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Chapter 357: Dao Chamber
🕑 Added 2024-01-25 17:36:01 +0000 UTCAnd we're back!
Also, the omnibus for my Twelfth Cataclysm series came out today. It includes the entire trilogy at 33 audio hours. It's not my latest work, but it's similar in style to this one so check it out if you enjoy Road to Mastery (or if you just TRUST and SUPPORT.)
The Twelfth Cataclysm also contains the best villain I've ever written.
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Twelfth-Cataclysm-Complete-LitRPG-Boxset-ebook/dp/B0CNV6GG5K
Audio: https://www.audible.com/pd/Twelfth-Cataclysm-Audiobook/B0CRJ2MHVZ
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Jack stepped into the Cathedral with renewed resolve. His family time had reinforced his psyche, making him ready to face the world again.
As space stabilized around him, he found himself in the familiar teleporter—twelve white columns arranged in a ring spearing up from the dark ground of the Cathedral. The same ascetic old man still guarded this place, looking like he hadn’t moved a muscle. His aura remained unfathomable.
“Thank you,” Jack said respectfully, to which the Envoy did not reply.
He walked deeper into the Cathedral, heading for the nearby village. The thousandfold gravity was a small shock, but it didn’t stop Jack from having a spring in his step. There were so many things to do.
One at a time.
Naturally, he wanted to visit his cabin, but the teleporter was close to another building: the Treasure Hall.
When Jack defeated Marcus William, he’d asked him how everyone seemed to conjure items out of thin air. Marcus had explained it was something called a “space ring”, and that he could get one as well.
The Treasure Hall was a massive building. Its reinforced white walls reached a hundred feet into the air and stretched back for more than three hundred. It was the second largest building here after the Ceaseless Murder Globe.
Like most places in the Cathedral, the Treasure Hall was built with austerity. Its walls were unadorned, while its tiled roof resembled an ancient Greek temple’s. There were no windows, only a door thirty feet in height.
Jack pushed it open and walked in, finding himself in a small space that reeked of practicality. “Yes?” said a human Envoy sitting behind a desk—the only piece of furniture in the room. His eyes scanned Jack, then he frowned. “You do not have the ranking to request treasures.”
Jack was not discouraged. “Hello. I was told I could get a space ring here—is that not the case?”
“Did you lose yours?”
“Kinda.”
The Envoy fished into a crate by the side and took out a plain-looking metal ring. He tossed it over, and Jack caught it.
“There. Space ring. Enjoy.”
“Uh… Thanks?”
The Envoy stared at Jack like he’d overstayed his welcome. Jack didn’t care too much. “Excuse me,” he asked again, “are these space rings…common?”
“In grade?”
“In rarity. Does everybody have one?”
The Envoy raised a brow. “Most C-Grades do. We offer them free of charge to any disciple who lost theirs or doesn’t have one.”
“I see… Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Jack resisted the urge to fiddle with his new toy and exited the Treasure Hall, closing the door behind him. Then, he finally took a better look.
The spatial ring was a plain metal ring. There were no carvings or insignias on it—if Jack didn’t know better, he would have thought it just a piece of metal. However, as soon as he focused his Dao perception on it, his world widened.
The space ring contained its own little dimension. The space within was roughly nine by nine feet, enough to fit most things, and it felt stable. It wouldn’t just collapse at random.
This was an extremely advanced application of the Dao of Space—Jack hadn’t even known it was possible. Undoubtedly, this ring was a very precious item…and the Cathedral offered it free of charge.
Major factions sure had their benefits.
But why haven’t I heard about these things? Jack asked himself. He’d interacted with various C-Grades in the past—Master Huali, the planetary overseer, the Warden, all the C-Grades who came to watch his Grand Duel on Hell. He would have noticed if any of them pulled things out of thin air.
My galaxy isn’t connected with the wider universe yet. Maybe they don’t have access to the market for space rings.
In any case, the important part was that Jack would no longer have to carry all sorts of items in his pockets. It could get quite ridiculous at times, not to mention inconvenient—he still remembered how, back in Trial Planet, he’d cut a hole in his pants to make a secret pocket.
