Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse
Chapter 169: Bubble Terrain

Jack, Nauja, Gan Salin, and Brock hurtled through open space, approaching a large number of biome bubbles. The curved, sun mushroom-filled ceiling was on their backs. It felt like a descent into darkness.

There were three bubbles near them. One was a wide grassland, maybe a mile in diameter. The second was a valley, complete with cliff walls on either side, while the third was a barren mountain peak, also a mile across.

Jack raised a hand, pointed at the three bubbles, and gestured “which?” They couldn’t speak in space.

Gan Salin shrugged. Nauja, thinking for a moment, also shrugged. Jack turned back to the three bubbles and chose the mountain peak—simply because it looked cool.

As they approached, more details became apparent. The mountain peak was a cone of bare stone, with rock fragments trailing under and behind it. There were weeds growing between the rocks, along with a single, stubby tree on the very top. Jack spotted no animals or other points of interest.

The mountain peak floated lazily through space, heading to the direction Jack perceived as right, and it was smaller than he’d originally assumed. Only a few hundred feet across.

As they drew near, no space monster attacked them. There was no hint of movement in the dark nooks of space, no sudden tentacle reaching up to grab Jack’s ankle.

They slid into the bubble with a popping feeling. The membrane bent by their pressure, then opened and let them pass before closing behind them. The four of them fell ten feet to the rock below, and Jack quickly removed his helmet to take a deep breath.

“Fascinating,” he said, breathing out. “We’re on a mountain hovering in space.”

“Not really a mountain, not really space,” Salin was quick to point out, “but fascinating, yes.”

“Are you kidding?” Nauja spun around herself, greedily devouring the sight. “This is fantastic! I— It’s the happiest day of my life!”

Salin stared at her, then turned to Jack. “Did she hit her head on the way?”

“She’s just happy.” Jack smiled. “She always dreamed of escaping her ring. For her, every new sight is an adventure.”

“I see.” Salin walked up and placed a hand on her bare shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m crazy, too.”

She gave him a confused look. “I’m not crazy.”

“Sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Is there anything here?” Jack asked, approaching them. His eyes scanned the half of the mountain visible from where he stood. “Maybe there is a trial.”

“This close to the entrance? No way.” Salin shook his head. “This place gets visited often. I bet we won’t find a single natural treasure, let alone a trial.”

“Natural treasure?”

“You know, like Dao Fruits, or like that Fire Ice Lotus in the Integration Auction. Those things grow in most biomes, but the easiest to reach—and the most valuable—are already picked clean by cultivators. You’ll have to go pretty deep to find anything.”

“Oh… Then, are these early bubbles useless?”

“Pretty much.” He shrugged. “But we can take a look. Who knows? Maybe everyone else missed something.”

The four of them spread out to inspect the mountain peak. There wasn’t much. It took them less than five minutes to search the entire bubble. Jack even broke the surface of the stone to look for hidden rooms underneath, while Nauja flew under the mountain peak to survey its bottom.

They came up with nothing.

The only point of interest was the stubby tree at the very top. It did radiate an aura of the Dao, but no apparent way to use it.

“Perhaps we should cut it down?” Jack asked.

“Oh, wow, and people call me insane.” Salin shook his head. “It’s a tree. If you take a closer look, the aura of the Dao is focused on its branches. It probably produces fruits that hold special properties, but these things take time. We would need ridiculous luck to chance upon its blooming moment. Cutting down the tree would just ruin the treasure for everyone.”

“Sounds exactly like something delvers would do,” Nauja said.

“Not for zero benefit. What would you even do with its wood? Make an oar?”

“What if someone cultivates the Dao of Wood?” Jack asked.

“It doesn’t work like that. If I pour my Dao into my fist, could you study it?”

Jack considered it. Salin’s metaphor made an odd amount of sense.

“We’ll find nothing out here,” the canine explained. “The aura of treasures is so thin that even space monsters are rare. If we want anything good, we’ll have to head deeper.”

“Why would cultivators leave the deeper treasures be?” Jack asked.

