ã€ŠMagic Made Simpleã€‹


 Chapter 1: Tutorial

    The room is completely silent as preparations for the experiment begin. An unspoken agreement to not break the peaceful quiet hung in the air as everybody double checked, then triple checked that nothing would go wrong. Our team had been under constant pressure from our sponsors to get this project done as soon as possible, and we were all feeling it in this very moment. Years of hard work to get to this point, and countless meetings where we¡¯d had to convince investors that this would be worth the cost. If things went as planned, it certainly would be.

    The silence is finally broken when the head scientist and lead of the project, Benjamin Krone speaks.

    ¡°Alright, we have all cameras ready, all devices tuned, and several thousand people watching through a live feed. We will now go through our pre-op checklist. If nothing is found wrong, we will make history together.¡±

    I could tell through the serious demeanor that Ben was reluctant to speak with such a commanding tone. He¡¯d only been assigned project lead due to being the most leader-like out of the group. He still saw himself as just one of the scientists. I¡¯d always liked that about him. Given that this moment would probably be in dozens of future documentaries, he needed to show off a sense of authority and confidence regardless of personal feelings.

    I didn¡¯t blame him one bit for having to act like the most important person in the room, and I knew that none of the other 10 people present did. I certainly wouldn¡¯t enjoy the pressure of knowing billions of people would see every movement of my hands, hear every word I spoke, and analyze the results of my work for years to come. I did kind of have to worry about that last one, but much like when Armstrong walked on the moon or Oppenheimer made the atomic bomb, I would just be one of the scientists and not the face of the project.

    Ben began calling out each of the scientists by name, asking for verbal confirmation that they saw nothing with the readings or devices. My name was last, as I was generally seen as the number two on this project.

    ¡°River Banks, please confirm that there are no issues with any instruments or the readings on your screen.¡±

    ¡°Confirmed.¡± I say, wincing a bit at the fact that my whole name had to be used. I knew that quite a few people would get a chuckle out of the name. My father had always told me it would get peoples attention, though that had always been what I disliked about it.

    ¡°All present scientists have confirmed the safety of this test.¡± Ben says, addressing the cameras around the room. He input a code on a number pad, which then slid away to reveal a lever within a cubby in the wall, a physical activation of the machine to both show off for the cameras and to ensure a random software error wouldn¡¯t set it off by mistake.

    ¡°Beginning experiment in 5...4...3...2...1...¡±

    Everyone in the room held their breath as the lever was pulled down with a unceremoniously silent motion.

    The entire building began to hum as countless electronics, motors, machines, and magnets were activated all at once. The humming slowly got louder and louder as everything began powering up more and more, and soon the experiment began.

    Now, the experiment itself was humanity''s effort to create a blackhole.

    I know that sounds ridiculously dangerous and stupid, but extremely small blackholes weren¡¯t super dangerous. Despite common belief, a blackhole doesn¡¯t need to be super big. Actually, even if it was just the size of a baseball it would already have more mass than Earth. Our goal wasn¡¯t to make something like that, instead it was to turn just a few kilograms of matter into a blackhole.

    Even with that small amount of mass, it was an incredibly difficult task only able to be accomplished after decades of research, and five years of building a super massive facility to allow it to happen in the first place.

    We all watched through reinforced glass at the experiment chamber, where the final result would be occurring. We didn¡¯t actually expect for anything to be visible, but since humanity hadn¡¯t ever messed with blackholes we couldn¡¯t be one hundred percent sure.

    ¡°All readings remain steady.¡± I say aloud, the nervousness in my voice still slipping out.

    ¡°Confirmed.¡± Another person in the room says.

    A full minute passes as the build up of the machine begins. My heart leaps into my throat as I notice a problem in the readings. It looked like we were getting an energy input far higher than expected, though I had no idea where it could be coming from. I open my mouth to tell Ben to cancel the experiment. It would be a waste of the tens of millions of dollars it cost just to do this one attempt, but it had been agreed that at the slightest sign of something going wrong, the experiment would cease immediately.

    ¡°Cancel-¡± I barely get out, before all at once everything goes catastrophically wrong.

    One moment I¡¯d been speaking and telling Ben to cancel it all, and the very next moment I was staring at a black void in the middle of the experiment chamber. I wanted to scream, to panic, or in general just do something.

    Despite my best efforts, I couldn¡¯t get out a single word. I couldn¡¯t move my eyes. Nothing in the room was moving, not even a single speck of dust. It was like a moment in time had been captured, and it was all I could see. Is this what death was like? Seeing a picture of your final moments for all of eternity. I certainly hope not, as being alone with my thoughts for an eternity didn¡¯t sound pleasant.

    Just as I was about to start spiraling into a mess of existential dread and panic, a blue screen with words appear in front of my eyes. No, in my mind. It was hard to tell which it was, as while it felt like I could see it in front of me, I could also see right past it like it wasn¡¯t there. There is some text on the screen, which my eyes scan over and read. I don¡¯t even bother questioning the fact that my eyes can move to look at the screen, but not physically move to look around my surroundings.

    Congratulations to the citizens of the Sol star system for being deemed worthy of entering the true universe. Evaluating overall star system rank...

    Congratulations! For creating a gateway to the true universe with no outside assistance, your star system has earned the rank of S! Every member of the star system has been awarded with the S tier populous title. You will now be placed into a tutorial where you will learn about the true universe and in which ways it differs from your own. Time spent in the tutorial and information provided will both be determined by personal rank. Good luck within the tutorial, and welcome to the true universe!

    The terrifying snapshot of my final moments disappears instantly to black, and the blackness quickly fades to the vision of a featureless room. It¡¯s about 5 meters tall, long, and wide, and has gray walls made of... something. It wasn¡¯t shiny, so I couldn¡¯t say it was metal, but it also didn¡¯t have the roughness of stone. Reaching down and feeling the floor, it felt perfectly smooth, yet like it still had some grip, like rubber.

    I looked at my hand for a moment, realizing I could move again. I feel my chest, then my face. I was alive! Another screen appears in front of me, and I read that one too. It felt like a bad idea to ignore the mysterious blue screen that had saved my life. Maybe this was all just a dream, but if it was I might as well just go with it.

    Welcome to the tutorial! Evaluating planetary history and overall personal rank...

    Congratulations! For having not just a significant effect on the history of your star system, but creating the gateway to the true universe, you have been awarded the rank of S+. For achieving the highest possible rank and achieving a rank higher than the average of your populous, you have earned the title S+ tier pioneer.

    Further information will be provided upon opening the status screen. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    ¡°Status screen?¡± I mutter, having silently read the entire thing aloud. I had a bit of a bad habit of reading things aloud to myself, which had been endlessly annoying to my coworkers. As soon as the words leave my mouth, a new blue screen appears in front of me.

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Human

    Level: 1

    Class: N/A

    Trait: N/A

    Displayed title: S+ tier pioneer

    Statistics:

    Body: 21 (No focus set)

    Mind: 21 (No focus set)

    Spirit: 21 (No focus set)

    Class skills: N/A

    Class spells: N/A

    Personal Skills: N/A

    Titles: S+ tier pioneer, S tier populous

    Once I finished reading all of that, another much larger screen appears to the side of the status screen. It was long, had a lot of information, and generally just made my head hurt to read. I still read it and absorbed every word of course. I¡¯d gotten plenty of practice doing that when I was still working on my PHD thesis.

    As you have achieved the personal rank of S+, you have access to all the information about your status screen. Below is the full explanation of each element of your status screen as well as recommendations for making the most of each element.

    Your name is the identity you believe you fully fit. It changes automatically if your perception of your own identity changes.

    Your race shows the species you belong to. As a human, you gain +1 to each stat each level.

    Your trait represents an innate ability you possess, and is something many choose to build their power around once unlocked. While a trait can be awakened at any point, it is forcibly awakened upon reaching your 3rd evolution.

    Your level shows the progress you have made in gaining strength and improving yourself. Each level grants stats dependent upon your race, class, any subclasses, some skills, some titles, and other rare and unique factors. At certain level milestones, you will evolve to be overall more potent, and your stats will all have a greater effect. Evolving rarely grants the opportunity to change race and stat focus, but it is not recommended to stray too far from your standard race.

    Your displayed title is automatically set to your rarest title, though it can be changed at any time. When being scanned by high level identification spells and skills, your displayed title will be shown. You cannot have no displayed title.

    Your class shows your primary focus, and determines the method in which you gain levels. The focus of your class affects the distribution of stats you receive each level. Higher rarity classes and subclasses award more stats. Upon reaching certain milestones in a class or subclass, you will be prompted to select a skill related to the class. Note that you can have as many subclasses as you desire, but each subclass makes your primary and other sub classes less potent as well as increasing the difficulty of gaining levels. You will not receive significant benefit beyond your first subclass. It is not recommended to take on more than one subclass.

    Your statistics each represent an aspect of your being. Your body stat represents your strength, agility and constitution. Your Mind stat represents your capacity to hold mana, the potency of your mana, and the rate at which you recover your mana. Your spirit stat represents the strength of your soul, the strength of your aura, and your perception of all that is around you. Upon selecting your first class, you will be prompted to select a focus for each of these stats.

    Your skills and spells are the core of your power, and being proficient enough at any task can grant you a skill, while becoming proficient enough with any mana technique can grant a spell. The rarity of skills and spells is dependent on how potent of an effect they have as well as how proficient you are with them for your level. Each skill grants a bonus to the relevant stats when being used.

    Your titles represent your feats and accomplishments. Each one grants a bonus to your stats, and some may come with additional effects.

    That was... a lot to take in. Even after reading over twice I was still trying to comprehend what it was saying. First of all, apparently magic was real. It even had mana as the standard for magic, which thinking about it might just be this screen''s way of translating it to me. If it was all in English it made sense that it would translate its term for magic into whatever I could understand.

    The second thing that really caught my attention was that it seemed to pretty much just boil down exactly what I was to be shown on a single screen. Some might get uncomfortable about that, but I actually found it oddly comforting that I could now see exactly what I was worth. Well, kind of. I didn¡¯t know if 21 in each stat was good, but it seemed pretty decent. Looking at the bonuses granted by each of my titles, I saw that my pioneer title gained my +10 points to each stat as well as a 25% bonus to each. My populous title only gave me +5 to each stat and a 5% bonus. Actually, now that I am looking at that, if I didn¡¯t have either of those, I would have just a single point in each stat. Thank god for these titles then.

    I¡¯d played plenty of dungeons and dragons back in college. Who¡¯d have thought that a physicist could be such a nerd, am I right. Anyways, if I had 21 in every stat back then, I would have been god of the dungeons and dragons table. Instead I¡¯d played a sorcerer who constantly got bullied whenever an enemy got within one tile of me.

    After another reread and once I truly grasped what the screen was trying to tell me, another one pops up, this time asking me to select a class from a short list. It gave the name of each, the stats they gave, and a basic rundown.

    Fighter (Common)

    Fighters have a proficiency with close range weapons and a variety of armor types. +4 to body per level, +2 to mind and spirit per level. Grants the Basic Melee Proficiency skill.

    Ranger (Common)

    Rangers have a proficiency with long ranged weapons and light sets of armor. +3 to body and spirit per level, +2 to mind per level. Grants the Basic Ranged Proficiency skill.

    Mage (Common)

    Mages have a proficiency wielding mana and casting spells, often wearing light armor. +4 to mind per level, +2 to body and spirit per level. Grants the Basic Mana Bolt skill.

    Healer (Common)

    Healers have a proficiency with supportive spells to improve the strength of allies. +3 to mind and spirit per level, +2 to body per level. Grants the Basic Heal spell.

    I didn¡¯t even really have to think about it. I wasn¡¯t exactly a super strong guy, so fighter was out. I probably couldn¡¯t aim an arrow properly to save my life, so out goes ranger. I wouldn¡¯t want to be reliant on others, so healer was also crossed off my list. That just left mage, the coolest and most awesome choice on the list. I definitely didn¡¯t have a bias that stemmed from the idea of throwing around fireballs and blades of air.

    After selecting that, yet another screen appears. I was starting to get tired of all this reading, but it really couldn¡¯t be helped.

    Select a focus for your stats. Each stat has three possible focuses. Your primary focus for a stat will receive a 1.5 times boost in effectiveness, your secondary focus will receive a 1.25 times boost, and your tertiary focus will receive no boost in effectiveness. Your recommended focuses for your class have been automatically selected, but keep in mind that they may not be the best for what you plan to do.

    Body:

    Primary Focus: Agility

    Secondary Focus: Strength

    Tertiary focus: Constitution

    Mind:

    Primary Focus: Potency

    Secondary Focus: Capacity

    Tertiary focus: Recovery

    Soul:

    Primary Focus: Perception

    Secondary Focus: Aura

    Tertiary focus: Soul

    I saw absolutely no reason to doubt that this screen knew what was best for me, so I decided not to change any of the focuses for now. It had told me earlier that I could eventually change it, even if I didn¡¯t know exactly how long that would take. Once I locked in the selections, one last screen popped up.

    You will now be teleported to the tutorial. You have 30 seconds remaining before teleportation occurs. Please take this time to look through your stat sheet.

    I did as I was told, looking through it and only really paying attention to the changes. I made sure to read through the description of my brand new skill as well.

    Stats:

    Body: 24 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 26 (Potency-Capacity-Recovery)

    Spirit: 24 (Perception-Aura-Soul)

    Class spells:

    Mana Bolt (Common)

    Fire a small bolt of mana to damage a target.

    30 seconds later, everything goes black again as I once once more teleport to a new location. This time, I wasn¡¯t as concerned that I had just died as last time. As the blackness fades and I look around, I realize that I am in the middle of a forest surrounded by several of my coworkers, those who had been in the room with me when everything went to hell. I don¡¯t know exactly where we are or fully what is going on, but what I do know is that I am not a fan of what I read next.

    Welcome to the tutorial.

    Tutorial tier: S

    Tutorial designation: Tower of Nixtias

    Floor 1: Forest of Ancient Oaks

    Time remaining in tutorial: 180 days

 Chapter 2: First Floor

    Welcome to the Forest of Ancient Oaks! You may teleport back to this floor from the entrance or exit of any other floor. There is not a single hostile creature on this floor, so sleep safe knowing you have nothing to worry about except for one another. There are plenty of entrances to the next floor, so feel free to head down as soon as you are ready!

    With that ominous message, the blue screen of guidance finally decides it is time to leave me alone. For the first time since that blackhole damn near killed me, I have no blue screen in my vision. That made everything start to feel more real, and I can feel my heartrate begin to quicken as the gravity of this whole situation hits me.

    Thankfully, somebody actually speaks up before I can start to spiral. It¡¯s Ben, my former, and maybe still boss.

    ¡°Well, is everyone okay?¡± He asks. Everybody gives some version of ¡°I think¡± or ¡°As okay as I can be¡±. After receiving these confirmations, he continues with a much more serious tone.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to confirm one thing before we actually talk about what is happening.¡± Ben says. ¡°We are all in agreement that if this really has affected everybody on the planet, we are not going to be telling a single soul this was our fault, correct?¡±

    To that, every single person present agrees. Nobody wanted to be stuck with the blame of turning our world upside down. It was certain to slip at some point, but hopefully by then people are used to this enough that we¡¯d only get shunned by society rather than beaten to death, or more probably, hacked to death by the new weapons that our attackers would likely have.

    I say that because everybody was holding some kind of weapon, presumably based off of the class they chose. We also had various kinds of armor, though I don¡¯t really know if you could call the robes I wore ¡°armor¡±.

    Everybody who had chosen fighter, which was 4 of the 12 people in our little group, wore chainmail armor and have both a short sword and shield. The sole archer of the group has leather armor and a bow. He also has a quiver slung over his shoulder, filled with dozens of arrows. The two healers both wore white robes and had a wand with a yellow gem at the tip. Us five mages wore purple robes and have wands with purple gems at the end of them.

    A few seconds of staring at my own wand made another one of the blue screens pop up, this one far shorter than the others.

    Mage¡¯s wand (Common)

    A wand granted for the purposes of the tutorial. Slightly increases the effectiveness of any spell channeled through it. Infusing significant amounts of mana repairs the wand over time.

    I do the same thing for my robe, expecting and getting a similar result.

    Mage¡¯s robe (Common)

    A robe granted for the purpose of the tutorial. Passively stores excess mana siphoned from the wearer, allowing the user to store more mana for immediate use. Uses stored mana to repair itself over time.

    Well, that was simple. I guess having more mana was more important than extra protection for a mage like me. Better to make sure an enemy can never reach me at all than have to deal with them when they do. Who knows, maybe eventually I could make a shield of mana to act as protection and have little need for armor. Actually, what was the armor even meant to protect us against?

    ¡°So, uh, what do we do now?¡± Asks Rebecca, one of the researchers I¡¯d worked with.

    ¡°Well we need to find a source of food if we are stuck here for almost half a year.¡± Ben says, and nods of agreement went all around. He turns to one of the two healers. ¡°Jeremy, you were an eagle scout right? Do you think you¡¯d be able to forage enough for us to eat? At the very least, do you think you could teach us to forage so we can all pitch in?¡±

    ¡°Well if we did decide to forage instead of hunt, I¡¯d definitely need to teach you how to. There is just no way I can forage for twelve people all on my own.¡± Jeremy responds. ¡°Hell, I don¡¯t even know if I could tell what¡¯s good to eat or not. The plants here could be different from what we are used to.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    ¡°That''s a good point...¡± Ben admits, thinking to himself. Just then, the archer of the group speaks up.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll have to worry about eating for now at least.¡± He says. ¡°Look.¡±

    We all look where the man was pointing and spot two deer grazing not too far away.

    ¡°Do you think you can hit them at this distance?¡± Ben asks the archer.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but if all the mages try casting some spells at it we might manage to injure one of them enough to catch up and kill it.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± Ben says, motioning to everyone. ¡°Mages, line up and get ready to throw some magic at them.¡±

    We all get in a line shoulder to shoulder. We made sure nobody was behind anyone else. Wouldn¡¯t want a stray bolt hitting somebody in the back. On Ben''s word, we all fire off a bolt of mana, and the archer shoots his bow.

    It is a lot harder aiming the bolt of mana than I thought it¡¯d be. Casting the spell itself had been easy, it felt almost instinctual as I felt something flow through my body, into my hand, and out the front of the wand. Through sheer luck, my bolt of mana manages to hit the hind leg of the closest deer, leaving a crater in the leg of the deer just above the hoof. The archer''s arrow had dropped more than he¡¯d expected, but still managed to hit the same deer in the other hind leg. It fell over while the other started running, and we all quickly run over.

    Jeremy grabs a sword from one of the fighters and quickly put the poor creature out of its misery. A quick stab to the head is all it takes.

    You have slain Deer (level 1).

    Experience gain reduced due to the size of your party.

    The adrenaline looks like it was coursing through about half of the people present. Most had pale faces or a grimace they tried to hide. Me, Ben, and Jeremy all were the only ones who didn¡¯t seem affected by having to kill the deer. I''d gone hunting before, so it wasn''t exactly my first time having killed something.

    ¡°Alright, someone grab it and let''s go find a river or some other source of water. We don¡¯t just need to eat to live.¡±

    Ben¡¯s words seem to snap everyone out of their trance, and soon two of the fighters were carrying the deer as we walked. It didn¡¯t take too long for us to find a river. We had walk up and down it a bit, but eventually settle on a spot after we find a staircase dug out into the dirt near the river. There was an unnatural darkness to it, and we agreed that it was almost certainly the entrance to the next floor. Within an hour we have a fire going and a few skewers of deer meat hanging over it.

    We¡¯d also managed to put our combined 16 PHD¡¯s together to figure out a way to distill some water. That was probably 16 PHD¡¯s more than was really required, but we kept joking to each other about who¡¯s education had made them the most prepared for this. We all decided that Jeremy wasn¡¯t to be included since he had been an eagle scout. Clearly his education should be disregarded since he¡¯d been trained to do the exact thing we were doing instead of some barely adjacent activity.

    After everyone had eaten and gotten at least a little bit of what little water had been distilled so far, we sat down and had a serious discussion about what was next.

    ¡°So, who¡¯s gonna go?¡± Ben asks the group. ¡°I assume there is at least one person present who wants to go explore the next floor that the blue screen had mentioned.¡±

    There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, and I clear my throat. ¡°I uh... I think I am going to go check out what the next floor is like. I don¡¯t want to just be sitting around for six months doing nothing but surviving.¡±

    There is another beat of silence.

    ¡°Anyone else?¡± Ben asks, but nobody speaks up. There were clearly a few people deep in thought, but none that seemed overly eager to go exploring right away. Everyone was still reeling from everything happening so suddenly.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± Ben continues. ¡°We don¡¯t know what¡¯s on the next floor, but I agree with River that we can¡¯t just sit here for the next six months doing nothing. Once we have some reliable way to eat and drink, I will also be going onto the next floor.¡±

    Everyone seems to cheer up a bit at that from the somber mood. It seems they hadn¡¯t been thinking about how they could just go down the stairs later on. Everyone starts talking amongst themselves, and I hear several of them discuss how they are going to go tomorrow after getting a good rest.

    Now, me? I¡¯m not that patient of a person.

    Ben knew me well. He knew I would rather go out and do something stupid than sit around doing absolutely nothing. He also knew I was the type of person to get to a task as soon as I could, and often hyper fixate on it until it was done. There was more than once that he had to drag me away from my work and tell me to go to bed, as I would just be too far gone in my own little world to remember my body had needs.

    While everyone was talking with one another, Ben steps aside with me, far enough away that the rest of the group couldn¡¯t hear us.

    ¡°Please River, if you are going to be going to the next floor, try to be back quickly, I¡¯m sure everyone¡¯s minds would be put at ease knowing that you didn¡¯t immediately die going down there.¡±

    ¡°I will.¡± I say, not arguing. ¡°But this is a tutorial after all. I don¡¯t know for what, but usually tutorials aren¡¯t going to try and kill those it is training.¡±

    ¡°I know, just please be careful anyways.¡±

    ¡°I will.¡± I say, sincerely meaning it. If I didn¡¯t come back and I did happen to die, well at least I wouldn¡¯t be getting yelled at.

    After giving me a goodbye pat on the back, he went to tell the others I was leaving while I was already walking down the stairs. Neither of us wanted anybody to feel pressured to go now or to try and stop me, which was why I was leaving before he told them.

    As I walk down the stairs, a screen appears in front of me.

    Teleporting down to floor 2: Goblins forest

 Chapter 3: A Little Bit of Exploration

    Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, I am teleported onto a stone platform in the middle of a forest. The forest is pretty similar to the one I was just in. The only really noticeable difference was that the trees were all a good bit taller and thicker. Even picking at them with my nails, the bark feels stronger than the typical trees I¡¯m used to.

    Welcome to floor 2: Goblins Forest

    This forest is home to the goblin race. While weak individually, goblins are well known for their numbers and engineering prowess. The exits to this floor can be found within the center of goblin cities. Remember, you can teleport back to floor 1 at any time from any entrance to floor 2.

    Well, if magic was real, I guess it wasn¡¯t too much of a leap to believe goblins would be real too. Did that mean other fantasy races were a thing as well? Would I one day have the chance to go toe to toe with a dragon? That sounds both exciting and terrifying.

    I look around for a few seconds, trying to get an idea of where I wanted to go first. There were no indicators of what to do other than to find a goblin city and reach the exit, so I just pick a direction and start walking. Every hundred feet or so I hit a tree with a mana bolt so I didn¡¯t lose track of the way back to the entrance. It is just long enough that my mana had time fully regenerate between shots. I spot some deer wandering around, actually quite a lot more than were on the first floor. They were in groups of 3 to 4 instead of the 1 or 2 that I remembered seeing on the first floor.

    Eventually, I start hearing something in the distance. It sounds like loud thuds, which I assumed must have been somebody fighting against a goblin. I picked up the pace and started jogging over, stopping when I saw that it was not a goblin fighting another person, but rather two goblins fighting one another.

    I duck behind a tree so I wouldn''t be seen. Honestly it was a miracle I hadn¡¯t already been seen. I hadn¡¯t been making any effort to sneak up on the two short green creatures, but neither of them seem to be particularly mindful of their surroundings.

    I peek around the tree, wanting to get a good look at the two. Both wear some simple looking leather armor, and each of them held a wooden club that they were using to fight one another. The closer I looked, the less it seemed like this was an actual sparring match and more of an actual fight. They were aiming for one another''s head, and the speed of the strikes made it seem like a solid hit would do quite a number on whoever it hit. I couldn¡¯t say for sure how heavy those clubs were, but they couldn¡¯t be too heavy considering the goblins'' small frames.

    I take a deep breath in, and decide to test the waters a bit. I would try and make some kind of noise to get their attention, and see how they reacted. If they attacked me, I¡¯d fight back. If not... well then I don¡¯t really know where I¡¯d go from there.

    I spot a branch on the floor, so I pick it up, step out from behind the tree, and snap it in half over my knee. The loud sound of the branch breaking made both of the goblins stop, and their heads instantly snapped to look over at me. All three of us were frozen in place for a moment.

    They don''t seem to be doing anything. Maybe they weren¡¯t hostile-

    They both rush towards me, faster than I would have anticipated they could. I hastily cast a mana bolt their way, but in my panic I hadn¡¯t aimed it very well. It hits a tree way off to the goblins left, leaving a mark. I manage to shoot two more mana bolts at them before they get to me. One of them hits the armor of the closest goblin, leaving a burnt circle in the spot it hit and slowing it down a bit from the impact. The other bolt managed to hit the other goblin directly in the face, and I watch in a mix of disgust as the hit seems to rip off a part of its cheek, leaving its teeth exposed through the wound.

    I don¡¯t have time to feel bad, as the nearest goblin swings its club straight for my side. I can¡¯t dodge in time, so I bring my arm around to block the attack. It hurts, bad. It does block the attack from hitting my ribcage, which would have likely been worse than the bad bruise that this hit would probably cause. I think about casting a point blank bolt of mana at the monster, but instead let my instincts take over and bring a fist down on its head.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    The goblin immediately collapses to the ground, dazed. At that point, I deliver a bolt of mana to its head, killing it instantly. I look back towards the other goblin, only to realize it had died from the first mana bolt that had hit it.

    That had felt... too easy. Should killing be that easy? My guess was that thanks to my stats from the S+ tier pioneer title that I just had higher stats than were usual for having just entered floor 2.

    I open my status screen, and see that a notification has popped up on the side of it.

    *You have slain Goblin scout (level 3) X2. Bonus experience for winning a fight while outnumbered. Bonus experience for fighting enemies of a higher level.*

    *You have reached level 2.*

    I look at my stats, seeing that they had indeed increased. My body was now at 28, mind at 33, and spirit at 28. For a moment I had thought that it was too much. I should only be getting 5 in my mind stat and 3 in my other stats when adding up the points I got from my race and my class. That¡¯s when I remembered that my titles gave me a 30% bonus to all my stats. Once more, I¡¯d like to say I am grateful for these kick ass titles making my life easier.

    I crouch down and start inspecting the two goblins. Now that I was up close, I could see that they both had different designs on the shoulder of their armor. Were these supposed to be ranks in a goblin army or something? One of them was red, while the other was a purple color. The armor was far too small for any human, so I don''t even bother taking those, but I do grab one of the clubs. That would at least ensure I had a decent option for when a goblin got in close again.

    I should probably stick close to the entrance so I don¡¯t get lost. Even with the markers on the trees, I don¡¯t want to risk not being able to find those if it got dark. I don¡¯t know if there is a day and night cycle here, but I am going to work under the assumption that there is.

    After getting back to the entrance, I stop for a moment. My arm is aching, so it¡¯s probably a good idea to go to one of the healers and see just how effective their healing was. Worst case scenario, I hang back at the camp for a bit to let it heal, and be more careful next time I come up here.

    As soon as both of my feet were on the platform, a prompt appeared before me.

    Teleport back up to floor 1? You will be brought to the point you exited at.

    After confirming that I wanted to teleport back, I suddenly find myself once more in the staircase. After walking up it, I see the fire still burning, and a large group of people surrounding it. The group was larger than it had been when I¡¯d left it before.

    One of the first people to spot me was Jeremy, who quickly jogged over.

    ¡°You¡¯re back! That was quick. Did something happen?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I fought a couple of goblins. I¡¯m fine though, I just wanted to get my arm healed. I got bruised by one of them when they hit my arm with a club.¡±

    We walk over to the main group, and while we did I roll up my robe sleeve to show my arm. It wasn¡¯t exactly pretty. I hadn¡¯t looked at it until now, but most of my forearm was covered with a bruise. It didn¡¯t hurt unless I touched it, and when I do my nerve endings punished me heavily with a stinging pain.

    Jeremy hovers his hand just over the injury, not quite touching it. His hand glows for a brief moment, and a feeling like water running down my arm was present as the bruise slowly faded.

    ¡°So, what else did you see besides the goblins?¡± Jeremy asks. Several others around us also quiet down to listen.

