Chapter 282: The Lord of Cycles (1/2)

Zac actually gained two insights from the past fight and he was eager to try to formalize at least one of them while the feeling was fresh. That’s why he immediately went into meditation as soon as his body allowed it.

However, he did not ponder upon the Dao of Trees, even though he had a hint of the direction he wanted to take that Dao seed. Pushing a Dao Seed to the peak was no easy matter, and he felt he needed some more time to prepare before he tried to push the seed to the limit. The hints he had gained from the Dao of Life was great, but it was just a start.

Zac was instead focusing on something completely new. He was planning to attain a Dao Seed that he hadn’t gained a Dao vision for. Every Dao Seed so far had been attained through his class skills, but he had realized that there was one component he was missing.

Ever since Zac gained his second class he had been thinking about creating a holistic ‘build’ for himself, one that focused on building both great Offense and Defense through his classes. He would empower them with both Life and Death, and while he would use the axe to launch devastating attacks containing these concepts. He had a far-off vision of combining it all into an invincible power.

There were still many question marks of how he would fit everything together, and the fight just now had proven that he had been thinking too much inside the box. He had felt that the Dao of Trees and later the Dao of life was useless for offense against anything except the undead, but that clearly wasn't the case.

That glowing ball had been terrifying, and if he didn't possess the Core to absorb the damage he would have exploded from one attack, even though he possessed over 700 Endurance. But there was one realization that was more important than any other; he was lacking a Dao Seed that could eventually evolve into the Dao of Death. He had no opposite for the Dao of Life.

He had always considered the Miasma as the part representing death, but in the end it was only the equivalent of Cosmic Energy. His Undying Bulwark class was also a class purely focused on defense, and Zac didn’t believe that he would gain any more Dao visions from it. He would rather unearth more improvements to Hardness and Sanctuary through the extremely profound vision.

That meant that he needed to adjust his toolkit a bit. He needed another seed that could be the complement to the Dao of Trees. In the long run it would hopefully allow him to become truly powerful, and in the short run it would help him get through this Inheritance. He couldn’t slam an unholy beacon onto everything that barred his path after all.

Luckily he believed he had gained enough clues through being undead and from his time in the inheritance to formalize another Dao Seed. He based it upon the hints that he had gotten from the monument before it turned into the construct. A second fractal had slightly lit up from the Dao of Trees that had felt rotting and decaying, and that was exactly what he was going for. His mind focused on the feeling of life faltering, exuberant life slowly giving in to decay, and finally death.

The Dao Treasure had put him into a trance, and he felt he was on the cusp of grasping the kernel of truth that would allow him to gain a seed. Zac didn’t know how much time passed as he held fast to the images of faltering life and the unstoppable decay of anything living.

But just as he felt he was about to grasp the Dao Seed the trance ended, and he opened his eyes with frustration. He knew that it never was a good idea to force the Dao, but he was so close that he could taste it. So Zac unhesitantly swallowed a second Dao treasure and once again closed his mind.

Finally, everything clicked and he sensed a mysterious energy appearing in his body. Zac had initially thought that it would either add itself to one of the three Dao fractals in his body, or create a new one, but instead it simply formed a small seed in a separate space located in Zac’s mind.

Zac could only guess that it was because this was a seed that was naturally formed by himself without the assistance of a skill, but he would have to investigate whether he needed to somehow create a fractal to house it later. Since he was done he quickly opened his status screen in anticipation, and as he expected he saw the sixth Dao Seed of his.

[Rot (Early): Wisdom +10, Intelligence +5.]

This was exactly what Zac had aimed for, though he was a bit disappointed the attributes did not really suit him. The wisdom would help him with his resilience against mental attacks, but he still hadn’t found any use for Intelligence for either of his classes.

As he sensed the seed in his mind he was certain that the fractal that he had slightly lit up was the Dao of Rot. His Dao of Trees slightly encompassed the concept of Life through death, and Rot was placed right on the crossroads between these two concepts.

He hoped that he could lead the Dao of Rot toward the direction of Death through life, and with the Dao of Trees form a complete cycle. But for now, it was a simple Early-stage Dao Seed that he guessed would add some corrosive effects on his attacks.

Zac quickly summoned a fractal edge with [Chop] and just as he thought the fractal gained a murky green color when it was imbued with the Seed of Rot. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything living in the area that he could test it out on, so he simply attacked the ground.

There was no added power to the fractal edge, and the scar that was created by the swing didn’t corrode as though it was attacked by acid. However, a wet sheen of some green liquid was left around the rift, meaning that the attack was more akin to adding poison to the blade. It would be useless against inorganic things, but it might contain surprising power against living enemies.

Flush with success, Zac considered taking another Dao treasure in hopes of pushing his Dao of Trees forward as well, but in the end he forced himself to calm down. His instincts told him that he was too far away from being able to push the seed to its peak, and he probably wouldn’t reach it even if he ate all three of his Dao Seeds.

Zac checked his watch and to his surprise 7 hours had already passed. It was more time than Zac had planned on spending inside the inheritance in total, but there was no getting around it. At least they knew he was still alive since he maintained his position on the ladder. He had also gained a level so they should understand that he was in a battle of some kind.

The weakness from using [Hatchetman’s Rage] during the battle had already passed, and his Cosmic Energy was mostly full thanks to his passive absorption of energy during his meditation. So Zac didn’t waste any more time and immediately headed toward the passage.

He held [Verun’s Bite] ready in his arm, prepared for any kind of situation. But the passageway was completely barren, with not a single object or being in sight. It was only fifteen minutes later that the scene changed, and Zac stared wide-eyed at the world in front of him.