Sam shook out his jaw, and the last traces of pain disappeared. He was used to it by now, but his rapid healing abilities were still nothing short of miraculous. He was only a low F Rank now, and they would only grow stronger with time. In the future perhaps he could regenerate from almost anything. Of course, this came with its downsides, mainly the fact that he wasn't sure if he was even human anymore, but in this new world of power and bloodshed, only his strength mattered.
“Is it done?” Lao asked.
“Yeah, it’s done. They only are getting worse though. That one almost broke my jaw,” Sam replied.
“Damn, that quickly? I’m only level 52, and it already is quite painful.”
“Well, I guess this is why Jeffrey said that most people only aspire to F Rank. If it's like this in F Rank, then it must be even worse the higher in power that you get. Imagine each level being like a threshold or even worse,” Sam said, shivering at the thought.
He was nowhere near his next thresholds, but they would be coming up before the end of F Rank, that was for sure. As they would be increasing his power by even more, they would also be extremely painful. Sam couldn't imagine something worse than having every bone ripped out of your body and then returned, but he was sure that the System could.
“That’s concerning. But, we have more pressing matters now. What of the other Seals? We already have two of them, but what about the others? We have no idea whether they have been claimed or not,” Lao said.
“Well, we have no way of knowing anyway. However, if this spaceport thing that Thomas is cooking up works, then perhaps he can send out scouts to check. Seeing as the sites of the Seals collapse after you claim them, it would be quite easy to check.”
“As far as I can tell, it will be some time before we are able to create planes capable of crossing the country, let alone a continent. It’s extremely hard to find fuel here. Some of the stuff that Thomas told me went straight over my head, but he seemed annoyed at the dearth of supplies. None of the supplies from the Interweb work either, as they are ruinously expensive.”
“Damn. We just keep running into problems, huh? I mean, we can try to extrapolate the most likely Seals that the other factions would claim. Do we have some sort of intelligence agency? I seem to know little about the workings of this city.”
“Well, we do, but…”
“What?”
“Right now it’s one man and his dog. He’s good at what he does, but I would hardly call it an agency,” Lao answered. “He has a class that allows him to chart probable outcomes and causes, but he can only use it every few hours.”
“Let’s talk to him then. How about we get out of this alleyway first? I don’t think that it’s exactly becoming of the faction leader and one of his chief advisors to be conversing here,” Sam said, eyeing up a bag of trash on the street.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Lao nodded, and the two men left the alleyway, drawing more than a few stares from people nearby. Even if they did not recognize Sam with the armor on, they definitely recognized Lao. For those with especially filthy minds, certain connotations might even be created with the situation. Sam winced as he realized that he was one of them as soon as he thought this. The only person who would be likely to do anything along that vein was Jeffrey. In fact, the man had already done so.
Sam shook his head, and banished the inane thoughts. None of them were relevant to his current objectives. Lao led him for about half an hour across the city, and they kept to a normal human pace the entire time. Lao used this time to get Sam fully caught up on everything that had been added in the city. The city coffers had taken a serious hit with all of the construction, but they were slowly regaining their former glory with the myriad agricultural shipments that they were sending out through the Interweb. The size of those shipments was severely limited by the Interbweb, but they were still making a considerable amount of money. In addition, the basic defenses of the city had been improved, to the point that Lao was confident in it being impregnable to all but the most powerful of foes. So far, none had been able to even breach the force field.
However, there were some whispers of discontent among the populace. All of the citizens with martial classes were missing out on valuable essence, as the majority of it was lost when an enemy was slain with a piece of artillery. The amount lost scaled with the power of the weapon, with almost none being regained with the superior mana cannon. For the turrets, the operators were only gaining about a quarter of the normal amount of essence. Some were eager for an enemy force to finally breach the walls and let them level up properly again.
For the most part, people understood that a bit of lost essence was more than worth the safety and security of the walls and shield, but there were a few who were jealous of Sam and his inner circle for leveling up. They wanted some way for them to be able to do the same. Upon hearing this, Sam wholeheartedly agreed. He had underestimated the drive of his citizens to progress and grow stronger, and had believed that he was shielding them from the cruel world outside the walls. Perhaps it needed to be shielded from them.
In any case, Sam called over a random passerby, and charged them with delivering a message to Eduardo about this. Over the next few days, things would change around here. Sam had a few ideas about how to ensure the adequate leveling speed of the citizens, and he was going to get a bit more involved in the military aspects of the faction. That was, as soon as he met with the man that Lao had told him about.
His office was located in between a bakery and a weapons store, and from the outside it looked nothing more like just another shop front. There was no sign outside, but Sam’s enhanced eyesight picked out quite a few magical constructs dotting the walls, which acted as security cameras.
Sam knocked once on the door, and heard the pounding of feet behind it. He stepped back and the door swung open, hitting the wall with a bang. A man stood there, holding a strange weapon. It looked like a mix between a gun and a crossbow, with the faint aura of magic surrounding it. The man himself was dressed in well worn fatigues, and apart from a metal breastplate, he could have passed from someone from Old Earth. Behind him a lump of fur the size of a small bear waited, presumably the dog that Lao had told him about. He narrowed his eyes at Sam, and Sam took off his helmet. As soon as he did so, the other man stepped back.
“Oh, faction leader Atlas. I was not expecting you. As far as I knew, you were not aware of my existence. Please, come in.”