"Well I guess ….'cough'…..it took me a long time to realize how insignificant I am". Laying there truly defeated all John could do was submit to the man in front of him.
"Heh, so you've accepted defeat. Good It was starting to be inconvenient to keep battling you. Now come with me training awaits". The same man as before that introduced him to the barracks and had been watching him clear the sewers had been training John for the last month and he was loathing it. The man was needlessly aggressive and assaulted him mentally and physically each training session that they had. He had began to have incites into the tier two law of element composition, but he wasn't happy still with the situation. Especially because the torment he was in, the man was knowingly using suppression and combat to help John progress his comprehension faster and explosively increase his strength.
In fact in the last few weeks John had progressed so fast that he was almost to the point where he would start to preform missions and he needed to get the soul pact that wouldn't allow him to abandon his duties without causing soul damage and most probably killing him when the backlash from breaking his side of the agreement.
Due to these reasons, when John arrived to the training one morning he found just a note telling him to go to one of the rooms near the barracks and training area.
As John was about to go to the room, he blacked out and felt his soul being pulled into a different plain temporarily. When he opened the eyes of the manifestation of his souls' eyes he found himself face to face with a man whom he had no idea what his relationship was with.
The man smiled when he saw John and motioned John to sit at a table, after which he soon did as well.
"Hello John, I know this must be shocking, but after you used that sword you died from the exertion. As your soul began to drift much like the millions of others I noticed you although you weren't particularly special, your personality and morals aligned with my goals ever so finely. It was at the moment right before you were going to be judged and be sent to one of the many afterlives that I was able to snag you. If I had let you go, you would have probably had your soul wiped of every memory, idea, and moral and then reincarnated back on earth so you didn't have the worst fate. Anyway, as my champion you must fight for me in the Great War to come. The planet you are on is perfect for you development, but since you're my precious champion I shall give you a ability that will get stronger as you do and continuously increase your power and likelihood of surviving. Even if you do die though that's no problem for me as I have may other champions as well, but I like you so I want you to live. Sorry for the info-dump, but when you wake up again you will know what new ability you have received and the people who are holding you captive are going to make you take an oath, but it will be to weak to do anything to you. So I'll see you again and it will be soon". The man smiled at John and he was once again back being flung through dimensions and found himself back in his body soon after.
John gasped and took a deep breath, he had to just sit there for a while though as it felt like his lungs were full of water and it took time to get used to. He stood up once he felt able to and he was able to instantly notice the results of the new "ability" he had acquired. Not only had his lungs gotten denser and stronger, but they as began to produce a new flame that was several times stronger. With the new flame he felt like he could even take on upper tier 2 cultivators even though he was just a lower tier 2 cultivator.
He also noticed that the black star had been strengthened and using the new energy it could produce he was finally able to adapt the workshop fully to his level and even a bit above, causing the spell to gain the strength to create semi-middle tier 2 objects and maybe with enough comprehension middle tier 2 objects.
Thinking of which John summoned the so called soul weapons, they quickly resurfaced and John once again infused them with his black mist. This time was far different than before, as John now had a skill to use to increase the likelihood that he would get the result he wanted.
John used the power of his soul to release the connection between his flesh and the gauntlets in order to complete the forging. In John's time at the blacksmith he had acquired a lot of metals and ores that were at or above his level. He was able to either just pile up all of the excess ores and get more contribution points, or he could keep the excess materials so he obviously took the second option since he had no need for the points as of now and he would just stick pile them like last time. In fact he had already reached 30,000 points and he didn't need to spend any points on enhancing food(it makes one have a stronger body and progress on their bodies cultivation level) or other fancy cultivation items or skills due to him already possessing the ability to get stronger by killing and eating the enemy.
The many materials that he had gathered while forging then were melted down using his flames and he infused the new energy within them and kept them as a liquid as he used his energy which as of now was in a gaseous state to create a membrane that enveloped the two items as a way to allow for a more conducive forging environment that allowed the liquid metal to slowly merge and elevate the power of the gauntlets and the realm that they were in. They were only at the semi-middle tier 2 but they quickly reached the middle tier and didn't stop there as the gauntlets better attuned to his existence and he felt a deeper connection develop between the gauntlets and himself as the bond between the two continued to deepen John felt compelled to take out one of the corpses of the guards that he had killed in his escape.
