Chapter 148: The Ancients

The ancient door remained stubbornly shut, its exposed metal glittering in the dwindling torchlight. Jack tried pushing, pulling, even sliding the door. Nothing worked.

“Guess I have to break it,” he concluded after a five-second analysis.

“Oh, give me a rest,” Nauja intervened. Raising her good hand, she wiped off some of the dust that had alighted on the door, revealing a line on the metal underneath it. “See?” she asked. “It’s engraved.”

She then drove her open palm into the middle of the door. A gust of wind spread from it—a skill—clearing the door completely. The result was a dust cloud that enveloped them, making all three cough for a few moments. When it finally settled, Jack took another look.

“Huh,” he said.

Something had engraved the hard metal as smoothly as sculptors engraved clay. The door illustrated a battle. Humans, along with smatterings of other species, filled one side of the door. They rode crab-shaped starships, were surrounded by colorless auras—there was no color in these engravings—and were drawn in a way that indicated both Dao and technology. There were hundreds of them, each the size of Jack’s palm, filling up half of the large door.

The other half was occupied by larger creatures. Twelve of them in total, each completely different from the others. There was a smiling human at the very top, his body shackled by dark chains. A creature of pure darkness was in the middle, slightly larger than the rest. The other ten were all presented as featureless humanoid shapes, but their forms weren’t as solid as the topmost, shackled man’s. They were fainter, expertly carved as to appear translucent. Each had differences compared to normal humans.

One was made of fire. Another, of stars. A third comprised of many small spheres tightly assembled into a humanoid shape, and a fourth seemed normal, but everything around it was warped, as if it was drawing them in. The fifth creature was made of lightning, the sixth of blue and red sparks, the seventh of explosions, and so was the eight, except fewer but larger ones. Finally, there were two creatures that only appeared as bodies of water, one resembling a rippling pond and the other a steady current.

Twelve large creatures. An army of humans and other species using the Dao and technology to fight against them. Galaxies as the background.

“Wait,” Jack said, taking a step back. Incredulousness creeped into his voice. “This rings a bell.”

“Twelve gods…” Nauja said, voice shaking with awe, eyes scanning the engraving. “The Old Ones…”

“Then, these ones,” Jack raised a hand to gently touch the army, “are the Immortals?”

Master Shol had talked about this once. The Immortals, the makers of the System, had waged the Immortal Crusade against the Old Ones.

“I…” Nauja narrowed her eyes. “I am not sure. The Immortals led the Crusade, yes, but they are supposed to be machines, not humans. These are probably the Ancients.” She took a trembling breath. “My ancestors.”

Jack frowned. He thought he’d heard something about the Ancients before, but he wasn’t sure. “So the Ancients were soldiers of the Immortals?”

“No!” Nauja jerked away as if Jack had blasphemed. A moment later, she caught herself. “No…” she continued, her voice lower. “The Ancients were the first people to ever exist in the universe. They flourished and spread across the universe, spreading life to other galaxies as well. Every species you know came from the Ancients.”

Jack frowned. He was pretty sure everything on Earth evolved from amoebas, but he let her go on. It took only one sentence for his attention to be rewarded.

“Until they discovered the Old Ones,” Nauja said.

Jack instantly homed in on her words.

“The Old Ones feared the Ancients’ growing power. Using their divine powers, they eradicated them.” She took a breath. “But it didn’t end there. The Old Ones turned their gaze away, but though the Ancients were gone, they had left a heritage. Descendant species across the universe. And, most importantly, the Immortals.”

Jack listened with rapt attention.

“The Immortals were machines dedicated to the Ancients. Their first children, before they discovered how to create true life. When the Old Ones destroyed the Ancients, the Immortals swore revenge. They forged the System, an existence based on the Dao, meant to facilitate the development of sapient species. The System quantifies and streamlines the Dao, serving as a guide for everyone who wishes to attain true strength. It makes the path far more accessible, creating a host of warriors to fill in the Immortals’ armies against the Old Ones. That was the primary directive.

