Modern Awakening - A cultivation, LitRPG, apocalyptic novel

An eight-year-old girl was playing with her dog in the vast backyard of a big mansion, watched over by a nanny in a black-and-white uniform and a bodyguard in a suit.

"Stop, Doodoo!" she yelled while laughing. The Golden Retriever ignored her and kept licking her face. "Stop!" She laughed more.

The Latina nanny, sitting on a beautifully crafted white metal chair, smiled at the scene while the standing bodyguard showed no emotion. They had been like that for the few minutes since their arrival already. However, he heard something from his earpiece and frowned.

He approached the nanny and whispered something in her ear. She took a few moments to register the words, then widened her eyes at the same time she covered her mouth. "Dios mio!" she whispered.

The girl didn't notice it. She kept laughing.

Later that night, she cried herself to sleep.

Alicia willed the floating, candle-sized flame in front of her to consume the space around it and get hotter. It obeyed, turning into an inferno the size of her head, promising death.

Knowledge was needed for spell casting, but she had found there were some ways to make it less so. A fireball, for instance, could be created by determining its every single detail, which took a lot of effort over a long time—that's where the focus the system had mentioned came into play. Or it could be created by forming a small flame then willing it to turn over a fireball with simpler instructions.

Movement, she had learned, could also be achieved in two distinct ways. Either by willing things to move, which was like using mana as a limb to grab and move stuff around, or by inputting velocity and a direction vector into their existence. That was the most conceptual thing she had accomplished. Her physics knowledge was being strained thin, and she wished she had paid extra attention to school.

She made the fireball move against the goblin which Ken was holding for her. All the while, she had to will the flames to keep together, or they would just dissipate.

The fireball hit it in the chest, and a fight started in her mind. The goblin's soul protected it against the mana keeping the fireball whole, and she had to force it to keep going. At least the monster had no protections against the very physical flames, despite them being a fruit of her magic. Still, she slowly let go of the fireball's magic, thus letting it dissipate, as the mental strain became too hard to withstand.

Interestingly though, as the fire burned skin and flesh away, opening a hole in the screaming goblin's chest, she found that the soul didn't protect the new opening. Either the soul was also damaged or it could only protect living tissue.

In the end, the goblin took too much damage as its chest was torn open and turned into motes of light.

Alicia let go of her magic. She was sweating cold, the effort taking too much out of her despite her having let go of at least half the fireball by the end. It was just too hard to find the perfect balance between forcing her spell to keep going and letting go of it, just as she was having trouble estimating how big or how hot she had to make her fireball to kill each enemy.

Magic was more than knowledge, it seemed; it was also all about experience.

But as she focused on the motes of light of her fallen foe, she didn't suppress a smile or a few tears.

At long last, she had hope for her revenge.

"It's a shame, dear," her aunt said, but she was smiling. "The dumb animal got stuck in the barbed fence for too long. We had to put it down for its own good."

A ten-year-old girl was holding Doodoo's bloodied, mangled corpse in front of the mansion. She was crying copiously. "That's why Rick told you not to use barbed fence!" she cried in outrage. "That's why I told you to leave him with Carla! You killed him! You killed Doodoo!"

Her aunt's smile widened. She was a beautiful woman with long black hair and blue eyes, but her smile looked like the devil's own.

"Oh, that reminds me," aunt Sophia said. "You don't need an exclusive bodyguard anymore, and you're too old for a nanny. We let half the household go this morning, and we'll be moving out of this old mansion as soon as we can find a buyer for it. Say goodbye to the remaining staff while you can."

"What?! No! This is my house! My papa's and mama's house! I can't leave! I don't wanna leave! You can't force me!"

Aunt Sophia just chuckled, turned back, and disappeared into the mansion.

Ken held one of his daggers against Alicia's throat. The other was cutting her shirt from top to bottom. They were back at the cave where she had unlocked her magic. Mark and Alicia had learned the hard way that you couldn't return to the revival's safe house's region once you left it.

Alicia was crying. "Please, no," she said with little energy. She had tired herself almost to death while learning the limits of her magic. Ken had suggested they get back to the cave to rest, then attacked her as soon as they arrived.

The look in his eyes was the one she had learned to hate the most with her last and only boyfriend: crazed lust.