    ¡°Well, not much. The trees were bigger, and that¡¯s about it. I didn¡¯t really do much actual exploring since I didn¡¯t want to get lost. I was going to go back after taking a moment to rest, but I also wanted to try something else before going. Also, when did so many people show up here?¡±

    ¡°Oh, they showed up not long after you left. We figured the more the merrier since surviving is definitely going to be a group effort.¡±

    ¡°How many are there?¡±

    ¡°About three dozen of us so far.¡± He looks around for a moment before leaning in and whispering so quietly that I could barely hear it. ¡°Besides those of us that were already a group, nobody has a pioneer title over C tier, with most of them having a D tier title. We haven¡¯t told them yet that our stats are so much higher than theirs, so don¡¯t bring it up.¡±

    I nod silently, not saying anything. Jeremy continues, giving some of the information I¡¯d been wondering about.

    ¡°The people with D tier titles only have 30 days in the tutorial. The C tiers have 60 days, and while we can¡¯t yet confirm it for sure yet we assume that each tier higher gives 30 additional days.¡±

    ¡°Has anybody else shown interest in going to the next floor?¡±

    ¡°Yes. A lot of them actually. People are forming groups to go down. If you want I can introduce you to them and you can join one.¡±

    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll need that.¡± I say, which surprises Jeremy.

    ¡°What? Why not?¡±

    ¡°After fighting those two goblins, I got extra experience because I was fighting them alone. I¡¯m going to be honest, given my higher stats I think it would just be most effective for me to just fight alone.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure? Don¡¯t you at least want a healer to come with you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure. I saw how weak the goblins are, and I doubt any will prove to be able to do any fatal damage to me, especially as my level gets higher and higher.¡±

    ¡°If you say so man. Just, please don¡¯t die.¡± He says. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll see you whenever you come back for more healing.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not leaving quite yet. I still had one more thing I wanted to do before I head back to the second floor.¡±

    ¡°What is that?¡±

    ¡°I am going to see if I can improve my mana bolt spell.¡±

 Chapter 4: Upgrades

    Maybe I was being a bit greedy wanting to improve a skill that could already kill a goblin with a single well placed attack. I didn¡¯t see it that way. I was thinking of it more as research.

    Probably the biggest reason I¡¯d gotten into the field of physics was because I had a deep desire within me to understand how things worked. I wanted to know why things fell, why light could only move so fast, and the underlying rules behind so many other natural phenomena. Finding out about mana was like I had just unlocked a whole new branch of magic, and I got to be the one to trailblaze the research on it.

    When I cast my mana bolt spell, I can feel the magic within my body moving. It is hard to grasp exactly how it was moving, but it definitely was moving. The only details I can really feel right now was that a part of my mana broke off from the whole, formed a ball, and shot out of my hand or my wand if I was holding it. I want to find some way to improve that, or failing that to make my own spell.

    At first I had started by repeatedly casting mana bolt, observing exactly how it worked. The first thing I had seen that looked important was that it did not fall as it traveled. It remained at a constant height. It would go until it hit a tree, or fizzled out after about 30 meters.

    Now, why wouldn¡¯t it fall? Did it not have mass? Everything with mass needed to be affected by gravity, that was a hard and fast rule. Rather, it had been back when things were normal. Maybe it wasn¡¯t quite the same in this ¡°new universe¡±. I was still trying to wrap my head around that, but it was a problem for a later date.

    My working theory would be that mana wasn¡¯t exactly a physical thing, instead being an energy. There were of course plenty of flaws with this guess, but as of right now it¡¯s all I can really come up with. Now, if we are getting technical, energy can have mass, sort of. Energy can in theory be turned into mass, and vice versa. That would require technology far surpassing what we could have made before, but still a heavily used concept in many fields. E=MC^2, very useful equation.

    Well, it was a very useless equation with my current dilemma. This is all just to say that mana was kind of energy, and kind of physical mass, but seems to arbitrarily decide to not work in the ways that you would expect either to work.

    The way I want to improve my spell was to both add some more mana to the attack and to make it move faster. That would hopefully make it stronger and easier to aim.

    Before I learn to improve a spell, I need to learn to manipulate my mana. I spend some time trying to make it budge, and find it actually surprisingly easy to manipulate. It feels like moving around some water, with it having momentum behind its movements. I grumble a bit to myself again about how it could have momentum without having weight. Perhaps it worked like a photon, but if something like that could be recreated on a scale like this then that was worthy of an entire branch of study all on its own. It is a distracting problem I would need to figure out later.

    After I feel like I have a good enough grasp over my mana, I try creating a bolt of mana without casting the spell. It is weird, because the spell itself felt almost automatic to cast. I just try to copy the exact feeling. After only a few minutes I feel like I can recreate the spell without too much difficulty. Then, I try to add some mana, making it more potent. That works pretty well, as the craters it leaves in the trees are now noticeably larger.

    While doing all of this, I can feel the spell almost ¡°adapt¡±. Using it, I can now automatically use more or less mana just by willing it. It seems that once I proved I can do it on my own, the spell helps to allow me to do it on the fly. It was nice and all, but I didn¡¯t feel like I would have had much trouble making a bolt in the middle of a fight even without the spell.

    Next, I try to see what would happen if I push mana out of the end of my wand really quickly. Not in a ball or any other shape, but in an uncontrolled release all at once. That had different results than I¡¯d expected.

    A cone of force erupts from the tip of the wand, and even though I don''t feel any kickback, it seems to push the air in front of it. I try it again standing next to a tree, and it blasts apart a not insignificant chunk of the tree trunk. The only downside to this particular attack was that it was expensive as hell. Each blast used about a quarter of my total mana, meaning I could only use it four times if I didn¡¯t use my mana for anything else.

    After casting this new spell a few times, I am pleasantly surprised by a notification.

    Mana Bolt (Common) has been upgraded to Mana Blast (Uncommon)If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Mana Blast (Uncommon)

    Fire out a bolt of mana, with the strength dependent on mana infused into spell. Alternatively, send out a blast of mana, dealing higher damage at a significantly shorter range and higher cost.

    Well, I¡¯ve accomplished my goal. I had improved my one and only spell. I had been kind of expecting for the new effect to be its own spell, but instead it had been lumped in with mana bolt. It was probably due to them being the same idea in concept. Send out mana to do some damage. Maybe a more unique use of my magic could give me a new spell.

    Another notification pops up a moment later.

    Skill gained, Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)

    Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)

    Manipulate your mana to perform various tasks. Slightly increases the effect of your mind stat while manipulating your mana.

    Well, there was yet another bonus to adding to my mana bolts. With how things were looking, I would have a pretty easy time dealing with any other goblins I ran into. I look around at the forest, seeing if I could see any signs of goblins around me. I¡¯d come back to floor two to practice with my spell so that nobody would see me and figure out that my stats were a good deal higher than theirs.

    A bit of quick mental math told me that if I didn¡¯t have my pioneer title at the tier it was at, my stats would be the equivalent of somebody at level 5. If somebody thought I was around that level, they¡¯d probably assume I killed other humans to reach this level so quickly.

    That thought sat there for a moment. There probably were people out there who¡¯d be perfectly willing to kill their fellow humans to gain some easy levels. If I had to fight back against somebody like that, how well would I be able to defend myself?

    I look at the craters littering the trees around me, some of them the size of watermelons courtesy of my mana blast spell. It was both comforting and unsettling knowing that if somebody came to try and kill me, I probably would not have a significant amount of trouble defending myself.

    I shake those dark thoughts off. Now wasn¡¯t the time to be brooding alone in a forest. Now was the time to go explore and find the way to the next floor. I decide to head for the direction that I¡¯d seen the previous goblins I¡¯d fought. If they¡¯d been around that area, then there was likely a goblin city not super far away from there.

    After walking for a while, I run into a lone goblin scout. It was just wandering around, not seeming to have any particular destination it was heading for.

    Instead of going up to fight it, I keep my distance, making sure to hide myself behind trees as well as I could. I had to take off my robe and stuff it under my shirt, since the purple garments would almost certainly give away my presence.

    I can¡¯t lie, it is boring as hell. I spent probably about two hours tailing this thing until it finally seems to decide it was time to head home. The sun had begun setting, which is probably what made up its mind. Still keeping my distance, I followed it. I make sure to keep a mental note of the direction of the entrance to the floor. If the city proved to be too much for me to handle, I would need to head back for the night.

    After a while, the goblin reaches a break in the trees where a massive circular clearing sat. In the middle of the clearing is a wooden wall just a bit over the height of my head. A could see a few goblins standing atop the wall, watching the perimeter and making sure nobody was trying to sneak up on the camp. There are several torches dotting the field, and I couldn¡¯t go past the tree line without entering the light. I stop following the goblin for now, feeling that I¡¯d found my target.

    I circle the clearing once, getting a good view of the wall. There are two entrances with them being on opposite sides of the perimeter wall, with three goblins defending each entrance. They each look pretty similar to the goblin scouts, wearing leather armor and having wooden clubs. Unlike the scouts, these goblins have some sharp looking stones sticking out of the ends of their clubs. Definitely wouldn¡¯t want to try and block one of those with my arm.

    I spend some time trying to think of a plan to take on the goblins, and honestly I think my best bet is to try and avoid going into or even near the city. The goblins atop the wall have bows in their hands, and even though I don''t see a quiver on their backs that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t have the arrows stashed somewhere else. Even if the goblins didn¡¯t have great aim, I couldn¡¯t gamble on one of them not getting a lucky shot and piercing my skull with an arrow.

    No, instead my plan was to just pick them off at a distance. I¡¯d be at the very edge of the clearing, just outside the range of the light, and would first try and take out the guards at the front of one of the gates. If I could kill them all before they reached me, I¡¯d try and aim for the archers. If not, I¡¯d use a mana blast once they got close, then aim for the archers.

    I am well aware that goblins would probably flood out of the front gates once I alerted them. The system had let me know that goblins were at their strongest when grouped up. I would have to think on the fly a bit, but I was still confident in taking on a dozen of them if I had to. Thanks to the extra mana I could store in my robes, I could afford multiple uses of mana blast if it really came down to it. I¡¯d likely be cutting it close, but overall I should be able to do this with a relatively low degree of risk.

    With a plan in mind, I put my robe back on and waited for my mana regeneration to saturate it with magic. It took almost 15 minutes, but the wait was a small price to pay for the amount of utility it afforded me.

    Taking a steadying breath, I walk out into the clearing and fired my first mana bolt. The blue bolt zips through the air, taking full advantage of its higher speed and range than my old ones. After nailing the first goblin directly on the forehead, the fight was on, and I begin to feel the thrill of the fight.

 Chapter 5: Sieging on a budget

    My first mana bolt was been infused with quite a lot of mana. I wanted to be sure it would take out the goblin I¡¯d been aiming for, and I¡¯d worried it wouldn¡¯t be able to cross the roughly 40 meter gap between me and my target. The spell upgrade had proven it¡¯s worth though, and the goblins head was still been caved in by the force of the bolt.

    I fire off another one, but at this range the alerted enemies had plenty of time to get out of the way. Thinking quick, I instead aim for the archers who had much less room to move on their perches. I take out one of the two that I could see before the goblin guards were close enough to draw my attention back to them. I send a mana bolt into the face of one of them, and raise the wooden club I¡¯d been carrying to level the charge of the other.

    It¡¯s weapon slams against mine, and we are nearly even in strength. It likely has a higher level, but my titles come in clutch to make up for the difference. I quickly move my club to the side, throwing the goblin guard off balance and causing him to stumble forward towards me. I place my hand on the side of his head and cast mana bolt, sending the attack into his head point blank and saving me from needing to use the much stronger mana blast.

    With the three guards down, my main worries for now were dealt with. The three from the other side of the wall would no doubt be here soon, but I would deal with them when they did.

    I traded out my club for the spiked one the guard had been carrying and began running to the left. The archer I¡¯d killed had been on the right corner, and I wanted to get close enough that I could take out the other archer with as few missed shots as possible. After firing off 3 bolts, I manage to down that archer as well.

    The entire city of goblins now seems well aware of my presence, but that didn¡¯t mean the advantage of stealth was completely lost. I back up into the tree line again, circling the city. I spot one of the guards from the other side running along the length of the wall, and I figure the other two must have gone around the other way. Lucky me, I could single this one out. I shout to get its attention, and it turns and begins running my way. With a well timed block and a mana bolt, that foe is put down too.

    I now have another one of the archer perches in my sight, though no archer was on it. They must have at least realized that I was staying far enough away to be out of their range. I grin, knowing that they¡¯d done exactly what I¡¯d been hoping. I run towards the walls, getting within just a few meters of it. I run around the edge until one of the two entrances comes into view. It was the one opposite of where I¡¯d initially begun my attack, which meant that the guards who¡¯d been here had left to go deal with me, and they still thought I was on the other side.

    I try to push open the door, only for it to not budge an inch. I frown, realizing they must have barricaded it. Had the other guards run to the other side? Maybe they decided to bunker down and wait for me to leave, or to try and attack them on their own turf.

    Well, I think you can guess which option I was about to pick.

    Since the wall wasn¡¯t too much higher than my head, all I need to do is get to one of the corners and pull myself on top of it, right onto one of the archer perches.

    My eyes scan the horde of goblins within the walls. Most held melee weapons, and I shot a bolt of mana towards any that held a bow. Some started throwing things at me, so I start running along the top of the wall.

    The wall itself wasn¡¯t very thick. Only about 30 centimeters. That was enough for me to treat it like a very thick balancing beam though, and with coordination that was almost certainly assisted by my stats, I run across the wall without falling.

    I have a pretty good view of the city now, though I am curious . To me it didn¡¯t look like much more than an outpost. There are tents scattered around, a few campfires with meat cooking over them, and one wooden building that doesn''t appear to have anybody guarding it.

    The entire time I am running, I fire off mana bolt after mana bolt into the crowd, killing goblin after goblin. I spot one particular big bad that looks like it could prove to be a good bit of trouble due to having full leather armor and a shiny metal helmet, but since it wields two short swords, I won''t have to worry about it getting me all the way up-

    ¡°Shit!¡± I shout, diving off the wall and landing in a roll outside the perimeter. The sword that had just been thrown with scary accuracy flies over head, landing somewhere past the tree line. That... that had been thrown far. This goblin clearly had a level of strength exceeding my own by a lot. I take a moment to feel my internal mana reserves, and it was not looking good. I had only a little over half my remaining mana, with my robe having been drained empty. Maybe I¡¯d been a bit too liberal with those mana bolts.

    The gate nearby flies open, and every single surviving goblin floods out towards me. Now, I truly got to see what the system meant when referring to goblins as being strong in a group. The wall of short green creatures swinging clubs in my direction is certainly intimidating. I fired off the remaining mana bolts that I was willing to use, bringing me down to half of my remaining mana.

    Now, only five enemies remained for me to fight. one goblin guard, three goblin scouts, and what I am going to call the goblin leader.

    The guard, being the first to arrive, falls quickly as I dodge its slow strike and bring my own club down onto the top of its head. The two scouts that reach me next go down with a few strikes as well. The last goblin scout, the brave survivor, charges me with all the determination in the world. The determination is quickly squashed, and by that, I mean its head is squashed by my club.

    The final goblin, the leader, had been slowly lumbering towards me this whole time. It didn¡¯t seem like it was that slow due to being unable to move any faster, but due to wanting to have some sort of dramatic effect or something like that.

    I stare the goblin down, and it stares right back at me through the slits in its metal helmet. After a few seconds of this stare down, it charges at me. It must have picked up another sword in the walls after I¡¯d dived, because it once more wielded two of them.

    I steadily back up and clumsily block the attacks sent my way as it slowly begins overwhelming me with its sheer strength. This was clearly not an enemy that I could outmatch in raw power.

    Given its size and strength, I assumed that it must have focused on strength and constitution in its body stat. That meant that I would likely have a slight edge when it came to speed.

    Right as I was about to take advantage of an opening, the monsters'' swords began glowing, and with a motion far swifter than he¡¯d managed before, brings them both down in an overhead cleave.

    I raise my club to block, but it doesn''t help much. The club gets chopped in half and splinters are sent out in all directions. The goblin''s swords impact the dirt, and I see what is probably my best chance at taking this thing down.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    I take two quick steps forward, grabbing the back of the goblins helmet. I jam my wand through the slit of the helmet. The wand barely fits, only the first centimeter or so actually managing to penetrate, but that was all I really needed. I cast a mana burst channeled through my wand, and before even taking a moment to see the results I cast it again a split second later.

    I get light headed as I could feel my body almost entirely drained of it¡¯s mana, and I step back as the goblin slumps forward, falling to the ground with a thud.

    *You have cleared a Goblin City (Small)! Would you like to see the full breakdown of enemies defeated?*

    I suck in a breath as I try to recover from the adrenaline rush, and manage to get out a response between breaths.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    You have slain goblin scout (level 2-level 5) X18

    You have slain goblin fighter (level 7-level 9) x6

    You have slain goblin archer (level 4-level 7) x4

    You have slain goblin warrior (level 10) x1

    Bonus experience for fighting while outnumbered. Bonus experience for fighting enemies of a higher level. Bonus experience for clearing a small goblin city for the first time.

    *You are now level 9.*

    For reaching level 5, you may select a class relevant skill/spell.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t even reach level 10?¡± I ask nobody in particular. I wasn¡¯t actually upset about not reaching that level, but it would have been nice considering what I¡¯d just gone through. The goblin leader had apparently been level 10, and it had a significant jump in strength when compared to whichever goblin fighter had been level 9. That makes me think that level 10 may very well be the first milestone at which someone evolves. I wish I''d been able to get that bonus just now, but it definitely was not far off.

    No time to worry about that though, as I apparently had gotten a bonus. I get to pick some kind of skill for reaching level 5. I mentally select that part of the notification, and a screen appears before me.

    Select a skill from the available options.

    Offensive:

    Mana Spike (Common)

    Send forth a spike of mana from your hand, sacrificing damage for penetrative power.

    Basic Two Handed Proficiency (Common)

    Slightly increases the effects of the body stat when wielding a two handed weapon.

    Disrupt (Uncommon)

    Through physical contact, send a shock of mana through the system of your opponent, causing brief but intense pain.

    Defensive:

    Mana Shield (Uncommon)

    Coat yourself in mana, protecting you against physical attacks and slightly protecting you from magical attacks.

    Mana Barrier (Uncommon)

    Coat yourself in mana, protecting you from magical attacks and slightly protecting you from physical attacks.

    Basic Light Armor Proficiency (Common)

    Supportive:

    Active Regeneration (Common)

    Drop into meditation to significantly increase mana recovery rate.

    Passive Regeneration (Common)

    Recover mana slightly faster when out of combat.

    Infusion (Uncommon)

    Infuse your mana into an object.

    Well, that was a lot of choices. What upsets me was that I could only choose one, because almost all of them looked enticing. The light armor proficiency and two handed proficiency didn''t appeal to me as much as the others did, but even those sounded like they''d be pretty useful.

    Mana spike seems pretty cool. It definitely would have helped against that goblin warrior, as its armor had basically forced me to find a way to circumvent it entirely rather than break past it. Having some form of armor penetration would certainly have been nice.

    Disrupt seemed alright to distract enemies for a moment, but they¡¯d more than likely just push past the pain and keep attacking. The two defensive skills seem great, with one being focused on physical defense and the other magical. I was leaning towards the shield rather than the barrier, but it was still pretty even.

    The two regeneration skills seem like they¡¯d be nice to have just to make things move along a bit quicker, but overall I didn¡¯t believe that either would be as useful as any of my other options. The same thing went for the infuse skill, as while I felt like it would be absolutely awesome to see what various things did when infused with mana, it just wasn¡¯t as immediately useful to me.

    If I am being totally honest, almost everything on this list seemed like something that I could eventually develop on my own, especially the mana spike and disrupt spells, which basically told me how they were made already. The only two that I would even consider that I didn¡¯t know if I could eventually create myself were the two regeneration skills.

    Right now though, I couldn¡¯t be thinking about what I shouldn¡¯t get due to maybe being able to do it in the future. I should be thinking about what will help me on the next floor, and right now, it was between the two defensive skills.

    I decided to trust my gut, selecting the mana shield. It would help me survive fighting any physically powerful enemies, like the goblin warrior. If his attack with the glowing swords had landed, I can¡¯t guarantee that I¡¯d have lived. The adrenaline rush had been crazy good, but personally I''d like a little more security. Actually, with my level ups now, that warrior probably would have been a breeze.

    I squeeze my hand, feeling the raw strength that I suddenly had. I feel about twice as strong as before, and that didn¡¯t take into account that I was tired from the battle. Wow, these stats really do make all the difference. If my mana wasn¡¯t completely drained, I would have tried casting mana bolt right then and there just to see how much stronger that was.

    I check my status sheet, seeing that indeed most of my stats were nearly twice as high as they had just been.

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Human

    Level: 9

    Class: Mage

    Displayed title: S+ tier pioneer

    Statistics:

    Body: 55 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 78 (Potency-Capacity-Recovery)

    Spirit: 55 (Perception-Aura-Soul)

    Class Skills: N/A

    Class Spells: Mana Blast (Uncommon), Mana Shield (Uncommon)

    Personal Skills: Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)

    Personal Spells: N/A

    Titles: S+ tier pioneer, S tier populous

    Man, that pioneer title was feeling more and more like cheating. It just made things so much easier. I don''t doubt that others would be able to do what I had just done, but having the extra stats just made it so much easier. I was almost certain that eventually the title wouldn¡¯t matter nearly as much, as the +15 to all stats that the two titles gave me would likely become irrelevant in the face of my hundreds of stat points I would have in the near future. The percentage bonus to my stats felt like something that would never stop being useful though.

    I sigh and grab the two swords off of the warriors'' corpse. They were of nice quality, and maybe somebody back at the camp could find a use for them. Somebody will probably also find a use for this metal helmet too-

    ¡°Ooooo.... never mind.¡±

    I gently place the helmet back over the puddle of gore that sat where the warriors'' head had once been. I feel a little guilty for giving the monster such a gruesome death, but at least it had likely been quick. I then walk into the goblin city, finding a staircase right in the center.

    I walk down it, and get a different notification than last time.

    Floor 2 Cleared! You can now teleport to the entrance to floor 1, 2, and 3 from any floor entrance or exit. Would you like to continue to floor 3?

    ¡°No, take me back to floor 1.¡± I say, and the screen disappears before thankfully acknowledging my request and bringing me back to the first floor. As I walk up the staircase and see that the group had once more gotten significantly bigger, I sigh and shake my head. How much bigger was this group going to be getting?

 Chapter 6: Putting it in Perspective

    I have a feeling that raising my body stat would reduce the amount of sleep I needed, and I was becoming more and more sure of that being true. Despite having been awake for probably close to 20 hours now, I still only feel a little bit sleepy, as if it has only been around 12 hours.

    After dropping off one of the two swords I¡¯d grabbed at a community stockpile, I spot a large group that seems to be deep in discussions. Ben is among them, and he is one of the few that are actually speaking.

    The group discussing the issue is about 20 people, though it only takes a moment to see that five people are actively engaged in the conversation. Those five include Ben, one tan woman with a scowl that just didn¡¯t seem to want to go away, a bulky man wearing his full set of chainmail armor despite the safety of the floor, an absolutely ancient looking old man, and a woman who wears the same purple mage robes that I do.

    Ben spots me and motions me over. I walk around the group and make my way over to him, and we talk in a low voice while the others continue their discourse.

    ¡°Hey, did you make any progress on the next floor?¡± He asks.

    ¡°Yeah, I made it to floor three.¡±

    ¡°Really? Were the goblins not too much of a problem?¡±

    ¡°Well, they were definitely an obstacle. The extra stats from our title made the fight far easier than it would have been otherwise, so let others know when going down there that a group is definitely recommended.¡±

    ¡°Will do. So, what level are you now?¡±

    ¡°Nine.¡± I say, and he looks surprised again.

    ¡°Nine? You gained seven levels in that short time that you were gone?¡±

    ¡°I managed to wipe out an entire goblin city on my own, including one goblin that was definitely supposed to be some kind of ¡®boss¡¯ monster. Damn thing cut my weapon clean in half.¡±

    ¡°Still, doesn¡¯t that seem a little excessive?¡±

    ¡°Maybe, but who am I to judge how many levels the system gives me?¡±

    ¡°I guess so. Anyways, I should probably introduce you to the others. They¡¯d feel a lot more comfortable knowing there was somebody at the camp that is this high of a level.¡±

    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±

    Ben grimaces, and I get the sense that what I¡¯d feared might happen had come true. ¡°There are people going around and killing smaller groups of people. We assume they are doing it for the easy levels.¡±

    I frown, understanding how serious the conversation was suddenly getting. ¡°Do you have a plan for if they come after this group?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think we need to worry about that.¡± Ben assures me. ¡°We could almost certainly fight them off with our superior numbers, and they will be unlikely to attack us due to that.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be so sure.¡± I say. ¡°I know this isn¡¯t exactly something you are going to want to hear, but with my improved stats from the levels, plus improving my use of magic, I could probably take down half of this camp before somebody was able to stop me, and even then there is a very good chance I could get away with my body stats focused on agility. Individual power seems to matter a lot more here than it ever did before this whole tutorial shit started.¡±

    Ben pauses, and it seems like he is considering something. He is about to speak again, but the scowling woman from before intervenes before he could. She has a thick accent, and while I couldn¡¯t quite place it, it was clear that Spanish is likely her native language.

    ¡°What are you two talking about over there?¡± She asks, her voice having an edge to it. ¡°You got any ideas for how we can secure enough food for all of us? If so, please do speak up.¡±

    Ben coughs, quickly recovering. ¡°I was catching him up on our current discussion. This is River, the person I mentioned who was exploring the second floor.¡±

    ¡°Well River, did you happen to find any way for us to gather food? Don¡¯t bother mentioning the extra deer down there, because we already have people who¡¯ve begun hunting them.¡±

    Well, I was going to mention the extra deer. I¡¯d thought before that the deer would be enough to feed our camp, but that was before I saw how much it had now grown. Pure hunting is unlikely to feed a group this large. I think for a moment, before an idea pops into my head.

    ¡°The goblin cities.¡± I say. ¡°They probably have food stored somewhere within. With how many goblins there were, they probably needed a way to feed them all each day.¡±

    ¡°Did you find one of these goblin cities?¡±

    ¡°I did.¡±

    ¡°Did you find any food within?¡±

    I dig through my memory, which feels a lot easier than I expected. I can remember everything I saw more clearly than I was used to. ¡°I did. They were cooking skewers of meat over fires.¡±

    There was a bit of mumbling around the group for a moment, until the woman in the purple robes speaks up. ¡°It¡¯s better than nothing at least. We will send some of our higher leveled hunters to raid one of these camps. Hopefully they can find where they keep the food.¡±

    ¡°I think you should send River with them.¡± Ben says, speaking up once more. ¡°As far as I know, he is the highest leveled among our camp, and could intervene if the hunting group is put in any danger.¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    I stay silent, already onboard with the plan but a bit put off that I had just been volunteered to play bodyguard.

    The armored man finally speaks up. ¡°I can lead the first raid on one of these goblin cities. I¡¯d appreciate having River there if it means more safety for my team.¡±

    ¡°Perfect.¡± The first woman says. ¡°Take a healer with you in case anything goes wrong.¡±

    ¡°I was thinking the same thing.¡± The man says, before turning to me. ¡°Are you ready to go?¡±

    My eyebrows raise in surprise. ¡°Right now?¡±

    ¡°Yes, right now. Food is an immediate problem, and any potential solution is one we must take advantage of as soon as possible.¡±

    ¡°I guess that¡¯s true.¡± I respond, still unsure if going out in the dead of night was a good idea.

    The others continue their discussions while I follow the armored man around the camp. He gathers a few people before we all head for the staircase. Our group consists of the armored man, one healer, two archers, and another mage. Once we get down to the second floor, they begin leading me towards a goblin city they¡¯d discovered earlier that day.

    ¡°While we walk, why don¡¯t we get this group acquainted with one another? I already know each of you, but if we are going to be fighting together you should get to know one another.¡± The armored man says. ¡°Names, classes, and levels. I¡¯ll go first. My name is Roderick, I am a fighter, and at the moment I am level 5.¡±

    There is a pause after that, before the one and only healer in the group speaks up. He introduces himself, and as it turns out he is only level 3. Actually, after every member of the group speaks up, I come to find out that not a single one of them is higher than level four besides Roderick.

    I am up last, so I introduce myself. ¡°My name is River, and I am a mage. I am also level 9.¡±

    The others seem shocked at this, and even Roderick is caught off guard.

    ¡°How are you level 9 already?¡± One of the archers asks.

    ¡°I wiped out one of the goblin cities.¡± I say.

    ¡°On your own? Huh, maybe we didn¡¯t need you here after all if they are so easy to deal with.¡±

    I just stay silent as we keep walking. I¡¯m not sure how true it is that they wouldn¡¯t need me here, but given how strong the goblin leader had been I wasn¡¯t sure how well they¡¯d be able to deal with it. Given that Roderick was almost certainly focused on strength over speed, he could probably go toe to toe with it, but with whatever attack it had performed that made its sword glow, I wasn¡¯t completely convinced that the fight would be incident free.

    When we get to the city, it is once more in the center of a clearing. Roderick and the others start planning their attack while I climb a tree, trying to get a better idea of what this particular city was like compared to the other one I¡¯d seen.

