Savage Awakening 188. The Second Concept (III) (Patreon)

We are prepared to offer you:

- 1 Complete Tier 4 Electricity Inheritance. 

- The S-grade Sky-ranked Treasure White Lightning Lotus Petal, a treasure exclusive to Mount Thunderclast. It blooms once every 100,000 years, carefully tended by generations of Thunderclast gardeners—all for your consumption. 

It should grant you a great headstart on the Lightning Paths—enough to wipe out whatever deficit you may incur by forgoing your current Path.

We offer this as a gift. No contract required. We only wish that you keep Mount Thunderclast in mind when the bidding stage occurs post-Integration. 

And floating there in space—close enough to touch—a flower unfurled. A flower that seemed made out of pure electricity; it was strange it managed to hold a form at all. It was like no electricity Zane had ever felt. It didn’t crackle. It flowed like water. Each petal was a collection of perfect white arcs, as though drawn through a stencil. 

And that aura… there was so much essence in it it overwhelmed his senses. He felt like a blind man seeing light for the first time. He just stared at it, blinking, not really sure what he was seeing. 

We wish you—

the screen fizzled.

Zane blinked.

TAMPERING DETECTED

Violation of Universal First Decree: No contact with planets during the Integration phase is allowed!

No surveillance of planets prior to Superdungeon is allowed!

Violations of natural selection is strictly prohibited. Whether a planet survives is the province of Fate, and Fate alone. 

Galactic Hegemon Mount Thunderclast is hereby charged a penalty of: 1 Archstone. Governing Empire, the Celestial Imperium, has been notified of attempted violation.

Tampering Materials revoked.

The flower vanished.

Zane felt a sharp lurch in his gut. He blinked. 

Sunlight splashed over his face. The world colored in.

He was staring up at a 60-foot-tall marble statue of a curly-haired man with a slingshot, staring up defiantly at the clouds…

Zane blinked again.

What was that all about?

Most of it flashed by too fast for him to read it all. He stood there thinking.

Someone tried to do something—give him a treasure? It didn’t work though. The System, it seemed like, shut it down. That much he did get. 

Weird. 

He would let Reina know about it. She could figure out what it meant. Whatever it was, it seemed like it didn’t work out. Now he was here. 

He stood there a bit longer, staring off into space. Then noticed the town square around him was fully cleared out. The army of the Nova Roma Faction, all dressed in battle tunics, flanked each corner. Lined a long winding street heading out…

The soldiers were all trying not to stare at him. The bubbling crowd beyond were all staring at him, some shouting, some pushing past each other to try to get a look at him.

Right.

The second Concept. He was in Italy.

He shook his head. 

Whatever it was, it seemed to have passed. 

Back to the matter at hand.

***

News had spread that he was trying for a second Concept. Well—he doubted they knew that specifically. But they knew he was trying for something. He was spotted here yesterday, at the very least, which meant today the streets were clogged with excited locals. Some parents raised their children on the heads of the guards to get a better look at him.

Kind of weird how he hardly batted an eye at this kind of thing anymore. 

Oh—there was the news crew again. The same blonde man and lady not-so-subtly trailing him, enthusiastically speculating on just what he was trying today. They seemed to think he’d be going for Core. Level 200.

It did strike Zane as kind of weird that he’d be shooting for a second Concept before he even hit Core. Then again, his soul talent always did outpace his Leveling talent.

Lots of weirdness today.

Anyway.

He was grateful the army was there. He remembered the early VGI days when he just got mobbed, and had to mean-mug and flare his aura to keep people off him. That was… it couldn’t be more than two months ago?

He scratched his head. Life came at you fast. 

By the time he'd gotten halfway up the mountain, he'd switched fully back to Law mode. All he was thinking about was Chain Combustion. The noises of the crowd faded away. The world muted in his mind. He was already one-foot here, one-foot in the Astral Realm. 

He was ready.

Ideally, he’d get the second Concept today. He could push his limits tomorrow with the help of more soul rejuvenators. But it would cost him dearly later on. He felt fine right now, but there was this soul-drooping lingering weariness creeping at the edge of his mind, a kind of sludgy humid brain-fog for the soul—it got intense in brief spells before fading, drowned out by his elixirs. He felt like a really sleep-deprived student pulling an all-nighter, cramming for some test by downing Monster energy drinks over and over.

…Though in school, he’d never been one to do that kind of thing; he could never focus enough for that, now that he thought of it. Now he could focus on Laws for hours at a time. Imagine that. 

Point was—if he could get it today, it would save him weeks of recovery. On top of the weeks of recovery he’d already have to do after this grueling session.

He hiked to the top of the mountain, right under a whirlpool of dark clouds, searing lightning—rain lashed at the grounds, splattering streams of live lava, making a hissing steaming mess of the place. Tufts of steam drifted from the peak, curling down the mountainside.

He strode right in the middle of it. Sat down. Closed his eyes. And honed in on what he came for. 

*** 

All around him, lightning struck magma. Over, and over, and over. Nature fighting itself… birthing new, passionate feelings. Feelings he could sense so clearly in the Astral plane. 

He found the point of white-hot contact. Found a feeling birthed at its core, a passion—the very heart of Stormfire.

All passions had a way of spreading—fire, lightning, joy, anger, excitement… he had to find it in Stormfire too. 

