Marcos entered the store, then looked over his points balance and the system window he had dismissed earlier. He had received one hundred and thirty five thousand points for completing the last challenge, including an additional five thousand for almost completing it without the use of qi, half of what he would have received if he had moved the last fifteen meters without using any. Apparently, the last fifteen meters had disqualified him from properly completing it, as he had actually used qi at the end due to an emergency. Maybe he would return there after this emergency was over to complete it properly.

  He looked over the level five techniques, as he wanted to make sure he had one before leaving. While the eighty thousand point Celestial Cultivation Art was impressive, it wasn’t a good match for him. Slightly cheaper than that, however, was the True Body Sutra, a Buddhist technique costing seventy thousand. Just like the fist technique, this one was inspired by Buddhism, but not limited to their members. This one taught a person to be true to themselves, in mind, body, and soul, and sought to create a perfect body, free from all flaws. Ideally, someone who practiced this technique could push their body to the absolute limit of what a human body could be, through constantly confronting their body’s weaknesses and overcoming them. It contained many self-recovery techniques to guarantee that none of its practitioners ended up with long term injuries from using the method. In Marcos’s opinion, it exemplified the old adage that ‘that which doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger.’.

  The cultivation technique was considered a level five technique because those that practiced it almost always achieved effortless breakthroughs, sometimes up to the fifth level, where the limits of the body no longer effected cultivation. It contained a few techniques for the development of the soul as well, though those techniques weren’t quite good enough to take one to the peak of the level five reliably. The book hinted at additional scriptures which were held by other Buddhist groups, which could allow advancement to level nine, where the development of the soul no longer limited cultivation, but didn’t name any specifically. Those would likely be in other hidden realms, or he might have to meet the builders of these realms to find them.

  After purchasing the technique he also bought the ten thousand point automated cultivation technique that he had first seen and a twenty thousand point soul transfer technique that seemed to be based on the meme ‘the flesh is weak, embrace metal’. Both had alternative methods for reaching level five, so perhaps his friends and/or students could learn from them. He just hoped they didn’t actually use them. Perhaps he should look at some of the other twenty or thirty thousand point techniques when he earned the points to buy them? He would need to think about doing that.

  He then picked up five thousand point sword, spear, staff, and bow techniques, as not all of his students would want to fight without a weapon. With just the things he had from here, his school could make massive improvements, and he might be able to grow it to being one of the largest martial arts schools in the country, if not the world. That should make his grandfather happy.

  All of these books were too big to fit in his current bag, so he spent one thousand points on a new backpack and transferred everything over. If he could reach the new bag’s shrinking limit he could fit more than a tractor trailer load into it, roughly a standard shipping container worth, but with his current limit he might be able to store a bicycle at the largest. Maybe a motorcycle if he pushed himself a bit. It was slightly larger than any Ilaryan bag he had seen on the market so far, so it should meet his needs for the foreseeable future.

  With a little over fifteen thousand points left, he wasn’t sure what to spend them on, so he ignored them for now and looked over his reward for the last trial. It was something called ‘ambrosia’. It had a warning label on the back that only those with the Golden Blood Physique or extremely high poison resistance should eat it, as it was more deadly than consuming pure cyanide. As he had that physique, however, the instructions told him that this acted as a cultivation aid, pushing the cells to their limits so that the best of them can survive. That sounded much like the body tempering pills he had seen on the market, mixed with Rebirth, only this didn’t seem to require exercise or meditation.

  He opened the jar and instantly a sweet aroma filled his nostrils, like the scent of honey mixed with a hundred flowers. He touched his finger to the top of the liquid inside and noticed that it was the consistency of honey as well, but that it wasn’t transparent like honey. He licked the finger and a feeling like he was on fire swept across him. As he sat there, however, he knew that the fire wasn’t harming him, but helping him. It was like he had spent his life in the cold, and was now finally starting to warm up. A tiny bit of green sweat came from him, followed but the smallest amount of blue. The green smelled like rotten meat and the blue like gasoline or another petroleum product, but he knew that the amount that had left him was limited by the tiny bit of ambrosia he had consumed. Still, with that release of toxins, all of the cells of his body seemed to work a few percent better, and qi seemed to flow a few percent easier, offsetting some of the effect of the loss of qi conductivity brought by the physique. He would have to eat more of this once he was out of the hidden realm.