    My eyebrows furrow in confusion after about a minute of looking. As far as I could tell, this was an absolute carbon copy of the other city. It even had the tents all in the same place, with the lone wooden building also being positioned in the exact same location. I could also see the staircase in the center of the camp, though none of the goblins seemed to be acknowledging that it even existed.

    As I was trying to come up with some reason that the two camps would be so similar, the group below begins charging the goblins. The two archers fire off several arrows, dealing with the archers atop the wall, and as a group they manage to take out the three guards at the entrance.

    From there, they break down the front gate with Roderick''s brute strength. That wasn¡¯t saying too much, as the gate wasn¡¯t particularly strong, but it did show that he was stronger than I¡¯d been when I took out a city. I¡¯d had to climb the walls to get in.

    The five of them proceed to slaughter everything in sight. They don¡¯t have to be particularly careful, as there are five of them to watch every direction at once, but it still hurt me a bit to see how much ease they handled it with. Roderick especially seemed to be having an easy time of it, as him killing a goblin didn¡¯t require an expenditure of mana. He could just keep going until he was too tired to continue.

    In a shockingly short amount of time, it was just the lone goblin warrior remaining. That too quickly fell among the onslaught of arrows, sword strikes, and spells. It had managed to get a fairly devastating blow on Roderick, leaving a deep gash in his arm, but the healer had managed to patch that up in less than a minute.

    I climb down from the tree, jogging over to the camp as the others were scouring it for food. When I arrived, Roderick was in the middle of trying to open the door to the wooden building, but it refused to budge.

    ¡°Do you think you could try and open this?¡± Roderick asks, a bit of a defeated look on his face.

    ¡°Sure.¡± I say, shrugging. After I push and pull a bit, I see that the door is not going to move easily. ¡°Back up.¡± I tell the others, before placing my palm directly in the center of the door. I cast mana blast, putting a bit of extra mana into it. I want to get this done with one use instead of having to waste the extra mana on a second cast.

    The door shatters into splinters at the attack, and the shards of wood are sent flying to the opposite wall. The smell of blood immediately hits my nose, making me turn away. It wasn¡¯t the smell of fresh blood like what was coming from the goblins, but the smell of blood that had been there for a while, a permanent scent that came with the building.

    Looking inside, we could finally see what was stored within the building.

    12 deer, all gutted and hung up. I briefly wonder how goblins learned that you should hang a deer after killing it, but given that people had been doing it for thousands of years it probably hadn''t been too difficult to figure out.

    The others in my group let out a cheer that was half filled with disgust, before they seem to realize something important. Roderick voices the fear that everybody in the room had the moment we saw all of the carcasses.

    ¡°Alright, twelve deer and six of us. That doesn¡¯t sound too bad to carry. These new levels will certainly help.¡±

    Groans go all around the group, but we still grab two deer each. They are heavy, gross, and awkward to carry, but thankfully the staircase isn¡¯t even 20 meters away. While dragging them over, I ask Roderick a question.

    ¡°Hey, out of curiosity how many levels did you earn for clearing the camp?¡±

    Roderick grimaces a bit. ¡°Only two. I¡¯d been hoping for more after you said you jumped to level 9, but I guess I received less since we fought in a group. The notification for clearing the camp even said as much.¡±

    ¡°Wow.¡± I say. ¡°I guess fighting solo gives more of a boost to levels than I¡¯d thought. I already knew about that bonus, but the difference between going from level 5 to 7 and going from level 2 to 9 puts it more into perspective.¡±

    ¡°Wait a minute. You were only level 2 when you cleared one of these cities? Even if you are a better fighter than us, I just don¡¯t see how that could be reasonable.¡±

    I try to think of a reason for my success. What could I say that wouldn''t come across as me having not done much in the way of self preservation.

    ¡°I, uh, developed my own spell. That made things easier.¡± I say. ¡°I improved the basic mana bolt too. Made it a lot stronger.¡±

    Roderick still looks suspicious. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, could you show me that stronger spell?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± I say, setting down the deer I¡¯d been dragging. I point my wand at the nearest wall of the city, dumping half of my mana pool into this one singular cast of the spell. Maybe it was the fact that I used so much mana, or maybe it was because I¡¯d gained 7 levels since last casting the spell, but when that mana bolt hit the wall, it left a basketball sized hold straight through it.

    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯d do it.¡± Roderick says, shrugging and moving on. I just stare at my own wand, amazed. The inner scientist within me was starting to get excited, and I eagerly began dragging the deer to the staircase, excited to do some more experimenting with my mana once I got back to the camp.

 Chapter 7: Evolution

    Once we¡¯d managed to get a solid source of food for the camp, and once we¡¯d convinced the rest of the leaders that it was something that could be done reasonably consistently, I was free to go off and do some testing on my mana.

    From what I could tell, my mana had gotten more potent. Using the same amount of mana in a mana bolt as I had before produced a greater effect. That isn¡¯t too surprising though, since my focus for my mind stat was the potency of my mana.

    What is surprising is that I feel like I am getting more skilled at wielding my mana. At first I had just assumed that my ability to manipulate it was based off of my stats, but I was slowly coming to the realization that it was a skill that could be practiced.

    Okay, maybe I should have realized that by the fact that I literally had a skill called mana manipulation, but it was still a discovery to me.

    I spend the rest of the night practicing with my mana. I try making shapes with it, making strings with it, trying and failing to knit with said strings, making plates of mana, and all kinds of other things. I even got to learn a bit more about how my mana shield spell worked. It caused mana to seep out of my body in a shell of magic that encased me. It was nearly flush against my skin, but it moved with me and never impeded my movements.

    I had even thrown myself against a tree with it active, and while I felt the forces of sudden deceleration, I had just bounced off of it with little pain. I had gotten a questioning look from somebody who¡¯d been passing by, but I had decided to just ignore it. They were definitely just jealous that they didn¡¯t have a cool magical shield.

    My experimenting for the night finally comes to an end once my mana manipulation skill reaches uncommon rarity. The description changed only slightly, but what came after is something that I both hadn¡¯t expected and yet am very pleased to see.

    Mana Manipulation (Common) has been upgraded to Mana manipulation (Uncommon)

    Mana Manipulation (Uncommon)

    Manipulate your mana to perform various tasks. Gives a minor increase to the effect of your mind stat while manipulating your mana.

    I¡¯d gone from a slight to a minor increase in my mind stats effectiveness, but that was nothing compared to what was next.

    *You are now level 10*

    You have reached level 10 and now qualify for your first evolution. Would you like to evolve now?

    ¡°Yes!¡± I shout, excited. As soon as the word leaves my mouth, everything goes black.

    My eyes take a moment to refocus on my new surroundings. When my sight finally adjust and I get my bearings, I see that I am standing on a floor that stretches on for, well actually I can¡¯t really see how far. It just seems to go on and on, eventually being so far that I couldn¡¯t make it out. The void is occupied by glowing orbs high in the sky, each slowly moving in a circle above my head.

    I squint my eyes, trying to make out the designs each of them seemed to have engraved on them.

    One of them, the biggest, I can make out fairly easily. It has ¡°S+¡± carved into it. The only other two that I can make out each have a design that looks reminiscent of an explosion. The rest are all too small for me to read what is on them.

    A blue screen hovers in front of me, and I begin reading it.

    Tutorial information

    S+ Pioneer title unlocks all available information regarding evolution.

    Evolution is a massive milestone at every stage in a beings life. Each evolution is harder to reach than the one before it, but is exponentially more powerful.

    Evolution not only increases one''s stats, but makes them more powerful on a fundamental level. Evolution scrubs the impurities from one¡¯s being, leaving only what is right.

    Well, so far evolution was sounding kinda iffy, especially that bit about scrubbing impurities. I just shrugged it off and kept reading, because what else was I going to do?

    The quality of your evolution is dependent on many things. The feats accomplished in your life, your skills, spells, titles, and several other factors are all taken into account when selecting a new class.

    The path you walk is entirely up to you. The path well traveled is one easily navigated, while one less so may lead to greater rewards.

    Please select your next class, and after you have finished you will be automatically granted a subclass.

    The screen disappears immediately after I am done reading it.

    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± I ask the air. What kind of information is everyone else getting if they don¡¯t have it all unlocked? The screen I had gotten right before the start of the tutorial had been a wall of text, but this was comparatively pretty short.

    A loud grinding noise fills the empty void as pillars rise up from the ground all around me. Each one has writing on it, and despite not having a blue screen, I understand that each of these holds the same level of authority over me as my status menu.

    There are four of these pillars in total. Each one has a class written on it, and a description of the class. I walk up to the first one, the one right in front of me. I read over it, and my eyes widen with every word.

    Mana Master

    The Mana Master sees mana as not just a resource, but a tool to be exploited to its absolute maximum. A Mana Master exercises not just control over their mana, but pure and total authority over it. Grants the Mana Control (Rare) skill upon selection.

    That seemed... awesome. From the sound of it, picking this class would mean having a level of control over my mana that was just on another level from what I could do now. I couldn¡¯t say for sure, but I had a feeling that the mana control skill would completely overwrite my mana manipulation skill. That wasn¡¯t super appealing given that I had just put in the work to upgrade it myself, but it would definitely be a boost in power. I moved on to the next pillar, hoping it would be as interesting as this one.

    Arcane Enhancer

    The Arcane enhancer focuses on using their magic to improve their physical power, and nothing else. An Arcane Enhancer infuses their body with mana, boosting their physical abilities beyond what they could normally achieve. Grants the Empower (Rare) skill upon selection.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Well, that was definitely interesting. It didn¡¯t quite line up with what I wanted to do though, as it seemed like casting spells would be almost entirely out of the picture in favor of burning mana for fuel within my body. Something told me that some of the fighters would also receive this option upon evolving. I once more moved on to the next pillar.

    Energetic Manipulator

    Recognizing mana as just another form of energy, the Energetic Manipulator can convert it to different energy types on demand. Despite walking a harder path than most, an Energetic Manipulator can reach great heights with discipline and skill. Grants the Mana Conversion (Epic) skill upon selection.

    My thoughts start to kick up a storm within my mind as they race through it at hundreds of kilometers per hour. This class seemed to be almost hand tailored to fit me. I¡¯d spent all this time attempting to learn more about the characteristics of mana and what exactly it is, and this class would only help me in that pursuit.

    I only really saw two issues with it. The first was that I couldn¡¯t really know just how useful the mana conversion skill would be. It might be great for researching mana, but in actual combat would it be helpful?

    The second issue was the part about a harder path mentioned by the description. From the sounds of it, leveling this class wouldn¡¯t exactly be easy compared to if I picked any of the other classes.

    I decided to read the last of the classes while I mulled over my other choices.

    Battle Mage

    A Battle Mage does not cower in the back ranks of their team, instead leading the charge against the enemy. A battle mage has a variety of spells in their arsenal to facilitate close quarters combat, and is far from helpless when backed into a corner. Grants the Flash Heal (Rare) spell and Burst (Uncommon) skill upon selection.

    This class was pretty much the solution to the two problems I had with the energetic manipulator class. It was built around combat, and from the sounds of it wasn¡¯t too hard to level. If I hadn¡¯t been neck deep in trying to uncover the secrets of mana ever since learning of its existence, I would have picked this class in a heartbeat. It provided two skills, which boosted its value just that much more.

    Rereading each one of these, I began to see that each had their own focus, each serving a different purpose and allowing a different path to power. Mana master focused on control over all else. Arcane enhancer was for the fighters that wanted that extra boost in physical prowess, not caring much about casting spells. Energetic manipulator was all about learning more about mana and potentially finding powerful uses for it. Battle Mage just sounded like a stronger version of what I was already doing, fighting enemies head on and not relying on others for protection.

    It was a tough decision. The only one I could rule out right away was arcane enhancer, but the rest all appealed to me in some way. It had felt really good to get better at controlling my mana, and that would only be enhanced by picking mana master.

    If I was being completely honest with myself, I had absolutely loved the rush of fighting. I had never been an adrenaline junky, but walking that line of life and death had been surprisingly entertaining while fighting. Battle mage just called to me like a siren at sea.

    Meanwhile, learning the secrets of magic had been fun. It was frustrating at times, actually it was frustrating most of the time. The inconsistent rules and odd properties made it a pain to work with, and my preconceived notions of how reality worked were constantly undermined by the energy. It would be a long and tough battle with a non existent opponent if I chose energetic manipulator.

    The choice was beginning to seem more and more obvious to me. One class above all the others would give me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment if I proved to be well suited for it, and so I selected it by placing my palm on its pillar and willing it to be my new class.

    Class selected!

    Energetic Manipulator

    Recognizing mana as just another form of energy, the Energetic Manipulator can convert it to different energy types on demand. Despite walking a harder path than most, an Energetic Manipulator can reach great heights with discipline and skill. +10 to mind per level. +6 to body and soul per level.

    Skill gained! Mana Conversion (Epic)

    Mana Conversion (Epic)

    Using your will and skill, convert mana into various forms of energy. Efficiency of this conversion is determined by your mind stat and your proficiency with this skill.

    My eyes felt like they were about to pop out of my skull upon reading that. I quickly tried to open my status sheet, only to find that I was completely unable to within this void. I wanted to know what my stats were at now. Would these stats be retroactively applied to the levels I already have? A quick bit of mental math told me each of my stats should be well over a hundred now.

    My desperation to learn more about my newfound skill was cut short when a new screen appeared in front of me.

    Generating subclass...

    New subclass obtained!

    Arcane Artificer

    An Artificer is a creator, dabbling in whatever field of crafting they desire to make whatever they please. An Arcane Artificer takes this to the magical extreme, creating temporary items made of their own mana. Grants the Mana-festation (Rare) skill.

    Mana-festation (Rare)

    Using magic and willpower alone, manifest a temporary item into existence made wholly by your mana. Initial mana cost and upkeep are determined by the size and complexity of the item created. Grants a small boost to the effectiveness of the Mind stat while manifesting an item.

    Well, I¡¯d been expecting to be able to pick my subclass instead of just being assigned one. I wasn¡¯t about to start complaining though, as this subclass probably would have been exactly what I would have picked. My head was already swirling with ideas of how this and my mana conversion skill could synergize, but I was forced to focus once more on the present when another screen appeared in front of me.

    Would you like to reassign your stat focuses?

    ¡°No.¡± I say aloud. My current focuses had worked pretty well for me so far, and I wasn¡¯t about to switch it up. One final screen appears before me, the last one I¡¯d be seeing before my evolution was complete.

    One last thing to note after evolving. Once you evolve, experience can no longer be gained from defeating enemies of a lower evolution tier than yourself aside from a few rare exceptions. The amount of experience gained for progressing the skills in your class is drastically increased.

    Congratulations on your first evolution, and good luck reaching the next one.

    Echoes of power reverberate through you as your trait gets one step closer to awakening.

    The black void around me disappears almost instantly, and the forest I¡¯d been in once more surrounds me. The sounds that had been absent begin to fill my senses again, and I can feel the newfound strength running through my body. I don¡¯t feel like the strength is unnatural, instead it feels like this is as strong as I should be. I was already used to it. Perhaps the system had provided some assistance with getting used to the absolutely massive jump in stats.

    Speaking of which...

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Human (Tier 1)

    Level: 10

    Class: Energetic Manipulator

    Displayed title: S+ tier pioneer

    Statistics:

    Body: 72 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 98 (Potency-Capacity-Recovery)

    Spirit: 72 (Perception-Aura-Soul)

    Class Skills: Mana Conversion (Epic), Mana-festation (Rare)

    Class Spells: Mana Blast (Uncommon), Mana Shield (Uncommon)

    Personal Skills: Basic Mana Manipulation (Uncommon)

    Personal Spells: N/A

    Titles: S+ tier pioneer, S tier populous

    My stats had jumped significantly. My body stat alone had jumped from 55 to 72, a solid 30% increase from just the single level. A quick glance at the stats I would be gaining also revealed that my strength would over double after 7 levels. The sheer difference in power was astonishing to say the least. I had been lucky that the goblin warrior I¡¯d fought was only level 10, as if it had been even two or three levels higher it would have outclassed me by a far greater margin.

    Another feeling fills me, one of something swirling within me. It didn¡¯t feel like my mana, but as if something was trying to escape a cage that I had within me. It fills my entire body for a moment, feeling just on the edge of escaping, but after a few moments it mellows out. I have a feeling that must be what the part about my trait coming closer to awakening had meant. A part of the initial tutorial menu came back to my memory, and I recalled how it said my trait would be awakened by my third evolution if I hadn¡¯t already awakened it. I doubted I could force the issue, so I decided to move on from it, even if the thoughts of it did stay in the back of my mind.

    With all these new stats and new skills, I see no reason to not have a little fun and try them out.

    I hold out my hand, having an almost instinctual knowledge of how my new mana-festation skill worked. After an uncomfortably large sum of mana exited my body, a blue dagger rested in my hand, slowly leaking energy that my own body supplied to keep it together. I rubbed my finger against it¡¯s edge, feeling how sharp it was.

    ¡°Damn.¡± I mutter to myself, twirling the blade a bit. I swing it at a nearby tree, and it cleaves halfway through before its momentum is halted. Next I try my other new skill, mana conversion. I will a part of the blade to be dispersed into energy as the blade blasts forward, cleaving the rest of the way through the thick tree. I wince when I realize how expensive that skill had also been. If I had known how costly all of my skills would be from my evolution I would have been far more likely to pick the mana regeneration skill back at level 5.

    I try slicing through the tree again a few more times, intent on knocking it down. The dagger isn''t particularly long, only about 15 centimeters at most, so I have to slash through the trunk at a few different angles before the remaining material holding it up gave in to the weight of the tree.

    Once it fell over and I¡¯d had my fun, I cut off the flow of mana to the dagger. It disappeared almost instantly, the mana dispersing into the atmosphere.

    I should probably go let Ben know that I¡¯d evolved. He¡¯d probably like to find out sooner rather than later about evolution. I sigh and begin making my way back to camp, knowing that as soon as I got the chance I¡¯d be headed straight for floor 3.

 Chapter 8: A Trial of Trials

    After explaining pretty much everything I¡¯d learned about evolution to Ben, he¡¯d said that he¡¯d pass the information along and made sure as many people knew about it as possible. I¡¯d even shared everything about my new class and subclass, seeing absolutely no reason not to share it. The look of jealousy I¡¯d gotten from him had been quite entertaining when I¡¯d mentioned that I get 22 stats per level now as opposed to the eight he was still getting.

    With that out of the way, I went to the staircase and teleported straight to floor three. I was glad for the fact that I could skip over the second floor now that I¡¯d cleared it, because it sounded like a real hassle going out of my way to find another goblin city to clear. It would be completely pointless too, since only the goblin warrior would actually award any experience to me now.

    Upon entering the third floor, I¡¯m given a brief introduction, only to be thrown for a loop when I find out that this floor wouldn¡¯t work at all like the previous one had.

    Welcome to floor 3: Trial by Trials!

    Floor 3 is the first of several instanced floors within the tower of Nixtias. Instanced floors can only be attempted solo, and any individual that enters will be challenged in such a way that suits the path they walk. It is highly recommended to have reached level 5 before attempting this floor.

    To progress to the next floor, complete the 10 trial gauntlet. The gauntlet will consist of various challenges that have been tailored to you specifically. You may leave the third floor at any point by simply willing it.

    It was beginning to seem like floor two was not meant to be one taken on solo, as the system seemed to deem it very possible that anyone making it to this point hasn¡¯t reached level 5 yet. I was almost certainly over leveled for this floor, but that just meant it would probably be pretty easy. It would at least be interesting to see what challenges the system comes up with me. Would it take into account my higher level and adjust the difficulty?

    Trial 1: Trial of Growth

    Prove you are better than you were yesterday. Rematch the toughest monster you have taken on up to this point.

    Well, that was one way to say no it was not. As the environment around me shifted to a forest nearly identical to the one on the second floor, I manifest a small dagger in my hand while I wait for my opponent to appear. Soon, a goblin warrior was standing in front of me, wielding two short swords and wearing leather armor. It also had the same metal helmet from when I¡¯d last faced it.

    The goblin rushes towards me, and in a quick motion swings its sword at me. I quickly parry the strike with my dagger, surprising myself with my reflexes. I guess that is the power of an evolution for you. The goblin had of course been evolved as well, but it was still just a goblin. Weak for its level, especially when it was alone.

    I didn¡¯t even have to pull the same trick I did last time with sticking my wand in its helmet to land a lethal blow. I was able to kill it by sinking my dagger into its chest a few times and letting it bleed out.

    As it died on the ground in front of me, I begun wondering how this type of trial would work for others. If they had fought this thing in a group, would they then have to fight it alone? Probably not. The system had mentioned each trial was tailored to the individual, so they¡¯d probably get something they could manage.

    Once the goblin had died, the environment shifts once more and I find myself standing outside of a large stone wall. I wasn¡¯t in a forest, but a large field. Taking a few steps back, I got a better view of the wall. It didn¡¯t appear to have anything within it, but it did have a single wooden door acting as an entrance.

    Trial 2: One man Siege

    Find a way within the walls.

    I guess I was getting this trial for having turned a wall into splinters after Roderick and his group had cleared a goblin city. Simple enough. I might be able to climb over the wall if I really tried. It was only about 6 meters tall and had plenty of handholds in the form of loose bricks, but why do that when I could take an easier route?

    I walk up to the wooden door and place a hand directly into the middle of it. I cast mana blast, and the door flies open as whatever had been holding it shut snapped in half. The doors themselves seemed to have taken quite a bit of damage too, but they were still on the hinges. That was more than the gates the goblins had used could ever say.

    I walked into the walls, and the environment shifted again. Instead of leaving the field and the wall disappearing though, I am simply placed outside of it once more, with the wall stretching into the sky for an unknown distance. The door this time was made out of metal, and had a keyhole directly in the center.

    A quick attempt at using mana blast confirmed that it would not be sufficient to get me past this obstacle.

    Trial 3: Trial and Error

    Find a way within the walls.

    It seemed pretty obvious what this trial was for. It wanted me to make a key to open up the door. Problem was, I didn¡¯t know what shape the key needed to be. The point of the trial was probably to test how creative I was when it came to using my mana-festation skill.

    At first I tried pushing my palm up to the keyhole and trying to just make a generic key. Some part of me had hoped that would work, but it hadn¡¯t. I¡¯d then spent several minutes trying to look into the lock and figure out the shape, but that proved to be equally as fruitless.

    Eventually I actually managed to figure it out, and the solution was so obvious I almost wanted to slap myself. All I had needed to do was draw my mana out and feel around the keyhole. That let me know the shape of the key I needed, and from there it had been as simple as visualizing the shape while using my skill.

    Once the door was open and I was done grumbling, the environment actually changed this time, taking me somewhere completely different than the forest and plains. I was instead in complete and utter darkness. Not a single thing was visible except for the screen in front of me.

    Trial 4: Blind Faith

    Navigate to the exit of the cave system

    It was at this moment I was beginning to thank god I wasn¡¯t afraid of the dark or tight spaces. Feeling around made me realize that the cave wasn¡¯t very big. My arms could touch both sides without even needing to fully extend them. After a few minutes of walking around, and feeling the walls. I found a branching path that split off in three different directions.

    Despite the trial being called blind faith, I wasn¡¯t about to rely on pure luck to navigate. First of all, I wanted a way to see. Hopefully that would allow me to figure out where to go next. I held up my wand, focusing mana on the tip. Using my mana conversion skill, I had the mana convert to light, allowing me to see. The conversion had actually been way cheaper than I¡¯d expected. The drain was much less than what I naturally regenerated, and a drop in the bucket compared to how expensive it was to convert mana into kinetic force.

    It only took a second to spot the arrow on the floor pointing towards one of the three directions. I grin, realizing that learning to use my skill to make light had likely been the point of this trial. After about 15 minutes of walking and following a dozen or so other arrows, I am soon at the exit to the cave, which leads straight into an icy cold tundra.

    Nothing about my environment changes this time, but the entrance to the cave does disappear. I shiver slightly feeling the biting cold. This was definitely a tundra alright. A damn cold one too. This cold felt unlike any I could remember feeling throughout my life, which began to make me think it wasn¡¯t a natural kind of cold.

    Trial 5: Chilled to the bone

    Navigate to the edge of the biosphere. Beware, the further from the center you are the colder it gets.

    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    I have never been a fan of the cold. I¡¯d always preferred the summer warmth to the coldness of winter. I was probably a little biased on that given that I¡¯d grown up in a pretty warm area, but god forbid somebody who doesn¡¯t live in an icy hellscape call somewhere cold lest the citizens of said icy hellscape say ¡°you haven¡¯t seen real cold yet¡±.

    I begin walking to the edge of the ¡°biosphere¡± as the system called it. If it really is a sphere then any direction should work just fine, so I pick one and begin walking. The point of this trial is pretty obvious after having just done the previous one. I needed to warm myself up with my mana conversion skill.

    Despite the clear goal, it had taken longer than it should have for me to realize that converting the mana stored within my cloak would be a much better way of warming myself up than trying to create a shell of warmth around me. My cloak couldn¡¯t store very much mana. It had been a significant amount back when I was level 1, but after my evolution it was just not very noticeable. That did mean it filled up pretty quickly with my natural mana regeneration.

    The drain of creating heat was greater than creating light. Not as much as creating force, but probably right in the middle of the two. I was beginning to get a better and better idea of how the skill worked as I was using it, and it gave me a couple ideas as to how I could use it effectively.

    After a while of walking, and after the temperature had reached a point that no standard human could have hoped to survive, I reached a large barrier. I assumed this to be the edge of the biosphere, and placed a hand against it. As soon as I did, the next trial began.

    Trial 6: Fine Control

    Manipulate your mana to reach the end of the maze.

    I found myself in a small enclosed room. The walls were all gray, and in my hands was a small cube maze constructed entirely out of glass. It was transparent, but probing it with my mana revealed that it was completely impenetrable to my magic. On one corner of the cube was the entrance to the maze, and on the opposite corner was a small black square that I assumed was the finish to the maze.

    I made a small string of mana and began pushing it through the cube. I couldn¡¯t see the path of the maze with my eyes, which meant that I had to entirely focus on feeling around the cube with my string of mana. To say it was difficult would be an understatement. This was by far the hardest trial so far, and it wasn¡¯t even close. This one wasn¡¯t focused on my ability to use my skills or how strong I was, but purely on my control over my mana and how well I could use it.

    After a few failed attempts where my control over my mana slipped, I sat against one of the walls and closed my eyes. If they wouldn¡¯t be helping me here, I had no reason to keep using them.

    Every bit of my attention was dedicated to the small string of mana moving through the cube as I searched for the correct path. Every time I had failed so far, the layout of this maze had changed, so I couldn¡¯t just memorize it. I would have to retain my control until I found the right way.

    Every time my mana brushed against a wall, I could ¡°feel¡± it as if my finger had brushed against it. The feeling was odd, like having an extra limb. It did allow me to navigate through the maze well enough to eventually find my way through. I let out a deep breath when I am teleported again. That had been frustrating and very tedious. Thank god that was over. I did not like mazes.

    Trial 7: Combat Labyrinth

    ¡°No!¡± I shout into the empty room as it changes around me. The walls around me all change into different hallways, each with two numbers marked on them. I read the description of the floor, just wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible.

    Reach the end of the trial. Each path has varying difficulty in length, with the more difficult paths being shorter. The first number on each path is the number of monsters you will face on that path, with the second being the highest level of the monsters you will face.

    I quickly read each of the numbers on the various paths. One of them had 50 monsters each being level 2. Another had 20 monsters at level 5. The third had 5 monsters at level 9, and the last had just a single monster at level 10. I immediately walk into the last path. I already knew I could handle a level 10 monster. I wouldn¡¯t have too much trouble with this.

    When I reach the end of the hall, it opens up into a larger room. On the other side is a large wolf that stood as tall as my elbow. I shudder seeing the creature. I¡¯d played enough games to know that was almost certainly a dire wolf. As soon as I was fully in the room, it began charging towards me. I quickly fire off several bolts of mana, each landing in a different place on the wolf. None do any meaningful damage, and I quickly dodge to the side as it lunges for me.

    I recover quickly enough to remember my mana shield spell and cast it. Instantly a shell of mana surrounds me, and I get to work creating a weapon to use against the wolf.

    Its big, which means more protection against its weak spots than the skinny goblins I¡¯d fought before. Instead of a dagger, I manifest an entire short sword. It drains a lot of mana from me, and I stagger for a moment as the loss hits me.

    The wolf takes advantage of this, lunging once more for me. I manage to get the sword between me and it quick enough that it stabs into the creature''s leg. In turn, the wolf manages to lock its jaws around my arm. I am about to scream out in pain, but right then I realize it doesn¡¯t actually hurt. My mana shield had prevented the bite from actually hurting me. I take advantage of this and quickly retrieve my sword from the wolf''s leg. A few quick stabs to the head later, and the wolf is dead.

    The sword disappears as soon as I confirm the wolf is dead. I didn¡¯t want to waste the mana to keep it around. I wanted to conserve my mana just in case the next floor also needed a significant amount. The fight with the wolf had already drained half of my total mana pool in the brief time period. That was really my biggest drawback as a mage. I couldn¡¯t fight for an extended period of time. At least, not in any serious capacity. The only reason the goblin city had fallen to me was because nearly every single monster within it could die to just a single use of mana bolt.