He experimented a bit. Retrieving a life stone from an inner pocket of his robes, he brought it close to the ring and waited. When nothing happened, he pushed the life stone onto the ring until they touched. Still nothing.
That can’t be right.
He tried a different approach. He used his perception to probe the ring, sensing the world inside, and then just sort of willed the life stone to enter. To his surprise, it did! With a light whoosh, space around it distorted to pull the life stone into the ring, and Jack was surprised to see it resting in a corner of the ring’s dimension.
“Wow,” he exclaimed breathlessly. He then willed the stone to exit—and it did! He didn’t have to enter the dimension himself to search for it, just swipe his hand over the ring. It wasn’t even necessary to locate the object. As long as he knew it was inside, he could use his will to instantly pull it out.
“The hell?” he muttered. “Can it read my mind?”
That wasn’t too nice. Jack sat cross-legged against the wall of the Treasure Hall and sank his mind into the ring, inspecting it with great care. Finally, he made out faint inscriptions on its inner side; there were thousands of tiny symbols tightly clustered together. None of them was part of a language, as far as Jack knew, but the depth and direction of each line guided the Dao to flow in a certain pattern, achieving a result as impressive as the existence of an inner dimension. They formed a stable system that maintained a bubble of warped space regardless of the ring’s surroundings.
And that wasn’t even the end of it. If Jack wasn’t wrong, there were even symbols that registered the items coming in and acted as connectors, allowing Jack’s will to directly interact with them. In this way, any D-Grade cultivator and above could freely use the ring even without any attainments in the Dao of Space.
When Jack opened his eyes again, he was bewildered. The intricacy of such an object was beyond his imagination. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the principles behind it, let alone carve one himself. Even scrutinizing those myriad symbols was stretching his perception—they were too tiny.
And this thing was just casually tossed at him?
Maddening. The wealth of the Church was just unfathomable.
Then again, if most C-Grades in the universe have one, maybe they’re not as valuable as I believe. Can they be mass-produced?
Thinking to here, Jack shook his head and stood up. Space rings were above his pay grade. For now, he would just enjoy the convenience. Passing all the items on his body into the ring—his credit card, his Cathedral identification token, and the bag containing ten life stones—he was ready to embark towards his next destination.
But which one?
His cabin was always there, as he wanted to greet Brock, but he wasn’t in a rush. The various common buildings of the Cathedral were all in the same area—if he wanted to visit the Ceaseless Murder Globe, the Heavy Pagoda, or the Dao Chamber, to which he’d recently gotten access, going now was the best choice.
He’d have to go to the Ceaseless Murder Globe soon to attain his new ranking and all the benefits that came with it. However, it could also wait. The Globe wouldn’t go anywhere.
Dao Chamber it is, he decided, unwilling to suppress his curiosity. But…where is it?
He had no idea.
“Excuse me,” Jack said again, his head peeking through the Treasure Hall’s ajar doors, “could you show me the way to the Dao Chamber?”
The Envoy inside looked annoyed. “That way.”
“Thank you,” Jack replied, closing the door again. He then started walking.
The Dao Chamber was not as close as he thought it would be. Twenty minutes of walking later, Jack arrived at a short but expansive building. Its door reached to the ceiling, barely nine feet off the ground, but the walls themselves stretched for a hundred feet in the distance.
The interior was mostly empty. Doors surrounded it on all sides, each painted a different color, while thin columns intermittently supported the low ceiling. An Envoy with a slimy body and eight tentacles sat at a desk in the middle of the large room, with its back against a column. There were also three cultivators meditating in random spots.
“Hello,” Jack said in a low voice, careful not to disturb those meditating. “Is this the Dao Chamber?”
“It is,” the octopus’s voice reached his mind. It was sweet and tranquil—a woman’s.
Jack felt like an idiot. He’d grown so used to echoing his voice through the void that he forgot he could communicate telepathically. “Great! I’m Jack Rust, ranked 675th. I’m new here; could you explain what this Dao Chamber is about?”
