Given how exhausted she was, It was no surprise that she slept like the dead. Back aching from sleeping on the hard rock, zee groaned, opening her eyes.
Her mind had been drawn back to consciousness by the shift of stone overhead. She could sense something large moving above her, the clattering rocks entering the range of her spatial ripple skill.
Thankfully, whatever it was didn't sense her in her little basement, wandering off after a few minutes.
It was a relief, as Zee was still exhausted, despite what felt like days of cultivation. She rubbed her eyes blearily, remembering something that made her perk up.
She wanted some more rest, but first, she wanted to address her very recent rank-up. With a simple word, a list of new skills to choose from flowed into her mind.
(Reality slash, E. Launch forth a blade of energy that will rip the fabric of reality asunder, creating a highly unstable vortex in space.)
Zee almost chose the skill right on the spot, without even bothering to read the others. Almost... It couldn't hurt to check the others first.
Zee moved on to the next skill, recoiling in disgust as she read it.
(Ritual of sacrifice, E grade. Devour the souls of your enemies, stealing a portion of their power for your own.)
Nope! That one was Definitely off the table. She would not become a soul-sucking monster like Dern, even if it did offer more power.
The next skill was a lot more to her liking.
(Fields of Fog, E grade. Drench the are in a corrosive fog, restricting your enemies)
This skill sounded very similar to that Fog lands skill she could have chosen at the peak of F grade.
Maybe this was the cranked-up version? It was a good-sounding domain skill, though she still had her mind set on reality slash.
She moved on, reading the next skill, which seemed like a twisted joke.
(Ghostly tower, E grade. Summon a spectral tower that radiates a deathly Smaug, restricting all but the summoner)
Zee was uncertain how she felt about that skill. It sounded incredibly powerful, restricting and poisoning her enemies yet leaving her unharmed.
Even though she was still pissed off about the whole, ghost in the tower, she had to admit that this skill would be a great addition to her other skills. After some consideration, she moved on to the last skill.
(Spectral summon, E grade. Call your spectral companion to the physical plane.)
Zee flatly rejected that one. Oh, No! There was no way she would trust Kur Zul as far as she could throw him after it tried to take over her body.
That scheming ghost was staying in its prison in her head, right where it belonged. Having read all the choices, she bit her lip, humming softly.
There were only five choices, two of which she discarded out of hand.
That left her with three to choose from. Zee thought about her options for a bit, quickly discarding fields of fog. It was clearly an inferior domain skill compared to Spectral tower.
That left only two skills, a finisher, and a domain skill. It shouldn't have been a tough choice, as she really wanted the reality slash skill, but she had to consider how it might affect her future.
Spectral tower would be incredibly useful for dealing with lots of enemies at once. But it might lack the ability to quickly finish off tough opponents quickly.
That was one of her biggest weaknesses. Some opponents were just too durable for her normal attacks to finish off quickly.
Like that rhino with the ability to cover itself in a thick layer of stone. She really needed a heavy-hitting skill, one that could help her deal with tough opponents.
After some consideration, she made her choice. Information flooded into her mind, on how to properly activate her newly acquired skill.
Excitement bubbled in her chest. She couldn't wait to test it out, but first, she wanted to peruse the recent changes to her status.
Since entering the planar space, she had definitely gotten a lot stronger. For one, she had evolved her race, which was a huge gain.
It might not give a flat number like her boons did, but that didn't mean it wasn't powerful. An evolved race improved her body on a fundamental level, from her bones, and muscles, to her ability to control energy.
The next was forming a fragment, which improved cultivation speed, the strength of her soul, as well as the quality of her purified energy.
All of that would help her immensely when opening more of the inner gates. The rank up to E grade provided fifteen percent potency to her foundation, which was nothing to scoff at.
Lastly, but certainly not least was a boon, called, Dimensional thief. Trap a world seed inside your body. creating a pocket of reality inside yourself.
Zee reread that one a few times. Her mind drifted inward unbidden, getting a glimpse of that ominous black tower, hovering on an island in a dark void amidst a storm of yellow Smaug.
The moment she looked inside, she could suddenly feel Kur Zul's presence. "Let me out of here you stupid bitch! I am going to devour your soul, then rip your body apart limb from limb!" Kur Zul shouted in her mind.
Zee pulled her mind back from the inner world. She shuddered. Yup, Kur Zul was still angry, screaming at her.
She tuned him out, which was easy, as long as she didn't poke her mental energy inside the inner world.
Okay, maybe it wasn't a good thing to have a world seed growing inside of her body. That malicious ghost was not going to just sit around and stay locked up inside the prison Dern made for it.
Kur Zul was contained for now, but how long would it stay like that? Could Dern save her again, if the ghost tried to possess her for a second time?
That was an uncertainty given Dern's continued lack of communication. Zee wasn't too worried. She had some hopes that he would recover, given she could sense some emotions radiating from his splinter.
