Eric abruptly opened his eyes with a gasp, heart pounding as he found himself balanced upon the bow of the most magnificent peach tree he could imagine, a cathedral of branches bowing over his head to provide verdant shade against the fiercely blazing sun, and upon each branch were countless globes of essence and flame and delicious succulent peach flesh.

Calling out to him with beads of nectar and fiery spiritual energy caressing each succulent fruit.

Eric flinched and hissed, not daring even to touch a single one as he desperately fought not to fall off the branch bough entirely, and into the mass of squealing hogs pounding the trunk with their tusks below.

Finesse Check made!

Eroc windmilled for long, heart pounding moments, humiliated to drop two of his javelins as he scrabbled to brace himself, polearms falling to the ground and immediately gored, trampled, and pounded upon by warthogs glaring his way with baleful eyes glittering with at least as much intelligence as the orcs spraying the gate with cannons and musket fire, just inches, or perhaps an entire realm, away.

It was as if the massive warthogs the size of bulls knew that weapons were the source of a human’s strength, and were eager to strip him of as much as they could.

A chilling realization that immediately shook him out of his state of dazed wonder, recalling in an icy rush the bitter paradox of so many cultivation novels. The stories touched upon worlds of glory and wonder, where enlightenment would enrich a cultivator’s soul to the point that he could transcend earthly flesh and mortal cares altogether.

Yet far from that inspiring practitioners to walk hand in hand in a state of angelic love and serenity, they instead were almost always written as self-serving extremists with maniacal tendencies, eager to crush any perceived threat to their own twisted ascensions, or answer any imagined slight with homicidal fury.

Cultivators were ruthless bastards, no two ways about it, in all save the gentlest stories involving magical roosters and farmers who knew the value of a decent grain of rice. For almost every other tale, bitter rinds were the only boon that gentle hearts ever received, and bearing your throat to another in an act of love or sacrifice would get it slit in the blink of an eye.

Eric’s moment of wonder and transcendent joy was shattered. Replaced instead with a bitter hard survivor’s mantel that had grown both ruthless and savage with a desperate need to crush his foes and grow stronger at all costs… as Roundear Elves were supposedly wont to do.

A stereotype and accusation that he, a once happy and well-adjusted human boy, would have vehemently protested… had the glittering eyes of the pigs below, so filled with malicious glee at stomping upon Eric’s tools of survival, not inspired a smile equally hard and cold from the killer coming to himself on the branches of a massive peach tree.

Eric’s laughter at his would-be executioners turned hard and cold as he glared at the three bull-sized warthogs below.

“Well, if that’s the way this story is going to be told, motherfuckers, then let the games begin!”

Eric hurled his remaining javelin with an odd mixture of savage glee and bitter regret for an innocence he had almost regained… a transcendent insight that had almost, for a heartbeat, brought peace to a heart embittered by loss and a desperate struggle for survival and the betrayal of community leaders and kin alike.

Before he once more embraced the twisted pleasure of quenching all his sorrows, all his anxieties and fears... in the hot blood of his foes. The bitter price that survival itself demanded he pay, for every sweet pain-filled breath of air he would draw with lungs whole, intact, and completely unperforated by the tusks of his foes.

Yet that momentary glimpse of serenity. Perspective. Of hope. All lost in the blink of an eye.

A loss he regretted more than he’d ever care to admit as he leaped from the tree with savage glee, earning a contemptuous snort from the second-largest warthog as he lifted up his tusks to rip open the unforgivably arrogant intruder like a ripe bloodfruit… before the pig’s fire-hardened skull exploded in blood and gore.

And suddenly it was one confused warthog blinking away the crimson skull fragments of his brethren as the packmate beside him crumpled with a spear lodged in the base of its spine. Where there had been three there was now only one lone pig finding itself facing a berserker racing forward so fast the hog failed to utter a single squeal before a well padded and protected throat was effortlessly ripped open and the invader’s mad laughter could be heard echoing with the rustle of countless agitated branches as it bathed in the blood of its fallen foes.

Congratulations! You have successfully slaughtered 3 Greater Warthogs!

Your core continues to infuse with the essence of your opponents!

Eric, crowned in the blood of his foes, roared his triumph allowed, hot eyes daring any challenger or foe to come forward.

A roar answered by countless squeals from foes without number, at which point Eric noted three extremely important things.

One, a certain skill was now ready to hit Adept tier that might change absolutely everything.

The second thing he noted was that his strained Extra Dimensional Storage space had not only sprung back to its ideal shape and dimensions after keeping it free of any contaminant for a good half day, but thanks at least in part to the inconceivably potent bridge of Fire Essence he had raced across for what might have been seconds, hours or days… his ES Space was not only fully restored, but was well on the way to another evolution.

And the final thing he noted was that he was a damned fool, and that dozens of massive warthogs were now headed his way.

