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Chapter 129: The Beast that Roars
🕑 Added 2023-03-09 17:36:01 +0000 UTCJack stood over a field of broken corpses. Ant corpses. He raised his gaze, going from their drying yellow blood to the dirt mound that dominated the distance. He tightened his fist.
After the pent-up frustrations of getting cheated and chased by the Animal Kingdom, letting loose was nice. This wasn’t even his first ant swarm. Or the second.
System, he thought, show me my progress.
Name: Jack Rust
Species: Human, Earth-387
Faction: Bare Fist Brotherhood (E)
Grade: E
Class: Fiend of the Iron Fist (Elite)
Level: 60
Strength: 191 (+)
Dexterity: 191 (+)
Constitution: 191 (+)
Mental: 23 (+)
Will: 23 (+)
Free points: 45
Skills: Iron Fiend Body (II), Ghost Step (I)
Dao Skills: Meteor Punch (II), Iron Fist Style (I)
Daos: Perfect Dao Seed of the Fist (early), Dao Root of Indomitable Will
Titles: Planetary Frontrunner (10), Planetary Torchbearer (1)
For most people, leveling through the E-Grade took years. Decades. They had to find monsters at the right level and large quantities, which was made more difficult by the fact that everyone else was searching too. As a result, most E-Grade cultivators took high-paying jobs, hunting the odd monster wherever they found it, slowly trudging through the levels. Eventually, most got the money to buy E-Grade experience balls, but by that point, they were so used to the peaceful life that giving up everything to advance was difficult.
Jack, on the other hand, was surrounded by abundant prey at all the right levels. He had hordes of middle and high F-Grade enemies, as well as E-Grade ones under every second stone. Moreover, his power helped him slay them quickly and effortlessly.
He had risen by nine levels in one day. He’d also made slight progress in his fear aura skill, though he was currently prioritizing levels.
“Not bad for a day’s work.” He smiled. “Right, Brock?”
The brorilla yelled a cheer in monkey. After defeating those ants at the start, Brock had been beside himself with joy. He kept flexing his muscles and pointing at himself with pride. Jack shared in the joy.
Harambe would be proud… he thought with a gentle smile.
Brock couldn’t level up, as the System still considered him a monster, but he could gain battle experience and Dao insights. Fighting allowed him to use his muscles in new ways, sharpening his Dao of Muscles. Jack could see him pondering at times, taking breaks to sit on rocks with his fist under his chin.
He couldn’t stop wondering how Brock’s Dao would progress in the future.
They had also discovered a large stream with clear water, as well as a tree with apples the size of living rooms. Sustenance wouldn’t be a problem no matter how long they stayed here.
After that, they had spent most of the day fighting conqueror ants and scouting out their patterns. Small parties of five to nine ants would leave the colony at random intervals, spreading out in random directions to find food. If they succeeded, they would bring it back to the colony. If the food was too much to be carried by a few ants, they would summon a host of a dozen workers to come help them.
On the other hand, if they didn’t find food, they would keep searching until they died.
When one of those raiding parties ran into strong predators—Jack and Brock, for example—they would scream as loudly as possible. They would also release a flood of pheromones. The sound would alert other ants to come in the general direction of the battle, while the pheromones had shorter range but guided the reinforcements to the exact point of combat.
These reinforcements usually contained around two dozen ants—there was no soldier caste in argentine/conqueror ants, so they were all the same. It was a number large enough to overpower most low E-Grade insects, but not enough to defeat Jack. To him, they were just walking bags of levels.
Fifteen such hunting groups later, he had slain hundreds of ants, and he had managed to reach level 60. Unfortunately, his leveling speed had begun to stagnate. F-Grade opponents could only take him so far.
Brock had also practiced and was now able to face five ants at the same time, but he, too, had reached his limit. He had even gotten injured in the last fight, and he now sported a gash on his right upper arm. Jack had tied it with a strip of his dark blue shirt, which was now so dirty he chose to take it off, returning to the bare-chested look he’d sported in the Forest of the Strong.
