Sam awoke with a groan, clenching his teeth in pain as his body was wracked with agony. There was a notification waiting for him, which he clicked on, more to distract himself than anything else.

You have killed a Juvenile Cyclops!

You have leveled up! (x4)

It had given him four whole levels, which meant that the cyclops had been far beyond his own strength. Those level ups had healed him somewhat, but not fully. The damage had been too much. Sam had only beaten it through sheer luck. It had still been almost too much for him. Sam would have instantly died if the creature had been his size. A large body was a great boon, but it could also be a curse.

Sam lay back, not mentally prepared to go through his final threshold. Then he had an interesting thought. Every time that he had gone through a threshold before, his body had been returned to its ideal state afterwards. There was a chance that completing the trial would heal him fully. There was also the chance that he wouldn't survive it, but he didn't really have a choice. Stranded out here in the wilderness with a heavily damaged body was a death sentence anyway. At least this way he would have a chance of survival.

Sam prepared himself, and placed the final points into Dexterity. A feeling of agonizing stretching took over his body, combining with his broken bones to fill him with an exquisite agony. He roared in pain, and then his muscles started to compress, elongating and becoming denser. His limbs became marginally longer, and his heart started to pump blood at a far faster rate. With one final surge of pain, Sam was finished. He took a deep breath, and the air tasted sweeter than anything he had ever tasted before. Two notifications showed up, the normal threshold one, and something else. Sam put aside the second one, but he felt a strange desire to open it as soon as he could. It felt important. For now, he checked on his threshold notification.

You have passed the First Threshold of Dexterity.

Speed, agility and elegantly applied strength. These are the central tenets of dexterity. Combined, these factors can temper the muscles of a raging brute, accentuate the spellcasting abilities of a mage, and even teach a follower of the path of speed more about himself. This is an often maligned stat, seen as the less effective bastard son of Strength, but in reality it is its equal. Choose one of the aspects of dexterity to follow, or all three. Your path will alter based on this, but for the better.

It was an interesting notification, as it implied that there were multiple aspects of Dexterity. Sam ignored that for now, and finally let himself succumb to the desire to open up the second notification.

Congratulations, Sam Atlas. You have taken the First Step on the Road to Zenith.

The Road to Zenith is a metaphysical path to the heights of the cultivating world, and its followers line the ranks of the upper echelons of the Boundless Expanse. You have proven that you are among their numbers by setting foot on this path.

First Step:Complete all initial thresholds before F Rank.

Rewards:Your Fatemark has deepened.

Sam frowned as he read this. Did this mean that the urge to complete all of his thresholds had been something to do with this? He had briefly heard about causality before, and the strange ways in which it operated. Had fate forced him along this path, because he had some great destiny? In any case, this was a welcome notification, if not one that provided any tangible benefit save for the mysterious Fatemark, whatever that was. It was more of a milestone notification, to remind him of how far he had come. In addition, the path that he was on had an intriguing name, and he wanted to follow it to the end for both himself and so that he could complete his quest to save his father. He had not forgotten about the Overlord, in whom his father’s mind was trapped, but he had filed it away for now so that he could do more effective things. In any case, it was time for him to return to the faction headquarters. At long last, it was time to begin the final preparations for the hardest challenge that Earth would face so far. It was time to see just what the Engines of the End Times quest had in store for them.

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Sam’s new speed was like night and day compared to before he had set out. He was easily twice as fast, if not more, and he could run at upwards of a hundred miles per hour now without even breaking a sweat. It was like being a real life superhero. Before the extra strength that he had felt like it was almost unreal in a way, like he was hallucinating or just not paying attention to what was going on. It had been far beyond a human’s normal strength, but because everyone he was fighting was relative to him, or at least above the par for humanity, he had not really noticed it. It was the first time that he realized that he was experiencing power creep, but in real life. If he was an anime character, this would have been when he would travel back to fight his very first enemy, and show them how powerful he had gotten, but unfortunately this was not an anime. His first opponent, Lena Scarlet, was long dead, and he had killed her. Sam chuckled to himself softly.

“Damn, that’s pretty dark. I can’t imagine that being in any of those kids’ anime that I watched when I was younger.”

The thought, although it was completely matter of fact, was funny to him. It was funny in a morbid sort of way, but still enough to get him to laugh. Examples of humor were few and far between in the twilight days of Old Earth, and there probably wouldn't be that much of it in the years to come either. Sam shook his head, and kept running.

He had not seen another of the undead creatures since he had fought the arboreal defender, but he had noticed a few glowing eyes in the shadows of the trees that peered out at him, and vanished when he looked back. Sam was unsure of what exactly was going on, but none of the creatures whose eyes those were trying to attack him, so he paid them no heed. Instead Sam plied the depths of his vast memory to find the exact way back to the faction headquarters.

A few hours later, he broke into the despoiled wasteland that surrounded the headquarters, and spotted the wall in the distance. There were a few dark smudges inside of the wall, and he tried to make them out. Sam was too far however, so he waited until he got closer. As soon as he came within a mile of the complex, a whistling noise rang out and a ballista bolt, glowing with mana, landed on the ground in front of him, detonating and blowing a crater out of the earth. He shouted in alarm and spotted someone manning a turret on the top of the walls. He lifted his mace up, and the person recognized him, because they scurried off down the stairs and towards the center of the headquarters. Sam kept on running towards the east gate, and as he approached it opened slowly. Standing there were his ten captains and Rax.

Behind them, Sam could see a very different landscape to when he had left. An entire small city filled the central area of the enclosure, and all around it small farms and grazing areas covered the land. Windmills dotted the area, although Sam was unsure of what exactly they were for. Eduardo stepped up and saluted Sam.

“Welcome back. I can tell that you are surprised at the changes that we have made in your absence. Let me just tell you one thing. That man, Okita, is a true genius when it comes to money. He set up a tithe system in a few hours that is universally accepted, and thus far nobody has tried to evade it. Using that money, we were able to build up the area into a self sustaining city. In addition, we upgraded the defenses by quite a bit.” Eduardo pointed towards the center of the city, where a titanic cannon stood, exuding an aura of menace.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sam asked. The captains nodded.

“We bought the Superior Mana cannon. We tested it once, and it’s most definitely worth it. The cost was a bit hard to justify, but after the populace saw it in action, they started cheering,” Eduardo answered.

Sam raised an eyebrow.

“I can guess at how powerful something like that might be. With a 1.5 million credit price tag that is. What did you use it for?”

“On the other side of the city, there’s a permanent crater now from when we used it on another one of those Dire Bears. The only problem with it is that it uses an assload of mana to fire,” Jeffrey said.

Lao stepped forward abruptly and peered at Sam.

“Your fate feels different than before. Just what happened out there?”

“It’s a long story, one that I will tell when we get back to the city hall. I want to talk with Okita about this plan of his.” Sam started towards the city hall, but Claude cleared his throat.

“Okita set up residence in a separate area. He created a new financial district for the city.”

“Financial district?” Sam said, confused.

“You’ll see.”