Book 3: Chapter 72: Trust

Book 3: Chapter 72: Trust

I watched as Rocky took a deep drag, holding it in as he gazed down at Snips. Though not an expert on crab anatomy, I was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have lungs. I shook my head at the smell; it was definitely tobacco. When he exhaled, a colossal cloud of smoke flew from his mouth. It billowed over the darkened field, lit from within as it surrounded the flaming form of the king.

Rocky’s arrival had temporarily hit the man’s reset button, but being surrounded by smoke snapped him out of it. His body flared, burning the smoke away. Despite having the appearance of a mindless elemental, incandescent fury spewed from his core, almost as repugnant as his sickly chi. He pulled his fist back again and gathered power, his connection to the source of corrupt chi growing stronger.

It took much less time to charge up this aircraft-carrier sized blast.

As the inferno raged forward, racing across the battlefield toward Rocky, I held my breath. He’d dismantled it once, but had it been a fluke? Was Rocky incapable of weathering multiple hits? The deviant crab scuttled forward, stepping into the space between his beloved Snips and the flames. Again, he sucked it in with ease, the lines covering his body going so bright that they illuminated the area when the fire was extinguished.

This time, it wasn’t only the sickly chi that he expelled from his core. Rocky sent a great gout of flame tearing over the battlefield. It contained the same power as the king’s, but the essence was condensed, making it burn significantly hotter. The attack flowed over the king and into the base of the mountain behind him, drilling a hole into the earth. When the last of the chi dispersed, all I could do was raise an eyebrow at the carnage.

A trench had formed in a straight line from Rocky and past the king, its base covered in what looked like molten slag. If the old version of the crab had wielded such power, I might have launched him into the sun for the wellbeing of every life on this planet. He wasn’t the same crab, though. The hint of human that had been within him as I flung him over the ocean was nowhere to be seen. Instead of paranoid and self-aggrandizing, he felt as stalwart and reliable as the rest of my animal pals. Whatever had happened to him, Rocky was truly a changed man.

Er, crab, I amended in my head.

See? the echoes within the network gloated, radiating vindication. Trust.

They grabbed my hand and urged me downward, but I told them to wait, pausing to consider.

On the surface, it seemed like the king had met his perfect match in Rocky, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. The deviant crab could absorb his strongest attacks, sure, but the king’s connection with the corrupted source grew by the minute. That underground tunnel was growing wider, ever more essence flowing through it. If I let the spirits lead me away, what if I was gone for too long? What if the king became a force too strong for even Rocky to handle?

The network reached out, and I already knew what it was going to say.

“He knows,” Maria said, letting out a small laugh and squeezing my hand. “Trust. He heard you the first time.”

The echoes seemed to narrow their collective eyes at her. Yes, they sent with a pout, Claws’s personality once more shining through. Trust.

I laughed, shaking my head as the king fired off another wall of flame. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I gave Maria’s hand a squeeze in parting, then allowed myself to be drawn below. I passed different layers of soil on my way down, slowly settling within one of the giant, chi-filled ropes that comprised the network. Though I could still see the battle in my mind’s eye, it was different. Before, it was like physically being there, my senses absorbing sights, smells, and even temperature. Now... It was like viewing the battle on a screen. I could still feel the aura radiating from the cores of every cultivator and spirit beast, but that was all.

Rocky absorbed another fire blast, his body filling with chi before expelling a torrent of flame at the king. The monarch’s attack had been stronger than before, but Rocky easily handled it, filling me with a sense of calm. Suddenly, the mesh I was within forced my vision onto itself. I didn’t understand... until I saw the tendrils of chi shooting up from below. There was one for each of my pals and Maria, the invisible vines slowly attaching to their cores.

All at once, their awareness was there beside me. Realization washed over them, the echoes’ memories rejoining with their own. Terror reigned in more than a few hearts when they first arrived, but it swiftly bled away. The strength of our bond soothed any lingering doubt, bringing us to a place of understanding.

