Beginner Quest: A LitRPG Cultivation Series (Towers & Rifts Book 1) Read online

  BEGINNER QUEST

  ©2021 NEPHILIM NIGHT

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  ALSO IN THE SERIES

  BEGINNER QUEST

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  BONUS: CURRENT PROGRESSION

  ALSO IN THE SERIES

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  LitRPG stuff!

  LitRPG

  Chapter One

  A strange, dull ache forced my eyes to flutter open. It wasn’t really pain, not even something truly unpleasant, but it was there and deeply ingrained in my very soul. Rage. Yes, what I really felt was a deadly rage, but I didn’t know why.

  Semidarkness greeted me instead of a glaring light one should expect when waking up from a deep slumber. It was a dark space void of anything physical. I couldn’t feel or touch anything. There was no scent or even air to breathe. Shit! I wasn’t breathing!

  Panic took over as I tried to wrap my brain around my current predicament. What the hell was going on? Even more, my body wasn’t listening to any of my commands. I couldn’t pull on my Enma reserve or put up a shield around me. My weapon wasn’t coming out no matter how many times I tried to summon it. Summon a weapon? What the hell was I going on about? What was Enma? Why was it planted so deep into my very core that I felt as if half of me were missing?

  A strong, large hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing gently. It sent shivers down my spine as I found myself floating in darkness. A faintly familiar feeling coursed through his hand and entered my shoulder, then crawled down my spine and into my system, gathering right beneath my navel. I could swear I knew the feeling. It was on the tip of my tongue, so close yet so far away, so familiar yet so strange.

  I tried to look away, but another hand held me in place as more of the familiar power passed through me, energizing my body, flaring up all my senses, though there was nothing here to sense. No smell, no taste, no touch, no sound, and no image. There was nothing. Just the darkness and the faintest hint of light coming from everywhere at the same time.

  Sensation returned to my head and neck first. I looked around but couldn’t see far enough, so I looked down at my body.

  “What… is this?” I whispered barely audibly as I stared down at my chest, my stomach, hands, and legs. The light was coming from… my body? But how? Why was I glowing?

  “It’s Enma, if you really want to know.” A strong and soothing voice spoke. “I figured giving you something familiar when you woke up would help with the transition.”

  I tried to turn around to see who the voice and hand belonged to, but no matter how hard I tried, there was no way for me to move, not even an inch.

  “Why can’t I move? What’s going on with my body? Am I injured?”

  “Calm down, young cultivator,” the same voice whispered directly into my mind. It didn’t come from my left or right ear; no, it came from everywhere at the same time. “You don’t need any air in this place since you can’t even breathe. You’re dead. Or at least you died about a century ago.”

  “A century?” I asked and stopped struggling. Somehow I knew it was true despite having no idea where I was. It felt right, but why was I so angry? Why did I feel like exploding? How did I die?

  The hand on my shoulder loosened slightly and slowly pulled me around. I half-expected to see a tall, strong man from the way the voice sounded, but it belonged to a dark and shadowy form only resembling a man. Or at least something with two legs, two arms, and a head. Other than that, I had no idea what or who it was. Thin, dark tendrils floated on all sides and writhed around almost playfully in the dark of this space.

  “A century to the minute.”

  “Where am I? And who are you?”

  “We’ll take this one step at a time, Viktor. My name is Krajolik, and you’re stuck in between life and the afterlife due to the immense rage and hatred your soul is radiating. It’s very rare, but it happens.”

  “Rage over what? What happened to me? How did I die?”

  “First focus on the Enma passing through your body. Let it flow through every inch of your body and become accustomed to it. The Enma will help you to focus and maintain your current form.”

  I stood there focusing on the power gathering inside and expanding. It was calming and empowering at the same time as it rushed in and out, almost as if forming a barrier inside whose only job was to keep me happy.

  “What is this power? It feels so… it almost feels like life itself.”

  “Oh, because it is life. Enma is the life force that is gathered inside everyone’s body, that lives out in the world and is formed inside the bodies of beasts and monsters. Their absorption rate is a hundred times higher, but they have certain limits that are very hard to surpass.”

  “And you’re giving me some of that life force right now?”

