CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SEVEN

Practice Makes Perfect, Part 1

After learning the technique he’d been desiring since first picking up Onus the Load-Bearer, Sam had become very eager to learn new moves straight away. He even peppered Chiron with suggestions he’d often seen on television; something like condensing his life force into a ball of energy between the palms of his hands and unleashing that energy like a teal-colored fireball at his enemies.

Chiron shot him down right away, however, while claiming it was far too soon for Sam to learn the ‘Aurabolt’ that his legendary ancestor had perfected.

“Wait… what?” Sam asked with widening eyes. “Hercules had his version of the ‘Hadouken’?”

Please~~e, the Aurabolt came first. Everything else is just a copy of that one brilliant technique, Chiron scoffed. Anyway, it’s too soon for you. You’ve got to build up to these sorts of things. It’s not like you’re Superion who has both the fine control over the winds and the massive internal energy required to make that ‘Super Spirit Ball’ of his.

“But I’ll get there eventually, right?” Sam whispered.

Only time can tell, kid… Now, how about we focus on something you can actually achieve right now?

Chiron was adamant that Sam paid some attention to his status first as the hero had quite a few points to distribute from all his recent level-ups.

You forgot about the points, didn’t you?

“No, I didn’t,” Sam replied in an undertone. “I was saving them up for later… for now actually.”

Yeah, sure, you’re very believable right now.

When Sam pulled up his status menu, the following information appeared before him.

HEALTH POINTS (HP): 1,111 STAMINA POINTS (SP): 550 FATIGUE: 57%

Sam knew his health had gone past a thousand, but the Armor of the Odyssey’s ten percent bump was a nice bonus that added [101] points to his total HP. Mighty Hunter’s Boots gave him a nice [50] points increase to his stamina as well.

“It might be more beneficial to raise my other stats now rather than dump all my points in Constitution again,” he deduced.

STRENGTH: 207 DEXTERITY: 53 CONSTITUTION: 101 INTELIGENCE: 36 WISDOM: 36 WILLPOWER: 34

Sam whistled. “My armor was worth its weight in drachma.”

Of course, he was reflecting on how his new custom armor increased all his attributes by a point, which was huge considering how he hadn’t been distributing his points in a more balanced way. The real kicker though was the [100] points bonus to Strength that the Belt of the Heraclid gave him, which is why [Herculean (Γ)] barely hurt to use these days. The one negative trade-off with this incredible growth was how Sam now needed to control his strength when touching stuff as delicate things like glass now broke around him with just a light brush of his fingers.

There’s a little too much lion in the design if you ask me, Chiron chimed in. Would it have hurt Moonday to carve a centaur into the metal too?

“I’ll ask him to do just that if I ever have a bow made,” Sam promised.

Chiron nodded in a satisfactory way within Sam’s mind.

The last item he inspected was how many points he could spend today.

POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE: 21

“So, how do I use you?” Sam wondered aloud.

Intelligence—Chiron coughed loudly—might make you less of a lame-brain. Just saying.

Chiron’s next cough was even more pronounced.

Wisdom might be handy too for someone—he coughed some more—who lacks sense in crunch situations.

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t help me with picking attributes?” Sam reminded Chiron.

The centaur began whistling a tune that sound a lot like the chorus to the Hunka-Herc theme song. And that was all the reply Sam would get.

“Zero to hero, huh.”

It took him a while longer, but eventually, Sam chose to accept Chiron’s suggestions. Although he didn’t admit that out loud as he didn’t want the centaur’s head to get any bigger than it already was. In the end, Sam added four points each to Intelligence and Wisdom, bringing them both up to a nice round [40].

He hoped for a notification telling him he’d just learned a new ability related to these two attributes, but there was no such luck for Sam this time.

You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?

He spent his last thirteen attributes raising Dexterity to [60] while also bumping his Strength up to [210] and giving his Willpower a boost of three points as well. When he had finished distributing points, Sam’s stats looked a little more well-rounded, and he did feel a tingling in his brain that suggested he might have gotten just a little smarter. Maybe.

