Defiance of the Fall

Perhaps the skill could only reward him with one Dao Seed . If he wanted more he had to work on it by himself by arduously practicing and meditating on it . He knew that it would likely have taken him years to figure out the feeling for the Dao of Heaviness if it wasn’t for the vision essentially imprinting the Dao in his mind . He more and more realized the value of that vision as he kept trying to meditate on the Dao by himself .

Finally , he gave up and called it a day . But he would dedicate some time every day for meditation as well he decided . At least until someone told him it was a waste of time . It had been a long day , and Zac was exhausted . He wiped his sweat and then crept into a small crevice that secluded him even further , and fell into a deep slumber .

Chapter 44 - Peak

Zac woke up just at dawn and decided to meditate briefly before getting ready . He wasn’t sure whether it helped him gain insight and progress his Dao Seed , or help gain a new one . Even so , he felt it was a worthwhile endeavor . He was starting to get worried about his psyche . He had bathed in blood and battle constantly for weeks , and it had taken its toll . He felt he almost shut off all his emotions as a coping mechanism to not go insane , but it wasn’t a permanent solution .

He needed to adjust his state of mind to be able to endure . He knew that even if he survived the island , his life wouldn’t likely change much . He still had to defend his island from new invaders for three months even if he managed to kick out the demons . At least if he understood his quest Incursion master correctly .

Incursion Master (Unique) : Close or conquer incursion and protect outpost from denizens of other alignments for 3 months . Reward : 5 E-Grade Nexus Crystals , outpost upgraded to town , status upgraded to Lord . (0/3)

Since the quest still hadn’t progressed after over a month he believed it would start up as soon as the demons and the Incursion were dealt with . If it meant that he only needed to worry about the critters on the island for three months afterwards , then everything would be well and good . But Zac held no hope that the System would be so nice about it , and would likely send some trouble his way .

As he was looking through his quest panel he also noticed that the Forester’s Constitution quest unfortunately hadn’t progressed from his day of battling Monkeys . There were some solitary trees rooted on the cliffs , but it seemed the system made a clear distinction between a mountain next to a forest and a forest .

He closed the menus and silently stared out over the tranquil view . The mountains were quite a bit calmer compared to the forest , as the stone monkeys didn’t have the tendency to incessantly roar like the barghest did . It almost felt like he was just camping again , which made him think about Hannah .

To be honest , he hadn’t really been thinking about her and the others a lot lately , as he was focused on surviving and getting stronger . As he was reminiscing about her he realized he had missed an important clue about the tutorial . The four of them hadn’t returned to his camp after the month-long tutorial had ended . He didn’t reflect over it at the time , his mind occupied with the newly arrived demons and his class acquisition .

As he saw it that could have two reasons . First , they were all dead , and the system didn’t bother to teleport back corpses . Second , after finishing the tutorial they were not teleported back from where they were snatched up , but somewhere else . Perhaps to human settlements or the like .

He could only pray it was the second reason . He wondered if they were looking for him , or if they just assumed he died . Had Hannah moved on?

Zac sighed and looked out over the sunrise . What obligations did he have to a new girlfriend when the apocalypse came? They had only been together for a few months when the world was integrated into the multi-verse . And even if he managed to find her again it would likely take a long time . Could they still even be considered a couple? He couldn’t find any easy answers and simply tabled the matter .

There were monkeys to kill .

He ate a quick breakfast and headed out . Today he was planning on scaling one of the peaks to look for the Herald . As he traversed the mountain he made an intriguing discovery . The further up he climbed , the more concentrated the cosmic energy felt .

He was clueless if it was related to altitude , or something about the mountains themselves caused the phenomena . But he realized that it might be very valuable in the future . He wasn’t a cultivator , but even he felt invigorated by the density of cosmic energy in the surroundings .