Chapter 449: The Mountain

A sea of molten gold stretched out in every direction around Alex. It enveloped him completely, rushing past his body in a furious river as he plummeted through empty space. Something about this portal felt different than all the other ones he’d gone through.

The trip was lasting far longer than any other had. And, strangely enough, he could have sworn he could practically feel the magic slipping through his fingers. It was so thick that it nearly felt tangible. But every time he tried to scoop any of it up, the raw power just forced his fingers apart and rushed through them.

Alex was just glad that he could still breathe. It would have been a hilariously — and somewhat on-brand — joke by the System if it just suffocated him in magic on his way to what he presumed to be a great deal of loot and riches.

This must be what the River King felt like when he was traveling through his gold. I’m almost getting the urge to start firing people the day before their retirement and denying them severance pay.

More and more magic rushed past Alex. This was really taking a lot longer than he’d thought. It must have been a minute already, and there still wasn’t any sign of the trip coming to an end.

Something shimmered deep within the gold.

A flash of an image. Something streaking through a distant sky. Waves of… something. An army. Hundreds of monsters, organized into marching rows, armored and ready for battle. Crackles of Riftwarped Qi—

And then the gold was gone.

Alex’s feet hit the ground. He stumbled, stars dancing before his eyes as his mind scrambled to gather itself. Power leapt to his fingertips as he yanked on his magic in preparation. There was nothing there.

No traces of the army remained. The Riftwarped Qi was gone as well.

Alex stood on a grassy plain in the shadow of a massive mountain. He couldn’t even begin to make out its peak. Clouds hung in a thick cloud in the air above him, gathered specifically around the mountain to ensure nobody could so much as dream of gazing upon its heights.

Just about a quarter of the way up the mountain was a large plateau. It jutted out of the steep rock as if some god had taken a sheet of rock and driven it into the mountain like a blade. There was a city built upon it. Though it looked small from where Alex stood, the city was clearly quite large. It was at least the size of Valley Ford before it had been flattened.

“Huh?” Alex muttered. He glanced around. There was nobody else here. His only company was a sloping dirt path that ran out from where he’d appeared and ran up the mountain toward the city. There were similarly no traces whatsoever of the golden pathway that had deposited him here. “The hell is this? Where’s the loot?”

No answer arrived. Alex was alone.

He turned in one more disbelieving circle, just trying to confirm that he wasn’t hallucinating. This was supposedly some kind of Treasure Realm. It just seemed that whoever had made it had forgotten the treasure part.

That, or he had to earn it.

Alex looked back to the path leading to the city. His eyes narrowed.

“Fucking System,” Alex said as he let out a disbelieving laugh. “The coins were just the admittance to play in the first place, weren’t they? I’ve still got to fight for the actual reward. What a grift.”

He couldn’t argue that it wasn’t a pretty clever way to filter out how many rewards you had to give out, though. When Mirrorwane eventually got discovered and when people that didn’t belong to the town eventually started coming by, maybe there were a few pages that he could take from the System’s book.

The Outworlders might have experience with the System, but something tells me they’ve never experienced the level of bullshit that Earth got up to with our Gatcha and gambling. I’m putting Aaron in charge of a grift-the-Outworlders department as soon as I get back.

Alex shook his head. Then something caught his eye. Just at the base of the mountain was some movement that he’d missed before. There were people there, small enough that he could just barely make them out. They’d gathered at the path leading up toward the city but seemed to have stopped to set up camp for some reason.

“So I’m not alone, here,” Alex mused. “The question is if those guys are the same as me, or if this is just another test from the System.”

There was really only one way to find out — and he was still quite a ways away from the base of the mountain in the first place. He was pretty sure it would easily take an hour or two just to get to the mountain’s base and meet up with the people if they were still even there.

And that was just enough time for his monsters to respawn so long as he took his time. So, without any further delay, Alex set off along the path.

Let’s see what you’ve got in store for me, System. There better be some damn good shit in that city up ahead.

A straightforward note: this chapter was taken from the author's official posting without permission, and reading that posting supports their work.

***

It was just over three hours later that Alex drew up to the group of people gathered at the base of the mountain. He’d drastically underestimated the distance he had to travel. Even though he’d been running at a pretty respectable speed the whole way over, it had taken much longer than he’d thought it would.

Alex couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the people were still here. He’d been watching the mountain path during his entire run over. Only one or two people had ever headed up it. The rest of them were just sitting around at its base.

It wasn’t like there was even a proper camp. The closer Alex got, the clearer it became that there was no organization to the gathering whatsoever. It was just a bunch of people waiting for… something. The few scattered tents clearly belonged to individual people rather than any organized group.

They were, however, all clearly armed. Most of them had some weapon or another — and very few of them looked plain. These people weren’t inexperienced. They’d seen battle. A lot of it, by the looks of things.

Everyone here… they’re other people that got 10 Cracked Coins, right?

