Path to the Apocalypse

Tori and Tiffany arrived in the Dolvost Foothills around midafternoon and made camp near the edge of the region, setting up a tree fort not too dissimilar to the one Flynn had made during Tori's last trip to the wilderness, except it was much higher up and the only way to get in and out was to lift yourself up using Spirit threads. That took the rest of the day to set up, so they got some sleep before heading into the foothills the next morning. The Dolvost Foothills was, predictably, a hilly region with plenty of nooks and crannies which gradually shifted from a dense, green forest to a craggy mountain the deeper in you went, until you reached the Dolvost Mountains. This gave the region a rather diverse spread of environments, which in turn attracted a diverse spread of creatures, making it one of the more dangerous regions to hunt in, which… was probably why it had so many available bounties. Particularly since it was still a relatively low-level area. Those with enough experience to feel comfortable in such a region were strong enough to find better regions to hunt in.

“What are you doing?” Tiffany asked, giving Tori a weird look as she carefully crept through the forest.

“Trying to avoid leaving a trail?” Tori replied hesitantly.

Tiffany raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

Tori frowned. “So a Rune Beast doesn't find us?”

Tiffany eyed her like she was an idiot. “And that would be bad because?”

“Because then it would attack us?” Tori explained.

Tiffany sighed. “So? We'll fight back! That's why we're here! To fight Rune Beasts!”

Tori paused. “But- shouldn't we be prepared first?”

Tiffany snorted. “Are you going to be prepared for every fight you're in? The best lesson you can learn is how to win a fight you aren't prepared for! Fighting something with a plan is easy. Learning how to fight without one is how you survive.”

Tori grimaced. “Okay, but I don't even really know how to fight with a plan at the moment.”

Tiffany grinned. “Then you haven't picked up any bad habits. You should never rely on a plan in a fight. Is it useful? Yes. Will it work? Most of the time. And that is why it's dangerous. Because the moment you get used to plans working is the moment you will die, because you weren't ready for things to go wrong.”

Tori eyed her skeptically. “So what, you think I should just find a random Rune Beast and throw myself at it?”

Tiffany shrugged. “Or let one find you. You can learn how to avoid danger in any environment. Learning how to respond to danger can only be done when you are actually in danger.”

Tori grunted noncommittally as she began to walk normally. “I guess you have a point… though I'd appreciate it if you could at least give me some advice on how to fight. Because right now all I really know how to do is use my daggers and I can't even use them with my Spirit threads. Pretty much the only thing I have going for me is the extra strength from my cultivation.”

Tiffany clicked her tongue. “Every Spirit Cultivator wants to focus on using their Spirit threads to hit something, but the true advantage of Spirit threads is in mobility. In remaining perpetually out of reach while your opponent exhausts themselves against illusions and mental attacks before taking them out with an attack they never even saw! Use them to move you, not your weapons. The best thing you can do right now is practice walking with them until it's as natural as walking on your own two feet. And the more you can use at one time, the better.” She began to float as eight Spirit threads shot out and lifted her into the air.

Tori followed suit, starting with eight Spirit threads just like Tiffany, but quickly finding it too hard to keep track of that many at once, slowly retracting them until she was left with four. The problem was that she couldn't just randomly throw her Spirit thread out for them to support her. She needed to find something she could actually use to either pull or push herself in the direction she wanted to go, and it needed to be able to support her weight in the process. Tiffany did show her how to make some sort of spooled foot out of her Spirit threads that would just let her step on the ground if necessary, but it had a tendency to slip if moved too fast, making it almost worthless in combat, so she tried to make use of it as little as possible. Thankfully they were still in the forest area, so she had plenty of strong, sturdy tree limbs to support her.

Tori was just starting to get used to what she now thought of as Spirit walking, mostly thanks to spending a few points on the skill, when Tiffany stopped. “Ah, it looks like we've found your first opponent.” She announced, pointing through a gap in the trees. Tori shifted to peer through the gap to see what she was talking about, spying a large boar scraping at the ground with its tusk, almost like it was digging for something. “And possibly a truffle too! Quick, kill it before it ruins it!” Tori grimaced slightly, suddenly not terribly comfortable with the idea of charging a Rune Beast she knew literally nothing about, until…

[Kill the boar: 0%]

“Well now I have to.” Tori sighed, pulling out her daggers as she swung through the trees towards the boar. With her Spirit threads allowing her to move in near perfect silence and the boar completely focused on digging up whatever it'd found, Tori managed to get practically on top of it before it noticed her, delivering a precise slash to its throat before whipping away as it tried to gore her with its tusks. Tori frowned as she noticed a distinct lack of blood on her blade, eyeing the boar's neck only to find a light gash on it.