In that serene mindset, something monolithic appeared in our midst. Despite never having felt it before, I immediately recognized it as an aspect of the network that we were within. It wasn’t quite a sapient bring, but... a shadow of one? The possibility of one? It continued forming, rising from so far down that it may as well have been the planet’s core. We had some big personalities among us, but compared to the mountain of potential still climbing, we were ants.

It was, to my astonishment, almost within my grasp. This ancient thing’s power, older than I could even fathom, was on offer... If only I could satisfy whatever requirements it demanded.

Lacking the subtlety of the polite urging my friends’ echoes had used, the monolith forced my vision inward, my awareness sent spiraling down into my own consciousness. It was trying to show me something.

My life on Earth, I realized.

It zoomed by at mind-bending speed, sharing my experiences with those connected to me. When we’d been in the sky, I’d shared visions of my life as a CEO. Of my relationship with my parents and the turmoil it had wrought. This wasn’t just snippets; it was a recounting of everything.

With their emotions soothing me, I felt neither pain nor despair. I saw it with complete clarity. When the timeline reached my encounter with Truck-kun, we snapped back to the present. I expected a moment of rest, one that I could use to search for the truth I needed to find.

No such luck. We were immediately catapulted into different memories, the scenes flashing by like the saddest montage ever.

It started with the times I’d lied to myself about everything being okay, culminating in my accidental obliteration of a tree when Maria and I were camping. Next, it was my avoidance of Maria. Each time I’d pushed her away, terrified of the idea that I would ascend to the heavens and she would stay behind, choosing her life on Kallis over eternity with me. As expected, that chapter ended with my breakthrough atop the sands, where I’d finally admitted the truth to myself and blasted a crater in the shore.

When the next act arrived, I instinctively knew it was the last. Each flash was a time I’d rejected leadership, both within my mind and externally to Roger and Barry. When the visions came to an end, the moment seemed to drag, signifying that, unlike the other two acts, there wasn’t yet a conclusion. Again, before I could ponder overlong, we were skull dragged elsewhere.

Barry’s recent breakthrough. The first time I’d experienced it, I had been aware of his internal state and the doubt that wracked him. As I witnessed it again, this time from his point-of-view, it was like holding up a mirror to my own subconscious.

Back on Earth, my time leading my father’s empire had been an utter failure. When presented with the choice of doing right by a business or its employees, I chose the employees every time. And I didn’t regret it. Not one bit. There were consequences, of course. I’d been ousted from the corporations, my actions deemed ‘problematic’ by shareholders. It had sent me on a downward spiral, one that made me question... well, everything.

After arriving in Tropica, I’d told myself that I didn’t want to take up the mantle of leadership because I wanted to live an idyllic life, one where I could just spend every day fishing and exploring, surrounded by good company and a certain freckled cutie. It was the easiest kind of lie—one that wasn’t a lie at all. Of course I wanted those things for myself. I’d have to be mad to choose responsibility and meetings over fishing and sunshine.

But it wasn’t the full truth. It wasn’t what made anxiety harden in my core. How could it be?

The monolith vibrated softly, urging me on.

I was no longer just some random bloke. I didn’t need to sit and deliberate in an office on the fortieth floor, losing hair and sleep because I received backlash from the board. I was absolutely surrounded by capable people, all of which were the equivalent of superheros back on Earth. Unlike fictional characters, though, my friends were real. If I truly wanted, I could just sit on the beach and have any hard decisions brought to me, Maria’s hand in one hand and one of my animal pals under the other. By process of elimination, it wasn’t the fear of responsibility causing me doubt.

The monolith shook, steering me toward Barry’s breakthrough again.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Look at Tropica, mate.” I replied, cutting him off. “It’s about to happen.”

