Eric closed his eyes, using his Infravision to try to detect any human shaped form that might, by some miracle, be successfully hiding in some tree house shelter, successfully surviving stampedes of warthogs without dying of hunger or thirst.

But all he sensed was the entire forest ablaze with what he knew to be spiritual fire. The essence of Flame. In some tiny way, mirroring his own essence. Which, he thought, was pretty cool.

But it did nothing to help him find a wayward apprentice, which he thought pretty damn unlikely, consideraing that the bodyguards that should have been at his back had instead been obliterated by a hail of lead shot, just days ago.

In truth, Eric was more than a bit surprised, and troubled, to find that the delayed response from the orcs responding to the initial hail of gun fire hadn’t been sloth or laziness, but because an organized shaman had actually gone back for at least a few of their bronze cannon. Probably because, like it or not, the system marked him as a nomad Contender to whoever controlled the territories he entered.

A development both terrifying… and exciting, his mind already racing with possibilities that might not be taking place for weeks or months… if ever.

He groaned and shook his head. “I sure as fuck better not end up stuck here,” he sighed, before accepting that his infravision was of very limited use here, and he’d have to look for traces of this Samuel fellow the old fashioned way.

But not without first taking the time to repair two only slightly mangled pilum, quickly straightening out in his mind’s eye, thanks to their soul linked, essence infused states. And now, much to his fierce satisfaction, he could instantly summon them forth from his fully rejuvenated ES Storage space and send them flying, one after another, without having to juggle weapons in each hand.

And he didn’t hesitate to test his restored potential, extricating one massive, still steaming carcass on the forest floor before jogging back a good hundred paces, and summoning one of his three blood-linked javelins in the blink of an eye.

But not without first making sure he was right next to a friendly-looking peach tree with a trunk ideal for shimmying up, and a grand crown of branches he could easily slip from one tree to another to. That, and a careful, thorough pan of his surroundings, and he actually felt safe enough to let loose with one javelin after another, putting his whole body into whipping the weapons around and sending them arcing through the air.

He felt a sweet jolt of satisfaction as each pilum plunged between the ribs of his target, one over another, just as he had visualized. As sweetly as when he laid up the perfect shot, his basketball hitting nothing but net, the very few times he got the best of his sister at her favorite game.

The sweet rush of being in the zone. No high was better, according to his sister, and that had proven the foundation of her own recovery. And Eric couldn’t agree more, save for the fearsome ecstasy of devouring the essence of his foes, or devouring an entire province. A screaming hot rush like that, nothing could compare to. He was just lucky that anticipation didn’t degrade to desperate obsession.

But perhaps it would, if he weren’t careful.

Perhaps there was a reason why he dare show no one his Oblivion’s Maw title.

In case there would be a time when he just couldn’t stop.

So maybe it was a damn good thing he had chosen the Path of Endless Bounty. The closest to the ‘Light side’ of this deadly path that he could walk.

He took a deep breath, gazing with no small amount of satisfaction at the javelin-studded pig.

The pilum hurled at what was considered absolute maximum range for these weapons historically, with most recorded accounts implying that any sort of accuracy was 50 to 70 feet, and that was for a well trained legionnaire. And Eric had just struck his target with the heaviest types of pilum in a visualized six inch target window, at about 3 times that range.

“Don’t get too cocky. Those orc Classers were throwing them with vibrating heads at ranges longer than this,” he muttered to himself as he clenched his fist, eager to see if the other advantage of investing a bit of his own potential in binding these weapons to his soul would pay off the way he hoped it would.

And when first one, then a second, and finally a third javelin vanished from the carcass, only to reappear back in his ES Space, the third then manifesting in his hand already cocked back for another throw in the blink of an eye made it clear that his ES Space and Soul link in unison worked just as well for instantly retrieving 5 pound javelins as it did 5 ounce arrows.

Congratulations!

Your Javelin Throwing skill has reached Rank 6! Throw them faster, farther, and more accurately than ever!

With a happy whistle, Eric jogged over to the carcass, most definitely not thinking about altering the meat in any way before putting it in ES Storage. Because as much as he wanted to develop his necromantic gifts, and most definitely wanted a supernaturally strong bulwark of Greater Lizard-like strength some time in the future, what he wanted right now was plenty of safely stored meat he could dress, cook, and prepare in the very near future.

Because the next order of business as far as he was concerned was finding some sort of shelter that the swine dominating this forest couldn’t easily get to, preferably with a source of running water nearby. From there he would set up camp, sort his inventory, find any wayward apprentices that he could, and see if he could make any further progress in developing his own version of a cultivation technique, even if it was only strong enough to claim a single fruit.

