Zenith was currently in a bitter position. In front of him were three creatures with large bulky arms that could be used for attacking & defense, rushing at him. Zenith gave a gloomy look before dodging as best he could while gritting his teeth.

"I knew things wouldn't be so easy..." he cursed under his breath, his excitement beforehand gone. This was a dangerous predicament he was in, though he didn't panic; instead, he had several ideas.

With a shield in his left hand, he suddenly dashed between two of the creatures, smacking the closest, which in return caused the creature to wide sweep with its large hand. Zenith snickered before he quickly sidestepped & ducked, right as the second creature was reaching out to him. Unfortunately for it, it was smacked by the first's sweeping attack & knocked away.

"They really aren't that much smarter, still going on instinct." The third creature then lunged at Zenith, but he quickly moved behind the first creature that was about to recover its momentum from its first attack. This made the third creature lunge onto the first, & it seemed to cause a bit of commotion as the first was obviously angry & smacked the third one, causing a bit of infighting between the two.

Zenith took this as a chance to rush over to the second which had been smacked away & had just stood up in a daze. Before it could react & raise its large hand in defense, Zenith had already rammed a laser dagger into its temple like a shank, killing in one clean go. Zenith didn't take this time to celebrate, raising his left hand behind him, raising his right hand & activating a flame sphere while the other two were entangled with each other.

Before they realized the attack had been prepared, it had already collided into them. They screeched in pain as they were burning. Fortunately for them, it wasn't enough to kill them in one go, but Zenith had already rushed over, his laser dagger & shield gone, replaced by a laser great axe he gripped & maintained with the resonance energy of his gauntlets & his own reserves.

He cleaved downwards, beheading the second in one go, then with all his might he raised it & slashed towards the third which had quickly tried to use its large hand to defend. Though the force behind Zenith's attack was a bit too much, it went flying & crashed into the brick wall, unable to dent it which simply hurt it more.

Zenith didn't give it time to recover, rushing over to it again & barraging it with slashes & cleaves until it died. In a sigh, Zenith relaxed. [5x Reward: 750 Experience Gained. Drops Found: Mysterious shard x3]

From there, Zenith felt a surge of warmth as he leveled up. "Stats," he called out.

[Name: Zenith Sygin

Current Level: 8

Experience until next level: 23/1873

Current Resonance Ability: Cosmic Contrast]

With this being the first time he had faced a trio of these creatures, he had already faced several singles & duos beforehand. With his experience & easy learning ability & increased level, it wasn't difficult. He now also had 11 of those shards.

Gritting his teeth, his eyes looked at the cosmic contrast with reluctance. He wanted so very badly to understand what this resonance ability could do. This was incredibly irritating; Fable would laugh at him if he found out Zenith all this time had a resonance ability he didn't even know how to use.

Zenith put this thought aside. He then continued on down the dungeon-like hall. It was filled with twists & turns but Zenith was cautious this time; some may lead to dead ends. "Whoever designed this is a lunatic. Why would you make something so boring & frustrating to traverse?" Though he couldn't complain much, it could definitely be worse; there were no traps at least.

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As Zenith made his way around & encountered some more enemies, he realized he no longer found the lesser variants & their rare type. It was only the bulky-handed resonance creatures. He couldn't complain though as they gave Experience while the weaker ones didn't.

"Eh?" Zenith stopped, his eyes narrowed as he looked at what was in front of him. It was a large portcullis with an empty large chamber in front of him. The portcullis was open; he could see large torches around the circular chamber. "Boss room," he whispered to himself.

He considered his situation, thinking for a little. Then made a decision: he wouldn't enter until he had 100 shards. He couldn't be sure if he would encounter the enemies after the boss room. From this moment, Zenith gritted his teeth, then like a lunatic he began to run around back & forth in front of the room to encounter resonance creatures.

The system would prompt with his encounters, & he would quickly without mercy do his best to quickly end the battle.

[5x Reward: 460 Experience Gained. Drops Found: Mysterious shard x2]

[5x Reward: 230 Experience Gained. Drops Found: Mysterious shard x1]

[5x Reward: 660 Experience Gained. Drops Found: Mysterious shard x3]

Some hours went by, Zenith leveling several times. He was facing another trio of the large bulky enemies, but this time he showed no worry. He rushed over with a great hammer formed by resonance. The first creature that lunged at him was smashed away by him, its large hand which it tried to use to defend was cracked.

The second & third attacked Zenith in unison, but with one hand he used earth grip to entangle one, while the other was smacked into the ground with a downwards attack before Zenith stomped its head causing it to explode like a watermelon.

Then using a flame sphere on the entangled creature, it screeched before burning to a crisp. His effectiveness in using resonance with this rune ability was more potent with his leveling & getting used to it in combat. As long as the creature didn't block it, it would definitely die.

He then looked at the creature he had first hit, seeing it was still in a daze. He went over & finished it off. A warmth then filled his body. He tensed up, a stern look on his face as his fatigue from the earlier battles was gone. Like a sharpened blade, he looked over at the portcullis that was open.

"Stats," he called out.

[Name: Zenith Sygin

Current Level: 14

Experience until next level: 32/5434

Current Resonance Ability: Cosmic Contrast]

The experience he had obtained from these creatures was now nearly non-existent. He assumed after leveling he wouldn't be able to get anything anymore, but that wasn't anything he cared about. What he really focused on now was the fact he now had 100 of the mysterious shards. He licked his lips eagerly, pulling up his inventory.

[Combine x100 mysterious shards?] He pressed the floating yes without hesitation. He would be lying if he wasn't excited. He watched as 100 of these shards floated out from wherever it was that they were stored & began to shake in front of him before crashing together in a brilliance until it became visible. It was a piece of what looked like slate, but it gave off a soft dark glow.

[Resonance Skill Rune Acquired!] Zenith looked confused before he pulled up the information. When he saw what it did, his heart skipped a beat then sped up quickly. He almost couldn't control his joy. [Allows the user to understand a Skill from their current unlocked resonance Ability, Can only ever be used once per person]

"Isn't this just too circumstantial? It's just what I needed. Then again, this relic site itself feels like it's intended to train but have fun while learning. Who knows really..." thinking as he quickly clicked the prompt to use it on himself, unsure what it might have.

The moment he clicked to activate it, the rune suddenly shook, the runes on it activating until the slate was covered in enough runes to make it appear that it shined like a mini sun. It then shot towards Zenith & collided against him before vanishing.

Zenith gasped, clutching his head as it hurt immensely. He saw flashes of light & images, feeling as if his veins & soul were squirming about. More & more as his resonance mass contorted & twisted, the runes from the slate engulfing the mass & sinking in. Then the mass emitted a pulse of light that covered Zenith's internal body before the light vanished.

Zenith recovered, panting like his brain had jumped out, run a marathon & then jumped back in. The fatigue was heavy, but what he realized was he had an extra memory, or it was better to call it an experience.

He suddenly raised both of his hands, emitting a soft will before his hands became transparent like a milky white, the outline of spirals & twinkles of light could be seen. From his fingertips, streams of white light emitted.

"The White hand of black space" - this was the name of the ability he had learned.