Scorching Ascension - [Progression Litrpg Apocalypse]

At some point, the smell of charred insects and wildfire had stopped burning his throat and nose, and all around, the tropical island burned. It wasn't all on fire, but there were many pits smoking and blazing and whenever a breeze happened to come by, the inferno raged hotter.

Floating above the giant red bulb and watching as another small swarm of insects was spat out, Ethan knew that the amount of smoke and fumes he'd breathed should have killed him ten times over, but this was another proof that whatever the System was really making super-humans of all of them.

"For how many of those damn things you're spitting out, you'd think I'd have filled my pockets with primagems," he grumbled, his bone-white scaled hand pointed down. He hadn't been able to recover any so far. Just fragments. And he had a suspicion that somehow, the giant plant was just… devouring all of the primagems that might have been generated in this place. Or it was just that recently spawned creatures couldn't create them.

Whatever the reason was, it was annoying.

The black claws glinted, and Ethan spoke out the spell. "[Sunshard]."

A swirl of intense red and brown appeared at the tip of his claws as mana rushed out of his chest, feeding into the growing magic. Within a couple of seconds, an orange glowing pebble formed and quickly increased in size until less than ten seconds later, it was nearly the heft and volume of chair-sized boulder. A jagged, metallic chunk of glowing, red-hot stone hung at the edge of his hand and as it continued to devour his mana, Ethan found himself leaning back from the heat as beads of sweat slid down his back, frowning.

This is a little alarming, he thought as he squinted his eyes. Even the charging fireballs never got this hot. How are people without a fire resistance supposed to cast this damn thing?

The glowing rock stopped pulling on his reserves, and he could sense it through his connection to the spell. It was ready to be launched.

Ethan felt like a kid with a match in front of barrel full of fireworks. A grin spread on his face as sweat beaded his brown, and taking a deep breath, Ethan let the spell go.

His arm and shoulder were violently kicked back as the boulder of glowing rock shot down. Grimacing as he shook his hand, Ethan watched the tiny comet fly down at the blood-red giant bulb right as it spat out more of the scarabs, only for the boulder to blast through the freshly summoned scarabs as if they were mosquitoes on a windshield. Then it tore through the protective leaves and burned through the flower for a second before it hit the ground, and the whole island rumbled as earth and flaming fragments of molten earth rocketed up.

Ethan could feel the shockwave through his scales, and while the explosion hadn't been as large or eye-catching as his larger fireballs, he had to admit it was much more violent. There was an ear-piercing whine as the giant flower jerked itself around, then up as it uprooted itself away from where the projectile had landed, and as the smoke and dust cleared, it became clear why a plant had control over scarabs.

That is just crazy, Ethan mumbled as he began channeling another [Sunshard] while the giant, infested scarab pulled itself up from the soil. Ethan couldn't tell if it was still alive or if it was fully zombified by the plant that sprouted a flower right atop its back, but considering the roots that had broken through the giant scarab's abdomen, he believed it might be gone. Though at the end of the day, it didn't matter that much. The rift challenge was to exterminate the plant, and just to make sure it didn't survive, he was crisping everything before he left.

They had enough to deal with when it came to politics and wild rifts outside. They really didn't need an infestation of plant-controlled monsters on top of everything.

But that's probably happening already, he grimly thought as the kickback of the spell threw his arm back. The recoil was a little more controlled now that he expected it, and Ethan watched as the shard of glowing rock hit the giant carapace and cracked through the wing's exoskeleton, revealing squirming roots within.

"Urgh," Ethan grimaced, almost gagging as he looked away.

That might be one of the worst visuals he experienced ever since this all had started.

Igniting his arms, he flew down and hovered a dozen yards or so above the twitching scarab. There really was only one solution for what he was seeing down below.

"Kill it with fire," he grumbled, arms pointed down as more fireballs began forming atop his horns. Then his flames surged down and the smell of burnt insects and roots filled his nostrils.

