Chapter 19: Chapter 19

An overgrown Ogre hit its club to the tree and almost blew up the trunk in a single hit. Just before the impact, Ethan blinked to another branch of a different tree and sent a shadow spike that stabbed the Ogre’s shoulder. In a rage, the Ogre let out a frustrated howl, but before it even finished, another spike appeared in its throat. It covered the bloody hole with its hand and threw its club toward him. 

He simply blinked again before sending another spike, this time piercing right under its eye. The Ogre dropped dead just like its other two kin.

‘DING! You have leveled up.’

Ethan leaped from the tree and blinked once again before hitting the ground. ‘’This skill is so good, I’m afraid that it’ll make me lazy,’’ he commented to Beet, who was waiting nearby without any intention to join the fight.

‘’Three tier-3 Ogres, one of them was at the late tier-3,’’ he said before spreading his hands. ‘’And look at me, not even a scratch. Now I understand why people love to play as mages on VR. Although I admit, this forest is a perfect place for blinking around. If I was on the ground, I’d have to use the [Blink] much more.’’

He merrily went to collect their cores and whistled to call his new companion, Jolly. The dark-furred beast came over like a bolt and stopped over near Ethan. It was taller and more muscular than the horses back on Earth, and with its devil-like horns, there was nothing jolly about it. But Ethan loved his loyal stead regardless. At the late tier-1, the beast made it possible to arrive at the pocket world in only three weeks which he was initially expecting more than 40 days on his feet even with his boosted stats. He mounted the Jolly and slowly rode toward the pocket world as he allocated his stats.

Tier 2 - Level 28

Health: 800/800

Mana: 322/1000

Stamina: 557/600

Vitality: 80

Strength: 72

Endurance: 60

Agility: 100

Intellect: 100

Perception: 40

*Available stats: 0

Skills(Rank 1): [Blink], [Fabric Tear], [Void Wrap], [Mana Sense], [Mana Aura], [Shadow Spikes], [Long Jump]

Tier-3 was closing up, and with the bonus stats, he wanted to reach 50 PER and 82 STR. After that, he planned to leave them like that till tier-5, unless there was an unexpected situation. Also, the combination of [Fabric Tear] and [Shadow Spikes] turned out much better than he thought, and he was tempted to go for more mana. Not that he lacked mana but killing the beasts without taking any risks was too satisfying.

Though, he still knew better than to lean on one side. The benefit of his Rouge/Mage build was the versatility. He heard that many powerful families had anti-mage teams that somehow block the mana access in a specific area. In a similar situation, he could’ve still fought, albeit with less firepower.

Looking at his level, Ethan frowned in consideration, ‘Ani, how far are the caves of the rock worms? Considering I’m traveling with Jolly?’

‘About a week of a trip.’

While the pocket world is a few hours away. Should I finish the mission and advance to the peak of tier-2, or wait until I reach tier-3? It’ll take about three weeks to come back here, but at least I can advance the moment I have a rank 2 skill. The Primordial Realm is not going anywhere; let’s get those last two levels first, he thought and changed his direction toward his first quest, to kill some worms.

With the help of Ani, he found the cave system quickly. It was closer to the Serene Depths, but he didn’t notice any tier-4 beasts when coming here. The caves were beneath a barren mountain, with more than one entrance. Leaving the jolly outside, Ethan entered a random cave and found it quite different from the one goblins used.

The caves and their connections were much more extensive, and there were holes everywhere. Even after walking for hours, he found no signs of the worms or the Blue Root Grass. When he finally felt a late tier-2 rock worm, he smiled with joy because he felt it 35 yards beneath him with his [Mana Sense]. No snake attacks for you guys.

The worm also sensed Ethan and made a beeline. He blinked before the worm drilled up and used [Shadow Spikes]. His shadow spike made a dent in its skin, and the beast didn’t even react. 

‘’Oh, come on! I killed a late tier-3 Ogre with that. Are you my bane or something?’’ he complained with wide eyes before trying a few more futile attempts.

The rock worm was about 20 feet long, and even though it was practically swimming in the earth, it was still slow for Ethan but resilient as hell. The beast barely got injured even after he used the spikes inside its mouth.

Thankfully his new daggers worked, but even then, he didn’t make any slashes. Afraid that his new toys would get broken, he only stabbed its head and pulled his dagger with care. Huh, it wasn’t so hard. All right then, you giant rock spaghettis, we’ll do this old-school.