"Mark would always wake up when I moved at night," he said. "He was too dumb to realize that I wasn't just going to take a piss, but he was always fucking there. The asshole. Too competent for his own good."

"Please," she begged. His knife finished cutting her shirt. "You don't have to do this."

She hated herself. Once more, she had trusted the wrong person. Once more, someone she trusted was using her only for her body.

"You can struggle if you want," he said as he dropped the dagger that had cut her clothes and moved his hand to her chest. "I don't mind—"

She felt his hand's heat, but when it was about to touch her, he simply disappeared. One moment he was there, the other he was gone, leaving all his equipment behind. Alicia had been held against the wall by his weight and fell to the ground when he vanished.

She had no strength to do anything but cry for a long time.

The two teenagers were in the boy's bedroom. Oliver was insisting harder today, his hands too adventurous.

"No," the fourteen-year-old girl said weakly; he knew what he was doing and how to lower her resistance. He was seventeen, one of the school's football stars, with a lot of experience in this kind of thing. She didn't mind his past. All girls wanted to be with him, but she was the lucky one. Still... "I'm not ready yet..." she whispered. "Just a few more months, please."

"Oh, yes, you are," he said. "Can't you feel it? I know I can," he said while touching a place he really shouldn't.

That touch made all her defenses come back up. She tensed and pushed him away. "No!" she yelled, though she immediately regretted it when his face turned to embarrassment.

And then the embarrassment turned into fury.

"Fuck you!" he yelled. "You keep seducing me with your uncovered belly and big cleavage! Do you think I'm made of steel? You fucking little bitch! Either get down to your knees right now or we're over!"

"What?" she asked, completely lost, lowering her raised shirt and skirt in shame. "But you said you would wait..."

"I waited for three months already!" he yelled angrily. "Today's supposed to be the day! I made a bet with the boys! Why did you come here if you would not spread your fucking legs?"

She was trembling in shock. "Y- You said N- Netflix and chill..."

"Fuck this shit. You're too dumb for me, I'm calling Amberley. Get the fuck away from here. We're done."

"No! I... Just give me a few more weeks. Just a couple more, please. I'm almost—"

"Get to your knees or get out!" he interrupted with a yell. She froze, unsure of what to do. And for the years to come, she would be forever grateful for his impatience, or she might've done something she would regret her whole life. "Get out!" he yelled, and she obeyed.

When Alicia woke up, she guessed the system had been the one that took Ken away. That was the only plausible explanation. And speaking of the system, it was time to use it to strengthen herself.

Unlike people, the system was something to be used.

"Buy defensive G gear," she said. She was still tearing up, but she had no time to waste.

She would get revenge on them all. On those who used her for their gain without caring for her. On those who treated her like an object rather than a person.

They would all pay for it.

"Lincoln High is too expensive. You'll finish your education at a public institution," her aunt said during dinner in the tiny apartment they lived in.

Strangely, the fifteen-year-old girl had read the last rent bill by accident and found out it cost twenty grand per month. Was that neighborhood that expensive?

"No," the girl replied. "I like Lincoln High."

"I don't care," aunt Sophia replied, ever the brutally honest one.

"You can't do that to me," Alicia said angrily. "It's my money! I have enough to go to Lincoln High, and I want to go there!"

"Sue me," her aunt said while cutting the expensive beef she was eating.

That was the last straw.

The girl ran away from home that night.

Alicia saw a guy getting overwhelmed by thousands of horned rabbits. The pathetic G-rank creatures were too many for him to deal with it, but he still did well for a while. In the end, he died when he ran out of stamina.

She didn't even consider helping.

It had taken her way too long, but at last, she had learned the only way to protect herself: to stay away from anyone.

Never trust them. Never let them approach. Never put herself in danger for them.

She turned her back to the place and searched for safer prey.

A sixteen-year-old was shaken awake by her best friend. She opened her eyes groggily, and the window was still dark.

Ashley had gone out to have fun with her other friends and was now stinking of alcohol and something else that made Alicia blush.

"You can't stay here anymore," Ashley said as soon as the girl woke up.

"What? What are you talking about? Your mom said it's okay."