***

By the time the blackened, smoldering bulb-controlled scarab fell and by the time the notification popped in the corner of his vision, the whole island was burning. Well, most of its was just smoldering, having already flamed out in the near 30 minutes it took his flames to eat into the massive bulb and its squirming root like innards. He might have been able to finish the infesting plant and its roots faster, but he frankly didn't want to touch or get too close to it.

"If I ever thought of keeping a rift around, I'd definitely wouldn't start with this one," he mumbled as flew low, and around the giant carcass, eyes peeled for any glowing primagems or any drops aside from the fragments. After three rotation with no primagem or spellcores in sight, he sighed, the once he collected the fragments, he pulled up his notifications.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Rift challenge: Destroy the heart of the Verdant Rootmind completed

Challenge reward: One trait token and one tier-2 spell token

The riftcore can be claimed.

The two tokens showed up in his interface, and Ethan was tempted to immediately activate the trait token but held off.

"Better finish up with the notifications and get out of here first," he said as he checked the levels and fragments he earned. While the smoke and heat wasn't bothering him much, he'd love to get some fresh air.

You have reached Level 75. 1 stat point awarded.

…

You have reached Level 77. 1 stat point awarded.

Shardpurse: 3364 fragments collected.

Pylon E-G12: 6728 fragments withheld to be delivered when within range.

That was a good haul. Next, Ethan reached through the folds of the realm and plucked the core, then before the cracks could spread out too much, he stepped back out of the pocket world.

Finding himself back in the lights of dawn above the docks, he took a deep breath and sighed. "That's better. But I'm gonna smell the smoke for days, I think."

Looking around and below, he was happy to see no scarabs or roots, though he made note to tell the others and have someone watch for any anomalies. In any case, he was glad he hadn't wasted too much time in the rift.

Cracking his neck, he was about to bring up his trait selection when he noticed the soft orange shine along his shoulder. Peeking down at the softly glowing gems, Ethan smiled. "I guess I did use a lot of fire. I don't mind this," he chuckled as he activated the trait selection. "Alright, let's see."

Select a trait from the list below:

Soul Space: What the body cannot carry, the soul can shelter. A hidden pocket within you holds what matters most—safe, weightless, and ever yours. Create a small storage space in your soul.

Bound Spellform: Some spells are too vital to leave behind. You can slot one spellform of your Prime Arcanum tier or lower to be always accessible. Changing the bound spellform can take a few hours.

Tireless Spellslinger: Fatigue comes for all, but you hold it off longer. Your refined mana channels let you cast for longer before strain sets in, sustaining your magic when it matters most.

Ethan crossed his arms and hummed. "The new one's good, but the heart is basically doing the same thing. Bound Spellform is still great, but honestly, I'd love to not to have to carry this thing around," he said as he tapped the pouch he'd tied around his neck. "Especially if everything fits in this soul space…"

Ethan nodded. The pouch had helped him a bunch, but it was unfortunately often bothersome, especially when he didn't have clothes on. It was in the way, and it was always a worry that it'd drop or that it'd burn in one of his explosions and whatnot. A storage hidden within him would be great. Especially if it allowed the pouch to go within.

Worth a shot, he thought, his mental finger hovering atop of the selection. Ethan was about to select the option when there was a buzz in the back of his mind, and in the right side of his vision, a prompt showed up.

All awarded pylons have been activated or have been deemed lost.

The leaderboards will be enabled in 48 hours.

Ethan blinked, then his frown deepened. It seems that some have taken their sweet time to activate their pylon. "But they probably didn't have a choice," he mumbled. He could see how easily some would have gotten into trouble. Which probably explained the 'deemed lost' part. "There's probably some that didn't manage to activate it. Or where in too bad of a shape when they came out of the tutorial… at which point the environment finished them off."

That was a little grim. Looking at the message again, he hummed. "We're getting leaderboards, huh?"

Just like in the first hours of the tutorial, this felt like an incentive to push them forward.

I wouldn't be surprised if another main quest showed up once they were up, he thought, and after waiting for a couple of seconds with no new messages, he dismissed the prompt and selected his new trait.

"I guess we'll see what happens next," he spoke above the rippling waves as the sun floated up from beyond the horizon.

Today promised to be another interesting day.