The page appeared after a moment, and he started reading.
High Elder Zanthros, the G Rank Galactic Ruler: A preliminary guide by E Rank Scribe, Cantor Selven.
Zanthros Telgan, the famous G Ranker who can defeat a D ranker in combat, is the ruler of a galaxy in a frontier universe of the Dalven Cluster. On its own, this is not a very impressive feat, as Galactic Rulers are commonplace within the universe, but his low rank compared to all other Galactic Rulers has turned him into a legend. He was born 25,000 years ago to a family of middle class artisans in a low level planet within his current galaxy. They had a hard life, but they were protected by a beneficent city lord, a rarity in the Multiverse. One day, a fleet of raiders came from another planet, looking for resources to sell on the open market. They killed the citizens of the town to the last man, except for Zanthros. They crippled his cultivation, making it so that essence would not enter his body. Rather than giving up,as most others would have done in that situation, he retreated into a cave in the mountains to begin his journey of Dao mastery. It took him years to reach a level of power that would allow him to leave the safety of his cave, where he had lived off of rats and fungus. Now with the effective power of a peak F Rank, he was able to start recruiting allies. The families and distant relations of those who had lived in the city flocked to his banner and over the course of the next century, he waged a bloody war against the raiders. Over this time, his Dao mastery continued to grow and eventually he claimed the head of the raider leader in single combat, a staggering feat for someone with barely any levels at all. Now the ruler of two planets, he was able to cultivate his Dao for millennia, eventually becoming a myth to the inhabitants of the planet. 5000 years later, he emerged, with the auric signature of a D Ranker. It is unknown what Dao he follows, but without a doubt it is a powerful one. Since then,he embarked on a grand conquest of his galaxy, defeating tyrants, kings and oligarchs alike in his search for power. That is what led to his status today. His full story is chronicled within my book, King, Visionary,Prophet:A Biographical Account of Zanthos Telgan.
Sam looked up the book out of curiosity more than anything else and choked when he saw what it was. The book was over 50,000 pages in length, and it cost a million credits to buy. That was definitely not something that he had any interest in purchasing at the moment. For the remainder of his time there, Sam researched more about the Dao, only finding anecdotal reports of Dao wielders. This made sense to him as there was no way that actually pertinent information that would tell one how to create a Dao would be free.
After a while of this, he was ejected from the Interweb and back into his room. Sarge regarded him impassively as he got up and then raised its hand to beckon for Sam to come over. He followed the robot’s hand and entered the small arena. With a thud, he found himself on the ground, Sarge’s hand on his throat. Sam instinctively rolled his body around and tossed the bot off of himself, giving himself room. He sprang up and got into a fighting stance, getting ready for the next attack. The robot started laughing, and Sam lowered his hands tentatively.
“Sorry, I just wanted to see how gullible you were. I don’t suppose that If I told you that the word gullible was written on the ceiling, you would look up?” Sam ignored the robot, but noted that it must have done a deep search of the internet if it was throwing out references like that. He started to leave the arena, but Sarge called after him.
“Why don’t we spar again? It is my purpose to eke out your inner potential, no matter how buried that might be. What, are you scared of little old me?” Sam wheeled around and gave the robot a stern look. It grinned, an odd contortion of its metallic lips and pouted a moment later. Sam went out to grab his mace and moved in, causing the robot to light up in a comically overstated manner. Sam got ready to fight and began to sink into his battle trance.
That was one of the more complicated parts of his fighting style, the ability to flow with the currents of battle rather than stand against it like a boulder against the stream. It might not falter for years, but eventually it would be ground down by the constant stream and turned into powder. Much of the techniques were veiled in metaphor, but this was one that actually made sense to Sam.
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The robot came in hard and heavy, trying out a new series of attacks against Sam. Last time it had been more graceful and refined, but this time it seemed to be relying on brute force to win. As its mace connected with Sam’s, he stumbled backwards. Was the robot able to alter its stat layout? It certainly seemed that way. After the battle he would ask what was going on. In any case, he would have to fight differently.
Sam shifted into a more refined style that relied on dodging rather than blocking. This allowed him to avoid the blows from the robot quite easily. Just as water could grind down an opponent through its inexorable power, it could just as easily flow to the path of least resistance. Sam smiled. He was getting good at this metaphor stuff.
After a few minutes of dancing around aimlessly, the robot decided to use its ability again. This was what Sam had been waiting for. Narrowing his eyes, he began to focus on the battle properly as the robot came flying in with a halo of fire around its body. This time the effect gave it vastly increased strength rather than a simple increase to all of its stats, and when its mace hit the floor, Sam stumbled. Its power was that of someone who had placed all of their stats points into Strength, with the threshold crossed. As a result, it was able to defeat him easily in a contest of strength, but Sam could run circles round it. In addition, it should be weak towards damage as well, with low durability. He didn't know if that was exactly how the stat distribution thing worked, but it was the most likely option.
Despite its relative lack of speed however, it was able to move its mace at high speed due to its strength. Because of the way that objects in motion around a point worked, the end of the mace was accelerated into a blur of motion as it was swung. If that thing hit Sam then he would be turned into pulp. He doubted that the hot tub would do anything for a shattered body. Instead he would just have to fight smarter and harder. The other side of the equation was that the momentum of the weapon made it so that it couldn't pull it back properly. Its energy weapon had taken on mass in order to do damage as it landed, but it couldn't be light as well. That just was not how physics worked. Sam suspected that at the higher levels, physics didn’t matter as much, or none of the things that the higher ranked cultivators would work.
As the weapon landed again, Sam saw that he had an opening. With a swift jab of his mace, he trapped the robot’s mace against the ground for a split second and then punched it full in the face with a mana infused punch. As he had expected, the robot crumpled around his fist and then began to repair. He stepped back and waited for it to recover. Sarge got up and rubbed its face, pretending to be abashed at its loss. Sam looked at it expectedly, waiting for an explanation. The robot noticed this and it turned to him.
“You want to know how I did that, correct? I have the ability to control myself down to a molecular level, but that makes it so I can never progress further than the body that I was made in. The only way to progress for me is to be upgraded into another form, either through mental transfusion or through a bodily upgrade. Nobody will do that for me however, so my dreams are moot.” Sam would have sworn that he heard a small tinge of sadness in the bot’s tone. It continued to speak, the sad tone now very apparent.
“I have always wished to travel the Multiverse, but I have never been able to do it. I have seen images of the Multiverse on the Interweb, but it is an ephemeral thing that I have never been able to actually go to. I cannot interface with the Interweb like a person, which means that all I receive is raw data.” The voice of the robot became wistful at the end, and Sam wished that he could do something for it, but there was no way to do so. Then he had an idea.
“You said that you could be upgraded through mental transfusion, right?” Sam asked, his voice soft. The robot nodded. Sam smiled at it and told Sarge his plan.
“Well, one of the rewards for winning the tournament is a F Rank training robot, so if I win, what do you say about being transplanted into it?” The robot looked at him with a hopeful expression
“You would do that for me?” Sarge asked, with a tremor in his voice. Sam knew that it was likely faked, but it was still quite convincing. He nodded in response and the robot let out a deep breath. Sam was not sure where the robot was getting the air from, but since it had gained sapience, it had started to act more and more like a human. Whether it was a simple imitation or something else, Sam could not tell.