In preparation for the other thresholds, Sam had also been training his other stats in a similar way. For his Dexterity, he had burnt out his muscles by forcing them to twitch at supersonic speeds for an hour on end, tearing them apart from the very bones that made up his body. Nothing a few moments of regeneration could not fix.

For his Resilience, he had taken to diving head first off the city walls, but upon finding out that he barely took any damage at all, even without his helmet, he had been forced to shake things up. Instead, he allowed members of his captains to whale on him with their weapons, while he simply stood there, without his armor on. The attacks were not infused with Dao or energy, which meant that they did not have any chance of actually killing him. Instead, they simply hurt a lot.

For Constitution, Sam had experimented with speeding up his regeneration rate by pumping energy into himself. Using his Dao energy in such a way was not its intended purpose, but it seemed to speed up the rate somewhat. The difference between Resilience and Constitution was small, and sometimes blurry, but they were quite different in practice. There was no reason that the System had to make two different stats for it though. It would have been easier to simply have one stat that provided both health points and durability.

It was Resilience that separated this whole experience from a video game. Most games simply had a health pool, and nothing more. It was quite hard to blend in damage resistance in a way that was easy to facilitate. However in the real world, it was different.

Sam stopped pondering the meaning of his stats, and simply trained, breaking his body apart over and over again in the search of meaning. He could sense that if he did this for long enough, he would be able to find another Dao. However, he directed the insights to his Dao of Resolution instead. He needed the power of an upgraded Fragment over some more versatility. The going was slow, but it was bearing fruit, and Sam eventually gained a title for his efforts.

You have gained a new title!

Devotee of Pain: Epic

You have shown that you have no qualms about torturing yourself in the pursuit of a worthy cause, or, in your case, more power. You have gone through pain that would have broken a lesser man, at your own hands no less, and came out stronger than before.

Bonuses: -10 percent pain felt.

The bonus was not a stat bonus, but it was useful in other ways. As he went back to training, he could feel a noticeable decrease in the pain from before. It could prove to be the difference between giving up, and crossing over into new heights of power. Either way, gaining something extra for his efforts was better than nothing.

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By the time he had gained this title, he had been training in seclusion for a long enough time that the others in the city were beginning to grow worried. Sam was still in the mindset that he had adopted during his training with Gordanus however, and to him, spending days in isolation was no big deal. As people progressed, they would come to realize this as well.

It was time for him to finish however, and even he could realize that. The money from the Titan had come in during the last few days, and had been invested into the city by the captains. The shield now crackled with potency, able to deflect almost anything that touched it. The Superior Mana cannon was now a hulking brute of a weapon, over a hundred feet in length. Its squat muzzle glinted ominously in the light of the sun, and the charging array at the base took up the space of a building. A shot from that weapon would do more than just scorch the chest of a Titan now.

The automatons had been upgraded as well, and the units that tramped around the city were more powerful than before, both their levels and their gear upgraded. Most of them hovered around the strength of an average level 75 now, with the elites at level 85. It seemed like a small difference but it was still noticeable.

The city walls were now made out of steel, a feat that Sam had to give credit to the System for. To simply remove miles upon miles of rock from the wall, and replace it with steel, sourced from thin air, was astounding. The steel would stand up to the attacks of most lower level F Ranks, even in high numbers. It would be almost impossible to break through in a single hit save for by the strongest of fighters. Even Sam would be hard pressed to damage the wall. If he pulled out all the stops, he could potentially blast a hole in it, but he would then be left helpless.

The scaling of materials was generally to the base of the Rank, which meant that by the time one was at the end, any material short of diamond, or the like, would be like simple dirt. However, the steel wall was extremely thick, and compacted, which made its defense far better.

Sam dropped his weights, and strode out of his training area, which he had repurposed his old house to use. The house had been moved away from the city center when he had been gone, to make room for the massive city hall that had replaced it. Now that he needed almost no sleep, he simply used it to store his training devices.

The bottom floor was covered in weights, with a few mats for him to use for stretching. The top floor was filled with various knick knacks that were for the purpose of strengthening his mana usage. Most of them looked like Old Earth toys, from balls that only lit up once you added the correct amount of mana, to cubes that would only reassemble themselves with the right usage of elemental energy. It looked like a madman’s playground more than anything else, but it was quite useful for his development.