The octopus looked at him for a moment, her tentacles wiggling slightly. Finally, she replied.
“I can. The Dao Chamber is a place dedicated to enhancing the disciples’ understanding into the Dao. We offer a variety of high-grade Dao Visions you can rent for one Dao stone per week. Moreover, each of the doors around us leads to a miniature dimension filled with the essence of a particular Dao. We have all the basic elements, along with Space, Time, Life, Death, and Mortality. Additionally, we possess some artifacts that can assist in furthering your own Dao; with your ranking, you can access the Fallen Genius Mirror.”
Jack’s eyes shone. The many doors surrounding this empty space were all differently colored, and each emanated a special aura: the red door felt like fire, the cyan door wind, the deep blue door emanated the aura of water, and so forth. He could also make out earth, lightning, wood, and metal. Finally, there were the five doors representing the other concepts the Envoy had mentioned.
Of those, the first four were easy to understand. But the last one…
“What is Mortality?” he asked.
“Our Dao Chamber mostly contains physical Daos. They are the easiest to isolate and reproduce. However, many disciples pursue Daos related to emotions, thoughts, or mind states. To accommodate those as well, we have created the Dao Space of Mortality.”
Jack nodded. His own Dao of the Fist was mostly related to the heart. It was about being free, unstoppable, laughing in the face of combat and death. While it technically belonged to the Dao of Life, it was more oriented towards human nature.
Or, to be precise, the Dao of the Fist belonged to the Dao of Life. His Dao of the Fist was both about Life and human nature. Of the Daos present, Mortality would probably suit him best.
“Is it free to enter a room?” Jack asked.
“Each of these rooms can only accommodate one person at a time. Therefore, there is a price to rent them, and that price is determined by the amount of people interested in each room. That way, everyone gets their turn.”
“I see. And what do those prices look like?”
“Right now, they range from one to five Dao stones per day.”
Jack grimaced. That was a steep price. “What about the Dao of Mortality?”
“It is one of our most sought-after rooms. Its price is at four Dao stones a day, and there is usually a waiting period of several days.”
“What about the Dao of Life? Or the Dao of Space?” Jack asked. The Dao of Space was one he’d touched upon a little, using it to teleport and as the inspiration for some of his skills, while the Dao of Life was closely related to his Life Drop.
“Space is priced at three Dao stones per day. However, Life is our most expensive room—it goes for five stones a day.”
Jack shook his head. He’d thought that finding fifteen or twenty stones to break through had been a lot, but now, he realized it was just change. High-ranking cultivators spent in spades.
Then again, there are a thousand outer disciples and only twelve rooms. High demand is only natural.
Jack didn’t expect the Dao Chamber to be so expensive. Currently, he carried zero stones on him—he’d given everything he had to the professor. If he knew the prices would be so high, perhaps he would have kept some more.
Then again, his monthly stipulation was three stones, and it would certainly rise once he visited the Globe and updated his ranking. Coupled with the thirty-two stones Marcus still owed him, he wasn’t poor.
And let’s not forget about Jack’s Life Stones, the upcoming hot commodity of the Cathedral, he thought, his lips curving in a money-making grin.
If he came this far only to be defeated by capitalism, it would just be a joke!
The octopus Envoy must have suspected he had no stones. “The Fallen Genius Mirror, however, is free to use.”
Jack’s eyes shone. “Really? How come?”
“Most people only use it once or twice, so there is little demand. Moreover, it is an artifact that depends on the user’s energy, so there are no operating costs. We do not wish to take advantage of our disciples; all our prices are at cost.”
“Alright! Fallen Genius Mirror, you say… Let’s test it out.”
Comments
Valerios
Never too late! <3 thanks!
Namorat
I wasn't aware it's by the same author, to be honest. Will buy immediately. Edit: perhaps I knew? I have bought it months ago, but have not read it yet.
Greg Lambert
Sounds like Jack is found a hack for growth