A blue light shine from the mans chest as his centers of powers fused together into a red sphere and shot into the concoction that was still fusing. This caused the gauntlets to receive sentience and he and the gauntlets began to share emotions with each other and it felt like his conscience and it were connected it still could feel it's own emotions. Such as right now it felt happy to be in the presence of its creator and it tried to communicate with him, but it was only able to formulate a few concepts so John shared all his memories of learning to speak and what words meant to it.
John quickly had to un-summon the gauntlets as he still had to go to the room that the evil guards note told him to go to. He didn't know how much time had passed especially since he was brought to that other dimension so he rushed to the room.
I didn't take long to find the room once he had gotten back in the main building. He knocked on the door and heard a come in from the other side in the same raspy and gruff voice that his tormentor had. John opened the door, but felt very uneasy about his arrival time. The man didn't say anything about that so he was left to just stand there and wait for the man's orders. Just being near the man made his rage and bloodlust emerge from the depths of his being and a bit of it leaked into his aura unknowingly releasing it in the room. He then felt as if everything in the world was pressing down on his existence and holding him still.
"Withdraw your aura if you don't want to die, youngling". The man said while holding a knife that wasn't in his hand just moments ago.
The man let off on his suppression after the aura coalesced back within John's body and he fell to his knee after the stress on his body was released. John's breath was ragged as his body had just used up most of its energy to remain conscience in a ply to defy the man.
The man scoffed, but he still had his duties to do so he quickly went back to the preparations that he was finishing up with. While the guard was mixing ingredients in a bowl in front of him, John had regained his strength due to the star circling the energy through his body.
'Damn that guard, I'll make sure to kill him first or at least one of the firsts after I overthrow and destroy this shitty empire'. After mentally chuckling to himself about his plans, John started to watch the man. It seemed as though the man was doing alchemy of some sort.
John was able to pick up some insights on the creation aspect of his law once more, his law seemed as though it was about to blossom into a new powerful weapon to wield against his enemies.
The guard had finally finished with what he was doing and had John sit on a chair with enchanted cuffs for his arms and legs. After locking John in the guard then grabbed the bowl from earlier and drew a formation on his chest with the black goop. The man chanted some lines that John couldn't understand and his chest glowed with a purple light.
'What kind of language was that, it was freaky'. John was only able to have this single thought before his mind went blank due to sudden pain. His chest began to boil as the formation seeped through the skin and created a tattoo like mark on his heart.
The man then put John's hand on a stone which briefly glowed a whiteish blue hue. Then just like that the ceremony was finished, the man released the cuffs.
"You have the rest of the day off to recover, you will come to the training area once more tomorrow and then you will go to the blacksmith again and continue the normal routine". John stood up from the chair and went back to the barracks.
He felt the tattoo thing start to wriggle and it moved from his heart into an orb that the black star made. The orb couldn't stay in his body though as it was too unstable so it moved to his mental sphere.
The formation on his mental sphere glowed once more just like when he created the soul weapons before. The black orb morphed into a similar thing to the dragon as it also gained conscience and it developed into a parasitic worm and John felt as though he could use it for controlling something but he wasn't able to tell.
John regained his attention and realized he had just stopped in the middle of the hall when the control formation became a new living creation. He started moving again and was thankful that no one was in the hall with him. He had arrived at the barracks soon after and sat down on his bed. He took a deep breath and Kaye's back before he heard a traumatizing and reminiscent ding making him immediately cringe.
"Damn it, I thought that I would never have to hear that stupid ding again". Even though he was annoyed that the digging torment was back he also was curious why so he said the magic phrase.
"System open notification log". This time unlike the many times he had tried before right after he had arrived in the slave camp the system worked and he saw the snazzy translucent box appear once more.
'[The tutorial event has ended the player shall
now face even more peerless challenges,
the player will fight for their owner in the
near future]'.
"Ah shit, here we go again". Right as John said right as he was once again abducted by the system, just like the good old days.