Sam basked in the glow of the rampant storms, feeling every single lightning bolt as they impacted the rain soaked ground. His E Ranked body, bolstered by his Perfect Ascension, was like a highly tuned machine, able to sense everything around him. He gazed at the horizon intently, trying to find what the main objective of the floor was. As he thought that, another notification popped into being in front of him.
You have entered the Fulmination Fields: Layer 1
Your objective is to kill a total of 1000 Elite Lightning Lion Cubs.
Completion: 0/1000
Rewards: Upgradeable Title
It was a straightforward enough task, but there was something that was a bit hard to understand. He had been told that the amount of essence available in the tower was calculated to be too little to bring one further than about fifty levels, even if they were able to reach the final level. The only explanation that he could think of was that leveling during E Rank was fundamentally different than in F Rank. Perhaps because his entire body was fused with his mind and soul, he had to fuel his entire being rather than simply empowering his core. That made sense though. There would be no reason that people spent so long in the later ranks if leveling was the same as before.
Sam closed the notification, and started off on his journey, teleporting high into the air. Beneath him, the savannah extended outwards, seemingly endless. To the west, a strange aura could be felt, crackling with energy. That was as good a place to start as any.
He teleported towards the aura, pumping his Dao energy into himself in preparation for the fight. As he drew nearer, he felt the aura increasing. Soon, he saw his target. A group of massive lions, each the size of a truck, prowled the plains. They were covered in silvery white fur, standing on end as lightning crackled through it. Their eyes glowed with white light, and the ground beneath them was scorched.
Sam descended like a meteor, and landed before them. The monsters roared, but he blitzed towards them, his hammer held high. He brought it down with a thunderous explosion of light. Every part of his body was perfect now, and he attacked with many times the force he would have been able to bring to bear before. Dao energy mingled with purified mana, creating a thunderous explosion in the midst of the lions. Before, he would have severely injured himself in doing something like this, but now, all he felt was warmth as the blast seemed to register his body as part of itself.
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An entire plate of rock was blasted apart beneath him, and tremors shook the land. The lions were reduced to ash, drifting in the wind. It was a bit anticlimactic, but this was only the first floor, after all.
As the essence drifted towards him, the first he had gained since entering E Rank, he felt a tiny amount pooling around his feet. With a sigh, he knew exactly how long it would take to level. He would have to fill his entire body with essence before he could do so. With how little he had gained, it would take thousands or even tens of thousands of lions to even gain a single level.
That was likely how it was meant to be though. The later levels of the Tower would provide far more essence.
For the next few hours, Sam teleported across the plains, wiping out the lion population. Still, the floor was annoyingly large, and all he had to show for his effort were a few hundred deaths. For how weak the monsters was, this felt like torture. He would have to refine his technique.
Sam teleported up higher and higher into the air, and raised one arm. Dao energy crackled around his body, and he let out a pulse of aura that sent shockwaves of power traveling across the land.
Sam floated there for a bit, using his teleportation abilities. As he did so, he began to feel powerful auras coming his way. Well, powerful, unless he compared them to himself. As it stood, he was by far superior.
Hundreds of lions charged across the plains, seemingly undaunted by how many of their number had died. Then again, there was little left of them to draw caution from. Just craters blasted into the ground, and ashes drifting away on the wind of the lightning storms.
As Sam waited, his Dao energy began to mingle with the natural power of the storm, creating a cyclone of energy that swirled around regularly in orbit of his body. His eyes lit up with power, and he smiled. Opponents that would previously have been a challenge were now nothing before him.
As the disparate prides of lions merged into one surging mass of lightning and fur, Sam grasped his hammer, and plummeted from the sky. Dao energy wreathed his body, and he pushed off against the fabric of reality itself, sending himself shooting down. With a crackling boom, the skies opened around him, and a dozen lightning bolts followed him to the ground, drawn in by the maelstrom of coruscating power surrounding him.
The lions roared as one, and a towering manifestation of their element formed above them, taking the form of a town sized lion made out of the wrath of the heavens themselves. Sam only smiled, and channeled more power into his hammer. Now that he was an E Ranker, he could finally let loose with his Primal skill. He was eager to test it at its full power.