“Not on purpose. Each bubble you choose neighbors many deeper ones. As a result, the deeper you go into the ring, the more possible paths there are for you to take. The middle of Space Ring has thousands of bubbles, probably tens of thousands, and it is teeming with space monsters. Even after a million years, this place isn’t fully explored. And, even if it was, natural treasures regrow.” He pointed to the tree. “If a bubble hasn’t been visited in a few years, it usually has something interesting.”

Jack nodded. “What about trials?” he asked, putting his helmet back on and securing the clasp underneath. “Do they regrow, too?”

“No.” Salin smiled aggressively. “And that’s the catch. Most of the weakest trials never close—they are open to as many people as are interested, always. They don’t offer anything too valuable, you see. But the good trials… Those have finite resources. Only one or a few people can benefit from them before they collapse forever. It’s why everyone pushes forward, deep into the darkness, looking for those elusive bubbles that promise greatness. It’s also why Space Ring has the second highest mortality rate in all of Trial Planet. Cultivators are prone to greed, which gets them killed.”

Nauja snorted. “Sounds about right.”

“But… We should be greedy, right?” Jack asked. “If the best trials are dangerous to reach, we have to risk it. Why come all the way out here to chicken out at the last minute?”

“Well, it depends. For people like you, it’s ambition. For people like me, it’s greed.” Salin smiled sadly. “Honestly, I am already overperforming by reaching Space Ring. Someone like me should have died at the Barbarian Ring, or even the Giant Ring. At best, I should have taken the Village Ring’s teleporter and returned to the surface. I don’t belong here.”

“Come on, man.” Jack slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be like that. You’re a scion of the Animal Kingdom, remember? You were so promising they even sent you to Earth.”

“Where I failed horrifically, and I’ve kept failing since… But I appreciate the cheering.” He returned a bright smile, then put on his helmet. “Lead the way, boss.”

Jack wanted to say more things. He wanted to encourage Gan Salin, talk him up a bit. But he also didn’t want to lie. Salin was Level 61. From what Jack had seen in the Village Ring, Salin may well be the weakest person in the entire Space Ring.

“Luck always plays a part,” he finally said. “You are here now. And the opportunities we’ll find will propel you to glory. Just keep your head up and don’t die.”

“I’ll try.”

Whether Gan Salin was cheered up or not—or even if he needed cheering up in the first place—Jack couldn’t tell. His own helmet was already on. He grabbed Brock, who couldn’t move through space by himself, ran to the edge of the mountain peak, and jumped out. The bubble easily gave way, breaking around him to reveal empty space.

Gan Salin and Nauja followed right after.

As Salin had mentioned, they now had another few bubbles to choose from, each taking them farther and farther away from the ring entrance. The horizon beyond was pitch-black darkness, an endless void where no stars were visible. It could stretch on forever.

The only source of light were the sun mushrooms behind them, whose glow steadily dimmed the farther one reached into the darkness, as well as the bubbles, which reflected the mushrooms’ light like a series of small moons.

Jack’s group headed ever deeper. The hours bled into each other. They crossed a number of bubbles—a grassland, a marsh, an odd, gas-filled landscape, and others—all invariably empty. The deeper into the ring they went, the dimmer the illumination grew, and they weren’t even halfway to the other side—or so Salin said. Jack himself had no way to judge, as he couldn’t see the other side, only darkness.

In fact, with all the bubbles floating randomly in this three-dimensional space, and with each having its own gravity, it was easy to lose one’s way. If someone wasn’t careful, they could end up making circles around the circumference of the ring instead of heading deeper. The only anchoring point was the wall of light at the far back, away from which they kept heading.

They didn’t discover any active trials. The only one they found was a ruined cabin in the woods that exhibited an aura of the Dao so strong Jack could almost identify it. It felt like a lumberjack working away at a forest, one tree at a time.

The cabin was collapsed, though, signifying that it had already blessed as many people as it could. They had no choice but to move on.

Who had created these trials? Who had gathered all these biome bubbles and put them into Trial Planet? How? Why?

Jack, of course, didn’t know. Nauja didn’t either, and even Gan Salin had no idea. In fact, he admitted that even the B-Grade factions didn’t know much about Trial Planet—or, if they did, they didn’t tell their junior members.

Regardless, every bubble they visited only served to enhance Jack’s awe. The Space Ring was a masterpiece of unfathomable proportions. It was difficult to even imagine who could make such a thing. Even a God might have trouble creating this place.

