You’ll fight the Primo and steal his stuff for me? - Catheya grinned .
He can try to stop me , but I’ve gotten pretty good at blowing up stuff and creating a mess , - Zac winked .
Catheya laughed , leaning her head against his shoulder . - Then I’ll be waiting . -
The two were content sitting like that for a minute until Catheya spoke up again . - What will you do next? -
I got a treasure in the inheritance that needs to be fed with treasures from all Dao Peaks , so I’ll be visiting one Red Zone after another , - Zac said . - It’s weird . I was ahead of schedule , but now I feel I’m somehow behind again . -
When are you setting out? -
I . . . - Zac said as he looked down at Catheya . - Uh . . . Maybe tomorrow? -
A mischievous smile appeared on her face . - Come , there’s one more thing I want to show you . -
Zac grunted as he heaved himself up the ledge , his muscles shuddering from the exertion . His fingers were slick with sweat , but the rough rocks were thankfully providing enough purchase to avoid falling . Just two hours , and he felt as though he’d been fighting for his life ten days and ten nights straight . Yet when looking down , he saw he’d only managed to ascend a few thousand meters . Barely enough to make a dent .
The realization was almost enough to make Zac turn around and leave . Of course , it was more about what waited back home than the difficulty of the climb . Catheya . He didn’t know if their new relationship was just a fling or the beginning of something more . It was new , exciting , and returning to her side held far greater temptation than testing himself against a hostile Red Zone .
Zac shook his head , rejecting the notion . It had been fun acting like teenagers in love over the past weeks , but they needed to keep accumulating Mana while working on their cultivation . Looking at the bright side , time apart made the heart grew fonder , adding fuel to their next rendezvous .
By this point , the sun was high in the sky , drowning the sharp peak in light . When he arrived , the sun had just appeared on the horizon . There was no warmth to the light like a normal sun , but neither was there anything else . It was just pure light containing an invasive and unyielding force . Zac tried to resist it the best he could , but not even Void Zone] worked against the rays . It was like the light had a physical characteristic , glomming onto him and weighing him down .
As if the intense gravity of the mountain needed any help making his life miserable . And it would only get worse from here . Soon , the light would be replaced by darkness . Active darkness , and not just the absence of the sun . It would pour onto him just like the light now was , putting even greater restrictions on his body . This was the true danger of the Imperial Spire . The longer you stayed , the more cycles of light and darkness you’d experience . Each cycle would tack on the weight you experienced , and there was no way to cleanse it except to leave the region .
If you were too slow , the weight would overwhelm you before you reached the upper reaches where the treasures waited . And if you weren’t careful , you could find yourself stuck . Gravity increased the farther you climbed , and the cycles of light and darkness would continuously worsen the situation . It was easy to reach a point where you didn’t have the strength to descend the mountain safely . Just breaking a few bones was the least of your worries . There was a real risk of being turned into meat paste on the mountain slopes .
Zac looked up at the almost vertical peak , sweat pouring down his face . Still a long , long way to go before he reached his target .
Red Mission : Extract Revolution Orbs from the Imperial Spire . Bounty : 200 Mana per extracted Revolution Orb . Orbs must be fully removed from the Imperial Spire to be considered extracted . Maximum Participants : 1 . NOTE : Multiple guests can accept this mission
The Revolution Orbs] didn’t have anything to do with overthrowing the unnamed emperor after which this mountain was named . They were Natural Treasures formed by the revolution of light and darkness that kept him and all other guests on their toes . Just as the revolutions left some mysterious energy on his body , so did they leave behind energies on the mountain itself .
Sometimes , these energies turned into Revolution Orbs]—treasures encompassing all three major directions of the Peak of Taiji . And the target for Zac , who hoped to kill two birds with one stone . Earn some Mana and feed his Omnitool , which apparently was the real name of the hammer pick floating around in his mind .
This was the first peak he targeted , and the experience made him wonder if it was a mistake jumping into the deep end without listening to Ogras’s advice . Even the weakest Mana Barrier would have been a godsend to deal with the pressure . It would have been easier to target treasures from the peaks of Conflict and Chaos first , but it wasn’t convenient . For Chaos , there was the Calamity , but that region was still in flux . And since Zac needed to return later to pick up the Remnants anyway , there was no point in heading to a similar zone .
As for the Peak of Conflict , he didn’t have access . There were multiple good options , most of them ancient battlefields . However , they contained such dangerous lingering resentment that they required the fourth echelon or higher to access . There were less dangerous realms , even Orange Zone battlefields , but visiting those felt like a waste of time . The odds of finding the Supreme treasures he needed for the Omnitool would be vanishingly low .
That led him to the Imperial Spire . It was by no means the easiest or safest of the accessible Red Zones , but he had an inherent advantage . Most living races had an advantage when climbing under the light , while they faced incredible suppression in darkness . Conversely , undead , most golemoids , and some other species could make swift progress in the dark , relatively speaking , while they suffered under the light .
Someone like him could explore the mountain without suffering the full weight of the zone .
Zac kept going , climbing higher and higher . Neither Vivi nor Alea were much help . They barely managed to raise their tendrils against the gravity , and their extra weight made climbing even harder . Alea returned to her necklace form while Vivi retracted all but a bulbous flower that soaked in the light .
Skills were no good either . For one , the gravity was so overbearing even his Cosmic Energy was suppressed . He’d narrowly managed to activate his skills , but Ancestral Forest] instantly failed , and Earthstrider] only moved him a few meters at the cost of almost killing him . He didn’t even dare try Abyssal Phase] under this suppression .
Thankfully , Void Zone] was able to give Zac the occasional breather . And with his enormous pool of strength , he covered more ground in a single light cycle than most did in five . Soon , night arrived , and Zac swapped over to his Draugr form on a ledge and kept going . Four days passed this way until Zac finally saw a blast of light from a ledge above . The scene filled Zac’s exhausted body with newfound strength , and he swiftly crossed the final stretch .
It was lying there right in the open—a grey pearl containing an immense sense of weight . It occasionally emitted bursts of intense darkness or light , which was what he’d seen before . Zac almost stumbled upon feeling the intense gravity zone the orb created .
Holy crap , - Zac grunted , feeling like he would slip a disk when lifting the fist-sized orb .
It dislodged the natural formation that kept all Revolution Orbs] spatially locked , but it didn’t do much to help with the weight . He knew he couldn’t put it down . According to Null , it would fuse with the mountain if he did , so he desperately held on with his right hand as the Omnitool appeared in his left .