    I resolved myself to find a better item to store mana than my cloak at the next opportunity as I was teleported to the next floor.

    Trial 8: Escort

    Protect the caravan on the next leg of their journey

    In an instant, I find myself walking alongside two carts drawn by horses. Apparently my goal is to protect them, though I am not sure for how long.

    Six hours later, I am getting pretty fed up with this trial. I¡¯d managed to fend off a goblin attack, a wolf pack, and several thieves over the past several hours. Why couldn¡¯t the system just recognize I was done already?

    Almost as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I was blessed by the system removing me from the trial.

    Trial 9: Walking Fortress

    Survive the incoming attacks.

    I am in the middle of a large field now. All around me are goblins with various ranged weapons, a few even seem to have wands. I was about to try and run towards one of them when I noticed the thin chain tying me down. It was only a meter long, so I really wouldn¡¯t have too much room to dodge.

    I quickly refresh my mana shield as attacks come flying in from all directions. The arrows, rocks, and throwing knives sent my way all bounce off of the shield, harmlessly falling to the ground after draining some of my mana.

    The spells on the other hand, well those are a different story. Each mana bolt that hits me leaves a hole in my robe and a burn mark on my body. I can¡¯t dodge all of them, but I do my damn best to. When a particularly dangerous fire ball is sent hurtling towards me, I summon a shield to block the blow. My mana pool glares angrily at the expense, but now that I have the shield I can at least use it to block the other spells.

    A few minutes after the attacks began, they come to an end, and I am brought to the last of the ten trials. I feel my body and mana completely restore as I read over the last trial description.

    Trial 10: Duel

    Duel an opponent created by the system. Your opponent will have the same level and stat total as yourself.

    A colosseum sprouts up around me, and the floor turns to compacted dirt. A crowd fills the colosseum cheering as one of the gates gets raised. A man a bit taller than myself and significantly more muscular walks out and into the open from where the gate had just raised.

    In his left hand was a sword, and in his right a shield. He wasn¡¯t wearing any armor to speak of besides a gladiators helmet and some leather gloves. He did a quick flourish with his sword, and the crowd cheers even louder.

    I¡¯m not about to let him do whatever it is he needs to do to prepare, so I quickly send a mana bolt firing for his head at great speed. He notices and quickly slaps the bolt away with his shield.

    My face drops as I come to a realization. This man had the same stat total I did. That meant this would be my first fight where I couldn¡¯t rely on a significant stat disparity to carry me to victory. I would need to be tactical.

    The man runs towards me with his sword held low and his shield raised. I quickly took a guess at what he would do and dodged to the right, avoiding the upwards sweep of his sword. As I slid to a stop, I summoned a long sword, using both hands to wield it. If he had the advantage of strength, that meant I would need to have reach on my side. He was certainly faster than I was given he probably had his stats more leaning towards body than mind, and he would pretty easily be able to catch up to me if I tried to make space for casting spells, so I needed to keep him far enough to not hit me, while being close enough to not have space to dodge any spells.

    He seemed to realize this, and in an attempt to get closer he knocked my sword to the side. I drop the sword, catching his own sword in my hand. The mana barrier around my hand protects me, but I can tell almost immediately that this was not a strategy I would be able to use consistently. If I did I wouldn¡¯t have the mana to spare for spells.

    I send a mana blast directly into his chest, which knocks him back several meters and he falls onto his back. I quickly grab up my sword and begin the next step of my plan. I run up to the fallen warrior, stabbing my sword into his chest as he tries to get up. It only penetrates a few centimeters, as the beast of a man had caught my sword with his gloved hand and stopped the blade.

    Luckily, I hadn¡¯t needed the sword to penetrate very deep. In a flash the entire sword except for the last few centimeters disappears as all the mana within it is expended through what remains.

    A wave of force erupts outwards from within the gladiator''s chest, and I have to look away to keep blood from splattering on my face as his chest explodes open. The man doesn¡¯t live for more than a few seconds as he tries to process what just happened.

    The gladiator falls to the ground dead, and the crowd starts cheering. I look back at the mess of a man, but look away again when I see the pool of blood. It was starting to occur to me that I actually just killed another human. I wasn¡¯t particularly bothered by the idea, as he had been trying to kill me, but it was still something I wasn¡¯t exactly used to.

    You have slain Human (level 10)!

    You are now level 11

    Floor 3 cleared. You can now teleport to floor 4 from any floor entrance or exit. Would you like to move on to floor 4?

    ¡°No.¡± I say. ¡°Floor 1.¡±

    And with that, I am back on floor 1, covered in human blood and exhausted from having spent a large chunk of my mana pool. I was also just exhausted from having been awake for... actually when was the last time I slept? Thinking about it, I haven¡¯t slept since before the system came around. There was just no way that was good for me.

    After walking down stream from the camp to clean my clothes and myself, I return to the camp and find Ben. After asking where people are sleeping, he points me towards an area where people are making bed rolls from deer skin for everyone to use. After grabbing one, I use my mana-festation skill for the most useful purpose I¡¯ve come up with ever since getting it.

    As I slowly drift off to sleep, I mentally high five my mana for having managed to make such a comfortable pillow.

 Chapter 9: A Slightly Unhinged Crafter

    The camp was quite active the next morning. It had been 3 days now since the tutorial began, and the general feeling of panic over our entire situation was starting to calm down a bit. It was amazing how fast people could get used to something like this.

    According to Ben, we have almost a thousand people here at the camp now, and we knew of a few other camps that had even more people. Groups this large could rarely live in harmony, and sure enough there had been more than one fight that had broken out by this point.

    I had been woken up when two particularly rowdy men were shouting at one another over who would get the last available bed roll. I can¡¯t say exactly how long it was since I¡¯d gone to sleep, but I felt fully rested. I could just give mine up and end this fight pretty quickly.

    As I was folding up the bedroll, the first punch was thrown. Both men were classed as fighters as shown by the swords at their waists. They seemed to be about the same level too, as they seemed pretty evenly matched when it came to strength. Punch after punch came in from each other, and I was beginning to think I should probably intervene.

    As one of the men was about to pull out said sword and escalate the conflict, I was quickly at his side with my hand on his shoulder. Both men seemed to have a look of shock at the speed I¡¯d moved at.

    ¡°No need to go that far.¡± I say, holding out my bedroll. ¡°Just take it and go.¡±

    There was a brief moment where I thought he would fight back against this, but he seemed to calm down enough to see reason after a few seconds. He snatched it from my hands and walked off. The other fighter shot me a dirty look, but also walked off after taking the last free bedroll.

    I should probably go find Ben. This could have been really bad if I hadn¡¯t gotten involved, and I had a feeling this was far from the last time someone would be drawing a weapon in camp.

    ¡°I just don¡¯t know how we can keep this from happening.¡± He¡¯d said after I¡¯d brought it up. ¡°The people starting these fights are a higher level than our guards since they¡¯ve actually gone up to the second floor and done some fighting.¡±

    ¡°I think the solution is pretty obvious.¡± I say. ¡°You just need the general population to be a higher level.¡±

    Ben''s face turns to one of confusion. ¡°How would that help? Wouldn¡¯t that just worsen the problem?¡±

    ¡°Well the people causing the problems are already a higher level than most, so if you encourage people to raise their own level they would be able to defend themselves better, or at least be intimidating enough to deter others from attacking.¡±

    ¡°So what you want us to do is tell people to go out and risk their lives fighting so that they can be safer? That doesn¡¯t seem like the best idea.¡±

    ¡°Tell me, who is the highest leveled healer we have in camp?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Jeremy. He¡¯s level seven now.¡±

    ¡°Has he gone up to the second floor at all?¡±

    ¡°Well, no. But he was focusing on healing, just like his class says to.¡±

    ¡°I think you are missing the point. Leveling up does not require fighting at all. My last level before my evolution had been gained from improving my skills. Others can likely do the same. Hell, nothing really says that our level is directly tied to our class. I¡¯d be willing to bet that the people making those bed rolls have leveled up at least once just from doing that. Imagine if people start making armor or weapons. They¡¯d be gaining levels without having to ever draw blood, and I¡¯d wager that they would probably get a non combat focused class upon evolving.¡±

    ¡°I...¡± Ben trails off. ¡°I am going to need to do some asking around.¡± He says. ¡°I¡¯ll get back to you on this.¡±

    He walks away shortly after, leaving me alone in the crowd. It¡¯s right at that moment that I realize I forgot to ask if anybody was actually trying their hand at crafting. I would have liked to have some better armor than just this crappy robe.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    I start walking around the camp, wanting to see what people have been up to. Most of my time since the tutorial began has been spent on other floors, so I haven¡¯t really gotten to see what people have been doing to fill the time.

    From the looks of it, most of the healers have spent the majority of their time healing those who had gone to the second floor. I had yet to hear of anybody in camp dying, so they must be doing a good job.

    Those who weren¡¯t involved in anything going on past floor one were pretty split. It seemed half of the camp was just sitting around all day, not doing anything productive. The other half was taking up some kind of hobby or chore, like cooking, constructing small barracks for people to sleep in, making beds for said barracks, or just anything to fill the time.

    Out of everything going on at the camp, only one thing really piqued my interest. Near the very edge of the camp, there was a woman who was making some surprisingly good looking armor from what looked like deer hide. When I had found her, she had just finished making leather boots. I was about to approach her and ask about her crafting, but then I was amazed at what I saw next.

    The woman furrowed her brows as she concentrated, and I could see mana seeping out from her fingers and into the boots. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure what the purpose of it was, but it was clear she was infusing the mana into them.

    ¡°I take it you took the infusion skill at level 5?¡± I ask after she finishes.

    She looks up at me, seeming annoyed at having been interrupted. ¡°Not quite.¡± She says, standing up. ¡°I learned it myself and picked a different skill.¡±

    ¡°If you don¡¯t mind me asking, did you get to level five with just making these?¡± I point to the pile of armor she has laying around her work area. There are several pairs of gloves, a few chest pieces, some boots, and a helmet.

    ¡°No, I got a few of the levels hunting the deer to get the materials.¡± The tone of annoyance hasn¡¯t left her voice, but it feels less directed towards me than it had before. ¡°It was more time consuming to do than I would have liked.¡±

    ¡°Could you not get some of the hide from the deer being brought in by hunters?¡±

    ¡°They say that the hide is better used elsewhere.¡± She complains. ¡°They don¡¯t seem to know that armor is going to be important when people start getting off their asses and heading up the floors.¡±

    ¡°You can say that again.¡± I say, thinking about how useful armor would have been if I¡¯d had it in the fight against the gladiator. If I hadn¡¯t needed to use my mana shield to block his attacks, I could have afforded more to power my spells and ended the fight quicker.

    She looks at me with an appraising eye, and I feel the slightest hint of mana bounce off of me as she does. ¡°Level 11? You must have already gone up if you are at that level.¡± She sticks out her hand. ¡°I¡¯m Blair. Nice to meet you.¡±

    ¡°River.¡± I say, shaking her hand. ¡°How¡¯d you know my level?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s the skill I picked up at level five. It tells me the level and race of individuals, as well as the basics on any item I use it on. Pretty simple really, it¡¯s called inspect.¡±

    ¡°Sounds handy.¡±

    ¡°It is. Alright, down to business. Lets say you come across some powerful looking beasty on the higher floors. If you bring it¡¯s body back down to me, I can make you some armor. Those robes of your likely aren¡¯t providing much in the way of protection anymore.¡±

    ¡°Not really.¡± I say, looking down at my robes. ¡°They aren¡¯t really good for storing mana anymore either, which was what they were primarily for anyways. Do you think you¡¯d be able to make something that can store mana better?¡±

    ¡°Maybe. If I had the right materials I probably could, but I probably won¡¯t be able to do a good job of it until I evolve.¡± She gestures to the pile of armor and materials behind her. ¡°Deer hide just isn¡¯t cutting it any more when it comes to experience.¡±

    It¡¯s only then that I notice among the materials is also several deer carcasses. She had mentioned hunting the deer herself, but I hadn¡¯t expected that she would just leave their bodies laying around.

    ¡°So, if I bring you better materials, you can level up faster and make me better stuff?¡±

    ¡°Bingo.¡± She says, smiling. ¡°It seems you are starting to get why this will be beneficial to us both. So, what do you say, do we have a deal?¡±

    I think for a moment about it. Hauling the corpses wouldn¡¯t be particularly fun, but I didn¡¯t see much reason beyond that to decline the offer. It seemed like a waste to leave the bodies to rot.

    ¡°Yes we do.¡± I say.

    ¡°Great!¡± She shouts. ¡°Now go away and come back when you have a strong beast for me to take apart.¡±

    I turn and start walking, but I do glance over my shoulder after a few steps. I look away when I see her sink her knife into one of the several deer bodies around her. I wasn¡¯t keen on seeing her ¡°take them apart¡± as she said.

    On my way back to the staircase, I am intercepted by Ben, who seems to have something on his mind.

    ¡°That was quick.¡± I say as he approaches. ¡°Did you realize I was right?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t get all high and mighty.¡± He says. ¡°Though I did talk to some people, and it seems like it would be best to start focusing on trying to increase the average level of everyone rather than just have them sit idly. Even ignoring the fact that it would prevent people from using overwhelming levels to intimidate others, it would also bring a multitude of other benefits.¡±

    ¡°Great to see you using your head again.¡± I joke. Something from the conversation I¡¯d had Blair then comes back to me. ¡°Hey, if you want to increase everyone''s levels, diverting some of the resources towards people focusing on crafting would be a pretty good start.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be sure to bring that up in the meeting later.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡± I turn back to where I was headed. ¡°Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go and check out the fourth floor.¡±

 Chapter 10: Kobold Cave

    Welcome to floor 4: Kobold Caves

    Reach the bottom of the caves.

    The darkness of the stairway does not give way to a new environment as it usually does upon entering a floor. Instead, I am enveloped in the pitch dark of a cave, not at all unlike that of the blind faith trial of the previous floor. Since I¡¯d already gone through that, I knew to simply make a bead of light on the end of my wand to light the way.

    All around me were stone walls with paths leading in every direction. A few seemed to branch of pretty quickly, and for a moment I was worried that I¡¯d have to navigate it like a maze. After a few minutes of walking however, I realized that the right direction to go was towards which ever one was sloping downwards. If it really was a cave system, the exit would probably be towards the bottom accompanied by a boss fight.

    After only about ten minutes of walking, I ran into my first monsters. Each one had red scales with clawed feet and hands. Their mouths were long like that of a dog, and their teeth looked pretty damn sharp. All together this probably would have been pretty menacing, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that they were only about three and a half feet tall.

    The four of them simultaneously rushed at me, with all of them wielding spears. It made sense to use those as a primary weapon in the caves, as anybody using a sword or something else that you¡¯d have to swing would be at a disadvantage with the cramped space.

    I used my mana to summon a small shield with a spike on the end. I limited its size so it wouldn¡¯t be too expensive, and opted to not make a weapon as I felt mana bolt would be enough to handle these enemies.

    I parried the first spear that came my way, catching the second with my hand. Another spear slid off my mana shield as I cast mana bolt in the direction of the nearest two kobolds. They both dropped dead instantly as I spun the spear around and stabbed it into the head of the third enemy.

    The last creature seemed to have some sense and turned tail, running away like Satan himself was after it.

    You have slain kobold (level 7) x 3

    No experience awarded for defeating enemies of a lower evolution tier

    With that difference in level they hadn¡¯t really stood a chance. I almost felt bad for them, but they had attacked first. I continued walking, fighting off more and more groups of monsters as I went. I kept one of their spears in one hand, with my conjured shield in the other. As long as I didn¡¯t use my mana on anything else, I was just barely able to outpace the drain of it with my mana regeneration. That allowed me to stay pretty much topped off between each fight.

    The levels of the kobolds steadily rose the further I made it into the caves. At first it was just one or two of the groups that would be stronger than the rest, but soon every single enemy I faced was level nine. It had yet to throw a level ten enemy at me, but I suspected that would be happening pretty soon.

    Sure enough, the caves opened up into a larger chamber after a lot of walking. In it were 6 kobolds in total. two of them were taller than the rest, being closer to 5 feet tall than the three and a half of their brethren. These were almost certainly the evolved versions of the kobolds.

    I readied myself, ready to fight. The larger versions of the monsters wielded hammers now instead of spears. They weren¡¯t as restricted as they otherwise would have been thanks to the more open chamber.

    The big two were the ones to reach me first. Their higher stats caused them to be quite a bit faster than the others. Instead of trying to block the hammer swings, I instead dodged around them. I had a guess that kobolds tended to have strength as their focus for their body stat, and that meant that trying to outright block an attack with a hammer would not go very well for me.

    I did my best to keep space between me and the monsters. Firing off one mana bolt at a time was enough to slowly chip away at them, and soon it was just the weaker four remaining. They were all pretty inconsequential to the fight, and I was reluctant to kill them at all, but it had to be done. I didn¡¯t bother even looking at their kill notifications, knowing I hadn¡¯t gained any experience from them.

    You have slain kobold (level 10) x 2

    Bonus experience earned for fighting while outnumbered.

    The next half a day was spent with me making my way through the caves and defeating just about everything in my way. This floor was unlike any of the ones that had come before it. It seemed like it was almost tailor built specifically for gaining levels. The nonstop fights and increasingly powerful enemies was evidence enough of that.

    One other thing was also becoming more and more clear as I went further, and that was the simple fact that my level was not increasing as fast as the level of the kobolds. It felt that soon, I would be reaching a point where I simply stood no chance of defeating whatever lay ahead.

    That point was not one I had reached yet.

    As I slay the last kobold in the most recent group, I check my notifications for all the experience I¡¯d received over the course of my time on the floor so far. I¡¯d realized it was something I could do after I¡¯d been trying to find a way to condense all the notifications I¡¯d been receiving.

    You have slain kobold (level 10 to level 19) x 100!

    You are now level 16

    To say I was a little disappointed would be an understatement. Previously I¡¯d been gaining a level every couple of kills, but that number was rising higher and higher. This most recent level had required me to take out 25 enemies, all of a much higher level than myself. This most recent squad had been comprised entirely of level 19 kobolds.

    I had my suspicions that this problem was similar to the one Blair had been having. She had mentioned that working with the same material constantly had led to her gaining less and less experience with each creation. Me killing over a hundred kobolds with no noticeable jump in difficulty probably caused me to run into the same wall. If I wanted to level up at the same pace as before, I would need to either fight a different type of enemy, or a much stronger kobold.

    Luckily, my prayers were answered just a few minutes later. I was in another large opening in the caves, much larger than the one I¡¯d fought the level 10 kobolds in. It had plenty of space to move around, which meant I was probably expected to do a lot of dodging. Unlike when I¡¯d fought those other monsters, there were only two kobolds in the room. The first was a mage of some kind. It wore dark brown robes and had a staff as tall as it was. The second had full leather armor and a bow in one hand. I didn¡¯t see a quiver nor any arrows, but I wasn¡¯t about to write it off as a non-threat because of that.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    I was starting to get a pretty good idea of why the room was so big now.

    Both kobolds split apart from one another, with the archer headed for the far left of the room and the mage headed for the far right. I decided to handle the archer first. My mana shield would allow me to get close without needing to worry too much about the arrows, and an archer was far less likely to pull some trick I wasn¡¯t expecting.

    I throw a few mana bolts its way as I sprint, hoping to get some early damage in. I had been right in thinking that the archer could use its bow without a quiver, but I¡¯d still been surprised when it summoned arrows that glowed a faint blue. It shot each one in my direction rapidly, loosing 3 arrows before I could reach it.

    Through some miracle of luck, one of my mana bolts had hit the first arrow mid-flight, halting its momentum. The other two sailed right past my volley, and I stepped to the side before they reached me. One of them went right past me, having missed entirely. The second arrow hit me dead on, bouncing off my mana shield.

    At least, that is what I had been expecting to happen. When the second arrow hit me, it sunk right into my shoulder, penetrating to the bone. I let out a small scream of pain, having not expected it to pass right through what I thought was a pretty good defensive spell.

    It took a moment to realize what had happened. The arrows had been conjured from nothing, meaning they were conjured from mana. My shield was built for physical blows, and not magical ones. The arrow had been slowed enough to not pierce the rest of the way through me, but it had been unable to be stopped entirely.

    Despite the pain of the hit, I kept running, reaching the kobold before it had the chance to summon more arrows. It pulled a dagger from its belt, but that was a least something my shield could handle. I hear something fly through the air behind me, and dodge to the side just in time to avoid the bolt of mana shot by the mage. Those would be pretty devastating to get hit by, as my mana shield wouldn¡¯t do a thing to protect me from them.

    I decide to take a bit of a risk as I get close to the archer. Staying at a range would be preferable, but I need to get on the other side of it so that my back wouldn¡¯t be towards the bigger threat.

    It swipes its dagger towards my stomach as I step in, and it scrapes against my shield as I push past it and give it a mana blast to the chest. The impact sends it stumbling, but it recovers quickly. I have to spend some attention dodging several other bolts of mana, which prevents me from taking further advantage of the fall.

    The archer attempts to retreat, seeming to have come to the conclusion that it wouldn¡¯t be able to win a close range fight. I have no hope of keeping up with it, so I just send a few extra powerful mana bolts at it. The impact knocks it over, and this time the monster is unable to recover quickly enough to prevent me from running up and delivering a double blast of mana directly to its face.

    Right as the archer dies, the arrow in my shoulder disappears as well.

    ¡°Shit.¡± I mutter, putting a hand over the injury. I¡¯d been hoping to keep the arrow there to prevent me from bleeding too much, but it seems that wasn¡¯t going to be an option any more. Blood starts flowing out at a slow but steady rate. As I dodge side to side to avoid the incoming spells, I try to spare as much attention as I can towards picturing a gauze strip.

    With a burst of mana, one appears in my hand, and I do my best to hastily pack the wound. Right as I am about to start trying to get closer to the mage, it suddenly stops throwing spells my way. Instead, its eyes and hands glow for a brief moment, as does the corpse of the archer. In that second I realize that this wasn¡¯t just a mage, but a shaman. Using what remaining energy must have been left in the body of its fallen ally, it launches a far more powerful mana bolt, this one moving far faster than before and being at least triple the size of the others.

    I don¡¯t have time to dodge, so I crouch down and summon a shield in front of me, hoping that it will take the brunt of the blow. It thankfully absorbs most of the damage, but I am still thrown back a full two meters, sliding a short distance before coming to a stop.

    Rolling to the side to avoid the follow up attack, I jump to my feet and start running.

    The shield I¡¯d blocked the attack with had shattered on impact with the powerful spell, but it had saved me from what could have very possibly been fatal damage. I was down to only a third of my mana pool now, and I was going to need to end this quickly if I wanted to win.

    I send a single mana bolt towards the shaman, watching as it impacts a barrier of mana that appeared right as it got close.

    A small smile appears on my face when I see that. It had a defense against magical attacks, which meant it probably didn¡¯t have too great of a defense against my spear.

    It takes some time to get close enough to attack, mostly due to being extra careful to not get hit by spells. When I do get close, I have to leap back to avoid a crescent wave of mana sent forward by the shaman. It seems that it really doesn¡¯t want me getting close.

    In a quick flash of inspiration, I grab my wand from my belt with my offhand, which up until now had been constantly producing light like a lamp, and point it towards the shaman.

    I squint my eyes as I ramp up the input of mana. I use a bit of mana to make a reflective cone around the wand so that all the light is sent towards the shaman. As the light gets brighter and brighter, reaching a point that drawing a significant amount of mana, I chuck my spear at the shaman with all the strength I could muster.

    Even with the light being mostly directed away from me, it was still pretty damn intense. I was sure that for the Shaman, it must have been like staring at the sun. There was just no way it would be able to see my spear coming in time to react to it.

    Just as I had been hoping, my spear strikes true, penetrating the stomach of the kobold. I¡¯d been aiming for its chest, but I hadn¡¯t exactly practiced throwing spears.

    I cut off the flow of mana, with the brief drain having reduced me to only having enough mana for one final spell. With a quick motion, I yank the spear from the chest of the shaman. Its hands, staff, and eyes all begin to glow, probably about to cast a spell to make some distance between us, but I would never get to find out.

    I stabbed my spear directly towards its neck. It tried to lean away from the strike, but failed. I had invested the rest of my mana into speeding the spear up with mana conversion, and it had led to it striking its target.

    The glow disappeared from the hands of the monster as it began choking on its own blood, and I quickly ripped the spear free to sink it into the shaman''s head and put it out of its misery.

    You have slain Kobold Archer (Level 23)

    You have slain Kobold Shaman (Level 25)

    Bonus experience gained for defeating an enemy of a higher level. Bonus experience gained for fighting while outnumbered.

    You are now level 17

    You are now level 18

    You are now level 19

    My breathing begins to slow and the adrenaline fades as I read the notifications. I¡¯d definitely gotten my wish of wanting to fight tougher monsters, and I had been rewarded handsomely for my efforts with three entire levels. The fading adrenaline does mean I am starting to feel the pain again from the injury in my shoulder, and I quickly begin jogging towards the staircase that had appeared in the middle of the room. I¡¯d packed the wound well enough to have it mostly dealt with for now, but I¡¯d still like to see a healer sooner rather than later.

    My jog slowly comes to a stop as I turn around to look back at the dead shaman. More specifically, the shaman''s staff and robe. The thought of wearing something I¡¯d taken from a dead enemy gave me an icky feeling, but the thought of finally getting an upgrade to my gear was just too enticing to ignore.

    I try to scrub the memory of stripping the robe off of the monster while I inspect the two items.

    Shaman''s Staff (Uncommon)

    Decreases the cost of any spell channeled through the staff. Allows the siphoning of a corpses energy more efficiently.

    The staff would be useful, but I was pretty certain I wouldn¡¯t be using that second effect. Being a shaman sounded cool and all, especially considering they would probably have near infinite mana on a battlefield littered with corpses, but dealing with the dead really turned me off of the class.

    The robe was thankfully more general use, though still sounding like something that would be used by a cult.

    Shaman''s Robe (Rare)

    Allows the wearer to store mana in the robe for later use. Passively siphons mana from any nearby corpse''s and beings at least 10 levels lower than the wearer. Passively repairs itself using the mana stored within.

    Well, I doubted I¡¯d get much use out of the second effect on this one either. While it didn¡¯t require a skill to siphon mana like the staff did, I was pretty much never going to be fighting something that much lower of a level than me. I was glad that I wasn¡¯t level 15 before the fight, because that would have meant being slowly drained of my mana through the whole thing, and I¡¯d already been cutting it pretty damn close.

    I carry both the staff and robe to the staircase, not putting the robe on yet due to the blood still covering it. I would definitely need to give it a good wash before wearing it.

    Can my mana-festation skill make detergent? Well, only one way to find out.

 Chapter 11: An Inevitable Problem

    Unfortunately, I was not able to make detergent with mana-festation. After getting healed by Jeremy I¡¯d gone down stream of the river near camp to wash off the robe. I had tried for a few minutes to make the cleaning substance, but found that I was completely unable to. I could make a puddle of mana that acted like a fluid, but whenever a drop broke off from the greater whole it just fizzled out of existence. This had led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole of testing the limits of the skill, and what I found was actually pretty interesting.

    Any weapon I made with the skill was made entirely of one material. I wasn¡¯t actually sure what that material was, or if it was just mana in its purest form, but by all accounts it acted like a metal. I could make soft materials, like I had when I¡¯d conjured a pillow a while back. The skill seemed to understand my intent when making an item. This had naturally led to seeing just how much my intentions effected what I was creating, and as it turns out it governs pretty much everything about the item.

    I could make floppy swords, a blanket that was really flexible yet very heavy, a dense brick of mana that was extremely heavy, and I was even able to make a small cloud of mana that quickly dispersed and disappeared.

    Sadly, I wasn¡¯t able to make any chemical compounds or anything else of that nature. Anything I made was made up of the same magical materials, and while I could change its physical properties I couldn¡¯t make anything like acid for example.

    After I¡¯d finished up testing what exactly I could and couldn¡¯t do with the skill, I¡¯d gone back into camp to grab something to eat, but was cut off when Blair had spotted me entering camp. She had stopped what she was doing and ran right up to me.

    ¡°Did you find any strong monsters?¡± She asked, hopeful. That hope quickly faded when she saw that I was not dragging the carcass of a beast behind me.

    ¡°I did, but none that would have been good for armor making.¡± I say.

    ¡°What did you find?¡±

    ¡°Kobolds.¡±

    She glares at me. ¡°Those are perfectly fine for armor making. Their scales probably could have made something sturdy.¡± She finally seems to notice the robe I was wearing and grabs the sleeve, inspecting it. ¡°Where¡¯d you find this?¡±

    ¡°It was worn by one of the kobolds.¡± I say, gently tugging my arm back down to my side. She lets go of the sleeve and lets me reclaim the limb.