Alex kept his guard up as he stepped into the crowd. But nobody so much as glanced in his direction. Everyone was focused on the base of the mountain or caught up in a conversation. He continued forward until he was near the edges of the crowd closest to the mountain.

There was a man standing at the base of the path. His hands were clenched tight at his sides. He stood looked in position, unmoving, as he stared up the mountain. Several seconds passed. The man didn’t so much as budge.

I feel like I’ve walked into some weird-ass cult.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked, glancing to a tall man with grayish skin standing at his side.

The man glanced down at him. There were several long gashes on his neck that Alex realized a second too late to be some manner of gills.

“We are waiting,” the man replied. His lips pulled back in what could have just as easily been a smile as a sneer. He had several rows of jagged teeth filling his mouth. Alex regretted his choice of whom to ask his question almost immediately. The man looked like a predator — unfortunately, in every sense of the word. “Is this your first time in the Treasure Realm?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I take it that everyone else here is a veteran?”

“Something like that,” the sharklike man replied. He looked back to the person at the base of the mountain. “This is my fourth attempt at ascending the peak. Don’t go looking for advice from any of us. Nobody gives it. Nothing useful.”

“I’ll take the not-useful stuff,” Alex said. He looked up to the city. “Though the premise seems clear. We have to get up there?”

The man snorted. “I’d settle for something more reasonable your first time around. Every step you take on this path is a reward in itself. Climbing the mountain… well, you’ll see.”

“There are several rest points along the path. Getting to any of them will reward you. The farther you go, as I’m sure you can guess, the better the rewards will be,” a bulky woman with rough, stone-like skin said from Alex’s other side. “And not everyone here hoards knowledge like you, Oscar. Be nice to the fish.”

“What’s the point?” Oscar let out a short bark of laughter. “Almost none of the first-timers make it back a second time. I’ll be nicer if we run into each other again. There’s no point wasting the effort if we don’t.”

“Thank you,” Alex said, ignoring the sharklike man as he looked to the woman. “So we just have to climb the mountain?”

“Basically,” she said with a grating laugh. “If only it were as easy as that. The going theory I’ve heard is that this whole mountain is an ancient training ground of some sort. It doesn’t play nice. It was meant for some real ancient monsters. But if you can make good progress up that path… the rewards are amazing.”

“Is that so?” Alex asked curiously. “So that’s why it’s called a Treasure Realm. Of course. Can I ask how you got here?”

“The same we all did,” the woman said with a shrug. “The Cracked Steps. One of the entrances. There are a lot. We won 10 fights and got our entrance to the trial. It’s a one-time ticket. Fail and you get sent back to square zero.”

So the Cracked Steps exist outside the Mirrorlands as well. I doubt everyone here came here the exact way I did. But that also means everyone here is definitely able to handle themselves if they’ve won 10 fights in the Cracked Steps.

The man at the base of the mountain took a step back.

A sigh ran through the crowd. Before Alex could even ask what was happening, the man vanished.

“That was sad,” someone said. “Didn’t even manage one step. He definitely got carried all the way through all his fights.”

“Why are you wasting your words?” Oscar asked, sending a sidelong glance at the stone-skinned woman. “It’s a kid.”

“I got a lot of help the first time I came around,” the woman replied with a shrug. “I don’t see any reason not to pass that favor on. It’s not a big loss. But, either way, I got places to be. Good luck, kid.”

The stone-skinned woman broke away from the crowd and strode toward the base of the mountain. She drew up to the spot where the previous man had stood. Her shoulders stiffened. For a moment, Alex thought she would freeze.

But she didn’t.

The woman put one foot in front of the other, continuing up the mountain at a slow, steady pace. A few murmurs of approval rolled through the crowd. Nobody else stepped forward until she’d vanished behind a jagged outcropping.

Alex could feel his heart starting to beat faster in excitement. This looked fun.

I wonder how the mountain interferes with your ascent. It’s pretty clear that if you take a step back, it’s over. The only way permitted is forward. At least it’s direct.

“Thanks for the help,” Alex said, stepping past Oscar.

“You’re going?” the sharklike man sounded surprised. “Now?”

“Why not?” Alex asked, feeling the gaze of the crowd landing on his shoulders.

“It’s a newbie,” another man said. “Since when do you care, Oscar?”

Alex ignored them all. He’d started toward the mountain. He didn’t know what it would count as failure, but he sure as hell didn’t plan on failing because he’d glanced over his shoulder or something. The test was too straightforward for him to risk doing that.

But there was something had caught Alex’s attention.

The way both the stone-skinned woman and the man before her had reacted… it really seemed like the mountain’s trial was pressure. Both of them had seemingly been fighting against an invisible force trying to slow them down.

And if Alex’s guess was right, it was the very same kind of trial that he’d faced in the Forsaken Grounds. It was a trial that he’d attempted quite a few times already... and one he already had a rather respectable amount of success in.

I’ve been training for this exact challenge for quite some time already, haven’t I?

Alex’s lips split into an eager grin. His eyes raised to the city in the distance overhead.

Then he stepped onto the mountain.