Zee let out a weary sigh, reclining back on her cloak which was splayed across the rocky floor. It wasn't a comfortable sleeping arrangement, but it was the best she had.
She closed her eyes, and let energy flood into her body, filling her energy channels. This was a necessary if not tedious process, directing that energy towards eroding an inner gate.
The second gate was situated on her left foot, and she directed all of her purified energy towards it, letting the energy slowly chip away at the walls. This was the method to advance through the E grade, slowly opening all sixty inner gates in order to reach the D grade.
Once she was recovered, she could set out. Hopefully, she could find her team and leave this planar space behind.
A while later, Zee rubbed her eyes, yawning as she rose to her feet. Still a little groggy and sore, she slid along the top of the piles of rubble that blocked the stairwell to the basement.
Clambering from her hideout, Zee froze, startled as she stared at the sky. The sky looked like it was falling apart, with large cracks spanning into the distance. Creating a pitch-black backdrop was a swirling vortex of darkness where the tower and the inner city had been.
The vortex looked incredibly ominous, reminiscent of the Null realm.
As she watched, a whole block vanished, crumbling into that darkness, as more cracks spread out from the void.
It was like the void was slowly consuming the planar space, now that the heart was absorbed into her body.
Zee watched on with some helplessness, watching as the void rapidly consumed the ancient city. Zee was no expert on planar spaces, but this was definitely not a good thing.
She was too far away to sense it, but it didn't take a genius to know that she would be gobbled up by that darkness if she stayed here for much longer.
She scanned the crumbled remains of the ancient city, wondering which direction she should go.
With no visible landmarks, she decided to on the most obvious route. Which was to head in a straight line away from the growing vortex of darkness.
This direction seemed as good as any other. Especially considering the portal to bring them back hadn't opened yet.
Or had it? Picking her way through the crumbling streets for hours, worry clawing at her mind. Dern was depressingly silent, having not spoken since their fight with Kur Zul.
What's worse, she hadn't seen any signs of intelligent life in days. All she had seen was the odd monster scurrying through the streets frantically fleeing those spreading cracks and that vortex.
She bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder, and the encroaching darkness, which seemed to be devouring the city at an ever-increasing speed.
Had the emissaries of the Kelvish dominion left her behind? It sounded like something Petrie would do, leaving her to die.
On second thought, Zee had the heart of the planar space.
That thought reminded her that she had actually absorbed it. How she was planning on staying alive once Petrie found out was still a mystery.
On the bright side, at least she might get swallowed by the void before Petrie could brutally murder her and her friends.
She snorted, some bright side that was. Her dower thoughts were interrupted by the clatter of gravel sliding down an embankment.
She didn't have time to duck for cover before a monster lumbered around the corner snuffling at the air.
The bear was about eight feet at the shoulder, its brown fur crackling with arcs of energy with each step.
For a moment they both stared at each other, startled.
"Let's not be hasty, no need to get in a fight," Zee said in a calm voice, drawing her sword in one fluid motion.
The bear snorted loudly at her feeble display, clear contempt in its eyes.
Well, so much for diplomacy. At least now she would get an opportunity to test out her new skill.
The air hummed around her, her sword vibrating loudly as a torrential amount of energy flooded into the blade.
She raised her sword above her head, her muscles spasming uncomfortably from channeling so much energy.
A full three-quarters of her energy entered her blade, releasing a hair-easing aura that made the bear pause.
Without hesitating, she brought her sword downward in a vicious slash. The attack crossed the fifty-meter gap in an instant.
The bear roared in pain, as a ten-foot-long fissure of purest darkness formed in the air, cutting along the right side of its neck down past its left leg.
As the skills name implied, reality slash tore space asunder, tearing a chaotic hole in reality.
It was a truly terrifying skill that took a full three-quarters of her massive energy pool to activate.
Even still, the bear was a proper beast king, and wouldn't fall to a single attack from a recently ranked up E grade cultivator.
It was mortally wounded, but judging by the power flooding into its aura, the bear wouldn't go down without a fight.
Zee was fine with that, as she was excited to test out the newest effects of her recently ranked-up skills.
Over the next few minutes, she fought the bear in a hit-and-run battle, not giving it any breathing room to recover from her first devastating attack.
Using her movement skill she would appear, cut it, then flash away before it could retaliate.
This was proving incredibly effective, considering that her spirit echo now released a corrosive fog. When combined with the decaying properties of the blue flames, the bear was in a sorry state.
Zee was thinking it was a little too easy until the bear hit her. Even on its last legs, the bear hit like a runaway cart, launching her a dozen meters with a glancing swipe of its massive paw.
Even with the thin sheen of mist shrouding her body from spirit echo, dampening the force of the blow, her ribs cracked.
Gritting her teeth, she scrambled to her feet, gasping for breath. She braced herself for a charge, preparing to dodge to one side if needed.
The bear staggered as it took a step forwards, its body riddled with over a dozen burning cuts that radiated blue flames.
