Chapter 216: Appeasing the Spirit (1/2)

Zac unhesitantly punched out, and a pained yelp escaped from the beast that tried to ambush him.

The next moment the edge of an axe fell down, cutting the animal’s head clean off. Zac stopped to look down at the thing he just killed. He had to say it looked quite a bit like a rat, but one as big as a horse. Its legs were also slightly longer, and its tail was a short stub, and finally its black fur was so thick and stiff that it almost looked like quills rather than hair.

Everything happened so quickly that Zac didn’t have time to use his investigative skill on it, but if it truly was a rat there would likely be a lot more of them. But judging by the amount of cosmic energy he received it wasn’t very strong, perhaps somewhere around level 40. Most trial takers shouldn’t have much trouble with this thing.

Next Zac opened up the ladders once again as he walked toward the beast. He threw the carcass of the rat-beast inside his pouch but soon dumped the body by the side of the path once again. He wanted to test out whether there was any value in the carcass, but since he didn’t move a single spot from it he deemed it mostly worthless.

Judging from the mangy fur and nasty smell the meat wouldn’t be serviceable either, and Zac would rather just eat the boring fasting pills than this thing. But he was still quite happy with the results.

While killing the beast hadn’t helped his Gatherer rank, it did help with his Hunter rank since it jumped up a couple of thousand spots. That meant that killing other trial takers wasn’t the only method to try for the top rewards on the point ladder, which was great news for Zac.

Because if there was one thing he was good at, it was the wholesale slaughter of beasts.

Zac kept going up along the mountain paths, keeping an eye out for other trial takers or beasts. As he ascended the mountain he noticed that the cosmic energy was gradually improving the further up he got.

It wasn’t surprising that the elite would build their residences at the spots with the most energy, but he wondered why the mountain worked like this. His own mountain was different since the valley was the place with the most concentrated energy there. Perhaps massive arrays were placed inside the mountains to redirect the energies toward the top.

Disappointingly enough he only encountered three more beasts, which were simply called Mountain Rats according to his skill, in thirty minutes of travel. It made him wonder if his plan of gaining points from animals was a no-go. There simply was to few of them to go have any significant impact on the ladder.

He also started to suspect that something was odd about this mountain. Most of the mountains he could see from looking around were filled with structures and caves, but he was almost at the top and he hadn’t seen a single building since the small temple.

He hoped it was because the past owner of the mountain was a real big shot who could keep most of the mountain for himself, rather than it being a trash mountain no one had bothered with for some reason.

Finally, he found himself at the crest of the mountain, and had to take a moment to look at the scene with awe. It was completely flat like someone had cleanly cut the whole tip off in a mighty swing of a sword. He could see it was the same with many of the other peaks, but it still was extremely impressive this up close.

Most of the summit was empty, and only occupied by a large beautiful square, and Zac couldn’t help but feel some wonder as he stepped on the enormous tiles. Each of the tiles was over three meters across and gave off a shimmering luster. It looked as though they were made by pristine marble, but golden veins ran across them.

More importantly, it felt as though they somehow cleansed the area with a soothing aura. Zac suddenly got an idea and pressed down his axe between two tiles. With a twist he managed to lift it up, and to his surprise the tile weighed almost as much as a car. He immediately threw the flooring into his pouch.

His ranking didn’t change from the tile, but he didn’t care about that. He had found a great material to renovate the surroundings of his Dao Repository.

Since they were going to undergo the Inheritance trails pretty soon he really needed to appease the tool spirit. He couldn’t risk Brazla throwing a wrench in his and Ogras’ plans because he wasn’t happy about his view. This flooring would be perfect to surround the Repository with, and they weren’t very hard to yank out of the ground.

Zac set about dismantling the entire square, gaining speed with every tile ripped loose. In just thirty minutes half of the flooring was dismantled, and he was closing in on the core of the summit.

In the center of the square, a small-sized palace was placed. He still hadn’t gotten close to it as he was saving it for later. Instead, he methodically slammed his axe into the ground once again and put away the tile after yanking it loose.

The tiles were starting to have an effect, as he’d gained two spots from harvesting them. That might not sound like much, but he’d spent half an hour on them, and many others should have found treasures themselves during that time.

That he not only kept his spot but even advanced proved that these tiles were more than just beautiful. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to detile the whole summit before voices reached his ears. Not long after a group of ten walked up together, warily looking around.

Zac frowned when he saw them as he immediately opened up the ladders. The group was in the bottom of the barrel when it came to treasure, but two of them were higher on the hunter list than he was, meaning they’d likely killed a few people on the way up here.

All of them wore the same type of clothes, and it was pretty clear they were from some army. However, since the design of the clothes was foreign to him these people were likely from the other planet.

“Enemy ahead,” a lanky man said as soon as he spotted Zac who was in the middle of retrieving another tile.

“What the hell? He’s stealing the floor?” one of the men immediately burst out, eliciting guffaws from a few of the soldiers.