    ¡°If you find anything else like it, bring it to me.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°So I can study the craftsmanship. It would probably be pretty useful for you if I could make more things with enchantments like that siphoning one you got there. By the way, do you think you could turn that off? It¡¯s making my mana regenerate way slower than it should.¡±

    ¡°Oh, sorry.¡± I say, though I didn¡¯t know how to turn it off. I instead dump mana into it until it is full, but even then I can feel that it is drawing in mana from her and refilling my own reserves. I just take the robe off, hanging it over my shoulder instead. ¡°Is that better?¡±

    ¡°Much. Now go and bring me something to work with!¡± She announces, before marching off to get back to her work.

    The one to find me next on my quest to find food was Roderick, the head guard of the camp. This was my first time seeing him since I¡¯d watched him and his team take out a goblin city. It felt like it had been forever ago, but in reality it had only been a few days.

    ¡°River, do you have a second?¡± He asks, talking quietly.

    ¡°Sure, what¡¯s up?¡±

    ¡°Come with me. I don¡¯t want anyone else hearing this.¡±

    I follow him out to the edge of the city, and a bit beyond that. Once we are somewhere that he thinks nobody will be hearing us, he stops and turns to me. ¡°What level are you?¡± He asks.

    ¡°Why do you need to know?¡±

    He sighs and double checks that nobody is nearby before continuing. ¡°Some of the camps near us have been reporting that there is somebody on floor two killing hunt parties right as they enter the floor. An archer managed to inspect him before retreating, and as of 12 hours ago he reached level 10.¡±

    I grimace, having known something like this would happen eventually. Somebody was bound to take advantage of the easy targets eventually, and it seems somebody finally gave in to temptation. ¡°Do you know where he is right now?¡±

    ¡°He was last sighted camping the entrance to floor two that is directly north of ours.¡±

    ¡°Do you think he¡¯s still there?¡±

    ¡°Probably. He only got there an hour ago and they are still sending their strongest in hopes of dealing with him quickly. Do you think you could deal with him?¡±

    ¡°Easily.¡± I say, immediately realizing how cocky that probably sounded. ¡°I¡¯m level 19.¡±

    A look of shock appears on his face, but disappears a second later. ¡°Then it shouldn¡¯t be too much for you. I¡¯m sure all the nearby camps would be extremely grateful if you could deal with this person.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll handle it.¡± I say, before realizing something. It was currently nighttime, meaning I couldn¡¯t see the sun. ¡°Which way is north?¡±

    <hr>

    Adam sat in the tree as he waited for the signature flash of light that indicated someone had entered the floor. He was perched only about 20 meters from the entrance, close enough to see anybody coming in but far enough to not be illuminated by the light of any torches they may bring with them. Nobody had come through the entrance for nearly 3 hours now. He would likely need to find a new entrance soon.

    Just then, he spotted the flash of light he had been waiting for. Nocking an arrow, he took aim at the mage that had arrived. He wore brown robes and had long staff in one hand. Adam raised an eyebrow, wondering if he had made it himself. It didn¡¯t matter. Adam released the arrow, sending it straight towards the ground in front of the mage. He didn¡¯t want to kill him, as that would just be a waste. Since he couldn¡¯t get any experience from killing those yet to evolve, he needed to make a game of it. He needed to make it a true hunt. Experience gain was a lot slower this way, but it was better than trying to get through that terrible tenth trial on floor 3.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    The arrow landed at the feet of the mage, though it hadn¡¯t even made him flinch. The mage looked in his direction, but through the darkness Adam knew there was little chance he could be seen. At least, he¡¯d thought that. After having to leap to another branch to avoid a ball of mana shot his way, he was beginning to think maybe this wouldn¡¯t be as boring as he¡¯d thought. That put a smile on his face, as that only meant more experience for him.

    <hr>

    My mana bolt impacted the tree near the archer, the dim light that came off of the spell having given me a better view of my attacker for a brief moment. He¡¯d hopped to another tree, but had still been easy enough to track. With perception being the focus of my soul stat I could see well enough to track a moving object in the dark. Given that I had no light source on me, the archer likely had some way to see in the dark as well.

    I send a few more mana bolts in his direction, each one with not very much mana put into it. If it was true that his level was so much lower than mine, then I wouldn¡¯t need to hit him with anything particularly strong to do some decent damage.

    The archer managed to shoot a few more arrows my way, each one easy enough to side step. He seemed to realize long distance attacks would have a hard time hitting me, so he began making his way closer to me by hopping from tree to tree up in the branches.

    In an effort to take me out in one swift strike, he leapt from the top of the trees, a short sword pointed right for my head as he descended. A flash of magic appeared around him as his speed increased even more. I stepped to the side just in time to dodge the attack, and while he tried to retreat brought my staff down directly on his skull.

    He wasn¡¯t knocked out thanks to probably having a relatively high body stat for his level, but he was dazed enough that I had time to conjure some thick handcuffs around his wrists before he recovered. I also summoned chains around his legs for good measure. If he had run away then the restraints would disappear after getting too far away from me.

    Making the two different items at once was really pushing what I could manage with the skill, as the concentration needed for both items to keep their shape was not insignificant, but I had good enough control over the skill to keep them solid.

    The assassin made a few angry sounding noises, accompanied by several profanities, but I ignored him in favor of just dragging him back to the floor entrance. He tried to break free a few times, but with just how much higher of a level I was he didn¡¯t really stand much of a chance of getting away. He seemed to realize this and just silently accepted his defeat.

    When I made it back to the first floor, I was immediately surrounded by the highest leveled members of the group I had gone to help. It was understandable that they had struggled to take this guy down considering that none of them had even reached level 10.

    When I had arrived at this outpost, I had barely even spoken to anybody before heading down to the second floor, and the only person I recognized was Hassan, the leader of the outpost and the only one I had spoken to thus far.

    ¡°Thank you.¡± Hassan said, shaking my free hand. ¡°I hope it wasn¡¯t too much trouble for you. Do you need any healing?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m fine.¡± I say, shaking my head. ¡°I didn¡¯t get hurt at all.¡±

    ¡°That is good to hear. I hadn¡¯t expected it to be so quick though. Did you manage to catch him off guard?¡±

    I explained all of what had happened after entering the staircase, but truth be told there wasn¡¯t much to tell. I had just gone in, hit him on the head, and had taken him prisoner. After explaining the story, and did have one question to end it.

    ¡°So what do you want me to do with him?¡± I ask.

    The question makes everyone silent, and I had been expecting the silence. If they didn¡¯t have an answer I already knew what I would do, but maybe they would realize on their own what was necessary.

    ¡°I...¡± Hassan trails off. ¡°If I am being honest I had hoped he would die in the fight. We are not equipped to keep him prisoner.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not too late to kill him.¡± I say, shrugging.

    The looks I get in return are a mix of pale faces, disgust, and a few who seem to understand that it has to be done. Thankfully, Hassan is among those who have the solemn yet resolved expressions.

    ¡°That may very well be for the best.¡± He admits. ¡°Though, I would prefer if we could do it somewhere else. I don¡¯t want others seeing what we must do.¡±

    ¡°If you say so.¡± I respond. I start walking back down the stairs behind me. ¡°Follow me please.¡±

    Me and Hassan walk down the stairs, with me dragging the now thrashing assassin behind us. He had clearly not been expecting the death penalty to be ordered so quickly.

    ¡°You can¡¯t do this!¡± He shouted. ¡°This is murder!¡±

    Thankfully we had already made it to the second floor, so nobody else had to hear his screaming, but I had to admit it was making me pretty uncomfortable.

    ¡°This is not murder, this is justice.¡± Hassan replies, his face hardening with resolve.

    ¡°I deserve a trial! You can¡¯t prove the things I am accused of!¡±

    I yank hard on the assassin''s chains restraints, facing him towards me. I glare at him as I speak. ¡°You don¡¯t get a trial. You don¡¯t get a second chance. You tried to kill me, and that is enough reason for me to kill you.¡±

    That shuts him up for a brief moment, and before he can continue, Hassan speaks.

    ¡°What is your name?¡± He asks the man.

    The assassin pauses, conflicted. ¡°Adam.¡± He says after a moment.

    ¡°Well Adam, I must say you really messed up. You are going to die now, and you will await judgment day. I will make sure you get buried, but beyond that I offer no more kindness.¡±

    After we have reached a point far enough away from the entrance to the floor, I hold the assassin still and look at Hassan. ¡°Would you like to do the honors?¡±

    ¡°No, you won the fight, and you deserve the experience.¡± He shakes his head.

    ¡°I¡¯d rather not look at it that way, but if you want to then just know that you would benefit far more than me. I am level 19 after all.¡±

    Both Hassan and the assassin stare at me for a few seconds before Hassan nods. ¡°Very well then. I will do it.¡±

    Hassan doesn¡¯t seem to have any weapons on him, which makes me wonder for a moment how he is going to do it, but I get my answer a moment later when he places both hands on either side of the restrained man''s head. Both hands glow, and the next 30 seconds are filled with shrieks from the assassin as Hassan uses whatever spell that is to kill the man. The white light of his magic makes me think he must be a healer class. Had he found a way to pivot the class towards a more damaging skill set?

    I don¡¯t ask, as in the moment I feel like it would be super inappropriate. After the assassin slumps over, Hassan lets out a deep breath, and I pretend not to notice the small tear rolling down his cheek. He quickly wipes it before reading the system message in front of him. His eyes glow immediately after, and his body seems to pulse with energy, but it only lasts about half a second before he is back to normal. Something about the healer seemed different, and it takes a moment for me to pinpoint exactly what it is.

    ¡°Did you just evolve?¡± I ask.

    Hassan takes a moment to adjust to what I knew was an influx of stat points. After taking a moment and a deep breath, he responds. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°What kind of class did you choose?¡± I ask, genuinely curious. I was almost certain he would have been offered a class related to that life draining spell he had just used, but whether or not he chose it was a mystery.

    ¡°Combat Healer.¡± He says, shaking his head. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to pick something like that, but it has become very clear recently that we need some way to defend ourselves.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad you came to that conclusion.¡± I say, nodding. ¡°Things are a lot different than they used to be. We can¡¯t just give any random person a weapon capable of defending them anymore. We need some people strong enough to defend those around them.¡±

    ¡°Is that why you have strived for such a high level?¡± He asks, looking up at me.

    I think about that question for a moment. I would be lying if I said that was the truth, but why did I feel such a need to raise my level and practice my skills? Part of it was definitely that I loved the thrill of fighting, but there was definitely something else to it.

    ¡°To learn more of what I am capable of.¡± I say, shrugging. ¡°I spent my entire life before the system wanting to know why things worked, and I even dedicated my career to learning the fundamental rules of the universe. With how things are now, and how clearly impossible some of what I¡¯ve seen should be, it has become blindingly obvious to me that I have so much more to learn.¡±

 Chapter 12: Teaching

    After the deed had been done and the body had been buried, me and Hassan made our way back to the outpost he was in charge of. I knew he wasn¡¯t exactly in the best of moods right now, but he hid it well as we walked around camp. Many people had tried giving me various things as thanks for dealing with the assassin, but I had politely declined almost everything offered. Not out of the kindness of my heart mind you, but mostly because I didn¡¯t need a sword or any armor pieces. The leather was all made from the hide of deer found on the first and second floor, and at my level my skin was tougher to pierce than the hide of any level 1 deer.

    The one thing I hadn¡¯t declined was the food offered. You will never hear me admit this to anybody back at my camp, but the food I was getting used to was nothing compared to the tasty skewers of meat I had been given by one of the cooks present. It had even been seasoned with what I can only assume was some kind of ground up plant. I¡¯d chatted with him briefly, and found out that he was a Michelin star chef before getting dragged into the tutorial.

    After goodbyes were given and people were done showing their gratitude, I began the short journey back to my camp. It was only around half an hour of jogging, and approximately 40 kilometers of forest. I took that time to really appreciate just how fast I could run now. I was well beyond what any human could have even dreamed of achieving without the help of stats, and with how things were looking I still had plenty of room to grow.

    After arriving back at camp and informing the leaders that the assassin was no longer an issue, they had let out a collective sigh of relief. They had tried to say something else, but I just turned to walk back towards the staircase. A hand on my shoulder stops me.

    ¡°Can I ask you something?¡± Ben asks me, looking serious.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°We only have about three and a half weeks until it is time for all the d tier individuals to exit the tutorial. We aren¡¯t exactly sure what is going to happen to them, but our current best guess is that they are going to return to Earth.¡±

    ¡°This doesn¡¯t really seem like a question.¡± I say.

    ¡°Let me finish. We need some of the people going to be at a high enough level to deal with any potential threats. We wanted to know if you would be willing to help train some of them, or at least supervise them while they train so they don¡¯t die.¡±

    ¡°How many people would I be training?¡± I ask, not really liking the sound of this.

    That part makes him a little hesitant to answer, but eventually he does. ¡°As many as you can manage preferably.¡±

    I sigh, taking a moment to think about that. I get an idea, and look at him.

    ¡°Here¡¯s the deal. I won¡¯t help anybody who hasn¡¯t yet reached level five. If they haven¡¯t at least done that then they would just be a burden on everyone else. How many people does that narrow it down to?¡±

    ¡°About 30.¡± Ben answers, seeming to have memorized the group of potential ¡°students¡±.

    ¡°Alright, tell them all to meet me at the staircase by the time the sun rises.¡±

    ¡°Will do.¡± Ben says before rushing off to find them all. The faint red horizon made it clear the sun would be rising soon, so I went and stood next to the staircase, patiently waiting for everyone to arrive. I counted each one as they did, noting their class. Only twenty nine of the thirty had shown up by the deadline. Nine of them were mages, four of them healers, three archers, and twelve fighters.

    We were about to head down to the second floor when another person came running up. They were a fighter and had clearly been running a bit late.

    ¡°You the last person?¡± I ask, already knowing that he was.

    ¡°Yep.¡± He says in a mood that was a bit too chipper for my liking. I couldn¡¯t fault someone for being in a good mood though.

    ¡°Alright then, let''s all get going.¡±

    The group goes down to the second floor, and as the last person arrives I turn to the group. ¡°Who here has yet to go to the third floor?¡±

    All but 5 people raise their hands, with the late fighter notably being among those who hadn¡¯t raised their hands.

    ¡°Of those who have been, who has completed the third floor?¡±

    Nobody raised their hands this time.

    I point to the nearest goblin city, a small dot in the distance only visible thanks to my high perception. ¡°You are all going down to floor three. We meet back right here in exactly 24 hours. Anybody who has yet to complete floor three will not receive any training.¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    A few mutters go through the crowd. They had not been expecting such an ultimatum within 30 seconds of the session starting. After the thirty of them rained hell upon the poor unsuspecting goblin city, they had all disappeared down to the third floor.

    I smile to myself. Just like that, I had the next 24 hours to do just about whatever I wanted. I didn¡¯t want to go down to the fifth floor just yet, as I wasn¡¯t completely sure if I could make it back to here within 24 hours, but there was plenty more productive things that I could do.

    <hr>

    Grant stared down his enemy as their swords were locked against one another, their strength exactly matching each other. Neither could get the upper hand in this battle of pure power, but given that the gladiator in front of him wore no armor over his upper body, he knew he could take a risk that the other man couldn¡¯t.

    Pushing his opponents sword away, Grant steps in close and sends his sword straight towards the stomach of the gladiator, his hit was fast enough to strike true, and when the gladiator attempted to get a hit in, his sword was stopped before it could reach the heart it had been aiming for.

    Grant''s hand screamed at him with pain, having been pierced through in order to protect his more vital areas. With a quick motion he yanked the sword out and up, taking a good few steps back. The attacker''s sword was dislodged from his hand as Grant''s own weapon cut more and more flesh, bringing the gladiator to his knees.

    With one more motion, Grants sword pierced through the chest of the gladiator, finally bringing down the tough opponent.

    You have slain Human (level 9)

    You are now level 10

    Everything suddenly went black as Grant reached what he knew was the level required to reach evolution.

    <hr>

    Basic Mana Manipulation (Uncommon) has been upgraded to Advanced Mana Manipulation (Rare)

    Practicing my mana control for 24 entire hours had proven to be quite good for improving the skill related to it. This was the first time I¡¯d truly dedicated time to improving my control over it since evolving, which had made it relatively easy to improve enough for a skill upgrade. Nothing had fundamentally changed about the skill, but the stat bonus I got when manipulating mana had increased a noticeable amount. I had also seen other benefits thanks to my work.

    You are now level 20

    You are now level 21

    The upgrade had granted me two levels, each of which also helped make manipulating my mana just slightly easier. Overall it felt like time well spent, and I felt even more prepared for floor 5 than I had been before. I had even gotten another skill selection at level 20. The choices had all been the same as last time, except for the fact that I could upgrade my mana shield. Some of them were a higher rarity than the last time they had been offered, showing that they would be more powerful as well. I ended up picking mana barrier, as I felt like my defense against magical attacks was sorely lacking when compared to my physical defenses.

    Sadly, all good things must come to an end. My students returned to me exactly when they had been instructed to. Out of the thirty I¡¯d sent off, 15 of them had returned. Only three of the mages, eight fighters, and 3 of the healers had made it back. It was interesting to see that only a third of the mages had made it back while three quarters of both the healers and fighters completed the floor. All three of the archers had made it back, and that distribution of the classes had worked out perfectly for what I had been planning.

    ¡°Glad to see you all finished.¡± I lied. ¡°Now, group up into three groups of five. One healer, one archer, one mage, and 2 fighters on each team.¡±

    I wait a moment while they shuffle around, eventually forming the groups I had desired.

    ¡°Perfect.¡± I say, pointing at one of the groups. ¡°You five, we are going down to the fourth floor.¡± I point to another group. ¡°You five, meet me here in three hours.¡± I point to the last group. ¡°You all meet me here in six.¡±

    Me and the group I had chosen all go down to the fourth floor. I follow them around for three hours, having made a very basic pocket watch with mana-festation to keep track of time. It didn¡¯t actually tell me the time of day, but just let me know how long it had been since I¡¯d made it. I had a feeling that I wouldn¡¯t have been able to make it if I hadn¡¯t upgraded my mana manipulation skill, but all that mattered was that I was able to do it.

    For the entire three hours, I don¡¯t need to interfere at all. The team has it handled. They do take a few nasty looking hits, but at no point was I worried that they might get overwhelmed. In that time, they had all managed to reach level eight, with the archer of the group having reached level 9.

    After they had taken down the first two level 10 kobolds, I stop them from continuing. ¡°I am going to head back to the second floor now. If you think you can continue, you are free to do so but I won¡¯t be there to bail you out.¡±

    I begin running back through the cave system the way we came. Since the group had been walking the entire time, occasionally stopping to fight something, I didn¡¯t actually have to run very long to get back to the entrance.

    My time with the next group plays out much the same, except for the fact that I had needed to deflect an arrow headed straight for the healer''s head. Other than that, another incident free session.

    The third group is far more interesting than the other two. It seemed like the strongest out of the 15 had decided to all get into one group, because not a single one of them was lower than level eight. One of the two fighters had even evolved to level 10 during his time on floor 3.

    Thanks to this, the group absolutely tears through the floor, having made it halfway down the floor by the time was up. Every single member of the group had evolved by the three hour mark, a true testament to how much experience you gained when fighting enemies that were a full evolution above you. The only person to reach level 12 was the fighter who had started at level 10. That was a testament to how much less experience you get when fighting as a group.

    I tell them the same thing I told the other two groups, keep going if you want, but I am not helping any further. To my surprise, they unanimously agreed to keep going further pretty much immediately. I had expected them to keep going, but they seemed way more enthusiastic about it than I had anticipated.

    Once I was finally freed of all obligation for the time being, I ran back up through the caves to go and do what I had been waiting to do for a while now but kept getting distracted from.

    It was time to go to floor 5.

 Chapter 13: A Real Boss Fight

    Welcome to floor 5: Introduction to Bosses

    Floor 5 is the first semi-instanced floor within the tower, and second to contain a system recognized Boss Monster. A semi-instanced floor can contain upwards of 10 individuals per instance. Boss monsters are recognized by the system as a being that is significantly more powerful than their level would indicate. They tend to be larger, stronger, and overall much tougher than their non-boss counterparts.

    Floor Goal: Defeat the Boss monster.

    I read through the description of the floor, finding it to be quite different than any of the previous floors. This one could be completed pretty damn quickly if one was able to defeat the boss. I say that because standing across the large field from me appeared to be the very boss I needed to take down. It didn¡¯t seem to be attacking me, probably waiting for me to show some sign of hostility. That was good, as it gave me some time to think.

    First of all, there had apparently been a boss monster somewhere on the previous floors that I had either not recognized as a boss or had not encountered. I was leaning more towards the latter, as I feel pretty confident the system would have let me know if I had slain a boss monster. Another supporting fact of this was the fact that nothing I had seen up to this point filled me with a sense of danger like the one I got looking at the boss before me.

    The seven foot tall skeleton that was on the other side of the large grassy field was an intimidating figure. Its eyes burned with a purple glow that cut through the darkness of the night. Its bones were thick and also had a subtle glow to them. The only weapon it wielded was a large black claymore which it wielded with both hands.

    I almost wanted to call it quits right then and there. There was a reason this floor allowed up to ten people to fight something like that at once. I was just one person, there was only so much I could do. Another part of me was practically screaming to go fight that thing, to prove that I could best it. I was pretty damn strong for my level too, so why wouldn¡¯t I be able to kill that thing?

    The biggest issue I had was that I didn¡¯t know exactly how strong that thing was. I wanted to gauge its power, but I really had no way to know if it would be a close fight, or one where I would end up getting slaughtered. A small spark of an idea entered my head, and I turned around to go right back where I had come from. I was going to need a little bit of help learning the skill I had in mind.

    <hr>

    Three hours later, I returned to the fifth floor. Upon seeing the large skeleton again, I infused my eyes with mana, trying to copy the pattern I had memorized. A small bit of magic left my eye, and a second later I got a small blue pop-up.

    Skeleton Sentinel (Level 25)(Boss Monster)

    You have unlocked the identify (common) skill

    I let out the breath I¡¯d been holding as I get the notification. Convincing Blair to try and teach me the skill had been hard at first, as she was extremely reluctant to turn her attention away from her work, but when I had told her that I could bring back the bones of a very powerful monster, she had not let me left until she felt that I could recreate the skill perfectly.

    Even though I was a much higher level than Blair, it had taken a while to get the pattern of mana down. Some skills were inherently pretty difficult to recreate if you didn¡¯t pick them during skill selection. She had been able to do it instinctually, while I had needed to try dozens and dozens of times before I could get it down.

    Now though, I knew I was ready. The skeleton was only four levels higher than me, and with the multipliers from my title my stats were more similar to if I was level 26. That didn¡¯t even include the 15 to each stat granted by the titles as well. Of course, the monster probably also had something boosting its stats beyond their normal levels if it was strong enough to be labeled a boss. I wasn¡¯t too worried about that though. If the worst case scenario happened, and I got gravely injured, I could escape to the exit and get back up to the camp where I could be healed.

    Okay, that wasn¡¯t actually the worst thing that could happen. I could die instantly if my head gets cut off. But hey, if something like that happens it''s not like I¡¯ll be around to complain about it.

    Steadying my nerves and getting into a ready stance, I launch the first attack of the fight, a simple and trusty mana bolt.

    The second the spell had left my staff, the skeleton had begun moving. It began running towards me, moving much faster than anything that size should be able to. My mana bolt impacted against its femur, which glowed a bit brighter briefly as the spell impacted. I couldn¡¯t see any noticeable effect, and I sucked in a breath knowing that meant the boss had some kind of magic defenses. That was pretty much exactly what I''d been fearing when I saw the glow in its bones.

    Thankfully, I knew enough about magical defenses to know that they weren¡¯t absolutely impenetrable. A strong enough spell could pierce through the defenses, even if it is heavily weakened. I only knew this because I had picked the mana barrier spell for my level 20 skill evolution. I had done some testing with it and discovered that weakness when trying to cast mana blast on myself. That had resulted in needing to go see Jeremy for healing.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    The skeleton reached me far faster than I had been anticipating, and with a mighty swing of its sword it attempted to cut me in two right down the middle. I managed to side step quick enough to avoid the attack, but the follow up came almost as quickly as the initial strike had.

    I sent a powerful cast of mana blast directly into the pelvis of the skeleton, hoping to throw it off balance enough to make some distance. It was pushed back only about an inch by the attack, though the bones began glowing much brighter than they had when my mana bolt had hit.

    ¡°Damn.¡± I mutter, dodging another swing of the sword. My mana blast was not powerful enough to punch through the mana barrier this skeleton used. I had been hoping it would be, but clearly I would just need to wear away at its defenses over time.

    Through my staff, I create a hammer of mana to wield in my off hand. It would be a good enough weapon to use in melee range, and if I really needed too I could use it as a last line of defense between me and the skeleton.

    After one particularly close dodge of the sword, I sprint straight for the monster and slide between its legs slamming my maul into its shins as I do. The same shine appears as when my spells had hit it, and I only now realize that it wasn¡¯t just a magical defense it had going for it. My hammer bounces off, having done no noticeable damage. I stand up to try and attack the monster from behind, and while I do manage to hit its spine with a double cast of mana blast, it turns quickly and backhands me with its heavy hand, sending my flying back several meters.

    I land on my back, and have no time to get my bearings before I need to roll away from a downward swing. I get a lucky yet ultimately meaningless kick in on the skeletons leg before standing up, dodging yet another swing of the sword. The speed and power behind each and every movement of the weapon was becoming more and more overpowering. I needed to find some way of reducing how much of a problem that sword was.

    The long weapon swings my way again, and this time I know I don¡¯t have the room to dodge. I bring my maul up between me and the skeleton, hoping that it can block the attack well enough to keep me from getting hit directly.

    The sword comes into contact with the handle of the maul, and I feel my heart drop as it slices right through the magical construct. The weapon follows through, cleaving its way straight through my mana shield.

    I jump back as pain shoots up my arm. Adrenaline is the only thing that manages to push off panic as I look down at the stump that is now my wrist. My hand had been severed off, and blood was starting to pour out of the open wound.

    My breath quickens, but I manage to get my head in the fight enough to continue dodging the next few attacks. If it had been strong enough to overwhelm my mana shield, then I suddenly had way less room for error than I had initially thought I did.

    I let out attack after attack against the boss monster, hoping to drain its resources enough to get rid of its defenses, but I am on the backfoot. This battle is quickly turning against me, I have the sense of mind to recognize that enough.

    I could turn and run right now. I may not be faster than my enemy, but I was sure I could at least get to the exit of the floor before it killed me. I didn¡¯t have to fight this thing right now. I could come back when I was stronger, when I was more prepared.

    My mind spins in circles as I slowly get pushed further and further back. I want to run, to escape and insure my safety, but something deep within me begins to stir. It was a vaguely familiar feeling, one that I had felt not too long ago. The feeling of something trying to escape a cage deep within me. This time it felt less like it was trying to escape the shackles of its cage, and instead like it was asking to be released.

    I block another swing of the sword with my staff, which thankfully doesn¡¯t break. It gets wrenched from my hand though as the force of it receiving the impact is enough to overwhelm my grip.

    In one last final act of desperation, I reach deep within myself and unleash the feeling of power from the cage that it had been stuck within. My entire body begins to feel... different. A slight buzzing feeling reverberates through every bit of me, both internal and external. My vision changes, everything taking on a deep blue hue for a brief moment before returning to normal.

    The knowledge of what I had just released enters my head, and in one final act of desperation, I release what I am hoping is the last attack I am going to need. Almost the entirety of my mana pool gets used up with this one single action, and as the mana leaves my body my senses all give out on me all at once. I can¡¯t hear, see, or feel anything as the mana all leaves my body at once. The amount of magic I had just used all at once was far, far more than I had ever been able to send out so quickly.

    My cast of mana blast did not come out of my hand. Nothing came from my hand actually. No mana at all had left though my palm or my finger tips, despite me channeling the spell there.

    No, the spell had come from somewhere far more devastating for my opponent. Within the skull of the boss monster, a concussive blast of mana rippled out in all directions, sending a wave of force through its skull. The spell had been released from a small blue dot at the epicenter of the blast.

    The skeleton managed to stumble forward one more step, the last vestiges of its life spent trying to chase down its killer. It sunk its sword into the ground, trying to stabilize it, but it was no use.

    By the time I managed to recover, the skeleton was dead. Its skull had been shattered to pieces, having been unprotected from the attack I¡¯d unleashed. Why would it have been? There was no way it could have anticipated such an attack coming from directly within its head.

    I lay my head back on the grass, taking a moment to ignore the countless system messages waiting for me. I needed a moment to mentally recover from what had just happened. Actually, I didn¡¯t have that kind of time to recover. I had done a pretty decent job of dodging the many attacks of the skeleton sentinel, but nobody was perfect. My body and robe were littered with cuts, and my hand was missing.

    Even as I lay there, I could feel my body and stats do their best to slowly repair the damage that had been done. I knew I wouldn¡¯t bleed out and die if I just sat here, but personally I would prefer for my hand to be recoverable.

    After searching through the grassy field for a few minutes, I had everything I needed. I used the corpse of the skeleton like a sled, putting my severed hand, my staff, and the massive claymore on top of it as I dragged it to the entrance to the next floor. After teleporting back up to the first floor, I was surrounded by gasps of shock as people saw how injured my body was. Several people ran to go get healers, and more than one person turned away and tried to suppress their squeamishness.

