Defiance of the Fall

"It looks like a captain's quarters," Emily commented as they observed the room. "God, this aura. Is this what you were talking about?"

Zac placed a collapsed piece of wall in the doorway to prevent it from automatically closing before stepping inside. The interiors weren't opulent, but it was at least 100 square meters with multiple rooms. Far more generous than the smaller domiciles Zac passed on his way. However, it looked like a hurricane had passed through the room, leaving it in utter disarray.

It wasn't the result of previous looting. Rather, the inner wall was covered in familiar cracks. A few sections had crumbled entirely, giving a glimpse of the outside. The apartment had only narrowly avoided the sword slash, leaving it flooded with Killing Intent.

"Yeah, it's from the sword scar," Zac confirmed. "I didn't expect to see so much of it here."

There was no clear reason why it hadn't fully dispersed in this particular room. Could the intent have sensed this was the room of a high-ranking officer, and refused to be dragged out by the hurricane? Or was the chasm's pull weakening the further up the tower they went? It left the room significantly more affected, though not to the point condensed streaks would form.

Zac tried prodding [Void Heart] to see if it could absorb the intent, but it remained lifeless. Being showered in Life-attuned energy hadn't done anything to repair its damage. Surrounding it with Void Energy or using it to activate [Surging Rebirth] didn't help either, leaving Zac helpless. It wasn't like he had any Void Healing Pills or Natural Treasures to repair his bloodline. Hopefully, it'd recover on its own.

He dropped the matter and turned his attention to the room. "Let's see what your helper sniffed out."

The living room had nothing of value, so they continued into an office. It had avoided being directly hit by the attack, yet they only found one treasure within—an ancient Spatial Ring. Whatever books, crystals, or reports placed on the stone desk had been destroyed by the intent already.

"What a shame," Emily sighed as she inspected the ring. "It looks like it's about to collapse. If there are restrictions placed on it…"

"Would be nice to have someone take a look at it, but it doesn't look like it'll last the journey," Zac muttered as he reached for the ring. "We'll just have to take a gamble."

"Wait! Don't do anything hasty," Emily urged and took out a jelly-like blob.

She pushed the ring inside before squeezing the blob into a cylinder that snugly fit in one of her pouches. Zac looked on with interest, realizing the cylinder released weak Spatial Ripples. The arrangement protected the brittle treasure from shocks while providing it with nurturing energy.

"This way, we can open it when we get back."

Zac had planned to deal with the ring the same way as the Technocrat's since he didn't get any particular feeling from it. He'd quickly scan it and attempt to extract whatever looked the most impressive. But this was much better.

"Good job," Zac smiled. "But wait for me to be present when you crack that thing open. I think it might be flooded with Killing Intent."

Emily nodded, and the two continued their search. There was nothing in the two bedrooms. The two finally reached a sealed door that the gerbil had marked. The door was closed, and its arrays had been fully corroded, rendering the token useless. Setting off a small incendiary created a small crack, but the door still wouldn't budge.

Zac was about to activate [Apex Jungle] but stopped and looked at his disciple. "Do you have something that can let us squeeze inside?"

"Of course," Emily grinned as she took out a pouch holding a large number of deep-blue fish scales with a soothing aura. Each had a simple rune engraved on top of it.

Zac followed Emily's instructions and placed it against his forehead. A chill spread through his body as flesh transformed into water. The element was unfamiliar, but Zac didn't face much difficulty controlling his temporary form, thanks to his powerful soul. The only issue was that he was woefully slow, barely moving at the pace of a mortal's sprint.

The scales would be useless in battle, but they were just as useful as [Abyssal Drive] for most forms of exploration.

"Good stuff," Zac commented after dispelling the scale. "What?"

Emily was looking at him with a face caught between laughter and sorrow. "They say never meet your heroes. Aren't you supposed to be Mr. Adventurer? But you don't even have any morphing items?"

"Honestly, I hadn't thought of this issue before. Before, I'd just swap over to my other form and activate my movement skill," Zac said a bit sheepishly.

[Apex Jungle] could fill the same role as [Abyssal Drive] to some degree, but it ultimately wasn't made to traverse tight spaces. For one, he couldn't use it to travel further than his domain's width. And he could only shrink the trees so much before the skill failed to activate. It also had a minimum size of roughly 100 meters in diameter, making it very conspicuous. Compared to Emily's pouch full of scales, it was woefully inadequate.

Zac had always considered himself a paragon when it came to looting, but he realized he'd gotten lazy. His rapidly accumulating fortune could explain part of it. Fewer things managed to draw his attention, and he could barely be bothered with most spatial rings. That was why he'd almost ruined the ring before.

He'd also been leaning too heavily on his Luck and the unique perception he'd gained by absorbing a lake's worth of insights. The combination let him brute force most opportunities, leaving him woefully ill-equipped beyond the piles of storage items he always carried around.

