Sam went back to the city in high spirits.
A good battle is indeed refreshing. When he came back with that grin of his face, the people in the city didn't understand his behavior. Many young masters would agree that this is the toughest disaster they faced until now.
Even though Athena's direct attacks were less, the puppets and the damage to the formation scared the crap out of everyone there is. They couldn't even bring themselves to imagine what these puppets would have done if the formation has broken apart.
Of course, Sam could give two shits to their thoughts and opinions.
He just walked into the city with delight to go back.
What he doesn't know is, Sandhya who is following was completely lost.
She has been in contact with Sam the longest among all the people in this planet. She has seen first hand how he works and just based off of everything that is happening around him and the way he handled things, she thought she knew who he is.
He is a cynical intellectual who is extremely capable of great threats, but not because of his individual strength, but because of his intellect and the way he applies it.
Even though he fought with the gods' figures before this disaster, most of the time he is using massive attacks, using the harbinger and taking the help of the beasts. It is easy for her attribute all of these results to Sam's intellect.
Because in her opinion he won because he is smart enough to know how to utilize the beasts and his tools to the fullest.
And as many people thought, she also believed that to be Sam's expertise. She didn't think he is good at natural fighting as well.
Not a fight filled with massive elemental energy attacks, rather proper skill based fight with swords, daggers and other weapons. She is even sure if he was caught off guard, he might even lose a battle of mages.
But to her surprise, Sam subverted her expectations once again.
This time she left along with Sam, leaving the young masters to clean up. Sam gave instructions to bring the cannons back. The cannons were barely used in this battle. They are not fast enough to keep up with the chaotic deception of these puppets purely made out of energy.
The young masters carried out the instructions clearly.
The spectres were in charge of supervising them and even they don't know it.
Sam and Sandhya went back first.
Sam once again didn't want to waste any time and delved deep into his research.
Sandhya went to her mother.
"Do you, he is good in battle also?"
"You already told me. You said he fought against Poseidon, Artemis and Hephaestus. Why are you bringing it up now?"
"No, not like that. He is really good at regular battle. Without any elements, only pure warrior style battle. He is good with sword, spear, staff and daggers too. I saw him fight with Athena. It is really good."
Priestess looked at her daughter and had a faint smile on her face.
"You have that expression again."
Sandhya came back to her senses and asked.
"What expression? What do you mean?"
"You know, before you awakened, you wanted to be a warrior so bad. But you turned out to be a mage. You always said that you would be come a super warrior that can wield all the weapons in the world."
Sandhya blushed as she heard her own words being repeated to her. She was indeed fascinated with warriors during her childhood. All the magical things the mages could do, she didn't really feel them that much.
But when she saw a warrior cleaving a mountain with their sabre, she felt like that is the true power. But too bad, she awakened as a mage and nothing could be done about that.
"Don't tell me, you like that guy now? Not too long ago you came to be and demanded that he give you explanation and all that. Now you are acting like a fangirl."
"Who likes him?"
Sandhya brushed those comments aside and left the room. She went to her own room and relaxed a bit. She could still see the beautiful battle that happened not too long ago. She has seen many warriors fight, but she has never seen anyone like Athena and Sam.
She hadn't seen that level of battle.
The most fascinating thing for her is that Sam and Athena both didn't have any fancy moves. They didn't have long circulation energy paths going through their bodies trying to emulate a phenomenon while attacking.
They are using very basic moves.
Even that basic stab is very powerful against some thousand year old sword technique.
And they didn't have that rigidity in them. All of the attacks and defenses are very flexible. They transitioned from one attack to another very easily, one weapon to another smoothly. All of it appeared very organic and true to their nature.
She felt really envious.
Sam didn't know that Sandhya not only already forgot about the scolding he gave her, she is evening thinking about something else related to him. If he had known he would have considered her a fool.
The next day, Sam is not doing massive calculations on the rocks anymore. Instead he took out his flute and started playing and it is not just casual playing, he let his energy flow freely with the music.
Since he is stagnated in the calculations, he decided to free his mind as well as spiritual energy.
Sam just closed his and his divine senses as well before he started playing his flute. He solely relied on his sense of smell, sense of taste and sense of touch to feel his surroundings.
A cool breeze hit him and he transferred that feeling through his music. As he played the flute, the neutral energy from within his body danced to that tune and it resonated with the breeze that he was surrounded by.
Sam walked in the direction of the breeze. He still had his eyes and spiritual sense closed. As he walked on that rocky mountain, he soon arrived an area where the rocks are not as flat. The area is very much ragged.
But he didn't stop.
Sam stepped on a pointy rock, but he balanced on it. Neither was he injured nor was the rock destroyed. He just moved in a smooth motion, but his music changed a bit. It went sharper and smoother alternatively as he moved. Then he stepped in a very small stream. It is very shallow and it didn't even reach his knees.
Sam just walked through it and felt like his energy is also acting just like this water. It is resonating with the water and it seemed to be flowing out and into the body just like who this water is smoothly flowing in this stream.
He walked out of the stream and then into a small patch of woods.
He just played his flute with the nature and only stopped after more than an hour.
By the time he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see that some of the guards who roam around the mountain to patrol are looking at Sam.
Looking might not be an accurate word to describe it. They are staring at him.
It seems like Sam has been on the flute for way too long time and they have been staring it for a while.
He didn't mind it though. He just went back to the place he was doing his research and started writing some notes on the rock once again.
After playing the music like that he did have some insights.
He couldn't understand how the energy is reaching a state where it merged into objects directly and made them do different things. The trees were in a sentient state, but they don't really have a thinking will like spirits.
They are more like coded robots but these trees changed naturally.
All of this is a bit confusing to Sam.
And to add to that confusion, he saw something else during his fight with Athena the day before. The energy changes that made these puppets happen. He felt like the state is extremely similar to the one with the trees and this time he got to observe it a lot longer than before.
That is also the reason why he tried to play the flute today.
Since he cannot understand or achieve the feat of giving these objects sentience, Sam decided to do at least make his energy resonate with these things. To make the adapt the nature and behavior of the nature, or at least his perception of the behavior of the nature.
And this flute appeared to be the best way for him to do that.
During this whole time, the flute made the energy flow exactly like the surroundings that Sam felt.
So, his immediate goal is to make the energy adapt to the nature and surroundings and he would focus on this change only.
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