Chapter 1,361 – Path to Monarchy

All things considered, Zac’s body was in a better state than one would expect. His failed Bloodline breakthrough hadn’t left any obvious damage, and the weeks spent in the ground were more than enough time to recover from his battle with Naruk and from stealing a sliver of power from the Gates of Transformation.

Zac could only find two lingering issues. The first was his five sets of remnants, which were nearly completely drained. Zac remembered being careful about the amount of energy he used to form his Chaos-based attack, but that couldn’t account for the current state of the remnants. The rest must have been used up to manage the foreign Daos, while some had no doubt been siphoned by his bloodline.

Having no reserves didn’t just limit Zac’s ability to use [Annihilation Edge] or [Origin Revolutions]. His Cosmic Core still couldn’t produce the Creation and Oblivion Energy necessary to activate [Primal Edict] and [Eye of Desolation], and both his Body Tempering and Soul Cultivation relied on the Remnants. The pure Creation Energy from the shards was also the most efficient for recovering lost limbs.

Zac would have to manage his reserves carefully over the coming year, ideally figuring out ways to speed up their recovery. The Remnants still gathered energy on their own, though not at the speed they did when they held the undying will of the Spark and Heart. The somewhat crude fractals covering their surface did speed things up somewhat, making them a good candidate for another upgrade. Zac had engraved the patterns shortly after the Atavism. Since then, he’d greatly deepened his understanding of Creation and Oblivion, and he’d spent months researching their nature in the Chaos Library.

The second problem was the fractals on his shoulders. They’d been altered, hinting at concepts he couldn’t yet understand. Zac wasn’t sure if his Chaos attack was the culprit, as the changes weren’t limited to his Human side. There was a significant chance they’d been transformed by the Supreme Daos, with the skill fractals’ connection to Chaos opening the door.

As things stood, Zac couldn’t say whether the change was good or bad. The fractals undeniably had issues stemming from his lack of comprehension, and the change might be the fractals aligning themselves. They might also have become Trojan horses for the Supremacies who’d marked him. Until Zac could say for sure, he would have to keep the skills quarantined.

Ultimately, the issues weren’t the end of the world. The special skills had saved his life numerous times, but their use was slowly dwindling as Zac’s real cultivation was about to catch up with the remnants. Besides, his gains were substantial enough to compensate for the loss ten times over. Zac couldn’t help but take another look at his status screen.

Name Zachary Atwood

Level 220

Class [D-Arcane] Evolutionary Precursor

Race [D] Human – Void Emperor (Corrupted)

Alignment [Zecia] Atwood Empire – Viscount of Conquest

Titles […] Peakmender, Exalted Destiny, Atavistic Defier, Valiant Viscount, Cosmic Entity

Limited Titles Tower of Eternity Sector All-Star – 14th, Equanimity, The Final Twilight – 1st, Gates of Rebirth, Void Road, Chosen of the Empyrean Chalice

Dao Earthly Dao of Defiant War – Early, Earthly Dao of Reborn Life – Middle, Earthly Dao of Sealed Death – Middle

Core [D] Evolutionary Core

Strength 413,622 [Increase: 256%. Efficiency: 567%]

Dexterity 191,195 [Increase: 196%. Efficiency: 363%]

Endurance 236,174 [Increase: 226%. Efficiency: 594%]

Vitality 242,731 [Increase: 235%. Efficiency: 592%]

Intelligence 44,132 [Increase: 176%. Efficiency: 363%]

Wisdom 107,016 [Increase: 179%. Efficiency: 381%]

Luck 2,217 [Increase: 219%. Efficiency: 488%]

Free Points 2400

Nexus Coins [D] 87 831 997

[Earthly Dao of Sealed Death (Middle): All attributes +100, Strength +4250, Endurance +27500, Vitality +8000, Wisdom +7250. Effectiveness of Endurance +30%.]

[Earthly Dao of Reborn Life (Middle): All attributes +100, Dexterity +4250, Endurance +8000, Vitality +27500, Wisdom +7250. Effectiveness of Vitality +30%.]

The failed breakthrough didn’t come without a silver lining. You needed to reach the limit of your stage before you were qualified to fail at reaching the next stage. He had no idea what his Void Vortices had gotten their hands on, but it must have pushed his bloodline to the limit of D-grade. The clearest indicator was [Force of the Void], which was currently sitting at 49%. Zac guessed it had reached the full 50% before the failed breakthrough’s backlash pushed it down a notch.

Recovering the last bit shouldn’t take too long. As for any hidden damage to his foundations, Zac wasn’t too worried. If there was one thing he was good at, it was getting back up after taking a beating. The inhuman resilience inherited from his Sindris Clan heritage had helped him bounce back from much worse. Seeing his level, Zac figured it might not be too long before he gave it another go.

Zac remembered being level 208 before entering the Mousetrap. He’d gained five of those levels in the Hidden Earth Abode. The following three were mainly courtesy of [Void Heart], having spent months tirelessly refining Natural Treasures and Beast Cores. A small amount of progress came from directly consuming Natural Treasures gathered during the journey, though items that could directly act as Leveling Pills were quite rare.

Jumping forward another 12 levels was like crossing half the stage in one giant leap. The limit of Hegemony was just around the corner, and Zac hadn’t relied on any Pills in his current stage since he didn’t have any. Such pills were extraordinarily rare in Zecia, and the Middle D-grade Limited Exchange naturally didn’t stock them. Zac had already entered one Outer Court and stood on the threshold of another. Securing the resources for a final push wouldn’t be difficult.

The levels weren’t his only source of attributes. While the boosts from Earthly Daos didn’t scale nearly as well as in previous stages, he had advanced two of them. There were no surprises in the attribute allocation, and his Dao Avatars hadn’t undergone any major transformations. Focusing on the avatars brought his vision to the illusory, war-torn continent that represented his Daos.

Zac couldn’t see any tangible differences yet felt Life and Death permeate the world on a more profound level. It was just as Zac expected. The upgrade of his Earthly Daos of Life and Death mainly focused on their pervasive nature, on how their shadows existed in all facets of existence. It was a first step toward being able to reinterpret anything through his Daos, of wielding Dao as Law.

When it came to combat, Zac believed the insights would synergize extremely well with his Eoz Bloodline. Apart from the general boost from advancing a stage, opposing Daos would have a harder time suppressing and depleting his abilities. It went hand in hand with the fact that his Daos of Life and Death were mainly defensively oriented, while the offensive power mostly came from his Dao of Conflict.