Compared to him, Emily was like a scout, always prepared. She might not have his extraordinary Luck, but she made up for it with tools and preparation.

"I guess we complement each other," Emily smiled. "You deal with the big picture stuff, and I'll take care of the details."

"Sounds good," Zac laughed as he inspected the cultivation chamber.

The ambient energy was, in a word, terrifying, thanks to still-working gathering arrays and great isolation. The unattuned energy formed a dense mist, and Zac had to actively seal his pores so as not to get energy poisoning. Emily was similarly affected, though she could use the situation to her benefit by circulating her Cultivation Manual.

The chamber replaced all energy Emily absorbed without effort, and Zac suspected the arrays could provide significant benefits even to Late Hegemons. It made Zac want to cut out the whole room and take it home. Of course, that was both impossible and unnecessary. The ambiance could only be kept at such astounding levels by drawing from the tower's energy stores. Placing it on Earth would leave it drastically weakened.

As expected, there was no teleporter installed in the cultivation chamber, which might be for the best. Zac doubted Emily would agree to leave this early. Especially not when they'd finally found some interesting stuff. Two treasures were placed inside the chamber, and Zac walked over to the first one—a prayer mat placed in the Gathering Array's nexus.

"Natural gathering formations to complement the chamber's?" Zac muttered as he looked at the mat with interest. "Such high quality. My own mat can't compare when it comes to raw energy absorption. It should be an array that transformed after eons of nurturing. It's even on its way to forming a spirit."

"It'll only be able to show its real worth when combined with this particular gathering array," Emily commented, taking out a crystal to copy the arrangement. "Do you want it?"

"Not much use to me," Zac shrugged. "Besides, I think it's best used with unattuned Cosmic Energy."

"Maybe we can recreate this setup at the Academy or something," Emily said as she stowed the mat. "We barely have any premium cultivation grounds. We can't have our citizens spend all their local contribution points on pills and materials. There's no way we can keep up."

Zac wholeheartedly agreed. The Atwood Empire surpassed even Middle D-grade forces in terms of wealth and resources, but they were severely lacking in cultivation infrastructure. There was almost nothing to spend Atwood Empire Contribution Points on except for resources. Sure, there were a decent number of manuals, but his men had already been provided those upon enlisting.

To wage war was to burn money, and Zac was hemorrhaging resources. Local production couldn't hope to keep up, and the stockpiles brought back from Twilight Harbor were dwindling by the day. His Cosmic Vessel Sales could cover the cost, but sourcing even common cultivation resources was turning into a headache.

Every day, hundreds of feeder worlds fell into the Kan'Tanu's hands. Most planets were recaptured, but that didn't mean much when the cultists employed scorched-earth tactics. Most worlds were ruined, and the rest needed years to recover and resume production. Time they didn't have.

Setting up better cultivation grounds was the first step in lessening the Atwood Empire's over-reliance on cultivation materials. It wasn't anything unique for Earth, either. All factions needed to invest in everything from High-grade cultivation chambers, pill chambers, and comprehension-boosting environments to Mystic Realms, trials, and inheritances.

Selling access to valuable opportunities was the best way to keep one's treasury well-stocked without curbing the growth of your subordinates. If anything, it was much more effective than cramming pills and Natural Treasures down their throats. It was also a good way to ensure your talents didn't run off. The freedom of a wandering cultivator wouldn't be as tempting if it meant losing the blessed grounds that nurtured their Dao and doubled their cultivation speed.

Zac sighed as he turned to the second item in the chamber. He was a long way from setting up blessed lands like the opportunities peppered throughout the Orom World. Of course, he was aware those heritages grew and matured over hundreds of thousands of years. His little empire was already doing very well for itself.

The only item apart from the prayer mat was a grimy-looking glass box. It looked like a small fish tank, and the engravings vaguely visible beneath a layer of dark mud indicated it was an incubator. Not for an animal or egg, though, but for a bladed glove lying in the middle.

"It looks like it's been sealed in some sort of liquid," Emily said. "High-grade blood?"

"Seems to be a concoction, but blood was definitely part of it," Zac said as he infused a sliver of his will into the claw. A fragmented roar of indecipherable impressions filled his mind, and he decisively cut the connection. "The Tool Spirit has crumbled. A Blacksmith and Medium will have to work together to replace it."

Even low-grade Tool Spirits could last incredibly long periods by entering hibernation, but Zac suspected only A-grade Tool Spirits could be considered pseudo-immortal. The thing inside the claw couldn't even be called a spirit any longer. It was more a storm of chaotic spirituality trapped within the weapon. It was even more fragmented than the lingering Killing Intent, unable to even rouse a response to Zac's infusion.

In a place like Zecia, where materials and skilled craftsmen were equally lacking, much of the high-grade equipment was sourced rather than crafted. Adventurers exploring ruins and Mystic Realms often encountered similarly damaged goods, to the point certain Blacksmiths exclusively focused on reforging ancient equipment.

