely with his jaw. The rapidity and surprise of the blow sent Ryan backward a few steps. Then, another step as he took a barrage of quick blows to the stomach. Zimmer raining her own anger about her situation and at the loss of her family into each punch.

Taking a voluntary step backward this time, he recovered his balance and straightened himself. Starting to dodge and deflect incoming blows while giving ground. He then took another hard blow to the face, sending him reeling.

“I know you have not fought much before, Ryan, so just think. Do those hits actually hurt? Or is it just your perception of what would have happened in your life before? You are in E grade, same as Zimmmer, who, despite her speed, is only delivering punches slightly stronger than a regular human.”

“Of course, it fucking hurts she just hit m-“only for the words he was going to say to suddenly stop. “But I definitely felt that!” He said in realization. “And I did get knocked back!”

“For sure -but you’re no longer as human as you were before. You don’t have the same limitations. Your constitution is higher than a normal human’s, especially with your metal aspected qui cultivation. The density of your bones, your slow and fast twitch muscles, your ligaments, nerve conductivity, healing rate, pain tolerance, everything has been upgraded through your cultivation … every last cell has been upgraded through your qui cultivation.”

“For an average person back on Earth, taking her blows as you have would be debilitating. However, despite getting knocked around you are standing up to the punches well enough to turn this fight around. — and for the love of all that is holy, use your fucking movement skill unless you simply enjoy being a punching bag!”

Taking it in and thinking about everything that the sergeant just told him, Ryan realized everything was true. He felt the blows coming, but it wasn’t exactly the pain he was feeling unless they hit sensitive spots like the jaw, ears, throat, bladder, kidneys, etc. Also, Ryan learned that getting kicked in places like the shin and nerve clusters in the thigh hurt more than kicks to other areas.

Not wanting to be boxed in and take continuous hits, Ryan did something besides turtle up for the first time in the fight. He used his highly coveted, highly-priced movement ability; suddenly, Ryan was on the other side of the arena but somehow still oriented toward his opponent. That was what made his movement ability so special. Once a target was designated, the movement ability would allow you to orient on it despite your near-instant change in location.

With her enhanced speed, Zimmer was on him quickly, but this time, he was ready. Forcing her to take his own glancing blow to the side of the head, causing her head to snap to the side and her ears to ring. Another use of his movement ability while she was disoriented forced her to take his own heavy blow to the kidney, knocking her a step forward. Followed by a pair of jabs to the other side.

“Zimmer, get out of that! He is too strong for you to take blows like that!” Seargent Chetwood yelled out to the young woman.

Leaping to the side, she was able to get away from an incoming blow only to stumble in her hurry to right herself. Ryan took the chance he saw, taking a quick kick at her outstretched leg, then another to her side as she turtled on the ground. Deciding not to take a follow-up kick on the already downed fighter.

“Ryan, next time, let me call the fight instead of calling it on your own, but I agree to end it there. Zimmer, you need to work on your foot movement some more. You lead the whole fight only to stumble in the end. You have made it leaps and bounds since the young woman I met all of those months ago. This was just a bad matchup for both of you. Ryan because of your inexperience and Zimmer because of Ryan’s constitution and his ability to escape being boxed in whenever he decides to use his movement ability.” said the sergeant.

“If only he wasn’t a stupid A-Typ, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.” she ground out while still taking Ryan’s offered hand to help her get up. “I worked so hard the last six months, and he is able to come in and beat me on his first spar. Fucking embarrassing is what it is.”

“That’s the difference in abilities; once we get you out there fighting chimera, we can get you set up on the first stage of cultivation. Then, the sky is the limit. Plus, you’re fast, and you can aspect to something that enhances that speed-boosting passive ability that you already have.” Ryan told her.

“Ryan, yet again, I am the only one who is supposed to be giving that sort of advice on how to progress. Though again, that’s about the way of things, Zimmer. Oh, and both of you, Do Not try and tank blows like you did today against any chimera. You WILL get torn to pieces in an instant. They are much stronger and carry more mass than E grade humans; you will get hurt. Do not test fate by trying to take them head-on. That is why groups have dedicated tanks, and you go out with a whole party of at least five in the beginning to fight just a basic one.” He told the pair.

“Now, you two are free for the day. Head out or head for the sidelines; either way, off the arena, we have another matchup coming.”
Looking towards Zimmer, Ryan said, “I think I’m gonna head home and try this cultivation thing again. You have a nice one, Zimmer, and good fight.”

“Yeah, you too.” she groused out in return.