At three minutes until the portal opened, the System made its final announcement, violating its previous statement and throwing even more fuel on the fire. “System Announcement: The following trial takers are in possession of Nascent Soul level cultivation manuals. Marcos Vereli, Kent Clarkson, David Moreno, Kelly Harris, Frank Simmons.”
The five of those whose name had just been announced started looking around, and the two hundred other people looked at them. A few started to reach for weapons, and four of the people with the manuals also did. “Ok, hold one everyone.” said Marcos, the only one of the manual owners to not reach for a weapon, quickly trying to calm the situation down. “Yes, I have a cultivation technique, but it won’t do you any good to attack me, because that will just make you the target. So here’s what I’ll do. Give me your name, phone number, and address, and I’ll have a copy of one of my manuals made and send it to you. That way we all benefit.”
Many of the people didn’t believe that he would do so, and became even more agitated at the apparent lie. After all, such a manual was worth millions at a minimum, so why would he do such a thing? Frankie and two of the others also offered a copy of their manual, so that everyone would have a choice of manuals, but that just made even more people suspicious.
Just then Frankie received a telepathic message from Caleb. ‘You’re a rogue, right? I want to hire you for a job.’
‘You want my manual? Five hundred thousand per copy, minimum.’ he responded.
Caleb shook his head. ‘No, not yours. I have no interest in a Darkness manual.’ Frankie was surprised that he knew what manual he had, but Caleb noticed the surprise and explained. ‘The System sent me a special message, telling me which cultivation manuals everyone purchased. While I can’t be sure if anyone else got the message, the System offered to give me a bottle of Peak grade Core Compression pills, level four pills, if I could get one of those before leaving. You can’t even buy them in the store here. Give me Marcos’s Celestial cultivation guide and not only will I give you a copy of it when I make a copy for all of my friends, I’ll give you two of the pills so that you can use them to form your own core.’
Frankie thought about it for a few seconds, and, seeing the hesitation, Caleb spoke up again. ‘All you need to do is grab it. I’ll distract him, and you grab it when he’s distracted.’
Frankie really didn’t want to betray his new friend, but the reward was so good. Not only would he get a copy of a second cultivation technique, which would let him work through any bottlenecks he faced in his main technique, as well as diversify his cultivation with a reasonably compatible technique of the same level, but he could get his hands on pills that weren’t even made on Earth yet, and were rare to see even in the imports from Ilarya. Even when they did appear, they were never more than middle grade, and the last middle grade Core Compression pill that had been sold, as far as he knew, had gone for almost one million dollars. ‘Fine, I’ll do it, but I want three pills.’ He would sell one of them for a few million, and keep the other two for use in the cultivation cave he would build with the money.
Caleb nodded, and agreed to the new demands. While it would mean that one of his friends only got one pill, the manual would earn him far more money than he would lose by paying an additional pill. The demand for such techniques was so high that even if Marcos reported it stolen he could probably earn millions before having to give it back. After all, the few level five manuals that had been brought in from Ilarya were all selling for millions if they were unique or jades, and a few people had sold multiple book copies of the same technique for at least a million each.
Caleb walked towards Marcos. “What if we help you?” he asked. “That way no one can take the manual from you.”
“I think I’ve got it.” said Marcos. While he had worked with Caleb before, the tension was too high right now for him to trust Caleb right now.
“Oh, come on. You think you can take on everyone here by yourself?” asked Caleb. Frankie didn’t know if he actually thought the Marcos was being self absorbed or if he was just pretending, but it did make a good distraction. Marcos was the kind of guy that wanted to get along with everyone, so if you pretended like he was being rude he would defend himself.
“I just don’t know if I can trust you right now.” he said. “Besides, I am really strong, so I should be able to take on a few of you.”
“Well that’s just great.” said Caleb, and Frankie could tell that he was acting, though he doubted Marcos could. Marcos wasn’t the most perceptive when it came to human actions. “Not only does he thinks that someone that helped him deal with a murderer would turn around and stab him in the back, but he thinks he’s so much better than us that he can take us all at once.”
