Chapter 175: Changes

Chapter 175: Changes

The clashes kept going for god knows how long between the two whirlpools in Zacs body, and the energy contained in the center between them was growing more and more horrifying. Zac knew if something destabilized whatever was going on within the blazing waves of energy hed explode like a nuclear bomb.

The tenth pill had thankfully been enough for him to regain some sort of equilibrium between the two opposing forces, and he wholeheartedly focused his energy on keeping the energy fluctuations as stable as he could.

He was fresh out of ideas and options, but he refused to give in. Giving up control at this moment was tantamount to dying, and so he kept overtaxing his mind and kept pushing his Dao past its limits. He had no idea where he was going or how long he ran, but finally his legs went out, and he didnt have the energy to get up again.

Still, he kept fighting against the inevitable, hoping that something would change. His will had transformed over the past months, and even though the pain he was feeling far eclipsed what he went through in the pool of Cosmic Water, he never thought to end it.

Instead, he stoutly endured the raging battle between life and death in his body, his mind focusing on his goals and ambitions. For cycle after cycle the two whirlpools clashed, and Zac forgot everything except those two forces ebb and flow.

A prompt flashed in his periphery as he kept struggling, but his mind was too over-taxed to notice it. He only kept focusing on stabilizing the two opposing forces and stabilizing his wound. Finally, the frantic bursts from the miasmic wound gave in, just as Zacs Dao-swirl was on the verge of completely dissipating.

Zac thought he could sense a wave of reluctance and hatred before it disappeared and stillness settled in his body.

The clashes abruptly stopped, and relief flooded Zacs mind. But it also was the last straw as his mind quickly started to descend into darkness. He had kept himself conscious through sheer willpower, resisting long past his limits. But just before his mind submerged into a deep slumber he sensed something new in his wound.

A small seed barely as large as a fingernail, but containing enough energy to blow up a city was quietly nestled in his gut.

-----------------------------------------------------

Sharp pain in his leg woke Zac up from his slumber with a groan. He looked around with bleary eyes, who widened at the sight of a desiccated zombie dumbly gnawing at his ankle. Luckily his gear and attributes kept him safe, as the bites only left some surface wounds.

Zac quickly slapped the head of the undead, instantly destroying its brain. However, the rapid motion caused a bout of vertigo, and Zac emptied his stomach without warning. Finally, after a few dry heaves he managed to sit up and look around with a squint, his head still aching from overusing his mental energy.

He was in some random forest, with nothing around as far as he could see apart from dead or dying trees. In his muddled state it took some time for him to realize something was odd; he wasnt hurting. That, of course, wasnt completely correct, as every part of him hurt. It was odd in the sense that the wound in his side that had plagued him for what felt like forever was completely inert, not even a twang remaining.

The only pain he felt at the moment was a general ache all over his body accompanied by a splitting headache from over-drafting his Dao. The great change prompted him to quickly close his eyes again and focus on his side.

[Trees (High): Endurance +10, Vitality +40, Intelligence +5, Wisdom +5]

The seed now gave a whopping 60 attribute points, doubling up from before. Zac couldnt help but get a bit excited even though he knew it would happen. Comparing from how it was before his new insight gave him +15 Vitality, and 5 points in Endurance, Intelligence and Wisdom each.

His insight was based on the dynamic nature of the life of a Tree, how it went from almost a death-like state during winter back to teeming with life during summer. It was everchanging, and it was only through death that life could come. Even if a forest burned down, the ashes became nourishment for the seeds germinating in the ground.

Zac felt that this concept was applicable to many things, but for the moment he had no time to properly sit down and ponder on it. He had too many things to do, and he didnt even know where he was, or what to do about the miniature bomb lodged in his body uncomfortably close to his family jewels.

There was however one more change in his screen that might give him a hint of what was going on. He saw that there was a new Title in his growing list of accomplishments. With anticipation he focused on the new Title called Core, but what he saw only made him more confused.

[Core: Successfully form a Core. Reward: ??????]

Zac blankly stared at the odd line for a while until he hesitantly closed it with a frown. After mentally going through it in his mind there simply was no reward from the Title, differing from all other ones. If he didnt know any better he would have guessed there was a bug in a computer system.

But the menus and prompts werent part of some random program, it was part of THE system, an Entity powerful enough to conquer multiple dimensions.

He was completely confused as to what the weird line meant, and he wasnt even sure whether it was something he should ask around about. The thing with bugs was that they tended to get corrected, and he wasnt sure how the system dealt with people that did things they werent supposed to.

Zac had a feeling the weird prompt was the result of a series of coincidental circumstances. The combination of his specific Dao and whatever the Corpse Lord injected him with had transformed and created something odd through the circumstances of being triggered by the purifier.

Next was the insane amount of miasma that entered him in a very short span of time. Normally he shouldnt have survived something like that. It was the same with the pills. Taking two was risky, three was suicide. But he gobbled down ten at the same time and still lived to tell the tale.

The only reason he could think of as to why he was still alive was his experience in the pond of Cosmic Water. The experience had been a bit similar, though it wasnt exactly the same. His body had absorbed extreme amounts of energy from the Fruit of Ascension along with the Cosmic Water and was ripped apart and reformed untold time.

Perhaps that very experience had changed something with him on a fundamental level, and allowed him to survive when he by all accounts should have exploded or become an undead. However, he didnt have time to figure anything out or even get dressed because an eerie laugh dragged him out of his thoughts.

Well, whats this? a hollow voice drifted out from behind him, prompting Zac to whirl around and whip out his axe.