Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse
Chapter 142: The Dao Soul Awakens

The next few minutes passed quietly. Jack and Nauja were resting on the ground next to the dead t-rex, chests rising and falling with laborious breaths, while Brock kept watch from a high branch.

Nothing disturbed their rest until Nauja stood up. “Let’s go,” she said. “Can you walk?”

Jack groaned. “Letting our bodies go cold was a terrible idea.”

He struggled to stand. When he eventually succeeded, everything hurt. His ribs had cracked from the impacts. His back bled from a few lacerations where he’d smashed into trees, his legs wobbled, and he still felt like he’d run a marathon from the consecutive uses of Ghost Step.

“But can you walk?” Nauja insisted. She was in better shape, though also not fine. Whatever skill she used to dodge the dinosaur’s attacks had taken its toll.

“Slowly.”

“Good enough. We must get away from here.”

“What about our trail?”

“Nobody will bother following. The scavengers will be more than happy with the tyrannosaurus itself, and delvers have no reason to come after us.”

Jack nodded. Brock fell from the tree, and they started walking, leaving the corpse behind. He hadn’t realized how pungent the smell was until they were a good twenty feet away. Then, he turned and gazed at the beast one last time. Sprawled on the ground like that, it resembled an overturned truck, just slightly larger. That they’d defeated such a beast was incredible.

To just leave its corpse untouched was more upsetting. They didn’t need its meat, bones, or anything like that. It never harbored malice towards them—probably because it hadn’t seen them. But Jack pacified himself with the thought that it was eating the cattle of the Tri Lake tribe. They didn’t kill it out of malice or arrogance; it had initiated a conflict, and it died because it was the weaker party.

Sometimes, there was no kind solution.

“Don’t we need to take proof back?” he asked. “How will your tribe believe us?”

“They will believe me,” Nauja replied confidently. “Only delvers lie. Barbarians, never.”

“Hmm. Big words.”

She did not reply.

They crossed the jungle again, slower this time. Jack winced with every step, but he kept his mouth shut. The Iron Fiend Body was already working to patch him up, but it would take time. An hour at the least.

Nauja led them towards the Forbidden Cave. It was a cavernous opening in the side of a hill, wide enough to fit a bus and stretching down into the darkness. Rocky outcroppings surrounded its entrance, and the grass stopped growing a few feet away from it.

According to Nauja, its inside was large and complex, akin to a maze. Going in without a map was a fool’s errand. It was also completely empty.

They didn’t enter. There was a cabin built next to the entrance, empty and dusty, but enough to shield them from any eyes. It shielded the tribe’s guards, once upon a time. Its inside was simple: a rectangular space with one bed—a pile of furs—on either end and no windows. There was also a table with two chairs, a stool, and two thick paravans that could be drawn to isolate either bed.

Seeing those paravans, Jack barely resisted the urge to sigh in relief. He was in need of secrecy, and not because he was modest. In the half-minute of rest after the fight, something had happened. Something big. A pleasant warmth came from the secret pocket behind his left thigh, seeping into his skin. It felt familiar, somehow, though Jack had never experienced such a thing before. He knew what it was.

The Dao Soul. It was finally awake.

“Do you mind?” he asked, motioning with his head towards the paravan. If Nauja was surprised, she didn’t show it.

“Of course not,” she replied, moving to one of the beds. “How long do you think you need?”

“...An hour. Even if I’m not fully healed, I’ll be ready to walk back to the tribe.”

Now she was surprised. She raised both brows. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Those wounds would take me two days to heal, and I have a regeneration skill.”

“Well, we can’t all be awesome.”

She glared at him. “Fine, awesome one. One hour. Then, we’ll be on our way.”

“You got it.”

She walked to her bed and pulled the paravan on the far wall. Jack noticed with satisfaction that he couldn’t see anything past it. It was so heavy that it even muffled sound. He did the same, isolating himself on the small bedding of fur that decorated the other side of the building, then sat cross-legged.

