Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse
Chapter 168: Space Ring

The Space Ring put all physics Jack knew to shame.

It was a vast expanse of space, stretching so far he couldn’t see the end. The sun mushrooms around him pierced the darkness, illuminating little colorful bubbles, tiny compared to the vastness surrounding them, slowly floating through.

Jack could see a forest, a valley, an icy tundra, even an active volcano surrounded by an archipelago of stone islands. It was like someone had uprooted pieces of the terrain, put them in bubbles of air, and sent them floating through Space Ring. The outline of each bubble was visible as a transparent, yellow-greenish veil, like a soap bubble reflecting the sunlight.

“What am I looking at?” Jack asked, lost in wonder.

“Behold, the Space Ring!” Gan Salin said proudly, stepping beside Jack and putting an arm over his shoulders. The other arm motioned widely at the view before them. “The only place in the galaxy where space is inside a planet!”

“But… How? And why? And what are those?”

“Those, my friend, are bubbles.”

Jack glared, so Nauja took over explaining. “The Space Ring is the most fascinating place in Trial Planet. Every bubble you see contains a small biome, anywhere from a few feet to many miles in diameter. The bubble-ish border you see around them separates them from the void. Furthermore, each bubble has its own gravity, as do the ceiling and floor of this ring.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “How could someone make this?” he wondered aloud.

Nauja shrugged. “Nobody knows. Even B-Grades don’t have this kind of power. And for whatever magic maintains this place to remain intact for a million years…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but the meaning was clear. Jack turned his eyes back to the floating bubbles. He could see dozens of them. Each was tilted at a random angle, making it seem like there were a dozen different worlds floating through this space. Perhaps there were.

It was awe-inspiring.

On cue, blue screens flashed before Jack’s eyes.

Congratulations! Title “Third Ring Conqueror” upgraded to “Fourth Ring Conqueror!”

Efficacy of all stats: +15% → +20%

Space Ring (1) Quest:

• Claim an Inheritance for any member of your team.

Space Ring (2) Quest:

• Complete the Space Ring (1) Quest.

• Slay an Elite space monster.

• Make your way to Labyrinth Ring.

Jack felt the familiar surge of strength through his body, using it to ground himself.

“Why do I have two quests?” he asked.

“Space Ring is actually two rings,” Salin explained. “Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because of the size. In any case, the first quest will give you the Fifth Ring Conqueror title, and the second will give you the Sixth Ring Conqueror.”

“Really?”

“But in exchange, Space Ring is twice wider than all others,” Nauja added. “Two hundred miles of space and biome bubbles.”

“And space monsters,” he replied, laughing. “The quest said so.”

“Yep, it’s teeming.” Salin nodded. “Anything from middle E-Grade to elite and king monsters. There are D-Grade ones, too, though they never emerge from the dark areas.”

“Terrific.” Jack licked his lips, finding them dry. “So, the first step is to get one of those inheritances. I suppose they’re the same things as the trials you’ve mentioned before, Nauja.”

“Right. Inheritances are the rewards of trials.”

“Then, what are we waiting for? Longsword could come after us anytime now—even if he said he’d wait till morning. The deeper we are by the time he arrives, the better. And Nauja… I assume you’re coming with us, right?”

She blushed, the red striking on her naturally pale face. When they arrived at the Village Ring, she was still entertaining thoughts of returning to her tribe. She hadn’t mentioned that since.

“Yes,” she finally admitted. “This may not be the wisest decision…but I believe the will of my ancestors brought us together. I will come with you as deep as I can.”

A shadow passed through her eyes. Jack saw it, but chose not to comment.

“I’m glad,” was all he said, smiling warmly. He then turned to the bubbles again. There was a large stretch of space separating them from the first one. “Any idea how we can get there? Last I heard, E-Grades couldn’t survive space for long.” And Brock is still F-Grade, he added in his thoughts.

He hadn’t seen it at first, but there was also a bubble around them and the entrance tunnel. It wasn’t big, just a few tens of feet across, but enough to let them breathe and walk freely.

“Are you blind?”

Salin pointed behind them, where a small basket was placed by the entrance tunnel. It contained familiar helmets; similar to the one he’d used on the Trampling Ram. Jack walked up and grabbed one, turning it in his hands, thinking back to the couple weeks he’d spent touring the stars with Captain Dordok and his crew. The helmet resembled a head-sized fishbowl.

I hope they’re okay… he thought again. He still didn’t know how the Trampling Ram’s face-off against the Hounds had turned out. All he could do was hope.

“This is very handy,” he said, referring to the helmets. “Trial Planet has it all figured out.”

“Not Trial Planet,” Gan Salin corrected. “The Hand of God. They’re the ones supplying the torch baskets at every exit tunnel, as well as the helmets here.”

“Really? How nice of them.”

“Yeah… Otherwise, this ring would be ten times as difficult to cross.”

“Say that again.”

Jack put on his helmet, securing the clasp under his chin, and felt the familiar bubble-ish barrier surround his body, isolating him from the outside. Around him, the others did the same. Brock couldn’t find a helmet small enough to fit him. The best he got was one that made him look like a child wearing his father’s clothes, but at least the barrier worked just fine.

Brock was extremely excited. He’d never had a chance to enter space while on the Trampling Ram.

They leaped.

