Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 543: Universe of the Body

Jack surveyed his inner world. The matter previously created had forged a solar system, with his fist as the sun and various planets circling it. In the accelerated time of his inner world, Jack had already seen these planets go through a series of geological changes to settle on a somewhat more stable state.

Of course, these changes weren’t the exact same as what Earth had gone through. His Dao and the universe’s were subtly different—and that was expressed in everything that occurred inside them, whether big or small. Jack looked forward to discovering what the lifeforms he created would look like.

With the planets no longer erupting or getting smashed by a hail of meteors, Jack thought it was time to move to the next step. He manipulated their growth. Slowly, an atmosphere appeared around most of them—barring the ones too far or too close to the sun—followed by oceans. Millions of years passed in the blink of an eye, Jack manipulating the flow of time freely.

After the first oceans appeared, Jack descended on each of these worlds. His body was the size of a continent. He bent down, taking a deep breath and blowing into the oceans. The wind of his breath made them overflow, temporarily flooding the newly created continents—but it also contained the very first hints of life, a wealth of living cells placed in a safe haven. Jack moved from planet to planet, breathing life into each of them, then calmly stepped back to watch.

The bacteria began multiplying erratically. He saw, through his omniscient gaze, single-celled organisms adapt and thrive in their new environments. At the same time this happened, Jack himself experienced several changes. The flow of time, which he’d freely manipulated so far, now felt heavier, as if anchored in place by the very life he’d infused into his world.

To his surprise, even single-celled organisms possessed souls, their unique life signatures, and pulling the fabric of time under their feet was like tugging at a piece of cloth carrying multiple sharp stones. It was still possible, but it risked getting torn, and it was certainly heavier than it used to be.

Seeing that bacteria had souls, Jack laughed. At the very start of his cultivation journey, he’d been told that only cultivators had souls, while monsters did not. That was a load of crap. If amoebas could have a soul, then so could a three-meter-tall wolf.

Soon, however, his laughter was replaced by a frown. As life populated his world, he was beginning to get a distinct sense of wrongness.

Why?

He inspected everything, passing his gaze from the tiniest pebble to the sun itself, through every single creature in his world. There was nothing wrong. Why did he feel that way?

The more creatures that appeared, the slower time got. At the start, even a billion years could pass in seconds, but the resistance had increased now. Jack saw the single-celled organisms evolve into more complex structures and eventually step out of the oceans. He watched as they developed limbs and sentience, ecosystems forming. He was their God—a unique feeling.

Yet, that feeling was undermined by the constant, growing sense of wrongness. Like this wasn’t the proper way to do things. Some instinct, deep in his heart, insisted he was making a mistake.

Jack took a deep breath. By now, it had been over a year in the outside world. A year in which Ebele grew and the Church fought a bitter war. This was precious time. He took another breath, pressing his eyes shut, then snapped them open. He waved his hands—fleets of meteors appeared in his world, large and shaped like fists, then came crashing down on the planets.

Animals ran around in panic. Jack saw the flames reflected in their eyes. He let the meteors crash, eradicating all life, changing his planets’ trajectories, resetting his inner world to the empty, timeless state it had originally existed in.

He felt weary—an angry god, one of slaughter.

Jack had interrupted his own breakthrough. He clutched his chest, bringing a hand to his mouth to catch the coughing blood. Yet, when the pain abated, his eyes remained sharp.

He did not know, but at this point, it didn’t matter. He had a job to do.

Jack rose to his feet. The world around him, which had waited silently for a long time, suddenly flared to life. Dao and energy erupted. Green sparks of life emerged from the void, drawn out of the folds of reality they’d been hidden in. Jack made a grasping motion at the Life Drop, which dislodged itself from the portal to the Green Dragon Realm and flew into his hands. It was potent, radiating intense Life energy.

Jack smiled, then squeezed it between his fingers. This divine object, which had once been impregnable to even his mightiest efforts, crumbled like a popped balloon.

“YOU DID WHAT!?” the turtle screamed from inside, but Jack only laughed. The Life Drop and its current inhabitants would be fine. He’d just emptied it rapidly, not truly broken it.

Unimaginable quantities of Life energy flooded the world, taking it over. The purple sun was tinged green—the planets spontaneously burst with trees and animals which quickly died to the lack of living conditions.

Combined with the constant stream of Life energy pouring out of the Green Dragon Realm’s portal, Jack found that his inner world was completely suffused with the energy of Life, even pushing his other Daos aside. It was a temporary imbalance he could accept, because his body was also made of Life Dao. This was the best way to connect them.

“Brock,” his voice echoed in the real world. “Close the door. Now.”

He didn’t even know if the brorilla had heard or responded. He was too deeply entrenched in meditation. He just hoped for the best.

Jack pictured himself. A human body, tempered to the extreme, hiding in its center the gateway to his inner world. Both inside and outside were filled with the Dao of Life—the most potent life force. Jack knew what he had to do. He also realized this was a very risky procedure, but there was no going back. He didn’t want to. His path was the pursuit of mastery, and now, for the first time, he felt so close to it. As if, more than his breakthrough to the B-Grade, this would firmly set him on a path far surpassing any other.

Or it would kill him. But that risk was a small price to pay for eternity.

Jack focused as deeply as he could. His inner world was an island in the dimensional sea, a bubble of its own universe connected to his body through his Dao and willpower. He pictured them as a portal. With a deep breath, he grabbed his entire inner world and pulled it through the connection to make it physically enter his body. The entire solar system and the laws which regulated it were warped and sucked through a tiny hole. They reappeared in Jack’s physical body.

For a moment, he was stunned. The reality of this state was staggering. Planets coexisted with his organs, each pushing against the other. Twenty thousand miles had been compressed into six feet of human. The spacetime laws which served as the borders of Jack’s inner world were rapidly unraveling, unsupported by the stricter laws pertaining this universe compared to the lax dimensional sea, and Jack felt his body on the verge of exploding.

For a moment, the irony of all this crossed his mind. What would Brock think if an entire solar system suddenly spilled out the door?

He wiped that thought, focusing fully. His spacetime laws rushed to the fore—all his expertise came into play, skillfully weaving the broken laws back together, creating new seals and warps to replace the quickly waning ones. His inner world, which had begun to unravel, slowly restabilized.

Jack could make a universe fit inside his body, but that didn’t refute the fact that he still needed organs and flesh inside him. He needed to quickly find a way to reconcile the two warring realities—and master the Dao to make it happen.