Brock was with him. Unlike Nauja, he understood that something was up. He threw Jack a questioning glance, but Jack said nothing. He simply reached into his hidden pocket and pulled out the Dao Soul.

The purple gem was glowing now. Jack had no idea why. He’d kept it for two weeks already, and nothing had ever changed.

But the why didn’t matter. Somehow, the Dao Soul had awoken. Jack was giddy.

Not only was the gem glowing purple, but the black and white lines inside had changed their rotating pattern. Before, they were simply turning in circles. Now, they had stabilized into a particular shape.

“What the—” Jack said, cutting himself short.

The shape was a fist. Half of it was white and the other black, split roughly between the middle and ring fingers. As Jack stared at it mutedly, and as Brock watched with wide eyes from behind his shoulder, he suddenly realized that not only was this a fist, it was his fist.

Not his physical one, but his Dao. This fist looked exactly like the vision he’d seen when breaking through to the E-Grade. The only difference was the colors. It resonated with him deeply, pulsing to the beat of his heart and soul.

“What the fuck…” Jack said again, holding the gem with both hands. It was warm to the touch. “Do you see what I see, Brock?”

The brorilla nodded.

One part of Jack wanted to consume this immediately. He didn’t know how, but he was certain there was a way. It looked like his soul; he had to have it.

However, another part of him was suspicious. He had already been tricked and lied to many times. The world was not on his side. Was this gem really a reward, or was it maybe a hidden device planted by the Animal Kingdom to control him? It couldn’t activate by itself, right? Someone had to give the signal.

I’m being paranoid, he scolded himself. That’s too much. If the Dao Soul was fake, Master Shol would have noticed it. Perhaps it was just attuning to my Dao all this time, and now it is finally ready—thank God I kept it on me.

In any case, he had to take every advantage he could. He couldn’t afford to waste opportunities on vague suspicions. If the Animal Kingdom had somehow snuck in a fake Dao Soul, so be it.

With that final thought, he let himself truly desire this object. It felt vital to him, like a long lost part of his soul. He touched it to his chest—on instinct. The Dao Soul melted, entering his body like a stream of pure power that ignored his skin.

Jack felt a prick of panic. The Dao Soul reached his soul…and wrapped around it. It tightened its grip. The pain was excruciating.

His entire body convulsed. He lost control. He tried to scream, but Brock’s hand clamped his mouth shut and held his head still so he wouldn’t injure it from all the thrashing.

The Dao Soul was a secret. Brock understood that. If Jack screamed, Nauja would come running, and they would have no choice but to reveal some of their secrets. As honest and peaceful as she seemed, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t be tempted at the knowledge of the Dao Soul.

No, she couldn’t find out. Better safe than sorry.

Therefore, Brock held Jack’s mouth shut, muffling his screams despite his own panic. Their souls were connected. He could sense that Jack’s pain was necessary, that the Dao Soul wasn’t harming him, but he was still filled with worry.

It only lasted for a few moments.

Half a minute later, Jack was sprawled on the floor, panting and sweaty. His eyes were exhausted but clear. “Fuck,” he said. “That hurt.” Brock nodded, giving Jack a double thumbs-up. He chuckled. “Heh. Yeah, I guess so. Thanks, brother.”

Still on the ground, Jack shut his eyes and looked inward. Where his soul hovered, a fist-shaped container in the middle of a large void, there was now a second soul hovering just beside it. The two souls were identical, except for their size—the new soul was only a fraction of the original.

“Would you look at that…” Jack muttered tiredly, opening his eyes. “I have two souls.”

Brock cheered, then looked at Jack questioningly.

“I don’t know either,” Jack responded. “But I suspect…”

He sat up, forcing himself into a sitting position despite the lingering phantom pain. He closed his eyes, settling into meditation.

What is the fist? he asked himself.