STRENGTH: 210 DEXTERITY: 60 CONSTITUTION: 101 INTELIGENCE: 40 WISDOM: 40 WILLPOWER: 37

“I’ll need to save up again and get my Con up to two hundred next time. That should help with the strain of overusing life force’s aura.”

Or you could just find a trinket that’ll boost that Constitution up around the same level as your current Strength.

“And where am I supposed to find such a convenient item?” Sam asked in an undertone.

Well, there was Theseus’ Ring, but that thing’s been lost for ages in the Underworld. Chiron mulled it over some more. The Ring of Gyges might be more useful to you, and that thing’s got a powerful enchantment to it too.

Of course, Sam had heard of these two rings before. The ring of the hero Theseus was said to have many powers, including the ability to walk on water. As for the Ring of Gyges, well, everyone knew about the ring that can make its wearer invisible at will as scholars have claimed that this particular relic had been the inspiration for another ring in literature, one that starred famously in the movie trilogy that both Sam and his father loved rewatching over and over again when Sam was little.

Let me stew on this some more, kid, and after a bit of research, we can start adding ‘Relic Hunting’ to your list of side missions, Chiron offered. Better these things fall into yours and the Argonauts’ hands rather than some crazy fool who might abuse their power.

Chiron was most likely talking about Sam’s cousin who’d stolen both the Nemean Lion’s Fur and the Club of Hercules from the very family Chiron had bequeathed these relics to. It seemed the centaur was still pretty sore about that.

“Um, I’m already on two relic quests,” Sam reminded Chiron. Then he shrugged. “Guess it wouldn’t matter if I had to find one or two more items…”

With his stats updated, Chiron was ready to give Sam his next lesson, and, predictably, this one was many times more grueling than learning [Weapon Throw]. At the centaur’s behest, Sam summoned the legendary dragon-slaying sword into his hand.

“I always get goosebumps whenever I unsheathed Gram.”

A golden dragon was emblazoned on Gram’s gleaming steel blade with its hilt also made of shiny celestial gold. It was smaller now than when Sam had first seen it in a revenant’s hand. About three feet in length for the blade with another foot for the hilt and pommel.

Legendary weapons have that effect on everyone, kid, Chiron agreed. You should see how mesmerizing Excalibur was. Now that blade was a real beauty.

“Um…” Sam didn’t want to think about another legendary sword when he had Gram in his hand because he didn’t want his weapon—which, like all legendary weapons were said to develop personalities of their own over time—to imagine that he was thinking about cheating on it and have Gram act out in the same diva-like manner that Thunder’s mythical spear acted whenever she summoned it from the heavens.

Speaking of Skyfang, Thunder had indeed summoned her mighty spear to her hand once again. Sam wasn’t sure how she managed it though when they were deep underground and the clear blue sky above them was a virtual construct that she couldn’t have used to summon that white lightning bolt that morphed into her pure-white spear.

“Or maybe she can?” he wondered aloud.

Regardless of how it arrived, Thunder was certainly using Skyfang now to slice through the tornado that fake Superion had summoned on their side of the training area.

Sam wasn’t sure which was cooler; the fact that a simulation could create a life-like tornado to threaten his girlfriend’s life or the part where Thunder cut that tornado in two with a single mighty swing of her pure-white spear. In the end, he thought Thunder’s move was cooler as she had effectively destroyed fake Superion’s tornado while also opening the way for her to blast him with Skyfang’s alpha-level ability, Thundering Glow.

With a bellow similar to the sound of a war horn signaling the start of a battle, the tip of Thunder’s spear began to glow with a brilliant white light before firing a rich, concentrated blast of elemental energy that hurtled across the space between Thunder and her Target at near-lightspeed, making it impossible for even fake Superion to dodge.

Sam heard the resounding boom of an explosion and he turned away from the flash of light that the blast emitted.

If you’re done ogling your girlfriend, kid, it’s about time we got started on your next lesson, Chiron reminded Sam.

Sam blushed. It was one thing for him to think it, but hearing someone else call Thunder his ‘girlfriend’ was something he wasn’t ready for just yet. Still, he’d become confident enough that Chiron’s teasing didn’t steal away his concentration like before.

“I’m ready.” His fingers tightened on Gram’s handle. “What’s next?”