It brought back memories.
“Forty-five stat points…” Jack muttered. “That’s a shit-ton. What do you think, Brock? Time to allocate them?”
The brorilla cheered. Jack smiled.
“Okay. Now, let’s see. Master Shol said I should keep my Physical balanced until I have a reason not to, so all Physical points are split evenly between the three substats. He also said I should keep an 8-1-1 distribution between my main stat—Physical—and the auxiliary ones—Mental and Will. I have 45 points. To maintain that distribution, I should allocate… Hmm…” He frowned. “Oh boy, this is calculus all over again. You don’t happen to have pen and paper, do you, Brock?”
The brorilla didn’t respond, too busy playing with a flat stone he’d found. Jack didn’t blame him.
“Okay then. Let’s approximate. Physical should be eight times more than the others. If I raise Mental and Will to 30 points each, then Physical should be around 240. Hmm. I don’t have enough points for that, but it’s close, and putting them at 28 or 29 points is just… Ugh. Okay. Let’s do that. I’ll just put the next few levels into Physical as well.”
Before he could change his mind, he allocated the points.
Strength: 222
Dexterity: 222
Constitution: 222
Mental: 30
Will: 30
“Ohh! Brock! Check this out! I have 222 points in the Physical substats! How lucky!”
Brock cheered in the flattest way Jack had ever heard.
“Hmph, spoilsport. If you ever become a cultivator, we’ll see who’s excited about numbers then.”
Brock snorted as if to say, “That is never happening, bro.”
Two striped yellow shapes shot down from the sky. Buzzing filled the air. Jack looked up only to find a stinger right above his face.
He stepped back. The stinger almost scratched his nose as it descended at the speed of a bullet and buried itself in the soil. Jack came face to face with a terrifying, black-and-yellow creature.
He ignored it for now.
The second wasp came at him from the side. He turned. His hand grabbed the thin stinger mid-air and yanked, turning the entire creature mid-flight and slamming it into the first one. They rolled on the ground. He didn’t let them stand.
The forest sounds disappeared. The lush greenery lost its vibrancy. Purple swirls gathered around Jack’s fist, and it smashed down on them both.
Meteor Punch, he thought.
The world exploded on impact. The wasps screeched as they were torn apart, sending pieces of flesh and yellow blood flying everywhere. One stinger clinked on a nearby stone.
Where the wasps used to be, only a blackened crater was left.
“Fuckers,” Jack said with irritation, shaking his hand. “You just don’t learn, do you?”
Ants weren’t his only opponents in the forest. Throughout the day, they’d been ambushed by dragonflies, wasps, beetles, even a horse-sized praying mantis. Thankfully, they were low-level, which let Jack handle them easily as long as he kept his guard up at all times. Only the praying mantis had been a slight challenge, at level 70 and with wicked scythe arms, but even those arms couldn’t resist a Meteor Punch at point blank. After it was disarmed, the rest was history. At least, they all attacked Jack first, as he represented a larger target than Brock.
Those ambushes had contributed significantly to Jack’s leveling speed. In fact, he was actively looking for more of those praying mantises, but hadn’t managed to find any.
As for the wasps, he just hated them on principle.
“What do you say, Brock?” he asked again. “Wanna travel a bit farther away? The ants are no longer leveling me.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Let’s go!”
They walked away, leaving the pile of dead ants and two wasps on the soil.
The forest was gigantic, but they were fast. Even with Jack matching Brock’s pace, they were zooming through the titanic trees, jumping from root to root or running on the leaf-covered soil.
Jack ran at the front, keeping an eye out for danger. He was actively resisting the level-up arrogance that gnawed at his caution. He knew that, despite his strength, he was not the apex predator here. Not even close.
For example, there was a large beehive hanging from a tree branch near the anthill. A massive, yellow hub of death and honey. If those bees wanted to, they could skewer him easily. And, of course, there was still the—
A deep roar echoed throughout the forest. Leaves shook, the ground shook. Speak of the devil. Jack clicked his tongue. The big guy.
