Sam nodded, and thought over what the man had said. The last statement was simple, but contained great meaning, and it meshed with what Sam had seen over his months under the System. Even the money that his faction made from selling crops to the wider Multiverse was a testament to that. The greater world around them was so filled with violence that even a pittance of food would be paid for, and received, with gratitude. War was the progenitor of suffering, but it was also the crucible of power. As in smelting, the weak would be separated from the strong by the fiery heats of conflict. In such a world, only the strongest could rise to the top. Luckily for him, and his faction, Sam was one of the strongest. As Manarox kept talking, Sam heard a whisper in his ear.
“You have gained enough from the battle. It is time to continue your training,” Gordanus said softly. Sam whirled around, but saw nothing.
“Is something the matter, Sam?” Manarox asked, turning around.
“I have to leave now. I will contact you later though,” Sam replied, just before he felt a hand latch onto his shoulder and pulled him through the veils of space and time, back into the cave. He groaned. That exit would leave Manarox thinking that Sam had simply ditched him after having cemented their faction link. In fact, his mentor had probably engineered the whole thing to create strife. Speaking of the man, Gordanus stood before him, with a faint smile on his face.
“You seem to possess the luck of the gods themselves, Sam Atlas. Only the rarest of men could not only survive in the middle of two warring armies, but actually turn one to their side. You have gained great power today, power that is not under the auspices of the System,” Gordanus said. “However, there is much to do. I have monitored your progress, but I wish to put it to the test.”
Without warning, the man rushed Sam, moving so fast that he only caught the very beginning of his motion. Sam instinctively teleported away, only to be caught by a lightning fast kick in the abdomen that came in before he had fully departed.
“Teleportation is a powerful skill, but it can only ever operate at the speed of thought,” Gordanus said, slowing down slightly.
As if to punctuate his point, the man instantly vanished, appearing behind Sam. Sam whirled and raised his arms just in time to block the incoming punch, which sent him flying backwards. He opened up space behind himself and fell into it, appearing above Gordanus. The man reached up almost lazily and grabbed him out of the air, tossing him into the wall. This time there was not even a pretense of fairness. Gordanus was simply bullying him.
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Sam rolled away, and began to layer on his buffs, empowering himself beyond his norms. This time when Gordanus approached he was able to see more clearly, and he teleported behind the man, sending a lightning fast blow from his hammer into the small of the man’s back. While Gordanus was able to limit his strength and speed, he was unable to limit his durability, and he simply turned around, brushing off the attack as if it were nothing.
Mjolnir bounced off of the man’s back, and almost took Sam in the face. He only got it back under control just in time to block the next strike with its head. That time, the hammer did end up hitting him, breaking his nose. The bleeding stopped almost immediately as a result of his high powered regenation, but the broken bones remained for some time, distracting him. If not for his buffs, that attack would have caved in his skull.
Sam gritted his teeth and pushed himself to his limits, summoning his new shield ability just in time for an incoming kick. He managed to turn it away slightly, giving him time to get out of the way. With a grunt, he hooked his hammer under Gordanus’ leg, and pulled the man off his feet, sending him to the ground. With a quick, jerky movement, Sam was on top of the man, his hammer pressed against his face. Gordanus smiled, and pushed Sam off, getting to his feet.
“Well done. I gave myself about twice your current strength and speed, which meant that your technique was advanced enough to bridge the gap somewhat, at least in a sparring match. Though, you have beaten such odds before, have you now?”
“Yes. I fought against a being far more powerful than me on my home planet. He was not exactly twice my strength, but he possessed enough skill to make up for that. In my current state however, I could beat him easily enough. It would not be a one sided beat down, but I would still be able to do so without pulling out all the stops.”
Sam stopped before he revealed anything about his final skill, the one that had allowed him to beat Hugo Mar in the first place. Dao Juggernaut was something that he suspected would be even more surprising for someone like him to possess than even his teleportation skill. He had no idea how the former of the skills even worked. The entire thing was something that he could only use at great risk to himself. Comparing it to his teleportation skill made the second one pale in comparison. At least one of those was potentially possible. Gordanus was a trusted ally, but so far Sam had not revealed anything about his true nature to anyone, except for Jeffrey and Rax. Even Lao and Eduardo, his closest friends and confidants other than Jeffrey, did not know about it. They simply thought that he had an absurd talent for the Dao. Besides, when the alternative was that he was some mystical chosen of the universe, it was far easier to believe the simpler of the two options. Sometimes, ignorance was useful.