    I just set down the skeleton and sat on the floor right there. I stared up at the sky, doing everything I could to distract myself from the pain as Jeremy and several others ran over to heal my wounds.

 Chapter 14: Laying a Foundation

    You have slain Skeleton Sentinel (Level 25)(Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level. Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss. Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss without assistance.

    You are now level 22

    You are now level 23

    You are now level 24

    You have earned the title King Killer

    King Killer

    You have proven to be capable of punching above your weight class and besting the odds when the numbers are not in your favor. Provides a bonus to all stats when fighting an enemy of a higher level, and a larger bonus when fighting a system recognized boss monster. Grants +5% to mind and spirit, and +10% to body.

    Your trait has been awakened by your actions.

    Trait: Planes Walker

    Planes Walkers don¡¯t accept the limits of a simple three dimensional existence. A Planes Walker recognizes the power that comes with thinking in higher dimensions, and the freedom that comes from releasing your shackles. Grants the planes walker the ability to peer into both higher and lower planes of existence, and allows the planes walker to tread through these spaces for nothing but the cost of their mana. +5% to Mind and Spirit.

    As I finished reading through all of the messages, I couldn¡¯t help but think to myself about how power really seemed to give in to the snowball effect. The more powerful you were, the easier it was to gain more power. Hell, even my newly awakened trait would probably increase that exponential gain.

    What I had done against that skeleton was not something I could easily reproduce in the near future, of that I was sure. My new trait had allowed me to ignore the distance between me and my enemy, casting what was normally a close range spell directly into its head. To say it had been expensive in terms of mana would be a massive understatement. Two thirds of the cost of casting that spell had been to move the location of it to just 2 meters away from myself. Even then, I had only been able to cast it within the head of the monster because it had been completely hollow.

    Basically, I had gotten lucky. Against any other type of monster I probably would have been forced to retreat. I had thought the large amount of magical resistance had made the skeleton a bad matchup for me, but in reality it had been a great one, even if I hadn¡¯t known until the fight was already over.

    I needed to ensure something like this wasn¡¯t going to happen again in the future. Next time I might not have an escape route like I did today, and if that ever becomes the case then I need to shore up some of my weaknesses. The first thing I wanted to put some serious work into was my defense. I needed to make it harder to overwhelm.

    For this, I could draw some inspiration from my most recent fight. My two defensive spells, mana shield and mana barrier, could not be cast in tandem. The skeleton sentinel seemed to have no problem shrugging off both physical and magical attacks, meaning its defenses were able to counteract both simultaneously. I wanted something like that. I also wanted better offensive spells. Overall, I just really wanted to upgrade my arsenal.

    I stand up off the ground, rubbing the wrist of my recently reattached hand. The healers had brought me back to peak condition a while ago, but I¡¯ve been sitting here for a bit now just reflecting on the fight. Blair had sprinted over as soon as she heard as I was back. She didn¡¯t care much that I was hurt. She had just dragged away the corpse of the skeleton. She¡¯d at least paused long enough to make sure I wasn¡¯t dying before leaving.

    I walk towards the staircase again and head back down to the fourth floor. What I needed right now wasn¡¯t experience or levels, but a better foundation to build on. I relied on my usually superior stats far too much. In other words, it was time for a hardcore training session.

    <hr>

    You have slain Skeleton Sentinel (Level 25)(Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level. Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss.

    You are now level 21

    Ryker read the notification as he kneeled to catch his breath. It had been quite the hard fought battle against the skeleton sentinel, but it was one that he felt was well worth the risks. Gaining an entire level from one brief fight was very nice, and after talking to each of his four party members, he learned that each of them had also gained a level.

    After Ryker had rested for a moment, he spoke up. ¡°I think that¡¯s enough for one day. We all need some time to recover. Tomorrow we can head down to the sixth. Flynn, I suggest you take that sword and see if you can do anything useful with it.¡±

    ¡°Already on it.¡± The one and only melee fighter of the group responds, picking the large weapon up and swinging it around a few times. The rest of the group takes a few steps back, not wanting to get hit should the sword get swung in their direction by mistake.

    They march back up to the first floor with the bones of the skeleton in tow, having been tied together like a bundle of sticks. Upon exiting the set of stairs, they are greeted by the pop-up city that had sprung up in the two weeks since the start of the tutorial.

    Ryker once more marveled at just what was made possible now that people could lift the weight of trucks and casually run around at the speed of an Olympic athlete. Hundreds of basic buildings had been constructed for people to live in, and dozens of other facilities had been thrown up to improve what little quality of life they had.

    Unfortunately, with large populations of individuals came tons and bureaucracy. There were those who ran things, those who did the manual labor, and like Ryker, those who explored the other floors. Maps had been made for the area surrounding their entrance to each floor by these people, but no end was ever in sight for any of the floors.

    Ryker split off from his group after agreeing to meet with one another the next day. They fought well together, but outside of that they weren¡¯t exactly compatible people. He made his way to the largest building in the city, one where most of the logistics were organized. Inside he found the man he was looking for.

    The man in question notices Ryker a moment later, smiling and turning to him. ¡°So, how was the fifth floor?¡± He asked.

    Ryker described the floor and the monster that it held. He made sure to leave out no detail so that the man could understand exactly what he was sending to people to fight when sending someone to that floor.

    ¡°I see.¡± The man says, rubbing his chin. ¡°Well, it¡¯s a good thing we had you all get to level 20 before fighting it. I¡¯ll make sure we let others know they need to get to that point before entering floor five as well.¡±

    Ryker winced at the reminder. If you wanted to live in the city you needed to follow the rules. The rule that Ryker and many others had liked the least was that you could only go to certain floors after reaching what the town leadership called the ¡°minimum level requirement.¡±

    It was total bullshit, and they knew it. The vast majority of the city seemed to be fine with this rule, as few wanted to go and risk their lives on the lower floors, even if there was much to gain. Those that didn¡¯t mind the risk all hated the rule though. Ryker was among the second group.

    ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t think it would have been too much of an issue for my party to handle if we had only been level 19, or even 18.¡± He says, hoping to at least loosen the requirements a bit for the sake of others.

    ¡°I¡¯ll discuss it with the rest of the council. For now, just continue fighting that boss until you reach level 25. By then you should be prepared for the sixth floor.¡±

    ¡°But-¡± Ryker said, but stopped. It was frustrating being held back by these arbitrary rules, but given that he had family in the massive city he couldn¡¯t just go rogue and continue further down the floors on his own. ¡°Understood.¡± He finally says after a moment.

    As Ryker walks off, he briefly wonders to himself what he would be able to do if only he could let loose and really take a shot at climbing the tower.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    <hr>

    Seven days.

    Seven days is what it took for me to really feel like I was ready to advance to the next floor. That was a long time, half of the total time I have spent within this tutorial. To say it was wasted wouldn¡¯t be true though, as I had gotten a lot done in the time since I had defeated the skeletal sentinel.

    Unfortunately, very little progress had been made in learning to use my trait. I had a feeling that I had managed to awaken it way earlier than most people would, and at my level I could barely utilize its basic functions. I could teleport small objects a short distance, including spells and such, but besides that there wasn¡¯t much I was able to accomplish with it.

    Most of this time had been dedicated to learning to control my mana better and improving the capabilities of my spells. Much of what I had worked on took inspiration from either the skills I¡¯d been offered during skill selection or things I had seen the magical enemies on the lower floor use.

    My first two days of training had been solely dedicated to trying to make a better mana shield. Having it basically ignored by the attacks of the skeleton sentinel had been a wake up call that it was not a very good defense. What the sentinel had, now that was a good defense.

    I was able to use both my mana barrier and mana shield at the same time, protecting me from all kinds of damage, but casting both simultaneously was expensive and very inefficient. After a lot of practice and many failed attempts, I had managed to improve both of them as well as combine them into a result exceeding the sum of its parts.

    Mana Barrier (Uncommon) has been upgraded to Mana Barrier (Rare)

    Mana Shield (Uncommon) has been upgraded to Mana Shield (Rare)

    Skills Mana Barrier and Mana Shield have merged into Arcane Fortification (Epic)

    Arcane Fortification (Epic)

    Create a dense shell of mana to isolate yourself from external forces. Provides defense against both magical and physical attacks. The shell can be adjusted to focus primarily on one type of defense, or can be adjusted to focus equally on both. Gives a small bonus to the Mind and Body stat while casting Arcane Fortification.

    It was the second epic skill in my arsenal. The first was Mana Conversion, though that one was mostly a utility skill. My new spell was one that could be used in combat, and to great effect. The work I had done on each of the skills also afforded me two levels to my class, bringing me up to level 26. It wasn¡¯t as fast a method of leveling as straight up combat was, but being able to grow stronger even while I was trying to build a better foundation was something I was very happy I could do.

    Against the Kobolds on floor 4, nothing on the entire floor could pierce the barrier around me unless I was out of mana. I had even briefly returned to floor five to test if the boss was able to penetrate my defenses.

    It wasn¡¯t, but that was also how I discovered why cars tend to have a crumple zone.

    When the sword hit me at full power, I was sent flying backwards. I¡¯d had no cushioning to pad the impact, which had been extremely jarring as a result. With the wind knocked out of me, I quickly left and returned back to the fifth floor with my confidence in the new skill slightly bruised.

    The second spell I worked on was the exact opposite of the barrier. For both my skill selection at level 5 and my one at level 20, I had been offered the spell Mana Spike as an option for offensive capabilities. It stated that it sacrificed damage potential for pure penetrating power, and given how much I struggled to break through the defenses of the skeleton sentinel it was clear I needed some sort of armor piercing spell.

    Creating the basic spell had actually been pretty easy. I just made a spike of mana fire out of my staff with the pure intention to pierce and not be stopped by anything. Practicing that enough had granted me the spell at common rarity. Refining the spell more and adding the ability to cast it at close range for more damage and a higher cost had brought it to uncommon rarity, exactly as I had done with mana bolt.

    For both Mana Bolt and Mana Spike, the jump to rare rarity was much more difficult than going from common to uncommon. For both of them, it took maybe three hours to upgrade the first time. To get to rarity, I had to dedicate an entire day to each spell. Mana blast had been first, since it was by far my most used spell. I had decided that instead of just upgrading the damage of the skill, I wanted to be able to use it in a more suppressive manner to let me make distance between me and an enemy. Right now the only way I could do that was to hit them with a mana blast and hope they fall over, but that tended to waste a lot of mana.

    After a lot of fiddling with the spell, and a little help from my mana conversion skill, I managed to turn my most used spell into something even better.

    Mana Blast (Uncommon) has been upgraded to Mana Blast (Rare)

    Fire out a bolt of mana, with the strength dependent on mana infused into spell. Alternatively, send out a blast of mana, dealing higher damage at a significantly shorter range and higher cost. Attacks with this spell can be converted into a concussive blast upon impact, dealing little damage but imparting a great amount of force upon the target.

    Basically, I have a shove spell now. It was far more useful than it sounded, as when I hit a kobold with a concussive blast at close range, it flew back several meters. Even a bolt of mana turned into an impact hard enough to knock over the short monsters.

    Mana spike had gone down a different path, focusing entirely on damage.

    Mana Spike (Uncommon) has been upgraded to Mana Splinter (Rare)

    Fire a spike of mana, sacrificing damage for penetrative power. Alternatively, fire a more powerful spike of mana at a closer range for an increased cost. The surface of the mana spike is covered in smaller spike to increase damage done.

    Each one of these upgrades brought me another level, bringing me to level 28. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

    The last skill I wanted to work on was the only one that I was not entirely sure I would be able to create. Back when I first reached level 10, I had been offered a class that was made for somebody who often fought within melee range. If I had known how much that was the case for me, I would have considered it much more seriously than I had.

    What interested me about it was that it was all about using mana to empower one''s body. I enjoyed having a high mind stat, but increasing my pure strength and speed would prove beneficial for just about every situation. Today, after three days of practice and testing, I was ready to really make a big push for the skill I desired. I was in the middle of a completely empty clearing on floor one, not a single sign of danger for miles. I was very unlikely to be disturbed here.

    I close my eyes, focusing on the flow of my mana. Not the flow of casting any spell, but the natural pattern it took as it moved through my body at a constant pace. Instead of the forceful hold I tended to take on my mana, I began slowly ramping it up, encouraging it and convincing it to speed up. I had discovered after many failed attempts that this kind of mana manipulation worked better in this situation.

    The magic in my body began to flow faster and faster, and I could feel my body tighten as the slightest outward pressure presses against my body from the inside. I can already tell it is working, as my body is beginning to feel stronger by the second. Then, everything clicked as the flow of mana reached a point that I knew it would be unwise to surpass. My eyes open, and just like when my trait had awoken, everything takes on a slightly blue hue. I know it isn¡¯t for the same reason as it was back then, but the feeling is still eerily similar.

    Skill gained! Empower (Rare)

    Bolster your body using your mana, increasing your physical capabilities. Depending on the mana invested, grants up to 15% in the body stat. Gives a minor boost to the effectiveness of Mind and Body when being used.

    You are now level 29

    You are now level 30

    Two levels in three days was slow by my current standards, but reaching level thirty did mean one thing.

    Skill Selection available

    Offensive:

    Mana Whip (Rare)

    Concuss (Uncommon)

    Slam (Uncommon)

    Defensive:

    Steadfast (Rare)

    Halt (Rare)

    Dispel (Rare)

    Support:

    Active Regeneration (Rare)

    Passive Regeneration (Rare)

    Accumulate (Epic)

    Deactivating empower, I gave the descriptions of each skill and spell and once over, and most of them seemed pretty basic. The offensive skills all seemed to be duds. Definitely wasn¡¯t picking any of those. Reading the descriptions of the defensive skills, I realized this skill selection likely wouldn¡¯t be as easy as the rest.

    Steadfast (Rare)

    Negate the knockback of any attack, with the cost of this skill depending on the strength of the attack.

    Halt (Rare)

    Halt the momentum of any projectile within your aura. Cost to halt a projectile is dependent upon the size and speed of the target.

    Dispel (Rare)

    Dispel any magical attack for a sum of mana equal to what was spent on casting the spell.

    They all seemed like really good options. Any one of these would be a great addition to what I could do, though unfortunately I could only choose one of them. The worst part of it was that I hadn¡¯t even looked at the newest addition to the support skills. Active and Passive regeneration had been there every time so far, but accumulate was a new one.

    Accumulate (Epic)

    Store excess mana within an extradimensional space contained by your aura. This mana cannot be used to directly cast a spell, but does provide upkeep for all passively draining spells. While others cannot interact with your mana within this space, they can sense it. Slightly increases mana recovery rate.

    Well, all the other choices were pretty much void in my mind. This spell was clearly more than just a way to store some extra mana. I could feel something deep within me calling to it. No, this was a skill that was meant to be the first step to learning how to fully utilize my trait.

    Without hesitation I selected the skill, and immediately I could feel mana leaving my body at the exact same rate I could regenerate it. Slowly, I could feel the immediate area around me begin filling with my mana, though it wasn¡¯t necessarily ¡°there¡± in the sense that it was actually around me.

    I close my eyes and take a deep breath, focusing on activating the only part of my trait I could really use right now. When I open my eyes again, everything around me is bathed in a royal blue color, and I could see the soft glow of my mana accumulating in a bubble all around me. It seemed to extend outwards in a bubble that extended about 5 meters away from me in all directions.

    As I stood there and watched the mana flow from me and into the bubble, the glow grew slightly brighter by the minute. It was clear that this was not going to be reaching capacity any time soon.

    Deactivating my ¡°dimension sight¡± as I decided to call it, I shake my head. I would probably come up with a better name for that eventually, but right now there were more important matters to think about while I wait for my aura to fill fully.

    ¡°I wonder what Hassan¡¯s camp is cooking up for dinner tonight?¡±

 Chapter 15: Chain Floors

    As it turns out, Hassan¡¯s entire camp was treated to stew by the several chefs they had around. It seems that since the worry of that assassin disappeared, people have been much more productive. I was throwing an identify to just about everybody I passed by, curious what the average level had become since I had begun training. Most people I spotted were at least level 5, better than what I had been expecting but also lower than I felt it really should be. Hell, I¡¯d gained well over 5 levels just from working on my skills.

    I found Hassan pretty quickly, and he spotted me as I was approaching.

    ¡°River! Great to see you again.¡± He said, shaking my hand. ¡°What have you been up to recently? I imagine you¡¯ve been tearing through the floors like before.¡±

    ¡°Not quite.¡± I say, shaking my head. ¡°Took a break from that to really focus on trying to improve my spells and such. I am typically alone when clearing floors, so making sure I am ready is pretty important. I have yet to actually visit floor 6 yet.¡±

    Hassan''s eyes widen in surprise. ¡°Really? So you don¡¯t know very much about the floor yet?¡±

    ¡°Haven¡¯t heard anything about it. Has anyone else gone down there yet?¡±

    ¡°Plenty of people have. Only a few from here have, but from what I hear entire parties from the great city have recently begun exploring it.¡±

    ¡°The great city?¡± I ask, not knowing what he is referring to. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯ve been a bit isolated this past week. Think you can catch me up?¡±

    ¡°No problem. The great city is the largest organization of people to crop up since the tutorial started. About 500,000 people live in the city right now, and they all work together to support the whole.¡±

    ¡°How do they even feed that many people?¡± I ask, amazed.

    ¡°Honestly, I have no idea. you don¡¯t need as much food as you level up, but even then it would be an enormous effort to feed even a tenth of that population.¡±

    ¡°Damn. I might have to take a trip there sometime soon and check it out.¡±

    ¡°If you do, I recommend you do so soon.¡± Hassan says.

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°In 16 days, everyone who got a personal rank of D is being ejected from the tutorial.¡±

    The memory of having read that in the initial part of the tutorial comes back to mind. ¡°Oh yeah, I can¡¯t believe I forgot about that. Do you know how many people that is exactly?¡±

    ¡°From collecting data from various settlements and from the great city itself, it accounts for about 80% of everybody in the tutorial.¡±

    That hits me like a ton of bricks. ¡°Hang on, 80% of the entire population is just going to be gone in 16 days?¡±

    ¡°They will.¡± He says. ¡°And in another 30 days, another 80% of what remains will be gone. It¡¯s actually quite interesting, with each subsequent interval taking another 80% of what remains. If you don¡¯t mind me asking, what is your rank?¡±

    ¡°S-¡± I have to cut myself off before I add ¡°plus¡±. Everybody with the S+ rank had agreed to keep that hidden, at least for the time being. I couldn¡¯t just let it be known that there even was an S+ rank. That would be unfair to the others.

    ¡°S?¡± Hassan repeats, looking shocked. ¡°That is way higher than I would have expected. Were you a politician of some kind before the tutorial? A business tycoon or something?¡±

    For this part I can at least be honest. ¡°Uh, no. I was just a pretty good physicist.¡±

    ¡°Still, that is quite impressive. You will be here for quite a while then. I myself only got C tier on my personal evaluation. I will be kicked out in the second wave.¡±

    ¡°At least you will be back to help everyone from the first wave sooner than I will.¡± I say. I hadn¡¯t thought about it much when I¡¯d initially learned about it, but if I was really here for that much longer than everyone else, then a lot will have happened by the time I get back. ¡°Now you got me hoping that there is some way to leave the tutorial early.¡±

    ¡°Maybe there is.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    Hassan nods his head in the general direction of the staircase to the next floor. ¡°Perhaps you can leave early if you reach the end of the tower, however long that may take.¡±

    I look towards the staircase, the motivation to go explore sparking just a bit brighter than before.

    <hr>

    Welcome to floor 6, The Outer walls (Chain)

    The capital of Eridon is the largest and most defended city on the continent. Through it''s many trials and tribulations, it unfortunately fell into the pits of a caste system. All who enter are marked, and their mark indicates their place in society. With better marks comes more privilege.

    Floors 6 to 10 are the first chain floors within the tower. Your actions on chain floors affect the outcomes of events on the following floors, and your actions may carry severe consequences should they not be fully thought through. In the worst of cases, progress in the tower may be brought to a halt entirely.

    Current Marks: Mark of the Peasant (Tier 1)

    Allows one legal entry to the slums of Eridon City.

    Sheesh, no pressure I guess. Looking around, it was clear that the ¡°slums¡± was quite an accurate way to describe where I was. The streets, buildings, and people all seemed to have a thin layer of dirt that hadn¡¯t been cleaned off in a while. The entire area was situated next to an utterly massive wall that had to have stretched hundreds of meters into the sky. The faint glimmer of a magical barrier made it clear that even if one were to clear the wall, they wouldn¡¯t have an easy time advancing any further.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    As I turn my attention back to the immediate area, I see that there isn¡¯t much activity around me. Most everyone present was doing pretty much nothing besides chatting amongst themselves. Overall the energy of the place was pretty low. After a few minutes of walking I spot something that I had really not wanted to see, but probably should have expected sooner or later.

    ¡°Hand it over.¡± A large man shouts, throwing a much smaller man against the side of a building. The wood creaks but manages to hold against the impact. The man who¡¯d been thrown was holding a paper bag that seemed to be filled with... something. I actually didn¡¯t know what it was, but clearly the larger man wanted it.

    ¡°Please, I need to-¡± The victim of this burglary shouts, but he his silenced by a kick to the side from the big man. Before another kick could follow it up, the attacker was prone on the ground, barely conscious after being hit by a concussive mana bolt. I¡¯d needed to hold back quite a bit on it, as when I had scanned the man before launching the attack I had found him to be only level 11. The man with the bag was only level 8, an easy target for anyone who¡¯d evolved.

    I walk over and helped the man to his feet. ¡°You alright?¡±

    ¡°Yes, thank you kind sir.¡± He says, bowing deeply. ¡°I appreciate that you took the time to help.¡±

    I see him glance at my shoulder, though quickly look away. That makes me unconsciously rub my shoulder wondering what about it had drawn his attention, but I quickly realize when I feel a slight bumpy texture that had not been there previously. I roll up the sleeve of my robe and find a pattern embedded in my skin with what looked like a bronze shine. It resembled the roman numeral for one.

    The man also sees this, and visibly relaxes. ¡°Oh, sorry about that. I had thought you were one of the passing salesmen from within the city.¡±

    ¡°No, just someone passing by.¡± I say, realizing that the mark on my arm symbolized the mark of the peasant that was now displayed in my status screen.

    ¡°Well I must say, you are quite well dressed and well kept for someone down here.¡±

    ¡°I try to be.¡± I say, not knowing how to explain that his reality was just a stepping stone for me within a tower beyond his comprehension. I think it would just be best to keep where I came from vague. I tap the slowly recovering thief with my foot. ¡°He come here often?¡±

    The other man grimaces. ¡°Unfortunately yes. Him and all of Jiggun¡¯s men. They think that just because they have a few more levels means they can push us around.¡± He sighs. ¡°Sadly, they are right in that assumption.¡±

    ¡°Do you know where I can find Jiggun?¡± I ask, an idea forming in my head for how I can move on to the next floor.

    ¡°Well I don¡¯t know where he is right now. He tends to not spend too long hanging around one area.¡±

    ¡°Damn.¡± I mutter. Looks like I am going to have to track down this gang leader myself.

    ¡°He could probably tell you though.¡± The man says, pointing to the thief on the ground. I look down at him, taking a moment to think before grinning. The tip of my finger begins to glow and sizzle as I ready up a mana bolt leveled straight at his face.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t mind taking me to your leader, would you?¡±

    And that is how I ended up getting guided through the slums to a fairly remote area. There wasn¡¯t anybody within a few hundred yards of the gang''s hideout, which was more of a thrown together camp. When we arrived, a severely overweight man greeted me. ¡°Welcome! I take it you¡¯d like to join up with us?¡±

    Had I not been accompanied by another member of the gang, he probably wouldn¡¯t have made such a widely incorrect assumption. If this was the gang leader, he clearly wasn¡¯t a dumb one. He seemed to be tipped off by the pure look of fear on the face of my tour guide. He went from sitting to standing within a quarter second, but I didn¡¯t see him as too much of a threat. I turn to my tour guide. ¡°Is that Jiggun?¡±

    The man only has time for one quick nod before the head of the gang leader disappears, a heavily empowered mana bolt having removed it cleanly from the rest of the body.

    You have slain Human (level 20)

    Experience reduced for fighting an enemy of a lower level.

    I¡¯ll admit, it was a little overkill. It was more about sending a message though, one that every single member of the gang seemed to receive loud and clear if the looks on their faces were anything to go by. Just in case they hadn¡¯t gotten the memo, I look around to all of them, raising my voice loud enough so they could all hear it. ¡°I¡¯ll give you all the chance to get the hell out of here. Anyone who even thinks of replacing that man can come and challenge me now.¡±

    Not a single person present decided they wanted to try and avenge their fallen leader. They all ran off in different directions, not seeming to have a goal other than to get away from me. The only person who didn¡¯t run was the thug who had brought me here. He was still too terrified to move. After I wave him away, he too takes off running.

    Mark upgraded, Slum Lord (Tier 2)

    Allows legal access to the outermost portion of the city.

    I don¡¯t know how exactly I should feel about that new name for my mark, but it did what I needed it to do. A quick glance at my shoulder brought relief and peace of mind. My symbol had become a roman numeral two instead of something else that may potentially represent my new role as a Slum Lord.

    Making my way to the wall surrounding the city, I find a gate not too far away from where I¡¯d initially reached the wall. The guards allowed me to pass through with little trouble, and just like that I had made it within the city proper.

    Welcome to floor 7, Eridon Outskirts (Chain)

    Welcome to the outskirts of Eridon City, where 80% of the cities population resides. Most people stay within this ring of the city their entire life, though a few manage to climb to the higher echelons of society and journey within the inner walls of the city.

    I look around, getting a lay of the land. Once more there was an absolutely massive wall that blocked off where I needed to get to next. This one wasn¡¯t quite as tall, but the dome of mana over it shined even brighter, probably because it was far harder to penetrate.

    I had only gotten a small taste of the slums before coming into the city. From what I could gather, the slums wrapped around the entire outer wall of the city. I had seen not even a fraction of that before gaining a tier two mark and gaining entry to the city.

    I had gotten kind of lucky finding a way in so quickly, because the next six hours of searching were spent wandering the city in hopes of finding something that looked at all like it could be a possible avenue to continue. Eventually I found my lucky break in the form of an advertisement. It mentioned something about a free for all event out at the colosseum, which I hadn¡¯t even known existed until seeing the advertisement. Sure enough, it existed. I hadn¡¯t been able to see it because of the massive wall that essentially made the entire ring into a large donut that you couldn¡¯t see the other side of.

    I got a bit more information on the tournament upon arriving. Sadly, It wouldn¡¯t be starting until sunset. That meant I had a few hours to kill until it was time for the event, which meant that I would most likely find a nice tavern to sit in while practicing weaving with my mana or any number of control exercises.

    I was stopped in my tracks when I noticed a group of people by the arena who also seemed to be waiting for it to begin. Seeing another group that was preparing to fight wasn¡¯t unusual, but what really caught my attention was the equipment they carried around with them. The two mages on the team both had the robes and staff of the kobold shaman, with the sole archer on the team having the bow from the kobold archer slung over his back. The healer on the team wore some nice looking robes, though I couldn¡¯t place exactly where they came from. The melee fighter of the group, a young looking man, wielded a shield in one hand and a modified version of the skeleton sentinels sword in the other. It had been made shorter and a bit thinner.

    These people were not from this floor. They were people who had entered the tutorial, just like I had, and by the looks of it they have been here at least a bit longer than I have.

    The archer of the group glances my direction, doing a double take when she realizes the robes I am wearing match that of the two mages in her party. She points me out to her group, and they all see me staring stupidly in their direction. One of the mages waves me over, and I approach them. The brief thought that I may somehow mess up their run-through of these chain floors passes through my mind, but I quickly suppress the thought. Surely nothing like that would happen, right?

 Chapter 16: Concussive Blasts Galore

    ¡°So, how long ago did you get to this floor?¡± The mage who had first waved me over asks as I approach the group of five.

    ¡°About seven hours ago.¡± I say. ¡°I haven¡¯t really been here too long.¡±

    ¡°Just seven hours? How long did it take you to get out of the slums?¡±

    ¡°Not even an hour. I took out some local crime leader and scared off his underlings. I got my next mark right after that. What¡¯d you guys do for yours?¡±

    The mage laughs, patting the fighter in the group on the back. ¡°Flynn here sparred with one of the gate guards to prove we were worthy of entrance. It worked pretty well. We weren¡¯t even in the slums for 20 minutes.¡±

    ¡°Impressive. Did you try it with the guards to the next section of the city as well?¡±

    ¡°We didn¡¯t dare to.¡± Flynn says, shaking his head. ¡°They are each level 40, and it would be very stupid to think I could take one of them on.¡±

    ¡°No kidding.¡± I say, identifying each member of the group. They were all exactly level 25. When I was level 25 I wouldn¡¯t have had any confidence facing down a level 40 opponent. Maybe I would now, but only if it was necessary. ¡°Is this your plan for getting the next mark?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡± The mage cuts in. ¡°Hopefully we put on a good enough show to be allowed entry to the fighting arena within the next ring of the city. We¡¯d probably be fodder there, but it shouldn¡¯t be too bad dealing with whoever tries to come after us in here.¡±

    ¡°Well from the looks of it, you are also gonna have to deal with me in there.¡± I stick out my hand. ¡°I¡¯m River, nice to meet you.¡±

    ¡°Ryker.¡± The mage says, shaking my hand. ¡°And I am sure the five of us could handle you.¡±

    ¡°You wanna make a bet on it?¡±

    ¡°Confident much?¡± The archer asks, her face clearly showing how unamused she was. Ryker at least laughed, though I hadn¡¯t meant it as a joke.

