Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 44: Peak

Zac woke up just at dawn and decided to meditate briefly before getting ready. He wasn’t sure whether it helped him gain insight and progress his Dao Seed, or help gain a new one. Even so, he felt it was a worthwhile endeavor. He was starting to get worried about his psyche. He had bathed in blood and battle constantly for weeks, and it had taken its toll. He felt he almost shut off all his emotions as a coping mechanism to not go insane, but it wasn’t a permanent solution.

He needed to adjust his state of mind to be able to endure. He knew that even if he survived the island, his life wouldn’t likely change much. He still had to defend his island from new invaders for three months even if he managed to kick out the demons. At least if he understood his quest Incursion master correctly.

Incursion Master (Unique): Close or conquer incursion and protect outpost from denizens of other alignments for 3 months. Reward: 5 E-Grade Nexus Crystals, outpost upgraded to town, status upgraded to Lord. (0/3)

Since the quest still hadn’t progressed after over a month he believed it would start up as soon as the demons and the Incursion were dealt with. If it meant that he only needed to worry about the critters on the island for three months afterwards, then everything would be well and good. But Zac held no hope that the System would be so nice about it, and would likely send some trouble his way.

As he was looking through his quest panel he also noticed that the Forester’s Constitution quest unfortunately hadn’t progressed from his day of battling Monkeys. There were some solitary trees rooted on the cliffs, but it seemed the system made a clear distinction between a mountain next to a forest and a forest.

He closed the menus and silently stared out over the tranquil view. The mountains were quite a bit calmer compared to the forest, as the stone monkeys didn’t have the tendency to incessantly roar like the barghest did. It almost felt like he was just camping again, which made him think about Hannah.

To be honest, he hadn’t really been thinking about her and the others a lot lately, as he was focused on surviving and getting stronger. As he was reminiscing about her he realized he had missed an important clue about the tutorial. The four of them hadn’t returned to his camp after the month-long tutorial had ended. He didn’t reflect over it at the time, his mind occupied with the newly arrived demons and his class acquisition.

As he saw it that could have two reasons. First, they were all dead, and the system didn’t bother to teleport back corpses. Second, after finishing the tutorial they were not teleported back from where they were snatched up, but somewhere else. Perhaps to human settlements or the like.

He could only pray it was the second reason. He wondered if they were looking for him, or if they just assumed he died. Had Hannah moved on?

Zac sighed and looked out over the sunrise. What obligations did he have to a new girlfriend when the apocalypse came? They had only been together for a few months when the world was integrated into the multi-verse. And even if he managed to find her again it would likely take a long time. Could they still even be considered a couple? He couldn’t find any easy answers and simply tabled the matter.

There were monkeys to kill.

He ate a quick breakfast and headed out. Today he was planning on scaling one of the peaks to look for the Herald. As he traversed the mountain he made an intriguing discovery. The further up he climbed, the more concentrated the cosmic energy felt.

He was clueless if it was related to altitude, or something about the mountains themselves caused the phenomena. But he realized that it might be very valuable in the future. He wasn’t a cultivator, but even he felt invigorated by the density of cosmic energy in the surroundings.

Perhaps he could rent out the mountains to cultivators in the future at exorbitant rates. He could only assume that cultivating in this kind of environment would be far more effective compared to doing it at a place with a normal density of energy. It could be a great source of income if he got a town up and running in the future. There was something about the thought of becoming a post-apocalyptic slumlord that gave him a comforting sense of normalcy.

Zac spent half the day killing monkey packs and scaling the closest peak, with his efficiency in monkey dismantling starting to reach a sublime level. There were some surprises where unexpected backup that Zac had missed entered the fray, but it generally only resulted in more Nexus Coins for himself. The scariest moment was when a monkey somehow managed to sneak up on him, biting him in his inner loin. Just slightly to the left and the monkey would have eaten his precious jewels.

He reached the peak midday, and after a brief survey could conclude that this peak wasn’t the home of the Herald. The air felt quite fresh up here, and Zac decided to have his dinner with a view. He sat down between some rocks to look more inconspicuous and retrieved some fruit and dried meat from his pouch.

His experiments with food and the pouch was a great success. Everything he put inside kept even better compared to a refrigerator, the fruits and slabs of meat still looking pristine after over a week. He didn’t dare start a fire for some barbeque this close to the demon town though, so he could only stick to his dried rations.

As he ate he looked over the mountain range. His view from the peak afforded him a unique vantage, and he made some new discoveries.

There were a total of five real peaks, of which he sat on the western-most. The peak he occupied was slightly off on its own, whereas the other four were a bit more clumped together.

Between the four peaks there seemed to be a secluded valley that wasn’t visible from down below as it was located a few hundred meters above sea level. The mountain range itself had some sparse vegetation, such as some windswept shrubbery and small trees, but the valley seemed quite lush with an abundance of leafy growth. Zac even thought he could discern a small pond or lake, but couldn’t be sure as a large part of the valley was covered in a mist.

The valley certainly looked intriguing, like a secret little paradise hidden from sight. If he was on a treasure hunt he’d bet all his doubloons that any riches the island had to offer were hidden there.

