Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack walked into the Dao chamber of the Hall of Trials’ seventh floor. He could scarcely believe it. He’d come all the way here, to a foreign world filled with monsters, and earned the right to their top inheritances. The kind that no one in history had ever seen before.

His steps through the room were slow, reverent even. Over a hundred crystal spheres lined the shelves on the wall. Each contained insights to one or several Daos—it was a tremendous wealth of knowledge.

Of course, Jack wasn’t interested in collecting them. His own path had already been set. He only looked for crystal spheres relevant to the exact Daos he followed.

Over the years, his Dao had gone through several transformations. First, it was just the Fist. It was later enriched with several other Daos, including Power, Weakness, Indomitable Will… Those were all concepts which formed his foundation and the basis of his own, personal Dao, which he developed at the D-Grade.

Some time later, as the Daos he followed rose to new heights, they were diluted to some of the most primal and powerful concepts in existence. Space, Time, Life, Death. His spectrum of Dao had narrowed back down to four, all spearheaded by the Fist. It was these fundamental powers of the universe that he now pondered—their secrets held the path to the peak of mastery, he knew that, but they were also unbelievably difficult. Even with all his experiences, even with the many top-level inheritances he’d received from several Archons, Jack was only now scratching the surface of what was possible.

Black Hole was the combination of Space and Death—a potent force which had evolved into his killer move. He still hadn’t mastered it. Every time he used it, he put himself in as much danger as his opponent, the black hole merely a bomb he held with the business end pointed outwards. Refining his understanding of it was one of his main goals.

The other was exploring his other Dao Vision—that of a woman creating a universe. A combination of Time and Life, a power at least on par with a black hole, if not at an higher level.

Then came Entropy, which he’d only recently experienced. It was the fusion of Time and Death, similar yet different to a black hole. He knew precious little about it, but having felt its effects in his battle against Axelor, he was confident it was something inside his purview. Whether it would become a skill of its own or just an amplification of another, he had no idea.

Following the theme of his four main Daos combining into pairs, the only combination remaining was Space and Life. Jack had no idea what that could look like. A white hole, maybe—the theorized endpoint of a black hole in another universe? Or, perhaps, the white hole wasn’t a separate combination but part of the Life and Time thing the woman in the Dao Vision had going on?

Jack had many things to consider. Thankfully, he finally had time and resources. He’d get to the bottom of at least some of those.

He crossed his legs on the meditation mat at the center of the room. It had a mind-amplifying effect, a small but appreciated addition to his efforts. His perception spread to cover the crystal spheres, then, with a swish of his hand, three of them floated at him. They contained various spacetime-related inheritances, none higher-level than those he’d already comprehended. With all three at hand, as well as his own insights and previous Dao Visions, he got to work.

The first order of business was perfecting his black hole technique. As his battle against Axelor had proven, it contained plenty of power but lacked control. If he could manipulate it better, utilizing its apex of destructive capabilities and aiming them all at his opponent rather than a wild explosion, its overall effectiveness would rise to a different level. That’s why he’d chosen all the spacetime inheritances first.

Time lost its meaning as Jack meditated. He didn’t know if it had been hours or months. At some point, he opened his eyes, dissatisfaction evident. His experiments had been failures. The power of a black hole was now slightly easier to control, but nowhere near the level he desired. In fact, he suspected that even after reaching the A-Grade, he still wouldn’t be able to control it. It wasn’t a matter of energy. He was missing something.

“The problem is, it’s too wild,” he muttered to himself. “Once it appears, it absorbs everything and quickly gets out of hand. If I could control its energy levels, I could control the black hole… But how do I do that?”

He fell into thought. Some time later, he spoke again.

“Entropy could help. When fighting Axelor, he used it on my black hole, which increased its rate of energy absorption and accelerated its growth. What if there was no energy to absorb, however? I could cover my black hole in a bubble of entropy to nullify all incoming forms of energy. That would temporarily pause its growth, but then what? Maintaining two such high-level concepts would be too draining, and it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t control the eruption of the black hole once I send it flying. Hmm.”

