My hands were aching and shaking as I stared at the target in front of me. Sweat dripped down from my brows, as my entire body was drenched with perspiration. But the thin jump suit I had on had strangely kept my body rather cool.
But still I had sweated enough to fill buckets, which was why the revolvers in both of my hands felt slick with sweat, and it was getting harder and harder to maintain a grip on both guns.
I holstered them, and began to repeat the rather dull action Samson had me practicing for the past three days. Even though Samson seemed to be in a hurry to have the dungeon cleared, he was not willing to send me anywhere without any hint or a modicum of training. Yes I had basic combat training from my time as a pilot, but not enough to deal any lasting damage.
However even training had to be done in a rather frugal way. The weapons cache on this floor should really be considered an armory instead, an armory filled with rather impressive guns and cannons, and specially made and spelled bladed weapons.
With such an arsenal clearing the top floors should not have been much of a problem for me, even without training of any sort, however all of this advanced and special weapons ran on power cells or spells that needed constant observation and renewal.
However with the thousands of years that had passed, due to the neglect they had all lost their source of energy and power becoming nothing but useless chunks of metal.
Luckily for the both of us, there were weapons available that Samson coined primitive.
There were a few swords, spears, maces and even bows, then the revolvers in my hands were the only two guns available that could still function, the others had all but rusted away and would cause more harm than good to use.
The revolvers were an even older weapon, even by earths standard, so its ammunition was even more limited, and since it was one of the only forms of long range attack. Samson was not willing to let me waste any ammunition without proper training.
And it was because of that I have been standing in one spot for six hours everyday for the past three days, doing nothing but holstering and un holstering both guns at the quickest and most accurate speed I could muster.
There was a target in front of me, and every time I pulled my guns out, I had to perfectly align it with the bulls eye, if I missed, Samson who was busy keeping watch behind me would give me a taste of the chain whip in his hands, or were his hands actually. Samson had the distinct ability to alter any part of his metallic body, and he has been putting it to good use this past three days, based on his own esteemed opinion.
If there was anything else Samson would have done to make me hate him even more than i already did, then this was it. I was exhausted, my entire body ached and what I wanted more than anything else right now apart from checking to see if Max was okay, is a warm bath and to sleep for a week straight.
But Samson was a demon of a golem, with the way he has been pushing me it was quite obvious how important this entire venture was to him. As far as Samson was concerned there was no room for mistakes or any margin of error. Everything had to be perfect or as close to perfect as possible.
"Maybe you should take a break, you have gone past your allocated time."
The sound of Samson's voice was annoying, but at the moment I felt like kissing him. I shakily holstered the guns and dragged my tired body to the showers, I could feel Samson's gaze on my back, but there was no scathing comments or insults accompanied with it as usual.
I was thankful for the silence, but I had gotten use to that kind of reaction and character from Samson that anything out of the ordinary or his usual way of acting did nothing more than raise warning flags in my mind. It was rather exhausting living this way, to always be on guard against a five foot tall robot….excuse me, golem.
It was exhausting and such vigilance has pulled all of my nerves sharp almost to the point of it being the edge of a knife. I was becoming too conscious of my surroundings without anytime to relax.
I couldn't even sleep fully every night due to the fact the i always wake up hoping Samson would not do anything to me in my sleep, well that and the fact the Infirmary I was sleeping in looked really creepy at night.
The shower however washed away most of the stress from the long day. Under the sizzling hot water I attempted to arrange my thoughts and set my priorities straight.
Samson has been pushing me to the edge of my limits, but I could not for the life of him understand what Samson was trying to achieve by asking me to repeatedly draw and aim an unloaded gun, without even pulling the trigger. Although I was somewhat reluctant about this whole dungeon clearing and becoming a mage stuff, after all it sounded too good to be true.
I had thoughts that we were wasting time; This was not because I felt I could take on the monsters easily just because I was now three times stronger than an average human being from earth.
I was very aware how dangerous any sort of creature on this planet, much less this desert and college was. It was no secret I had my ass handed to me by those flying snakes the day I arrived here.
But suddenly there was this sense of urgency and I felt that I needed to get stronger quickly, I had to save Max and find those other people from earth, especially the ones who crossed over with me.
Based on what Samson and his so called analysis has been able to glean, my human biology made me equivalent to a plant or a lung. I was constantly absorbing the latent energy particles from the atmosphere and the bodies of any living thing that dies at my hands.
No matter how you looked at it, this was a double edged sword, my body was not equipped with the cells, tissues or organs required to process the energy that I was absorbing. The gene modifier could only do so much and its capabilities were not advanced enough to keep pace with the amount of energy I was absorbing. My body would break down in no time at all.
I knew this, and quite thankfully even though I had to put my life on the line, I had a way to bypass this problem and even get greater gains in the end.
However the 6 other pioneers who came before me were spread out all over this planet, and I was not sure how many of them were aware of this tidbit of information.
