Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 944: Refinement

"Heugh," Zac retched as he spat the lake water onto the ground, and he helplessly watched it seep into the soil.After the success of eating the Dao Crystals, it had seemed like a solid plan to simply drink the lake water, preventing any of its mysterious insights from slipping away. One mouthful, one insight - easy enough. But who would have thought his body would reject it so vehemently? He didn't even get a taste of the truths of the Lost Plane before a huge sense of disgust overwhelmed everything.

Had the water spoiled inside the canisters? No, it didn't smell any worse than before, and it was still mostly clear. The corruption of the Lost Plane didn't seem to taste anything, either. Was it a mental block, or was his body protecting him from doing something stupid? Either case, it wasn't the end of the world. The first method had failed, but there were many more.

Zac took out a large bowl and filled it with lake water, and a surprising scene immediately occurred. As soon as it left the canister, the water started releasing plumes of vapor even though it was room temperature. In other words, it wouldn't last long outside its containers. Zac guessed it had something to do with the fact the water was no longer connected to the Lost Plane through the spatial tunnel. It had become rootless, like a harvested Spiritual Plant.

There was no time to waste, so Zac quickly dunked his head into the bowl. Almost immediately, he felt the corruption seep into his head. This was just a test where he wanted to check whether he could directly gain insights from the corruption before his Hidden Nodes refined it, leaving more insights for himself and less for [Void Heart].

Unfortunately, this experiment was a failure as well. The only thing Zac gained were distant voices clamoring in the back of his mind until the corruption was dragged down to his heart for purification. Not only that, but the small amount of taint absorbed by just dunking his head allowed [Purity of the Void] to destroy a significant portion before it could enter [Void Heart].

A moment later, the purified comprehension was released from the Hidden Node in his heart, and Zac was provided a flash of clarity. But again, with the amount being so little, he didn't manage to take even a step forward with his comprehension of Duality before the moment passed. It looked like it was time to get back to basics, so Zac took out a large medicinal bath and filled it with lake water.

With water reaching his chin, Zac was soon filled with corruption, and more kept pouring in. He even started to feel his perception shift, but [Void Heart] was already fast at work refining the water into something usable. Soon, his Soul Aperture was filled with the light of truth, and Zac was methodically deciphering one character after another from the [Book of Duality].

Ten minutes later, the corruption had either been absorbed, purified, or dissipated into the air, leaving only common water behind. Zac took a deep breath as he thoroughly scanned his body. Thankfully, no matter how hard he looked, it seemed there weren't any negative side effects from this type of cultivation.

The corruption wasn't a tangible element, so there were no physical impurities that could hamper his cultivation. It was more akin to a Dao-infused wound, but his bloodline was uniquely capable at dealing with things like that. Neither did interacting with the corruption seem to impact his still-damaged foundations. More things might crop up after prolonged use, but it really seemed as though the lake water was suitable for long-term cultivation.

Of course, he hadn't forgotten the lessons he'd learned while trapped in the poisonous sea. Vai's re

So Zac preserved through the pain, moving toward the next expression of the Void. But it was at that point his perception was nudged, almost to the point Zac lost his focus. It was [Void Heart] which had finally woken up, and it greedily wanted to consume the foreign energies that had entered his body. It felt like the Void had splintered, with there suddenly being two black holes—himself and his Hidden node, both competing for the same energy.

Zac knew this would come, yet he couldn't help but feel a wave of annoyance upon sensing some of the energies, energies, drift toward his heart. Going through the eighty-one aspects of the Void and completing a Body Tempering Session would take over an hour, and who knew how much energy [Void Heart] would manage to steal?

Even worse, with this kind of energy, it would only return bog-standard Cosmic Energy, completely wasting Zac's time. Losing some resources was fine, but losing months of progress was not. Zac kept going through the motions of the [Void Vajra Sublimation], not wanting to stop prematurely and waste a whole session.

But in his mind, Zac was roaring at [Void Heart] to stop, to give him a break.

And the node obeyed.