Marcos started trying to defend himself as the crowd started to pay attention to him, and Frankie activated the invisibility device he had received for getting a grand completion on the level three dexterity challenge. As Marcos and Caleb argued Frankie crept over to Marcos’s side. While the item being removed from the bag wouldn’t become invisible until Frankie was holding it, if he timed it correctly he could remove an item from the bag and grab it in a fraction of a second without anyone seeing him. If anyone spotted an item being removed, then disappearing, they would know it was stolen, but if they didn’t see him he could probably get away with the theft.
While the world they were on didn’t have a sun, only starlight, there were far too many qi powered lights in the area for him to be able to use his new Darkness techniques without it being obvious someone was using a technique, so he had to wait for his moment. While he did so, he wondered if he was right to do this. After all, Marcos had helped him considerably since they entered the realm, even patching him up when they first met without asking for anything in return. Since then Marcos had helped train him and they had even killed a necromancer and blood mage together, helping his victims. Marcos had been a good friend for the entire time they were in here, but now Frankie was preparing to steal from him. Sure, he’d stolen things before, but they were from people he didn’t know or even people he didn’t like. Was he really willing to steal from a friend?
As he waited, sensing inside the bag with his mind and feeling many different books and items rich in qi, Caleb tried to push Marcos, and Marcos shifted his body slightly, blocking the view of most of the people. Frankie instinctively grabbed the book, and as soon as it touched his hand it disappeared. He froze for a second to make sure he wasn’t caught, but no one said anything about it. He relaxed and put the book in his own magic bag.
He then went over to Caleb’s crew and started checking their bags. If he was going to steal from a friend for them, he might as well see if he can get more out of the deal. Most of what they had was random devices and magical items, with only a few books mixed in. As they weren’t paying attention to their own bags, he took one of the books. It was level three cultivation manual. He took another book off another man, and it was a level four manual. He kept grabbing books, and they all seemed to be either techniques or cultivation manuals. These men had a few medicines, but most of their gains seemed to be in the form of books. They were likely planning on contacting a publisher and getting all of their books published, which is why the System informed them of the other books. While Frankie could respect their plan to earn money, they had gotten too greedy with this last attempt to get the book, and it would cost them. Why would Frankie settle for a copy of a book that probably cost them $20 to have printed, plus a few pills when he could keep the books and their other pills as well. Better than that, he didn’t feel bad about robbing them, since they had wanted him to rob someone else. As the saying goes, turnabout is fair play.
When one of Caleb’s men started preparing a qi bolt it drew Frankie’s attention. Stealing from someone was one thing, but killing them is another. Only the fact that the man seemed to be looking at another of the people gathered, presumably one with a level five manual, made Frankie not want to instantly stop him. The other two drew their weapons, a loaded crossbow and mace, and the mace man started slowly moving towards a woman that was watching the argument. Frankie noticed her earlier, as she was attractive and about his age, and remembered someone calling her Kelly, which meant that she was probably the Kelly Harris the System told them had a level five manual. That meant that the other two men they were targeting must be Kent Clarkson and David Moreno. If they were able to kill all three of them, as well as get Marcos’s book, only Frankie would be left with a level five manual. That would leave him as an easy target when they tried to collect the last two books. They had likely hired him only to make their job of taking all of the manuals easier.
Caleb had told him that the System would give them one bottle of pills for getting any manual, but with the intention the System had shown to have them all fight a battle royale for the resources they had gathered, Frankie thought it was far more likely that the mission was that they would receive one bottle of pills for each manual they could get. That would leave each of them with a bottle of pills, plus an entire extra bottle that could be sold.
While Frankie’s logic fit with the evidence, he wasn’t certain. He couldn’t risk that being the case, however, as it could cost him his life and at the very least would mean that Caleb had used him to get a reward without properly sharing that reward. Frankie knew the telepathy technique, as it was fairly common and a great way to secretly speak with others at range and in a crowd, something that was useful for criminals like him, but he could only really manage talking to one person at a time. Who should he contact though? He could ask Caleb about the plan, of course, but that would reveal that he knew about the plan and actual mission, and wouldn’t prevent Caleb’s team from attacking him afterwards.
