Chapter 319: A World Inside a World

A few days ago,

Jack Rust sat cross-legged on the bare snow. His mind was filled with thoughts, mostly regret over Harambe’s situation, but he pushed that away. The best he could do to help was defeat the planetary overseer—and to do that, he needed to focus.

It had already been a few days since he returned to Earth. Time had flowed slowly. He couldn’t stop thinking about the coming battle, his goal since a year ago. To keep himself occupied, he’d dived into fighting head-first. The giant yetis and the ice dragon of this D-Grade dungeon had fallen to his fists, now decorating the ground with their blood. He had also been given the option to conquer the dungeon, though he refused.

When the Integration happened, 1111 dungeons spawned on Earth: one thousand F-Grades, one hundred E-Grades, ten D-Grades, and one C-Grade. The higher Grade a dungeon, the more dangerous or inaccessible the area it spawned in. Of the D-Grade dungeons, only seven had been discovered so far; the rest were probably at the bottom of the ocean, in the sky, or on random little islands. Similarly, the sole C-Grade dungeon also remained undiscovered.

Of course, the only Earth cultivator who could currently challenge D-Grade dungeons was Jack. This particular one, the South Pole Territory, was particularly hard even for D-Grade dungeons, with its boss being an Elite peak D-Grade. It could easily level entire frozen mountains, and its ice breath could make the temperature plummet so hard that even the air froze and fell to the ground.

Of course, Jack easily defeated the dragon. It was around as strong as Sapasun. The battle did, however, rekindle his old hunting spirit. As soon as he saved Earth, maybe he would visit the C-Grade dungeon and try his luck.

When all was said and done, Jack had earned another sixteen levels from this dungeon, finally reaching the peak D-Grade.

Name: Jack Rust

Species: Human, Earth-387

Faction: Bare Fist Brotherhood (D)

Grade: D

Class: Cosmic Fist (King)

Level: 249

Strength: 1570 (+)

Dexterity: 1570 (+)

Constitution: 1565 (+)

Mental: 200 (+)

Will: 200 (+)

Free Points: 190

Dao Skills: Meteor Punch III, Iron Fist Style III, Space Walk III, Neutron Star Body II, Brutalizing Aura II

Daos: Dao Tree of the Fist, Dao Root of Indomitable Will (fused), Dao Root of Life (fused), Dao Root of Power (fused), Dao Root of Weakness (fused)

Titles: Planetary Frontrunner (10), Planetary Torchbearer (1), Ninth Ring Conqueror, Planetary Leader (1)

He hadn’t invested any of his attributes points since the beginning of the Grand Duel, as his recent adventure was dubbed, so he’d collected a fair number again. Now that he had finally reached the peak, it was time to use them.

But in what? he wondered, looking over his attributes. If I want to keep following the 8-1-1 distribution, I should add a few points to Mental and Will. However, I know that the overseer is a leonine of the same lineage as Maximus, so she’s a Physical cultivator. And I do like the round two-hundreds there.

Jack shivered. He still remembered how, when all this started, he’d had to deal with some horrifically non-round numbers.

Very well. All in Physical it is.

With a decisive mental command, he poured all of his free attributes points into Physical. Each point turned into three subpoints, which he distributed equally among the substats—Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.

The rush of power was exhilarating. Jack felt his body twitch, then all his muscles contracted and remained there, growing stronger. His eyesight felt sharper, his fingers more delicate, his chest thrumming with every breath like a powerful war drum.

He couldn’t help a grin. Rushes of stats like these had grown sparser the more he advanced, but the feeling remained equally euphoric—for some people, just the satisfaction of increasing their stats made the journey worthwhile.

Just how strong am I now? he couldn’t help but wonder, clenching and unclenching his fists. If I could defeat the strongest D-Grade of the Animal Kingdom before…who can stop me now?

Am I the strongest D-Grade in the galaxy?