Jack pushed through the bubble head-first, feeling only the slightest resistance. It was like surfacing from the sea. The next moment, he felt the subtle but distinct influence of space around him.

Some things could be felt even through the helmet’s barrier. It was cold. Either whoever made this place had purposely imitated the cold of interstellar space, or low temperature was a characteristic of the extremely low-density void.

Jack’s education made him bet on the latter.

Gravity had disappeared, too. Looking down—or where down used to be a moment ago—Jack saw the ground—which was actually the ring’s ceiling—stretching far around him, its curvature discreet but clearly distinguishable. It was covered in sun mushrooms, only half of which were currently lit, radiating light so intense it made him look away.

On the other side stretched vast, deep darkness. Only the occasional bubble reflected the mushroom light, making them resemble small stars. No light came from the depths, where the inner side of the ring lay.

Brock was fumbling to Jack’s side, slowly rotating around himself with growing panic. He had no way to control his flight.

Jack laughed—only he could hear the sound inside his barrier—and flew over, using small explosions of Dao to propel himself. He grabbed Brock and set him straight. The brorilla’s grateful look was priceless.

Come to think of it, Brock can’t expel Dao at the F-Grade, Jack realized. I’ll have to carry him.

With a few quick hand gestures, he got Brock to hold onto his back.

Gan Salin was familiar with moving in space. He performed a couple somersaults before pointing and laughing at Nauja, who was flailing around ineffectively. Her face hardened at Salin’s mocking, and she pouted, but was still unable to control her flight.

Then, her eyes noticed Jack flying over to save Brock. After a moment of experimenting, she got it, and managed to straighten herself. She then waved a fist at Gan Salin and angrily shouted something, but Jack couldn’t hear her.

Despite her apparent anger, her eyes were filled with excitement. It was easy to forget that this confident, easygoing barbarian girl had never been outside her tribe before—and she went almost directly to the Space Ring, one of the most impressive sights in the galaxy. If she didn’t short-circuit out of sheer awe, she would come to love traveling even more than she currently did.

On Jack’s side, seeing her half-clothed body—she only wore fur around her privates and chest—floating in space was a contrasting feeling. His mental image was still that of Earth’s astronauts, covered head-to-toe in bulky uniforms.

After some minutes of orienting themselves, the group set out towards the nearest bubble. Nauja turned out to be the fastest, followed by Jack, and then Gan Salin. Her Dao—Wind—was the most suitable for moving in space. Jack could make do with small explosions, and Gan Salin—

Jack actually had no idea how the canine was moving. He had to remember to ask.

Even the nearest bubble was several miles away, but that was not a problem. In space, there was no force slowing them down. As long as they managed to accelerate—which they could easily do—the distance would evaporate quickly.

***

Vlossana fell to her knees. Her mouth hung open in abject horror. Her eyes widened and forgot to blink. Her face went pale.

The smoking ruins of her home lay in front of her, at the base of the hill. The manor was broken. The horses, dead. The servants’ bodies piled up and still smoking from the fire. The garden was upturned and destroyed.

And all this, why? Because Jack Rust had boarded their starship. Because the Animal Kingdom found out. They didn’t care if Vlossana’s father was an accomplice or not. Their semblance of proof was enough to conduct atrocities. To set an example.

This “example” was the destruction of everything Vlossana had ever known. She had rushed over the second the Trampling Ram made it to the next port, but she was too late. Of course she was. All she managed was to witness the fatality with her own eyes, the heads of her relatives stuck on wooden stakes, the remains of the place she used to call home.

All her dreams, of leading her people to joyful, happy lives, turned into smoke and flew away, disappearing forever. Her life was ruined. So was her mind.

Not a soul was in sight to share her agony.

Vlossana raised her head to the sky and screamed. Her voice tore her own throat, but she couldn’t feel it. She was lost in grief.

The Dao Seed of Joy inside her tried to lift her spirits. To feed her joy, as it always did. But there was no joy to be found here. No happiness. No warmth. Only death and ashes.

In anger, Vlossana turned to the only target she had—her own, persistent Dao—and cracked it down the middle, forsaking her path. It went quiet, but she remained full of sorrow, not even close to having vented.

All that dark energy amassed inside her, wound into a tighter and tighter ball, spreading over the large crack she’d just inflicted on her Dao Seed—her soul—and filling it in. Drowned in darkness, Vlossana missed the notification sound, but she sensed the change.

In a mere moment, she developed and fused the Dao Root of Sorrow. It contrasted her Dao Seed of Joy, filling in its blanks. Together, the two formed a new entity, one she couldn’t yet decipher, but one that was far more powerful than she used to be.

She surrendered everything to it. Anything to escape this feeling.

Vlossana’s emotions fell into place. The darkness didn’t disappear. It receded into her soul, becoming a dark presence that poisoned her thoughts and waited to be unleashed. Her joy covered it up, concealing it, her Dao Seed reduced to a thin, fake veil of jovialty.

Vlossana wiped her eyes and stood. Her overwhelming sorrow had been transformed into a steady trickle she could endure—a trickle that would not heal with time. She then turned around and walked away. There was nothing here for her anymore.

She didn’t know what to do next. She would think about it. The nearest teleporter, where she’d just come from, was a day’s walk away. She had time.

All she knew what that she had two enemies. The Animal Kingdom…

…and Jack Rust.