Chapter 10: Chapter 10. The Acolyte
I packed my stuff and entered the car. Once again, I sped toward the bridge.
When I finally arrived at the intersection, my car could not go pass the many broken cars. Up close, now I could see and understood the situation better.
The cars were a blockade. It's a no brainer to know that it was our side, the human, who made this blockade. I heard screams and growls faintly far away, from the street below the highway. I peeked and saw monsters and blood everywhere, but since they didn't see me I ignored them. I turned my car off so that the sound wouldn't attract any unwanted attention.
Because of those far away screams, the eeriness in my surroundings heightened. This felt like I was in the middle of a thriller and horror setting. It was far more real than the fake feeling I got when watching a scary movie.
I shook my body, refocusing my attention to the bridge ahead. There were several openings on the blockade big enough for a person to pass through. I walked to the nearest one. When I stood at one of the opening, I froze.
There were bodies everywhere, dead bodies. Literally everywhere.
It was like seeing an opened graveyard. Now I understood why there were many birds flying on top of the bridge. Many of the birds were on the dead bodies. Needless to say that a battle happened here. I couldn't tell when it happened. It didn't look like the birds were here long since the corpses were still intact. Judging by the timing of this Doom event, it shouldn't be more than a day.
I noticed that all of the corpses were that of the monsters. This must be the side from where the monsters were attacking. The military must've tried to block the monsters' advance but apparently failed, judging from the wasted tanks. However the monsters were not without casualties either. I reckoned the monsters lost a lot more than the Korean military did. As I guessed earlier, long-range combat was really better for us human.
But these were just the grunts, the lowest level of the monsters. What if the monsters were all the yellow-eyed ones? Those weren't easily harmed by a simple knife. Would bullets be enough to stop them? I certainly hoped so. It would be crazy, and disheartening, to think that bullets failed to hurt the yellow-eyed.
Suddenly, I realized something. If they were fighting and the human was pushed back, then that meant nobody had taken the spoils of war. What I meant as the spoils of war were those tiny darkish translucent marbles.
This was like a tremendous gift. This was a cheat! An unbelievable cheat! My excitement immediatelly rose to the top. This excitement alone caused me to shivered, unable to contain my happiness. I grabbed my backpack from the car and moved through the opening of the blockade.
As predicted, the marbles were still in their place. I grabbed them, one by one. Each time I grabbed one I swallowed one. I cleaned them up, not leaving even a single one. Totally acting like a hungry wolf in front of food.
- Wooosh - Wooosh -
A torrent of energies was flowing in my body. It was like an unending flood. Without any doubt I channeled them to my strength line. The feeling of power surging in my body was thrilling. My muscles were pulsating, my blood flowed vigorously. I really enjoyed this feeling. My strength status bar was increased at a rapid rate. I had probably eaten close to a hundred marbles, I didn't actually count. I was becoming stronger and stronger! I was like a Hulk, without going green and bulky!
When I saw that there were still so many corpses, I got mixed feelings. I was both glad and miserable. Glad because there were still much, much more marbles to collect. Miserable because despite such high casualties on the monster's side, we were still the one pushed back. I couldn't imagine what terrible things happened when the military had to abandon this bridge.
My strength bar was rising at steady rate and it was soon came to full circle on my wrist. I watched with amazement when it happened. The full white color line disappear, became transparent again. However, a tiny strip now became visible to me. Just like when the line first appeared, only now it was very faint yellow. I felt so much power came to me, it was amazing.
The last increase when it changed from the white bar to yellow bar was very noticeable.
'Let's try it out'. I prepared myself and then ran back toward the start of the bridge as fast as I could. Maximum speed!
"Whoa, so fast!" I was thrilled at this finding. The strength of my leg muscles were beyond believe. It would be easy to win Olympic medals with such power and speed.
After familiarizing myself to this speed, I decided to test this new power in a different way. Reaching one of the wrecked car, I punched it with my bare fist.