The moment he began pondering on the Dao, he realized that his mindscape was somehow different. His thoughts flowed oddly. The Dao Soul hadn’t changed him, but it had enhanced him. As he considered the meaning of his fist, it felt like he had a second brain analyzing the thoughts of the first. He saw his own thoughts from outside, which easily revealed flaws he might have otherwise needed hours to uncover.

It was like discussing an idea with someone who knew exactly what you were talking about. Naturally, the results of this method would be vastly superior to thinking alone. His cultivation speed had just multiplied.

Jack’s excitement threatened to overwhelm him, but he held it at bay. He could sense that there were still things to discover. He honed in on the feeling of a second brain, diving deep inside himself.

The next moment, he stood in the void of his soul, the same space he’d visited during his last breakthrough.

This time, however, the experience was much more disorienting. He could simultaneously sense himself standing here and sitting still in the jungle cabin. He moved his arms and legs. The him that was sitting remained still, but the him in the soulspace moved as he indicated. And yet, somehow, he remained a single person.

It was like using one brain to control two bodies. Complicated.

What is this? Jack thought, focusing on the version of himself inside his soul. Now that he wasn’t mid-breakthrough, he could investigate this place with his full mental awareness.

It felt just like space. He was hovering in seemingly endless nothingness, with only the Dao Root of Indomitable Will and the Dao Root of Power floating around randomly. Jack struggled to make them out, two colored fists lazily crossing the void.

He couldn’t see the Dao Seed of the Fist because it had already become one with his soul. He was inside it. He could sense the fist in every inch of the surrounding space. Any rainbow-colored hints of the Rainbow Dao Pill had long dissipated.

Okay, he thought, looking around. And now what?

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door of his soul. It was a very peculiar feeling. Jack was baffled. “Come in?” he said.

A head poked out of nothing, looking around the infinite blackness until it spotted him. It was his head. Except it wasn’t. It moved on its own.

The head smiled. A hand appeared next to it, waving at him, and then the entire body appeared as well.

Jack was looking at a copy of himself, down to his dark shorts and black boots. He tilted his head. His copy smiled cheerfully and waved again. Jack, cautiously, waved back.

The copy looked around. There was only darkness as far as the eye could see. It turned its gaze back at Jack, and he could see a hint of questioning inside it.

“What?” he asked. “I didn’t choose to make my soul black.”

The copy shook its head, indicating around it.

“Can you not speak?” Jack asked. The copy kept pointing circles around it. “Do you mean I can…change the background?” he asked slowly. The copy nodded. “But how?”

The copy shrugged. Jack frowned, picturing a grassland…

…and suddenly, they were in a grassland. The sky was bright blue over their heads, illuminated by a shining sun. The breeze caressed his skin, making his shorts flap. His hair moved as well, dancing to the tune, as did the grass blades under his feet. Jack wished he was barefoot to feel them, and next thing he knew, he was! The grass now tickled his toes.

Around him, the grass stretched endlessly as far as the eye could see, and there was absolutely nothing else in the world except for himself, the copy, the sun, and two colored moons floating lazily through the sky—his Dao Roots, one metallic silver and the other dark blue.

“What the heck?” he asked again, looking back up at the copy. It smiled—a smile so bright and wide it reminded Jack of Vlossana. It was full of pure bliss.

“Wow,” he said. “I know! Are you a child?”

The copy looked at him in confusion, then tilted its head and shrugged. Jack took that as, “I guess?”

“Wow. No wonder you seem so happy. Hey, look.” Eager to test out his new powers, he willed a large toy box into existence. It was filled with all sorts of goods. The copy gave it one look, then glanced back at Jack. It balled its fists.

Jack frowned. “What? You wanna fight?”

The copy laughed without sound—a creepy sight—and shook its head. It pointed at its heart, then the floating lights in the sky.

“Oh!” Jack said. “You are the Dao Soul. You want to play with the Dao!”

The copy nodded excitedly. This time, Jack laughed, too. “Very well. Have at it!”

His fist flared with purple light. He charged, and the copy, laughing, did the same. Their fists clashed.