Defiance of the Fall

Zac carved a chunk of meat from the rabbit leg and stuck it to a fork . He then walked over to the Nexus Node while gnawing the gamey meat . Zac looked at the list of available things on it daily hoping for something new to pop up every day since the day he bought it . He knew he would be disappointed once again . The skills available were too expensive for him , and the inventory hadn’t changed so far .

The only skill that was in his price range was called Eye of Discernment] . And he had already bought it for the price of 20 000 Nexus Coins . When he had bought it a stream of energy had entered his head , and new information suddenly formed like an ingrained memory . It was the manual for the skill .

The purchase had taught him a bit about how skills worked with the System . Having a skill did not mean you could simply use it as you wanted . For a skill to work he needed to actually move the cosmic energy built up in his body towards his eyes . From there he had to imprint the image of a specific fractal on his eyes . The fractal was the same type of pattern that were on the array flags he had bought earlier .

Zac had tried furiously to move the energy around in his body for days . He had felt that his cells were imbued with this extra power , but he had a hard time actually doing anything with it . Finally after days of trying he had found a solution .

While sitting in the gravity array he had imagined a separate set of veins spread all through his body like his circulatory system . In these veins only cosmic energy flowed . He was surprised that it actually worked , and a stream of his cosmic energy slowly started traveling along the paths he had imagined .

It took a few days more to learn to keep the circulation going even when not actively focusing on it . Finally he tried gathering cosmic energy on his eyes to imprint the fractal of the skill . This part went smoother than expected , as he had an extremely precise design in his memory thanks to the Nexus Node .

As soon as he wanted to use the skill he only needed to focus a small amount of cosmic energy to flow into the fractals on his eyes , and it would activate immediately .

Zac was quite glad that the System did not require people to shout out the skill’s name like a lunatic .

The Eye of Discernment] was a basic eye skill that essentially worked like an identify- or spy-skill from a video game . It let Zac glean some basic information on certain things .

It was this skill that had let him know that the stocky 6-legged demons he had fought ad nausea the last month was actually called a Barghest , and the zombie-looking greyhound monster was a Gwyllgi .

The imps were actually just called Lower Imps , and they had taught him another valuable lesson when using the Eye of Discernment] on them . Even though he had used it from the cover of some bushes the imp had felt the skill being used on it . It reacted by immediately throwing a fireball at the bush he was hiding in , leading to another desperate fight .

The memory of that fireball still filled him with some trepidation as he stared into the fire , slowly finishing his meal .

Chapter 18 - Cosmic Energy

Actually , apart from teaching him the names of his different enemies , the most important thing the skill had taught him was something completely different .

Zac had thought that the stats represented a static change in his prowess , and to a certain degree he was right . He was far stronger now compared to before thanks to the stats . But there was more to it . Learning to circulate his cosmic energy had opened up a whole new world for him .

At first he had simply focused on learning the skill . But afterwards he had started experimenting with the cosmic energy in his body , and had come to some astonishing conclusions . He could actually force more cosmic energy into different parts of his body , strengthening them . For example he could force energy into his arm and back muscles when swinging his hatchet , which resulted in a far more powerful swing .

Forcing energy into his legs would increase his speed and he had even managed to imbue his skin for a while , making it more durable . There were many different venues to utilize it , and he likely only had figured out a few . The strengthening wasn’t limitless , however . It acted as a multiplier on his base stats , but the multiplier was limited . After some experimentation he had realized he could output almost twice his normal power while circulating his energy into a specific part of his body .

He had gone above this amount once , which had resulted in being incapacitated for days . He had tried increasing the amount of energy in his arms too much in order to perform a particularly mighty swing . His muscles couldn’t withstand that much cosmic energy forced into them , and ruptured into a fountain of blood . It reminded him of a balloon . If he blew too much air into it , it would pop . Same with his body and cosmic energy .