The others made their way out of the woods, staring at the remnants of the fight. Half of the clearing was torn up, and Sam was breathing heavily as he looked at the bloody remains of the monkey. If that was only one of the creatures here, then it did not bode well for their future. Sam knew that he could deal with multiple of those monkeys at once, although it would be a stretch, but could he protect the others while doing so? He did not know. Turning towards them, Sam made up his mind.
“This is too dangerous for the four of you to continue. You need to go back to the safer areas of the forest and level up.”
“What?” Claude shouted. “We came all this way just to be benchwarmers? I thought that we were a team!”
‘We are a team, just one where most of the members are too weak to effectively deal with the enemy team. I know that it’s harsh, but I don't want you to die. All of you are important members of my faction, and it would be devastating for us to lose you. I will add you to my party, and you can get some essence that way.”
“And? Will we ever be able to join you?” Ava asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“If you are able to reach the level cap of G Rank, then yes, you can come to join me. For now however, you need to grow stronger. That’s an order.”
The others grumbled about it, but in the end they all accepted his terms. Sam added them to his party, and made sure that they actually were heading back into the safer parts of the forest. A few minutes later, he sighed, and continued on his way. Surprisingly, a sense of excitement was burgeoning in his chest. He would lay his life down for his friends, true, but sometimes they were a bit of a burden. He was the strongest man on Earth, and as such he needed to test that strength. Sam was suddenly filled with the desire to baptize himself in the primal crucible of combat, feeling the red blood of his enemies course through him. Blinking, Sam looked down at Mjolnir, which was glowing faintly. Sam realized that he had never checked Mjolnir’s stats, and he did so now.
Mjolnir
F-Rank Artifact(Hammer)
The legendary hammer of the Norse god, Thor, this weapon resonates deeply within the psyche of humanity. It signifies total, overwhelming strength, represented by Thor’s butchery of countless giants and monsters with the weapon. However, Thor was nothing without his hammer. Be careful that you do not fall victim to the same thing.
Weapon Skill:Locus of Lightning
Using the weapon charges up the power of electricity within it, and upon use, it releases it in one strike. In addition, it is far more conducive to energy attacks than a normal weapon.
This was the first time that Sam had seen the word artifact in a weapon description. It most likely meant that it was an especially powerful weapon for its rank, as it was still called a hammer in the subtext. All that mattered to Sam was that it was a powerful weapon. As to the warning about Thor being nothing without his hammer, well Thor wasn't able to level up in the myths. In fact, Sam would have put his strength at about the level of a high F Ranker, but not anywhere above.
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As he held the hammer, Sam had a terrifying thought. What if all of the gods had been actually cultivators from the Boundless Expanse? If Jeffrey had been reduced to the bottom of G Rank, but still had kept his longevity, would a more powerful cultivator keep more of their power? If an E Ranker had come to Earth, then they would have been worshiped by a god by early civilizations, before Earth had the technology to destroy such a threat. One nuke could take out thousands of F Rankers in one go, but the Vikings had not possessed any nukes, had they? In addition, Thor was their god. It would make sense that they worshiped him, if he protected them. Of course, this was all conjecture, but Sam made a promise to himself to look into it when he got back to the faction headquarters. For now, he had a staff to claim, and monsters to conquer.
Over the next ten hours, Sam cut a bloody path through the trees, killing spider monkeys left and right. Up until now, the only monsters that he had encountered were either the smaller spider monkeys, or the elephant sized ones. Both of them went down easily enough before him.
As he passed between a pair of gnarled trees, he heard a strange hooting noise coming from above him. Sam instantly rolled to the side, just in time to avoid a large club that impacted the ground next to him. A spider monkey, in between the sizes of the large and small ones, stood there. It looked vastly different however. Its arms and body were clad in primitive bark armor, and it wielded a large club on each side, gripping it with the top two arms. On the bottom arms, it held bone daggers, each of which dripped with poison. It chittered at Sam, and its tone told him that it was mocking him. The creature was not intelligent enough for the System to translate its speech, but it was certainly more intelligent than any monkey on Earth before the System came. In addition, its strength belied its relatively small stature. It was of a higher level than the elephantine spider monkeys had been, and Sam quickly analyzed it to check.
Spider Monkey Brawler
Level 64
It was a good deal higher than the base of F Rank, but not enough to cause any major difficulties for Sam. Sam squared off his stance, and gripped his mace tightly. The creature bared its teeth, and charged him. As it did so, all of its arms began to whirl around itself, and they quickly turned into a blur of brown as the clubs moved.
Sam narrowed his eyes and drew on his full power. As he did so, the movements became slow enough for him to see. As one club came whirring towards his head, Sam reached up with his free hand and stopped it in its tracks. His hand vibrated with the impact, and he winced, but he was otherwise unharmed. With a crunching noise, he clenched down on the weapon, breaking it in half. The monkey stared at him in surprise, and Sam brought Mjolnir arcing around himself, smashing it directly into the creature’s head. It flew to the side, bleeding heavily, and it arrested its flight with its remaining club about a dozen feet away. Getting to its feet, it howled at him.
Sam grinned and started to push his energy into Mjolnir. Now that he knew why it was so easy to do so, he felt the effects of the hammer even more than before. It was like a hungry well, thirsty for his energy. As the hammer started to glow, the monkey began to slam its club into its head. Each time that it struck flesh, the club sucked red energy out of the monkey. It seemed that all of the monsters here had some sort of berserker skill that would allow them to exchange health for power.
The club burst into flames a moment later, and the monkey pushed off the ground towards Sam. Sam gripped his hammer with both hands, and pushed off as well. A second later, both weapons struck one another, and there was a momentary pause before all of the energy was discharged. A wave of red power and lightning crashed into the monkey, and a wall of fire washed over Sam. Sam was relatively unaffected with the protection of his armor, but the monkey was in far worse shape. The flesh on its front had been stripped clean off by the wave of energy, and it was struggling to raise its club. With a single swipe, Sam put it out of its misery, earning some essence for his trouble. With a good chunk going away to his allies, Sam did not receive enough to level up, not that he would have anyway.