Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 100: Travel Companions

Zac stopped for the night at a small clearing and let down Emily from his back. Even the fading light couldn’t hide the fact that her face was deathly pale. Moving almost at the speed of a car through dense forest on the back of another human was apparently quite jarring, and Zac had been forced to stop a few times to let the girl take a breather.

There were many things he wanted to ask the teenager about the Tutorial and society after the fall, but he didn’t want to push her either. They buried her parents at a beautiful glade just a few hours ago, and she hadn’t said anything since then. There wasn’t any ceremony, with Zac simply using a broadsword to rip open a hole in the ground where he placed the two together. Since the bodies were naked he first placed a cover over them before he refilled the grave.

Meanwhile, Emily carved the words Remembered by E+J+O in a tree with a dagger she got from Zac. They simply stood staring at the grave for a few minutes before she silently climbed up on Zac’s back, and they wordlessly left the glade. Zac had offered to bury them on the Island, but Emily wanted to bury them closer to their home.

Zac prepared a small fire in silence as Emily was looking at the dagger Zac gave her earlier.

“What level are you?” she suddenly asked as she looked up at Zac, who froze a bit.

“Um…” he said, unsure how to respond. He wasn’t sure whether exposing the fact he was over level 50 was such a good idea.

“Well, are you on the ladder?” Emily changed her question when she saw Zac’s troubled face.

“… Yes. Can you see the ladder?” Zac asked a bit surprised.

“I knew it. You are way too strong to not be a Ranker,” she looked a bit excited. “Everyone can see the ladder. I guess that you are considered role models by the System? So it wants to display you for us as well”.

“Do you know if there are any other Rankers close by?” Zac probed, a bit curious.

“No idea. I know that the government is looking for you people,” she answered as she started cutting and the air with her dagger. However, her movements and technique were horrendous.

Zac took out a spit and large chunk of meat from his sack and placed it on the spit close to the fire. He had grown tired of the tough dried meat long ago and now preferred to barbeque. Now that he was forced to stop for Emily he had the time to spare.

He sprinkled some salt over the slab and left it to slowly be grilled. He mentally kicked himself for not looking for some spices at Fort Roger as the ones from the camper were used up long ago. Then again, he felt that any food-stuffs should have been pilfered long ago in a wretched town like that.

“Why are they looking for us? No, not like that, move like this,” Zac asked as he showed how to properly distribute her weight.

“I dunno. They are trying to get all cultivators to register and become like an army or something? Maybe they want the Rankers to lead the cultivators?” she answered as she mimicked Zac’s movement.

“Hmm…” Zac only answered as he kept moving. He felt that it wasn’t that simple. The world was collapsing, and from his brief visit to Fort Roger he knew that the Government’s control was tenuous at best. Perhaps they needed Rankers to keep people in check. “Are many cultivators complying?”

“I don’t think so, we tried going to the government when we looked for Johanna and Oscar, but from what we heard most people haven’t joined yet. But new people join every day, and the government offers pretty good things,” she distractedly answered without stopping her stabs.

“Like what? Now shift your weight like this, it gives more reach to your stab,” Zac asked as he kept moving.

“Access to system-exclusive things like training facilities. Good Salary. Oh, and they have claimed good areas that have a lot of monsters. Anyone that wants to train there has to be a part of the government, otherwise they are attacked,” she explained.

“Aren’t there monsters everywhere? Why would that matter?”

“That forest is good because it doesn’t have any very strong monsters it seems, it’s a pretty safe spot to level up. Most places have a random mix of animals, and itʼs super dangerous to fight there. Some super-strong monster can pop out anytime and kill you. So finding good spots is very important.”

Zac nodded as it made a lot of sense. His situation was the same. His whole island had turned into a farmer’s paradise in a sense, as the demonic beast hordes killed off any normal animals that could have become a real threat. There was no supercharged mink on Demon Island, only Barghest and Gwyllgi. They were dangerous compared to most animals, but there would never be any surprise beast or boss jumping out of the bushes.

They kept going for some time before they sat down to eat. Zac was by no means a knife-master, but some things he learned from his guidance system was universal.

“Do you know why so many towns have Nexus Nodes?” Zac suddenly asked.

He knew that he wouldn’t be the only one with a Town Shop system, but after seeing Fort Roger he was a bit surprised to see just how low the bar was set.

“Um, because people like to live together?” she answered, looking a bit confused.

“What?”

“Well, those crystals appear when enough people live together in a town, right?” Emily answered.

“Hmm…” Zac only answered.

