As the first of the aliens walked over to Sam, he held out his hand, accepting the trade for a small spike of wood that glowed with a faint green light. To his surprise, it only cost a few thousand credits. Perhaps this would not break the bank after all. Half an hour later, they had finished, and all of the traders were satisfied. They now were in possession of a monumental pile of junk, but some of it seemed useful at least. The first time that Sm had acquired was actually quite interesting, an enchanted stake made for dealing with humanoid undead. It didn't say the word vampire anywhere in its description, but Sam would have bet on the fact that vampires existed somewhere within the Multiverse. If orcs and all manner of mythical beasts could be real, then vampires could be too.
As for the majority of the items, well who has ever needed a drink flavoring device that could only mimic the taste of fried chicken? As soon as they left the town, all of the useless stuff was quickly discarded, leaving them with about ten items of value.
Sam kept on walking until they were well beyond the walls of the city. When he used this intercontinental ship, he had no idea what it would actually do. The others clustered around him as he set down the orb, and then backed away when they realized that it would probably expand into a much larger size.
Sam touched his finger to it, and sent a spark of mana through the conduit, causing the orb to start glowing. He backed off by about 25 feet, sure that that would be enough. With a whump of displaced air, a sleek matte black vessel appeared on the ground. It was built like a disk with a point on one end, and a few guns poked out the top. This ship was equipped for war. Sam narrowed his eyes. Had they just been sold contraband? In any case, it fulfilled its purpose, and after a moment of admiring it, Sam and the others walked in. The interior of the ship was lined with weapon racks and lockers, with only a small area in the middle to sit. As Sam crossed the threshold, a feminine robotic voice spoke.
“Greetings, pilot. I am Delta F, the ship controller. Please, if you are devotees of the System, then do not worry. I am not an AI. Look at the tube in the middle of the ship. That is my real body.”
A shrunken simian creature floated in a vat of liquid. It had almost no limbs to speak of, and a gigantic head that almost filled the tank. Pyotr let out a faint gasp as he saw it. When Sam looked over at it, its right appendage twitched in an approximation of a wave. This was going to take some getting used to.
“Pilot, where would you like me to take you? I have a topographical map of this planet already stored in my memory, and I can take you anywhere on its surface within hours.”
“Very well. Take us to Norway then.” The hammer could be located in any of the Scandinavian countries, but Sam had a strange urge to start with Norway. The ship started to whir beneath them, and it suddenly rocketed up into the air, knocking them all off balance.
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“Seatbelts are recommended.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Sam thought as he made his way to the center of the ship. Before it could shake any more, he buckled himself into a seat, and waited for the others to strap in as well.
The seat modeled itself to his back, and he barely felt the discomfort from the trip after that. This ship was seriously high end, and he had gotten it for what was basically a pittance. On the bottom of the ship, the floor started sliding back, revealing a large glass window that gave everyone a good view of what was underneath them. They were still over land, but a few minutes later they crossed the boundary between land and ocean, and they could see the Atlantic beneath them. Strange shapes swam in its waters, and Sam briefly saw a silhouette the size of a skyscraper pass underneath him. When he blinked, it was gone, but the memory remained. The oceans would definitely be off limits for now. Well, judging by what Sam knew about the nature of monsters, they were probably nowhere near as strong as they appeared. Living in water allowed for a creature to become far larger than it would be able to on land, and there was no reason that monsters would be different. They were strong, sure, but probably not much stronger than Sam with his bonuses.
That was another thing that confused Sam. How could he fight on an equal level with a far larger monster, even though it should have been much more powerful than him? It wasn’t just that he could get past the attacks because he was so small, but he was actually able to damage them as well. Sam began to form the inklings of a theory, and then remembered that Jeffrey was sitting right next to him.
“Jeffrey, I have a somewhat useless question for you.”
“Ask away. It’s not like we have anything else to do,” Jeffrey said, with his eyes half closed.
“Alright. Is there a reason that very large monsters of the same level to me are not far more powerful? Even if their stats are the same, surely the weight would allow them to leverage far more power?”
“That’s actually a good question. The answer is that they should be, at least because you are a primarily physical fighter. Large monsters gain stat boosts to all of their physical stats, except Dexterity, with large detriments to all of their mental stats. The fact that you are able to fight on a somewhat equal level to them physically means that you are far beyond the curve. A normal peak G Rank monster, like one of those inferno boars, would normally take a team of about 5 or six similarly level fighters to deal with.”
“Oh. Well, I have my titles to thank for that-.”
Jeffrey quickly placed his hand over Sam’s mouth.
“Sam! Never talk about your titles to anyone! They tell people a story about who you are, and the rarer your titles are, the more likely that you can be identified. Don’t even tell me.” Jeffrey said in a low voice. He only let go of Sam when he nodded. Sam gave him a look, and then went back to watching the waves beneath them.
Growing bored of this after a bit, Sam started cultivating his Dao in preparation for his rank up. He could feel a faint pressure building up within him. For now, it was barely noticeable, but he knew that as he approached the time of the rank up, he would be strained from it. As he cultivated, it became noticeably more distracting, until he eventually felt it throughout every corner of his being.