There was no way to know, but even that filled him with immense pride. Not wanting to let himself be swayed, he quickly opened his status screen again.

Generally speaking, the new stats were satisfying.

Strength: 1760

Dexterity: 1760

Constitution: 1755

Mental: 200

Will: 200

Those five missing points still irked him, however. Wait. Where did I miss them? he suddenly wondered, but nothing came to mind.

His grin widened. Let’s go for a test drive.

Jumping up, he accelerated. The sound barrier shattered behind him. Twice at first, then thrice more in quick succession as he accelerated to the limit. The shockwaves ravaged the snow beneath, but there were no animals to be hurt here, and the dungeon walls prevented any shockwaves from reaching the outside world. Despite the dungeon’s thousand square miles of space, Jack was so fast that he still felt cramped.

The wind pulled back his cheeks to reveal sharp teeth. He could use his Dao to protect himself, but he let it happen, enjoying this breeze that would be enough to whittle concrete. Traveling at such speed was exhilarating. The ground disappeared below him. The clouds detonated at his passage. He felt like a god.

How fast am I going!? he tried to calculate mid-flight, turning to follow the dungeon walls. This entire dungeon was shaped as a dome. Five times the speed of sound in Earth’s atmosphere is…slightly less than four thousand miles per hour.

Holy shit! I could cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than an hour! And my strength… Mid-flight, he turned downward and punched. The air shattered. Multiple shockwaves bounced off each other and were amplified. The sound was louder than thunder, and Jack watched with surprise as the terrain under him was completely obliterated, entire hills and glaciers shattering like they were made of glass. As far as he could see, all the way to the horizon, the earth shook by his punch.

He hadn’t even used any of his Dao in this attack. This was the result of his pure strength and natural resonance with the ambient Dao. His eyes widened with glee. He wanted to experiment further but feared that, if he really used his Dao, even this thousand square mile area wouldn’t be enough to contain him.

And who knew how the dungeon walls would react if someone like him attacked them?

“Hey, watch it!” a voice reached his mind—Shol’s. “We’re still here, you idiot! Don’t destroy the entire continent!”

“Sorry!” he replied quickly. Shol, Brock, Dordok, and the Sage remained in their nearby camp, each busy with their own devices. There were still a couple days until the battle.

Restraining his excitement, Jack slowly landed on a relatively whole piece of earth and sat cross-legged again. As much as he itched to try out his real strength, Antarctica might not be able to handle him.

The planetary overseer’s face would have to do.

Plus, there was another thing he wanted to try out. Closing his eyes, Jack quickly sank into meditation, appearing in his soul world. Copy Jack instantly rushed him.

“Is it time to fight?” he asked.

Jack laughed. “Not yet, Copy Jack. But soon, I promise. For now, I want to try something. Give me space.”

Copy Jack nodded with a pout and moved away.

Jack first used each of his skills, observing their form now that he’d reached the peak D-Grade.

He started with shadow-boxing. Stars shimmered faintly around him, each of his punches followed by a shooting meteor. These images were all phantasmal, but they represented the depth of his understanding and the volume of his Class, the King-tier Cosmic Fist. To any watcher, he was like a live constellation of stars punching out.

Then, he teleported. During his three months of isolation training back on Hell, he’d discovered a more efficient way to traverse space. Instead of slicing it, he could just punch a hole open. Extending a single finger, he poked it through the fabric of space, creating a hole that he allowed himself to be sucked into. He reappeared a mile away—though he could go up to nine if he wanted.

Jack then channeled the Neutron Star Body. Visually, nothing changed—but he felt himself dense, compact to the point of ridiculousness. Thanks to the Dao, his cells had achieved a level of density and durability that rendered him completely impervious to most attacks. If an elephant rammed into him, he wouldn’t even notice. At the same time, the profoundness of the Dao made it so that his actual weight didn’t change that much—otherwise, he would weigh dozens of tons, if not hundreds, and that would be severely inconvenient.

