Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse
Chapter 246: The Struggle for Grand Elder

As time passed, Jack fell into a schedule.

During the morning, he meditated on his Dao. He sought to explore the essence of the fist, what it really meant, and how it coexisted with the world. How all his different Dao Roots interacted with each other to form one complete whole, and how he could push forward the mastery of his Dao Skills.

In the afternoon, he practiced combat. He became a regular of the Cloud Field, sparring with any willing immortal. These battles really widened his experience, letting him see a dozen different Daos. Sparring against people with completely different fighting styles forced him to constantly adapt, exploring the limits and applications of his skills. It also trained his mind to think outside the box, be ready for anything, and improvise effectively when outside familiar waters. It was far more efficient than training against Copy Jack, whom he didn’t visit much lately.

Through these sparring sessions, Jack became known in Huali’s Estate. Everyone wanted to see the young immortal who was on Cloud Field every afternoon, ready to demonstrate his might against any willing opponent. Before long, people lined up to fight him, awed by his strength. Even here, where his opponents were some of the brightest immortals in the constellation, no other low D-Grade was a match for Jack. Of the middle D-Grades, those between levels 170 and 210, Jack could only beat around half.

Of course, his opponents weren’t constrained at those levels. He fought many late D-Grades as well, though he won against none of them. Their strength was incomparable to the centaur and treant he’d fought on Derion.

Over time, Jack accumulated a lot of battle experience against diverse opponents, as well as fame that resounded even outside the estate.

That was his every afternoon.

At night, he did not rest—cooped up inside his cultivation cellar, as he had come to call it, Jack reaped the Dao that the Dao Magnet had collected during the day. He cultivated in place of sleep, exactly eight hours per day, then jumped right into his morning routine.

However, even while cultivating like that, he wasn’t nearly as fast as he imagined.

The people who reached the D-Grade were the best of the best—one in a hundred thousand cultivators, roughly. Despite that, they spent decades and centuries to reach the peak of this Grade, if they ever could. Jack had aspired to reach the C-Grade within a year, but as it turned out, he had greatly underestimated the difficulty of that goal. The D-Grade was a massive stretch—it contained as many levels as the F and E-Grades combined.

Even in the estate of Master Huali, assisted by a Dao Magnet and with no problems to distract him from cultivation, his progress was far from fast enough. When he dropped off Brock at the outer planet, Jack had been Level 139. After cultivating for two weeks, he had only reached Level 144, and these were supposed to be the fast levels. In the late D-Grade, his progress would slow down by dozens of times.

That painted a very clear picture in Jack’s mind. If he stayed in this place, no matter how hard he overworked himself, he would never become strong enough. He had to leave and adventure as Shol had advised. That decision was further punctuated by how, on his way to Field Nebula, he’d defeated one late D-Grade and one almost-late, and he’d gotten eight levels in a day. It was incredible just how much faster battle was compared to peaceful cultivation.

Of course, it hid the risk of death, as well as the reduction of the overall power in the galaxy. In that way, cultivation remained balanced—to get one level through combat, Jack might have to kill an immortal with a hundred and fifty on his back. It made sense why it wasn’t as encouraged as slowly cultivating in the faction. Most immortals had time.

Jack didn’t.

Even though Master Huali had agreed to save Earth, he did not believe that his enmity with the Animal Kingdom would just disappear. Sooner or later, problems and enemies would arrive at his doorstep, and unless he was strong enough to protect everyone he cared about, things would go very wrong very quickly. He had to work hard now so he could deal with the problems that had not yet appeared.

On the bright side, even though he lacked time, what he did not lack was enemies. The Animal Kingdom had very kindly volunteered its immortals as fodder for Jack’s cultivation, and he was determined to go pick them up at some point.

He set himself a time limit of one month in the faction. After that, he would head to the Animal Kingdom and wreak havoc.

He could have gone right away, but, as always, cultivation consisted of two stages—expansion and consolidation. Jack’s strength had risen meteorically in Trial Planet, but that meant he needed to spend some time stabilizing his foundation. He had to get familiar with his current level of power, his new Class, his new Dao and domain, his Dao Skills, his attributes… The consolidation of his power was his current goal, along with gathering battle experience against different kinds of immortals. That was also why he hadn’t yet explored the space-related Dao Vision he’d gotten from the library.

Half a month into his cultivation, he was not particularly stronger than before, but he was much more aware of his limits, as well as more conscious of the best ways to use his different powers. He was setting the foundation that would later allow him to slaughter Animal Kingdom immortals instead of getting slaughtered himself.

However, this period of intense cultivation did not come without problems.

Immortals didn’t need to sleep, but that didn’t make them machines. After two weeks of working non-stop, Jack was mentally and physically drained. His eyes had dark circles underneath. His mind was drowsy instead of sparking from one idea to the next. His movements in battle became rigid and mechanical, especially against opponents he’d faced before, resulting in several preventable losses. When meditating, Jack often found himself distracted, his mind wandering into unrelated subjects.