"You lied to me. Amberley's mom told her, and she told me. You're not coming back to Lincoln High anymore."

"Oh." The previously sleeping girl sat up. "I'm sorry. I was just too ashamed—"

"Don't care," Ashley interrupted. "If you're not a Lincoln High's cheerleader anymore, you're not popular enough to be my friend. You have to go."

"What? You can't be serious."

"Grab your things and get out. Oliver is here. We need the room."

As if on cue, Alicia's ex-boyfriend entered the room. He barely even looked at her; his eyes were on Ashley's bottom, barely covered by the short dress.

Alicia froze, but her former best friend shook her away. "Are you deaf? Get the fuck out."

She obeyed, for she feared what might happen to her if she stayed there one more minute.

Alicia saw Mark fighting some orcs. To her surprise, he had found another person. It seemed he had been right; something was pushing the tutorial's participants together.

He saw her too, and she snickered when she saw him raise an eyebrow as if expecting something of her.

Of course, he would want more from her. People like him only knew how to take. Like everyone else, he would suck all her goodwill and all she could do for him while she was useful, then throw her away to the wolves—again.

She didn't believe for even a second that he hadn't known about Ken, yet he had abandoned her to the rapist.

Alicia was still afraid of trying to kill Mark and failing, but his time would come.

She turned and walked away, and kept going in a straight direction for days, to make sure she would get as far from him as possible.

After getting expelled from her former friend's house, the sixteen-year-old had had no choice but to go back home.

She wasn't allowed into the building.

The doorman let her know her aunt and uncle had moved away the day after the girl left. Alicia called the police, then sat on the street's floor to wait for them.

She had a feeling both her aunt, uncle, and money were gone for good.

Using sword and magic together was the best fighting style for her. Her blade pierced a minotaur worker's belly while her fireball blew a feller's head.

Five new minotaurs arrived, and she ran away.

She wasn't strong yet, but she soon would be.

She was seventeen when the case was archived. Her aunt and uncle had bought a ticket to Africa then disappeared.

The people who were supposed to watch over them to prevent them from stealing her money said there was no sign at all of any economical abuse. The ones who were supposed to make sure she was adapting to her new family claimed she had always smiled brightly when they visited—she had never seen her even once. None of them went to trial.

A cop let her know they had found a lead, but that they couldn't follow it because it touched on very influential people, and a judge had stopped it from becoming a huge political scandal.

Her enemies were too powerful, untouchable by anyone.

Alicia was glued to another invisible web, and an enormous spider appeared in front of her.

She willed it, and a huge fireball appeared between her and the spider, then shot toward it. After she was done killing the monster, she burned the web away and kept walking.

Magic, she was learning, was true power.

There was no untouchable against it.

Alicia found something akin to happiness in the orphanage.

Life there wasn't as luxurious as she was used to, even in her aunt's tiny apartment, but it was fair. She only had to do her chores and attend school with passable grades, and she got no complaints. Bullying was dealt with swiftly, too. She had no money or status to offer anyone, so no fake friends approached, and it was an all-female place, so there was also no boy to do anything bad to her.

Though, to be honest, the dull routine was giving her ideas. She was getting curious, and her body was asking for new experiences. She didn't hate all boys in the world, only those who looked at her with lust.

She was even anticipating her birthday in six months. When she turned eighteen, she would finally be given some money and a temporary apartment until she got her bearings.

She would also find a job and meet new people. There were a lot of complaints about working at fast-food restaurants, but beggars couldn't be choosers. The orphanage carers also said it was an acceptable first job to get some experience for her curriculum, to then get a better job.

The girl was preparing to go to bed when a blue window appeared in front of her.

Each line she read reignited something inside her: righteous fury.

The system would give her a shot at getting revenge from her aunt, uncle, and those who had been bribed to destroy her life.

"Join tutorial," she said without a second thought.

Alicia heard the fight before she saw it.

Though she knew better than to trust other people, she had been alone for days now, and it was getting to her. She wanted to see another human being, even if it was just to watch them die.

When she reached the battle, she saw a meat grinder in human form.

A bright red and orange hooded cloak hid the fighter. Strangely, while most of the cloak moved around a lot as the fighter moved, the hood was kept firmly in place, hiding their face in unnatural shadows. Probably some magic function.

