Chapter 741: Gathering Strength (1/2)
Zac eventually woke up from his comatose state, and his eyes feeling like they were full of gravel as every part of his body hurt. He swallowed another Healing Pill with a grimace as he stowed away the Void Beast organ. It looked shriveled like an oversized raisin compared to when he bought it, and Zac guessed that it had lost more than eighty percent of its remaining energy while he was unconscious.
Part of it was probably because of him absorbing some of it while unconscious, but most had most likely been eroded by the extremely dense ambient energy in the tunnels. It was a bit of a blow, but not the end of the world. Some of the energy that entered [Void Heart] was always turned into Void Energy. Certainly, it wasn't nearly as efficient as absorbing the energy from the Void Heart, but it was enough as long as he didn't constantly use it.
The tunnels were completely silent, and there were no immediate threats. So Zac didn't immediately set out, instead opting to go over the situation. First of all, he opened his quest screen since he didn't get a proper chance to go over things before.
Reciprocity (Unique, Limited): Surrender a glimpse of Chaos. Reward: - (0/1) [590d]
[NOTE: Failure to comply will result in loss of 10 levels and one random Dao.]
Eight days.
He had been unconscious eight days after almost becoming a treat for the enormous snake. Even then, his body was in a pretty wretched state. That wasn't to say there hadn't been any gains from the ordeal. First of all, he had gained another huge chunk of Contribution Points, further cementing his lead on the ladder.
He had no idea what the source of the points was though. Just maiming the octopus wasn't enough. Zac's thoughts turned to those mysterious mountains that had risen from the depths of the chasm to assist the enormous snake, and he felt it might be connected to them. They had clearly contained a lot of mysterious energy, and they had in a way been destroyed because of his actions.
Another gain was that he had actually managed to push [Abyssal Phase] from middle to high mastery. Being chased by a primordial beast was clearly an effective method to squeeze out one's potential, though Zac definitely wouldn't try something like that again.
With the Void Beast organ being mostly depleted, Zac instead opted to crush a Supreme Nexus Crystal as he started using [Surging Vitality]. Progress was slow, and he sighed in regret that he hadn’t upgraded the skill along with class skills back in the Greengrove Archipelago.
The slow recuperation at least gave him some time to reorient himself and plan his next step. The situation was pretty complicated before, and things had only gotten even more convoluted after he managed to mess with the Twilight Lord. With his ladder position being exposed to the world, he was probably not only the target of Uona, but also the other top rankers.
Zac wasn't as worried about them as he was about the Twilight Lord though. It didn't take a genius to realize that the elusive master of the Twilight Harbor was mixed up with the odd events in this trial, and the formation flags that Zac had destroyed might have been integral to his plans. After all, they were not only planted so deep in the chasm that no trial-taker could mess with them, but they even had that terrifying guardian beast.
Not only that, but Zac had been forced into making a deal with the System, and he knew the odds of coming out on top in such an endeavor pretty slim. Certainly, Zac didn’t need some quest to tell him to get the two remnants. He had already planned to do so as soon as he got out of the Twilight Chasm.
But it had only been an opportunity to become stronger before. If it didn't work out, then fine, but now he once more found himself with his back against the wall. Before, it was still possible for him to sneak out through one of the exits if things proved too volatile on the surface, but that was out of the question with the looming punishment.
There was also the issue of the Glimpse of Chaos. While he had planned on snatching the two remnants, he hadn’t planned on using them to conjure another one of those Chaos Patterns. Not only had it messed with his pathways last time, just gazing on it had almost destroyed his soul.
Besides, the scene was extremely attention-grabbing. Last time he’d at least been inside the Tower of Eternity where not even an Autarch could spy on him, but if he unleashed a Chaos Pattern in this place, there was a good chance someone would notice, and possibly even record the events.
There wasn’t much to do about it though, since he simply refused to lose one of his Daos. Seeing as it was a punishment from the System, Zac doubted he’d be able to simply “regrow” the Dao with some treasures in case it was taken from him. The question was how to complete the mission without getting himself killed or his real identity exposed.
Luckily, the System wouldn’t send the repo man for his Dao Fragment just yet. He had almost two years before the time limit, and he was already planning on being long gone from this place by then. It also gave him some wiggle-room to prepare himself for what waited on the surface.
There was no reason to leave the Twilight Chasm just yet. His scheduled rendezvous with Catheya was more than half a year away, and he was better off using that time to empower himself than setting out as is. Forming a Dao Branch was his best option to gain an edge against the top contestants of the trial, but he knew that goal was all but impossible right now.
Just a few months had passed since evolving all three of his Fragments, and he was severely lacking the foundation to immediately push toward a branch. It was one thing if he was planning to fuse his Daos, but this time he was aiming for evolutions. That meant he would have to essentially double his insights in one go.
That didn't mean he was out of options. There was still his soul, and he was thankfully ensconced in the perfect place to improve it. Doing so would bring all kinds of benefits, the most important of which was the ability to better withstand the Remnants. He wasn't too worried if it was just the one set, but he had no idea what would happen when with multiple sets in his body.
The only point of reference he had was the peak E-grade cultivator who caused the downfall of the Eastern Trigram Sect back in the hunt. He had absorbed two Splinters of Oblivion and had subsequently been reduced to an extremely powerful lunatic. In contrast, Anzonil's disciple had been able to withstand the madness for almost a decade after having absorbed one set.
The difference was remarkable, but there were too many variables involved to draw any clear conclusions. But it was clear that the effect of the remnants increased the more of them you swallowed. Anything he could do to better deal with such a situation was of utmost importance. Besides, the stronger his soul became, the better he would be able to utilize his Dao in battle.
His crude Dao Braids were extremely powerful, but it was a crutch that he needed to be in an excitable state like when he fought the Octopus for the braids to form fast enough. Another reincarnation would hopefully shore up that weakness, allowing him to freely use Dao Braids in battle.
Having decided on his course, Zac spent the next five days slowly getting back into shape, mixed with running his Soul Cultivation arrays to stave off the Twilight Energy. Resetting his bones wasn’t too hard with his constitution, but there were quite a bit of the foreign energies stubbornly left in his body after his frantic escape, mostly the Dao from the snake.
The [Purity of the Void]-node was working hard at expelling it, but there was simply a difference of level between the two, making progress slow. Still, most of the damage from the two berserking treasures was dealt with while he was unconscious, and he had regained most of his fighting strength by now.
Completely recovering would take a bit longer, but he had already wasted over two weeks. He could technically stay here and cultivate, but it would cost unnecessary resources. Gaining [Void Zone] had allowed him to stay further down than he would before, but there was not much of a point doing so. The Twilight Energy was essentially poison even to him, and exposing himself to more than he had to was just foolish, especially now that he had lost his source of Void Energy.
Besides, he was too close for comfort to the area where he had encountered the snake. In a perfect world, he'd want to set off to a completely different section of the Twilight Chasm, but he'd settle for putting a few day's worths of travel between himself and this place, in case it decided to come knocking after recovering.