“When enough soldiers were ready, the ninety-nine Immortals went to righteous war, each wielding godlike powers. They were flanked by the strongest cultivators of all the galaxies, and that gave them the power to challenge the Old Ones. The war raged on for a millennium, destroying the Primordial Galaxy in the process. In the end, the Immortals pushed back the Old Ones, but couldn’t kill them. Not a single God had fallen. But they had the System. The Old Ones were forced outside System space, and the Immortal Crusade remained inside, where their powers were greatest, and where the Old Ones didn’t dare touch them. After that…” She bit her lip, frowning as if trying to remember. “Balance returned, but the promise of eternal revenge still stands. In time, the Second Immortal Crusade will come, and the Old Ones will be shorn off the face of the universe.”

“Wow…” Jack said, eyes wide. “I had no idea.”

“Maybe it’s not accurate,” Nauja said, suddenly bashful. “The legend has been in our tribe for countless generations.”

“Does everyone know this?” Jack asked. “The version I heard from my master mentioned nothing about the Ancients.”

She shrugged. “Probably. We don’t freely share our culture with delvers, but they have gotten more valuable things out of us. Surely some people know.”

“I see…”

More secrets. More lies. More hidden knowledge.

He returned his gaze to the engraving. He had context now. He saw the Ancients and their children species—though that part was debatable—standing against the twelve Old Ones.

To be precise, it wasn’t a battle. There were no attacks flying. This was the stand-off before the battle, where each side showed off their power—their godlike power. A concept that made him and his struggles, even the entire Animal Kingdom, feel insignificant.

What level had the soldiers and generals of the Immortal Crusade reached, to be qualified to stand against Gods? C-Grade? B-Grade? Or, perhaps…even stronger?

Jack turned his gaze to the twelve Old Ones. He had never been a religious man, but the System and magic existed. Gods belonged to the same domain. Suddenly, the awe and wonder that flooded him were strong enough to bring him to his knees, a sense of purpose flashing in his chest as some ancestral instinct urged him to devote his entire life to worship.

And yet, they were enemies. Jack wasn’t a follower of the Gods. He was their opponent, walking the path of divinity himself, because how else could man stand up to God?

“So these are the Gods…” he muttered, observing them, taking in their every detail and memorizing their individual shapes. He began drawing connections to things he knew. “I recognize some of their powers,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “This one is electricity, this is fire, obviously, this is…magnetism?” he tried, staring at the creature made of pairs of blue and red sparks.

“The Old Ones represent the foundational forces of the universe,” Nauja explained, still lost in disbelief. “Everything else is a combination of these twelve powers. I know some of them, but not all… See that one?” She pointed to the topmost man, the one that had a clear humanoid shape but was shackled by darkness. “That is Enas. He used to be the King of the Old Ones, but the others teamed up and cast him into a bottomless pit of darkness at the end of the world, where he will remain trapped for eternity. Nobody knows why. That one”—she pointed at the creature wrought of darkness—“is Axelor, the new King of the Old Ones after Enas. I’m afraid I do not know the rest.”

“There is always something greater…” Jack thought. These unfathomable heights of power should bring him a sense of fear, of futility, like all his struggles were for naught.

Instead, they gave him hope.

For the first time, he saw the Animal Kingdom not as an unsurpassable mountain, but as one force amongst many. The Kingdom and all their allies, the entire Galactic Alliance, only had B-Grades as their peak. If A-Grades existed, even Gods, that meant there was a way out. Jack just had to reach that level of power. Then, nobody would bother him.

Just becoming a God… he thought, chuckling in amusement.

It was an impossible goal, but even that was better than total despair. There was a way out. The moment Jack realized this, he felt his entire being realign. Even if he would never reach those heights, he had a clear target now, a destination at which to orient himself. He would just head there, try his best, and if he died or failed in the process, so be it.

