Chapter 211. (Patreon)

Zac also figured out how to advance his quest for [Bulwark Mastery]. There were various ways to block a strike, but the only one that seemed to work was using a shield.

Unfortunately only had an old rusty shield he pilfered when he hunted the Imp Herald in the tunnels. It only lasted for 5 blows at the required power before it broke. That forced them to stop grinding his quest for the moment and instead focus on the other tasks at hand. There were infiltrators to hunt.

By now it was close to 8 am, which was a good time to hunt for shapeshifters. Most people were starting their day, heading out toward either their work or the academy. The sight was almost blinding to Zac, as everyone on the street was lit up like a beacon of life-force.

But Zac inspected each and every one beneath his hood, not wanting to let anyone slip by. So far they hadn’t found a single shapeshifter, which was both troubling and a relief. The problem was that they had no idea just how many were still on the island.

According to Ogras there had been a mass exodus for the cultists when Ogras decapitated their leader. A good portion of them immediately ran for the Nexus crystal and teleported away. A few others, likely the more pious ones, had wanted to avenge their fallen leader, even to the point of self-destruction.

Ogras hadn’t stayed at that time, instead heading over to the undead incursion to pick up Zac. When the demon later returned to farm the stronger invaders for contribution points the crystals had disappeared, and only some stragglers were left.

They simply had no idea what happened between the moment the two of them fled, until when Ogras returned. For all they knew there might be a whole contingent of lizardmen hiding in the woods somewhere, though that seemed unlikely.

The remaining cultists had been swarmed by undead almost as soon as the Corpse Lord fled, and they were barely holding on when Ogras arrived. As for the black golemoids, if there were any stragglers they were killed by the uncountable zombies as well. But it seemed that their leader had already ordered his troops to fall back before heading over for one last try at Zac's head. 

But since one shapeshifter was still skulking around on his island, there could be more. Zac and ogras therefore patrolled the whole town twice, including the commercial district and the academy. At least it appeared that no shapeshifters hadn’t replaced anyone else in the town proper, or any key personnel.

Zac also took the time to visit the unconscious David, and he couldn’t help but feel enraged when he saw him. Even after a few days of intensive care he still looked like he was on the brink of starvation, with his whole body covered in scars. The shapeshifter had thoroughly tortured the poor man, likely in order to gain the intelligence needed to keep up its charade.

After two hours of patrolling Ogras was clearly bored, and Zac could only give up for now. Since he had to prepare for the treasure hunt he tasked Ogras with devising some method to cleanse the island from any interlopers.

That left Zac to figure out what to do next. There weren’t too many days left until the treasure hunt, and he had a hard time deciding what he should do. He wanted to start experimenting to become a human again so that he could gain access to his offensive skills.

But at the same time he was unsure of how often he could change his form. If he changed now he might not be able to freely change back, which meant he wouldn’t be able to farm any more levels before the treasure hunt.

Since Undying Bulwark was an Epic class every level would come with a huge amount of attributes from now on, each one giving a great boost to his survivability. If he went all out for the following three days, leaving the last day to swap back to human, Zac expected that he would be able to gain between five and ten levels.

He’d already decided to skip getting the other two skills for now. He had no shield that could last him through the quest at the moment, and he honestly didn’t dare step through the teleporter to Mount Everlasting Peace as he was right now.

He was afraid those tens of thousands of scripts on the mountain would blaze to life and smite him out of existence if he appeared. He knew that the mountain itself had been instrumental in fending off and defeating the Undead armies that had tried to cleanse it.

After some hesitation he first went to the Thayer Consortia to speak with Calrin. The gnome was shocked enough to fall out of his chair when he saw Zac’s appearance, and it took some time to calm him down.

“Odd choice of skill, transforming into an undead,” the Sky Gnome muttered.

“I thought it would be a good skill to infiltrate the Undead Incursion, but changing back was harder than I expected,” Zac said with a smile as he took out the huge horn from the Star Ox from his pouch. “In any case, I’d like you to take a look at this.”

“Hmm, pretty,” Calrin said as he looked at the horn with interest, until he looked up at Zac. “What kind of beast is it from?”

“It’s from an animal called a Star Ox. I got teleported off-world for a quest and fought the beast then. Apparently the horn was the most valuable part of it, do you know what’s it used for?”

“No idea,” Calrin said with a shrug. “But it contains a lot of energies even though the beast is dead. I’m sure that it can be used for either weapon making or alchemy.”

“I met a person over there who said it’s worth around a hundred million Nexus Coins, so it should be something good. See if you can find out more,” Zac said.

“Sure. Anything else?” Calrin asked.

“I need a shield, a real sturdy one,” Zac continued.

“A shield? And I guess something that’s stronger what can be made on our island?” the gnome probed.

“Yes. Preferably a Spirit tool like my axe. Is it obtainable?” Zac asked.

“Probably not. Defensive spirit tools are far rarer compared to offensive ones. And shields are even less common,” the gnome said.

“Why?” Zac asked confused.

