Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Jack scrambled to reach. He flew over the treadmill and punched the air, sending the shockwave of his punch to meet an airborne wooden target. The moment he punched, he was already turning the other way, shooting another punch at a different target.

His jabs flew like arrows as they shot down targets, yet many snuck through. He tried to punch again, but he failed to hold on to the feeling, and the shockwave exploded way too early, letting the target sail harmlessly past.

“Ugh!” he yelled in frustration.

“Again!” Master Shol shouted. Sparman darted across the room, gathering the whole and reformed targets into a big pile on his left hand.

“This is so frustrating!” Jack protested. “Are you sure it’s necessary? Can’t I just fight Sparman?”

“How will you advance Drill or Parkour while fighting a real opponent, idiot disciple? When would you even use them? I’ve seen your usage of Parkour in the arena, and it was disgraceful at best!”

“Here I go, Master,” Sparman, the training robot, declared happily. “Try to fail less this time.”

“You don’t have to phrase it like—”

Jack jumped into motion as Sparman flung the targets haphazardly left and right. Some went for the floor, some for walls, some for the ceiling. All of them flew in Jack’s general direction like frisbees, but they were too many and too fast. He had to break them all mid-flight, and to achieve that, he had to use Parkour and Drill efficiently and concurrently.

This was the training regime Master Shol had devised. Jack had already reached a level of proficiency in the two Skills; if he could use them freely in the heat of the moment, it would be enough to earn him the third tier.

The annoying gym instruments got in Jack’s way as he scrambled to reach the targets, barely managing to shoot out a punch before having to turn around and dash in the opposite direction. He also sent out a string of curses. Not only did he have to do all that, but he also had to aim his punches properly!

As he parkoured over an elliptical machine, Jack let go of the instrument to punch in three directions at once. He then tried to grab it again and keep going, but missed. His forehead slammed against the bar, and he stayed there as another two targets flew past. One smacked against his butt.

He was certain that one was on purpose.

“Damn you, Sparman!” he shouted as he stood, but his anger was eclipsed by Brock’s laughter. The little brorilla had fallen to the ground and was holding his belly.

Those two are in cahoots!

“Again!” Master Shol declared mercilessly.

They had been going at it for five hours already, to little benefit. There were forty-eight targets. When Jack had started training, he could only get about seventeen of them per round. Now, he could get twenty-two.

Which was extremely frustrating because he knew he was getting better. The damn robot just kept ramping up the difficulty, shooting faster and farther away from him the better he got.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, it mocked him.

“Master, you are supposed to hit the targets, not miss them. Did you forget the rules?”

“Ah, you could have gotten two more if you pivoted harder there. Shame.”

“Watch out. To your left.”

Jack turned and the target whooshed past behind him. “THAT WASN’T THE FUCKING LEFT!”

“I meant my left.”

“I’LL MAKE YOU INTO A TIN CA—” Jack yelled but was forced to run mid-sentence as Sparman started throwing again.

Brock was having the time of his life. He’d even gone up to fetch some corn as he enjoyed the spectacle. He mimed that he was working out his laughter muscles.

Master Shol, on the other hand, was watching impassively. Whether he hid his amusement or didn’t feel any, Jack didn’t know. He didn’t care, either. All he cared about was blasting those damn targets.

“Twenty-three, Master!” Sparman mocked him again. “Wow, you got almost half of them!”

You think you’re better than me, Sparman? Jack thought, boiling on the inside. He wasn’t threatening and joking around anymore. He was just really fucking pissed. You think you can mock me? Fuck you.

He didn’t even care about beating Rufus anymore. He just wanted to beat this fucking robot. Nothing else mattered. He had to succeed.

Unfortunately, he was now too skilled for blind anger to be helpful.

Focus, Jack. Burning body, ice mind.

His eyes sharpened. He glared at Sparman and imagined it speechless. Both his Dao Roots demanded retribution.

The targets flew again. Jack forced his body to operate at its very limits. He observed every movement of the robot, trying to predict where it would throw the next target. He felt his mind dropping everything else to focus. He saw a trajectory through the gym instruments strewn in the room. He saw a pattern. He followed it.

He jumped everywhere like a monkey. He was in complete control. His anger gave him the power to tame the deepest recesses of his mind, bend them to his will. He flew through the room, his every movement multi-purposed. His Drills were precise. His parkouring efficient.

He unleashed his own storm against the flock of flying targets, picking them off the air with mastery. He was succeeding.

He felt so damn cool.

When the targets stopped coming, he was confused for a moment before realizing they were over. “Again!” he shouted. “I will pulverize your iron ass, robot!”

“It is over, disciple,” Master Shol said with pride, approaching slowly. “Check your notifications.”