Not to mention his extreme regenerative powers, courtesy of both the Neutron Star Body and the Life Drop.

Then, he tested out Brutalizing Aura. By simply narrowing his eyes, the air around him turned frigid. An aura of terror erupted from his body, like he was a black hole about to swallow his enemies whole. At the same time,, this aura absorbed the fear of his targets, feeding it to his Dao Tree as fertilizer and amplifying his strength.

And, finally, came Meteor Punch. The bread and butter of Jack’s skills, the one he’d carried since his fight against the twin black wolves in the Forest of the Strong. Jack clenched his fist. All sound and light in his soul world was sucked inside. Everything went dark, with only a single purple meteor flashing into existence, dominating reality. Tiny stars trailed behind it, carving its trajectory into the dark sky, while the meteor itself packed unbelievable power.

Jack shot it out. It exploded. Colors and sounds returned to the world with a bang, erupting with such force that even the farthest corners of Jack’s soul shook. The explosion was so titanic it stretched way beyond his perception range. There was nothing to compare it against in this empty space, but he suspected that he could affect entire countries with a single punch if he wanted to.

He grinned. With such power…who in the D-Grade could stop him? He itched to pit himself against the planetary overseer, test his strength against a real opponent. At this point, he’d grown so fast that he struggled to even comprehend the scale of such a battle.

Before that, however, there were two more things he wanted to try, and the first was the ultimate culmination of his Class and Dao. Collecting himself, Jack took a deep breath, then exhaled.

His Dao Domain rolled out, submerging the world in the essence of the Fist.

It was like Jack had plucked a piece of distant space and moved it around him. Stars filled his domain, glimmering and twinkling. Faint purple mist spread everywhere, and Jack himself felt like an Old God playing around with the newborn universe. In his domain, he stood taller than stars, taller than existence itself. It was a whole new world.

Of course, part of that was because he was currently standing inside his own soul world, but he couldn’t try this outside yet. Releasing one’s domain emitted strong Dao signals which might be picked up even through the dungeon walls.

Jack let his domain drop, returning to normalcy. He took a deep breath again, not to focus, but to collect himself.

“I have grown so strong…” he muttered, letting his voice echo through space. “I’ve tried so hard and got so far…and yet, the end of the road is nowhere in sight.” He grinned from ear to ear. “I love this.”

His muttering was interrupted by the sound of clapping. Copy Jack flew closer.

“That was amazing!” he shouted. “Encore! Encore!”

“How do you even know that?” Jack replied helplessly. “Thank you, Copy Jack. I would love to entertain you more, but there is one more thing I want to do. Come with me. This could be fun.”

The moment Copy Jack heard about fun, he instantly became obedient. He followed Jack to the center of his soul world, where his Dao Tree stood tall on a fist-shaped foundation of five Daos. Now that he’d reached the peak of the D-Grade, his tree had also matured fully—its crown was fully shaped, reaching a total height of nine feet, while leaves and flower buds had appeared on its branches. The next step would be to make this tree bloom. That was the so-called Dao Blooming, and when he achieved it, he would reach the C-Grade.

Unfortunately, that felt a ways away still. Though he’d reached the peak of the D-Grade and consolidated his strength, he felt nowhere near ready to advance again. He would need to defeat the overseer like this.

He could only hope he was enough.

The Life Drop remained buried under the tree’s roots, supplying it with infinite vitality. However, what Jack had come here to see was neither the tree itself nor the Life Drop. It was the door-shaped pattern on the tree’s bark, which had grown increasingly clear with each level-up. Now that he’d reached the peak of the D-Grade, the door was complete, and he had the feeling that, if he just reached for the doorknob, he could open it.

He took a deep breath. It couldn’t be…right? he asked himself. It’s only bark. Dao Trees don’t have doors. It’s ridiculous.

