Sam paused for a moment, and looked at the others.
“Are you sure you all want to help with this? I can just add you to my party, and you can gain experience like that. This monster is far too dangerous for you, even with me here to protect you.”
"We’re sure,” Claude said, his voice resolute.”We will gain more experience this way. Also, we need to learn how to fight monsters like this.”
“Very well then. Just try not to die. I will go ahead to attack first, and then you provide support. Got it?”
When Sam was met with a symphony of nods, he turned back to his quarry, and started running. It took him the better part of ten minutes to catch up with the snake, but catch up he did. It was moving at about the speed of a subway train, but Sam could move even faster. The snake had no idea of his presence, and as Sam leaped up onto its back, there was no indication that it had felt anything. Sam grinned. It would be feeling something startling soon enough.
Running down the length of its spine, Sam reached its head a dozen seconds later. Raising his hammer up high, he started to imbue it with power. With its sideways facing eyes, the snake did not notice anything until it was too late. Sam’s hammer flashed down like a thunderbolt, and the snake shuddered as the impact passed down it. Its head was slammed into the ground with enough force to crack a small hill in half, and a thick torrent of blood ran down its head. Unfortunately, it was far from dead. The creature possessed a thick layer of rocky flesh on its most vulnerable places, such as around its eyes and the top of its head. The rest of its skin was gray and hard as well, but not as hard as the protected areas.
It snapped its body like a whip, starting from the tail, and Sam was sent flying up into the air. He passed over the trees, and then fell back down, as the snake opened its jaws wide to catch him. Sam started to charge up another attack, and as the snake sensed the energy coming its way, it snapped its jaws shut, and whipped its tail around, catching Sam straight in the stomach. He was catapulted backwards, smashing through multiple trees in a row.
Groaning, he picked himself up out of the impact crater, his right wrist broken. Sam got to his feet, and used his skill to straighten out his bone. It was still broken, but it would not inhibit his movements. The only thing it would do was cause quite a bit of pain, but Sam could deal with that.
The snake was rapidly approaching, thinking that he was dead. As its head crashed through the trees, Sam jumped up and over it, bringing his hammer down on its back. A surge of electricity and Dao energy tore through its bones, fracturing a good portion of its spine. The creature hissed in rage and pain, and tried to get away. The back half of its body would not move however, and it was struggling to use its front half to pull the other apart along. By this point, Claude and the other had arrived, and they were laying into the monster’s rear end.
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“Phrasing,” Sam thought idly, chuckling a little bit. The snake was testing itself into knots by this point, and Sam was hard pressed to stay on its back. He slowly made his way up to its skull, and began smashing his hammer into it. It was like a flurry of metallic hail was driving the monster into the ground, and a minute later, it breathed its last. That had been an extremely durable monster, but as Sam breathed in the essence from it, he smiled. With a grunt, Sam sent the essence into his left elbow. As the node cracked open, Sam’s arm fractured slightly, and he grimaced. This was going to suck after a few more nodes.
You have killed a Mature Stone Anaconda!
You have leveled up!
The amount of essence required for leveling up was increasing exponentially at this rate. Killing that creature while in G Rank would have given him multiple levels, but doing so now barely gave him one. The task of reaching E Rank within a decade for the planetary governance quest was seeming a bit more reasonable now. For now, he could just tank all of the injuries from cracking his nodes, but what about when they did severe damage to his body? How would he recover from that? The only answer that he could think of was to increase his physical stats, specifically Resilience.
With that in mind, he prepared to place his free stat points into the stat. Then he stopped. With the effects of his multiplier, it would be better to wait as long as possible before using them. A small increase to Resilience now was not as worthwhile as a larger one later. Whether this was a good idea, only time would tell.
Sam dismissed his status screen, and made his way over to the others. They were clustering around a strangely luminescent area of the snake’s skin, where what looked like a small crystalline boulder was pushing itself up and out of the snake. With a small spurt of blood, the object popped free, and Claude lifted it up. As he analyzed it, he raised an eyebrow.
“Huh. My analysis skill is putting up more question marks than actual words. Why don’t you check it out, Sam?” He handed it over to Sam, who then analyzed it.
Mid F-Rank Earth Elemental Locus
F-Rank Magical Item
This stone contains the life force and elemental legacy of a Stone Anaconda. Consuming it will increase the consumer’s connection to the element of Earth, if they already possess such a connection.
Sam’s shocked expression must have clued in the others as to the value of what he had found.
“What is it, Sam? Something valuable?” Ava asked.
“You could say that. It allows a cultivator to increase their earth elemental connection. I would use it, but do you think that there is a better use for it?” Sam asked. He was positively salivating at the thought of using the orb, but he didn't want to greedily steal it away from someone else who might need it more than him.
‘Sam, I know that you follow a path of justice, but you need to stop being so selfless. We all benefit from your strength, as I am sure you have heard before. Besides, you killed that snake, so you are entitled to the reward. You should use it now,” Claude told Sam sternly, the man staring him down.
With a nod, and a short sigh, Sam took the orb over to a tree stump nearby and sat down. Knowing the System, this would be painful.