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He decided to test it. Diving into his inner world, he moved to an empty corner of his universe and formed a black hole around his hand. The process felt natural now—he’d gotten used to it. After he compressed space enough for the death foam and a singularity to form, it began absorbing matter and energy from its surroundings at a rapidly increasing pace.

Jack creased his brows. While maintaining the black hole, he split part of his awareness to invoke Time and Death. It was straining, but he managed. Combining them with what his body understood after suffering Axelor’s Dao, he formed an elementary version of Entropy, which he wrapped around the black hole like a bubble.

The hole’s growth stopped. It stabilized, maintaining its volume. Jack would have celebrated if not for the limited applications of this technique. So what if he could pause its growth? At most, he could maintain it for longer before using it, but that didn’t help much. He’d still eventually lose control.

As he pondered on this, however, his eyes suddenly snapped open. What!?

He’d kept most of his attention on the black hole and bubble of entropy. That was how he’d suddenly sensed something new—with the black hole no longer growing, he could detect an almost imperceptible trickle of power leaving it. It was extremely faint, yet clearly there. How could energy leave a black hole? That made no sense. �

Wait. Didn’t I read about this once?

Astrophysicists on Earth had theorized that a black hole very slowly deteriorated, expelling its energy in tiny streams of particles. Jack could barely recall that—he never had more than a passing interest in astronomy—and didn’t even know if the theory had been proven or not, but did it really matter? He’d proven it now.

This added a whole new avenue of controlling it. Very slow deterioration was vastly different from no deterioration at all, especially when one controlled the flow of time.

Suppressing his rising excitement, Jack manipulated the barrier of Entropy. He poured part of it over the black hole, greatly accelerating its demise. This was exactly what Axelor had done, except he hadn’t had a barrier around it, which ended up with the black hole absorbing too much energy and exploding. After all, its rate of absorption far outstripped its rate of decay. With the barrier in place, the hole had nothing to absorb, so its decay was the only factor at play. Under the massive time acceleration, he watched it slowly grow smaller in size, as the departing particles were crushed by Entropy.

Jack’s eyes widened. This is it! he realized. I can control the black hole!

It was nowhere near ready to be used in battle, but the seeds were there. Jack moved his arm around, the black hole still stuck on the stump of his wrist, and slowly manipulated its size. He shrunk it by pouring some Entropy over it, then enlarged it by creating gaps in the barrier. In fact, he realized that by adjusting the size of the gaps in his entropy barrier, he could control the black hole’s rate of growth.

The technique needed a lot of refining still, but it worked!

“I figured out the secret!” he exclaimed. “A black hole is a hungry beast, and entropy is the control mechanism! By adjusting its environment, I can control the black hole. It is perfect!”

His mind raced with possibilities. If he shot the black hole at someone, like he usually did, he could wrap it in a precisely calculated barrier of Entropy which was much easier to control remotely than the black hole itself. That way, he could control it even inside someone else’s body, grinding their bones to mush and then willing the black hole to either explode or wink off. He could even make it fly around by controlling the shape of the Entropy barrier.

If the previous technique was the equivalent of gunpowder and bullets held in Jack’s hand, he’d now made a gun. Its effectiveness had increased exponentially.

Of course, it would take a lot of practice to make this usable in battle—the mental demands were insane—but he was confident he’d manage given time. And he had plenty of time right now.

He didn’t know how long it had been since the start of his meditation session, but it couldn’t be more than a year, right?

He opened his eyes to check for status screens.

Congratulations! Black Hole III → Black Hole IV

Black Hole IV: By draping Entropy as a layer around the black hole, you’ve managed to regulate its growth and decay. A truly formidable power lies under your control.

He laughed. It had been a while since his skills moved, so to see them rising again was a good feeling.

Jack refocused. He’d already mastered how to combine Death with the complete spectrum of timespace to create an extremely effective combat technique. He could stop here—he was already more than satisfied—but what if he could go further?

His mind raced to the Dao Vision he hadn’t been able to figure out yet, the one where that woman created a universe.

“If I add space in there, can I stabilize it? Maybe it wasn’t about time to begin with?” he wondered. With the winds of triumph on his sails, he settled down again. He had a feeling that, when he emerged from meditation, his strength would have increased…by leaps and bounds!

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