And even if they were, I doubted if any of them would have a proper avenue to take care of such a problem. As such I had more reasons than one to make sure I got stronger as fast as possible.
I was now in race for time, the impatience I felt could be understood, but Samson did not seem to be in a hurry anymore.
Finished with My shower I made my way back to the lounge, this place has sort of become a meeting room, and sitting room for the both of us.
"Samson I think we need to speed up the pace of the training."
"Why what's the hurry, I feel you're making good progress at the pace you're going at. I know I pushed you, but if we're not careful and well prepared you would end up being another dead body."
Samson made a point and I had a tacit understanding of my situation. But I needed to offer a good explanation to Samson, I needed give an enticing enough reason for him to increase the speed at which the training would progress. But I could not help but feel hesitant, Samson was determined to use and exploit me for his own gains, though it was annoying, doing so would save my son's life.
So imagine what could happen if he finds out there were dozens of rather unfortunate people out there just like me.
I had to be careful, the best I could do for now was hold on and see how far and how long this seemingly useless training of Samson's would go on.
After all its has only been three days, and I had about six months before any of the others would be in any real danger, there was quite a lot that could be achieved in that time period, including saving Max.
I was rather resolute about keeping the secret about Max and me not being the only people who jumped though the layer to arrive here (our dog was missing). And to keep Samson off my trail I had to change the conversation.
"Samson, I believe this planet is inhabited right?, so how is it possible that no one has discovered this college in all of these thousands of years that has passed?"
Samson's aligned four eyes rotated as they gave a purple glow, then they began to move every which way on his face. This always happened whenever Samson was excited or he had something really interesting to talk about….well Interesting enough for him to talk about, Samson has proven to be a rather self absorbed golem this past few days.
"That's an excellent question JT boy, but to truly answer your question you need to have a basic understanding of the planet we're on.
Gonin Gora, that's the name of this planet, well it's a very large planet that's about the size of your earths sun. And don't ask me how I know about the size of your planet's sun. You will come to understand it and even have a way to communicate with you dimensional layer, when the college is functional again and research Into the layers continue.
Any way back to the question at hand, Gonin Gora is a very large planet, but most of it's surface is nothing more than sand, the desert constitute of 50% of the planet's surface. However, much like any average desert worth it's salt, Gonin Gora is dotted and covered by oasis of various sizes and rather peculiar positions.
There are oasis that are as big as a continent and covered with millions of miles of vast, lush and thriving vegetation. There are oasis that are actually underground, some so deep that they strangely have their own weather patterns, those are the one of the few places that rain actually fall, on the whole of Gonin Gora.
And then there are oasis like the one the college is built on, they float thousands of feet above the ground, thriving on their own and cut off completely from the planet itself.
Now our oasis is rather peculiarly hidden, our oasis is positioned in a part of the planet where this floating islands of vegetation and life are clustered and exists in the thousands, we're right in the middle with a natural barrier surrounding us from all angles.
The only reason you won't be able to see it, is because there's a time barrier around the oasis. It makes the time within the oasis erratic, and its been that way since the college fell. Sometimes the time is three to a hundred times faster, while sometimes its ten to fifty times slow.
The barrier was made with an illusion that emulates the sky without all those floating islands and oasis constantly casting a shadow over us.
Which brings us to something else, the desert outside was from a spell gone wrong. Magic of any kind is quite a fragile thing, it's dangerous, practical and very useful. But more often than not, most spells, especially those from the fifth circle and up need to be monitored occasionally or things could go horribly wrong.
When the tower was first constructed, a weaver from Shearath had placed a rune on a particular area of the oasis to stimulate a desert like environment for training purposes. Now weavers can not be constrained by the same natural laws as any other magical user. They are the very manipulators, breakers and the enforcers of the rules of magic and nature itself.
As such with the tower falling into disrepair and neglect and the weaver being among the first to jump ship, the rune went completely haywire which ended up covering the entire island, which mind you is thousands of kilometers wide and long, there are even two cities on this mage forsaken piece of desolate rock, of course those cities and numerous other towns and small villages have already been abandoned and swallowed by the desert for thousands of years.
The lesser wyverns, which you have imaginatively chosen to call flying snakes. Humph what an uncultured and disrespectful brat you are.
Anyway those wyverns are a mutation created by the dungeon as a sort of trap and guard dogs to prevent anyone from approaching the college. They are spread for almost twenty to thirty kilometers around the college. Which baffles me, because I keep wondering how you got close enough to the college without being torn to pieces by those vile serpents."
"well don't look at me, I don't know either."
I responded to Samson's questioning glance with a scathing tone. Samson gave a shrug of his shoulders and continued.
"Any way that's the abbreviated gist of the college's history, if you want to find out about anything else, you would need access to the library on the floor below us. Of course the whole college is sealed except for this floor, so that may be a little hard without destroying or completely subjugating the dungeon core."