    ¡°I¡¯m serious.¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯d wager I can at least fight on equal grounds against the five of you.¡±

    Okay, that definitely came across as over confident. Arrogant even. I couldn¡¯t help myself. This was the first opportunity I¡¯d ever had to truly compare myself to others who were at a similar level to myself. Sure they were five levels lower, but there were also five of them. Put together they had 95 levels on me. That wasn¡¯t really saying much, as I¡¯m sure anybody 95 levels higher than myself could kill a hundred of me, but that wasn¡¯t the point.

    ¡°What exactly would you wager?¡± Ryker asks.

    ¡°Well it isn¡¯t unreasonable to assume the winner of this tournament gets their mark upgraded, so whoever wins our little sparring session wins the mark upgrade.¡±

    ¡°Sounds fun.¡± Ryker says, and at the exact same time Flynn speaks.

    ¡°Seems like a waste of time.¡±

    ¡°Oh don¡¯t be like that.¡± Ryker says, elbowing Flynn. ¡°You worried we might lose?¡±

    The healer of the group finally speaks up for the first time. He seems to have identify as well, as he knew my level. ¡°He is five levels higher than us, and from the looks of it wasn¡¯t traveling with anybody. He must have something to back up that confidence.¡±

    The entire rest of the group seems to contemplate that for a moment, and the archer speaks up again. ¡°Have you been traveling through the floors alone?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± I say, shrugging. ¡°It¡¯s better for levels that way.¡±

    ¡°Sounds boring being alone for so long.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not too bad. I¡¯d rather it be like this than have allies to worry about during a fight.¡±

    ¡°So you fought that skeleton sentinel on your own as well?¡± Ryker asks, looking like he didn¡¯t quite believe it could be true.

    ¡°Yes I did.¡±

    He looks conflicted for a moment, not sure if he should take my word for it. After a moment, he seems to come to a conclusion. ¡°I guess we will just have to wait and see if you live up to that story during this tournament.¡±

    <hr>

    After the sun had set and night had fallen, the arena stands were full of spectators who all seemed eager to watch the fights play out. I was honestly pretty interested myself to see them. The rules of the tournament had been explained to all 50 of the participants at the start. Every 90 seconds somebody would be released into the arena, with the order being completely randomized. Someone would be sent out right away if there was only one person left in the arena, leaving very little time for recovery. Non-lethal attacks only were allowed, so you were eliminated when you were either thrown out of the main arena or deemed too injured to continue. Nobody knew the order of who would go out, so we were all waiting for our names to be called.

    ¡°First; Commoner Granet!¡± The announcer called with a booming voice. Somebody nearby walked out into the arena, stepping into the elevated ring on the floor that represented the main fighting area. The floor was made of packed dirt, making for solid enough ground to run around on. ¡°And joining him in the ring; Slum Lord River!¡±

    I was more upset about my title being called out than the fact that I had been thrown into the fray early. I inspected the man, finding him to be only level 13. He runs towards me with a sword in hand, and I dodge to the side before shoving him hard enough to send him stumbling out of the arena. There weren¡¯t any cheers coming from the crowd, and I realized I might have to put on a bit more of a show.

    When the next individual came out, also a commoner, I did a poorly remembered martial arts move from some karate movie I remember seeing years ago. It was poorly executed, and would not have worked if he had been a similar strength. Thankfully he wasn¡¯t, and his entire body flipped as he was sent into the ground. I picked up him and over head tossed him out of the arena after that, getting a few more cheers than last time.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    The next several opponents are subject to my experimentation. I try various flashy yet ineffective moves in an attempt to get the crowd engaged in the fight, and steadily they seemed to be getting more and more into it. My reign of terror was brought to an end when the next name was called.

    ¡°Next into the arena; Brawler Flynn!¡±

    Flynn stepped out and onto the arena. I look at him, speaking just barely loud enough for him to hear but soft enough that nobody else heard it.

    ¡°Fake a half decent fight for now. We can get serious when everyone else shows up.¡±

    He nods, and we start exchanging blows with one another. He swings his sword at half strength and I either knock it away or block it with my arm, my mana shield absorbing the impact. Anytime somebody climbed their way into the arena, they were quickly thrown out by either me or Flynn.

    ¡°Next up, Commoner Jen!¡±

    The other mage from the party enters the ring, and she joins the fake spar. I assume she got the commoner title due to getting in on association with Flynn. When Ryker got into the arena soon after, he too was announced with the commoner title.

    Before any more of the party members came out, a new name was announced that wasn¡¯t part of the group.

    ¡°And at long last, our champion of the night enters the arena and is ready to take out the opposition! Welcome Brine the Breaker!¡±

    I glance at the man briefly, identifying him.

    Human (level 27)

    Looks like this guy is supposed to be the main opposition for this tournament. Ryker gives me a look, and I nod.

    My staff swings around in front of me and points to the man, delivering a concussive blast of mana directly to his chest. It doesn¡¯t quite send him back far enough to knock him out of the arena, but the second cast of the spell does.

    Just like that, the reigning champion had been eliminated.

    Once the only remaining competitors in the arena were me and the five party members I had entered with. We all stared each other down. They tried their best to surround me, and with how many of them there were I couldn¡¯t do much to stop it.

    I activated empower at full burn, and I could feel it eating away at the mana stored within my aura. A small dagger of mana appears in my offhand, and without hesitation I threw it towards the healer of the group. He steps to the side to avoid it, but once it is as close as it is going to get, I release all the mana within the dagger into a blast of pure force. It sends the healer stumbling, leaving him off balance enough for me to sprint in his direction.

    Flynn met me halfway, raising his sword between us to try and keep me at bay. The entire time I was running, spells and arrows impacted my shield, draining mana with every single attack.

    I step in close, pushing the tip of the sword as far to my left as I can. Flynn tries to take a few steps back to keep me from getting too close, but I am already past the tip of the sword. Anything attacks he tries to get off will be far more difficult to execute.

    My palm slams into his stomach as he flies back from the blast of mana. I can hear the air leave his lungs as he flies, and I raise my staff to fire a concussive mana bolt at him mid air. That only added to his momentum, and he had no way to make it back to the arena before landing. He landed on his feet, looking like he hadn¡¯t taken very much damage, but dealing substantial damage wasn¡¯t the goal of this particular fight.

    Before he had even landed, Van the healer had joined him in the air, his trajectory destined to fall out of the arena.

    I turned around, and I could see that my remaining three opponents were all trying to huddle up in the middle of the arena. Clearly they realized that being anywhere remotely near the edge of the arena was a bad idea.

    I danced around the edge of the arena, avoiding the spells and arrows flying my way. I sent a few bolts of mana towards the group, but a shimmering barrier of mana appeared in front of them to block each attack. It seems that Ryker or Jen had some kind of barrier spell to defend a group instead of a single person.

    I began running towards them, taking the attacks to the face and praying that none of them would be powerful enough to pierce my mana shield. When I got close enough for it to be a viable option, I used mana spike to slam an attack through the barrier. It weakened considerably as it pierced the defense, but it got the job done and managed to cut into the shoulder of the Archer, Jade. She stopped shooting arrows just long enough to grab the injury, which gave me enough time to send several more spikes of mana straight through the barrier and into all three of the group.

    I was forced to dodge around every time I saw a skill or particularly powerful spell being used. The two mages seemed to have a weaker version of my mana spike, and the archer had a skill that allowed her to shoot some of her arrows with quite a bit more power.

    I summoned myself a spiked maul, slamming it repeatedly on the barrier of mana. I could see Ryker straining with each hit, and it wasn¡¯t hard to figure out this was his spell. If I could drain his mana enough to force him to drop the barrier, this fight should end pretty quickly.

    At that exact moment, I could feel that I had used about half of the mana stored within my aura. It was supporting the drain of my shield, keeping the maul together, and keeping my empower skill running. With all these skills active, it was burning its reserves fast.

    I send a few blasts of mana into the barrier, my only goal being to break it down. Soon enough, the first crack appeared, and the next hit shattered the entire thing. Ryker stopped throwing out spells, as he had clearly run out of mana. With a few casts of concussive mana blasts, I had sent Ryker, Jade, and Jen flying towards the outside of the arena.

    To my surprise, one of them manages to stay within the arena. Jade had used some kind of skill that redirected her momentum downwards, allowing her to stay within the bounds of the arena. She tried to run around and shoot arrows for a while, but the absolute hail of concussive mana bolts I sent her way eventually forced her out of the ring.

    ¡°We have our winner!¡± The announcer shouts, and cheers erupt all around the arena. A very well dressed man approached the ring, jumping up and walking towards me. He held a pillow in his hands, on which rested a very nice looking ring.

    ¡°Your reward.¡± The man says, bowing his head very slightly.

    I take the ring and identify it.

    Spatial Ring (Uncommon)

    Allows the wearer to store items of Uncommon or lower rarity within the ring. The maximum storage capacity of this ring is determined by the wearer''s Spirit stat.

    I slip the ring onto my finger, admiring it for a moment. Not having to carry all my shit around all the time sounded extremely convenient. I store my staff in the ring, glad to not need to always carry that everywhere I go.

    The announcer says a few more things, but I ignore them when I start to get an odd feeling in my aura. I can¡¯t quite place it, but when I activate my dimension sight briefly I see the source of the feeling.

    A faint outline of my staff is hovering around me. So, it was stored within my aura, at least partially. That¡¯s why the rings capacity was reliant on my spirit stat. Does that mean I could just...

    I pull the outline of the staff towards myself using my mana, and it moves towards me. I reach out to grab it, and I feel a chunk of my mana disappear from my aura as the staff appears back in my hand, having been retrieved not with the ring but having been brought right back from the dimensional space thanks to me having a half decent grasp of my trait.

    ¡°Right River?¡± Ryker asks, snapping me back to reality. I hadn¡¯t been paying enough attention to know what was being discussed, so I took a leap of faith and decided to trust whatever he had been saying.

    ¡°Yes.¡± I say, putting on a fake smile.

    ¡°Great!¡± The announcer shouts. ¡°Then it is decided. You six will participate in the inner ring tournament tomorrow night!¡±

    The marks on the shoulders of the party members I fought changed to a roman numeral three, and I could feel my own do the same.

    Mark upgraded, Slum Highlander (Tier 3)

    Floor 7 completed!

    Welcome to floor 8!

    Blind faith has once more led me true. Unfortunately, my faith that I would get a better name for my mark has failed me.

 Chapter 17: Dabbling in Enchanting

    I decided to head back to the first floor to kill time before the tournament began. I agreed to meet the others at the arena within the inner ring 2 hours prior to the start of the event, so I had until then to do whatever I wanted.

    The outpost has changed a lot since I last really explored it. There were actual buildings all over the place now, and each one seemed to be serving some specific purpose. After asking for some directions, I ended up at my destination.

    The building I was at could more or less be described as a shed with a forge attached to it. It was basically just a place for weapons and armor to be made. I could see crafters all around it, with some focusing on leatherworking and others on forming metal into weapons, but the person I was looking for specifically stood directly in the center of the organized chaos.

    Blair notices me walking towards her and speed walks to meet me in the middle. ¡°Hey! Have you found any more rare materials?¡±

    ¡°Hi, nice to see you too.¡± I say, though I wasn¡¯t really upset that she was skipping straight to the point. ¡°No, I haven¡¯t. There hasn¡¯t been much opportunity for that on these past few floors. There probably won¡¯t be until I reach floor 11.¡±

    ¡°Well then what are you here for?¡±

    ¡°I believe you owe me a piece of equipment.¡± I say. ¡°Preferably one made from the bones of a particular skeleton.¡±

    She rolls her eyes. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve had it ready for about a day now. You just never came to pick it up.¡± She walks into the storage room by the forge, coming out a moment later holding a long dagger. It was pretty clearly made of bone, and I identified it before she even handed it to me.

    Enchanted Bone Dagger (Rare)

    A dagger crafted from the bones of a fallen skeleton sentinel. It has been enchanted to become sharper and more durable when infused with mana.

    ¡°Not bad.¡± I say, inspecting the dagger. I infuse some mana into it to sharpen it, and rake it across my arm. Blair looks like she¡¯s about to say something, but stops when my mana shield flickers and negates any damage the dagger would have done. It¡¯s not a perfect test, but the amount of mana drained by the slash let me know that this would be a fairly useful weapon.

    ¡°Thanks. It was pretty easy to make after I practiced the enchantments a few times. Just don¡¯t go infusing too much mana into it, because while they are good, they aren¡¯t perfect.¡±

    I raise an eyebrow questioningly. ¡°How much mana is too much?¡±

    ¡°Well, if it starts shaking then you¡¯ve probably put too much in it. Best to throw it before it turns into bone shrapnel.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡± I say, storing the dagger away in my ring. At least, I tried to. I mentally slap myself when I remember that it could only store common and uncommon rarity items. It did still light up briefly in an attempt to work, but it was a lost cause.

    Blairs eyes immediately lock onto the ring, and I see what looks like a ring of mana appear in her iris. An improved inspection skill perhaps? Either way, something about the item got her excited.

    ¡°I need one.¡± She says, pointing to the ring.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I need one. Bring me one of those and I¡¯ll make something else for you.¡±

    ¡°Why do you need one so badly?¡±

    ¡°That looks like a very useful enchantment on it. I would love to use that on some of my creations.¡±

    I am starting to get a little uncomfortable at how she''s looking at the ring, and I cover it with my other hand. She frowns, but I speak before she can start complaining.

    ¡°Tell you what, let''s make a deal. If you teach me the enchantment within this ring, I will give it to you.¡±

    ¡°Deal!¡± She says, not hesitating for even a moment.

    I take the ring off and hand it to her, and I watch as she spends the next several minutes inspecting the enchantment within it. After seeming to have a basic grasp of it, she begins tracing her finger through the air. A trail of mana is left in its path, and soon she has the enchantment drawn out in the air. She keeps her finger on the edge of it to keep it from destabilizing and dispersing.

    ¡°So how much about this do you want to know?¡± She asks, before shaking her head. ¡°Actually scratch that, just tell me what you want to use it for. We can go from there.¡±

    ¡°I want to learn how to send stuff to wherever it is that the ring sends stuff.¡±

    She nods along, thinking to herself. ¡°Well first of all, the ring appears to send stuff to some extradimensional space attached to whoever wears it.¡± She points to a part of the enchantment, with that part now glowing slightly brighter. ¡°That right there is what does that.¡± Another part of it begins glowing brightly. ¡°That is to retrieve whatever you send.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not going to need that part.¡± I say, shaking my head. I could already retrieve things from my aura without needing the ring thanks to my dimension sight. Sending things there was the only problem I really had.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Whatever. Anyways, if all you want to do is send things there, you should only need this portion of the enchantment.¡±

    She redraws the enchantment mid air, the original copy of it disappearing. It is now a fair bit simpler, with the pattern much easier to understand. I still couldn¡¯t tell you why it worked, or even how this sent things into a higher dimension, but apparently that is what it did.

    ¡°Try tracing that out.¡± She says. I do as I am told, glancing back at the original pattern she drew to copy each line as best I could. My mana control was fairly decent, so it wasn¡¯t too much trouble to get done. She continues once she sees that it is done. ¡°Now infuse more mana into it, with the intent to store away something.¡±

    ¡°Is intent alone enough for it to know what I want to store?¡±

    She nods. ¡°Mana works off of your will and intent. For small things like picking a target for a spell or enchantment, your intent is enough.¡±

    I focus on the dagger she had given me, infusing mana into the enchantment and trying to store it away. The enchantment glows for a moment, but fizzles away a moment later.

    ¡°Hmmm.¡± Blair hums. ¡°Maybe I messed it up a bit. Modifying enchantments can be a real pain sometimes.¡±

    We spend the next several hours trying to get a working version of the enchantment. She tweaks little bits at a time, slowly bringing it closer and closer to functional. Once she actually gets it working and the knife can be stored away, she drills me on it until I have it fully memorized. She didn¡¯t want to have to give me a refresher if I ever forgot it.

    Once she was satisfied that I had it committed to memory, she sent me off so she could get back to trying to study and improve the original enchantment. I was fine with that, because now that I had the enchantment down I had something I wanted to try out.

    I knew that the mana flowing within my body followed a set pattern. It was similar to my circulatory system, having branching paths that ensured mana could reach every part of my body. Given that the bounds of the pathways weren¡¯t physical like with my veins and arteries, I didn¡¯t see much of a reason why I wouldn¡¯t be able to change it.

    It took me almost three hours of focus and attention, but eventually I had accomplished my goal. Within my right forearm, I had altered the flow of mana to mimic the enchantment exactly. It had been both easier and more difficult than I¡¯d expected, proving to be a fairly interesting challenge. I would have put it on my hand, but I still wanted to be able to cast spells out of it without accidentally storing away whatever I was holding.

    After retrieving my new dagger from my aura, I infused some extra mana into my forearm to activate the enchantment. I smile creeps onto my face when it works, and the dagger once more disappears. I now had spatial storage, and didn¡¯t need to rely on the ring. The materials the ring had been made of had actually been what held me back from storing anything of a higher rarity than uncommon, as according to Blair enchantments worked better when placed on more mana conductive materials. As it turns out own mana pathways were conductive enough to store at least a rare item.

    I still had almost half a day to burn, so I decided to take a trip back to floor five. If I was going to be fighting in a tournament, I might as well get in some combat practice. Really I just wanted to get in some practice using my spells and skills against something that wouldn¡¯t be killed too quickly by them. Every time I beat the boss I stored away the sword it dropped and the bones it left behind. Accounting for recovery time between fights and the fact that it just took so damn long to wear away at its defenses, I was able to kill the boss once every hour or so.

    I hadn¡¯t been expecting to get any levels from all this, as I was only killing enemies of a lower level than myself, but I was pleasantly surprised with two levels, bringing me to level 32. My best guess as to why was that it was a combination of it being a boss monster, as well as me just generally getting better at using my skills.

    With an hour left until I needed to meet up with the others, I dropped off all of the bones I had collected to Blair, who had looked she she was about to start drooling when she saw the sheer amount of materials I brought in. Personally I was just happy to get them out of my storage, as they had nearly filled it up. I might need to switch my Spirit stats focus to aura, as I was starting to think my trait would benefit more from that than focusing on perception.

    I made my way back to the seventh floor, now the eighth once I entered the inner walls. The inner part of the city wasn¡¯t very different from the outer ring. The buildings were a little nicer, the people a bit better dressed, and everyone¡¯s level were generally higher. The average here seemed to hang around 17 or 18 as opposed to the 10 in the outer city.

    Finding the arena in this part of the city, I came to realize it was far larger. It must have been made for higher level fights where people needed more room to fight. Throwing people out of the ring would probably be a much less viable option this time around.

    ¡°Glad to see you made it.¡± Ryker says once I meet up with the group. ¡°I had to admit, I was a bit worried you wouldn¡¯t show up.¡±

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Just thought maybe you¡¯d found a way to upgrade your mark without having to come here.¡±

    ¡°Well if I do find an easier way I¡¯ll let you know. There are probably a lot of easier ways than this, but personally I don¡¯t mind fighting my way to the top for it.¡±

    ¡°You say that, but with the way things are looking we are probably going to be outmatched by the time we get to the ninth floor.¡±

    ¡°Have a little faith.¡± I say, nudging him. ¡°Training can take you a long way. Speaking of which, I assume you all were doing just that while waiting for this?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡± Flynn says. ¡°Trained against one another in one on one fights, except for Van, he healed us between fights.¡± He points to the healer of the group.

    ¡°Sounds productive. I was just training against the boss on floor five, practicing all my spells.¡±

    Ryker shakes his head when he hears that. ¡°I still can¡¯t understand how you take that thing down on your own.¡±

    ¡°First time was pure luck, and since then I have upgraded most of my spells far past what they were at.¡±

    ¡°That makes some sense, but you make upgrading spells sound so easy. I¡¯ve been having a tough time with it, and only have two spells that are rare rarity.¡±

    ¡°Practice makes perfect. I have a bit of a knack for mana control, but I also practice it whenever I get the chance. Hell, that¡¯s the whole reason I am able to do this.¡± I summon my staff into my hand, dismissing it back to my spatial storage quickly after.

    Nobody seems particularly impressed by it, until Jade the archer notices what was different about it. ¡°You figured out how to do it without the ring?¡± She says, having seen that I wasn¡¯t wearing it.

    ¡°Yep. Got the help of someone back at my camp to figure it out.¡±

    ¡°You are just full of surprises.¡± Ryker says. ¡°I may have to ask for some pointers sometime.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d be happy to help-¡± I say, stopping when I remember something. ¡°Shit.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±

    ¡°I have some people I was supposed to be training, and I completely forgot about them. I gave them a short lesson over a week ago, but aside from that I¡¯ve done pretty much nothing.¡±

    ¡°Maybe you wouldn¡¯t be a great teacher after all.¡± Ryker jokes. ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯d appreciate guidance through this set of floors at least, assuming they¡¯ve made it by the time you are done.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure at least some of them will have.¡± I sigh. ¡°Whatever. I can deal with it once we finish up these next couple of floors. For now, let''s discuss how we are going to handle this tournament.¡±

 Chapter 18: Tournament Start

    The rules of this tournament were a little different than the last one we¡¯d participated in. It was not an individual tournament like the last one had been. Instead, this time around everyone was grouped off into teams of three. It would be an elimination style event where two teams would fight at a time, with the losers being knocked out of the fight.

    The arena was very, very large. Upon walking into the front gates, it became apparent that there was some kind of spatial expansion going on, as the inside was larger than the already sizable exterior should be able to accommodate. I could feel a faint buzz in the air from the sheer amount of enchantments that were placed on every surface.

    The organizers explained everything to us before the fights began. Lethal attacks were allowed, and the enchantments all around the arena would heal us should we receive such a blow and teleport us out of the fight. This would give us the chance to really see what everybody was capable of.

    In total, there were eight teams participating in the tournament, totaling to 24 fighters. The average level was about 27, and the highest level out of anybody participating was 34, two levels higher than myself.

    It took a bit of discussion to figure out how we would split up our group of six. After a while though, we came to a decision. Flynn, Van, and Jen, the other mage of the group. It made for a good mix of ranged and melee options, with Jen having defensive spells to protect the group and Van having healing spells to support them. Flynn would likely be the main damage dealer of the group, but given that out of the six of us he was the second highest level, it shouldn¡¯t be too much of a problem.

    That left me, Ryker, and Jade to work together. I¡¯d be the one in close range, with Jade and Ryker picking off enemies from afar. Between my mana shield and my empower skill, I was definitely the toughest of us three making me the go to damage sponge.

    The brackets were announced shortly before the first fight. Luckily our two teams were on opposite sides, meaning the only way we would face off against each other would be if we both made it to the finals.

    The first fight began, and Flynn¡¯s group was in it.

    The fight began pretty slow, with both sides just testing the other to see what their deal was. The other team was made up of a swordsmen, mage, and monk. Flynn was pretty hard pressed to deal with two close range fighters at once, but Van did his best to keep him on his feet while Jen battled against the mage.

    Eventually the fight ended with Flynn and his team winning once the enemy''s mage had gone down. With both Flynn and Jen focusing their attacks on the monk, he¡¯d gone down too quickly for the swordsman to assist.

    The next fight was one I was very interested in. I¡¯d been identifying every fighter I had managed to spot, and this time I managed to catch a glimpse of the highest leveled fighter in the tournament, as well as her teammates.

    Human (Level 34)

    Human (Level 26)

    Human (Level 27)

    The woman in charge of the team was quite obviously a melee fighter. She wielded a spear and wore full metal armor. Flynn would likely be hard pressed to stand against her on even footing.

    I paid pretty close attention to this fight. I wanted to get as accurate of a judgment of what we were up against as possible. Unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t able to get a very good read on the fighters, as the bout lasted not even a full minute. In that short amount of time, the spear wielding woman had eliminated the entirety of the other team with basically no intervention from her group members. Her spear had moved as fast as the wind, skewering each opponent it hit.

    Turning my head to see what everyone else thought of this, I could see the looks of nervousness creep onto the faces of Flynn, Jen, and Van.

    ¡°You nervous?¡± I ask, already knowing the answer.

    ¡°To go against that?¡± Van retorts. ¡°No, I¡¯m terrified. I¡¯m just glad this arena won¡¯t let us die.¡±

    ¡°That also means we are going to have to live with the memory of getting a spear through the face.¡± Jen says, grimacing.

    ¡°Trust me, you will probably experience much worse than that later down the line if you continue fighting as your source of levels.¡± I say, remembering when I¡¯d had my hand cut off by the skeleton sentinel.

    ¡°Let¡¯s just get our heads in the game.¡± Flynn says. ¡°You guys are up next right? Better get down there and get ready for your fight.¡±

    My team heads down to the main arena, standing near the gates as we wait for the announcers of the event to call us out. When he does, we walk out into the arena proper, and I can¡¯t help but feel a little nervous. Not about the fact that we¡¯d be fighting against another, likely equally skilled team, but that there were seemingly thousands of people watching. Apparently spectating violent battles was a popular pastime within the capital. I inspected each of our opponents to help calm my nerves.

    Human (level 29)

    Human(level 29)

    Human(Level 30)

    Not too bad. Both Ryker and Jade were level 29, so at the very least I could trust that they would pull their weight against this group. As we readied ourselves to fight, I briefly wondered how much of my capabilities should I reveal. I barely knew anything about the team with the spear wielder, meaning if we showed off too much then they would have the advantage of information.

    After a bit of thinking, I realized that I didn¡¯t really care if they knew what I could do. I had my doubts that they could come up with a perfect counter to my spells in the short time between now and when we fought. Besides, if it was really necessary I always had my trait to catch them by surprise. I¡¯d managed to practice with it a bit more in my brief training period, and had lowered the cost of casting my spells at a distance by a small amount. Not enough to make it a super reliable strategy, but enough to make it an option worth considering.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    The enemy team was the first to make a move, splitting up to try and get us surrounded. They were a group made up entirely of melee combatants, so they likely wanted to give our ranged fighters no route of escape. Actually, they probably thought I wanted to keep my distance too, as my robes and staff definitely had me pegged as a mage. I saw no reason to not play into that misconception, and began casting mana bolts in their direction. Ryker did the same, and Jade shot arrows towards them.

    Soon enough, we had them surrounding us. They began closing in, and that¡¯s when I saw my opportunity to strike. I broke off from my team and began running towards the closest fighter. He seemed surprised by my sudden change in tactics, but didn¡¯t see me as a big enough threat to worry about. In his eyes I was moving into a position that would give me a disadvantage.

    By the time I was close to him, I had already summoned my new bone dagger into my hand, and was infusing it with my mana to sharpen it. I blocked one swing of the warrior''s sword before taking a swipe at him with the dagger. It didn¡¯t cut through his leather armor all the way, but it did make a deep gouge across the chest piece. That had apparently caught him off guard, as he hadn¡¯t been expecting the attack to do very much.

    He redoubles his efforts, his sword taking on a faint glow as he swings it even faster for the next few attacks. My mana shield takes the brunt of a few well hits, but my dagger manages to leave several gashes in his flesh where the enhanced sharpness ripped right through his armor.

    By the time he realized he was in too much trouble to handle on his own, it was too late. His teammates had tried to come to his aid, but Ryker and Jade had them distracted enough to prevent them from coming to save their ally. With one final strike, my dagger sunk right into the heart of the warrior. It didn¡¯t kill him instantly, so I channeled a mana blast through the tip of the dagger, using up all the mana I¡¯d unfused into the weapon to cast the devastating spell.

    The warrior disappears in a flash of light, and out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of light in the stands where he had reappeared, fully healed. I turn to the fighter targeting Jade, turning my attention to him next.

    The fight didn¡¯t last much longer. With the battle having become a three on two, the enemy team had very little hope of salvaging the fight. They¡¯d at least been smart enough to realize that they needed to group up with one another, but by that point they were already heavily damaged and on the backfoot. Me, Ryker, and Jade all walked out of the arena shortly after the battle ended, with none of us having taken any meaningful damage.

    The last fight of the first round had been the closest of all four, and ended in a one on one after each team had lost two members. The archer on the team I¡¯d silently been rooting for managed to land a shot directly to his opponents heart, winning the fight in the end.

    The next fight was the first one of the semifinals, and one that I genuinely had no idea what the outcome would be. Flynn¡¯s team versus the team of the spear wielding fighter. She had the advantage of levels, but Flynn and the others had the advantage of a more well rounded team.

    The fight began much more energetically than pretty much all the others had. Flynn didn¡¯t want to give his opponents even a moment to pull any weird tricks. Jen backed him up with bolts of what looked like fire while Van casted some kind of spell on Flynn that made him glow.