These roars came in random intervals. He still hadn’t managed to figure out what beast produced them, but he also didn’t want to find out. Even insects were E-Grade here. A beast that could make the ground shake… It was probably beyond Jack’s abilities.
Unfortunately, the forest made it difficult to discern the direction of the roar. For all Jack knew, they could be heading right into it. And was it louder than normal?
Thinking to that point, he signaled Brock to slow down. They came to a stop. “I think this is the wrong direction,” Jack said. “The roar got louder.”
“Yes,” Brock agreed.
“We should head the other way.”
“Yes.”
They were in agreement. However, before they could move, the roar came again. It was different this time. Less a declaration of supremacy and more a cry of war. Jack jumped and looked around, but he saw nothing.
“What the—”
A third roar came. This time, it was followed by stomps that shook the ground, along with crashing sounds. A pained growl came shortly afterward.
Jack looked around, but again, saw nothing.
“The beast is fighting,” he realized, eyes widening. “What could stand against it?”
The roars and crashing sounds kept coming. Brock perked his ears, then looked to the right. “It’s that way?” Jack asked. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Brock nodded.
Going to witness the battle of a massive beast sounded dangerous—and it was. But they weren’t here to take the easy way out. Opportunities and danger came hand-in-hand. If they didn’t dare to take risks, they could never defeat the planetary overseer anyway.
Jack and Brock darted through bushes the size of buildings. The ground was soft, with the occasional leaf under their feet, but they were too light to make them crunch. Green parted before them as they made haste.
Two minutes later, the roars intensified further. The air was shaking now, and many insects were running the opposite way. A trio of wasps even ignored them to escape faster.
Jack stepped forward. They were inside a bush, but they had slowed down. They shouldn’t be spotted. Carefully, he parted a leaf to witness the battle beyond.
His breath caught in his throat.
That’s… That’s not a beast!
A green-skinned giant stood between the trees. It held a large club and must have been at least fifty feet tall, if not more. It was hairless, only wearing a loincloth around its waist, and its eyes held no glimmer of intelligence. It resembled a wild animal. When it opened its mouth, yellow teeth were revealed, and buckets of saliva flew out. The roar that escaped was the same one they’d been hearing all the while.
Forest Giant, Level 118
Forest Giants are bestial humanoids that inhabit forest biomes. Their main habitat is the Giant Ring of Trial Planet. They can reach up to a hundred feet in height, are fast, resilient, and extremely strong. Moreover, their sense of smell is heightened, able to pick out prey from a mile away.
Many aspiring cultivators have found their end under the clubs of Forest Giants. They find you before you find them.
Jack’s blood went cold. If they had tried to approach this creature when it wasn’t fighting, it would have smelled them coming, and they would have had to outrun it—hopefully. There was no way he could match a level 118 creature in combat.
Fortunately, it was currently too preoccupied to notice them. Red blood streamed from where its left ear used to be, its bare chest was covered in shallow cuts, and it was limping. Oddly, hints of frost surrounded its chest wounds.
Three cultivators stood against it, fully focused on the giant. They didn’t seem to have noticed Jack.
One was a man with long, dark hair and wielding an extremely long, sharp sword. The second was a young-looking woman in a white robe, whose silver hair fluttered in a non-existent breeze. Her outstretched arms were covered in frost to the elbow, while snowflakes danced around her open palms. The third and final cultivator was a towering minotaur in full plate armor, who was currently standing in front of the forest giant, seeming tiny, and roared back.
Jack inspected them with bated breath.
Human (Earth-74), Level 104
Faction: Wide Swirls (B-Grade)
Title: Gifted
Human (Earth-74), Level 121
Faction: Wide Swirls (B-Grade)
Title: Wipe Swirls Prodigy
Minotaur, Level 109
Faction: Animal Kingdom (B-Grade)
Title: Resilient
Comments
Nilbog
and now the grind makes way to feeling out how he will interact with other trial takers. Violence or diplomacy and cooperation
good guy
Tftc!