Under Copy Jack’s watchful gaze, he reached for the doorknob-shaped outcropping as he had many times before. Of course, all the previous times, it was nothing but bark. This time, Jack grabbed it and, to his absolute shock, twisted until he heard a click. The bark itself grew alive. The door detached from the rest of the tree and swung open with a creak, revealing a dark, starless space behind it, infused with a hint of green.

Jack gaped. Keeping the door open with one hand, he poked his head through it, meeting a vast expanse that felt nothing like his soul. It felt real. At the same time, he realized that while this space seemed boundless, there was something in its center. It looked like a green ball, though it was so far away that he couldn’t discern its dimensions. It might as well be a distant star.

“What the fuck?” he muttered.

He pulled his head back and slowly let go of the door. It remained in place, wide open, inviting him to enter. It didn’t seem like it would close by itself.

Jack looked between the tree, the door, and the dark expanse behind it. He glanced at Copy Jack. “Should I…”

“Of course!” the copy responded. “It’s your tree, right? Go explore! It might be fun! I’ll be right here to cheer you on.”

“How encouraging…” Jack muttered, turning back to look at the door.

It couldn’t be dangerous, right? He was inside his own soul, and this wasn’t his real body, just a projection. How badly could this go?

And, at the end of the day, what was he? A coward?

Hell no!

Mama didn’t raise no bitch!

Jack flew through the door, entering the dark space. He felt his body grow cold. With no stars here, this was even colder than regular space, almost like standing directly in the ice dragon’s frozen breath. Even he could barely stand it.

“Shit,” he said.

The door slammed shut behind him. As he turned, all he saw was endless darkness. Where the opening used to stand, there was now nothing.

“Shit,” he said again.

“What are you doing here?” a heavy, old voice rang through the cosmos. Jack went pale. The mere undulations of that voice were enough to shake his entire body. Peering into the darkness, he barely made out the outline of what seemed like a turtle far, far away. The creature approached quickly, until Jack could see it had a green shell and a sharp face, like an actual sharp-jaw turtle, except it was the size of an elephant and was floating through this empty expanse freely as if it didn’t even notice the temperature.

For some reason, it also seemed furious.

“I, uh, sorry,” he replied. “I’m Jack. What is your name?”

The turtle snorted. “You are not ready,” it said. “Begone.”

Jack was about to reply when he realized there was a colossal force heading his way. It was the turtle’s snort. That mere action had been enough to unleash a literal torrent of Dao so massive he could barely even fathom it. It was like a planet was flying his way.

He instantly entered fight or flight mode. His Dao Domain erupted instinctively, shielding him as well as it could, and he roared as he smashed out a Meteor Punch.

The snort collided with his meteor and blew it away like it was nothing. It rammed into his Dao Domain and shattered it completely. Only a fraction of its power had dissipated by now. The rest of the snort hit Jack straight in the chest, crushing and destroying his extremely durable body. The last thing he experienced was terrible storms of power invading his insides and tearing him apart. He didn’t even have time to feel pain.

Next thing he knew, his eyes snapped open, and he drew a sharp breath. He was alive. Snow and cracked earth surrounded him on all sides, while he was bent forward, clutching his head which fluttered with confusion. He had died. Yet, he was here. What the hell had happened?

What was that place? That dark, starless expanse with the green ball of light and the monstrous turtle. Was it part of the Life Drop? Another of its odd effects? Or was it a consequence of his perfect foundation?

Or both?

And how strong was that fucking turtle!? He was at the very peak of the D-Grade, and it had absolutely slaughtered him with a snort!

Just when Jack’s thoughts were lost in all these questions, something crashed on the ground next to him. “You’re awake!” Shol exclaimed, seeming as furious as the turtle. “What the hell were you doing? What happened!?”

“I—”

“There is no time, goddammit. We need to go now! You’ve been meditating for days!”

Jack’s eyes widened. All other thoughts gave way to one—the battle!

It was time to destroy the planetary overseer.