On and on they trudged. From bubble to bubble, from the light into gradual, impenetrable darkness. They didn’t meet any other people.

Space monsters began appearing after some point. They attacked with increasing frequency, but only one monster at a time. Nothing that Jack couldn’t handle. The late E-Grade monsters were manageable with a bit of effort, especially with Nauja’s assistance, whose arrows crossed space even faster than they did the air.

Whenever a middle E-Grade monster appeared—which was usually the case—Jack had Gan Salin go at it. The canine was strong for his level, as was every scion, so he could handle most of them. In the end, he even got a few levels for his trouble, rising to Level 64.

Poor Brock was the only one who couldn’t fight. Not only did he lack the strength to do so, but without a Dao Seed, he also lacked the means to propulse himself through space. If he tried, the most he could achieve was flail ineffectively as he slowly floated through the void.

The moss-covered, ancient-looking Staff of Stone remained unused. Brock didn’t complain—how could he?—but Jack felt growing sadness. His monkey bro hadn’t been able to do much in Trial Planet. He must be feeling frustrated—useless, even.

Jack swore to help him as much as he could. Perhaps some natural treasures could increase his strength, at least by a bit.

All he could do was hope.

They lost track of time as they ventured deeper and deeper. At some point, as they stood inside a glacial biome, Nauja glanced back and raised her brows. “Look!” she said, pointing in the distance.

Looking back was hard due to the brightness of the sun mushrooms, but the distance dimmed the light. Jack obliged. As he did, he could barely make out a few small shapes in the distance, fighting in the backdrop of another bubble.

“What’s that?” he asked, squinting.

“I can’t make them out either,” said Gan Salin.

“Yes,” Brock agreed.

Nauja, whose senses were by far the sharpest, shielded her eyes with a hand and stared attentively. “It’s Longsword,” she said. “I can see him, the witch, and Bocor… They’re fighting—I mean, annihilating—a horde of space monsters.”

“They’re here?” Jack asked worriedly. “Is it morning already?” The lord had promised his team would wait until morning to enter Space Ring.

“It probably has been for a while. They’re way past the first bubble.”

“I hope they don’t follow us.”

“I doubt they will. We’re pretty far away by now. Longsword must have better things to do.”

“I don’t know… I did insult him a fair bit.” Jack scratched his head.

“Well, at least they aren’t on the same path as us. We didn’t pass by that bubble. And we certainly didn’t meet that horde. There are probably a dozen monsters there.”

“I didn’t even know there were hordes here,” Jack said. When they were attacked, it was always just a single monster.

“There can be,” Gan Salin explained. “Space monsters are agitated by cultivators. If many of them enter the ring at once, monsters will gather like sharks to blood. In fact, hordes can get super-massive sometimes, to the point where even lords have to hide in bubbles and wait for them to pass.”

“They can?”

“Totally. Well, not often, but I’ll explain later. For now, the point is that there are many cultivators here.”

Jack looked back to the figures in the distance. “Seems like three to me.”

“Longsword probably brought his allies over,” Nauja explained. “It’s the Garden Assault. It wasn’t supposed to happen for a few days more, actually, but he probably grew impatient after everything that happened. If that’s the case, there must be dozens of cultivators following Longsword, and the other lords could be here as well.”

“The other lords?”

“Two of them, from what I’ve heard,” Gan Salin said. “The five of us—me, Rufus, and the others—were supposed to participate in this Garden Assault if someone didn’t destroy us.”

“Hey, you’re the ones who invaded my planet.”

“Does one of the other lords look like a young, tanned girl with the sun in her palms?” Nauja suddenly asked, looking into another place in the distance. “And is she friends with a super fat guy?”

“Hmm? Yes!” Salin cried out in surprise. “How do you know?”

“Because they’re right there.”

“Oh. Well, we probably don’t have to worry about them. That’s Lady Priya, from—”

He trailed off, mouth gaping. The people Nauja had been talking about entered battle against another horde of space monsters. A massive golden palm appeared, so large that even Jack could see it clearly, to plow through the monsters. The fat man Nauja had mentioned was laughing.

And, in the wake of his attack, the girl struck. A terrifying explosion tore through the entire horde. A new sun was born.