Sam roared in pain, smoke billowing from his mouth. However, his E Rank flesh repaired itself quickly enough, and eventually, the pain drifted down into his stomach. Well, the strange receptacle that had replaced it upon his ascension. It was more of a portal to the rest of his body rather than part of a digestive system anymore. Mainly, it seemed to be useful for ingesting potions and the like.
A roiling mass of energy began to coalesce there, forming what felt like an entire planet within his belly. Pulses of gravity began to resound through his flesh, dragging a vortex of latent Earth elemental energy from the world around. Sam’s body started to grow heavier and heavier, until the ship itself creaked loudly beneath him. Still it continued, until his body began to sag under the weight. His skin lengthened, stretching out like putty, dragged to the ground by the inexorable force of gravity.
Then everything snapped back towards him, and he let out a gasp as his mind was suddenly scoured with insight. Pure understanding of the element of Earth screamed into his mind, propelling his mastery up like a rocket.
Strange mathematical equations flashed past his eyes, resonating with him on a conceptual level. Gravitational lensing, the gravitational constants in distant universes, all manner of strange and wonderful knowledge was forced into his mind. It began to take root across his body, ingraining itself in the tripartite being that he had become. As they did so, his connection to the element of Earth increased dramatically.
The wooden floor of the ship turned to stone as he channeled his newfound might through his body. Realizing this, he retracted the elemental energy, and instead directed into his own body. A rippling wave of grayness spread across his skin, increasing his durability to new heights. Rather than actually turning to stone, which would have slowed him down considerably, it instead was transformed into a material with all of the advantages of stone, and none of its disadvantages. It was the result of some sort of conceptual resonance that he did not fully understand yet.
The process ended soon after, and he was left basking in the warm glow of insight. A message flared before his vision.
You have reached 15% mastery of your Meridian of Earth!
As he read it, his smile widened. It seemed that the reward for killing an E Ranker while still in F Rank was quite special indeed. It had provided seven entire mastery points, more than he had earned from the other elemental natural treasure from the war with the fish people during his training.
Another notification surfaced a moment later, explaining the sudden change his skin had undergone.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
For reaching 10% mastery of an element, you may now infuse your body with its power, drawing upon your elemental energy. You may upgrade this infusion at every tenth percentage point mark, in addition to whatever other benefits you might earn.
Current Elemental Infusion: Stoneskin
This Infusion imbues the body of its user with the might of elemental Earth in its most basic form, increasing their durability and strength. This increase can be heightened at the cost of reduced speed.
Sam canceled the infusion, not really needing it at the moment. It wasn’t something that could be trained, and it would only get in the way of his other pursuits. The System rewarded people differently depending on how much effort they put into their training. If he added another bonus to his already unfairly powerful body, his essence gain would be even lower.
He pushed aside all of the notifications, and resumed his journey, powering the ship through the water with ease. The rest of the floor passed by quickly, and when he finally killed the requisite number of monsters, he was rewarded with the now commonplace title upgrade. He didn’t even check them at this point, simply letting the bonuses pile up.
The next floor appeared, simply a mildly improved version of the first. Sam sighed. It seemed that until the floor boss, there would be nothing of note.
The next few days passed before him, filled with boredom. It wasn’t that the battles with the monsters were uninteresting, it was mainly how long it took to find them. The Tower seemed to assume that climbers would want breaks built into the floors so that they could recover from their battles with monsters. Most E Rankers at this level would have needed that time to heal wounds or regenerate their Dao energy. However, Sam was different, and he was annoyed that there were no provisions made. Challenge Mode, so far, hardly counted.
By the time he had reached the penultimate floor, he had battled his way through an entire menu of sea creatures that would have been more fitting in an upscale restaurant than anywhere else.
This floor was home to a pair of cantankerous krakens, each of which refused to engage in honest battle with him, instead trying to sink his ship with their tentacles, which stretched out for miles.
At this point though, the ship had become more like a heavily armored destroyer than the flimsy construction of wood it had once been. It was very hard to destroy, especially considering how easily Sam was able to defend it. Every time a tentacle wrapped around the vessel, it was reduced to a smear of scorched calamari by one of his projectile attacks.
Still, the creatures seemed to possess no end of appendages, and they continued to emerge from the depths, rocking the ship from side to side. He could have destroyed them with his Primal skill, but that would have risked destroying his ship as well, something that he could not afford. He had no wish to redo this all over again.
Eventually the tentacles stopped coming, which he took to mean that either the monsters had run out, or that they had realized the futility of their actions.