You have successfully recovered 3 Greater Warthog Carcasses and 2 trampled javelins! (Essence of Dominion and spring steel flexibility has minimized damage!)

You have successfully scurried back up Gateway tree!

Words that immediately made him pause.

Because if this tree was somehow vital to his safely returning back to Earth, he damn well didn’t want it to become the target for countless warthogs to vent their ire.

Heart pounding, he forced himself to leap down the tree once more and sprint through the forest for all he was worth, even as he heard the thunderous squeal of countless hogs echoing through the forest.

“Over here you ugly bastards!” He roared.

But not being a complete idiot, he had held off until shimmying up another tree, and one whose gloriously thick crown of foliage intermingled with several others, Eric spending long careful minutes crossing from tree to tree as he gazed down with no small amount of wonder at what seemed an entire sea of warthogs, squealing and pawing the rich loamy soil down below, massive tusks banging against multiple trunks, his beady-eyed foes clearly not able to spot him in the foliage as he crossed from tree to tree until they began to disperse… almost as abruptly as they had come.

Eric took deep steadying breaths, his heart pounding with something he refused to call existential dread, for all that his mind was filled with grizzly images of a tide of infuriated warthogs sending entire forests crashing to the ground before goring him to a pile of pulpified flesh and bone, as he could so clearly sense that they had been so eager to do, this odd realm projecting killing intent almost as strongly as it did spiritual energy.

And Eric was okay with that, he decided, forcing a smile as he gazed upon a particularly lush peach dangling right before his face, filled with a succulent inner fire he dared not embrace.

But did he let the peaches inspire him as he breathed deep and meditated, pretending once more that his mother’s yoga was, in fact, the most humble of cultivation paths?

Yes he did.

Because in this time and place he could sense the Fire essence of his soul more clearly than ever, and even if it was delusion, he could visualize a gentle flame cleansing pollution and impurities with every measured breath he took.

Unformed Trash Tier Cultivation technique is now at Novice 28%! You can almost sense something beyond your own delusions!

Eric’s eyes widened, ignoring the snark, because he had, for just a moment, sensed something inside him, glimpsed behind a silhouette of flame.

It had felt like a node or a gate of some sort. But when he tried to sense it more clearly, he was struck with the mutually contradictory impressions of it being a crystalline node slowly solidifying to an ideal state that would allow for orderly data flow like a crystalline matrix… and that it was a vast jade waterway filled with liquid fire that was now near hopelessly clogged with tarry plaque and foul waste.

He clenched his suddenly roiling stomach, both awed and revolted, and oddly certain that both metaphors were simultaneously correct.

And what that bode for him or his future progression? He had no idea. He was just bitterly certain that any number of powerful intergalactic clans steeped in knowledge and lore knew exactly what it meant and how to best manipulate the situation for their own ends, and they’d sooner be caught dead than reveal to newly integrated savages like himself the secrets to their own ascension.

“So I’ll just have to figure it out myself,” he said with a sigh, more relieved than he cared to admit that speaking in a normal voice, and not a shout filled with the Essence of Dominion, he didn’t have to deal with any stampede of warthogs eager to gore him to death.

At least now he had far higher hopes than he had before, his Trash Tier technique shooting up 8 percentage points with just twenty minutes of meditation, not to mention giving him a glimpse of what he sensed was a vital truth… if only he could decipher its meaning a bit clearer.

And perhaps it was good that he had stopped to meditate, he thought, which was all his attempts at cultivation really were at this point, and that was fine. Because it also brought clarity of mind and a renewed recollection of purpose. He was here specifically to gather some of the ripe fire-infused fruit he dared not deliberately pluck, not yet, for all that they were inert if all he did was brush against them, he found much to his relief. And perhaps even more importantly, or so the compassionate part of him that was not yet completely obsessed with personal power and growing stronger, he was here to see if he could rescue a wayward necromancer who had yet to even ascend as a Basic Conscript, eager to see if he could back door his way to a powerful class without wasting any time, and Eric’s inner gamer heartily approved of the sentiment.

“As I delay leveling up for way too long, saturating my core, hoping that will also equal a golden ticket to a better future,” he said aloud with a smile.

“I guess we’re two pees in a pod, Samuel Orwell, wherever you are. Assuming you’re even alive at all, which I highly doubt,” he muttered to himself. “But I’m not such an ass that I won’t at least try to save your own.”

It was in that moment that a revelationary breakthrough neither Cultivation nor System yet somehow possessing aspects of both, overwhelmed him with countless memories of desperately fought battles, brutal campaigns, and hard-won victories, all survived and endured with weapons so like the one now in his trembling hands, blending so many of the strengths of the first pair, his mind now blazing with countless insights as he and the weapon became one.

Congratulations! Bardiche has achieved Adept Tier!