"Those guys are expensive, and they might ruin the glove," Emily said as she looked at the gleaming edges on the sanguine glove. "But it might be worth it. These materials aren't simple, and they've been tempered by the energy-rich environment. It might be possible to restore it to a Late D-grade Spirit Tool."

"Let's keep going. There's something even better on the next floor."

"Oh?" Emily perked up and quickly stowed the whole tank.

Back in the corridor, the two only managed to walk thirty meters before the gerbil squeaked again.

"What is it, Bandit? Another one already?" Emily exclaimed before turning to Zac. "This might take too long."

Zac hesitated, glancing upward. It was calm right now, but that only filled Zac with foreboding. They couldn't spend hours checking every room they passed on the off-chance they held a teleporter.

Besides, his token wouldn't be able to handle it, even if this particular room wasn't sealed. He needed to keep some in reserve in case they ran into the energy sentinels again.

"Let's limit ourselves to two per floor," Zac said. "Unless we find something that sticks out."

"Good," Emily said, and the two turned into streaks of water squeaking through the narrow gap.

The second room's layout was identical to the previous but vastly differed in decoration. There were at least fifty pots in the living room, each covered in engravings. In addition, six glowing spheres were hanging from the ceiling, their light long since faded. Its occupant had turned the whole room into a greenhouse, though not even fossils of the plants remained.

Zac swept the room with his senses, failing to find so much as a shred of life in any of the seeds. They still made a killing by collecting a set of tomes and a World Ring left inside the cultivation chamber. Like the ancient spatial ring, it was in a very bad state, but the room wasn't flooded with Kill Energy. It was actually possible ancient herbs still lived inside, having received ample nourishment from the gathering array. Like the Spatial Ring, it entered Emily's cylinder.

On the next floor, they entered another unguarded chamber, this one a large room designed for body refinement. There were a dozen spherical depressions in the ground covered in engravings. None of the arrays were running, yet the gravity inside was between five and twenty times the normal. They were gravity wells, likely able to support shocking amplification levels without leakage.

There was no way to take the wells with them, but they did find a sealed chest full of refined Gravity Crystals. They were dark brown, covered in engravings, and showcased their attunement in a mind-bending way. Zac almost pulled a muscle taking one out of the box, yet it floated in the air when he tried to put it back.

Like Soul Crystals, Gravity Crystals had no stable supply in Zecia, though they had a small chance to form naturally in spaces with very high gravitational forces. Zac knew they were scarce because Ilvere had a standing order with Calrin. Over the past decade, Calrin had only managed to source a few hundred, none as high quality as the thousands stacked before him.

Zac also snatched a group of dummies standing in a corner before leaving. They had to be made from very durable metals to be used in a gravity-attuned body tempering facility. A few minutes later, they reached the source of fate's pull, though one didn't need extraordinary Luck or perception to see this room was special.

The gate was twice the height of normal doors, and the hallway had been expanded to a small square. A tablet was hanging to the gate's left, though its markings had become indecipherable. The large, bold runes atop the gate were still more than legible. They emitted intense Faith Energy and streaks of lightning.

The name was equally imposing—Tribulation Throne.

"Look! Someone has tried to break inside," Emily whispered, pointing at a scar close to the doorframe.

Zac inched closer, realizing Emily was right. It was a deep scar created by a spatial tear, but someone had tried to expand it with fire. Zac could sense the Dao of Fire within, and they had actually made some progress. Alas, their attempt had run into a wall—literally. There was a sheet of an unknown alloy hidden within the stone wall, something Zac hadn't seen in any other rooms. Like the runes, it flickered with lightning, and Zac had a good idea what happened to the driller.

Two foot-shaped scorch marks closer to the wall confirmed his hunch. Zac doubted the previous treasure hunters had been reduced to ashes, though. More likely, they'd realized they couldn't get through and moved on.

Zac scanned the surroundings again, but there were no signs of people lying in wait. Neither could Zac find any booby traps or observation arrays. Still, standing in the open left him feeling exposed. They needed to go for it or move on. Zac leaned toward the former. These gates were the most impressive he'd seen since entering, and it reeked of providence.

"It's worth checking out," Emily whispered, echoing his thoughts. "A tribulation hall might be outfitted with a teleporter. Some would have one foot in the grave after getting tormented by lightning and in urgent need of medical assistance."

Zac rolled his eyes, knowing Emily was just inventing justifications to open the door. However, what she said wasn't without reason. Zac nervously looked at the crackling runes as he presented his token. The doors opened with a deep creak, and Zac was pushed back a few steps by the immense Lightning-attuned energies trapped within.

It far surpassed the cultivation chambers, and just touching it left Zac's skin numb. It was familiar yet undeniably different from the Dao of Lightning Cultivators practiced. Had the Limitless Empire managed to trap Tribulation Lighting? Or did they know how to generate it?

There was only one way to find out.

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