He spent four days killing every tier-3 worm he saw and collected a little more than a barrel worth of Blue Root Grass. The rock worm’s only weakness was the head. Even if he cut them in half, it only reduced their movement and speed. But a full-strength stab between their eye sockets-they only had sockets but no eyes- was enough to kill them. Of course, that was if we were talking about tier-3s.

A gargantuan rock worm was looking down at Ethan with a snake-like pose. With a cry, it manipulated the gravity around it before attacking like an avalanche. Ethan didn’t run and wanted to see his chances as it was at the same tier as Sparky, early tier-4.

He blinked twice and positioned himself closer to the exit tunnel before opening a [Fabric Tear] and stabbing his dagger through it. It shallowly injured the beast's cheek. Pulling his numbed hand back, he noticed a crack on his dagger. Without hesitation, he made a run. ‘’Butchers anything below tier-5 my ass, fuck you very much, Zach.’’ 

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The beast’s domain was close to 100 yards, and the closer he was to it, the more Ethan felt the pulling force. He blinked to a different tunnel that was smaller for the beast. ‘’I-’’ The cave started to collapse once the beast followed, and he ran with long jumps before blinking three more times. ‘’Really-’’ He found an even smaller hole going underground. Knowing there was water beneath, he jumped and slid it through. ‘’Really-’’ Three rock worms were building a nest-like structure, and all came after him. Using another long jump and four more blinks in succession, he dived into the water. As he swam for a minute, he didn’t see any worms following, and he blinked twice to appear on a different corridor. Coughing some water out, he put his hand to his knees, bending, ‘’Need a better ranged [Blink],’’ he said between deep breaths while thanking Elisium for the rock worm’s behavior against water.

On his way back, he finally killed a beast and got no essence of it, he was at the absolute peak of tier-2, and it was time to cultivate some skills. Being successful in his first adventurer’s quest, he arrived at the entrance of the pocket world once again. It was an ancient-looking, colossal teleportation gate. Without any hesitation, he rode the Jolly right inside with a smile on his face. This time he wouldn’t leave before reaching tier-3. 

Inside, an apocalyptic paradise welcomed Ethan. He was standing on a mountain top, the scene in front of him were the green forests, rivers, lakes, and other mountains, interacting with each other in a beautiful harmony. But there were also space tears everywhere, some big, some small, some seemingly stable, and some just disappearing suddenly. They were everywhere, and it looked like this world might dissolve into space at any moment. In spite of that, Ethan read that it was like this for over a hundred years and expected to stay like this even more. 

He dismounted and took a small rock from the ground before throwing it into the space tear above his head. The rock passed through it and disappeared from his view but soon after, a low ‘thud’ sound came. So there is ground as well as gravity? Shouldn’t this place exist on the Azora? Why is the background of space tears just dark? How am I supposed to understand void when I know nothing about space or these pocket worlds? Fucking bullshit cultists, was it so hard to leave a few books about your research on space?

Frustrated, Ethan decided to look around for beasts, but after spending more than a day, he found nothing but more space tears. Thanks to his Void Manual, he did understand some aspects of the tears though. Mostly if they were stable or how long are they gonna stay that way, and with his [Mana Sense], he was able to feel when a tear would appear. He knew that focusing on those would help him to understand the void more.

After three days of searching, he decided to settle in a place with a nice view and lots of space tears. There were fruit trees all around, literally all around. The space tears sliced through everything they had appeared on. Not to mention the half trees and their sliced branches, even the water of the small lake was less than half it was. Apparently, once a tear appeared inside the lake, the water flowed through that dark dimension. Fortunately, in this chaotic place, there was a small untouched area where Ethan planned to make his base.

The first thing he did was to fetch his beer barrel and fill himself a cold one. In the company of this gorgeous scenery, he made himself relax and checked his storage ring’s messy interior. He had already burned the bodies of Sparky and his goons. Sparky had a spatial pouch filled with potions and three mana stones worth coins. Unfortunately, the others weren’t that wealthy; other than 8 gold coins, he only took a sword and a pair of comfy shoes from them. Still, just the potions were enough to make him smile. Now, he had about 15 low-grade potions of each kind along with two mid-grade health potions.

He also stocked many foods on the way, enough to feed him for two months. Although more than 90 percent of it was meat, he didn’t mind. At his core, Ethan was a carnivore through and through.

Making sure everything was ready, he started his cultivation session with anticipation, but it didn’t take long for him to get a little dispirited. A week later, he was lying on the ground and trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. He only made some progress with [Blink] but couldn’t pass the last and most crucial stage, connecting it to his domain just like [Mana Sense]. The problem was that the mana skills that worked with his domain came from the same source as his domain, his soul. 