  “I am. See, you used to have a lot of it. And by a lot, I mean a very large and incomprehensible quantity of it. But you were betrayed by those close to you, so your life force was damaged, leaving you crippled. It was easy enough to kill you in such a state.”

  I tried to focus on the good and happy feeling, but the rage… it wanted to be let out. It wanted to be set free!

  “Who killed me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “Your older brother. See, he was jealous over you having inher
ited the Greater Meridian instead of him, so you took leadership over the Fallen Phoenix sect. I will not go into too much detail, as it really doesn’t matter anymore, but what happened was that your meridians were damaged when they broke the formation you were in. Once that happened, your power dropped by over half.”

  “But why would my soul be so enraged that it didn’t want to pass over to the next life? I’m sure there must have been something else!”

  “Oh, there was, but see, I’m afraid you’ll lose your mind and powers at the same time if I do tell you. What about it? I can help you reincarnate to a new life, putting all of this behind you, or you can risk losing everything just to know what happened to you in a previous life.”

  “That’s not even up for discussion if you’re willing to go so far. I want to know what happened to me. Exactly.”

  Krajolik let out what passed for a sigh and put up his hand, placing it against my chest.

  “Don’t blame me for whatever is about to happen, Viktor. This is all your own doing.”

  Darkness turned to light as I found myself kneeling in mud. No, it wasn’t just mud; there was enough blood there to make a blade from its iron content. A heavy stench of gutted men and women hung in the air. A lone white spirit wolf lay to my side, a thousand bloody cuts covering its white fur.

  Something hard and sharp poked my neck. I looked up and glared at a man standing there in front of me, his hand wrapped around the shaft of a spear.

  “I told you the sect would be mine, one way or another.”

  “Fuck you,” I cursed, or rather the memory did. “You’re nothing! You’re scum and filth who would cut down his own blood to get what wasn’t supposed to be yours!”

  “Oh, you’re right about that, but do you know what else I did? Would you like to hear?”

  I narrowed my eyes on him as my right hand landed on the spirit wolf’s haunches. He wasn’t breathing anymore, and blood had already caked on his fur. At least we’d be joining the afterlife together, where our wives would be waiting for us.

  “You’ll tell me even if I don’t want you to, right? So go ahead. Tell me, you damn bastard!”

  The three men who stood around me held their weapons at the ready, just in case, but I was almost gone already. I couldn’t even hurt a fly anymore.

  “You see, brother, your wife sat on her knees like this when we found her on the other side of the mountain, stalking a tortoise dragon. We let her kill it, and then we ravaged her before cutting her belly open and ripping the child from her womb!”

  I froze, my blood running cold. Something within me snapped, and I couldn’t even breathe anymore. My eyes narrowed on his as my lips rose, showing two rows of perfectly white and sharp teeth.

  “She… was pregnant?”

  He nodded his head as the broadest grin sat on his face that I’d ever seen.

  “She squealed like a pig! Begging me not to take the kid and hurt you! What love, and what devotion!”

  I pulled my hand back and tucked it in my pocket. There was always a single pill in there that I hoped I’d never use, but this was the perfect time. My hand shot up to my mouth, pushing the pill down my throat.

  “What the hell did he just do?” one of the men snapped.

  “Kill him! We have no idea what he just did! Just kill him already!” a second said.

  I didn’t know who they were, as their faces were hidden behind cowls, but it didn’t matter. An incredible blast wave shot outward from inside me as my body started burning. My skin turned gray and caught fire, but I would endure. At least for the time it would take me to finish what I needed to.

  “You’ll… be joining us… in hell!” I growled as I shot up, the pill supplying me with an incredible boost of Enma and burning my body from the inside out.

  The Green Dragon Saber appeared in my hand as my body swung around. The blade moved in a circle, and the extended edge, infused with all of my life force, cut through the necks of all three cultivators. A sharp pain erupted in my back and then at the front. The tip of his spear protruded from my chest, but I didn’t care. I gathered all of the Enma available to me and swung the Green Dragon Saber over my back and through his arm, cutting it cleanly off.

  Blood gushed from my mouth, and I spat a wad down on my chest, then some more as I stumbled around, his spear still stuck in my chest.

  “Why couldn’t you just die!” he screamed, stepping back and out of reach.