  He was about to look over the second gift he had received when the teleporter activated and an older teenager in a black hooded robe, hood up, appeared on it. He stored his things and stood up. “Oh, hey, a new guy.” he said, motioning for the guy to come over. “How are you doing?”

  The nineteen year old looking early level two man looked confused and walked over. “Not well. It seems that someone killed all of my minions.”

  “Oh, those zombies were yours?” he said, feigning a feeling of guilt. “Sorry about that. I assumed they were some sort of fighting trial for this area. You can just reanimate them, though, right?”

  The newcomer looked annoyed. “No, I can’t. If they could be reanimated, they wouldn’t have completely stopped functioning. Now they are worthless to me.”

  Marcos nodded. “In that case, how about we head over to a hunting ground? I can get in a bit of practice killing beasts, then you can reanimate them.”

  “You think a few beasts can appease me?” the teen asked. Marcos figured he actually thought he was a real villain, and not just a criminal pretending to be one.

  “Why not?” asked Marcos. “It’s not like you’re a real necromancer. You picked some random demonic corpse puppet spell up from where, Singapore? They have some weird techniques coming through their gate.”

  The teen looked at him angrily. “You dare to demean me, worm?”

  Marcos laughed. “See, now you’re getting into the role. Who said a kid from the suburbs can’t be a good actor?”

  “You are courting death!” the teen growled, and a green bolt of energy swirled in each hand.

  “See, now you’re mixing genres. That line belongs in Eastern fantasy,” he said, stepping outside the shop. “Whereas, necromancers are mostly a western fantasy thing. But hey, at least it’s not the worst mistake you can make while LARPing, am I right?”

  The teen yelled and threw the two green bolts at Marcos. Marcos used the level two technique from Perseverance, one meant to parry incoming attacks, including projectiles, and swatted them to the side. The side of his hand stung from hitting it, though, and a small green patch started forming there. Did this kid have an attack that could cause extremely rapid onset decay?

  “Ouch, that kind of stung.” Marcos said mockingly, and the kid just got even more angry, throwing even more attacks. This time Marcos used the forms of level one Flexibility. While it was meant to teach mental flexibility and adaptation, its martial arts component applied to adaptation in battle and dodging attacks.

  “Stop dodging, worm!” the kid demanded, and Marcos smiled.

  “But if I’m a worm, shouldn’t I wriggle? That’s exactly what they do.”

  The teen got angrier at the mocking and threw green bolts even faster. After thirty seconds or so he stopped, seeming to finally calm down enough to realize that not only was he only hitting the ground and buildings, but that Marcos had lead him more than fifty meters from where they started. “Fine, you want to play, then how ‘bout I let my pets play with you instead?” He motioned towards the bag on his waist and several cats and birds flew out.

  At first Marcos thought they were just house cats and songbirds, then they expanded to their normal size and he realized that they were the ice panthers and hawks from the first trial. “Damn it, Caleb.” he said, realizing that the other man’s hunting trip had helped make this psycho even stronger.

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  More than thirty panthers charged at Marcos, followed by more than a dozen hawks. He put up his hands, preparing to use Perseverance to last as long as possible against them, when a phantom arrow hit one of the hawks and exploded, knocking it out of the sky. Soon, two more were hit, though four arrows were fired. A woman with an impractically large sword and leather armor then joined the fight, cutting a piece of already decaying meat off of a dodging panther but not stopping it. Eighty meters away someone screamed and four young men ran at the Necromancer, forcing him to redirect many of the beasts towards them.

  Three minutes later most of the beasts were dead. The necromancer had started throwing those green bolts again after several of them had died, but only a few of them had managed to hit anyone, leaving large purple and black wounds, and forcing them to stop fighting long enough to take recovery pills to reverse the damage. He had obviously gotten far more practice with the reanimation technique than the attack spell, as a level two attack failed to even significantly injure the level one fighters he was facing.

