Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 435: Hall of Wonders

Cultivation was a timeless experience. The hours flowed between one’s fingers like grains of sand, accumulating at their feet until they were standing on a brilliant sand castle.

However, it was also tiring. The exhaustion piled up, especially if you were struggling against your feelings at the same time. Though Jack alternated between Death and Spacetime, he also needed periods of rest, and he chose to spend that time exploring the Black Hole World. Others might have preferred to relax alone, but he enjoyed the sense of discovery and observing the culture of these odd people.

Plus, he was a man who liked good company.

“And this is the Hall of Wonders,” Mia explained, showing Jack an ivory door filled with intricate carvings.

“How did you get ivory?” Jack asked.

“We have animals here!”

“Do you have elephants?”

“No… Well, when my ancestors entered the Black Hole World, it wasn’t with just the clothes on their backs. They brought manuscripts, books, records, cultivation manuals, weapons, armor, materials… All sorts of items, so they could prosper for at least a million years. Many of those have been used up by now or integrated into our world, but some, like cultivation manuals or mementos, remain here.”

“Are you saying these items have survived over a billion years?”

“Kind of.” Mia pushed open the door, revealing a hundred-foot-long corridor. Dishomogeneous objects littered the shelf-covered walls, while the corridor itself gave off a feeling of endless years, as if every breath of air here was precious. As Mia kept speaking, she instinctively lowered her voice. “Some treasures are made of incorruptible materials,” she explained. “Others deteriorate with time, like history books, but we just copy them over. As for things that deteriorate and cannot be copied, those are long lost.”

Jack didn’t dare breathe too deeply. A sense of reverence swelled his heart, a deep respect oozing from his very soul. This was a billion years of history. It was unbelievable.

He didn’t speak immediately. His feet, which had once crossed dozens of miles with every step, now walked slowly forward. He reached out to touch these objects, then finally stayed his hand.

There were all sorts of items here. Books filled an entire section of the corridor. There were weapons, armor, and a hundred-some trinkets of indeterminate functionality. There was also a row of transparent jade crystals which seemed to contain…dancing letters?

The first place Jack reached was the books. There had to be dozens of them—was it the accumulated knowledge of a billion years? Or did it start before, at the age of the Ancients? There could be knowledge here which had been lost from everywhere else in the universe.

Jack was a scientist. Not a historian, but he had still learned to appreciate knowledge. Standing here, at a lost chapter of history, filled him with awe.

“These are just our most important books,” Mia said as if reading his thoughts. “We also have a library with millions of them, though most have been added by us through the passage of time.”

Jack swiveled around. “This is incalculable wealth!” he exclaimed. “If we ever manage to leave this world, please safekeep the books. The entire universe will be grateful!”

Mia was surprised for a moment, then laughed. “We would never them let be harmed,” she said. “History is important to us. It’s all we have. Focusing on the past and future is the only way to survive a hundred million generations without collapsing. I wonder, what does a world look like when it focuses on the present?”

“If we ever get out of here, I will show you,” Jack said, his gaze mellowing a bit. “You’ve been my guide here. I will reciprocate in my world.”

She chuckled. “I look forward to it.”

Next came the jade crystals. They were sharply cut and the size of a man’s fist, shining as they reflected the white light of the ever-present lamps. Jack could make out a heap of letters inside them, all jumbled up near the center.

“Try shaking one,” Mia said.

Jack hesitated. When she gestured him forward, he grabbed a crystal and gently shook it. The letters inside began to dance like snow in a snow ball, forming innumerable words one after the other before gathering back in the center, slowly turning inert.

“What’s that?” Jack asked in surprise, shaking the ball again.

“An ancient cultivation manual,” Mia explained, proud to finally surprise him. “This is a method devised and used by the Ancients. The inside of the ball seems empty, besides the letters, but it’s actually carved with very precise lines of the Dao. As you shake the ball, the letters flow along those lines, forming a vast array of texts. It’s a way to contain large amounts of information in a small independent storage space, and it also serves as a protection mechanism. The more you understand this ball’s contents, the more you familiarize yourself with the patterns governing the revolution of letters and the more knowledge you can perceive.”

Jack shook the ball again, watching the letters dance. “Fascinating,” he said.