He was in no hurry to leave, with both goblin assassins and orc cannoneers eager for his head. This pocket realm was effectively a sanctuary, and he’d be a fool not to learn as much as he could while he was here, all other objectives aside. And if he could figure out how to use the arcane wands still safely stored away, then so much the better.

Whatever would help him unlock the most powerful class possible… whatever would help him survive the coming weeks and months, was most definitely a path of learning and growth he was eager to pursue.

With a smile on his lips and a lightness to his step, Eric made his way through the massive grove as large as any elder forest, happy just to savor the moment as he breathed deep of peach-scented forest air, savoring the feel of dappled sunlight caressing his skin, though he always kept a careful eye out for the flash of bristled hide through the underbrush, ears perked for the squeal of bacon as he enjoyed a nature walk like no other, obsidian sharp bardiche held firmly in hand.

Chapter

Despite the existential peril of highly agitated swine, Eric sensed no immediate threat and found himself slipping into a half-trance, savoring the delightful tingle of warm spiritual energy all around him, using his weapon as a walking stick, for all that he could summon it in the blink of an eye, if he so chose. For just a moment he felt like he was enjoying a tour of Tokyo’s famed private gardens, where high end horticulture and tourism met in a delightful blend of luxury and vigor both piquant and exhilarating, with friendly guides and a luxurious buffet just a short distance away.

Even then Eric had found something fascinating if not downright entrancing about exotic cultures half a world away from the glitz, glamour, and gilded cages of Manhattan and Beverly Hills, being one of the few among his mother’s coterie more interested in absorbing whatever the tour guides and natives had to share in terms of local history and lore than he was in sucking up to his mother or seducing one of the budding actors, actresses, or producers that buzzed around her like flies on shit that forever smelled like roses.

Because sometimes when he found the opportunity to escape the urban sprawl for a quiet day in the forest, or at least got to tour a well-cared for garden, for a few precious moments he would feel strangely whole, connected to the world around him. Like he really belonged. A visceral thrill of excitement so similar to when he began a new character in his favorite RPG games, only it was real. A fresh start, or at least the momentary dream of it.

To be interning a semester as a horticulturalist among groves so very much like this one.

To be practicing Shaolin Kung Fu at an ancient monastery overlooking a magnificent vista of snow-capped mountains marching off into the distance. To truly feel at peace, and connected to the world.

And the tight feel of arms grown thick with muscle after countless hundreds of hours spent mastering ancient western arts that had no practical application outside movie sets allowed him the conceit of imagining he could actually endure a season or two proving himself as the humblest of aspirants at one of those monstaries… and the unwanted enhancements he’d clean from his body with joy, no matter how much muscle tone he lost.

Because far more than the fantasy of living the life of a Shaolin Warrior,

Was the simple desperate desire to be free.

Free of the golden cage that had snapped shut long ago, trapping him in duty and obligation, where neither mind nor body was truly his own.

Among the Winter Queen’s favorite puppets, along with his twin sister, to maneuver as she wished until his mother grew tired of the games she played, and who knew what would happen to her poor children then?

Eric shuddered and shook away the brooding thought, profoundly grateful that, for the first time in his life, protected by a gate no one higher level than him could cross, he was well and truly free.

No platoon of cannoneers had him in their sights, no goblin assassins around to rip open his throat in the dead of night. No maternal siren’s call, seducing him with submission’s caress.

Eric squeezed the hilt of his bardiche so tightly that had he not already infused the shaft with so much of his essence, it would have surely burst.

He shook his head, soothing as best his racing heart.

No wicked queen or twisted monster were after him here.

He was, for the moment, free.

And after spending a few quiet moments regulating his breathing, taking deep breaths of sun kissed air saturated with his strongest affinity, he couldn’t help but smile with delight, childhood dreams of becoming a cultivating hero, even a charming fop like Super Punch man suddenly teasing him with the glimmer of actual possibility.

He already knew he could level up. That, with sufficient feats of physical and arcane prowess combined with the saturation of his core, wondrous things awaited him when it was finally time to evolve his White Tier class.

But what if that wasn’t the limit of it?

What if there were other ways he could evolve his potential?

Not just another avenue by which he could best his foes… but ways he could better prepare himself for whatever came after his first class evolution.

Bronze Tier.

The very words had been whispered by his roguish friends with a certain amount of awe and bemusement, many a time when they kicked back and bullshitted with each other over dinner back in Junk Town. They all intuitively understood that just hitting the halfway mark to that goal was a plateau that very few could reach, and fewer still could ascend from level fifty all the way up to level one hundred, the bottleneck between White Tier and Bronze, from the tidbits he had gleaned while in Freetown.