  The four surviving panthers had been pulled in to surround him, to keep his enemy at bay, and the two hawks were occasionally flying out to launch hit and run assaults on them, but the eight people that were surrounding him proved that he didn’t have much of a chance at winning. “Are you going to surrender, now?” asked Marcos, “I don’t want to kill you, but you’ve tried to kill us more than enough for us to justify killing you in self defense.” While the law around the use of attack techniques was complicated, most courts had ruled that holding a prepared attack effect that merely needed to be launched was the equivalent of having a gun aimed at a person.

  “Not a chance. All of you will die, and shall become my new pets, to replace the ones you killed.”

  Marcos shook his head. “In that case, everyone, let me finish him. You focus on the animals.” The others nodded and Marcos charged at him. One of the panthers leapt at Marcos, but he grabbed the beast by its skin and spun it in a circle to redirect it’s momentum. While its skin started to peel off from the force, he released it at the right time and the large cat flew at its master. The kid tried to dodge, but was still hit and knocked over by the flying weight.

  Marcos ran at him again and tackled the disoriented teen to the ground, then sat on him. “Get off of me!” the kid demanded, but Marcos shook his head.

  “I’m staying until I can tie you up and stop you from attacking me again.” He thought about pulling a bag of zip ties from his bag and using them, but realized that a Gathering cultivator would most likely be able to break free of them, and this man was Condensing. Maybe the shop had something? He couldn’t go inside to buy it, though, without dragging the teen with him, so he would have to hold the kid until one of the others could by some handcuffs.

  While Marcos was distracted the kid managed to free his hands and place them together. Before Marcos could notice he created a darker green mass of qi between his palms and then compressed it to the size of a golf ball, a technique which amplified the effect but made it much slower to use. “Take this you son of a bitch!” said the teen, and launched the bolt twenty centimeters into the center of Marcos’s chest. Marcos flew backwards several meters from the impact, then hit the ground. The attack on his chest had destroyed the front of his shirt, and the exposed rapidly expanding wound had already turned black in the middle, with the green at the edge and purple in between them rapidly spreading.

  Carol screamed and ran at the teen. The teen quickly stood up to try and run, but a giant sword was swung at neck level and his head was forcibly separated from his shoulders, hitting the ground a few seconds later and rolling a meter or two before stopping. The ‘pets’ collapsed to the ground, once again dead now that their master was no more.

  Carol realized that she had just killed a man in anger and was about to start crying from the shock when a red cloud started forming beside the corpse. A few seconds later the cloud took the form of a man and solidified. The man was wearing a black leather trench coat, as well as black shirt, jeans, and shoes. “Looks like I won.” he said, then, looked at Carol. “Thank you for getting rid of this nuisance for me,” the goth reject said. “For that, I shall let you live and spread my tale.”

  He motioned towards the corpse and head, and all of the blood flew from them, forming a ball in his palm. The corpse started to shrivel, and soon looked like a mummy. The blood sphere pulsed with a gold aura, and with each pulse it released steam and got smaller. When it was the size of a marble he stopped refining it and opened his mouth. With a flick of his finger the ball flew into his mouth.

  He closed his eyes and seemed to relax significantly. “Oh, that’s good.” he said, moaning slightly. His body then pulsed a few times and his level, which was already at late level two, grew a quarter of the way towards Peak.

  Carol screamed at the new threat and ran at him with a downward swing. This man seemed to be an even bigger threat, after all, plus he was a cannibal. The bloody man simply raised one hand and caught the blade, however. “You know, you really should learn to respect your betters.” he said and threw the sword over his shoulder. In shock from the blade being caught, Carol hadn’t released the handle yet, so she was flung ten meters along with the blade.

  As the others tried to attack as well, Marcos opened his eyes. The healing technique which he had left running had taken more than ten seconds to stop the expansion of the necrotic attack, and another thirty to reverse it enough for him to wake up. Seeing what was left of the damage, however, Marcos was sure that would have been lethal for anyone at his level without a special physique which allowed him to resist it.