“Then everyone gets a quest to fight for ownership. It can get pretty crazy. My parents got such a quest once, but we immediately left town and hid out until it settled down. But I heard those crystals are always the worst ones, and only give classes,” she continued after looking at Zac. “Only those who get their crystals from The Tutorial can actually build things with it, and it is different there as well. Like if they impressed the System in the tutorial they get to buy more things. I’m not sure.”

It looked like the nexus stations popped up just from population density, and a quest like the one for the Fruit of Ascension would start. The Nexus Station gave almost no options, but he was sure that the one who claimed ownership would get some quest to evolve the crystal.

He was a bit irritated earlier that others already had towns when he created his since he might have missed out on some good titles. It took him a few days to figure out how to create an outpost, after all. But it seemed their progression was limited. After all, he doubted the people of Winterleaf village single-handedly closed a freaking incursion in order to establish theirs.

Emily soon fell asleep since she was tired from today’s events, but Zac only needed a few hours of rest. He sat down with his back against the wall and started pondering the Dao. There was no Fourth Dao seed he felt close to attaining, and instead he needed to focus on upgrading the ones he had.

He turned his eyes inward toward the Axe-fractal in his mind. Since he gained the Seed of Sharpness the axe had two colors, with one side being dark blue with some brown, and the other a steely grey. The colors represented the two Seeds he possessed, Sharpness and Heaviness. There was a clear line of demarcation between the two Daos, and the auras didn’t mix in the slightest.

He knew that one of the things he needed to do in the future was to fuse these two, but it was very far off. Alyn explained that there were two ways to improve the Dao. The first was fusion, and it was the path he had been walking since the start. Since the day he saw the vision he knew that the seed of Heaviness he gained was only part of the terrifying aura in the axe-man’s swing. He would have to fuse more concepts into it to create a true Dao of Axe.

The path of fusion often walked from simplicity to complexity. It combined simple concepts into something greater than the sum of the parts. The other path was generally referred to as evolution. It meant pushing a Dao Seed to its limit, and from there letting it evolve into a higher Dao of the same category.

That was his plan with his Dao of Trees. There might be a possibility to fuse it into his Dao of Axes as well, but Zac felt it would weaken it rather than strengthen it. Instead, he’d work toward evolving it by itself. Unless he suddenly gained a fourth seed somewhere and tried his hands on fusing that as well.

Neither fusion or evolution was better than the other according to Alyn, they were just different. However, she told him that most focused on evolution since fewer Daos were necessary to progress with that path. With fusion he’d always need to gain enlightenment on at least two Daos.

Dao was generally considered the true watershed in the path to power. Over time most people were able to hit their level cap, and money could solve the issue of Race evolution. But Dao was something you needed to figure out yourself. There were some tools and treasures that could help out, but it mostly depended on personal aptitude and insight.

Zac felt he probably wasn’t some genius since all three of his seeds essentially came from his visions. He did gain the Seed of Sharpness a few months later, but the foundation for learning it came from the same vision as the Seed of Heaviness. He was afraid that evolving all three at the same time would be more than he could chew off.

He still was hesitating whether to put aside two of the seeds and only focus on one, or to focus on both the offensive ones. The Dao of Trees was the lowest priority for now, as its use simply didn’t feel as readily apparent.

Finally, he made a decision in his mind. He would focus on the Dao of Sharpness, at least for now. It was the Seed he had for the shortest time, but it felt like the most useful one. He stared at the axe in his mind, trying to glean anything out of the silver fractals.

He also played both the vision of the axe-man in his mind, feeling the terrifying force of the strike. Finally, he revisited the fight with the Fiend Wolf. He remembered the feeling of standing in the Dao Field, where even the air turned sharp from the Dao. He remembered how the casual swings of the beast rent long lines into the earth without any cosmic energy needed.

He also pondered upon what sharpness actually meant. It wasn’t as simple as the thinner the edge the more damage he could do. Sharpness needed control and technique to be properly applied as well. He remembered seeing clips before the fall where people tried using razor-sharp swords and barely were able to cut anything since their technique was bad.

He kept it going for a few hours before the mental strain became too much and he fell asleep. He woke up a few hours later, only to find Emily intently staring at him.

“Are you Abbot Everlasting Peace?” she asked curiously.

“Urh… what?”

“Well, you look like a monk, and when I woke up during the night I saw you meditate. You already told me you are on the ladder. So are you Abbot Everlasting Peace? Or Boundless Truth? Is that why you weren’t interested in me? Is there nothing down there?” she peppered off, almost overtaxing Zac’s exhausted brain.

“Boundless? Wait, what? I’m no monk, my hair only got singed off in battle recently. And I’m not missing any goddamn parts, okay?”