He could only guess that the efforts and resources needed to actually break through were utterly beyond the pale. And for those who actually managed to achieve that incredible transformation, Eric couldn’t help but think that the challenges needed to ascend the ranks of Bronze were, if anything, harder by orders of magnitude, compared to Basic classers struggling just to hit level 100 over who knew how many years or decades.

Yet the payoff, for the very, very few who could ever achieve such a feat, must certainly be worth it. Especially if they had it within themselves to achieve at least one more inconceivably difficult breakthrough

Because just from the stories he had overheard in Blue Quarter, if Bronze Tier was the equivalent of the most powerful fantasy heroes within reason, Silver tier took all limits aside, forging monsters that could hold entire planets under their sway, even if not so hideously potent as to destroy an entire planet by virtue of their personal might alone.

That, if the bleak twinkle in Caliban’s eye when Eric had dared test him with questions he knew the man would and could never answer… that, was reserved for Gold tier.

Eric shook his head with a rueful chuckle, not needing his friend’s pitying gaze to know he was in way over his head, and just figuring out the best, strongest, White Tier path, or the class that would take one from level ten all the way to one hundred for the true elite, over who knew how many years... was all that humanity should be worrying about right now.

But since Eric had absolutely no idea what the requirements to those absurd tiers of power might be, since he didn’t even know how to go about picking a half-decent White Tier class, let alone find a perfect fit for himself, if he were to have any hope of ascending to any of those tiers at all, he damn well better start taking steps right now to strengthen his foundation in every concievable way that he could.

Even his Interface was forced to acknowledge the evolution of his Trash Tier cultivation technique, for all that it seemed oddly separate and completely divorced from his evolution as an adventurer.

How far could he go, he wondered, if he could forge a cultivation path worthy of the name?

The very thought made him laugh.

To become a Cultivator when he couldn’t even sense cores, blockages, channels, or gates. It was absurdity.

It was fantasy.

Yet with the infusion of so much power and potential into his virgin world…

Perhaps it was reality as well.

And in a pocket realm so infused with the essence of Flame that he could feel it caress his very soul, sensing the Fire Qi of life itself blazing merrily away in every single perfectly ripe fruit upon endless rows of perfectly cared-for peach trees without a single gardener in sight… who knew how far he could go?

Now, when Eric clenched the shaft of his bardiche, his hand trembled not with fear or the panic-inducing sense of drowning in his mother’s gaze. Instead it shook with excitement, a sense of exhilaration normally only felt when he was embracing mad peril, rolling the dice with his life on the line, mind and body honed sharper than any blade imaginable as he fought just to survive.

At this moment, breathing deep of the Qi infused air, he felt a similar fire kindling within his soul.

Already knowing that whatever the state of his Quest with Grim, he planned on staying here for as long as he dared.

A ray of pristine light in a stormy future where nothing was certain.

Best he savor it’s life-giving rays for as long as he possibly could.

And that’s when he heard it.

A soft whimper coming from the cave entrance to his left, the trees thinning as the ground began to rise. And what disturbed him even more than the rank, sickly-sweet smell invading his nostrils was how effortlessly his eyes had been charmed away from the makeshift grounds outside the cavern entrance that was clearly man-made. Grounds that included a fence of bones and the skeletized carcass of a pig that was glaring at him with sightless eye sockets that sent shivers down his spine.

Which was, of course, just a feeling.

Yet glare at him it did.

Eric swallowed his suddenly parched throat.

He had walked blithely past a clear necromancer’s layer, all the while thinking he was deep in woodlands, without the faintest idea of how to complete his mission.

And he would have wandered right past it, he was sure, were it not for the smell.

And the half-whispered plea.

“Please take pity on your pitiful disciple, Master! It has been three days. And every hour I ring your golden bell. And all I feel is pain. Endless pain.”

A young man’s broken sob shook Eric out of his fugue.

“I beg of you, Master Grim. Either bring succor… or give me the strength to end it. Please… let this pain come to an—“

“Is someone there?” Eric called out, so excited he forgot to modulate his voice.

Then he froze at his own stupidity, before spinning around, already expecting the red-eyed squeals of tuskers eager to punish the interloper who dared invade their domain.

But there was nothing.

Even the voice he had thought he heard had abruptly broke off.

Long tense seconds passed the air rang with a young man’s desperate plea once more.

“Is someone there? God’s mercy, is someone actually here? Please help. Please, water if you have it. I beg of you, any water you have!”