  He stood up and saw the other seven throwing everything they had at the man. Somehow, however, he either dodged or blocked every attack. His Speed, Strength, Agility, and Durability seemed far greater than Marcos’s own. Even the overpowered qi blasts Jim was firing at him did no real damage when they hit. Marcos knew that he would need to use his new fist techniques to win this fight.

  He ran at the man and used the first move from Force, taking the man by surprise and hitting him in the center of the chest with all of his strength. The man’s chest caved in and he was sent rolling. When he stopped, the others paused to catch their breaths, and the man stood up. “Not bad.” he said. “Someone was actually able to injure me.” Marcos noticed that the man’s chest was still caved in, and he realized that hitting him hadn’t felt like hitting a person, as there were no solid bones to resist the attack. They had seemed to be there at first, but had collapsed as soon as the attack landed. “Fine, then. If you want to fight with fists, I can oblige.” The man turned into a cloud of blood and the cloud reformed just in front of Marcos, the man’s chest no longer being caved in.

  While the others stood back, rather that get involved in a fight they couldn’t help with, they exchanged several blows, the blood man using some sort of MMA style that Marcos was sure were copies of a famous fighter he had seen in several cage matches. While at first the man would only dodge Marcos’s attacks enough that he was only lightly hit, he seemed to soon tire of that and started dodging the attacks completely, while slowly increasing the strength of the blows he was landing on Marcos. This man seemed to have refined his muscles even more than Marcos, and didn’t even have the benefit of a special physique as far as Marcos knew, though this Blood Body might be one he hadn’t heard of before. Marcos knew he was outmatched, because of the man’s much higher cultivation, but couldn’t stop fighting the man, as Marcos was the only one that had managed to do anything to him.

  After several minutes the man punched Marcos in the stomach, and noticed Marcos dropping his guard The man responded by swinging for his face. The bones in Marcos’s face caved in just as badly as the man’s chest had earlier, but Marcos managed to stay on his feet. Thankfully the man had hit low enough that Marcos didn’t receive brain damage, but his nose was in pieces and his jaw and cheeks were broken as well. Even with a regeneration pill, this would take at least ten minutes to repair itself.

  The man looked at the golden blood that was pouring out of Marcos’s nose and smiled. “You have a special physique which alters your blood? Wonderful. Then I shall consume your blood as well, and take its best features for myself!” He waved his hand at Marcos’s face and the blood formed a ball in his palm, stopping the bleeding. The blood gave off several golden waves of qi as well, but didn’t seem to change. “Your blood is already refined more than I can refine it? Truly a marvelous find. When this is over you may join me as my apprentice.”

  “Why the Fuck would I do that?” asked Marcos, struggling to get the words out with a broken jaw. The level of pain was more than most people would be able to handle, but somehow he managed to continue. Perhaps it was also a feature of his special physique.

  “You must know you can’t defeat me. So you have a choice, either join me, or I finish extracting your blood and leave your dried out corpse on the ground here.” After saying this, the man threw the ball of blood into his mouth. He glowed gold like before, much brighter than when he had eaten the necromancer’s refined blood, and the golden aura pulsed rapidly.

  Marcos started to try and think of a way to flee. His best bet was likely to get to the teleporter and ask to go to a random trial. That way the man wouldn’t be able to find him any time soon. He might be able to buy enough time to leave the hidden realm, then his Aunt Eve could use her level four strength to crush this man. He then realized that if he did that, the man would likely kill his friends in revenge. He would need to find a way to win the fight.

  As he watched, though, the man seemed to tense in pain. The golden light pulsed again, and the man grabbed his stomach. “You poisoned yourself?” he asked, then doubled over while gritting his teeth as another wave hit him. “No,” he growled. “You blood IS poison.” With every pulse the pain seemed to get worse and the man soon collapsed to the ground. In thirty seconds, despite his impressive pain tolerance, the man started to scream.

  Marcos noticed that his skin started to turn black and fall off. It wasn’t like the decay of the zombies, though. It was more like the man was melting, as even his clothes started to liquefy and fall off. Soon the man stopped moving and a few seconds later what was left of him collapsed into a puddle on the ground, a black goop that looked more like an oil spill than a blood puddle like it technically was. In the middle of the puddle was a storage bag.