Bang! The sound of my fist meeting the car door reverberated. Although dissimilar and not as loud as the sound of the clashing of metals, the effect was to my amazement. The car door was crooked deep, very deep. Its hinges broken and the car itself slid back due to the impact. Another important point I noted was that I didn't much pain on my knuckles.
I was ecstatic. My strength was now comparable if not a bit stronger than the monster individually. Ever since I saw how the monster could break metal doors with bare hands I was very wary. Now, I could stand on equal term against them. Yes, the claws were still formidable and frightening things, however, I could match that with some weaponry.
Speaking about the yellow-eyed one, I thought I understood now. That particular monster was, obviously, an improved one. For humans, our status was shown as thin lines on our wrist. For the monster, it was their eyes. Yellow was the color of their second stage improvement.
I was so glad that we could improve. More than that, I was even more glad that I didn't have to eat the monster corpses to achieve that.
I realized that I had to push myself more. I might not have much to worry when going against those ordinary low level monsters, but against the yellow-eyed ones? I assumed I would not stand on equal terms. As long as I did not let my guard down or let myself be badly surrounded, I should be able to protect myself or, at the very least, run.
There were still so many marbles to collect so I wasted no time and ran back to pick them. One more, five more, ten more, all of them. I ate them all and channel the energy to my strength.
"Huh?" I stopped my activity. My strength bar yellow line had near no improvement. The feeling of power up was also negligible compared to before when I was still in white bar line. 'Why was that?'
I thought about it and concluded that the progress would become negligible once I reached a certain level. Because my strength line was now in yellow, the effectiveness of the energy from the marbles was reduced by a large margin. This made a certain sense.
Since the color of my vitality and agility status lines was still white I decided to change the channels of energy to those two lines instead. Immediately, I felt so refreshed and my tendons strengthen. The changes inside of me were like my viscera being strengthened. Every single part of my body was transformed. If there was a level above being healthy, then this was it. Simply said, the bombardment of energy made me a new man.
Just as I suspected, my status lines increased in previous speed. Since it was like this, I kept sending the energy from the marbles to those two lines.
Visible to me, the white status bars were raised and my body kept feeling those wonderful improvements. I got probably close to two hundred marbles and brought my vitality and agility lines to the brink of fullness. I could feel that I was at the peak even without looking at the bars. I swallowed four marbles at once and channeled the energy evenly between the two.
"Whoa! Whoa!" I yelled in amazement.
My body was floating and glowing. Not the dimmed light glow that only I could see myself but a faint yellowish glow. It was a totally different feeling compared to when my strength line changed from white to yellow. I was trembling as the magnificent sensation was much stronger than ever. My strength increase too? I could feel it happening.
Suddenly a voice was heard speaking in my head.
"Human Shi Huicheng. You have progressed rapidly. You have entered the second door to my realm. You are now an Acolyte. You are the first Acolyte."
It was the voice of that so-called god again. Now it was clearer than before. Based on the voice, I determined that the god was a male. Or, at least according to my judgement, the god had a male voice.
"I'm an Acolyte?" I said slowly. And then asked in rapid succession, "What's an Acolyte. Is that like level 2? How many levels are there?"
The god, totally ignoring my questions, continued, "As the first Acolyte, you may have a wish."
Without a pause, I wished it, "I wish for the world to return back to normal."
"It is not within my power to grant you that. You can only choose from what I am capable of giving," the god said.
So much for being a powerful god. "How do I know what's within your power or not?"
"These are what I can grant you," that god said and then I felt something entered my head. Barrage of information suddenly came into my mind. They were the knowledge of the 'gift'. There were so many information all at once it gave me a headache. It was like my head was about to explode.
"What should I do?" I asked the being.
"Choose one and it will be yours," the god answered.
"Can I have more?" again I asked, trying to haggle naturally.
"One," the god didn't get mad and the reply was flat as ever.
Unbelievable, I thought, there was like thousands of choices and I could get only one? What a stingy god!
