Alvin rolled over, confused. Something didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on just what that something was. He laid on his back, and stared at the dawn sky, pondering, until he gave up and rolled back over. Upon landing face first in a small pile of sand, he realized what it was that was bugging him: he was laying on a pile of leaves, on the beach, and not in a comfortable bed with pillows, or even a vaguely not uncomfortable cot with a rolled up jacket. Sand may be good ergonomically, but he could never get over the texture, nor its tendency to get everywhere.

As he stood up and stretched, Alvin surveyed the beach. There were no signs of any belligerent beasts, and other than himself and a few rankless crabs the beach was lifeless. After deciding that there was not an impending fight, Alvin proceeded to clean up his “hobo camp” to hide the traces of him being there. It was unlikely that someone with the skill and strength to track him down would make their way to this secluded beach, but he figured it was better to make sure. He did not want an assassination attempt interrupting his sleep, especially on a journey where he wouldn’t be getting enough anyways. It honestly would be more difficult to track him using the remains of his camp than it was to clean it up, but it postponed the inevitable beginning of a mind numbing voyage, so he continued on in blissful procrastination.

To further prolong the start of the trek, Alvin decided to check his status page for the first time since he returned to Earth. Nothing would have changed, but going through his information helped him relax and avoid work at the same time, which had swiftly led to it becoming a habit, despite Master Edosa’s…… brutal attempts at forcing him to focus on his surroundings. Luckily, much like when he learned how to read a book and walk around school simultaneously, Alvin quickly picked up how to be aware of his surroundings while still ignoring them by perusing his data.

Name: Alvin Stoker

Affinity: Ocean(8)

Body Cultivation(9) Dantian Cultivation(9) Soul Cultivation(6)

Race: Human

Faction:

Boundless Azure Depths Sect

Age: 29

Master: Edosa Ichu

Bloodline: Sapphire Sea Dragon (0.01%)

Constitution: N/A

Alignment: Lawful-Neutral

Body Cultivation: Mid Boulder Stage of the Body Condensing Realm

Body Cultivation Manual: Body of the Scaled King of the Depths

Dantian Cultivation: Early Lake Stage of the Condensing Realm

Dantian Cultivation Manual: Myriad Currents of the Depths

Soul Cultivation: Peak Small Soul Stage of the Soul Expansion Realm

Soul Cultivation Manual: Peaceful Surface Above the Depths

Techniques: Fist of the Mantis Shrimp (Stage 3/7), Minnow Darts Around a Rock (Stage 4/9), The Six Swift Steps of the Sailfish (Step 2/6), Eight Arms of the Octopus (Stage 1/8)

His information matched exactly what it had been before he had returned, because he had not progressed in anything, nor learned any new techniques. Alvin looked up, and scanned his immediate surroundings, desperate for some other way to put off leaving now that he had finished going through his status page. Realizing that he was finally out of reasonable things to pretend to be busy doing, he pulled out the talisman to orient himself.

If he assumed that the sun still rose in the east and set in the west, and that the coastlines ran roughly north and south, Alvin would need to travel in the general northwest direction diagonally across the continent to reach the location Oriana set aside for founding a sect. He sighed, significantly less than excited at the prospect of a month-long journey. But, after 5 years of waiting to return, what was another month? Still, it was a lot of travelling. Whether or not it would be monotonous remained to be seen, but even with fantastical landscapes and creatures, travel was travel. He would probably swing between bored, stressed, and asleep.

Alvin shook his head, and took a deep breath to calm himself. After slipping the talisman into a pocket, he turned so that the morning sun, and the shoreline, were to his right. He stretched out his arms and then leaned down to touch his feet, before settling into the ready position one always sees runners take before running. After another deep breath, he exploded forward, throwing a small wave of sand in his wake as he sped off north.

