As Sam emerged from yet another whale’s mouth, he immediately felt something change in the air around him, as if something was locking down the space around him, limiting his abilities. It was like being crushed under a trash compactor, or in this case, the weight of a superior cultivator. Most likely, Gordanus was playing games with him.
Sam sighed, and did not even wonder how the man was messing with him from outside the complex, if he was, in fact, even outside after all. He might well be in this very cavern. However, if he was, Sam could not tell, and he simply filed away the information for another time, instead focusing on his own survival. With the new weight, he could tell that moving would be a lot more difficult, and he would have to watch out for the monsters of the lake.
Quietly cursing Gordanus, he kept swimming. This would be a lot more annoying than he had expected, but a small part of him welcomed the challenge.
Sam made his way through the water, finding that his strokes were far more elaborate than before. When he tried to move his arms, it felt like lead weights had been attached to them, and the same went for his legs. In addition, his mind seemed to have been hampered as well, and his energy reserves felt diminished in some way. He snarled and forced his body to move faster, trying to break free of the limitations that had been placed on him.
Sam broke free of some of the restrictions, but it took all of his willpower, and as soon as one of the whales came to the surface, he felt his grip over the restrictions diminish. He grunted as he felt the monster impact him, having grown wise to the way that he had killed its brethren, and just in time to capitalize on his weakened state as well. The blow had not hurt exactly, but it propelled him backwards, wasting his time.
Sam snarled and kicked violently, rising out of the water a moment later, with Mjolnir held high. As the whale tried to strike again, he came crashing down, speeding up his descent with Girdings of the Arbiter. The strike landed like a meteor, and the whale bellowed in pain, the noise shaking the air around it.
Sam flipped off its head as it snapped at the air, and surged forward again, trying to hit the whale with his full power. However, he would feel a veil over his movements, and the strike that would have normally gone straight through the scales were now too weak to even draw blood in one go. Sam pumped more of his power into his weapon in answer, and he swung it into the whale’s side, eliciting a shockwave of red light from his Dao. This time, scales flaked off, revealing smooth flesh underneath.
Sam pressed the advantage and drove his hammer into the weakened skin, pulverizing the flesh underneath. The whale bellowed in anger once more, and dove beneath the surface, out of his reach. Sam paddled there for a moment, waiting for the whale to strike, and when he felt the water bubble up beneath him, he threw himself forward, propelling himself as quickly as he could go.
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However, with his newly weakened state he was unable to go far enough, and the whale seized his legs with its jaws, beginning to crush them, Sam swore, and began to hammer on the monster with his weapon, driving a spike of Dao energy into its flesh with every strike. However it refused to let go, and the pressure kept mounting. The monster seemed to have quite the strong jaw.
Sam stopped wasting his energy, and began to condense his Dao energy and elemental power into his hands, creating his Sky Splitting Wrath skill. The lance of ruddy energy and stone landed in his hand, and he thrust it downwards with a yell, straight into the whale’s eye. There was an explosion of red light, and Sam hurtled out of the monster’s mouth from the backlash, landing almost a hundred feet away. Essence entered him as his skill cooked the creature’s brain, and he grinned. At this point, the process of leveling up, and the pain that it entailed, had become mostly automatic. Unfortunately, it would likely grow untenable to level up in battle after level 100. At a certain point, perhaps one would cease to heal from leveling up at all.
That monster had only given him a single level’s worth of essence, but it was still very welcome, and it had actually sent him closer to his goal than before. He was only a few hundred feet away from the shallows now, and from safety. He had already gained five levels from this lake, accounting for the first whale he had slain, which was quite the haul for the short amount of time he had spent here. It almost felt like he was cheating, to gain levels so easily, but his level was adjusted for the numerical value, not for his actual strength, which was one of his greatest advantages.
In any case, Sam was feeling on top of the world. He made it back to the shore with no further incident, and crawled up onto the rocky lakeside, feeling the energy that was repressing him disappear. A man phased into existence a moment later, standing next to a wall nonchalantly, and Sam shook his head in annoyance. It was Gordanus.
“Did you enjoy my little curveball?” Gordanus said, smiling.
“If you mean your stunt with making me weaker, no, I did not. What was the point of that? In a real fight, I wouldn't be weakened.”
“You would be surprised how many people, even at your own level, have some measure of debuffing skills. It might not be to the same extent as me, but if you end up fighting stronger opponents, you will end up facing all manner of restrictions like that one, and that time, nobody will remove them at the end of the battle,” Gordanus said, shaking his head.
Sam only nodded in response, not wanting to engage his mentor in a useless argument. He turned towards the man, wanting to ask him something about the mana berry, but Gordanus was already gone. Sam sighed, and walked out of the cave, a little annoyed at his teacher’s antics. However, there was not much he could do about them, and he felt himself improving at a rapid rate, which made it all worth it.