“Good. You had a bit of a break from training recently, but I believe that it is time for you to step up your game. It has only been a few days, and I refuse to let the rest go to waste, especially with a talent such as yours.”
Only a man like Gordanus would say that fighting for one’s life in a literal warzone was a break, but Sam wisely did not say anything insolent to the man. That would only increase the pain of his training.
“I am looking forward to it, master,” Sam replied in a dull monotone.
It would be the last moment for the next few days that he possessed the wherewithal to even speak, let alone muster a dissatisfied reply. If he had thought that the first few days had been tough, then these ones were far worse. Every day, he rotated through a grueling course of training, from teleporting until he blacked out to lifting weights so heavy that his skin tore under the mass. Muscles that he had thought beyond growth from the interference of the System suddenly began to gain mass once more, and his entire body felt like it was being put through a wringer. He was growing stronger, but without gaining a single level or stat point.
His Daos were gaining power as well from the constant use of his skills related to their concepts, and he could feel them drifting upwards in power towards their next deepenings. Eventually he would be able to upgrade at least one fully, and he could then fuse the Daos into a Seed. However, that was still quite some time away, and for now he simply practiced with increasing the power of his skills.
He went through a baptism of sorts over that time, one of blood and pain that reforged him into something greater than he was before. His skills all increased, and his teleportation skill began to become easier to use, and more efficient as well. Soon he could teleport over a hundred feet for only a tenth of his Dao energy pool, but he seemed to hit a sort of block at that point, and he was unable to reduce the cost any further. The only thing he could do was increase the amount of distance that he could travel by expending more of his Dao energy.
In any case, it was even better now, and he was eagerly waiting to use it against an opponent. In addition, he fought against his mentor daily in a battle of skill, using his hammer as an extension of himself. This had increased his mastery of his weapon by a single step, and he could feel just how much he was connected to it now as opposed to before. The hammer felt more like a part of him now than anything else, and he felt as if he could extend that to any other similarly shaped weapon.
Gordanus had given him a crude stone club to fight with one of the days, and Sam had found that he was able to wield it with consummate ease. It wasn't as well made as Mjolnir, and his skill suffered somewhat from that, but it was still like fighting with an extension of his own body. However, most of the time he stuck with Mjolnir.
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As well as eking out power from his body, he had begun to do so with his hammer as well. Gordanus had informed him that artifact tier weapons generally had greater stores of power than their wielders ever knew, and Sam had begun to draw upon its lightning in order to enhance his own techniques. There was a profound connection to the elemental energy within the hammer, and although it was exceedingly hard to remove it without the hammer’s intervention, Sam eventually managed to take out small amounts of power when he wanted to, allowing him to coat his hammer in crackling layers of electricity.
By the time that Gordanus had deemed him fit to use the power that his levels had given him more efficiently, Sam was a different person to who he had been before. He had a greater understanding of his power, and knew the wisdom of the training methods that Gordanus espoused. For every significant increase in raw strength, there had to be a significant increase in personal skill to balance that power out. Many people simply relied on their levels to dominate those weaker than themselves, but the true measure of a cultivator was how they dealt with those stronger than themselves.
As Sam strode out of the cave for the first time in days, his eyes glistened with power for a single moment as he entered the light of the sun. His hammer dangled from one hand, faintly humming with refined power, and his body was newly filled with muscle, which had caused him to shoot up in height. He was now well over six feet tall, and quite broad as well. The best part was that the System would prevent his body from atrophying, and he would be in this form forever, or at least until his power ceiling increased.
There were cultivators far more powerful than him that were obese, and ones who were as skinny as rods. Eventually, physical fitness did not matter at all, but for now, it provided a small benefit. Gordanus had given him a few primers on life beyond F Rank as well. Normally he would not have been so presumptuous to assume that Sam would make it to E Rank, or so he said, but in a rare moment of admiration, Gordanus had said that Sam was more than talented enough to reach that rank, and perhaps even beyond. In any case, there were a few things that he would need to watch out for. Firstly, there would be no more healing from leveling during E Rank and the later ranks. Neither would it be the painful node cracking of F Rank, which apparently was to prepare the body for ascension, whatever that meant. Gordanus had been very cryptic on all but the most basic of information.
In addition, one would become truly reliant on mana for survival, and would not need to sleep, eat, drink, or even breathe after reaching E Rank. Not that such things were suddenly without pleasure, of course, as evidenced by Gordanus’ fondness for alcohol.In addition, the man had thrown in a few lewd hints about the various pleasures of high rank intimate encounters. After hearing about planets being broken in half during intense bouts of lovemaking for the fifth time, Sam had tuned that part of the conversation out.