"I can hear your thoughts," the god said.
"Such an almighty and merciful god," I emptied my mind as fast as possible.
"Your words are not sincere," again the god said.
Woah, really? Asking me to be sincere?
"Hm!"
"Alright, alright, sorry about that. Anyway, it's gonna take time for me to choose from this many," I switched the topic.
"Time is meaningless to me. Take as much time as you need."
I started browsing through the list the so-called god gave me. And I really did take my time. I made a ranking and was able to have a much shorter list.
"Can you explain several items on this list?" I asked. I didn't even have to tell the god about what items were on my head. I simply thought about them. Based on my previous experience, the god should be able to read my mind, right?
Invincible Flesh, Rapid Torrential Fist, Titan Armor, Magnificent Above the Sky and Emperor's Shadow. Those were what I wanted to know. And then another sudden stream entered my head and I was given full information about every item I was interesting of.
I took a long breath and perused each information carefully. Finally, after considering as careful as I could, I said, "I choose Titan Armor!"
Right after I said it a new light started to envelop my body. A weird feeling was emerging and in tiny pieces exploding all over my skin. It was like a new layer of skin was built on top of my current one. I couldn't see it but could feel its existence.
Titan Armor was a protective layer that enhanced the toughness of my physical body. It engulfed my whole body, from head to toe. The beautiful thing was that it was invisible and could be activated at will. In addition, it would evolve with me. The downside would be, just like fighting, it consumed my stamina. So the longer I used it the faster I became tired.
"Human Shi Huicheng. You are the first human to become Acolyte and the only one right now. Child, I can tell you that the Purger now already has many Acolytes and above."
The purger, so that was how the monsters were called. And they were advancing faster? What use was the chance this god gave then?
"The chance is only as good as the person who receive it. Remember that!" the god was responding to my thought. When I didn't need it, he actually gave a respond!
After hearing that last sentence my head felt empty. The presence had gone. With the god gone, my body stopped floating and I landed on the bridge again.
I started by assessing the situation. My body was completely different now. To say that I was improved wasn't enough. The more appropriate term should be 'born a new'. Becoming the first Acolyte had made even my confidence rose. My goal to reach my grandparents now had a better chance to succeed.
However, the purger had many Acolytes already. And, as the god himself said it, they had even higher level monsters. I clenched my teeth and fists. The god's last sentence, I would definitely remember it.
In front of me right now were still about thirty to forty marbles. Even though the improvement rate was much slower I still picked them up and ate them. For the current me, even the tiniest improvement meant something.
I had reached almost the end of the bridge. At this point, there were less and purgers corpse until all I saw was red blood on the floor. That meant only human died at this end.
I decided to find another car at this end instead of going back. I went to the main road and start searching. Probably my luck was used up when I found the hundreds marbles for free, now I couldn't find even a single usable car. There were many cars parked around but they were no use to me since I didn't have the knowledge to start them without the key.
While searching for the new car I kept running toward the east. I met a few purgers on the road. Now I could fight them one on one easily. I did not let my guard down nevertheless. The yellow-eyed one would be tough to handle since it was at the same level as me while having stronger original power so I still avoided the purgers.
Before long I suddenly heard the sound of moving car. Or cars, to be exact. I looked and saw two big buses coming in my direction. I saw cars and motorcycles on the road but this was the first time I saw the buses.
I could see people inside the buses. My eyesight became better since becoming an Acolyte and I could see clearer even from this distance. Not that I had a problem with my eyesight before but there was still quite a distance between me and the buses.
Since they were going straight in my direction, I signaled them with a wave of hand.
The first bus totally ignored me but the second one stopped after slightly went pass me.
The bus door opened and someone yelled from the window near the door. She had a pretty face. I couldn't understand a word she said but she was motioning as well, so it was easy to understand that she was telling me to get on the bus. I did so. The bus started moving again while the door was closing.
Bang! Skreeeeeet!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone