Chapter 30: Experimentation

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 couldnt 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 couldnt enter he surmised. So he tried the same with a piece of dried meat, but this time it reacted like the knife.

Maybe its 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 wasnt sure how hed 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 hadnt 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.

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 imps fire. He wasnt even sure hed survive such an undertaking.

But at the same time he didnt dare wait. When he first devised the energy circulation he made some small revisions quickly after. At that time he hadnt 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.