  I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. My throat was already burnt through, and all that remained was a thin layer of flesh and skin that burst into flames and consumed my body. The incredible amount of Enma gathered inside me exploded in all directions, leveling the whole clearing and disintegrating all the dead and Scar alike. The last thing I saw before everything disappeared was the bastard escaping the blast radius.

  I gasped as I reappeared next to Krajolik in the dark space. The rage that boiled inside flared even brighter, expanding and taking over my very soul. I felt as if I was about to pass out from the excruciating pain. Despite not having to breathe, I was choking on… whatever it was. I couldn’t think clearly, I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t move.

  Krajolik’s hands braced me from both sides, and his face moved eerily close to mine, but I couldn’t stop it. I shuddered to the point I felt as if I were about to fall apart.

  “Do you remember what I told you, Viktor? You will lose everything because of your curiosity. Was it worth it?”

  My eyes focused on his as some of the pain and uncontrollable shudders subsided. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t care… but that would be a lie. I did care. I wanted to go back and take my revenge! I wanted to kill that bastard of a brother and take everything from him, just as he did from me.

  “Send me… back! Please!”

  Krajolik shook his head regretfully.

  “Let me show you what you used to be. Maybe you’ll remember just how long it took you to get there, how much blood and sweat you spilled.”

  Status:

  NAME: Viktor

  AGE: 317

  LEVEL: 1

  CULTIVATION: Realm 3, Rank 7

  HEALTH: 99,999

  ENMA: 9,999

  SPEED: 9.9

  PHYSICAL ATTACK: 9,999

  ENMA ATTACK: 6,999

  DEFENSE: 7,777

  ENMA SHIELD: 99,999

  “This is… familiar,” I wheezed through the pain. “I remember now.”

  “Yes, and do you know what’s the saddest thing about all of this? You just lost 99% of it on the damn memories you were so intent on getting back! You’ll be barely stronger than an ordinary human when you’re reincarnated!”

  “I don’t… care! This rage and anger… will fuel my rise!”

  “What rise? You can’t go back to that state! The world is too powerful for your soul to get there, much less to pass the boundary of life and death!”

  “Then how can I get my revenge? Tell me!” I roared, the rage inside me boiling even further.

  The pain, however, dissipated mostly. All that was left… a husk with a single memory that yearned for revenge. I could have protested, told him he was lying, but inside what little soul remained, I knew it was the truth. Why else would I have pushed the memory away and remained in limbo for a century?

  “How? Simple. There is a way, but it is a very long and difficult path that you’ll have to take, Viktor. Are you prepared to suffer for decades more, maybe even centuries?”

  “If I can get my revenge, I am. I’ll do anything I have to!”

  “Alright then,” Krajolik said and let go of me. “There is a game. A game where the Gods bid with their power and very lives on the line. Another round is to start on a world where time runs much slower than back on the Karmag, that’s where you’re from. The Celestial Karmag.”

  The name felt extremely familiar, so much so that a pang of jealousy struck my very core. Others got to be there while I was robbed of my time in that… place.

  “What kind of game?”<
br />
  “The game is played on a hundred worlds at the same time. On some, it’s just started, yet on others, the progression is thousands of days old. This world is currently being set up to start.”

  I had no idea what I was supposed to do in this situation. I didn’t know who I was other than my name, that I had a wife and a newborn child. I was killed by my brother and was stuck for a century. What a story it would make one day.

  “When can we begin?”

  “I first need to show you some memories I collected randomly from this new place. It should be much easier to decide after I’ve shown them to you, don’t you think?”

  An image appeared before me on the far wall. It showed a world very much like my own, only much more advanced. I didn’t know what most of the things were that I saw, but they looked interesting. Great metallic beasts that spewed fire and carried people through the air, others that went over the sea, and even those that sped across the land. Some small for several people, others for dozens or hundreds.

  “Is this for real?” I asked, almost unable to believe what I was seeing.

  “This is the world you can choose to participate in, Viktor. If you choose to do so, I’ll give you a dying man’s memories. You won’t know who he used to be, or any of his friends and family, but you will know the world. You’ll be able to understand what those things are and how they work to the best of the dying man’s knowledge. What do you say? Do you still want to go?”

  “Of course I do! I will have my revenge, Krajolik!”