“That's an Essence Boar!” Tiffany yelled. “You're going to need to do more than slash at it!”

Tori resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she dodged a charge from the boar, lifting herself up and over so she could come back down on its back, stabbing her daggers into its back as she did. The boar squealed in pain, bucking her off and whipping around with an agility that an animal that size should never have, swiping at her with its tusk again. Tori quickly pulled back using her Spirit threads, making it out of the range of the tusk, only for her eyes to widen as a burst of energy shot out of it and dug into her side! Tori let out a pained gasp as she pulled away, clutching her side as blood began to soak through her shirt.

“Why the fuck aren't you using your Essence!?!” Tiffany called out again.

Tori froze for a moment, flushing in embarrassment as she quickly sent some Essence to her wound and began to build her Essence armor, simultaneously defending herself and stopping the blood flow. She continued to avoid the boar as she focused on building her armor, something she really needed to practice more, before getting back into the fight. The first thing she noticed was that the wounds on the boar's back were already starting to heal, and it didn't even seem to have lost much blood from it. Which meant trying to wear the boar down would be difficult, if not impossible, so she needed to make a finishing blow. She doubted she could drive her daggers through its skull, which only left going for the neck again, but this time she needed to stab, not cut. She'd need to be incredibly precise, and that meant she needed an opening.

Tori quickly took stock of her surroundings before putting together a plan, sending a bit of Spirit mist off to the side, quickly putting together an illusion as she moved in the opposite direction, leading the boar away until she was ready. She then swung back the other way, leading the boar back towards her illusion, baiting it into another charge and… sending it straight down a steep incline, the boar letting out a squeal as it suddenly found itself tumbling down a hill. It slammed into a small group of trees, ending up on its back, flailing wildly as Tori swooped in and stabbed through its jugular, ending the fight. Tori pulled back, watching warily as the boar bled out, waiting to see if it had any other tricks to pull, but all it did was flail a bit more, its struggles growing weaker and weaker until it finally grew still and the light of its mind winked out.

“Well done!” Tiffany clapped as Tori collapsed with a weary groan. “Well, not well done… decently done, maybe. Adequate. But there is certainly room for improvement, such as, I don't know, remembering to use your basic fucking abilities!”

“I was focused on being a Spirit Cultivator!” Tori protested. “I didn't think I was supposed to use my Essence!”

“Even without your Essence, it took you way too long to remember you're a gods damned illusionist! And look how quickly you ended it once you did! That should have been the first thing you did, instead of jumping in and trying to slash an Essence Beast! A fight with a Spirit Cultivator should always be more mental than physical!” Tiffany retorted. “I told you that not even an hour ago!”

Tori flushed. “I- forgot.”

Tiffany snorted. “Of course you did. But, I suppose, that's why we're out here. So you have a good reason not to forget next time.” She poked Tori's wound for emphasis, causing her to let out a pained yelp. “Now come on, let's drag this tub of lard back up there so I can teach you how to properly harvest materials from a Rune Beast.”

Tori grumbled under her breath as she rubbed her side, which was thankfully healing well, if slowly. It'd seemed worse in the middle of the fight, but the wound was only skin deep, which her Essence could take care of fairly easily. Getting the boar back up the hill was more difficult than Tori would have thought it would have been considering Tiffany's cultivation. Her mistake was forgetting that while Spirit threads were strong, they didn't eliminate weight so even if Tiffany could lift the boar, she still needed leverage to support it, something that a hill made of dirt was lacking. They had to work the boar up the hill in stages, Tiffany finding a good spot to stand before lifting the boar up, then having Tori stabilize it while she found a new spot before repeating the process.

Once they got the boar up the hill, Tiffany began to skin the boar. “Always take the pelt of an Essence Beast. They make great armor and they're perfect for self-repair enchantments.”

Tori froze for a moment. “Enchantments?”

