“We have shored up almost all of your weaknesses, and improved your strengths, but one final thing remains,” Gordanus intoned. “Your weapon mastery. Fighting against me will bring out all of your latent potential, but there will be no punches pulled. You will fight and bleed for every drop of potential that you eke out of yourself. You might even hate me for it. However, it will improve your odds in the future.”

Sam simply nodded in response.

“I have something to attend to first,” he said, pulling out the crystallized essence.

He wanted to save the elemental focus for Earth, as it might take some time to use. Before Gordanus could say anything, he crushed the crystal in his hand, and essence poured into him, allowing him to break through his next two nodes. It felt like there were bombs going off within him, but he powered through the pain, and let out a gasp when the process was finished. The wounds healed over in a few minutes, and he was ready to fight.

Sam hefted his hammer, and waited for Gordanus to strike. However, the other man pulled out his sword, and got into a basic stance. It was a far cry from his normal pugilist's style. Even though the stance was rudimentary, it still exuded a level of mastery far beyond anything that Sam had ever reached.

A moment later Gordanus swung his sword, sending it on a graceful arc towards Sam. Even though the man was over twenty feet away, the sword still projected pure danger towards Sam. A moment later, the tip of the sword came swooshing down, and Sam felt as if he was in the line of sight for a cannon, or some other deadly projectile weapon. It certainly did not feel like he was facing down a sword.

A minor premonition forced him to roll to the side, and a moment later a jagged scar opened up on the ground where the sword had pointed. If he had not moved, that would have hit him.

Sam darted towards Gordanus, using his hammer to accentuate his movements. He flipped over in the air and brought the weapon crashing down towards his mentor. Gordanus tilted his sword slightly and the weapon deflected Mjolnir to the side, causing the hammer to fall to the ground. A moment later the sword’s hilt came whipping out and struck him in the shoulder, sending him spinning away. Sam rolled with the blow, but it still almost fractured his collarbone, such was its force. The scary part was that Gordanus was barely trying. The man had a lazy grin on his face, and he seemed not to be taking this seriously.

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Sam picked himself up and started to use his enhancements in order to keep this match more even. His body swelled with power, and he charged Gordanus, who seemed to still be at the same level of power as before. His hammer fell like a rain of steel, causing Gordanus to tilt his sword this way and that, deflecting each strike like it was coming in slow motion. Sam started to enhance his blows with his Dao, drawing upon every ounce of his weapon mastery as he did so. Using the detonations to power his strikes, he reached a new level of speed. Just when he imagined that he might reach Gordanus, the other man kicked up his speed, and started to counterattack, whipping the flat of his blade into Sam between blocks.

Each strike felt like a cannon shot, and Sam was soon covered in dark purple bruises. He tried to mitigate the attacks to the best of his ability, but he was soon overwhelmed, and one struck his temple, knocking him out. When he awoke, his entire body ached, and Gordanus was leaning over him, smiling slightly.

“Good job. You managed to eke out almost all of your potential there. If I was any weaker, you might have landed a hit on me.”

Sam sighed in annoyance, and got to his feet, clutching his arms to his chest. He looked like some sort of strange alien creature, what with his bruise mottled skin. At least Gordanus had held back enough to avoid breaking any bones. The other man sheathed his sword, and waited for Sam to fully recover before continuing.

“You use your abilities well together, which is a boon to your fighting style. I know it must be frustrating for you to not be able to allocate your free stat points, but just imagine the boost that you will gain when you finally get back to your home planet. It will be far more useful than it would be here.”

“I understand, master. I have already gained great strength here. Strength that is far superior to my free stat points,” Sam said, for once not tripping over the master part.

It was hard for him to talk continuously in a formal tone, as he had never had much experience with that growing up, but it was a useful skill in this new world. Speaking to Gordanus, or even someone like Manarox, was far different than talking to Jeffrey or Eduardo and Lao. He knew that most of this growth would have been impossible without the help of Gordanus, as the man was far more experienced than he was. For him to have grown so much in so little time was a testament to Gordanus’ skill at teaching.

Although Sam was not anything impressive in terms of physical ability, or magical ability for that matter, given that his stat points were pretty evenly spread, he was a master of energy use, which empowered his abilities to new heights. He was able to output power beyond his wildest dreams, energy that could destroy thousands of enemies in one blast.