According to what he learned from the library, cultivators didn’t have anything like Dantanian as the game Heaven’s Dao suggested. They refined and expanded their souls. The mana pool of everyone was also in the soul, whereas the domain was the manifestation of the soul, using the body as a bridge. The soul itself resided in a different dimension. No, that was also wrong because the soul itself was a place and didn’t need to reside somewhere. 

All those foreign concepts made Ethan confused even more, but he understood that it was easy for mana skills to use his domain while it was much harder to connect [Blink] to his body or soul.

For [Fabric Tear], he figured out what he was doing but didn’t progress any further. He was actually bending the space, which was also another dimension, bringing two different points on top of each other and making a tear at that point from the fabrics of reality. That was what got him two parallel portals. But how he was doing that was a complete mystery to him.

The [Void Wrap] was the most simple but also the most baffling. To coat himself with void aspect mana was such a direct way, but what could he have changed more than it already was? He kept thinking about becoming the void itself and passing through the objects until he realized that was a much more advanced theory. What he needed was to reduce the damn mana consumption of the skill.

A distant memory came to his mind as he drifted to the past.

Ethan was at his friend Doug’s house, and they were as high as Mount Tai. His friend Doug was describing something from the couch while trying to suppress the sound of the Canadian tv show going on, something about trailer parks. Whereas he was on an epic quest to find the long-lost potato chips, given by the Lord Munchies himself.

‘’...so, the atoms that we’re made of are actually %99.99 empty. There are electrons and protons inside them, but the space they occupy is minuscule. There is also a giant space between every atom. Then there are cells that are also far away from each other. In conclusion, we humans are more than %99.99 void and less than %0.001 substance,’’ Doug concluded with an awed expression.

Ethan was checking every closet and even lifting some jars, looking beneath and behind them. ‘’That’s horse shit, man. How am I able to cut my finger with a knife? Where is all the space you are talking about?’’

‘’You are looking at it from the wrong way. I’m talking about subatomic levels,’’ Doug shook his head, decreasing the volume of the tv before continuing. ‘’Plus, even when you’re cutting your finger, the atoms of your finger and your knife don’t touch each other. The electromagnetic force of the knife’s electrons pushes away your finger’s electrons.’’

Ethan switched his target to the couch and started lifting the cushions, searching the sides of the sofa. ‘’You mean we never even exactly touch anything?’’ he asked, mildly confused.

‘’Yep, only some atoms on the sun touch each other because of the ridiculously high speed. On a very technical level, I’m not actually sitting on this couch; I’m hovering ever so slightly above it,’’ Doug said with a smug smile.

He pulled his hand from the couch’s corner, along with a rustling sound. His eyes lit up, ‘’Oh look, a Pop-Tart!’’ 

Lord Munchies would be very happy.

Ethan sat up with a jolt, lightning in his eyes. If he only coated the actual matter on his body with void aspect mana, it would be much more effective. He promptly started to cultivate, but how could he detect where the material was and where the emptiness was? I’ll go from backward; first I’ll find the void with Void Manual, then I’ll remove the coating from the already empty spaces, he thought and got to work.

Removing the coating between the cells was easy, but the space between atoms was more complex. As for the space inside the atoms, it was impossible for now because of the constantly moving electrons and protons. Not that he noticed that. He only guessed that was the case for the constantly changing void that was impossible to pinpoint. Still, once he was done, the [Void Wrap] acted like it had discharged a significant burden.

But there was another important fact, his clothes. It was all useless if he had to coat them in a sphere as he did before. Thankfully the same concept was applied to any object. After his experience with his own body, it didn’t take long to do the same for his clothes. In the wake of deciding that he had done the best he could, he opened his eyes with excitement.

‘DING! [Void Wrap] has advanced to rank 2.’’

‘DING! You have reached Tier-3.’

Jumping to his feet, he raised his fist to the air. ‘’Yes! Epiphany bitches!’’ he screamed with joy. ‘’I love you, Doug!’’

Ethan looked around with a grin and found Beet with a perplexed expression next to him. He was going to assure his buddy that he was going to buy skills for him too, but before that, they heard a noise that was increasing with time, like something was running toward them. They turned to wait and saw a girl not much later who stopped her sprint less than 100 yards away. She was looking at him with shiny eyes and dark circles under them, donned in ragged animal hides, a huge bag with some blood stains on her back, holding a crimson red stick, much cleaner than her dark red hair.

‘’Whoa, talk about the Primordial Realm,’’ Ethan said before turning to Beet. ‘’There are even cavewomen living in it.’’

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