Reasoning that the planned victims were the best option, he looked them over. Kelly looked like some sort of agility fighter. Maybe she was a cheerleader or had done gymnastics, but she didn’t appear to be wearing armor or a barrier device, making her an easy target if they were alerted that their attack was discovered. Next was David Moreno. He had a gun strapped to his side and one slung on his back and appeared to be wearing a military surplus barrier vest. He wouldn’t be an easy target, as military vests were usually level two, if not level three. Then there was Kent Clarkson. At first he looked like a bit of a geek, kind of like Caleb and his friends, but under the moisture wicking gym clothes he had a large amount of muscle, about as much as Marcos. It was unlikely that he had developed that much muscle since entering the realm, as it would take huge amounts of nutrients to do so, so he was probably a body cultivator or dual path cultivator. He also seemed to have initial level two qi coming from him, as opposed to the late and peak level one qi of the others.
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As the first to be informed would likely react and be noticed, one of the men would have to serve as the target, with Kelly being the last informed after the enemy was drawn away. He chose Moreno, and sent a strand of qi towards the man’s head. ‘I don’t mean to alarm you, but a man with a crossbow is preparing to shoot you.’ He quickly sent the man a picture of the man as well. While the image wasn’t the clearest, as it would take time and far more concentration to send a clear image, David glanced over at the correct man. Frankie couldn’t really know if David or Kent was the man’s true target, but it didn’t really matter. David sent him a thanks, and slowly opened the clasp on his pistol’s holster.
Frankie then sent a similar message to Kent. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was the crossbowman or the mage, but I saw them. Also the mace guy that’s heading towards Kelly.’ This man was very observant. He had likely trained his perception to a high level, a type of mental path cultivation, which meant that he was likely dual path cultivating. Frankie told him he couldn’t be certain either, but that David was covering the crossbowman, and the man agreed to help if things turned violent.
Only then did Frankie make his way behind Caleb and inform Kelly of the mace man. She immediately started looking around, causing the three attackers to go on alert. She might be good looking, in Frankie’s opinion, but wasn’t very smart. Kelly pointed to the man. “Why do you have your weapon out?” she asked loudly, drawing the attention away from Caleb and Marcos.
“What?” asked the man, surprised at being called out like that. “I’m just getting ready in case the argument turns violent.”
“You’re about to attack me for my book, aren’t you?” she accused.
“Of course not.” the man said.
Marcos didn’t realize that she was telling the truth and tried to intervene. “I’m sure he was just worried that someone might attack him.” Marcos said then looked at the man. “Right? No one is is going to attack anyone.”
The man looked a bit nervous to Frankie, but most of the people there likely didn’t notice it. “Right.” the man said. Things seemed to calm down a bit and there was a few seconds of silence as everyone caught their breath.
Frankie relaxed as well, letting down his guard slightly, only to notice too late that Caleb was holding a longsword and stabbing it at Marcos’s back, under the backpack. He leapt at Caleb, who was only a few meters away, only to cause the man to fall sideways, releasing the blade which now came out of Marcos’s abdomen.
Golden blood leaked out from around the wound and Marcos looked down in shock. Had Caleb wanted his book that badly, that he was willing to kill for it? He had no time to think as the pain hit him. It wasn’t enough to stop him from acting, however. Not only had he done worse damage to his body while training, but the pain inflicting device on his wrist had been running for over a day. Every time the pain stopped being a distraction, Marcos had turned it up, and its current setting was inflicting far more pain on him than the sword injury was.
He started to cycle his best Accelerated Healing technique around the injury as the System sent him a message. ‘Hidden Training: Pain Master success. +1000 points.’ Apparently the combined pain of the training device and the sword had pushed the total amount of pain he was experiencing high enough that the System thought it was worth rewarding.
Marcos reached behind him to try and pull the sword out just as chaos erupted around him. A crossbow bolt flew at one man as the mace man ran at the woman that had accused him and a split second later a qi blast flew at a different man. Most of the people gathered there started to run, only to soon be stopped by a red barrier that was less than one hundred meters in radius, trapping them in the area with only the store and the field they were currently in.