He looked deeply into the Plasma. Feeling for the essence of it. 

It all started at a feeling—give that feeling to anything, intensely enough. And it would start to feel it too. Start to sustain itself. Start to burn up, even without your feeding it. It just needed that spark. 

It didn’t matter where you started from. Air, or water, or stone.

Every little thing had latent energy. Power bound up inside—dormant feelings. Begging to be let loose. Once he really searched for it, he could find it. To make a Chain Combustion was really to use one match to light another. But you could light anything. He felt it so clearly now. 

He just had to give his Stormfire permission, he realized. He had to let it free—let it run wild, strike out on its own. Chain into the world. That was the essence of the Concept. 

He reached out with a hand. It was instinct. It mirrored his reaching out with his soul. A flicker of Stormfire bloomed at his fingertips… he saw it bare in his mind’s eye. The way this Law would knock on the door of matter, break down the walls between material things—let loose their energies, one by one, springing new energy into new energy, sharing freely, endlessly…

He opened his eyes. Of the body, and of the mind. They flashed as one.

His Stormfire flickered harder, spasmed—and a single brilliant spark flew out. Landed right on the stone by his feet—a feeling, passionate and intense, striking deep down within it—to its very core…

And it woke the slumbering power within.

Concept Comprehended! 

The Concept of Chain Combustion

Instantly the stone exploded. Went up in a blaze of shining Stormfire.

And all that power gushed out—dashed ground, struck boulders, struck magma even, turned scalding red coals blue. Then the reaction went so fast it gave him whiplash. Like cannon blasts going off one by one, erupting all around him, spreading so fast, so far he could hardly clock them—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! 

One spark and ten-odd explosions rippled out. And it just kept going, flowing down the mountain, up the mountain, striking up into clouds, turning black to lighting-blue, rocking the earth and skies to their very cores— 

He was still smiling, basking in his success, when he realized this was getting dangerous fast.

He struck out with Emperor’s Soul. Felt pockets of furious feeling sparking up all around him—and forced them down with a clenched fist.

One by one they smoked out.

Which left him standing there coughing, surveying the damage.

Hmm. 

He appeared to have decapitated the mountain. 

Where there was a peak, there now lay one big smoking crater. It reminded him of a volcano that had blown.

Like Mount Vesuvius, actually. Which had erupted here so many years ago, and drowned the town below in ash…

He had quite an unpleasant thought. 

Just in case, he peered down the mountain.

He was pleased to find he had not accidentally recreated that disaster. There was still a crowd bunched a few dozen miles down, staring up flabbergasted. Very much alive.

So. He flexed his hands.

The nice thing about Stormfire upgrades was the moment he used it, it’d apply to every Stormfire Skill. 

Now when he threw a Stormfire Punch, it would set off a chain reaction of explosions all over the enemy. If he sliced, it’d do the same thing. Just multiplying the power, the intensity of his blows. Turning one punch to ten. It didn’t drain his essence much either since it drew its explosive power straight from the source. He could focus his essence on powering his body… and heaven knew he needed a lot of that. 

He nodded, satisfied. That made for yet another huge breakthrough in power. Second Concept was a success. 

It should serve him well soon.

*** 

As he made his way down the mountain the crowd was mostly quiet. There was something of a kerfuffle when he’d first blown the top off the mountain—he’d heard lots of shouting, saw lots of pointing. Now it was just stunned silence. He passed easily down the roads between lines of pale-faced warriors.

He was kind of hungry. His tummy was rumbling. He was looking forward to dinner. 

Hopefully without getting trapped in some inter-dimensional waiting room this time.

*** 

“—Pretty sure," gasped Becca. Her hair had gone all frazzled from the shockwave. “We just witnessed yet another first-ever achievement. First to a second Concept! That shockwave, that aura… it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. It almost felt like we were witnessing some kind of—of nuclear blast!” 

"Just when some were beginning to think that after her recent performances on Heaven's Peak, Irina Volkova could be the strongest in the world,” said Tyler, shaking his head. “Goodness. I mean—what can you even say at this point? It feels like every other day Zane Walker pushes the limits of what we think man is capable of.” 

“And on that point—pardon me,” said Becca, a little miffed. "Irina Volkova is very impressive. I mean no disrespect to her or her fans… But anyone who thought that, before or now, has been captured by hype. You can’t stand here with a straight face, and tell me anything on Earth can survive a shot of that.” 

Tyler nodded. After exclusively covering Zane for quite a while, they had developed something of a homer bias. 

*** 

Zane told Reina about that weird alien stuff when he got home. She listened with rapt attention, brows knitted together.

She was silent for a little, just thinking. She brushed a lock of silky-black hair out of her face, pursed her lips. Then—

“It sounds like this 'Mount Thunderclast' was trying to jump the line and bribe you ahead of time," she said slowly. “I think the Alien Factions will get a chance to make us offers after this is all over. The System enforces strong rules about this process though, clearly… It sounds like they’re not allowed to make first contact right now.” 

Something seemed to baffle her. “How do they know who you are? It said they can’t surveil us yet—can they check the World Rankings? Or…” 

But she hadn’t heard of any of the other top World Rankers getting this kind of offer.

Zane didn’t get it either. 

He put it out of his mind pretty quickly. 

Back to Leveling.