I scrunched my face as I considered something rather perplexing, I turned to ask Samson the question currently bothering me.
"I thought you said that dungeon cores lack Intelligence, considering everything you've said, the dungeon core seems pretty intelligent to me."
Samson aligned his eyes as he answered.
"I said they had varying degrees of intelligence, not enough to be considered fully conscious of themselves, which makes its impossible for them to develop any sort of personality. There are animals that are quite intelligent, but much like those animals, the dungeon bases its decisions on instinct. And don't forget I also said they lack imagination."
I raised my eyebrow and spoke with the most sarcastic voice I could muster.
"Then what would you consider cutting off power from an almost thirty floor college with some of the most advance technology and magic around. What would you call systematically and patiently taking over each floors and towers of the college and setting a trap of one of the most deadliest creatures around the college's vicinity. If that is what you consider a lack of imagination, I dread what you would consider imaginative."
Samson's eyes danced around his head for a few rotations before coming to a stop in a rather haphazard manner.
"This dungeon could be considered to be a freak amongst other dungeons. I admit it does have above average intelligence as expected from a dungeon. But in the end it is not a thing worthy of being considered Intelligent, it is not alive. It's a force of nature that thrives only on its basest instinct like a dog or a virus. And all it knows how to do is grow and create monsters.
It can not be compared to me, or even you for that matter. So don't think too much into it, the sooner we destroy the core the better it would be for the both of us, and we would be well on our way to reviving this mage tower."
With his piece said Samson strolled away, leaving behind incredibly suspicious Joshua(me), and with a lot of unanswered questions.
A lot of things did not add up and Samson's explanations always seemed to have holes in them. I felt that there was still a lot going on here that I had no idea about. I felt the need to be more careful and discreet, especially around Samson. The golem was a little too suspicious.
And in that fashion another week passed, and during that period of time, I was pushed to my limit about how patient I could be with this kind of training. It was incredibly repetitive and boring, not to mention during the whole period of my stay in the college, I was stuck eating the same stuff over and over again.
Strangely enough I was glad Max was not experiencing such tough way of living, it would have broke my heart if I was incapable of providing properly for me son. I was already tired of the whole thing.
The training so far has been Incredibly taxing, most days my hands would be aching and shaking so fiercely I would find it very hard to fall asleep. My hands felt stiff and it always hurt and to raise them up. It was quite stressful.
But today seemed to be a bit different. The cold atmosphere of the Infirmary seemed to have an aura of anticipation and trepidation in the air today. Today I was not going to be aiming at any target for the next six hours, in fact Samson was currently standing in from of me, but for reasons completely unknown.
"JT boy, its time for a little test, I want to see how far you have come with this training that I have put you through. Do try not to die or get seriously hurt, as that would be rather disappointing."
I frowned, I was not exactly prepared for a test, not to mention my guns were still not loaded. I could not figure out what kind of test Samson was going to give, when the weapons required for the test were not even properly loaded.
I heard a whoosh and saw Samson's transformed hand heading straight for my face. For the past week I have been subjected to being whipped by that transformed hand of Samson's.
My body, strength and speed were three to almost four times that of a normal human being, but during my training my body had found it incredibly difficult to resist the pain, that always danced through my body every time Samson swung that chain whip that his hands had transformed to.
I was not willing to feel that whip on my face. So it was with a move of sheer instinct that I pulled out one of my guns and used it to deflect the incoming chain whip to the side.
A resounding ding spread through the infirmary as I stood there with my hand shaking and very much surprised at what I just did.
"There's no need to be so surprised JT boy, the point of this training was to properly teach how to channel certain parts of your strengths and improve some of the most fundamental aspects needed in a fight.
Any average person can have extremely great strength, speed or defense. But a proper fighter would have good reaction time, and have superb control over their body and weapons.
You don't really need the guns on the first floor that you have to clear since all that is really there are slimes. Any proper spear could finish those gelatinous jellies. What you would really need was accuracy and motor control.
Using the guns was the best way to train you, and if you think about it, this was practically killing two birds with one stone. Should those guns be loaded now, you wouldn't have any problem aiming. Now we have come to second part of the training, and what could most probably the hardest, how to apply what you have learned while moving. Look out!"
And then Samson flung his whip like hand at my ankle. The result was me crouched on the floor rubbing my ankle with one of my hands while the other simultaneously defended against the second whip that was making a move for my head.
All the previous training had been done while standing still, I was sure there was a particularly slow and definite procedure to be followed with this training before someone got to the point of moving around. But Samson seems to want to increase the intensity of the training and have me finish ahead of time.
Even though this was something I wanted, my lament of a slow training speed seems to have been offered a solution. But I had no idea how much pain I was going to end up being in, before I get to a level that would be deemed satisfactory for Samson. I was sure I was in for a world of pain.