Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 160: Long Time No See

Since Zac was already up and about he decided to head over to the contribution shop. There was still 7 hours before it closed, but he thought he might as well spend the points he’d accumulated. He had still not received any rewards from the quest and guessed they would appear when the timer went to Zero.

Ogras had left earlier with some glee, likely happy about his windfall from the shop. The demon had received quite a haul as well, especially as he bought most of the materials in the bazaar with his own money, giving him a large chunk of profit.

Soon he arrived at the Contribution crystal, and the area was filled with people. There were even a few Zhix warriors there, though they kept their distance from others. There were also a few demon soldiers keeping an eye on them.

The Zhix generally respected the strong, but they also hated Cosmic Energy, which made for a confusing situation for the insectoid warriors. They had been quite impressed with the demon’s performance against the zombie wave, but at the same time disgusted by the amount of corruption in them.

At least they weren’t attacking anyone, which was a step in the right direction in Zac’s book. He still held some hope that the Kundevi hive would be the bridge to ally himself with the Zhix population, which had become even more important now as his relations with the new world government had soured a bit.

As he approached the crystal the contribution shop automatically opened in front of him.

[Contribution points: 59 348 334]

It wasn’t too bad, he’d generated around 18 million points during the third wave. It was less than half the amount he gained during the other two waves, but on the other hand, the wave only lasted for a few hours. He expected a large part came from the Rockman leader, but Zac wasn’t sure whether he gained something from the Corpse Lord as well.

He didn’t gain any cosmic energy from defeating him, as he didn’t actually manage to kill the undead leader, but he might have been rewarded contribution points since forcing the Corpse Lord to flee might have been the largest contribution in defeating the wave.

There was no point in trying to figure out the System’s contribution formula, and Zac instead focused on the available items in the store. He still wasn’t quite sure what to buy. One thing he’d realized as he fought these powerhouses was that they seemed to have more skills than him.

He’d asked Ogras about it before, and after some prodding, he learned that Ogras got new skills at 60 and 75. In fact, Ogras got more than one skill when reaching the max level of F-Grade. If the undead leader was actually an E-ranked being who was limited to F-Grade when arriving on earth it would explain an even greater amount of skills.

Zac still had some trouble deciding whether to buy some skills to broaden his repertoire, or to get something else. He was afraid that it was a waste to get skills right now when he might get a more suitable one from his class in just a few levels. The short but intense battle had actually given him two levels putting him at level 56 now.

There were no Dao-related items in the store, so he had to focus on something else. He already knew there was no pill or item that could fix his wound either, as that was the first thing he looked up. Finally, his eyes landed on an item called “Fruit of Vitality”. It was a stat-boosting treasure that gave a permanent small boost to an attribute.

Stat-boosting treasures were always in high demand, and quite expensive. The most expensive ones by far were those that gave boosts to all stats or luck, and unfortunately, neither one of those types were in the store.

The Fruit of Vitality was a high-quality F-Grade treasure, and according to description could boost his vitality by 3-5 points. It might not seem like a huge amount, but with his title boosts it would be even more. The problem was that it was quite expensive, costing 20 million Contribution points.

Persistent boosts to power were always expensive though, and after some hesitation he bought it. If it was before he might have bought something else, but with the wound in his side he felt any boost to vitality to be necessary.

Next, he bought a Cultivation Manual for 10 million Nexus coins. It wasn’t the best in the store, but also not the worst. It was without any attribute and meant for the cultivators at the academy. In an ideal world he would buy a few more so that people could find more suitable ones, but he couldn’t spend all his resources on it.

Finally, he actually bought a quest from the store. It was simply called [Inquisitive Eye], and it was one of the possible upgrade routes for his skill [Eye of Discernment]. Zac was quite tired of the extremely limited information he got from the skill. It couldn’t be used on any treasures or tools, and it only showed a name and level of people he used the skill on.

[Inquisitive Eye] didn’t provide much for the second problem, but it did give some help with identifying treasures. Apparently, it was possible to trigger a quest to upgrade [Eye of Discernment] without having to buy it, but Zac hadn’t seen anything of the sort since he got the skill all that time ago.

Paying 7.5 million Contribution Points to start the upgrade process felt like a worthwhile investment. That left Zac with roughly 21 million points. As there wasn’t anything else he really needed anymore he chose to spring for another attribute treasure, this one boosing his endurance.

For each purchase a small box appeared in front of him, drawing a few curious glances. Zac did the same as last time and simply put them all into his pouch and left. Next he went over to the Creator shipyard.

“Greetings, Lord Zac,” Rahm said as soon Zac stepped into the lobby.

Zac felt almost as though as the dignified Creator liaison was a video game NPC, just waiting in this building for him to come by. He hadn’t really seen the creators do much of anything apart from greeting him when he arrived.

“Good day, Rahm,” Zac said with a nod. “I need to make a few purchases.”

“I take it the monster waves are dealt with?” Rahm said as he handed over a crystal containing all available designs.

“Yes, we finished the third wave yesterday, and the quest ends in a few hours,” Zac said with a nod.

“Then congratulations are in order,” Rahm said, still with the same expressionless face.