“Special effects skills craftsmen can instill in their creations.” Tiffany explained dismissively. “The more suitable the materials, the better the effect will take. For example, these tusks could be used to make a weapon with a piercing enchantment. Maybe you could even turn them into a pair of daggers, so next time your slash might actually work. Not that you'd be able to get anything like that done in Farova… you'd need to find a dual-core craftsman, since crafting is Qi and piercing is an Essence effect. But I'm sure you could commission something through the Hunters Guild.”

“That's-” Tori began incredulously, only to pause as she remembered the equipment she'd seen not long after she'd arrived in this world, which she'd almost completely forgotten about thanks to… well, everything. “Right… then- Should we buy some enchanted armor?”

Tiffany shook her head. “The equipment that would make sense for us to have isn't worth the price. Not for us, at least. That money is better spent buying cores to increase our cultivation, something that will do us far more good than a sword that gets a little hot. Such equipment is for those who are stuck at a bottleneck.”

Tori blinked. “Bottleneck?”

“A barrier between them and increasing their cultivation.” Tiffany replied. “Such as not being able to reach the Circulatory realm because you've only managed to cultivate a single type of Rune. It also isn't uncommon to hit a bottleneck in the seventh stage of Core Strengthening due to an inability to acquire a third-tier Rune.”

Tori paused. “You need a third-tier Rune to get past the seventh stage of Core Strengthening?”

Tiffany nodded. “There is a… quality to the pressure from a third-tier Rune that is necessary to compress energy beyond the seventh stage. Additionally, increasing your comprehension of the Rune refines this pressure, allowing you to purify your energy even further.”

“Huh.” Tori grunted thoughtfully. She wondered how pure she could get her energy if she advanced her Runes into Avatars. That had to be the peak, right? There wasn't anything better than a Rune Avatar, was there?

“Alright, pay attention because this part gets tricky.” Tiffany brought her attention back to the task at hand, continuing the skinning process. Once she had the skin off, she sawed off the tusks as well, sliced off a few of the better cuts of meat for dinner, and cut out the core, tossing it to Tori while she wrapped the rest up with the pelt and stuffed it into her bag. “Now, you could also get some good money for the kidneys, liver, or heart, but we don't have a good way to preserve them and it'd be suspicious if we did, so it isn't worth it.” She stood, turning to where the boar had been digging and rubbing her hands together. “Now let's get that truffle!” She brought out a small spade and began carefully digging around, searching for the supposed truffle.

Tori watched her dig for a while before frowning as something occurred to her. “Why don't you use your Spirit to look for it?”

Tiffany snorted. “Because I don't have analysis intent.” She grumbled, continuing to dig for a moment, before pausing and looking up at Victoria. “You- have analysis intent?”

“I guess?” Tori scratched the back of her head. Analyzing things was one of the first things she learned how to do, so she'd thought anyone could do it.

“Then find my damn truffle for me!” Tiffany exclaimed, throwing up her hands in frustration “The fuck are you doing letting waste my time searching for the damn thing when you can just find it!”

“I didn't know you couldn't find it!” Tori retorted. “I only learned about intent three days ago! I thought anyone could do this!”

Tiffany glared at her. “Truffle. Now.”

Tori glared back as she sent her Spirit into the ground, searching for her damn truffle, finding it a few inches below where she was digging. She was about to point it out for her when she paused, noticing something else slightly below the truffle. Something made of metal… some kind of platform? She cocked her head curiously as she examined the platform, spreading her Spirit out to see more of it and finding some kind of plinth buried under a nearby tree. Tori yelped as suddenly something seemed to yank on her energy!

[User detected.] A voice spoke in her mind in a language she didn't know but still somehow understood. [Analyzing… Awakened under three months, double-evolved Spirit Rune, evolved Spirit Rune, evolved Qi Rune, evolved Essence Rune. Spirit reserve: peak. Qi reserve: N/A, core not found. Essence reserve: peak. Potential evaluation: peak. Access granted. Commencing Boundless Trial…]

Tori's eyes widened. “Wait-” The world flashed and suddenly she was gone.

Tiffany froze as she stared at the spot where Tori used to be, a wave of panic and confusion surging through her until she managed to latch onto a single thought. “Bitch didn't find my truffle.”