Chapter 3: The Grind and the Gift
Days bled into nights, a seamless, dark tapestry woven with the sounds of struggle and the scent of blood. Leo's world was a perpetual midnight, but his Perception, now a staggering 45 (a value the System quantified as 'Superhuman - Echo-Locative'), painted it in strokes of sound and vibration.
He had clarified the System's mechanics early on. [10 EXP equates to 1 Attribute Point.] The initial 100 EXP boost to Perception had been a one-time initiation bonus, a surge to give him a fighting chance. Now, the grind was real and mathematical.
His life became a brutal cycle. Hunt. Eat. Train. Sleep in fitful, alert shifts.
The [Full-Body Crucible] protocol was relentless. The [Kinetic Chain Alignment] form was his constant focus. He practiced it while skinning his kills, while searching for water (which he found by listening for the specific sound of underground seepage), while simply walking. Every movement was analyzed and optimized. His gains were incremental but constant.
[Kinetic Chain Alignment proficiency: 4.7%. Strength attribute effectiveness increased by 4.7%.]
This was his cultivation. While mystical youths in distant sects meditated on drawing heavenly Qi into their dantians, Leo cultivated the perfect pivot of his hip to generate more newton-meters of force in a punch.
He learned the language of the Abyss. The skittering of the Night-Skitterers. The low, seismic rumble of a "Stone-Hide Bear" he wisely avoided after a single encounter left him with two cracked ribs (which 50 points in Vitality had fixed in a day). The chilling, silent swoop of a "Shadow-Wing Owl" that he only detected by the minuscule drop in air pressure before its strike.
He was no longer the panicked blind man. He was a fixture of the forbidden zone. A dangerous, moving part of its ecosystem. The monsters that had once seen him as easy prey now learned to be wary of the silent, motionless human whose fists struck with the force of a battering ram and whose "vision" seemed to pierce through the densest foliage.
One evening, after a particularly grueling fight with a serpentine creature that fought with whip-like tentacles (300 EXP, well earned), the System chimed with a new message.
[Daily Quest Chain: 'Unbroken Spirit' completed. 7 consecutive days of survival and combat proficiency confirmed. Host has demonstrated unwavering will in the face of absolute adversity.]
[Reward: Item - 'Staff of the Unseen Path'.]
There was a flash of light in his mind's eye, a concept of light rather than photons his dead eyes could process. Before him, with a soft thump against the mossy ground, something materialized.
Leo knelt, his hands reaching out. His fingers closed around a length of smooth, cool wood. It was about six feet long, perfectly straight, and as thick as his wrist. It was impossibly smooth, as if polished by centuries of use, yet it felt alive, humming with a latent, non-Qi energy he couldn't identify. He tested its weight. It was perfectly balanced.
He gave it an experimental swing. It cut through the air with a whisper, its trajectory true and predictable. He tapped it against a nearby rock. The sound was a solid tok, and he felt no shock travel up the shaft. The rock, however, had a new, small chip in it.
[Staff of the Unseen Path. Grade: Unknown. Property: Indestructible. Property: Weight Adjustment (User). Property: Soul-Bound. A tool for the walker without light, a weapon for the warrior without equal.]
A grin spread across Leo's face, the expression feeling unfamiliar on his features. An indestructible staff. For a blind man who had been relying on fang-daggers and sharp rocks, it was a gift beyond measure. It was a walking stick, a probe for the terrain ahead, a tool to test the depth of streams, and most importantly, a devastating weapon.
He spent the next few hours adapting. The system, sensing his intent, began integrating the staff into the [Full-Body Crucible] protocol. New forms, based on ancient staff fighting techniques from Earth's history—Bōjutsu, Gunmanship—filtered into his consciousness, optimized for his hyper-developed senses.
He practiced. He spun the staff, feeling its balance point shift at his mental command. He could make it light as a feather for swift strikes or heavy as iron for crushing blows. He used it to "see," tapping it gently ahead of him, learning to interpret the vibrations that traveled back up the shaft, building a sonar image of the world at his feet.
With the staff in hand, his efficiency skyrocketed. A pack of wolf-like creatures with venomous claws that would have been a serious challenge days ago was now dismantled with precise, crushing strikes to their legs and skulls. The staff was an extension of his will, an unbreakable lever that multiplied his Strength.
[Strength: 31. Dexterity: 33. Vitality: 32. Perception: 45. Intelligence: 10. Unallocated EXP: 120.]
He was growing. Leveling up. He was no longer just surviving.
He was farming.
One day, his heightened hearing picked up a new sound. It wasn't the raw, bestial noise of monsters. It was… structured. The clang of metal on metal. Muffled shouts. A human voice, sharp with command, undercut by screams of terror.
Humanity. He had found it. Or it had found him.
He moved towards the sound, silent as a ghost, his staff barely whispering against the undergrowth. His Perception focused, filtering out the forest to isolate the conflict.
"...the formation won't hold! Fall back to the gorge!" a young man's voice, strained with panic. "Elder Brother,the Devil-Ape is too fast! It's picking us off one by one!" a female voice, laced with pain.
Leo crested a small rise. Below, in a clearing, a scene of carnage unfolded in his mind's ear. Four cultivators, their Qi auras flaring like weak torches in his perceptual field, were being systematically slaughtered by a large, incredibly fast creature. He could hear the whump of its powerful leaps, the shriek of claws tearing through silk and flesh, the crack of a breaking bone.
These were not masters. Their Qi was weak, their movements clumsy. They were children, armed with pretty swords, thrown into a meat grinder.
The largest Qi signature—the "Elder Brother"—yelled a command, and a flash of light (a talisman?) erupted. The Devil-Ape roared in pain and rage. Leo heard it slap the cultivator away like a fly. The man's body hit a tree with a sickening crunch and did not move again.
The remaining two disciples screamed, their fighting spirit broken. They turned to run, but the ape was already between them and the path out.
Leo stood on the ridge, unmoved. This was not his fight. This world had given him nothing. It had taken his sight and dumped him in hell. These cultivators, with their precious Qi, were everything he was not and could never be.
He could turn around. Leave them to their fate. Their deaths would net him a hefty amount of EXP. The pragmatic choice was clear.
He heard the girl whimper, a sound of pure, utter despair. It was a human sound. A sound he hadn't heard since his own world.
He sighed. The soldier's code, it seemed, had transmigrated with his soul.
Gripping the Staff of the Unseen Path, Leo stepped out of the treeline and into the clearing.
"Hey," he said, his voice rough from disuse. "Pick on someone your own size."
The Devil-Ape, looming over the cowering disciples, stopped. It turned its massive head. Leo could hear its hot, foul breath, could sense its immense, bestial strength. It was the strongest thing he'd ever faced.
It saw a blind man with a stick.
It charged.
Leo settled into his stance, the staff held ready. For the first time, he wasn't hunting for EXP. He was stepping into a fight to protect someone else.
It was a novel feeling. And for a reason he couldn't explain, the System chimed.
[Quest Updated: Survival. Evolved to: 'Protector's Path'. New objective: Slay the 'Infernal Devil-Ape'. Reward: 1000 EXP. Reputation with 'Verdant Sword Sect' increased.]