Invincible Earth! : Volume 1
Chapter 5: On The Station

As Lance got up dusting off his ass, Attok started walking in another direction. Remembering the previous experience, Lance hurried to follow.

This time, it was a much shorter walk. Another unadorned door opened as Attok and Lance stormed right in. Unlike the last one though, this one was filled with hundreds of teens with orange bags in their hands. It seemed as if almost every room Lance had been to so far was so huge that he needed to change the idea of how he imagined a “room” in his head.

“BEHOLD, THE INITIATE WHO IS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST!“, shouted Attok as he entered the room. As Lance was staring agape at Attok wondering what the hell he was up to now, all the people in the room looked towards the door to lay their eyes on him. He felt his cheeks burning as he felt the countless number of eyes looking at him. He sucked his bulging stomach in by instinct to make himself look thinner, but this only served to emphasize his bends in the sides. He heard a few girls giggling as he did this, and this made him blush even more.

A youth who had blonde hair and a lean body asked Attok, “My ancestor said that was me and even gave me this gift for it.” He pointed at a lightning shaped pendant on his neck which seemed to be made out of rock. The sides were smooth with pointed edges, so it was a display craftsmanship if it really were a rock.

“I didn’t finish.“, said Attok as he turned to smile mischievously at Lance. “FROM THE BOTTOM!”

Lance didn’t know where to put his head. His blush was now visible even through his tan. He turned to ask the old man what the hell was his intention when he realized that there was no one there. Attok had caused the mess and disappeared!

“Old man, if I don’t return the humiliation you caused me today a hundred times multiplied, my name isin’t Lance.“, he vowed to himself.

This despicable old man had really done it now. There was no way anyone would respect him knowing he was last. Although he had a suspicion that Attok only did this to develop him mentally, it did nothing to lessen the shame he felt when he saw the smirks and derision in the people seeing him.

A fair girl walked up to him and stretched her hand. Lance had lowered his head and was gritting his teeth when he saw the hand with skin as white as snow appear in his vision. He was shocked and couldn’t respond immediately.

“Hey, I’m Yu Yan. Don’t worry, my ancestor told me that it is our efforts from now on that will decide our future.” Hearing this melodious voice, he looked up to see one of the cutest girls he had ever seen in his life. With dimples, a small teddy bear like nose and short lips whose pout would make a nation melt, Yu Yan’s was a face that any person wouldn’t be able to resist smiling at.

Seeing this amazingly cute face and cheeks with baby fat that looked like they were made to be pinched, Lance blanked out for a second. He raised his hand but it passed her hand, reaching her face and pulling her cheek.

“So soft.....“, he muttered, with the full room staring at him dumbstruck.

…

Lance came back to his senses as he saw Yu Yan looking at him with piercing eyes. Her cute look was gone, replaced by an expression of absolute fury.

“I-I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to...“, stammered Lance while hurriedly taking away his hand.

The damage was done. Yu Yan pointed her finger at Lance as she spat out, “You! I came to console you and this is how you repay me? With such a personality, you will always stay at the bottom! And I hope you do!“. She stormed off in anger as the onlookers started laughing, ridiculing Lance for his behavior. Many people, mostly guys, kept their eyes on Yu Yan as she went back into the crowd. Hers was truly a beauty that warranted a second look.

And Lance had blown his chance with her. He smacked himself on his head as he muttered to himself, “Stupid! She approached you! If only you hadn’t done that, you would be friends with such a beauty by now!“.

He felt an arm on his shoulder and saw a dark skinned teen smirking at him. “Mistakes happen brother! I’m Darius. I would love to be friends with such an interesting guy like you!“, he said in an American accent. He had bulging muscles and looked like the typical jock that one would see in American school parking lots.

Lance shrugged off Darius’s arm as he hurried to enter the crowd. After he entered, he noticed that there were small round spheres floating around in the mass of people. He just hadn’t noticed them till now.

The spheres were white and had what looked like an eye on one side of them which was looking around. Around the size of a man’s head, the spheres looked a bit like eyeballs floating around.

“Go up to an IB and scan your retina. It’ll give you your onboarding kit.“, said Darius who had followed him.

“Ok. I’m Lance, by the way.“, he said as he stretched his hand out. Darius shook his hand and pointed behind him saying, “I know.”