“I know, right?” She gave him a wide smile. “Of course, the precise method to create them has been lost to us. It’s a good thing these crystals don’t deteriorate with time because we wouldn’t be able to recreate them. These are the core cultivation paths our people follow, though as time passes, fewer and fewer people can reach the higher stages.”

“Hmm.” Jack cupped his chin. “You mentioned that these crystals have ways to regulate the knowledge they disperse, right? That the more one understands, the more they can see, essentially forming a stable path of progression for anyone wanting to cultivate them.”

“Exactly!” Mia explained. “You’re smart.”

Jack didn’t reply immediately. In his mind, he was silently contrasting these crystals with the death cube he possessed. They bore several similarities—both were precise geometrical shapes, both contained cultivation knowledge or insights into the Dao, and both possessed ingenious ways to force the practitioner to cultivate them one step at a time.

Was my death cube created by the Ancients? Jack wondered. That would explain why it’s so mysterious…but, also, where would Elder Boatman find it?

In the past, Jack had assumed this was a naturally-formed object, but he always had his doubts. Now that he saw something similar produced by the Ancients, he was more inclined to believe that alternative, and that was very important because it meant that the insights contained within the death cube were not perfect.

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A natural object would be formed by the purest laws of the world, but a manmade object could only reach the heights of its creator. If the death cube really was created by the Ancients, Jack shouldn’t blindly believe everything he discovered. Though the creator was undoubtedly extremely skilled, maybe even an Archon, that didn’t make them perfect.

Could Elder Boatman have created the death cube? Jack wondered. It wasn’t impossible, but he had no way to know. In any case, whether the creator was Elder Boatman or an ancient Archon, it didn’t matter much right now. Those two levels were indistinguishable to him—like a human looking up at two mountain peaks and trying to tell which one was taller.

One thing he could tell, however, was that the death cube was of a higher rank than these crystals. It radiated a greater Dao—this fact was undeniable.

To save Mia some face, Jack didn’t bring out the death cube right now, though he would later. Instead, he asked, “How come these cubes are here? I thought your people were cultivating them.”

“We are,” she replied. She sounded…embarrassed? “We, uh, aren’t too good at cultivation anymore. We can only study the lowest levels of these manuals. Some of our first ancestors, who had achieved a much higher level, had written down these lower levels on paper, which is how we can freely copy and study them. In truth, we have no need for these crystals; we are not qualified to study them.”

“I see,” Jack replied. “Then, why are some of them missing?”

The shelf before him had nine crystals, each placed on a small pedestal. There were also three empty pedestals.

When Mia didn’t reply, Jack turned around only to find her red in the face, as if she was about to speak of something she was ashamed of. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he quickly said, but she shook her head.

“It’s fine. We… We have shamed our ancestors. Around a million years ago, we started finding things near the Vortex. Body parts, durable treasures… Little things, but we were overjoyed. It meant there were people in the vicinity of our world. Maybe they could help us out. However, we knew that, from the outside, the entrance to our world seems like a black hole. Nobody in their right mind would enter—no offense.”

“None taken,” Jack replied, hiding his smirk. Mia continued. “Well, we were unable to exit, so we had to find a way to let them know we were in here. Our Elder Council at the time decided to send some of our most durable treasures through the Vortex. That would surely tip them off.”

“Unless they didn’t care.”

“It’s not that simple. We knew that entering the Vortex came with massive risks; only those with great Dao understanding or extremely durable bodies would survive. Yet, what could we do? We chose some of our least precious and most durable treasures, then sent them into the Vortex at regular intervals. At worst, someone would identify this place as a treasure hunting spot and generate traffic, and then eventually people would know… It’s just a shame that, even after a million years, nobody has come to search for us. We even sent three of our cultivation manuals to entice high-Grade cultivators, but to no avail.”

She sighed. Jack, however, was connecting the dots in his mind. The treasures and body parts that had arrived here must have come from early explorers of the Milky Way soon after this area was Integrated. Then, when the Black Hole People began sending out treasures, four cultivators discovered it and claimed this place for themselves, eventually using those treasures to increase their powers and found the Animal Kingdom.

He sighed. The Kingdom was a wretched hive of warmongering arrogance. It was a shame that the assistance of these kind Black Hole People ended up like that.

