Chapter 23: Chapter 23. The Second Step
I kept holding on. The pain on my outer flesh felt like being pricked by burning needles, and then the needles spinned deeper ever so slowly. It was the pain inside that almost made me go crazy. This was probably how it felt if my intestines were twisted forcefully.
"Argh!" I didn't want to give up, but the insurmountable pain won't stop. It drilled into my mind, affecting my sanity. No! I could not give up! I had to go back to my grandparents. I might not know for sure whether they're still alive or not, but a hope, no matter how foolishly small, was still a hope. That was what I need to hang on to.
The ordeal took quite some time. I was hanging on the edge when I saw the hope. Slowly, I noticed that as time went by, the pain was lessening. Every single time I was on the brink of exhaustion, I grabbed the marbles and feed myself to replenish my stamina. I spent three more handfuls of the tiny marbles before finally able to come back to near normal situation.
"Phew!" I sighed relieve.
I said near normal because I wasn't the same as before. I sat quietly as I checked my condition. I found no difference in my current statuses, my body was still functioning the same as before, but for some reason I felt different. Something changed, but I could not pinpoint what exactly. I had a guess, though, so I decided to test it.
I walked towards the nearest shrubs. Bracing my will, I extended my hand and grabbed the leaves. This time, it wasn't only a simple touch but an extended grabbing. After that I immediately went back to the small opening and sat down cross-legged with one hand ready to grab the marbles.
Tingling sensation started to creep from my hand where I touched the leaves and then it went all over my body. The sensation was definitely there, however, it was far less than the previous painful sensations. I waited for a while, but there was no pain. After a short period of time even the tingling sensation was gone.
This was the change! My body was adapting after succesfully surviving the first attack. I had to thank all the purgers that died and donated the marbles. Without them I would not had survived.
I stood up and looked at the leaves of the shrub closely. Such a vicious and poisonous plant. I knew there were poisonous plants on earth before, but I never guessed that I'd find some on this new land so soon when I had been so careful. If such a plant existed here in the open field, I wondered what I'd find deep in a forest. This was one of the reasons why I wasn't interested in checking out this new land. Pretty sure I'd be surprised by many findings, probably till dead.
I carved the appearance of this plant in my brain. Because it has majority red color with slight blue on the sides of its leaves, I decided to call it Redbluish. I thought about swallowing a leaf and see the effect but finally decided against it. When I became stronger I might do that but not now.
When I walked out of the group of shrubs there were no purgers around. Apparently they thought that I would die once I entered here. A logical thinking from an almost senseless creature, what a wonder. I thought about using the shrubs to scare away the monsters. Would it be fun to see them scrambling away while I pointed a stalk of this plant at them? I took a few stalks of Redbluish with me.
I continued my journey by taking a different route, which again contributed to lengthen my journey's duration.
Along the way, although I was more prudent now, I still attacked the purger's camps. The magic platforms were such a magnet to me. It was just that now I checked, repeatedly, thoroughly to make sure that they were in a number manageable for me and that no surprises such as hidden from line-of-sight orange-eyed purger suddenly sprung out.
Oh, about the few stalks of the Redbluish I took with me? The purgers weren't afraid of them. They seemed to know that human was affected by the plant, that's why the previous group of purgers assumed I'd be dead, but they themselves weren't affected at all. The plant started withering after a few hours anyway. I didn't wait until they're completely dead, I just threw them away. Apparently this poisonous plant had limitation when not planted.
I wished I could pry open those purgers' brain and retrieve any info they had about this new land. They seemed to have the knowledge. They proved that by immediately recognizing Redbluish as something dangerous to human while safe for them. I guessed this must be some kind of inherited knowledge when the gods created them. What a nice gift, huh?
If I could get that knowledge, my journey would be much easier. I might even satiate this hunger I've been having. As of now, I didn't dare to venture into the forests, I failed to catch any fish in the rivers, I was afraid to test any fruit look-alike I found. So, in short, I hadn't eaten anything after my ration was ruined at the waterfall. Thanks to the marbles, I still had the energy to keep going, otherwise, with me being wary all the time, I would end up dead from hunger.
Or, I might end up eating the purger, or the tigerboss. Blegh!
One more interesting thing I 'accidentally' found about the purger's camp. There's no kitchen and toilet. I meant, I could understand it if the camp was near a river or swamp, but most of them were nowhere near any water source. I knew they drank water, I witnessed them drinking before. So, what happened to the camps that were far from water sources. What did they do when they needed to drink? How about when they did their business? I might have to watch where I stepped. Double blegh!
Also, I stopped trying to clean myself up after raiding a camp. I ran out of clothes after the third camp. I didn't try to get the dead purger's clothes. They're taller and bulkier than me, I'd look like I was wearing oversize pijama. And they weren't that clean either.
On the twenty ninth camp that I cleaned up, I stepped on the Magic Circle. I decided to call it that way. The Magic Circle was shining, and it was more glowy tonight. My body was enveloped just like usual but the feeling was different. I was floating a bit, just like the first time. The changes inside my body were more perceivable. Unlike the first time when I felt tortured, it actually felt good now. It was thoroughly comfortable.
It was like my mind was clearer and my knowledge of the law of natures and elements were increasing. Simply an indescribable amazing feeling.
"Mortal Shi Hucheng, you impressed me!" the sound I recognised as the female god were echoing in my head. "I bestow upon you the power of the Second Step."
I could feel tremendous power filling me up. The symbol on my chest was now swirling faster and faster until I could not see the greenish color it once emitted. When it slowed down and ultimately came to a stop, I could see faint blue color.
"So much power," I could sense the power of nature from my surrounding. Nature was indescribable vast and abundance. Even in a piece of land that looked barren such as the spot where I was now, the power of nature existed plentifully. I could even sense the power of elements in it. It was such a wonderful feeling. I wished I could stay and soaked in this abundance, but the sound of the female god woke me up.