Thankfully none of the attacks had done any damage. The crossbow bolt had shattered upon hitting the skin of the man in gym clothes, and the qi bolt had been absorbed by the military barrier vest of the second man. A second later Frankie had seemed to materialize out of thin air and tackled the mace man before he could reach his target. The man in gym clothes flew into the air a then towards the crossbow man. He had likely taken both the Gathering and Condensation level durability pills, as the crossbow bolt was in the middle of Condensation. The other man pulled a gun and shot at the qi bolt man.
Until that point the confrontation had been limited to the perpetrators and the victims, but that soon changed. Hearing the gunshot, several other people drew guns as well, and when one of the people accidentally fired a round into the ground, one of the others thought that he was one of the attackers and shot at him, hitting him in the leg. This caused even more confusion, and several more people started firing their weapons.
While Frankie used a Darkness based sleep technique on the mace man to try and knock him out, Carol and Jim started trying to stop the people who had mistakenly joined the fight. Jim’s blaster rifle had a non-lethal setting which would use all of the qi to break through barriers. He hadn’t used it yet, as he wasn’t sure it would do much against the zombies he had fought before, but against humans that same barrier breaking effect would send random amounts of qi through their meridians, inflicting great pain while suppressing their ability to control qi. It was comparable to a failed version of the dual cultivation technique he had seen on the market, but wouldn’t cause as much damage to their meridians. Using this setting he quickly shot at the other people, taking out three of them before one of them shot him in the arm. While he didn’t have a barrier vest, his outfit was a durable system-made level one shirt and pants set, so the bullet only managed to give him a serious wound and not blow a large hole in his arm as the middle level two bullets would normally do to someone at late level one.
Carol, on the other hand, just started punching people with the Mercy path technique Marcos had taught her. It had a similar effect to the rifle, disrupting their qi flow while inflicting pain, and the first man doubled over in pain as he dropped his rifle and fell to the ground. Carol stored his gun in her bag and ran at a woman who also had a gun, this one a Thompson sub machine gun. She didn’t know where the woman got it, but the early level two bullets did little to Carol’s armor, which the System had made from level two animal skin. Carol was only slightly bruised under the armor, and hit the woman with the same Mercy strike. The woman cried out in pain and her finger jerked, spraying the rest of her barrel magazine into the crowd as she fell over.
After storing the gun, Carol noticed that a stray round had hit the woman that the Mace man had been attempting to attack, as she was one of the few people left in the area that was still on their feet. The woman dropped the knife she was holding and grabbed her side, trying to stop the bleeding.
Carol ran over to her just as a portal started to form ten meters away. Noticing the new exit, the people ran towards it, and Carol was barely able to get to the woman before the girl was trampled by a fleeing mob. She covered the girl as best she could, and a few people stepped on Carol in the rush, but it didn’t really effect her. Once the crowd had passed, Carol called out. “I’m taking her out of the hidden realm to get medical attention. Frankie, get Jim to the exit, then start getting the gunmen out of here. Make sure you don’t go through, or you can’t keep moving people.”
Frankie nodded and Marcos spoke up. “I’ll grab a few and throw them through.” he said.
“I saw you get stabbed.” said Frankie in surprise. “How are you still standing?”
“I’ll explain later.” said Marcos. Frankie could see a vertical line about eight centimeters tall on his stomach surrounded by a golden fluid, but he would wait for an explanation. After Carol and Jim were out of the realm, the two of them quickly started to throw people through the portal, not bothering to pick up anything that had been dropped. When they were the only ones left, Marcos started walking towards an unconscious Caleb. “I’ll grab this idiot and go.” he said, and Frankie nodded, leaving for the portal.
Marcos had already stored the sword, using the same shrinking technique method he had used to extract ore by shrinking it, and checked around the area for any other evidence. Not finding anything, He grabbed Caleb by the back of his shirt. The man must have been faking unconsciousness, though, as he pushed away from Marcos and tried to run. “Last man in the realm takes all.” he said as he tried to sprint away.