It made it only a few steps before letting out a pained huff, before collapsing into a pool of blood.
Zee watched the bear's chest rise and fall, blood frothing from its mouth as it took its last breaths.
It's death was surprisingly anticlimactic. It didn't go out in a burst of power, but a soft sigh.
Zee reached into her spatial storage with her mind, finding one of her dwindling supply of peak F-grade healing pills and tossing it into her mouth. There was a burst of soothing energy in her stomach, soothing some of the pain, as the medicine went to work on stitching her up.
Clutching at her cracked ribs, Zee gingerly walked over and began digging into its skull, prying out the beast's core.
It was a peak E-grade beast, so its core was bound to be worth a cartload of Dara.
And she was right. Zee held up a palm-sized beast fragment, grinning ear to ear.
This was the first beast fragment she had ever seen, about twice the size and weight of even the splinter she got from the spire hawk.
The bear had truly been a step above the rest. She would have been screwed if it hadn't stood there and let her hit it with a full-powered finisher skill.
She had known the skill would be potent, but it had some clear downsides.
Reality slash was incredibly powerful, but it took a few seconds to activate, not to mention it costing three-quarters of her energy reserves.
She would need to be smart about its usage, at least until she broke open more of the inner gates. She had already opened one, courtesy of the race boosting concoction, but that was just the start.
There were fifty-nine more gates to open to reach D grade. Opening the gates was straightforward if not a tedious task.
It involved dragging in energy from the world river and targeting each gate individually, slowly eroding the gate until it burst.
That would give access to another energy channel in her body, which would improve her energy stores, and energy channeling speed.
The problem was, the more gates you burst open, the harder it was to break open the next. Some of them required so much energy to burst open that they could kill the cultivator if they messed up.
An implosion was actually one of the main causes of death in the E grade, killing almost as many people as monsters did.
It was why most were stuck in early or middle E grade. They lacked the willpower or a strong enough body to open the gates in the head. Or, they were too poor to buy the resources to help them push through the higher gates.
Most of the said resources were jealously hoarded by powerful sects, or guarded by vicious beasts like this bear.
She tucked the bloody fragment away inside her spatial storage. The pocket dimension inside of her necklace was depressingly empty after her stay in the tundra.
Anything and everything that had been flammable was burned to help keep her warm. Including Malden's bed, which was a shame as it was incredibly soft.
Zee didn't regret it too much, but she wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to him. On second thought it might be rather amusing to see the look on his face when she told him she burned to bed.
The thought of Malden sparked an idea.
Wait a minute, didn't she still have that beacon he gave her?
She withdrew the small gem from her spatial storage, before glancing around. If she couldn't find them, then maybe Malden could find her instead.
Okay, here goes nothing. The beacon crumbled, a burst of energy washing around her.
She waited for a few tense seconds, expecting Malden to show up in a cloud of sand. Seconds turned to minutes which turned into a few hours, of waiting.
It wasn't all bad, as she needed to let that healing pill she took to fix her broken ribs.
After waiting for most of the day, Zee got frustrated at Maldy's tardiness and set off.
She was getting a bit anxious watching that growing rift to the void slowly consuming the city, getting ever closer.
Zee really didn't want to stick around and let it catch up. Moving at a quick jog, which was faster than a normal person's full sprint, she traveled through the war-torn city, reaching the border at the end of the third day.
By now the cracks in the sky had already reached as far as she could see, and that vortex of darkness was spreading outward.
Zee was starting to get more than a bit worried.
With each passing hour, the cracks in the sky grew wider, and small spatial tears formed. The tears created bizarre weather patterns, the noxious yellow gas in the sky forming swirling pools of smoke that were dragged to the void.
The planar space was crumbling around her, and still, there was no sign of the promised portal to get everyone out.
If Petrie didn't hurry her furry ass up, Zee might have to try her luck at forming her own portal out of here.
After her last unpleasant experiences with dimension-hopping, Zee was not keen to try opening a portal out of the planar space.
She shuddered at the far too recent memories. Yup, attempting to open a portal out of here would be her last resort.
Zee was in the middle of cursing Petrie, clan Lauraunt and the Hather clan, when she felt it.
Her hair rose on end, the world river churning as a portal formed, its signature radiating like a beacon.
Zee glanced towards the portal, which was hidden by a forest of trees, and a mountain range in the distance.
The portal was broadcasting a signal, a very powerful signal, yet she could somehow tell it was really far away.
She glanced up at the fractured sky, then the dense forest blocking her path. Judging by the distant feeling the portal gave off, It might take her weeks to reach the portal. That was a huge problem as she doubted she had that much time before the planar space collapsed.
Well, no one said escape would be quick, or easy. Zee rolled her shoulders, stretching, arches of pain shooting through her side. Her ribs were still a bit tender after that bear manhandled her.
With an exasperated sigh, she gingerly slipped into the jungle, navigating the thick underbrush with practiced efficiency.