Sam closed the notification, and took stock of his new power. He could feel that his aura abilities had burgeoned, as well as his connection to the Dao in general. However, he did not have any concrete gains, because Mote stage Daos did not increase stats. He also felt stretched somewhat, as if he was reaching the limit of some unseen barrier for his Dao capacity. For now, he would have to be content with the two that he had.

Sam could sense that he could fit another one in there, but it would be wiser to leave it alone. He was going into uncharted territory here, and it was best to approach that with caution. Sam summoned a small amount of Resolve Dao energy to his hand, watching as a tiny bead of scintillating light appeared there. It looked like a diamond, so brilliant was it, and Sam could feel a profound aura of tenacity coming off of it.

Sam let the droplet of energy sink back within his flesh and closed his eyes once more. Sam took a short tour of his body, stopping at all of the nodes that were open thus far. His essence acquisition rate was up fivefold from the first level, which still was a meager amount. Sam still collected some nonetheless.

A tiny trickle of essence poured into him from his nodes, barely visible to him. It was a bit more efficient than doing so with only one node, but because the cost of leveling up had increased, it was only about twice as good, if not less.

Sam meditated there for a few hours, waking up when the ship eventually touched down. As the gangplank descended, Sam got up. Looking down the ramp, he frowned. The ship was parked on some sort of runway, made out of black asphalt. He could hear a faint beeping sound coming from the distance, and a flash of silvery metal crossed in front of his vision briefly in the distance. This was not the city Sam remembered. Still, the ship had thought it was, so he might as well check it out. As the others got out of their seats and started for the exit, Sam raised one hand for them to stop.

"Wait here. I have no idea where we are right now, and it might be dangerous.”

Sam slunk down the ramp, trying to keep a low profile, and found himself in the midst of what looked like a bustling airport. There were five other runways, each with a strange flying craft waiting on them. They varied greatly in size, but none of them were larger than Sam’s own ship. If this was the beginning of some faction’s space program, it was the very beginning.

A beam of white light lanced across the air towards him, and Sam ducked, letting the beam glance off the ship behind him. The beam had come from a squat turret-like construction on the end of the runway, whose barrel was still glowing with heat. Sam darted towards it, avoiding the subsequent attacks, and just as he was about to smash it into oblivion, he felt a hand on his back. Turning around, ready to kill whoever was there, he paused. It was Eduardo.

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“Eduardo? What the hell are you doing here?” Sam said incredulously. “Where is this?”

“You came back just in time to see the grand unveiling,” Eduardo replied, smiling a bit.

“Grand unveiling? Of what?”

“This is Thomas’s grand project. Or rather, the planes are. The actual runways are just runways. He wanted to create a rudimentary space program here, and he finished just a few hours ago. We sent off the first of our crafts a few minutes ago.”

That must have been the silvery flash that Sam had seen. As Sam took in the space around him properly, he was able to see the city walls in the distance. The forcefield was on the other side however, meaning that it had expanded. As if reading his mind, Eduardo nodded.

“Yeah, we completed a few upgrades here as well. Some massive army came knocking a day ago, but we sent them packing with our new power,” Eduardo said, grinning widely.

“Wait, new power… Does that mean that you reached F Rank?”

“Lao and I did. We helped each other break through. It was really painful, but it was definitely worth it. What is with the System and near death experiences?”

“Well, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Quite literally in this case,” Sam said, eliciting a chuckle from Eduardo. “Wait a moment. My companions are still in my ship, and they think that we’re in someplace strange. Let me get them.”

Sam ran back to the ship, and quickly explained what had happened to Claude and the others. As they exited the ship, Sam stored it away. All of them looked in awe at the runways around them. They had already experienced being in a flying craft, Sam’s one, but the idea that their faction was actively creating them was another thing.

Sam led them over to Eduardo, who was still waiting by the turret. It seemed to have stopped regarding Sam as a threat, as it had gone dormant. Sam stopped a few feet away from it, and looked off into the distance at the control tower. It was about two stories in height, with a wide top and a comparatively narrow base. At the top, Sam could see a silhouette of a man sitting there.

“Is that Thomas up there?” Sam asked Eduardo.

“No, that’s just the controller. Thomas is in charge of all the research for the planes. He can’t waste time monitoring their usage. It’s far past time that you should have seen the man anyway. I’ll take you to him,” Eduardo answered.

Eduardo led them off the runway and into the city streets, entering through one of the gates. The wall had increased in size, and the shield was now thicker than it had been before. Within the town, the streets were larger, and the buildings were taller and broader than before. In the center, Sam saw a small row of what looked to be skyscrapers. Some serious upgrades had gone down when he had been gone.