In fact, Gan Salin had mentioned that the cultivation manuals of both the Emberheart and Lonihor families—the noble leonine families of the Animal Kingdom—had come from the Animal Abyss.

“Tell me,” Jack asked, “of these three manuals that are missing, was one of them capable of using lightning to empower the cultivator’s body? And the other could give them wings and divine-seeming powers?”

Mia’s eyes widened. “Exactly! How did you know?”

“I’ve had some run-ins with the descendants of the people who found your treasures. They are my mortal enemies, actually, and the ones who pushed me in here.”

“Oh.” Her voice fell. “I am so so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Look at the bright side—I’m here now. Guess your plan worked.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I guess it did.”

She still seemed upset, so Jack added, “Don’t overthink it. You couldn’t have known. You did the best you could.”

Her eyes snapped back to the present. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about that, but thanks for worrying about me. I was just considering that, since we know our treasures are used by bad people to harm others, we should stop sending them out altogether.”

Jack raised a brow. “That’s a terrible idea. Whether good or bad, those people are your only chance of leaving this place.”

“So?”

“So, just keep sending them treasures. Entice stronger people to come. If not for you, do it for your descendants. You can’t rob them of their chance to escape just to protect strangers like me.”

She blinked at him, then laughed. “What are you talking about, you silly? Of course we can. If our children grew up and learned that their parents harmed the world to escape, wouldn’t they be ashamed of us? Wouldn’t they prefer us to have done the right thing even if it harms them?”

“But you can’t make that decision. It’s their choice.”

Her smile turned melancholic. “My father has said that, sometimes, it’s not about making a decision. It’s about showing the path. Even if it doesn’t always work out, it’s the best we can do.”

Jack shook his head. He felt opposed to this idea, though he couldn’t explain why. Maybe his mind was clouded.

In any case, this didn’t affect him.

“What about all these?” he asked, gesturing towards the rest of the corridor which was filled with trinkets.

Mia rejoiced again. “Oh, those are treasures! Some of them are magical, some are not, but they’re all left behind by the first generation of our people, the ones who’d lived in the outside universe before arriving to the Black Hole World. No matter how much we wanted to contact the outside world, we never sent any of these through the Vortex. They represent the feelings of my people, a reminder that we will one day leave this place. This collection is our most important treasure.”

Seeing Jack’s hesitation, she laughed.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You can take a look—just don’t break anything.”

Jack nodded. He had to admit he was intrigued—he paced deeper into the corridor, running his eyes over every treasure, every trinket, every souvenir. They were all wildly different from each other, and each had their own story to tell. He saw a tiny dolphin carved of pink crystal; a white ceremonial mask; a dagger inlaid with gems, and a bronze telescope with the initials M.N. carved on its ridge.

“May I?” he asked, to which Mia replied, “Go right ahead.”

He reached out to take a small artifact—the statuette of a dark-skinned, female warrior, proudly raising her spear towards the sky even as she cradled a child in her embrace. He caressed its hair. Suddenly, he was emotional. This statuette reminded him of Vivi, whom he dearly missed. It had been over three years since they last saw each other. Was she okay?

Now filled with thoughts of his family, his eyes fell on a bronze artifact which didn’t stick out at all. It was a heart broken in four. As he took a second look, he saw that it wasn’t broken, just made up of four pieces which could attach or detach from each other.

Each of these treasures carried their own story. Who knows what people had made these and for what reasons? Only now did Jack realize that the corridor’s timeless aura came not from the cultivation manuals and history books, not from the magical weapons and armor, but from these seemingly simple artifacts.

They had remained here for a billion years, unaffected by the passage of time, the last keepsake of their previous owners. Something to remember them. Jack was still thinking about his family, and tears threatened to come to his eyes.

These artifacts had waited here a billion years. He and his family had only been apart for three. They could handle it. He could, as well.

But god, how he missed them.

Mia was silent as she watched Jack’s face go through a myriad emotions. Her gaze fell on the statuette he was still caressing, and she hesitated over saying something before finally choosing not to.

“Let’s go,” Jack said, gently putting back the statuette. His voice was emotional, but also resolved. “We have a world to escape.”

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