Alvin groaned and stretched as he woke up, nearly rolling off of the tree branch he had tied himself to. The vine he had used was sturdy, and would at least break his fall, but it still wouldn’t feel overly pleasant. He carefully untied himself, then leaped from branch to branch until he finally landed on the ground once more. He cracked his neck and stretched his arms over his head, before starting a light jog. As he jogged, he accelerated, building up speed until he fell into his travel rhythm. Physically, Alvin was more than capable of maintaining his 60 km/h pace for nearly a week straight, but that would push his endurance, not to mention his sanity. So, after every 2 days of running, he would stop and sleep. Alvin had just woken up from his third rest period, which meant that he had been traveling for 6 days, and sleeping for almost another one.

The forest was a colorful blur around him, with trees of every shape and size stretching towards the sky, and various shrubs, bushes, and smaller plants covering the forest floor in a carpet of life. Alvin hadn’t seen many demonic beasts in this stretch of traveling, and most of the ones he had seen had been in the process of fleeing from his path. He hoped that trend would continue, but knew that it was only a matter of time until he crossed paths with a beast that was stupid, desparate, or powerful enough to attack. Or he accidentally passed too close to something’s home, and the creature lashed out in self-defense.

Alvin had been running for nearly a full day when he heard a commotion somewhere in front of him. Something had scared several birds into flight. The ground abruptly started to rumble, and Alvin squinted in the direction he heard the birds from. At first he couldn’t make out what was going on, but between his speed and the speed of the incident, he very quickly saw what it was. A hoard of beasts, predator and prey alike, were stampeding his way. They could only be fleeing, but from what?

“What could have caused all of these animals to flee together? Even a high rank demonic beast could not cause such universal panic. And even if it did, there wouldn’t be enough panic to stop some of the predatory beasts from grabbing an easy meal. So what caused this….” Alvin wondered aloud, quickly jumping up into the branches of the trees to avoid getting caught in the stampede. There were still panicked beasts escaping through the trees, but the were significantly less in number, and generally physically weaker than the beasts stuck on the ground.

The horde stampeded passed for nearly 30 minutes before it started to thin. It didn’t thin for too long before it started to fill out again, but this time less peacefully. It became clear why all of the animals were fleeing, because the creatures at the back of the escaping horde were being picked off by a swarm of ants. Army ants, judging by the presence of a few larger soldier ants with larger mandibles and heads, assuming ants work about the same as they used to. Other than the obvious size difference, seeing as the ants currently covering the forest floor life a thick woolen rug were close to the size of large dogs.

Army ants would normally stick to other insects and associated creepy crawlies, but the supersized versions seemed to have no problem devouring anything that wasn’t significantly more massive than they were. And that included Alvin, if he were to catch the swarm’s attention. Despite the fact that the workers were rank 2 and the soldiers were rank 3, he had no illusion as to his ability to fight the swarm. Unlike the crabs, the ants had sufficient numbers to drown him in a tide of glistening black chitin. So what if he could single-handedly slaughter several hundred ants? The next several thousand would rip him apart like dinner rolls on the holidays.

Like any sane person in his situation, Alvin resolved to leave the area as quickly as possible. He stayed up in the branches, because the ants wouldn’t be able to match his pace on level ground, let alone running through the canopy. There were a few ants in some of the trees, but Alvin either flew by too fast for the ants to react, or blasted through with superior cultivation. It took nearly 2 hours for Alvin to pass the swarm of ants, and he estimated that he was only skirting the edge. He shuddered just imagining how powerful and numerous the ants were in the center. Luckily, his intended path did not take him in that direction, but it was doubtful that he would be able to dodge every such incidence.

Right as that thought crossed his mind, a pop-up from the System superimposed itself over his view. Alvin’s expression fell further and further the more he read, and when he closed the window, the scowl he wore would have curdled milk and traumatized children. The pop-up was a rare one, a Quest, and people throughout the System would kill for one. This was Alvin’s third in the five years he had been a part of the System, which sounds much more impressive when compared to the multiversal average, which was around once every decade. What was less impressive were the details of the Quest itself.

[Quest: Out of Many, One]

[You have encountered a swarm of Khan Army Ants. The swarm will travel and grow until the ecosystem is stripped bare, and the colony collapses under its own weight.]