More importantly, it also seemed like a good resting place for a Herald.

The only thing making him unsure was the fact that the monkeys seemed to like the rocky outcroppings and cliffs of the mountain. It would be a bit odd if their leader preferred to stay in a forest instead.

The great elevation also allowed him to finally confirm that he was indeed on an island. He hadn’t been able to see anything behind the mountain range before, and knew there might have been land on the other side as well. But steep cliffs gave way to the ocean at the end of the mountain range, looking almost as though the mountain had been sliced clean off. Perhaps the System simply had chopped off part of a larger mountain range and slapped it onto the edge of the island. It was quite the sight, with a drop of at least 100 meters down into the waters below.

Zac finished his meal and made his way back down the mountain slopes again, and started trekking eastbound for the other peaks. He kept killing every monkey pack in his way, bringing a storm of carnage to the mountain. He was somewhat surprised that there still wasnʼt a more concerted effort to catch him by the monkeys by now, as the monkeys seemed to care greatly for each other.

But they stayed in their groups still, and made perfect targets for him. He even gradually dared to attack larger packs as his confidence grew. Initially he skipped the gatherings that were too large, but by now he felt confident enough to attack most packs.

Zac thought that he would actually gain another level this day, but he was forced to suddenly stop fighting during the evening. It wasn’t because he was hurt or lacked targets, the problem was his axe.

His war-axe possessed a self-repairing and sharpening feature through its inscriptions, but it seemed it couldn’t properly keep up with Zac’s recent activities. During his barghest-genocide it had no problems staying in good shape, but here it was dull and blemished after only one day.

Zac realized that the tough rock plating on the monkeys’ bodies was the problem. His strength and endurance provided all the power he needed, but it was his weapon that failed him. He was quite confused about the whole thing though. When he fought the monkeys he always used his skill [Chop] to create the translucent enlarged edge to cover his actual axe head. Still, his actual axe was worse for the wear.

It seemed that the skill didn’t just copy the edge of his weapon, it rather projected it. That was a disadvantage he hadn’t expected, but then again it still was an extremely powerful and diverse skill for being the first attack skill the class offered.

With no other option he could only find a refuge for the night again, and instead spend greater time on practicing with [Axe Mastery] and meditating. He briefly considered whether to keep going, using one of the large swords in his pouch as a weapon instead. But he eventually decided against it.

For one he couldn’t use his skills with a sword, and there also was another reason he hesitated. He wanted to use other weapons as little as possible in general.

When he picked his class it generally looked like the options were based on his activities. Since his stats, skills and experiences all were centered on the axe he wanted to upgrade in this direction when he got the opportunity to upgrade the Hatchetman class. He was afraid that he might miss out on a good class upgrade if he kept using too many various weapons and not fulfill the prerequisites.

That’s why he also really wanted to find more axes, so he wouldn’t be forced to use knives as much for throwing or as back-ups. He even toyed with the idea of stalking the roving gathering parties on the island to find someone with axes, and then take them out. But ultimately it still felt like an unnecessary risk. That he managed to kill the party at his camp so smoothly largely could be attributed to the element of surprise. He felt that he could likely wipe out most of the parties by now, but he couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t be able to send out a warning signal like the flame mage had tried.

Zac finally found a decent cave and settled in. As he was practicing his axe technique he was pondering whether he already had to change his plans. The reason was the huge amount of Nexus Coins he was racking up. A day of killing the monkeys resulted in roughly 100 000 nexus coins. That amount took him almost a week to gather when desperately hunting barghest.

He currently had 347 000 coins, and only needed two days to gather the necessary coins for the movement skill [Steps of Gaia]. He felt his current weakness was that his speed was lacking. If he could move faster he wouldn’t have to keep throwing his axe at people, but instead simply run up to them.

Allocating his free points in Dexterity was an option, but he felt it wasn’t the correct one. He had already decided to focus one or two stats and let his titles take care of the rest. He already had 59 Dexterity, which should be considered a lot for anyone not having Dexterity as his or her main attribute.

Besides, after observing the demons he fought he realized they did the same thing. They were specialized in one or two stats as well. The mages didn’t have overbearing Strength or Dexterity and likely focused on Wisdom and intelligence. Instead, they used things like magic shields and earthen walls to protect themselves from attacks.

Zac felt that this was the way that people powered up in the multi-verse. Focus on the attributes that best empowered him, and have skills shore up the shortcomings.

He knew he likely had survived the mentalist mageʼs binding during his last bout with the demons due to his high Intelligence and Wisdom. But he assumed that normally a warrior would have a skill to protect their mind instead of wasting their free stat points on those attributes.

The only problem for Zac was that he didn’t have a ready source of skills except the Nexus Node. But the choices there seemed quite limited, and he hadn’t gotten any new Class skill quests yet. If specialization was the way to go it also meant that he had wasted some stat points in the beginning by putting them into Vitality and Dexterity.

Of course, without the points in Vitality he might be dead by now, but not being optimized left a bad taste in his mouth.