He waited until Garnax popped into existence beside him, and with one quick glance at his companion, he strode out into the dungeon. Immediately, his new ability triggered, and a ghostly humanoid charged him. It was bulbous, grotesque boils covering its form. Standing over ten feet tall, it looked like some sort of troll. As Sam ducked in preparation, he saw that the real thing was exactly that. A green skinned behemoth of muscles and fetid warts lumbered out from behind a boulder. Sam effortlessly avoided it, and one strike from his armored palm caused the beast to explode, blood showering the cavern.
A quick pulse of his Dao energy erased the foul blood from existence, preventing it from splattering his armor. Behind him, Garnax grinned. He already knew how strong Sam was, but against those far below him, Sam’s powers were even more impressive.
“How large is this dungeon?” Sam asked, brushing a bit of dust off his armor.
“There are a dozen caverns, each with about fifty trolls in them. Then there is a boss room, which is the end of the dungeon. It usually takes me about four hours to complete, but I suspect you could do it far faster.”
Sam nodded. “I’m here to train though. Maybe I’ll come back some other time, and set a record.”
He continued on, drawing the attention of more trolls. The ponderously slow beasts rushed him as one, their footsteps shaking the earth. He leaned upon his foresight to its fullest, watching as a small army of precognitive illustrations appeared in the air before him. For the next minute, he focused on dodging the attacks, using a tiny fraction of his true speed. While he still operated at a superhuman level, he barely moved at half the speed of sound. It should have rendered him helpless against the high F Rank trolls, but he was easily able to evade them. It reminded him of his fight with Gordanus, where, using nothing but his weapon mastery, the man had absolutely dismantled him.
He saw Garnax heading off into another part of the cave from the corner of his eye, likely looking to get a bit of essence out of this dungeon run. He ignored it for the most part, trying to reach a flow state with his foresight.
As more than a dozen trolls surrounded him at all times, he began to use his natural treasure more and more. Soon the confusing interplay of spectral premonitions became easier to read, and he was able to perfectly dodge everything coming his way with the bare minimum of speed.
Every few strikes, he would lash out with one of his own, pulping limbs, heads, or even entire torsos. True to the general depiction of their kind in Earth’s fiction, the trolls had massively enhanced regenerative properties, and they were able to come back from almost any level of damage. All that meant was that they were great training partners for Sam.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
As he fought, he began to detect a subtle undercurrent of Dao energy running through his form, aligned with the two elements that made up his natural treasure. Then he felt another. They were tiny threads of power, at the Mote stage, but they were there. Sam took it as a sign that his body was ready to accept new Daos.
Before the currents could vanish into obscurity, he seized upon them with his will, laying their secrets bare before him. He could sense an impending Dao vision, so he devoted most of his mind to parsing their meanings. The first Dao was one of a minor aspect of Lightning, relating to the way that it jumped from target to target, unerring but circumspect in its path. The second dealt with the grand weave of Fate, but the barest fraction of its true might. It was related to bodily reactions, but in a more ephemeral and magical way.
Sam smiled as he felt the insights starting to cement in his mind, and he began to use them in battle, even before gaining the Daos themselves. He had no aligned Dao energy for them, but he was able to bend his body to his will. As a result, his attacks started to ricochet, punches glancing off trolls and slamming into others, still managing to deal the same amount of damage.
Feeling an imminent Dao vision, Sam finished off the trolls with a burst of energy, and let himself fall into the abyss that preceded his visions.
A moment later, he had become something else. Something not entirely mortal. His body was an endless, arcing current that traveled through the firmament, always seeking new targets, but never stopping. He was a golden python of electrons, streaking through the cosmos in the pursuit of some final truth. Though, he could already tell that he would never reach it.
Every time he struck a new object, ranging from specks of cosmic dust to entire planets, he gained a tiny bit of insight into the nature of the Dao that he was pursuing.
He traveled for millenia, growing larger and larger as he drew power from the Dao around him. By the end of the vision, he was the width of a solar system, able to obliterate entire stars with ease. Then, he found something he was like an ant before.
A black hole warped time and space before him, sucking everything into its nadir. Sam found his body curling down and down into an infinite space, consumed in a matter of seconds. No matter how much power he had gained, there was always something greater.
He was disgorged from his vision, his body crackling with tiny shards of golden electricity. His body contained a new depth to it, a surety of movement that would always deliver him to his target.
You have gained a new Dao!
Dao Mote of the Conduit
A conduit is something that conveys energy from one place to the next. It can be anything, from a simple metal wire to the void of space itself. Taking this concept into yourself means that you are that conduit, delivering the energy of your own will to whatever you choose.