Your path to mastery now places you head and shoulders above millions of warriors striving for enlightenment.

You have within you the skill and grace to be honored as Instructor and Elder upon countless worlds embracing the Warrior’s Path!

You now enjoy +3 to Strength, Finesse, and Quickness, your mind and body more in tune with your weapon than ever before, as greater mastery of your tools and environment becomes greater mastery over yourself!

You may choose 1 weapon-related perk as the Essence of the warrior becomes your own!

Warrior’s Grace (Standard) – This Perk taps into the living memory of countless warriors who have written legends in the stars with their passing long before you were ever born. Expect an improvement in all aspects of two-handed melee polearms, from feints to counters to mastering the secrets of timing and leverage to better allow the delivery of devastating blows and deadly thrusts, as you commune with countless masters who have come before you!

Warrior’s Grace (Advanced) – This perk taps into the living memory of countless warriors who have written legends in the stars with their passing long before you were ever born. Expect an even greater improvement over the standard version of this perk in all aspects of two-handed melee polearms, thanks to inborn Node and System affinities, along with multiple trainers and sparring partners who have feted you with insights and training far beyond what the average Conscript could hope to expect! All of which will allow you to commune ever deeper with countless masters who have come before you!

Battleforged (Adept) – Your path forward is unique to all those who carefully learned their skills in the carefully regulated salons of their masters. For you were forged in the struggle for survival, in the killing fields of war. It is battle alone that forges you. It is in battle that you achieve insights and breakthroughs like no pampered scion will ever master at the footsteps of over-indulgent masters.

(This perk will rapidly increase your rate of growth and revelations during battle, and you will find it far easier to tap into the echoes of countless masters who have come before you! )

Cleaving Blow (Advanced) Rank II – Veteran of desperate battles that you are, you know as well as anyone that sometimes a single powerful cleaving blow is the difference between a decapitated enemy and your own entrails spilling on the ground. Embracing this perk means becoming one with the Essence of countless finishing moves delivered with sufficient force to chop through almost anything! Even steel helms and breastplates will be sundered by your might! - Note. This perk can be used by both Bardiche variants that you have studied!

Congratulations! You now have the potential to achieve a second tier with this perk, unleashing much more devastating and powerful swings than you could have before!

Doom Slice (Adept) – This Perk distills the Essence of the cut into the Essence of sharpness, a monofilament blade of potential echoing a million slicing cuts executed in the most perilous of circumstances, to absolutely deadly effect! The power behind your blows may not increase, but your ability to slice through almost everything and deliver the most wicked draw-cuts imaginable will mirror that of the deadliest of swordsmen… even if you'll be lucky to pull it off more than once per battle!

You have already purchased this perk once for the Saber skill! Investing in this perk with your war blade will add 50% potency to both Tier 1 variations!

Note. This perk can only be used with your war-blade bardiche!

Piercing Strike (Adept) - For one brief moment in time, you may embrace the killing fury of countless millions of warriors before you in delivering a deadly thrust that can pierce through almost anything!

You have already purchased this perk once for the Spear skill! Investing in this perk with your glaive bardiche will add 50% potency to both Tier 1 variations!

Note. This perk can only be used with your glaive bardiche!

His mind’s eye quickly flashed through the options he had seen, but he already knew what his choice would be. What it all but had to be.

Because as much as his inner gamer approved of hyper specializing in Cleaving Blow, it was a weapon feat he had only used a couple of times, always holding back lest he drain too much of his potency when he was forced to fight alone against multiple opponents.

He had no doubt that it was a finisher well worth developing further, but there was another perk that called out to him. One that resonated with the path he now walked, forced to fight constantly just to survive, and making the absolute most of his ability to gain revelations and insights in the throws of battle, even if it was just desperate inspiration on how to best dodge the thrust that could so easily cripple or kill him.

For him, Battleforged was the only way to go. And the moment he selected the perk, he knew he had been right as his fuzzy recollection of his last battle turning to crystal clear focus, Eric feeling instantly more in touch with not just his own body and how it could use the weapon in his hand for the most speed, power, and leverage, but also sensing the memories of countless champions that had come before him, needing only the slightest revelation, or life-threatening battle, to forge a communion with their echo through existence, and make their insights his own.

He couldn’t help but be awed by the option he had been presented with, thinking all the doors it might one day open to him, before his lips curled in something hard and bitter, forced to recall truths about his new world that he’d rather forget.

“This. It’s boons like this that the galactic elites are doing all they can to keep from us. Insights I’ll damn well share with those I trust… one day,” he said allowed, reveling in the newfound sense of strength and grace his elevated stats had granted him, happily devouring the tastiest morsels from his would-be assassin’s stored rations while deciding on his next move.

For he sensed dire peril all around him in every rustling sway of the glorious canopy overhead, and boundless opportunity as well.