Only cultivation itself—drawing in the Dao of the environment to strengthen himself—remained efficient, as it wasn’t a particularly mind-intensive task, but it was not the focus of his current training.

As a result, on a day when meditation felt simply impossible, Jack decided that he needed to take a break.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” he consoled himself, rising to his feet. “A day’s break now can save me several days of turtle-paced progress later on. Right, Bro—”

He paused. Even now, he still sometimes forgot that Brock was on a different planet, undoubtedly going through his own training. His absence felt like a gap in Jack’s soul, like something was just not right.

Spiritual companions were more than a figure of speech.

“But what do I do today?” he asked himself, speaking aloud to alleviate the loneliness. “I could visit the others at the outer planet. Or maybe Shol wants to hang out. Or both. Why not both?”

During his two weeks here, Jack had realized that not many trained as hard as he did. The other immortals in the estate were consistent and dilligent, but they only practiced for about eight hours a day, splitting that time between cultivation, sparring, and meditating. Jack practiced for about twenty-four hours a day.

As a result, they had free time. Many people had invited Jack for coffee, tea, or food, but he always declined, too busy training.

“Let’s go check on Shol,” he decided. He flew out of his cultivation cellar and out of his house, rising to the sky. Immediately, he spotted Auburn flying nearby. The other immortal spotted him as well and came over for a greeting.

The two of them had actually sparred multiple times and became almost friends. Auburn had even apologized for the dirty tactic she used in their first spar—though Jack didn’t consider it as such.

“Good morning, Jack,” Auburn said when she approached. Her orange hair floated behind her back, accentuating her auburn robes while framing her small nose and wide eyes. “What happened? You’re not cultivating.”

“Yeah. I decided to take a break.”

“You? A break?” She looked around. “Did hell freeze over?”

“I just got tired,” Jack replied, laughing. “Even I cannot go on forever.”

“Says the guy who doesn’t sleep.”

“I close my eyes sometimes.”

“Sure. Next time you blink, I hope you wake up well-rested.”

He smiled. “Are you doing anything today, Auburn? We could hang out.”

“I was planning to visit the city, actually. I have some shopping to do. You can join me if you want.”

“The city?”

“Yeah. Stripe City. It’s half an hour of flight away.”

“Oh. Sure, count me in.” Jack had yet to exit this estate to explore the inner planet. Going with Auburn was a great opportunity to do that. Plus, he wondered what a city of immortals would look like. “When are we going?”

“How about right now? I was on my way.”

“Alright. It’s not like I have anything to do. Should we invite Shol, too? I was planning to hang out with him later.”

She bit her bottom lip. “That’s…not a good idea. Brother Shol can’t leave the estate for now.”

“Why?”

“It’s about the Grand Elder struggle. Master Huali and Elder Monsoon are fighting for reputation right now, so their disciples are looking for any chance to humiliate each other. Elder Monsoon’s head disciple is actually the strongest D-Grade in the entire faction, so if he hears about Shol being anywhere outside the estate, he will rush over and find an excuse to challenge him. That’s why he cannot leave. As the head disciple of our master, he cannot afford to lose right now.”

“I see… This Grand Elder struggle is more complex than I expected.”

“Of course it is. The Grand Elder is appointed for life, and the previous holder of the position kept it for three thousand years. We don’t discuss it much here in the estate, but outside, it’s all anyone ever talks about.”

“Huh.”

“Just huh? We’re talking about once-in-a-lifetime events here! If Master becomes the Grand Elder, the status of all of us will be elevated as well!”

“Well… I hope our master wins, obviously, but I’ve only been here for two weeks. I don’t see these things the same way you do. Speaking of, if Shol cannot leave because he may be challenged, is it alright for us to go shopping?”

“We’ll be fine. Shol is more involved because he is our master’s head disciple. Even if a disciple of Monsoon runs into us and wants to create trouble, nobody will really care. Unless we do something stupid, of course.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I never do stupid things.”

She stared at him. “You don’t sound very convincing.”

“Trust me. Smart is my middle name.”

“And yet, you strike me like the kind of guy who punches first and asks questions later.”

“I’ll have you know I was a scientist before my planet got Integrated. The ripped muscles and good looks are just the newest addition to my kit.”

“Right…” She looked him up and down with disapproval once, then shook her head. “Whatever you say.”

Jack laughed. “So, wanna go?”

“Yep. Follow me!”

Auburn darted into the sky, and Jack followed her. They rose over the sparse clouds, admiring the green terrain below, and spent their time making idle conversation—telepathically, as the wind was not very helpful for their actual voices.

Soon after, short, colorful buildings appeared in the horizon: Stripe City.