As if my words were the permission it was waiting for, the world transformed. Tropica’s buildings morphed into light, shifting around to make room for the energy approaching from the southwest. As tendrils of incandescence, the buildings of New Tropica flowed into the village. Everything twisted this way and that, seeking the correct configuration. I worried about the prisoners for a moment, those that had been confined back in New Tropica, but I felt them before me, being transported safely to the new village.

When the buildings had decided on their places in the world, they grew. Some gained new floors. Others acquired basements, new rooms, and even balconies, the powerful network somehow knowing what each construction needed. It was all over in a matter of moments. Happy with its work, the network’s light solidified once more, locking each building into place.

As the glow receded and I caught sight of Tropica’s new layout, I let out a soft whistle. “Hot damn. Now that’s a village worthy of a fantasy world.”

It wasn’t just the functionality of the buildings that had been improved. Each was a unique piece of art, possessing little flares and flourishes that distinguished them from the others. A decorative beam here, an elaborate cornice there—so much had changed that I wondered how many months it would have taken to do it ourselves. Though the additions were prevalent, they were neither gaudy nor overbearing. The touches were delicate, somehow making the entire village seem like a cohesive piece.

I could have looked at it for hours; the world had other plans.

In an instant, the light flowed back underground, depositing us back on the packed earth and taking part of my awareness further beneath it. I dissociated from my body, watching the network as it drew uncountable strands of chi into the center of its mass. The ball condensed in stages, each taking only a fraction of a second. Then, just when I thought it could get no smaller, the underground star exploded.

The resulting blast was anything but destructive. The power rushing past me made a sense of joy and contentment flood every part of my awareness. I smiled at everyone around me. It was the purest of chi, a concentrated version of the world’s. And it was spreading.

It didn’t stop at the edge of the network’s outer reaches, not even slowing a little in its expansion. In my mind’s eye, I tried to comprehend the scope of it, tried to imagine just how far it would reach. Sensing my attempt, the network jumped in, dragging my awareness away to soar over the land. So high that I could see the planet’s curve, I was reminded of the time I saw Lemon’s memories and was shown leagues of cultivator-made destruction.

The landscape below me had been transformed since then. Hints of the millennia-old scars remained on the planet’s surface, but they had been reclaimed by nature. Craters became valleys, upturned bedrock became mountains, and long gouges became riverbeds. Everywhere I could see, life had won. And the bubble of condensed chi still expanding from the network seemed to bolster it.

Leaves looked greener, water looked bluer, and the very land hummed in satisfaction. Chi had returned to this little part of the world, and might just return to all of it, given time. I glanced down, seeing my friends, their posture unbelieving as they felt how the world was supposed to feel. How it had felt thousands of years ago before the gods fled. I beamed down at them, my contentment overwhelming.

Before returning to my body, I sought the thing I’d felt underground, the guiding force that had helped build the network. There was nothing, not even a whisper remaining of that monolithic presence.

Shrugging, I opened my eyes—only to be met with an absolute wall of text.

You have successfully taken part in a crafting ritual!

Quest complete: Group Project.

Objective: You have discovered the importance of crafting as a group! Complete 4 crafting rituals within the territory of Tropica.

Progress: 4/4

Reward: Upgrade Tropica Village from Tier 2 to Tier 1.

Tropica has evolved!

Domain has evolved!

Effect: 40% Suppression, 40% Bolstering, 40% Growth, 500% Range.

Evolution: All effects doubled.

Warning! Foreign Domain detected.

...

Foreign Domain has been destroyed.

New Quest: In Defense of Tropica Village.

Objective: Tropica Village has become a Tier 1 Village. The evolution brings many benefits, which others will yearn for. Defend Tropica against 10 external threats.

Progress: 0/10.

Reward: Variable.

New Quest: Hidden Knowledge

Objective: Because of the combined efforts of Tropica Village, chi has returned to part of the world. Discover 3 long-forgotten secrets.

Progress: 0/3.

Reward: A History of the Kallis Wars, Seventh Edition.