Defiance of the Fall

He sat for a full thirty minutes feeling lost at what to do . He was afraid that he had somehow crippled his future prospects . The more he thought about it the more he felt that it was extremely important to be able to project energy . The skills the demons had used all had projected energy in different ways . The mysterious mist , the black arcs of lightning and the root control . They all relied on manipulating cosmic energy outside of the body .

If he was stuck with this defective system where all the energy was stuck inside his body , would he even be able to use the skills he got in the future?

He needed to find a way to rectify this , even if he had to take the torture of rewriting his pathing . However , the hole he had made didn’t work , and even if it did he was hesitant to use that method anymore . He didn’t want to haphazardly get himself deeper and deeper in the hole by making a crappy patch-work circulation method .

He went over to the Nexus Node once more to scour through the skills , in case one of them actually was a circulation skill or something similar . Of course , he subconsciously knew that wasn’t the case , he had looked those skills over many times by now , and knew there were no such thing there .

The skills available generally could be categorized into offensive , defensive , movement and support as far as he could tell . The Eye of Discernment] would fall into the support skill .

But as he moved his hand away from the crystal he suddenly froze , struck with a realization . All things connected to the system had one thing in common ; the fractals . He still had no idea how to make sense of them , but they were present on the array flags , the weapons , and even the skills used them .

And it just so happened , he knew a pattern that was the exact size of his body . It was the fractal pattern that he had seen when he chose his class . Many details of it was muddled at the time , but the parts he could make out made a full circuit .

When he got the idea he couldn’t let it go . The more he thought it over , the more it made sense . He could still remember the pattern clearly , and it flowed through every part of his body . It was a far more complicated system compared to the one he had devised himself , but he saw no reason that it wouldn’t work .

As for the parts that were hazy and blurred , they might show themselves at a later point when he leveled up or completed quests . At which point Zac could use the new information to improve on the existing pattern .

The only problem was the massive undertaking to change the circulation . Just adding and removing a small hole in his hand had felt like putting the palm in an imp’s fire . He wasn’t even sure he’d survive such an undertaking .

But at the same time he didn’t dare wait . When he first devised the energy circulation he made some small revisions quickly after . At that time he hadn’t felt any pain whatsoever , and assumed that the circulation pattern was just a mental aid for using cosmic energy .

Zac was afraid that it might mean that the pattern gets harder and harder to change , as though it was fusing with his very being . It was still possible for him to change it , but judging from the pain it might be impossible soon .

Zac was no stranger to pain by now , and wasted no time . Ideally he would have wanted to wait until all his wounds were healed , but he had a sense of urgency . He started with his left hand to try if it even was viable to reform the patterns .

A blazing pain far worse than when he opened the hole engulfed his hand . It felt like his whole arm was dipped in burning acid . His whole body was covered in sweat in just seconds , and his eyes were completely bloodshot . Still he pushed through , and kept imagining his crude system in his hand slowly transforming into the fractal he was given by the Hatchetman class .

After what felt like an eternity the transformation was done . His hand was a mess , almost looking as if it had been pushed down into a blender . But where there once was a simple pathway for cosmic energy , now was a sophisticated pattern that had substituted it .

Zac tried moving his fingers , and while it hurt it seemed there was no permanent damage . He then tried to circulate cosmic energy through his arm and into his rewritten pathways .

It was a weird feeling . He had thought his circulation had been smooth all this while . But after pushing the energy into his hand it felt like the energy came from cramped pipes in his arms into the open ocean in his hand . The level of smoothness of handling the energy was incomparable .

Zac knew he had guessed correctly by now . The class change had provided him with a complete pattern to utilize his cosmic energy . It would likely tie in with his skills as well he reckoned .

He also knew what that meant , and with a shudder started converting the rest of his body .

Chapter 31 - Infusion

The suns were starting to rise over the small campsite .