Chapter 379: Fragment of the Axe (1/2)

Zac felt bad about leaving while people were still barely able to get to their feet, but he followed Alyn's advice. He lastly went over to check in on his sister, and he was relieved to see that she was fine as well. In fact, she might be even better off than himself as she was still able to spread her Dao in the area around the Dao House.

Only then did he return to his courtyard with brisk steps. He felt a bit muddled the whole way back, as though he was dreaming. Zac knew he had warned everyone of the dangers involved, but he truly hadn't expected anyone to get hurt, much less get killed. He could only endeavor to etch this lesson in his heart so that something like this would not repeat itself.

The arrays around his place flitted to life as he sat down on a padded mat with a sigh. He wanted to immediately go over his gains, but a wave of exhaustion hit him the moment he sat down, and he immediately fell into a dreamless slumber.

Zac opened his eyes again, only to see that four hours had passed in the blink of an eye. The nap had made him feel noticeably better, with only a small headache remaining. He hadn’t felt comfortable going over his gains while his people lay dead right in front of him, but he couldn’t wait any longer and opened up his Dao Screen.

Dao

Stage

Effect

Fragment of the Axe

Early

All attributes +10, Strength +110, Dexterity + 80, Endurance +15. Effectiveness of Strength +5%.

Seed of Trees

Peak

Endurance +20, Vitality +90, Intelligence +5, Wisdom +5.

Seed pf Hardness

Peak

Endurance +100, Wisdom +20.

Seed of Sanctuary

Peak

Endurance +50, Intelligence +20, Wisdom +50.

Seed of Rot

Peak

Endurance +5, Vitality +45 Intelligence +25, Wisdom +45.

Zac slowly read through the changes, but he was truthfully a bit disappointed with the result. Fusing two Dao seeds into a fragment had only increased the total attributes gained from 240 to 275. He knew that he had attained almost no ”new” insight compared to upgrading a single Dao seed, but he had still thought that he would get more when evolving from a Seed to a Fragment.

Of course, he had to remember that if things progressed the way it did with a seed, where the number of attributes given doubled every time it progressed, it would still rack up to a lot. A Fragment would end up giving 2 200 attribute points at a peak mastery, which was a huge number even in the E-Grade.

He hadn't gained a Title by forming a Fragment either, something he had pretty much thought was a done deal. Then again, if there was a 'first in world'-title like all his other Progenitor titles, then it had likely already gone to Abbot Everlasting Peace. And the general reward for gaining a Dao Fragment might simply be the fact he now had access to Epic classes.

The good part was that he actually gained all attributes from the Fragment, which meant that his luck got boosted as well. And if the pattern kept going as it did with the seeds, then he might end up with a huge boost to Luck by the time the seeds reached Peak. However, if he was being honest with himself he hoped that he wouldn't gain any more Luck from his Dao Seeds.

One of his unique advantages was his huge pool of Luck, where he had almost ten times the amount compared to most people. It had allowed him to survive countless dangers, and often turn the tables on his enemies. That advantage would quickly get eroded if one had an easy-to-access source of the special attribute.

He also got a boost of effectiveness for his main Strength, and that in of itself might turn into a tremendous boost if the number kept increasing as the Fragment evolved. What if he got a 25% boost or something at the peak? The value from that was far higher than static increases, especially with his already large number of High-Tiered Titles.

Then again, he knew that the true benefit of a Dao Fragment wasn’t the attributes it awarded. It was just a bonus that the System tacked on. The true benefit came from the huge boost in fighting power. That was doubly true for someone like Zac who was a bit lacking in his control department and who could only use one Dao at the time.

The Seed of Hardness hadn’t provided any surprises, even though he had tried to skew the results in his favor. When he pondered on the final upgrade he focused on the rebounding effect of hardness. He imagined creating a body so sturdy that people hurt themselves when they attacked him and thought that he might get some strength that way.

But it still simply doubled down on the Endurance, pushing his highest attribute to even more ridiculous heights. Luckily he had still a lot of room for improvement before he hit his limit. He had already asked Ogras about it recently, and it turned out that the next limit usually lay around 2500 attribute points for humanoids.

But it also meant that he would have to evolve his race as quickly as possible since he was already halfway there. It was only a matter of time before he reached 2 500 Endurance with the increased gains in E-Grade.

The Seed of Rot had a surprising change in the attributes it provided, but not overly so. Alea had been on his mind a lot lately, and the way she fought had influenced his insights. He already knew that Alea’s highest attribute was Intelligence, closely followed by Vitality, and that was reflected by the gains in his Seed of Rot.