“Haha there you are, brat,” a booming voice sounded from the back of the building, as Karunthel moved to the lobby. “I watched your fight with the zombie guy, not bad. You’ve got grit. You should get some bombs though, you just left all those zombies milling about after you left.”

“You watched the fight?” Zac asked surprised, as neither he nor the Corpse Lord seemed to have noticed any bystander.

“I hit a wall in my research so I went out to take a look at your battles. I really like how you blew up the beacon. But you should know you can turn those things into fun weapons that shoot beams of extremely concentrated miasma. It’s a waste to just blow them up,” the Creator hummed, as always obsessed with creating weaponry.

“I had a few thunder punishment arrays, but the System blocked me from using them just when the enemies arrived,”

“Ah yes, the System is a bit boring in that way. A powerful Technomancer once visited our planet. He had some amazing toys, like a laser that could incinerate this whole planet with a shot. Yet he had to fight with a bow and arrow to gain levels,” the spider-golem said with a laugh. “So what brings you here, more scouting vessels?”

“No, I am looking for something bigger. It needs to be able to transport more people, and also have some fighting capabilities,” Zac said.

The small vessels were starting to become insufficient for his growing town. He needed something sturdier to explore a larger area around his island, and if needed carry far larger groups of people. If they found people on the brink of death on some faraway island they couldn’t keep shuttling them back and forth, as that could lock up a vessel for a month.

“I would suggest a frigate or Carrack-classed vessel. The Carrack is slightly larger, with heavier weaponry. It takes a crew of 10 to fully man, 8 if you have someone adept in arrays or battle-systems,” Rahm calmly explained.

“The frigate is a bit smaller, with less durable hull and less weaponry. However, it’s far faster compared to the Carrack. The Carrack holds roughly the same speed as the small scout vessels, whereas the frigate can move over twice that speed,” the Creator continued.

“What do they cost?” Zac asked, knowing that Creator vessels didn’t come cheap.

“The carrack cost 32 million nexus coins, whereas the frigate cost 26 million,” Rahm answered without giving the foreman time to make up a quote. “Another million if you want them to have spatial arrays.”

“Spatial arrays?” Zac asked confused.

“Making it possible to shrink them, so they fit in any cosmos sack. I don’t think natives have access to large enough Cosmos Sacks?” Karunthel said with a teasing grin.

“I’ll take a carrack with the spatial arrays,” Zac said with a grimace.

“Always a pleasure to see you, brat,” Karunthel said with a wide smile. “I like you, so I’ll make the weaponry myself. It will give them a little extra punch. Who knows, we’ll maybe blow up some islands together after all?”

“I’m heading out for a while soon, so we’ll have to postpone bombing the archipelago,” Zac with a small smile.

“That’s good, you youngsters should venture out and create some ruckus. Otherwise, you’ll become real bores,” the foreman said with a sagely nod. “Come back in 3 days to get the ship, or send the demonling if you’ve left by then.”

Zac said his goodbyes and ventured back to his camp. All this walking around was starting to aggravate his wound, and Zac was finding it harder and harder to keep it under control with the Dao of Trees. He needed to rest up a bit. It felt a bit pathetic, he had the attributes to win in a fight against a t-rex, but he felt ready to keel over after doing some errands.

Zac sat down in his courtyard again, keeping the rotation of his Dao of Trees going to calm down the pulsating wound. He felt he was onto something earlier before Ogras interrupted him, and after some hesitation he took out one of the boxes. It was the one containing the fruit of vitality.

He didn’t purchase it simply to get a small boost in stats, he also had another purpose. His frantic usage of his Dao against the torrents of miasma had opened a door in his mind. It was the unrelenting characteristic of life in the face of death, the struggling light that refused to wink out of existence.

He took out the Fruit of Vitality from the box, carefully sensing the aroma and aura it gave out. It smelled delicious and gave off a fresh and fragrant smell. It was nowhere the level of the Fruit of Ascension, but still really appetizing. Without waiting any further he took a large bite and in seconds he had swallowed the who fruit.

A warm stream spread through his body, infusing each of his cells with vibrant energy. Even the miasma in his body retreated into a ball around his wound, seemingly terrified of the energy. The warmth kept pulsing in wave after wave, and all the while Zac sat and pondered on the Dao.

The hours passed as Zac sat mesmerized by the feeling, savoring being filled with pure vitality and life. It wasn’t the same as the epiphany he had back when he improved his Dao of Heaviness, but it was more like he was able to focus on something that was blurry before.

He understood what Ilvere had meant before, that breakthroughs sometimes come after the actual fight. Zac was finally understanding what he sensed, but was to occupied to completely grasp, during the fight with the Corpse Lord. For some reason, his mind imagined a windswept tundra where storms and harsh weather were a constant nuisance.

Yet a small seed managed to take root, growing and surviving in that horrid climate, through rain and snow, unrelentingly reaching upward. It was the same as he’d felt when he circulated his Dao of Trees in the storm of miasma.

Something changed in him, and the fractal looking like the Tree of Life blazed into verdant colors. He wanted to keep enjoying the moment of clarity, but Zac suddenly felt a presence in the courtyard. Reminiscence mixed with some annoyance in Zacʼs mind as he spoke up without opening his eyes.

“Long time no see, Abby.”