Chapter 673: Departure (1/2)

There was just one thing Zac needed to do before he left Earth. He looked down at the crystal in his hands, and a tumultuous wave of emotions hit him once again. He hated the thought of using something given to him by that woman, but what choice did he have? If he ever wanted a chance at taking charge of his own destiny or reuniting with his sister, then he couldn’t stay in Port Atwood.

He needed the Array, at least for now.

Zac took a deep breath before he pushed it against his stomach with some lingering fear. Trusting Leandra felt pretty foolish, but he relied on the fact that she wouldn’t bother laying some trap with the array. She didn’t even care about murdering Thea right in front of him. If she wanted to implant him with something nefarious, she would probably just cut him right open while talking about the importance of her undertaking.

He infused some energy into the crystal, and it quickly turned into a liquid that streamed into his body and formed a mysterious pattern on his Duplicity Core. It wasn’t like Yrial’s skill that was overlaid like a sphere, but it had rather fused with the Specialty Core itself. There was still no change though, but that was because Zac hadn’t activated the array yet.

Another stream of Cosmic Energy entered the array, and Zac felt his connection to the core immediately weaken. A few seconds later it was like both the core and the mysterious array had simply disappeared. Zac could still feel his core, but it was somehow distant, like it had been moved to a different dimension.

Activating Yrial's transformation skill yielded no result, but Zac could somewhat sense that he would still be able to force the race change if he pushed a lot harder. Of course, doing so would waste a month, so he let it be. He scanned himself over and over for the next hour, but he really couldn’t sense the smallest hint of the Specialty Core ever being there. The spot it took up had even been replaced with perfectly normal energy pathways.

That meant that even if someone managed to break through Greatest’s bangle, it still shouldn’t yield any result. Zac changed his appearance next, turning into a middle-aged human with some distinct features that set him apart from Zac's own appearance.

With that out of the way Zac teleported over to the Nexus Hub, and he was gone from Earth a moment later without leaving a trace.

“Guides! Guides to pass the gauntlet! Seize a better score and a better future with this great investment,” a furry gnome hollered from his spot on top of a few boxes as he waved a shimmering crystal in his hands.

Zac smiled and shook his head as he kept walking down the bustling street, heading straight for the grand castle in the distance. He wasn’t the only one, as people emerged from the ten teleportation rooms every minute or so, resulting in a steady stream of people heading toward the same place. An enormous ship that had to be over a thousand meters long was slowly making its way through the atmosphere as well, and hundreds of smaller vessels followed in its path.

A large number of shops lined the main street, but Zac knew that the wares inside paled compared to the impressive treasures in the windows of the stores. [Havenfort Base] was both an opportunity and a tourist trap, and it all centered around the castle in the distance.

Inside the castle was the Havenfort Chasm, a massive hole of seemingly endless depths. It was created when a Monarch self-destructed out of despair over losing his loved one, though some rumors argued that he did it out of vengeance in an attempt to take out the perpetrators behind the lover’s death.

As for the opportunity, it was a mostly safe trial that provided a Limited Title. The deeper you managed to walk into the depths of the chasm, the better the title would be. Simple enough.

One of the greatest benefits of Zac's huge number of teleportation locations was access to thousands of different trials that existed all over the Zecia Sector. It would allow Zac to easily fill up his empty slots before setting out toward deadlier challenges. He had already confirmed that Titles didn’t impact attribute limits, which was one of the reasons so many believed that Titles were small bloodline evolutions provided by the System.

Zac had thousands of open trials to choose from all across the Sector, though over 95% of them were low-graded trials that only provided flat attributes. There were all kinds of trials, and it had taken some time for Zac to find those who were suited for him. Some trials provided pretty great rewards, but Zac had to give up on them anyway. For example, there was a trial called [The Riddlemaster’s Maze] which took an average of twenty years to complete.

Other trials were unsuitable for him to undergo for other reasons. Certain locations were only open once every few decades, others took a long time to reach even with teleportation access. A lot of trials were also skewed in favor of certain paths, races, or Daos, whereas even more had other sorts of restrictions.

Trials limiting attributes were obviously the worst for Zac, since that wouldn’t let him take full advantage of how monstrous his attribute pool was for his current level. Certainly, with his high Efficiency he’d do better than most, but his advantages would partly be nullified by people’s cultivation manuals.

Instead, Zac had focused his attention on level-restrained trials and dynamic trials. Level-restrained trials had certain cut-off points, and if Zac found one close to his own level he was almost certain to steamroll it. Dynamic trials automatically adjusted the difficulty based the difficulty on your level or attribute pool depending on what it wanted to test.

For example, the Trial inside the castle in the distance was a dynamic trial based on level, which was perfect for Zac.

Unfortunately, the rewards for these kinds of trials were only better than average. It wasn't anything surprising. With a low risk of death and such easy availability, the rewards could only be so good.

The best Limited Titles came from unexplored Mystic Realms where people braved unknown dangers. The second-best titles came from Grade-restricted trials, of which the Tower of Eternity could be considered one of the most famous examples.

All other trials were a notch below, and their rewards differed from case to case. Zac had asked Alyn why the grade trials were the most rewarding, and it turned out the most commonly held belief was that the System wanted to encourage pushing each grade to the limits. Only after you reached the peak of a grade and deepened your foundations did you have the qualifications to go for the best rewards in that grade.

Zac obviously wouldn’t waste his time and limited opportunities in going to those kinds of trials at level 101. He would first go for a set of decent Titles to fill up his empty slots so that he was as powerful as possible before setting out for his more dangerous adventures. It was obviously a unique advantage afforded to him thanks to his training quest, whereas the other trial takers usually had to make do what was available in their surroundings.

Some of those who arrived in this place had gotten a Teleportation Token as a reward for some quest, and it was no secret that the System often dropped tokens in the depths of Mystic Realms as rewards for reaching that far. Others came here through the Space Gate Guild, though that option was only available to the wealthier scions.

The Space Gate Guild was actually a guild that specialized at gaining access to a large number of locations, mainly targeting hubs and opportunities such as the [Havenfort Base]. These people’s jobs was simply to take the elite to places they normally didn’t have access to themselves.

This business was extremely lucrative, as the guild charged roughly 10 times the standard fare to take a person to a certain location, and just as much to return. However, there were a lot of restrictions to this trade. First of all, you needed to get access to the valuable Arrays, and that was extremely hard.

Not only did you need to complete some quests in the area where you wanted to gain an array, but you also needed to be granted access by the owner. That was easier said than done too, since a Lord couldn’t give those out as he wished. The first requirement was for the target to reach the System’s requirement to be worthy of the connection. Secondly, the Lord could only form a certain number of connections each year for otherworlders.

Zac himself would be able to give access to Earth to 100 people a year according to Abby, though that still wasn’t possible while the shroud was active.

Furthermore, why would someone controlling a great opportunity like the [Havenfort Base] give that access away for free? The Space Gate Guild no doubt had to pay through the nose for every connection to this place they formed.

Travel itself was fraught with problems as well. First, a Guide, as the workers for the Guild were called, could only take on one mission every three months. The System blocked any more than that. Furthermore, they could only take one guest, which was a dealbreaker for many young scions, as they were afraid of traveling without bodyguards. Worst of all, they weren’t even allowed to operate through the Mercantile System.

So, it was clearly a business that skirted at the edge of what the System deemed acceptable, but it was nevertheless a pretty common way for the elites of the Zecia sector to get around.