Defiance of the Fall

He decided to put the 10 days as a deadline . He would also match the quest for Chop , so he’d chop a thousand times a day . Zac figured it’d take somewhere around two hours per day to get it done . He had no real idea as of yet what to do with the last skill , as it still showed 0/30 .

He turned his gaze toward the day’s pile of loot after being finished with his meal . He had gained a whole new set of gear and a sundry of miscellaneous items in the backpacks . At the battle site he hadn’t had time to properly go through everything so he planned to do so now .

The two underlings had had small leather bags that were attached to their belts on their back . In them were nothing of value . It held some gauze , flint , a whetstone , a small knife that seemed to not be for battle and a small water bottle . It felt like it was some basic ordinance .

Both the bottles had some very rudimentary inscriptions on them so Zac wondered if they had some special function . He poured the water out , but was surprised that the small bottle held far more water than it should .

It took almost two minutes for all the water to pour out . Zac was amazed that some inscriptions could do something magical like this . He felt no cosmic energy movements around the bottles , and it looked normal when he peered inside .

The magic bottle gave him a new idea about the sudden appearance of the giant sword . If a bottle could somehow store large amount of water , then it wasn’t impossible that the leader had some similar gear that could store items .

Chapter 30 - Experimentation

Zac eagerly filtered out all the gear that had belonged to the leader and started to go through them . His first guess was the inscribed bracelets as they were the only things except the sword and chest plate that had fractals engraved .

He looked over them multiple times , and tried pressing different parts of the bracelets , but nothing happened . He tried putting them on and focusing on them , but there still was no response . He could only helplessly put them aside for now , and continue to look through the other gear .

Zac picked up the pouch and opened it up . Strangely the insides were pitch black and he couldn’t see anything . His heartbeat sped up and he felt that he had found the jackpot .

He first took one of the small knives and plunged it halfway into the darkness , then pulled it out . There was no damage on it at all as far as Zac could tell . He planned to do the same with his finger , but as soon as he barely put it into the darkness he felt a burning sting .

His fingertip had been singed clean off , and blood dripped down over the pouch . Maybe flesh couldn’t enter he surmised . So he tried the same with a piece of dried meat , but this time it reacted like the knife .

Maybe it’s live things…’ Zac thought . He had no critter to try this theory out though , so it would have to wait .

The next task was how to activate the pouch . He had noticed some hints when he had fought earlier . When he had slammed his axe into the chest of the leader , he had felt that cosmic energy had entered the armor from the demon .

Zac had always only circulated the energy internally , and wasn’t sure how he’d push it outside . He tried circulating some energy into his fingers , then tried to push it out from the tip . The only result was that the concentration of energy got too high at the fingertips , and they started rupturing .

He tried many different things for a few hours until he finally gave up . Zac guessed that there was an inherent problem with how he handled the energy . He had followed an image of a circulatory system of his blood when he had started bending cosmic energy to his will . Of course he hadn’t imagined it to have outlets where it could flow out .

He started mulling over how to improve his system . He tried imagining a hole at his palm where he could let cosmic energy flow out .

But as he changed his energy circulation a blazing pain erupted in his hand and it looked that a bloody stigmata had appeared where he had imagined his exit .

A cold sheen of perspiration appeared on Zac’s forehead from the pain and he had a sinking feeling . Just a small change like this and the pain had been this bad . If he wanted to improve the system on his whole body , how bad would it hurt?

He knew that the circulatory system he had devised in no way was an optimal method of using cosmic energy , it was just something he had whipped together . He had planned on getting some skill or method for it later when he had the opportunity . But he hadn’t imagined that the pain would be this bad .

He was even more dismayed when he noticed that the hole he had created in his hand was continuously leaking cosmic energy and draining him of power .

Zac could only reluctantly change his circulation pattern back , bringing forth another wave of torment .