Sam placed his hands and tried to connect the corruption energy inside his body to the energy inside the pillar.
All he had to do is let the energy inside his body flow to the pillar. Just when the pillar was about to suck it completely, he controlled it and dragged the energy from the pillar into his body forcefully.
The energy travelled thorugh one hand and ravaged through his body.
All his muscle fibers are subjected to the extreme treatment of this energy. They are being torn apart while Sam’s vampire body leveraged the death energy around in this hell’s environment to heal the torn fibers.
His body is at the extreme limit of destroying itself while rebuilding itself. Every muscle fiber was deconstructed and reconstructed at least a dozen times in a second.
He sucked in all of the energy from the pillar and slowly started circulating it through his body before he sent it back into the pillar through his other hand.
The whole process felt like Sam has been tortured with the harshest methods for a thousand times, but everything had happened in just one moment.
He didn’t stop though. He did the three times and by the end of it, his skin is covered with a thick bloody substance. It smelled grimy and looked dirty. And Sam felt like his muscle mass has reduced by a bit.
But he felt slightly more agile and flexible. Strong too of course. Except his whole body is hurting with every breath he took.
He didn’t know the aftereffects would be like this. His body did go through the tempering process in a short time and since the changes are so sudden, he could even feel them instantly. But the pain through the process and after it is horrible.
The only silver lining is that it is just pain. Nothing else. It is just the muscles being sore. He could endure it easily and he could function very well. There is no actual injury that could hinder his movements and attacks.
He smiled in content. Now, he can just collect all the corrupt energy and store it in the pillar whenever he wants. He can be as immediate as possible too and he can go through the tempering process within just a few minutes, whenever he wants.
Whenever he enters a new floor, he can first do a scout and get an idea on what type of monsters and how much corruption he has to take in. With that he can plan and schedule his refinement sessions so that he will in a decent shape no matter when Hel takes him out.
He looked at the ceiling with a smile.
Hel who is spectating the whole thing from her own residence couldn’t help but feel that Sam is smiling at her. It felt like he is mocking her.
But when she recalled the torturous situation that Sam has experienced and then the torturous session that he has put himself through, she couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious about the decision he made.
She followed through with what Zeus has suggested and now she has to live with it.
The sudden change in the bear’s behavior is because of that reason.
Generally, it will take a long time before the creatures in the towers evolve their intelligence.
But for Sam, it happened in his second floor only. Even if it is at the last moment, it is still very dangerous. His difficulty compared to the rest of his peers, increased exponentially.
Of course, he will also get equally valuable benefits from this, but this is unfair. Sam already have more floors than anyone else.
He would have to get out of this hell before the time limit passes while he tries to take advantage of his more floors. But now there is this added difficulty.
If Gambler takes this seriously, she knew things wouldn’t end well.
But the disc is too much of a prize that she has been craving for a while. So, she couldn’t bring herself to give it up. She took a risk and went on with the decision.
Now when she thought back to what she did and what Zeus must have expected from this, she couldn’t help but smile wryly.
Whatever Zeus might have expected from this, is not coming to fruition. She knew of this for sure.
She felt like Zeus just paid an invaluable price to make it so that Sam has more advantages than any other player in the game.
The only disadvantage he might have is time and if they the gods learned anything about Sam until now is that his intellect is good enough to reduce this advantage by a large degree if not completely eliminate it.
She couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious about what will happen to the rest of the candidates.
While Hel is thinking of the consequences, there are two more people who are doing the same.
One of them is Sam.
After he finished the refining process, he sat there near the pillar in meditation. He is currently thinking of what might have happened with the bear and what he should be expecting from now on.
‘The only thing I could do is explore the third floor and see if the creatures are getting smarter. No matter what the answer is, it doesn’t change the direction I am going to take.
The only problem is that the time taken to scout is going to increase a lot.
Maybe, I should think of a solution that would let me finish scanning the place faster.
Parameters should be the dividing the floor based on area, type of creatures present in an area, their number, collective strength, intelligence, lethality. I need to be able to create a technique that could measure all of these parameters.
And without any unnecessary machinery and equipment. This could be a bit tough. But if all this can be achieved by a person directly without a need for any other equipment, this could be a very useful technique in real life also…’
Sam’s thoughts ran wild as he got more and more ideas in his head. He couldn’t control himself and started thinking of possibilities in his head.
Meanwhile, somewhere far away.
Gambler is looking at the whole fiasco through his screen.
Even though Sam wasn’t speaking his thoughts out loud, he seemed to have understood what Sam is thinking.
“This fellow is going to make something interesting again. What do you think it would be Ling Tian?”
“I am not smart enough to guess it sir.”
“Come on, you are no fun. Just like Sam. Why are you both of you such stuck up people.
Anyway, I want to ask your opinion on something. For the stunt, Hel pulled. What do you think should be the compensation?”
“I think it should be decided based on what she got from Zeus, Sir.
Hel clearly knew of your prowess. In fact, she might be the only few who is close to being accurate about your strength. But for her to still make this decision, the price Zeus paid must have been invaluable to her. So, if I have to make a decision, then I would say, we should find out what the price is and then take at least half of it.”
“Half of it? What if it is way too valuable? Do you think Sam can handle the half of it?”
“I am sure he can find a workaround and also find a good use for it.”
“Yeah, he might just do that. So, why don’t we pay a visit to Hel?”
“We can sir. But before we go, there is something you should know. She has acquired a bunch of your special tokens.”
“Oh? That’s surprising. This woman started using her brain for a change. But still, she does know that there are some conditions associated with those tokens right? She might hoard all of them together, but that doesn’t grant her complete immunity.”
“Yes it doesn’t. But her plan is to reduce the damage as much as possible. If she uses all of those tokens and give out some compensation, then she doesn’t have to give up too much and escape from this.”
“Oh? She indeed became smart. But does she really think that I would be that straightforward? She has another thing coming.
Sam is not going to die any time soon. So, lets beat her at her own stupid game. Let’s wait. I will give you the spectating right for this game. Note down every disadvantage Sam is facing compared to the rest of the players.
Compile a whole report. Try to pull out as many disadvantages as possible with unbeatable logic. When it was made, not just Hel, Odin should have to pawn his Gungnir off for a few days to repay the debt even with all of those tokens in existence.
Let’s shake up the Norse before Sam comes here.”
“Sir, you do know that if you really give half of it to Sam, you will make whole of Norse his enemy right?”
“Will I? It can’t be helped though. That is only fitting for the stage I am preparing for him.”