“It’s more popular to have amulets, skills or inscribed clothes for defense compared to a shield. Of course, those are much more limited, but they also don’t slow you down at all,” the gnome explained.

“No one really wants to waste the effort on creating a shield. They are extremely expensive and hard to make, since they need to be able to endure strong attacks not just once, but continuously. Very few materials can handle that,” Calrin continued. “So they are generally only made for order. You would need to visit a skilled blacksmith, but that’s impossible at the moment since we're stuck on this planet.”

Zac could only nod with some defeat. It was true what the gnome said. He’d only encountered two people amongst the demons who actually used shields as far as he could remember, and both were common foot soldiers.

“Well, keep your eyes open, just in case,” Zac could only say as he stood up.

“Sure. Remember to get some alliances while finding treasures. We need that extra income,” the gnome said with a wave.

Since he couldn’t get a shield at the moment he decided to focus on gaining a few levels before the treasure hunt. He walked back to his compound and took the teleporter to Mystic Island. He wasn’t afraid that he would run out of prey here, as the island was just enormous, and there should be millions of strong prey to hunt.

Even though time was of the essence Zac spent a good chunk of the following three days also looking at the rifts in space, trying to glean some insight into his Dao of Sharpness. He wanted to improve it before the hunt to increase his offensive power, but if he could evolve it naturally he could use his Dao Treasure on one of his other Seeds.

In the end he spent 14 hours a day roving through the inner circle of the island, killing one powerful monster after another, before he went down the crater and pondered on the Dao for 8 hours.

He gained four levels within the first day, but after that his speed slowed down markedly, only improving with another two the following two days. Finally, after three days passed he had to call it. There was only one day before the hunt, and he needed to get ready.

His killing spree had pushed his endurance all the way to 364, superseding his Strength and becoming the highest one. Interestingly enough it also seemed that [Verun's Bite] was finally satiated, no longer wanting to drink the blood of the new beasts it encountered. However, it still wasn't evolving, making Zac guess that he still needed to find more E-Grade beasts. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to make much headway on his Dao, and he knew he would have to use his Dao Treasure for it after he got home. Since he decided he was done he quickly headed toward the hidden camp to teleport back. Finally home he left a message for Kenzie telling her he was back and to come over after she woke up, before once again settling himself in his courtyard.

A large reason he dared to wait all the way until the day before the Treasure hunt to experiment with turning back was that he had found some clues to turning during his fight with the tiger. That battle had almost completely exhausted all his miasma, and at that point he’d felt that the Duplicity Core was starting to wake up.

It was in line with how he turned the first time, with his life-force being stolen by the dagger. The only problem was that when he got close to running out of miasma he started to feel like he was about to die, and that the remaining miasma in his body was all that prevented his true death.

It was a weird distinction Zac hadn’t realized before now. The miasma was not only the source of power in battle, but also the source of life for the undead. If Zac ran out of Cosmic Energy in a fight he would feel weak, but he would be fine after resting.

But running out of Miasma for an undead seemed to be a death sentence. It gave a new meaning to the expression tired to death. He needed to find out if his theory was correct, but it would be crazy not to take some precautions.

It took an hour before Kenzie came to his courtyard after reading his note, and Zac immediately erected the arrays before taking out an E-Grade Divine crystal and an E-Grade Miasma crystal.

“I am going to try to turn back into a human now,” Zac explained. “If it looks like I’m dying, try using the Divine Crystal first. If it doesn’t work, try the Miasma crystal.”

“Are you sure about this?” Kenzie hesitantly asked as she picked up the two crystals.

“Pretty much,” Zac lied. “I just wanted you here as a precaution. Here I go.”

The next moment Zac started to expel his Miasma though his whole body, and a cloud of death-attuned Cosmic Energy started to form above him. When he was reaching the last of his miasmic reserves the was overcome with a sense of dread, and he instinctually wanted to reabsorb the energy in the air before it dissipated.

But he ignored his instincts and expelled the last of his Miasma. As the last of the energy left him everything turned black, and the last thing he felt before losing consciousness was falling down.

The next thing Zac felt was a burning fire in his belly. He didn’t know if he’d been unconscious for a second or for hours, but he knew his idea was correct as his Core had sprung to life. It felt as though it shone like a sun inside his body, giving off a healing warmth.

However, that warmth was quickly turning into a blistering heat as fire radiated out through it, covering every inch of his body. It felt as though he was being burned alive, and he barely was able to contain a cry of pain. It took all his effort to keep his mind steady as the fire raged through his body, and he didn't even have the energy to get up from the ground.

But finally the Core calmed down, and he opened his eyes with a shaky breath.

“How do I look,” he said with a hoarse voice.

Kenzie stood in front of him, looking worried.

“Tired, but human. It looked like you died there for a bit,” she said.

“Life through death,” Zac muttered to himself before once again turning to his sister. “How long did the change take?”

“Not too long, around two minutes?” she answered.

Zac could only sigh and shake his head in disappointment.