His heart instantly felt lighter.

“Well, history is great and all,” he said, “but we still need to get through this door. I could try breaki—”

Nauja’s glare was sharp enough to cut through stone.

“I was kidding,” he added quickly. “This is clearly a precious artifact. There has to be another way in.”

“...Right. But what?”

They both stood there, inspecting the door. Brock made monkey noises, pointing at something. Jack squinted to see it.

In the bottom left corner, behind the army of the Ancients, were more people. They were angular humanoids, their faces and bodies square. Robots, he realized with surprise. They were rushing at the army of Ancients from behind, probably to assist them in battle.

“Those must be the Immortals,” he said.

“Yes,” Nauja agreed. “But how does that help us open the door?”

Nobody knew, but Brock was happy to have spotted something they didn’t. He raised a hand and high-fived Jack, while Nauja watched on with mild amusement. “Men…” she said.

They then returned to observing the door. Having discovered the Immortals, stuffed as they were in a corner, they thought there could be more hidden details. Their eyes scanned the engraving, looking for something, anything, but even after a few minutes, they’d come up short.

Nauja shook her head, taking a step back. “I think there’s nothing. The engravings are just that—engravings. The answer must be hidden somewhere else.”

“Hmm. Maybe there’s a hidden button?” Jack tried.

He drew his hand across the door, gently pushing it all the while. He felt every line under his skin, steady and straight, as if whoever made this was carving clay, not steel. He kept going from down to up, side to side, slowly exploring the door’s surface.

When he was a fifth of the way up, he felt something. The metal hadn’t given way. But there was something.

“Hmm?”

His gaze sharpened, moving his hand back to where he’d had the feeling. It was the bottom-most Old One, the one that resembled a rippling pond. When Jack’s hand touched it, he felt a strange sense of emptiness, though the metal was clearly there. It took him a moment to place the feeling.

It was like a mental emptiness. Like some core aspect of the metal was just…not there.

In fact, it felt oddly similar to his fists when he was about to imbue them with his Dao.

“Hey, check this out,” he said, pointing at the Old Ones. “I think I can push my Dao into this one.”

“What?” Nauja approached, placing her good palm over the engraving and closing her eyes. A moment later, they snapped open. “You’re right!” she exclaimed. “I feel the same.”

“Should we do it?”

“Hold on a second.” Her fingers rose to the next Old One—the one that looked like a steady water current. “This one is empty too.” She proceeded to the one, made of many small explosions. “And so is this.”

After a quick inspection, all twelve of the Old Ones felt empty of Dao.

The world was filled with the Dao, every nook and cranny of it, making it impossible for an E-Grade to push their Dao into reality. But these spots were vacuums.

Jack and Nauja also confirmed that there were no other such vacuums.

“Are we supposed to fill them all up?” Nauja asked. “Doesn’t feel too difficult.”

“Hmm. That’s almost too easy.” Jack narrowed his eyes. Suddenly, they flashed with understanding. “Wait! Notice how each Old One is completely different from the others? You said they each represent the foundational forces of the universe. That everything else is just a combination of these twelve forces.”

“Yes?”

“What if we have to fill up just the one that is most compatible with our Dao?” he explained excitedly. “Like, this one is fire, and that’s electricity. I don’t know what most of them are, to be honest, but maybe I just have to find the one most adjacent to the fist.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I still think we have to fill them all up.”

“Then let me go first. If I fill one up and nothing happens, we just fill the rest as well. We don’t lose anything.”

She considered it for a moment. “Okay,” she finally agreed. “Let’s do that.”

Jack grinned and turned to the door. The fist, he said, tuning out everything else to focus. With his recent increase in Will, it wasn’t difficult. Let’s see…

There were twelve Old Ones. A shackled man—though the shackles didn’t seem like part of his power—a creature of death, then fire, electricity, magnetism, two creatures of explosions, stars, small spheres—mass, maybe?—one that warped everything around it, and the two water-like ones.