Marcos, however, had far more powerful leg muscles, having not just survived fifty times Earth normal gravity but functioned normally under it. He was able to quickly catch Caleb and lift him off the ground. Caleb continued to kick and scream like he was an angry toddler, but Marcos just walked over to the portal. It was only two meters tall, so he wouldn’t be able to fit through holding Caleb over his head like he was, so he held the man in front of him as he walked through.
As soon as he stepped out of the portal and into the warehouse, a barrier formed over the entrance and it quickly closed. Marcos handed an angry Caleb over to an officer that was standing five meters away. “This man stabbed me in the back, which started a fight in the hidden realm.” he said, and the cop nodded.
“Do you mind coming over to my squad car so I can take your statement? Several people said there was a fight, but as a victim I’ll need you to file a report.” Marcos nodded and walked over to the car.
Two hours later the last of the cops started to leave. Marcos had been checked by paramedics, but his wound was mostly healed from the Accelerated Healing Technique, so they didn’t insist that he ride in the ambulance, and only documented it as evidence. Carol and Frankie walked over to him so that they could talk. They were the only three civilians left, Jim having gone to the hospital, and only two police were left behind to guard the crime scene, not that any serious fights had occurred outside the hidden realm.
“Where’d the green bag come from?” Frankie asked. Marcos had bought a brown backpack to replace his old one, and a second black one to store all of the corpses from the victims of the blood man and necromancer, but he had never seen the green one.
“No idea.” he said, then opened it up. He had noticed that he was carrying it when he handed the bag of corpses over to the police, but hadn’t looked into it. It had the same internal space as the one he bought, but the System had shrunk everything inside to it limit, allowing it to store a huge amount of random goods. At the top of the bag was a wooden box, so Marcos pulled it out.
Inside the box was a sheet of paper which read ‘As the last person out of the hidden realm, all of the possessions of the participants which died or were left behind were placed inside this bag and given to you. Furthermore, all of their points were added to your own and, based on your past purchases, the points were automatically spent and the items placed in this box.’ Inside the box Marcos saw a Nascent Soul level Ice cultivation technique, a level four Wood cultivation technique, and a large number of pill bottles.
“Well, I did only buy technique books and pills.” he said, not bothering to mention the pain bracelet that was still inflicting more pain on him than having both of your legs shattered, pain he barely noticed.
“You aren’t a Wood or Ice cultivator, though.” said Carol. “I have a water root, though, and I think Jim has a wood root, not that he does much with it. Do you mind if I…?” She reached for the books and Marcos shrugged.
“I’m planning on having my books copied so that I can sell copies of them, but if you want to read it until I find a publisher, that’s fine. I also promised the people inside a manual if they didn’t fight, so any that ran away will get to choose between the Cosmic, Martial Arts, and Ice cultivation manuals.
“You have three level five techniques?” asked Carol in surprise. This reminded Frankie that he still had the book and he quickly put it back into Marcos’s bag.
“Actually, I have five now, though two are pretty much worthless. One basically pulls you apart and uses healing techniques and medical devices to put you back together, and the other just tells you how to possess a robot and keep your humanity as you use it to advance. I thought they looked interesting, but are pretty much worthless to anyone that wants to actually advance.”
Carol nodded. “Well, if those androids that the Chinese company are promising us hit the market, the second might appeal to some people, but I agree that they aren’t worth much. Good reference material, though.”
The innocent people who had went through had discussed with the police what they were planning on doing with the victim’s things, and they had a preliminary agreement with the police. Any goods that weren’t claimed by next-of-kin of one of the people that died would be auctioned off and the money split between the families of the victims. The books, on the other hand, would go to a charity that the survivors would start. This ‘Hidden Realm Society’, which all of the survivors that didn’t commit attempted murder were honorary members of, would make copies, and the money from the copies that were sold would be used to train and equip people for other hidden realms, so that this didn’t happen again.
“Well, I guess I’m going to go over to the police station.” Marcos said. “This backpack needs to be handed over, as it is full of the victim’s belongings, but I’ll keep the box.” They hadn’t kept any of the other goods they had found in the blood man’s lair, but these were given directly to Marcos by the System, so they were different. “I’ll probably donate the rights to sell the Ice and Wood manual to the Hidden Realm Society once they are set up, though.” Those were bought with the victim’s points, after all.