"Mortal, with your power you can now use a stronger version of your skill," the female god told me.
The information came to my head. I could now use World Breaker, the Second Step version of Earth Breaker, and Infernal Sword, the Second Step version of Fiery Sword. I could, if I wanted to, still use Earth Breaker and Fiery Sword. They used much smaller amount of my energy reserve compared to the Second Step version.
This was important information because in a long fight I had to conserve energy.
The ability of World Breaker was awesome though. It has more than two times longer radius than Earth Breaker. The paralysing effect was also slightly longer. I bet the cooldown period was also longer now. But it was so cool I almost giggled childishly.
Swish!
The Infernal Sword emitted a bluish aura. It was a much sharper and powerful version of the Fiery Sword. I would have to test it to know the extend of the difference. It also had a weird additional effect which was minor freeze. The movement of anything that was cut by it would become slower. This was a magnificent sword ability. The enemy would find it hard to control their movements if they were suddenly slowed in spesific place like, for example, their arms or legs.
Very interesting. I suppressed my involuntary silly grin. I couldn't let the female god know how glad I was.
"Hm!" the god scoffed.
Alright, maybe too late to keep my thought to myself. I asked the god, "Supreme and Almighty God, may I know how many Steps are there?"
Just like usual, she ignored my question.
"Now go!" was all she said. Her presence was gone and I landed on the platform again.
What else could I do? I left the platform and the camp.
So, the female god termed the skills she bestowed us as Arts and the level as Step. As I leveled up, I was stepping up the ladder of power. Interesting terms. Well, all I had to do was to accept it and kept leveling up, I meant stepping up.
I kept on going. I had been on the road for seventeen days since the change. Seventeen days were nothing much during normal days, depending on the situation, but after the Doom it meant a lot. A lot of things could happen during such a long period of time. That made me really worry about my grandparents.
By my calculation, I should've seen my homeland by now. Some detours to avoid the purgers with full camp probably have made me lost a day and a half worth of travel time. But, still, I knew that I had travelled further in a day than any normal person.
When morning came, I halted and took my binoculars. Expectation filled me because from afar, I could see a new horizon. It was land, definitely land. Normal land, not this reddish new land. I was sure of it.
It was still far but I was pretty sure that it was definitely my homeland. The direction, the time I spent travelling, my running speed, if I calculated all these things correctly then there's no mistake, it's my home country.
While being sure was good motivation, going to the exact place would still take some time. To arrive at what I first saw at the horizon I needed to cross a couple purger's camps. This time, I didn't wait for the night to come, I could not find the patience. I threw caution to the wind and just ran toward it in full speed.
Fortunately the path I took this time had mostly empty camps. There was only one camp with almost one hundred monsters inside. I ran in the middle of them, not even trying to sneak in like I usually did.
World Breaker!
Bam! Within a radius of around five meters, the monsters were immediately paralyzed, unable to do anything.
"Whoa, cool!" I was amazed, at the same time I was disdained by the amount of stamina consumed to use this art. The effect was a little bit more than twice of what Earth Breaker could do, but it also took a proportionally larger amount of stamina from me. I activated Infernal Sword right away. The bluish aura was giving a frightening feeling to even me, the owner. This was a badass sword! I slashed the nearest purger using it. It was so light and sharp I barely felt it when the purger was cut into two pieces.
"Zeeeeee!"
"Hm!" I ignored all the screaming the purgers and beasts produced. They seemed to think that I'd be affected by their screams. I had been fighting them for so many times that such scream meant little to me. Within the radius of World Breaker, I easily took care of them. None of them could do anything. Infernal Sword was even sharper than Fiery Sword. It kind of made me feel overpowered. I wasn't being complacent though, outside of the World Breaker area of effect there were still tens of them.
I decided not to use World Breaker and relied on Infernal Sword only. Even without World Breaker, these ordinary purgers were not a match for me. My proficiency in using my power had been increasing and after using Fiery Sword for more than two weeks my handling had become more and more fluent. I guessed I had some affinity with sword. Probably my grandfather's hobby had rub on me on some level.
Now with Infernal Sword the purgers were like waiting in line to be slaughtered by me. Chop! Chop! Chop! Slash! Slash! Slash!
After taking care of the monsters I stepped on the magical platform again. This time I noticed that the bluish symbol on my chest had no movement at all. Nothing I did have any effect in any way.
"Hm, I can't improve my Spirit status using the Magic Circle anymore?" I thought to myself. How should I proceed from here?
Ah, never mind that. I didn't know the answer and had no clue at all so I thought it would be better to not dwell in it. No need to waste time on something I had no idea about. I moved on.
When I was face to face with the land I previously saw in the horizon I came to realization. Just like the connecting point between Incheon and the new land, this was also high cliff. It was even higher than the Incheon cliff. Still, such a height posed little to no problem for the purgers should they wanted to climb it. And it wasn't a problem for me either.
I took out the two military knives I had from my backpack and started climbing. I stabbed the rock wall with the knives and lifted my body up. It took me longer to climb this time for two reasons. One, it was without those primitive tools from the purgers. Two, the cliff was higher.
Judging that almost all of the nearby camps were empty I suspected that the purgers had climbed this cliff. There should be an area where the monsters all climbed, using their primitive tools. It should be easier for me if I could find the place. However, I did not have the patience to look for that specific spot. This cliff was previously eastern coast of China and stretched for hundreds of miles. I didn't want to spend time searching for that specific spot when I was able to climb even without those tools.
Time was all I need and indeed I finally made it to the top.
Home. Finally.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
SunshineLightUp
SunshineLightUp This is the end of second arc. Hopefully he won't be alone after this. lol.
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