Channeling his Dao of the Fist, a few of those were immediately discarded.

The watery ones were a no-go. They felt completely unrelated to the fist. Electricity, fire, and magnetism were also out. That left seven.

What about the warping one? That could be gravity, or something similar, which didn’t have much in common with the fist. Discarded.

The stars? He failed to see the connection. The small spheres? He didn’t know what that was, but it felt unrelated, so also a no-go.

Eight down, four to go: the man, death, and the two explosions.

The explosions were the first he considered, actually. His Meteor Punch was the closest skill he had to the Dao of the Fist, and it was an explosion. However, why were there two of them? One was made up of many small explosions, and the other of fewer but larger ones.

Jack didn’t know what fundamental forces of the universe those represented, or why they were so similar. Did the explosion match with the Fist?

To a degree, he admitted. But it wasn’t the core. There was more to the fist—or rather, his fist—than just exploding stuff. It wasn’t just a weapon. It was a declaration of will, a way of life. It was the nature of his soul, and, as contradicting as it sounded, it involved way more than breaking things.

Reluctantly, he placed the two explosion Old Ones as a “maybe.”

Which left just death and the man.

Death… he considered it. Death is a result of combat, but I don’t think I aim at that. It’s even farther than the explosions.

A “no,” then.

Which left only the human. If he could discard that as well, he would know that one of the explosions was the answer.

But the human… Jack frowned. What exactly did it signify?

There was no discernible characteristic. Nothing supernatural about him. Just a human, a man, standing in space. His details weren’t clear, but he seemed to have a calm, steady smile, like he saw through everything and simply enjoyed reality.

Could he signify people? he thought. Simplicity? Life? Intelligence?

All those could be true. However, this concept was more complicated than the others. For everything else, he could imagine fitting Daos. But what Daos would fit the image of a human?

It felt like the door was cheating, throwing in a wildcard like that. So Jack ignored it. Instead, he focused inwardly, sinking into his Dao and all the insights he’d gathered so far.

What was the fist? It was a path. It was freedom. It was battle. How could it connect to…whatever this human signified?

Well, my path is the natural one, he thought, though everyone probably feels the same about theirs. I embrace my instincts without losing track of myself. I stand, laugh, and fight when I have to, and die when I lose. That’s how life should be. I feel complete in this path, happy.

It’s how everyone should live, in my humble opinion.

But what did that have to do with being human?

Maybe this is all there is to it, he considered. I am simply who I am. This is what it means to be a human.

However, even he felt that this was slightly off the mark. A bit naive and overstated, even.

Hmm. What else? What is my fist?

It’s all the things I mentioned before. However, if I abstract it, is it closer to explosions, or closer to being human?

When he thought of it like that, the answer came easy. Violence and battle was part of his Dao, but just that, a part, a manifestation. The true core of his Dao was the nature of the fist. He strived to make himself behave and think like a fist; steadfast, reliable, strong, honest.

In the end, the Dao was far more than just a weapon. It was a state of being, a way of life. The man he yearned to be.

Jack opened his eyes, gazing at the shackled human at the top of the door, and reached out to touch him. His Dao flowed in, barely a trickle before the vacuum was filled.

Nothing happened.

“Told you,” Nauja bragged. “Now, let’s—”

The cavern shook. The door shone, all twelve Old Ones glowed—starting from the human Jack had chosen—until the glow illuminated the entire engraving from behind. Colors appeared. Suddenly, it was a work of art, one of mesmerizing beauty that lasted a mere moment.

And then, soundlessly, but with the tunnel still shaking, it swung open inward, revealing a patch of impenetrable darkness.

Nauja was left staring. So were Brock and Jack, but Jack was the first to recover.

“Jack one, Nauja zero,” he said, full of pride. “Now come on. Let’s go see what’s behind it!”