Lance turned around to see a huge screen stretching to the ceiling at the end of the room. The room was a hundred feet high, so it could be imagined how big the screen was. What was strange about the screen was that at whichever point he looked, it seemed as if that point was magnified and he could clearly scroll through each name. There were three columns:name, points scored/300 and rank. As Lance looked toward the bottom of the list, he saw his name and the points he had scored:121.

He cursed the old man again in his head as he turned to walk towards the ball. The ball automatically floated towards him as if sensing his intentions and rose to eye level to scan his retina. After a few seconds, the eye opened in half to reveal an orange bag, like the ones everyone else were holding. Lance took the bag feeling repulsed at the idea of putting his hand into someones eye. The eye floated upwards after the bag was taken, almost like a balloon which had been punctured. Lance followed it with his eyes to see many balls dotting the ceiling.

“Those are interactive balls. Creepy right? Anyway, check out your kit. I got a cultivation manual specialized for my intrinsic nature! And an item which says it will speed up my cultivation when worn! What did you get?“, asked Darius beside him.

Hearing this, Lance quickly unzipped the pouch. All he found inside were two items: a small book and an unsuspecting rock-like object which had a chain attached to it, probably to be worn around the neck.

Lance excitedly reached out to open the first cultivation manual of his life.

…

The book was bound in leather and had a great heft to it even though it was only the size of Lance’s palm. Lance untied the string that was tying it closed to see 3 striking words in English filling the first page:“Standard Cultivation Manual”.

Darius, who was peeking over Lance’s shoulder, saw the title and exclaimed, “A standard manual! No wonder you are at the bottom! Historically, many people with unknown intrinsic natures scored very low marks in the initiation test only to soar like a phoenix later. Of course, I am not talking about those that didn’t have any intrinsic nature and ended up dying in the next phase. I feel proud to have a friend like you! Either you will be cannon fodder, or you will strong enough to carry your whole team through. I’m waiting to see which one it’ll be!”

Lance, who had just processed everything Darius just said, asked him with a sense of fear forming in his mind,” People with no intrinsic nature dying as cannon fodder? That can happen?“.

“Very rarely.“, answered Darius. “It is many times rarer than replaceing an unknown nature. Don’t worry, the last time it happened was almost a thousand years ago.”

“How do you know so much about everything? Was there any onboarding class that I missed?“, asked Lance. This question had been on his mind since he had seen Darius being able to answer almost every question he had.

“Nope. My ancestor was luckily stationed on earth when my family died. He took me in and with the permission of the high council, groomed me from an early age to become part of IE. As such, I just know a little more than you.“, answered Darius as a flash of sadness flashed across his face.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway, where can we get some food around here? I’m starving!“, said Lance trying to change the topic.

“There’s a cafeteria nearby and all information like this is in your manual. Check it out while I go say goodbye to some friends I made here. We can go grab a bite together.”

Lance wondered if Darius was being this close to him because of a sense of friendship or like he had said, because he could either be a phoenix or fodder. Either way, it felt good to have someone knowledgeable with him when everything around him was so new and foreign to him.

Lance opened the cultivation manual. The beginning read:

“Energy is the building block of the universe. Hence, the path of cultivation is the path of becoming a higher energy being. In the Initiate stage of cultivation, one adapts the core of the body to hold and store energy. The standard cultivation manual provides you with the most efficient way to proceed. As your intrinsic nature is not discovered yet, the energy gathered will be nature-less. Your energy will change when you discover your nature as you can then consciously convert your energy.

In the path of cultivation, patience is key. Be creative with your intrinsic nature. Become comfortable with it. Become able to use it to manipulate energy into anything that you can think of. One with the “Fire” intrinsic nature can make their energy and thus their punches scorching hot. One with the “Time” intrinsic nature can manipulate the sense of time in their opponents head to land a hit before their opponent can realize it.

YOUR IMAGINATION IS YOUR ONLY LIMIT.”

Lance felt enlightened. There was so much more to intrinsic nature than he had thought. The last sentence especially built confidence in him, as he had always been very creative since childhood.

But, he immediately deflated when he remembered that his intrinsic nature was still a mystery. He just wished that he wasn’t cannon fodder.