They were wielding a beautiful spear. The shaft was light brown and filled with drawings of mystical creatures in low relief carvings—though she supposed they weren't so mystical now, were they? She wondered if dragons and phoenixes existed. The spearhead was black and huge, almost like a halberd, but not quite. The red cord thing was so red she found her eyes drawn to it multiple times, despite wanting to check the rest of the spear.

Their equipment, shown when the cloak moved, was exquisite, a golden shirt under a black leather jerkin, matched by black leather pants, boots, and gloves.

And their movement was brutal. There was an obvious efficiency to the carnage, as he killed werewolf after werewolf with such speed and precision that made her impressed. He never stopped, never hesitated. He always hit, his spear always cut true, and his enemies always died.

She wondered if either the cloak or the spear might the responsible for that display.

"Inspect," she said, but instead of the item's name, she got the person's name instead.

"Why are you so slow to get AP?" Mark asked. "Please be faster? I really, really must know what magic does and how it works. Everything depends on that."

Like everyone else, he was using her. Like her aunt, he kept verbally abusing her time and time again. Like them, he would just get rid of her as soon as he could.

"Leave her alone, dude. She's doing her best," Ken said, once more protecting her.

She... she didn't want things to repeat themselves. And she... she had come to the tutorial to fight back. She start soon. With Mark.

For once, she would take the first step to protect herself. At the first opportunity, she would get rid of him. It was not like he would actually die, after all.

She had to do it; for her own good.

Alicia hated people. She hated them all. She wanted nothing more than to turn back from her previous savior, too.

But a part of her, a small, tiny, minuscule part, still had stupid hope. A last spark. Just barely enough energy at all to try once more to befriend someone who had shown kindness to her once and asked for absolutely nothing in return.

The bigger part of her whispered he had gotten 9 AP for his trouble, but the small part silenced it. 9 AP was nothing for someone so skilled. Just by killing a single F-rank werewolf, he had gotten more than that, and he was killing them in droves.

She was terrified of what she was about to do. Less than a week ago, she had almost... almost... She teared up remembering what Ken almost did to her. But she also knew that this was the perfect place to get over it. Terrible men could try to harm her in here, but they would fail. The system was watching over them. Only here could she try one last time to find a genuine friend.

She had to cling to this hope here, because if she didn't...

Alicia had to admit it had felt good to see the boy get killed by the horned rabbits. It had felt good to take revenge on the spider. And she had wondered for a moment how she could use the fighter for her benefit. She didn't want to become that kind of person, but she would if that was the only way to stop the hurt.

When the last werewolf fell, she took a deep breath and stepped ahead.

The fighter turned his head to her and nodded. "Feng Shen greets Alicia Winter," he said.

She swallowed hard and nodded back. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What should she even say?

Seeing she had kept silent, he turned away from her and walked to a backpack laying close to a tree. He opened it, took off his cloak, and stored it inside. She must've shown her confusion, because after glancing sideways at her, he explained, "I got it from a middle boss and was trying it out, but it limits my field of view. I can't sell it to the system, so I'll wait until I can exchange it with someone." He widened his eyes slightly as if he had just had an idea. "Do you have something to trade for it? I have a black robe too. The cloak is F tier and improves—"

He suddenly stopped talking, then moved. She had found him fast before, but now he positively blurred as he approached her. She screamed, her mind barely registering the betrayal before he stopped right in front of her.

She wasn't dead.

He blurred again, disappearing behind her, and when she looked back, she saw him attack hundreds of hornets the size of her head. They also flew so fast they were a blur, though they were slower than him.

Alicia didn't even have the time to take a step back when three of the blurs came her way. Feng Shen suddenly was in front of her, and his spear was cutting the hornets in half.

Then he was gone, back to killing the others.

Alicia teared up, feeling absolute relief for not being betrayed by him. She was safe. Her damn mental health was safe. She would keep being who she remembered herself being with her parents. Who she barely remembered they had raised her to be.

Honest. Decent.

Human.

At the same time, she felt an overwhelming fear of what would happen to her if he did betray her in the future.

Yes, future.

For she had found in the past days that she needed company, and she would do her best to keep by his side for as long as he didn't hurt her.