[Task: Either A) Eliminate the queen or B) Eliminate 20% of the swarm’s numbers]

[Reward: Rank 5 Condensed Chitin Pill, Rank 5 Guantl-ants]

[Punishment: Random teleportation and/or death by ant]

While the reward was certainly worth his time, Alvin was beyond frustrated at the consequences of failure. Dying was just generally unacceptable, especially when half the point of cultivation is immortality, but the real punishment was the random teleportation. He didn’t have to worry too much about getting lost, thanks to the talisman, but he did have to worry about distance and location. He could end up in an active volcano, or at the bottom of the ocean, or kilometers above the planet’s surface. The environments alone would kill him, not to mention the exotic and dangerous beasts that called them home. And, if he didn’t land somewhere that was outright uninhabitable, it was still likely to be very far away from his destination, maybe even the opposite end of the planet. So, failing the Quest was not a viable option, and the rewards looked positively enticing, even with the horrible pun. Alvin decided that he would complete the Quest for the rewards, and not because the System threatened him into doing so. Besides, 20% of the ants’ numbers should be easy enough between guerilla tactics and his superior cultivation. If only he had a really big magnifying glass…….

Alvin was starting to regret trying to eradicate 20% of the ant swarm. He had easily slain over 10,000 of the ants in the last 3 days (he lost count around there), but the progress bar for the Quest hadn’t even hit 1%! In fact, the number displayed was 0.005%, which meant, after some quick math, that the entire colony numbered at least 200 million. Even if he succeeded in killing the 40 million ants, it would take nearly 33 YEARS, and he would definitely be a smidge late by that point. If he still wanted to succeed by killing 20% of the ants, he would have to commit to a more intense campaign, pushing himself to the brink every day in order to fell the numbers to complete his Quest.

nd, he could also just blitz through the swarm, find and kill the queen, and then escape. That plan should only take a few days, as opposed to a few years. As much as he would rather not take the risk, the longer he delayed, the longer it would take to fulfill his obligation to the Boundless Azure Depths Sect. Thinking about the sect reminded him of his master, and some of her criticisms of his fighting style and personality.

“You’re too cautious,” Master Edosa had told him after a bout of sparring, “You try to wait for the perfect opportunity, and minimize risk. That would work well leading a group of combatants, but most cultivator fights are one-on-one. You won’t be able to win if you’re looking for the one perfect chance, especially at higher levels where physical abilities and skill levels have far surpassed what any mortal is capable of. You need to take risks to succeed, and to advance. If you play it too cautious, you’ll eventually plateau, and get left far behind your peers.” After the admonition, she had proceeded to thrash him in their next bout.

He wouldn’t be able to take the careful route to the peak, and if there was any time to be bold, it was now. Gathering himself, and his Qi, he activated the only ability he’d learned from his body cultivation manual, The King’s Scales, boosting his physical abilities, especially his defense, to the peak of his realm. He oriented himself towards his best approximation of the swarm’s center, and took off.

Alvin stuck to the trees for as long as he could, but the trees grew sparser and sparser the further he traveled, cut down by the marauding ants. Eventually, he was wading through a tide of carnivorous chitinous mandibles, smashing through most of the ants like they weren’t even there. He held back much less than before, but still kept some of his trump cards for the final push to kill the queen.

His mad rush through the ants seemed unstoppable, but under the weight of tens, hundreds of thousands of bodies, his sprint slowed to a run, then a jog, a walk, and down to a slog. Each blow felled an insectoid demonic beast, but each corpse was replaced by 2 living bodies. He had still been able to maintain a relatively quick pace, until the soldier caste started to add themselves to the living tide trying to rip him apart. Eventually, the only ants around him were the soldiers, and that was when the first wound was inflicted on him.

A pair of mandibles almost as large as some of the workers’ bodies suddenly cut through the swarm, Alvin’s robe, and into his right thigh, cutting to the bone, but thankfully stopping there. Alvin screamed at the unexpected wound, and came face to face with the largest ant he had ever seen. Unlike army ant queens before the change, this demonic beast was fully capable of self locomotion - and combat. It was the size of a truck, with most of the body being its abdomen. Its mandibles were like oversized scythes, with small serrations to better grip and tear, and enough strength and sharpness to cleave through steel like cold butter.

