His hammer blazed with power as his Dao leaked out a bit in excitement. Without a word to the others, he leaped into the hole. As he plummeted, he heard the others following him. All of them possessed enough durability that a fall of any height under this gravity would be unable to harm them.

Sam landed a bit later, flexing his knees slightly. The others touched down around him, Lao absorbing some of the force with his Dao to use later. They were standing in the middle of a blasted plain of lava and half melted rocks, surrounded by hundreds of monsters and elementals. In the distance, a massive heat haze surrounded a lake of molten rock. Every now and then, a bubble would pop on the surface as if something gigantic was slumbering there. As soon as they landed, the noise drew the attention of the nearby monsters, a small group of lava elementals. They were all about level 135, strong enough to be a decent challenge in numbers.

The others geared up for battle, and Sam teleported in, smashing one of the monsters out of the formation. He could have destroyed them all, but he wanted to leave some for his allies. Talnor blitzed forwards, lightning wreathing his form. He appeared behind one of the elementals, sheathing his katana. A moment later, the monster fell apart into dozens of fragments, cooling from the rapid increase in surface area. Jeffrey loaded his guns up with a massive amount of mana and let loose, cratering the body of one of the nearby monsters. His level was lower than the others, but he had a stronger class than them.

Eduardo raised his sword to the heavens, and a beam of light struck it, causing it to glow brightly. He pointed it at an elemental, and a lance of pure energy shot out, slicing through the monster’s neck. Still, there were dozens of the monsters, and although they were easy enough to take care of, this would be a decent fight.

As Sam battered his own elemental into submission with his sheer strength alone, he watched his captains with pride. All of them were true elites now, bolstered by the power of the essence from the Titans. With their high rarity classes, every level set them further apart from average fighters.

Lao did not engage immediately, instead weaving a complicated pattern of Dao energy around himself. It looked like a tornado of blue light, and as it swirled, he drew the heat out of the air and into himself. His right arm glowed with energy, and he thrust it forwards. A beam of heat shot out, obliterating the air as it passed through. It slammed into an elemental, boiling its flesh into gas. It came apart at the seams a moment later.

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Jeffrey stood at the back of the formation, blasting away at the monsters. Every shot hit its mark, either killing or injuring a monster. His mana pool was dropping, but he supplemented it with elemental energy and his Dao. The others were of a more melee based fighting style, and they weaved in and out of clumsy strikes from the elementals. Much of the monsters’ strength was predicated on their natural form, which posed a significant danger to anyone too weak to handle it. However, otherwise it was basically a form of earth golem.

They blitzed through the monsters within minutes, leaving a scattered trail of cooling rock behind them as they headed deeper into the dungeon. This dungeon was far more impressive than the first one that Sam had ever encountered, and he could tell that both the size and the monster density was exponentially higher. He spotted a small pillar of rock rising out of the ground about a mile distant, with what looked to be a treasure chest on it. Jeffrey had told him about the possibility of treasure within dungeons at higher levels, and this was no different.

Sam pointed this out to the others, who, other than Jeffrey, had worse eyesight than him. Jeffrey’s came from his Dao, but Sam’s came from his raw stats. Every stat point into Dexterity, as well as things like racial upgrades, added a tiny amount to one’s perception and ability to control their own movements, which was a necessity at the level of power that Sam had reached.

“I’ll go scout it out, follow me, but watch out for monsters,” he instructed. His teleportation ability was very useful, but it was hard to decide when to use it.

When he was on his own, its usefulness was paramount, but with others it meant leaving them behind. He was waiting for the day that one of them could form a similar type of power.

Out of all of the captains, the closest to something like this was Eduardo, with his light based elemental abilities. Of course, nobody was anywhere near true Dao teleportation, as doing so required at minimum two Dao Fragments, one of which was beyond the middle of the mastery range. As well as that, one had to be a true prodigy. He suspected that he normally would have been unable to do such a thing until at least the Seed stage.

Sam would not be surprised if he was the only person in the universe to have gotten to that level of Dao power. Sure, others were close to the mid range of the Fragment Stage, but none had another Fragment, as far as Sam knew. Whoever was the second most talented Dao user in the universe was still unknown to Sam, but he would find out during the tournament at the end of the year.

Sam appeared next to the pillars a few seconds later, making sure not to get too close to the treasure chest. Even with Jeffrey’s assurances, he was still suspicious about the presence of such a clearly unnatural piece of System generated material. Still, there was nothing overly alarming about it. It was simply a wooden chest, banded with pieces of metal.