Defiance of the Fall

lothes, but a frown started to emerge when he couldn ’t find what he was looking for.

“Where is the Cosmos Sack?” Zac muttered, worried that he had lost it during the battle.
“I clearly saw him putting away a treasure.”

“It’s probably the ring on his finger,” Ogras muttered.
“Rich bastard.”

’

Zac suddenly remembered Calrin mentioning that the high-class Cosmos Sacks were jewelry rather than literal sacks.
They were a lot more valuable as they required a craftsman proficient in the Dao of Space to create.

He twisted the ring off from Rasuliel’s finger and limped over to a tree some distance from the campsite.
Zac needed to rest a bit and let the pill do its magic.
His head was also a complete mess for some reason, and he needed to restore his mental state as well.

Sitting alone in the forest full of wounds made his thoughts go back to his first months on the island, where his body was always in various state of disrepair.
He usually felt like a completely different person compared to the guy who kept getting himself in trouble while fighting the dumb demonic beasts, but sometimes it seemed like he hadn’t actually improved all that much.

Zac restarted his recuperation with practiced ease as he went over what had just happened.
The whole fight was just a jumbled mess in his mind, and he couldn’t remember the details.
Had he forgotten due to his anger, or had the splinter actually controlled him? The distinction was extremely important, and he quickly looked inward to check up on the splinter.

The [Splinter of Oblivion] was extremely docile at the moment, and it had retracted all its tentacles that usually tried to finagle their way out of the miasmic prison in his head.
It didn’t release any of that odd energy into his mind either, making the funnel completely empty.
But that alone didn’t bring any comfort to Zac at all, and the reason was simple.

One of the Miasmic Runes were missing.

He had looked at the runes that encircled the [Splinter of Oblivion] many times in an attempt to understand them, and he was certain that there were one fewer of them now.
Initially there had been nine of them, but now only eight remained, making the gap between them slightly larger.

Worry filled Zac’s heart, and he started to wonder if the protection of the mysterious Draugr lady was failing.
If the runes disappeared with this speed then he would lose all protection in just a few years.
He might be able to reach peak E-Grade in ten years if he pushed himself, but he knew that wasn’t enough to control the effects of the splinter.

Or perhaps it happened because he lost control due to his anger.
It had empowered the Splinter enough to break one of the runes, resulting in the destruction that followed.
If that was the case he would have to focus on ways to fortify his mind to avoid such a scene repeating itself.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much he could do about the issue as things currently stood, and he retracted his mind from the splinter.

He instead looked down on his finger to see that the ring Calrin lent him had lost all its luster, and the large inlaid crystal looked like a murky piece of glass.
Zac couldn’t help but groan when he saw the sight.
This had been his strongest defensive ace, but he only had one use of it and it had been expended before he even entered the tower.

’

It was a poignant reminder that he wasn’t invulnerable even with his massive pool of attributes.
Everyone had their own advantages and hidden aces.
That Rasuliel hadn’t seemed like a peak genius, yet he had almost killed Zac even if he activated the ring.
There was also the attack fueled by a Dao Fragment that almost hit him as they fled, indicating his level of insight wasn ’t anything unique in the Tower.

At least his battle came with a few upsides Zac reckoned as he turned his attention to Rasuliel’s Spatial Ring.
It had turned into an ownerless item since the guy died, allowing Zac to immediately bind it.
But he was surprised when he saw the somewhat limited space when he inspected the insides.

The space was only a bit larger compared to the ordinary Cosmos Sacks that cost just a few million Nexus Coins.
Zac had expected a spatial tool belonging to a rich guy like that to be able to store mountain ranges if needed, but he guessed he had severely underestimated the difficulty of making Spatial Rings.
The space in his own cosmos sack was a lot larger than this.

However, it was a lot more convenient compared to the Cosmos Sack.
He needed to physically touch a sack to take out an item, but he could simply will the ring to spit out its contents since it was already on his hand.
That would allow him to take out his axe or a defensive treasure a lot quicker, which might be the difference between life and death.
He also knew that the space inside a Spatial Ring was a lot more stable, whereas Cosmos Sacks needed to be replaced at regular intervals as to not lose the contents.

Just the ring itself was an amazing treasure worth well over a Billion Nexus Coins, yet he knew that was only the tip of the iceberg after a cursory glance at the contents.
He immediately found the box that Rasuliel put away just before the battle started, and just that box alone almost made Zac feel the danger he found himself in worth it.

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He still couldn’t be certain that the [Prajñā Cherry] would be enough to heal Alea, but it would no doubt make her situation better than it currently was.
If he could prolong the time she could stay inside the coffin to a few decades he felt confident he would be able to find a few more treasures to feed her.

Perhaps the Tree of Ascension would be able to produce another fruit as well, and with its odd mutation it might be able to help the Poison Mistress.

Of course, the cherry was just one of a large number of treasures, making Zac feel that expending the charge on his ring to not be the end of the world.
There were no doubt more defensive treasures in the Spatial Tool that Rasuliel didn’t have a chance to use during their hectic battle.

Zac took out one box or vial after another, glancing at their contents.
All of them were clearly good items judging by their spiritual emanations, but he had no idea what they did.
He could have Galau go through the things to find anything that would be useful during the climb.
But he suddenly froze after opening a particular box.

Wasn’t that the Eye of the Pathfinder Oracle?