Alvin fully unleashed his aura, blasting away the worker and soldier ants, before launching the same strike that freed him from the tree directly into the top of the queen’s head. To his surprise, she merely rocked backwards from the blow, the chitin scuffed and barely chipped. His minor reprieve lasted for just a moment, before the queen slammed him into the ground hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He wheezed, but didn’t have much chance to catch his breath before he was lifted and slammed again. And again. When the mandibles tore out of his thigh, Alvin barely had the presence of mind to scream. The queen was a blurry black mass above him, rearing back to strike again. He blankly stared at her for a moment, one that stretched and froze, and he felt a pit drop in his stomach. Bested, by an ant? Killed to be food for the numberless horde? Alvin refused, he would not falter yet, he hadn’t found his family, he hadn’t achieved anything. He still had his Qi and his life, and he would not fall yet.

Alvin hurled himself to the side, wincing as he put weight on his injured leg. It was already starting to heal, but his mobility was limited until then, certainly not enough to escape. Which meant his only path was forward, through the chitin-clad calamity charging directly towards him. He groaned, then steeled himself, pulling out all the stops. His aura, which he had dropped in his daze, flared back out again, this time with a vengeance. And a ripple, that grew into a wave, spread through it as he activated his System-given bloodline of the Sapphire Sea Dragon, pressing down on the surrounding ants and causing the queen to stumble a step in her charge. She quickly righted herself, but that momentary pause was enough for Alvin to push his techniques to their limit, dashing straight towards the behemoth bug with his right arm cocked back, a hazy layer of chitin made from Qi covering hs fist and half of his lower arm.

The ant queen suddenly accelerated, lunging forward in an attempt to simultaneously grab Alvin with her mandibles and slam him to the ground under her superior mass. Alvin just met the charge head on, his fist shooting forward faster than even his enhanced senses could see. His fist met the queen’s head before her mandibles could cut into him, stopping her dead in her tracks, and even forcing her stumbling back. There was now a crater the size of a trash can lid on her head, with cracks radiating out from it, but Alvin didn’t escape the clash unscathed. His body was extremely resilient, even more so after activating his bloodline, but he couldn’t handle the tremendous force his technique put him under; his wrist and several finger bones were broken, and his shoulder was dislocated. He had no time to rifle through his storage ring looking for a healing pill, because the until then silent ant queen shook itself out of her concussed stupor with an ear-rending screech that was somewhere between steel being torn apart and explosive diarrhea. Alvin responded with tired laughter, and simply cocked his other arm back, this time pumping every bit of Qi that wasn’t involved in his movement technique or actively healing his right arm into his left, pushing his technique even further than he had in the last exchange, the Qi roiling around his arm like boiling rapids.

He and the formic goliath stood still for a few precious moments, sizing each other up, stalling for just a few more seconds to heal and prepare an attack. The instant the Qi around Alvin’s arm condensed into a chitinous gauntlet, he threw himself forward at his top speed, crossing the few tens of meters between them in the blink of an eye, striking before that same blink could finish. There was a flash of light, then a sound like mountains colliding, sending out a shockwave that tore apart and hurled away any of the lesser ants that had been foolish enough to remain close to the brawling titans.

When the dust settled, Alvin stood in a gore filled crater, next to the nearly headless corpse of the queen. His entire body was coated in the brackish green blood from the queen, and he swayed unsteadily on his feet, tenderly holding his arms close to his chest. He stumbled out of the indent in the ground, then looked around warily for any attacking ants. There were none, he could just barely see some scattering into the forest. He sighed in relief, then started stumbling towards the treeline in the direction he thought he had been heading in before the System dumped an inconvenient Quest on him. He hopped up the branches of nearby trees, narrowly avoiding falling off, until he got to a reasonably high branch that was still large enough for him to lay on. He leaned his back against the trunk, and fished a healing pill out of his ring, wincing at the use of his arm to get it into his mouth. All of the tension left his body, as the gentle energy of the pill began healing him, and he quickly fell asleep.