Two days later, Sam was starting to lose hope in himself. He had tried to no avail to teleport past the barriers in his way, but he had so far been unable to reach across to the other sides in a meaningful way. However, his control was still improving as far as he could tell, and he was making progress. The only problem was that it was not enough to get past the barrier of air that was in his way. The barriers were far too wide for his burgeoning control over his Dao to circumvent, and he was losing time in the long run here. He had managed to perfect the ability to the point where he could teleport up to five feet in any direction with only a little bit of difficulty, but seeing as this was actually slower than his normal speed, it was not very effective.
His maximum range was around thirty feet now, but it took a lot out of him, as befitted an ability that most F Rankers would never see. However, he could sense that he was missing something in the process. Right now, his experience was that most of the energy was spent in the actual transportation aspect of the skill, rather than in creating the rift in space that he traveled through. If he could make the transportation part more efficient, then he could move farther.
Sam rested for a few minutes and then tried again, this time straining to see anything that could help him in the motley mix of Daos that swirled around him. This time, unlike all the others, he managed to spot a matching dot of Dao energy to his own power hovering at head height behind the nearest wall of air. Struck by sudden insight, Sam sliced through the fabric of the world in front of him, and then extended the end of it to the other side of the air wall, using the mote of familiar Dao energy as a guide. To his joy, it worked, and he stepped through, appearing, for the first time, in the next sector of the cave. It had felt like a tendril of familiar energy had reached out to touch his mind, allowing him to cut down on the energy waste. It was a curious sensation, to say the least. It was almost as if the universe itself was greeting him. However, there were still five more to go, and he almost collapsed from the strain.
Outside, Gordanus watched his pupil struggle through his superior senses, still amazed at the progress that Sam was making in an art that had taken him years to master. Back at Sam’s level, he had never exhibited this level of power, having only gained it far later in life. At his current level, he could flatten cities and devastate entire landscapes, but that had taken centuries to reach. He had heard about the prodigies that intializations created, but he had never seen one for himself until now, and he had to say, he was impressed.
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Gordanus had grown up in a fully established universe, as the son of two wealthy brewers who owned an entire planet. Not much by the standards of true cultivators, but enough for him to get a decent education as well as a position within the army of the empire that controlled his planet. In the army he had worked his way up the ranks, gathering power for his eventual breakthrough to E Rank, where he would be allowed to take an extended leave of absence, and live as a reservist.
The services of E Rankers were rarely needed within the wars that spanned a single galaxy, and they were used as shock troops, as they were too valuable to simply waste on the front lines. In the higher battles of the Multiverse, between the great factions, E Rankers were nothing but fodder, but Gordanus had never had to worry about things like that.
He was a man who had made his own way in life, and he never intended to be a slave to some more powerful cultivator. The only summon he had to answer was that of his emperor, and he doubted that would ever come. The man who ruled over his old home was too lazy and indolent to ever start a war, and Gordanus has no idea how the man had ever reached the D Rank necessary for him to claim dominion over an entire galaxy. However, none of that mattered now, and he had a new distraction, that of Sam Atlas.
Back in the cave, Sam was slowly working his way across the ground, using his teleportation abilities to carry him through the walls of air. Each time he did it, it felt like he was ripping a part out of himself, but with the aid of his newfound Dao anchoring technique, it was easier than it had been before. Sam was at the halfway point now, but his health had started to take a serious hit from the prolonged use of his skill, and he had to take a break. He knew that he was already a prodigy among prodigies for being able to use this ability while still in F Rank, but he knew that this came from his superior mastery over the Dao as well as his heritage. It wasn't because of his own skill, as much as he would have liked to think.
However, the Dao was an extension of his own body, and as an extension, it was his own power. Anything that it achieved, he did as well. Still, this process was excruciating, and Sam wondered if he should just call out for Gordanus to take him out of here. He had already proven that he could do it anyway. However, a small part of him, the part that resonated with his Mantra and his new Dao refused to back down, to give an inch to the pressures of the world. Sam gritted his teeth and got to his feet, preparing to teleport once more. This one would be far harder than the last ones.