Jack frowned, then remembered the point of all this. He willed the exclamation mark open. As always, the System was kind enough to present the changes in italics.

Congratulations! Drill (II) → Drill (III)

Drill (III): Passive/Active Skill. By punching straight and true, you carry significant drilling power, letting your strikes penetrate hard defenses. You can bypass most kinds of armor, including thick ones.

Additionally, you can now shoot the shockwave of your punch as a short-range projectile.

Congratulations! Parkour (II) → Parkour (III)

Parkour (III): A mix of finesse and bodily strength can allow you to navigate obstacles efficiently, have better control of your body, and move unpredictably. By seamlessly integrating the environment into your moves, the battlefield itself becomes your weapon.

Your control over this Skill is enough to grant you conscious mastery.

“Conscious mastery?” he muttered, looking at the last line of the new Parkour skill. Something about that change felt different compared to all his other skills.

“It means you have mastered the skill,” Master Shol explained. “You said Parkour was an experimental skill forged off this planet’s culture, correct? Well, it was faulty. It reached its apex in the third tier, unlike the fifth as it should.”

“Is that bad?” Jack asked worriedly.

“It could be, but not in this case. The skill will disappear when you use it as the basis of a Dao Skill, anyway. It has served its purpose.”

“I see…”

Ar’Tazul had warned him that the skill might present problems later on, but that it would last him through the F-Grade. This must be what he meant.

Jack allowed himself a moment to admire his status screen before proceeding.

Name: Jack Rust

Species: Human, Earth-387

Faction: Bare Fist Brotherhood

Grade: F

Class: Pugilist (Elite)

Level: 49

Strength: 119

Dexterity: 119

Constitution: 119

Mental: 13

Will: 13

Skills: Fistfighting (III), Drill (III), Pugilist Body (III), Parkour (III)

Dao Skills: Meteor Punch (I)

Daos: Dao Root of the Fist, Dao Root of Indomitable Will

Titles: Planetary Frontrunner (10)

Finally! After all this effort, I have finally achieved symmetry.

His physical and mental stats were perfectly balanced, as all things should be. His skills were all in the third tier. Jack smiled and nodded at himself, proud for a job well done.

“Oh, right.” He remembered, then turned to point a finger at Sparman. “You…” he said, voice brimming with endless fury.

“I was just joking, Master,” Sparman replied, raising his hands defensively. “Please don’t turn me into a tin can. Oh, I forgot; you can’t.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Look on the bright side, Jack,” Master Shol said, clapping his shoulder—he wasn’t actually corporeal, but he stopped his hand where Jack’s shoulder began. “Now that you have your skills at the proper level, it is time for you to form a Dao Skill. The Dao Skill of your fighting style, to be exact; the cornerstone of your E-Grade Class. And how do you think that will happen?”

Jack looked at his master. The cogs in his mind snapped into place. His face was filled with elation, then split into a massive, evil grin. He turned back to Sparman.

“I will fucking smash you.”

“Unfortunately, Master, our physiologies are incompatible.”

“Oh, I’ll make your face incompatible.”

“That is illog—”

Jack shouted and lunged, not even removing the gym instruments that littered the place.

“The fifth level, Sparman!” Master Shol shouted from behind, while Brock ran for the door—as he was still relatively weak, he had to watch from there for safety reasons. It was his work-out for the muscles of foresight.

Jack slammed into the robot and nailed it with punches. Sparman tried to defend, but it had been ambushed, and it was on the back foot. Jack saw the robot block and smashed a fist right into it, then another. He jumped to the side and threw a right hook, then ducked and unleashed a fearsome uppercut.

When Sparman blocked and was tossed to the ceiling, Jack kept punching, using Drill to send his punches straight at the robot. He kept it on the ceiling by sheer momentum. Sparman was defending, but it was struggling.

Jack let it fall, then a purple meteor sprang into existence and smashed into the falling Sparman from the side, shooting it into the wall with a heavy impact. There was no scratch on the robot’s metal—its actual durability didn’t change, even if he decreased his power—but Jack had grabbed the initiative with both hands and refused to let go.

He arrived at Sparman again a moment later, smashing out a hail of punches before it could even escape the wall. Sparman tried to punch back, but the improved version of Parkour let Jack dodge with perfect control of his body.

Sparman’s punches became sparse as it focused entirely on defense. Jack kept punching. He occasionally threw a Meteor Punch, too, shaking the entire building, though he couldn’t chain those attacks yet. They took a moment to charge, and they were tiring.

Jack punched away, venting all his previous frustration. “Die, die, die!” he shouted, laughing between punches.

Master Shol sighed and shook his head, while Brock looked on in great admiration. After all, his Big Bro was working out his revenge muscles!