    The other three all moved quickly, not taking this fight as lightly as they¡¯d taken the rest. The spear wielding woman rushed in and met Flynn halfway, using the longer reach of her spear to slam the tip into his shoulder. Flynn glowed even brighter for a moment, and I saw Van wince. His mana was likely dedicated to keeping that shield active due to him not having any offensive spells.

    Flynn closed the distance the rest of the way, swinging his sword at the woman with great speed and power. She used the shaft of her spear to block a few of the hits, though she did take some small cuts here and there.

    The two of them exchanged blows as the two other members of the woman''s team moved to deal with Van and Jen. They were both mages, and I only had to see their first spells to tell that they weren¡¯t very good ones. Even for their levels, the mana bolts they threw out weren¡¯t particularly strong. Why would the highest leveled participant of this event be teamed up with people like that?

    With Vans help, Jen managed to take out one of the mages with a series of fire balls. They were stronger than what she¡¯d been using before, and likely a good bit more expensive too. The spear wielding woman noticed this and grimaced. In a flash of motion, she stepped in and crouched low, using her leg to sweep Flynn¡¯s feet out from under him. Anticipating a spear being stabbed into his head or chest, the man rolled away in anticipation.

    I shook my head as I saw that. I probably would have done the same thing in his position, but it had been an inaccurate prediction. Instead, the woman threw the spear with precision far greater than anyone could have expected, and with little resistance it stabbed into Jens neck, sending her to the ground. Flynn recovered and got to his feet, but not before she had already retrieved her weapon.

    Running up to the other mage, Flynn sliced his head clean from his shoulder as the unprepared enemy got too close. He tried to run closer to Van as the healer retreated, but the spear soon found a place between his eyes as he too was taken out, leaving just Flynn and the woman in the arena together.

    They stared at one another for a moment before Flynn once more ran towards her. The next series of exchanged blows came so quickly that I still needed to lean in and really focus to tell what was happening. Most people present only saw a blur of motion, their stats too low to track the weapons moving at such high speeds. The only thing that was clearly visible were the several splatters of blood that came out of the fight as an attack would hit somewhere important.

    30 seconds after the flurry of attacks began, it ended. The woman''s body had several cuts all across her arms and legs, but only one strike had managed to hit her stomach and it had been a shallow cut at best. Flynn on the other hand had holes all across his body where the spear had landed. He¡¯d managed to avoid getting hit in the head or neck, which was all that had kept him in the fight this long. As he collapsed to the ground and disappeared in a flash of light, the crowd began cheering and clapping.

    ¡°And our winner is the spear queen!¡± The announcer shouts. ¡°I must admit, that¡¯s the closest I¡¯ve come to seeing her lose in quite some time. Maybe her next tournament could see her losing!¡±

    Despite the words, I could see the woman smiling as she walked away from the arena. She had pretty clearly enjoyed the fight. Flynn, who now sat next to me, had also enjoyed the fight, even if outwardly he didn¡¯t show it very much.

    ¡°Damn, I was so close!¡± He shouted, leaning back in his seat. ¡°I want a rematch sometime, maybe after I gain a few levels.¡±

    ¡°Think you¡¯d have a shot after gaining your level 30 skill?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Maybe.¡± He says, before his eyes glaze over for a moment. He appears to be looking off into the distance, probably at a system notification. ¡°Speaking of which, I just reached level 30. Didn¡¯t realize I could do that without winning a fight.¡±

    ¡°Well levels aren¡¯t entirely dependent on killing things. You can get them from improving skills or just from pushing your limits and surpassing what you could usually do."

    ¡°Well, that fight was definitely one that pushed me to my limits.¡± He sighs before turning to me. ¡°You and the others better avenge me.¡± He jokes.

    ¡°Oh I will. I am looking forward to that fight.¡±

    ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll even get a level from the fight too. Only more reason to be excited for it.¡±

    ¡°I doubt it.¡± I say, waving the notion off.

    ¡°You don¡¯t think so? Why not?¡±

    ¡°Well if I am being entirely honest, I highly doubt it will be a particularly difficult fight.¡±

    Flynn gives me a look that is a mix of apprehension, confusion, and surprise.

    Jade speaks up before he can respond. ¡°Overconfident much?¡± She says, rolling her eyes.

    ¡°Maybe.¡± I say, nodding. ¡°But just keep in mind that you all have yet to see what I can do when really pushed to my limits.¡±

    ¡°Tell that to her.¡± Van says, pointing towards the arena. I glance to where he is pointing and see the spear wielding woman staring straight at me. With her stats and the fact that she likely made perception the focus of her spirit stat, she had definitely heard everything I just said. I had expected her to scoff or to roll her eyes in annoyance, but instead she just gave a confident smile and nodded, walking to the exit of the main arena and back to her seat.

    Even if this fight wasn¡¯t going to be particularly difficult, I would be lying if I said it wouldn¡¯t be extremely interesting.

 Chapter 19: Tournament End

    The second battle my team had fought in proved to be even easier than the first one. They were actually weaker than our previous opponents, and had only made it to this point due to their previous opponents being even weaker. We had absolutely wiped the floor with them.

    This just left the final fight of the night, and the one every spectator had been the most excited for. Me, Jade, and Ryker versus the ¡°spear queen¡± and her teammates. By an unspoken agreement, none of the other four participants would come between me and the woman. If they did, they¡¯d likely be eliminated fairly quickly.

    As we entered the arena once more, the announcer began speaking.

    ¡°Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the last fight of the night! Which shall prevail? Might or Magic? Tonight we find out as the apex of each clash against one another!¡±

    He was definitely playing up the drama a bit. I wouldn¡¯t even dare to say I was at the apex of magic. Hell, I felt like I could probably upgrade my mana manipulation skill if I gave it another week of practice. Not that I would for now, as gaining levels and advancing through the floors was likely to be more beneficial for the amount of time invested.

    ¡°Fighters!¡± The announcer continued. ¡°Get ready! 3... 2... 1... Go!¡±

    Despite what probably everybody was expecting, the countdown was not followed by a burst of movement and the clashing of weapons. No, instead the countdown had simply been when Jade, Ryker, and the two mages on the spear queens side to split off and have their own fight on the opposite side of the arena. While they began duking it out, the spear queen spoke aloud to me, pointing her spear in my direction.

    ¡°You seemed pretty confident that this wouldn¡¯t be a tough fight for you. Do you think you are ready to back those words up?¡±

    So, she also wants to play up the drama. I might as well go along with it for no other reason than to put on a show for the crowd. I summoned a shield in one of my hands, with my staff appearing in the other. Both were accompanied by a flash of light as I wasted a bit of mana to make them glow briefly. ¡°I¡¯m more than ready to prove it.¡± I say, tapping the bottom of my staff against the ground in beat with my words, adding emphasis to everything I said.

    ¡°Then come and show me the strength you believe you have!¡± She says, bending her knees slightly and taking a proper fighting stance at last. Contrary to what she said, I did not run straight towards her. Sending five mana bolts her way in rapid succession made that clear to her.

    She began rushing towards me, closing the distance between us with great speed. She expertly dodges each bolt of mana that is sent her way, and even manages to dodge the one I¡¯d shot at double speed. Having taken no injuries by the time she got to me, she thrust her spear towards my neck. My shield comes up to block it, and a mana blast sends her spear off to the side to prevent a quick follow up attack. The next mana blast is sent straight towards her, knocking her back a meter or so.

    She quickly recovers and once more closes the distance. The tip of her spear begins to glow a deep crimson, and instead of trying to outright block the attack I angle my shield to try and deflect the strike away. Her spear hits my shield, and immediately bites into the mana construct. It manages to find purchase and deliver a significant amount of force directly into my forearm. She pulls the spear back, striking my shield several more times before I can hit her with a double cast of mana blast. This use of my spell is much more effective, and manages to knock the spear from her hands.

    I rush in to get in some more meaningful damage, but her entire body glows white for a moment before she runs towards her spear nearly twice as fast as she had managed to move before. The white light fades, but doesn¡¯t disappear entirely. Her next few attacks come even faster than her previous ones, her spear continuing to glow red. It must have been some sort of anti-magic skill, as after the tenth hit, my shield shatters under the pressure of the attacks.

    ¡°Nice enhancing skill.¡± I say, referring to the glow that still hung around her.

    ¡°Thanks.¡± She says, grinning. ¡°Maybe it will close the gap between us enough for me to win.¡±

    Summoning my dagger, I use my now faster reaction time to deflect the spear whenever possible, and slow it down when it''s not. The entire time I am using my mana sight to observe the flow of her mana. It was definitely a more refined version of the skill I was using. The flow of mana within her body seemed to be entirely changed as opposed to simply sped up. That was definitely something I could take inspiration from sometime, or in better words, steal.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    About five minutes after the fight began, the glow around her disappeared. This was exactly what I had been waiting for. I¡¯d managed to get all the useful information about her skill that I was likely to get, and had just been waiting for her resources to begin running low to make my big move.

    In a quick flash of movement, my dagger began glowing even brighter than before as I infused a significant amount of mana into it. Even more mana was supplied and turned into kinetic energy, increasing the speed of both my arm and the dagger itself. With a loud snapping sound, the spear was cut in half just below the rip, rendering it useless.

    The shock that took the woman over for a few seconds was enough for me to use another burst of mana to launch towards her. She attempted to dodge, her eyes wide with fear, but with the speed I was moving at she only had time to shift herself away slightly before my dagger reached her neck. That small movement was all that kept her from being decapitated. Only a few centimeters of tissue and muscle kept the head in place, but it didn¡¯t matter a few seconds later as she disappeared in a flash of light.

    The crowd cheered in delight as the fight ended, and the announcer began shouting. ¡°The Spear Queen has been defeated! Congratulations to our winners!¡± Ryker and Jade ran over to me, having already defeated the mages. They congratulated me on the win, and I did the same for them. We¡¯d all won after all.

    Mark upgraded, Slum Champion (Tier 4)

    You have completed floor 8!

    Welcome to floor 9!

    I had more notifications, but I didn¡¯t have time to read them before the announcer continued.

    ¡°As a reward, each winner of the tournament will be granted one free request of an item from any craftsmen contracted by the arena.¡±

    As we walked out of the arena, we were intercepted by the others.

    ¡°Great job!¡± Van exclaimed, patting me on the back. ¡°I hadn¡¯t realized you had that in you.¡±

    ¡°Seriously.¡± Ryker said, disbelief on his face. ¡°It¡¯s almost scary how strong you two were, and that¡¯s not even mentioning the fact that you about took the poor girls head off.¡±

    ¡°Yeah thanks for that.¡± A voice says, coming from behind me. I turn to see the once headless woman in question, who stood there with a slight smirk on her face.

    ¡°Sorry about all that.¡± I say. ¡°It felt like a better way of getting it done than stabbing you a bunch until you bled out.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not about to complain, but I did want to ask you something. Actually, both of you.¡± She says, pointing to Flynn as well.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I was wondering if the two of you would like to have one last fight with me together as a team, this time in the presence of the King.¡±

    ¡°The King?¡± Flynn asks. ¡°How do you suppose we¡¯ll get an audience with him?¡±

    ¡°Just leave that bit to me.¡± She says, waving the question off. ¡°I can get it situated. Just meet me out the front gates of the castle in three days.¡±

    Before we can even answer, she jogs off.

    ¡°Any idea how she is supposed to get that done?¡± Flynn asks, turning to me.

    ¡°Ties to a high ranking noble maybe? Other than that I don¡¯t really know how she would be able to manage that. Either way, it seems like we have found out how we are going to be upgrading our mark for the last time.¡±

    Saying that reminds me of the elephant in the room. I look to the others, those who had not been invited to the next part of the floor. Had they even gotten their marks upgraded?

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about us.¡± Ryker says, shaking his head and patting his shoulder. ¡°We got our marks to tier four. I¡¯m sure we can figure out some way to upgrade them again. I don¡¯t think we are gonna be able to keep fighting our way to the end of the floor, not unless we do some serious leveling.¡±

    Jade nods along to everything he says, but I notice Van and Jen don¡¯t have the same enthusiasm. ¡°We didn¡¯t get our marks upgraded.¡± Van says. ¡°I¡¯m sure we can gain a few levels and try again, but this might just be where we need to start looking for different avenues to continue.¡±

    There is an awkward silence for a few moments. I wasn¡¯t exactly part of it, but I understood why none of them were super happy about this.

    One of the reasons that I had decided to take the tower on mostly by myself was for this exact reason. Not everyone would be able to keep up with me. Flynn was probably a one in a million prodigy, but I could absolutely whoop his ass in a fight if I ever needed to. The gap in power was slowly growing more and more, and I wasn¡¯t sure how long it would be until I struggled to find anybody that could put up a real fight.

    ¡°I guess this is where we split up then.¡± Flynn says, finally voicing the thought that every one of them was having. The words seem to finally drive it home for everyone else, and their expressions all sadden a bit.

    ¡°Guess so.¡± Ryker responds, nodding.

    I walk off to give the five of them some more time to say goodbye to one another, not wanting to get in the way of it. I didn¡¯t want to admit it, but a part of the reason I left was because I didn¡¯t want to deal with those emotions. The low mood had rubbed off on me more than I would have liked. That mood was only soured more as I finally read the last notification I had waiting for me.

    You are now level 33

 Chapter 20: Shedding Insecurities

    Before I had left the arena, I¡¯d been stopped by some of the organizers and asked what item I¡¯d like to be crafted for me as my reward. After thinking about it, I¡¯d written down a description of what I had in mind and handed it to one of the organizers. They looked a bit confused reading through it, but told me that they would have it ready in two days for me to pick up.

    I went back to floor one after that, already knowing exactly where I had wanted to go. The outpost I had originally helped to create was currently throwing a party. I¡¯d heard some whispers of it in the past few days, but I had just ignored it in favor of focusing on my training.

    Right now though, I didn¡¯t care much about training. What I needed more than anything else right now was something to keep me grounded in reality. I needed to not be dealing with life or death battles, overly complicated chain floors, or anything else related to the system right now. I needed something to remind me of home.

    When I arrived back on the first floor, the first thing I heard was music. It was simple, just a drum beat with a few wind instruments playing in harmony, but it all worked to create a comfortable atmosphere. The music sounded like it was coming from all around, probably the result of a skill- no. I needed to not think of anything like that right now.

    Ben was the first familiar face I ran into, as the case so often was. He greeted me with a smile and a wave. ¡°River! Glad you could make it. I honestly hadn¡¯t expected to see you show up. Don¡¯t you have a dragon to defeat or something?¡±

    ¡°Very funny.¡± I say, smiling back.

    Something about the tone of my voice seemed to tip him off to my poor mood, and like any good friend his cheery attitude immediately dropped as he took on a much more serious expression. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±

    ¡°Nothings wrong.¡± I say. ¡°I just needed a change of scenery, and this is exactly what I needed.¡± I gesture all around to the party.

    Ben opens his mouth to say something, then stops. He seems deep in thought for a moment before speaking once more. ¡°Can we go for a walk real quick?¡±

    I raise an eyebrow, but agree. ¡°Sure.¡±

    We walk away from the party and out of the outpost. It was a bit jarring when the music suddenly stopped coming from all around me and instead began sounding like it was coming from the distance, but I had quickly gotten over it. Once we are far enough away that there is nobody who can hear us, Ben speaks again.

    ¡°Okay, what¡¯s actually wrong?¡± He says. ¡°And don¡¯t lie and say nothing is. I¡¯ve known you long enough to know when you are lying.¡±

    I want to come up with some lie or excuse, but he was right. I was not the best liar. I sigh and respond, not looking directly at him as I do. ¡°Are you afraid of me?¡±

    My question seems to have taken him completely off guard, and he takes a moment to respond. ¡°Why would I be afraid of you?¡±

    ¡°Because I am strong. Because I could knock down a tree with just a punch if I wanted to. Because I could destroy that entire outpost right now if I really wanted to.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    He doesn¡¯t take what I say seriously, despite the threat posed by my words. ¡°Because I know you won¡¯t do that.¡±

    ¡°But other people don¡¯t know that.¡± I say. ¡°Other people might see me as a threat or start treating me as some kind of monster. Somebody to be careful around. I don¡¯t want that.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t see what your problem is.¡± Ben says, shrugging.

    I frown, looking at him for the first time. ¡°What do you mean you don¡¯t see what my problem is? People are going to be afraid of me.¡±

    ¡°I think you are overestimating how many people would see you that way. Anybody who sees somebody for the power they wield and not the person they are sounds more like a cult member than a normal person.¡±

    ¡°How do you know that? What makes you think people are just going to ignore the overwhelming difference between me and them?¡±

    ¡°Have you actually met anybody yet that treats you differently just because a number on your stat sheet is higher than on theirs?¡±

    ¡°No, but-¡±

    ¡°Then stop assuming the worst of people. I can tell you that people aren¡¯t going to treat you differently. I can tell you that because despite all this power you say you have, you still don¡¯t treat anybody else differently. You haven¡¯t snapped and attacked anybody out of anger, nor have you tried to intimidate anybody into doing anything. I¡¯m sure eventually there are going to be some assholes who do that crap, but the important thing is that you don¡¯t. That¡¯s just not who you are. People are more perceptive than you think. They can tell you aren¡¯t a bad person.¡±

    I finally stop spiraling down the rabbit hole I was falling into, and take a moment to think. After almost a minute of silence, I speak again. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    ¡°No problem. Now cheer up and let''s go back to the party. I know a few people who¡¯ve managed to ferment some mushrooms they found on floor four, so what do you say we go and have some drinks?¡±

    ¡°You know I don¡¯t drink.¡± I say. ¡°Not that I¡¯d want to drink booze from cave mushrooms anyways.¡±

    ¡°Well then, as one of the few sober people present, what would you think about trying to make fireworks made of magic?¡±

    I was about to tell him that I didn¡¯t feel like using magic right now, but stop before I do. As much as I hadn¡¯t been expecting it, he had turned my mood around and helped cheer me up. When we get back to camp, I walk straight to the middle of the camp and point my finger up into the air. After about 30 seconds of constructing a mana formation in the tip of my finger, I unleash it up into the sky.

    My mana conversion skill had really put in the work on this one, and in collaboration with my mana-festation had managed to make something more complicated than either of them could have accomplished on their own. The pseudo firework whistled loudly as it flew high into the air traveling at great speed. As it reached roughly 200 meters into the air, it detonated with the familiar boom of every other firework I¡¯d ever seen. Sparks of mana that burned themselves away glowed as they spread out in all directions. A minute later, I fired another, then another.

    The cheers that came from those around me and the requests for different colors were too much, and I couldn¡¯t help but smile the entire time. Maybe I¡¯d been right about some people fearing the power I had, but right now it seemed that not a single person cared that I was essentially firing missiles into the sky. They were happy, and so was I.

    The rest of my night was spent showing off what my mana could do, creating kites and paper airplanes that glowed as they flew through the air, with some people catching them as they went along. Some people were even making a game of it, seeing who could catch the most. Later in the night I even took a half hour to make a ten foot long recreation of a dragon, using all my focus to make it move in a vaguely dragon-like manner.

    Several system notifications awaited me by the time the party was coming to a close, but I didn¡¯t read them. It wasn¡¯t out of resentment like it had been before, but because I simply did not care about them right now. I had more important things to focus on, like making glow sticks of mana for everyone to wave around. I couldn¡¯t make very many at once, but I had inspired a few of the crafters to make a few of their own, and they had supplied everyone else with glow sticks with their far superior creation skills.

    Overall, it had been a complete waste of 12 hours that would have been better spent training for the fight I had in just three days.

    I don¡¯t regret a single second of it.

 Chapter 21: Kings Judgement

    Motivation is at an all time high. Inhibitions are at an all time low. There is no time like the present to improve myself, and for the past three days that is exactly what I have been doing. That night that I¡¯d been partying, I had received a number of notifications, and only after it was all over had I bothered to look at them.

    You are now level 34

    You are now level 35

    Advanced Mana Manipulation (Rare) has been upgraded to Superior Mana Manipulation (Epic)

    I had managed to upgrade my mana manipulation skill that night without even having really intended to. I¡¯d known I was close to an upgrade, and something about all the new and unique ways I had used my mana must have been enough to kick it over the finish line. I had even gained two levels as opposed to the usual one for a skill upgrade. I¡¯d wager it was probably because the skill upgraded was the most important skill I had and one that was fundamentally linked to every other skill and spell in my arsenal.

    Ever since that night, I had been doing some off and on training, taking breaks to mingle with people around the outpost and generally just be more a part of the community. I¡¯d taken a trip to Hassan¡¯s camp one night, and had some more of their delicious cooking. I swear it somehow got better every time I went.

    During the time I had spent training, I had been working on upgrading my empower skill. It was a slow process, as it didn¡¯t actually involve using the skill to learn more about it. What I was doing was more akin to a complete overhaul of the skill, improving every aspect of it by changing it completely.

    My eyes had been opened to the wasted potential of the skill when I had seen what the Spear Queen used during our fight. Her skill had given her a massive boost of speed for about a second after activating, and by my best estimate boosted her Body stat by about 25%. That was almost double the effect mine gave me, and I wanted something like that.

    And so, all of my training time could be boiled down to meditating and rerouting my mana pathways. It wasn¡¯t exactly easy, and it hurt like a hot needle to do, but I knew I was on the right track. Once I had managed to finish rerouting the mana in my arm, I could feel the difference in my grip strength.

    Some parts of my body were much easier to change than others. For my hands it had been as simple as splitting up the natural mana pathway and having each new ¡°string¡± of it reaching a different part of the hand, making sure the energy was distributed as well as possible to every single muscle fiber. The feet were much the same, but when I moved up to my calves and my forearms, things got tricky.

    Unlike the hands, the mana pathways didn¡¯t just end in the forearms. That meant that after distributing all the mana, the pathways needed to reconverge to go to continue on to my hands. I had no way to do such a thing effectively, which sent me right back to square one.

    What I eventually figured out was that I needed to start the splintering of mana right at the center of my chest, the place where all mana pathways converged. Each of these new and splintered pathways would then trace a similar, but slightly offset line from where it originated. That way I wouldn¡¯t be messing up the flows of mana, but still distributing it more evenly through my muscles.

    The only problem I had with this method was that I needed to remake the enchantment in my arm that allowed me to store things in my aura. I had taken one of the new pathways I¡¯d created to make a copy of the enchantment, but that meant the skill would be slightly less effective for the area I¡¯d taken the pathway from. If making the skill 2% less effective for my left pinky was what it cost to be able to store items in an extradimensional space, then I guess I would just have to take the hit.

    All of my efforts were rewarded when my skill was at last upgraded, and I gained a level on top of the one I¡¯d already gained while working on all of this.

    You are now level 36

    Empower (Rare) has been upgraded to Empower (Epic)

    Bolster your body using your mana, increasing your physical capabilities. Depending on the mana invested, grants up to 25% in the body stat. Gives a small boost to the effectiveness of Mind and Body when being used.

    You are now level 37

    It felt good to finally be getting levels again. I¡¯d felt so stagnant for the days I¡¯d spent going through the chain floors. I was pretty sure that people were supposed to stop and actually train before attempting to upgrade their marks, but I had already been strong enough that none of that was necessary.

    At least, it hadn¡¯t been thus far. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to be facing to get my mark to tier five. The jump in strength from the level 27 warrior on floor 7 to the level 34 Spear Queen on floor 8 had already been a massive leap in power, and if it was a similar leap in strength from her to whatever awaited me on the ninth floor, I was in for trouble. If it was a similar jump from the ninth to tenth, I was pretty much screwed.

    No reason to let it get to my head though. I had done all I could to prepare for this day, and that was plain to see when looking at my stat sheet.

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Human

    Level: 37

    Class: Energetic Manipulator

    Subclass: Arcane Artificer

    Trait: Planes Walker

    Displayed title: King Killer

    Statistics:

    Body: 346 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 509 (Potency, Capacity, Recovery)

    Spirit: 346 (Perception-Aura-Soul)

    Class skills: Mana Conversion (Epic), Accumulate (Epic), Superior Mana Manipulation (Epic)This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    Class spells: Mana Blast (Rare), Mana Splinter (Rare), Arcane Fortification (Epic), Mana-Festation (Epic)

    Personal Spells: Empower (Epic), Inspect (Common)

    Titles: S+ tier pioneer, S tier populous, King Killer

    I¡¯d chosen to make King Killer my displayed title a little while back. My entire reasoning behind it was that it sounded cooler than ¡°S+ Tier pioneer¡±. On a more important note, my stats were all far higher than they had been not even a week ago. Several levels, skill improvements, and overall increased skill at wielding mana had led me to being a lot stronger than before. I just had to hope it would be enough.

    Before heading to the front gates of the castle like I¡¯d been instructed, I stopped by the arena to pick up my reward for winning the tournament. Pulling on the leather gloves I¡¯d been given, I inspect them as I feel how perfectly they fit.

    Gloves of Empowerment (Epic)

    Increases the potency and decreases the cost of all spells cast through the gloves. As they are infused with mana, they increase in both durability and rigidity. Mana can be stored in the gloves and be used instantaneously to cast a spell of the wielder''s choice. Effects only apply when both gloves are worn.

    It was everything I had asked for, and just a little bit more. I would have expected for an arena in the capitol of a kingdom to have some fine crafters contracted to their side, but these were truly remarkable. My staff had served me well, but it all honestly didn¡¯t fit my fighting style very well. Being able to summon weapons into my hands for a reduced cost and be able to store a spell for later use were both extremely useful and far more important than having a stick to hit people with.

    Upon reaching the castle gates, I found both Flynn and the spear queen waiting for me. I¡¯d arrived early, and I wondered how early they must have shown up to beat me here.

    ¡°Great, now we can go meet the king.¡± The woman says, clapping her hands and rubbing them together.

    ¡°I thought he would just be spectating us in a fight.¡± Flynn says.

    ¡°Well that is what I had been thinking too, but apparently he wants to meet the two of you in person.¡±

    ¡°No complaints from me.¡± I say. ¡°I get to meet a King, and that sounds like a win.¡±

    ¡°Great attitude!¡± She says, leading us into the castle.

    We are joined by two guards for the castle, and they escort us through the many hallways of the castle. I inspect each of them, noting that they are both level 40.

    When we enter the throne room, the King is already sitting in his throne, and besides him the room is completely empty. The King himself was an intimidating figure. Even though he was sitting down, I could just tell he was a massive individual. The guards eventually stopped walking, and so the three of us stopped as well. With a wave of his hand, the King dismisses the guards. It is now just me, Flynn, the Spear Queen, and what I am certain is the most powerful being I have encountered thus far.

    The King finally stands up, his full height plain to see. He was about seven feet tall, and filled that frame out with large muscles covered in metal armor. He looks at me and Flynn, his gaze not once falling on the woman next to us.

    ¡°Greetings, climbers.¡± He says. ¡°I hope you have enjoyed your time in my kingdom thus far.¡±

    Neither of us respond for a few seconds, trying to formulate a response, but I manage to break the silence and come up with something quickly.

    ¡°Of course, King. It is a beautiful city, and I have yet to even explore most of it.¡± If sucking up to this man will get me my upgraded mark, then by god I will throw my pride out the door.

    ¡°That¡¯s great to hear.¡± He says, and as he speaks his eyes begin to glow a deep green. His gaze bores deep into me, and it makes me feel oddly naked. After a moment, he looks at me, his face now showing a hint of amusement. ¡°King Killer. A brave title to have displayed in this situation.¡±

    Every panic alarm in my brain went off all at once, but before I could say anything the King spoke once more.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I am not offended. Quite the opposite actually. To see someone of such a caliber in my throne room is always a pleasure.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡± I say, my nerves still not entirely alleviated.

    ¡°May I ask why you brought us here?¡± Flynn asks, speaking up for the first time since arriving.

    ¡°Ah, yes.¡± The King says, nodding. ¡°I summoned you two here because you both show quite a bit of talent and tenacity. I figured we would skip all the trouble of putting you into another arena, and skip right to the good part.¡±

    With a snap of his fingers, a screen appears in front of me. It almost makes me jump, as this is the first time since the tutorial began that an unprompted screen has appeared before me.

    Your mark has been upgraded to Kings Chosen (Tier 5)

    You have completed floor 9!

    Welcome to floor 10, Kings Judgement (Chain)

    On the last section of your first chain floor, your actions up to this point shall be judged by the King. Should he find you worthy of continuing, he will allow you passage to the next floor. Should he deem you unworthy, you will lose one rank to your Mark.

    He turns to Flynn. ¡°Catch.¡± He says, tossing a vial of clear liquid his way.

    Flynn catches it in his hands, looking down at it. I¡¯d already inspected it mid air, and my jaw just about hit the floor.

    Flask of Growth

    Increase all stats by 20% for the next 30 minutes. Overwrites any inferior stat boosting skills or items.

    That was just a boosting skill in a bottle. Almost as good as mine too. The King then points to me. ¡°Come stand next to me.¡±

    I do as I am told, walking up and standing next to the King, facing Flynn and the spear queen. The King continues to address Flynn. ¡°Drink the flask and duel the warrior next to you. If you can win and prove you have learned and grown from your previous bout, I will allow you passage to the next floor.¡±

    With no hesitation, Flynn downs the entire flask and turns towards the woman, his sword drawn and ready. The spear queen, who had gotten a new spear since her last one was broken, also readied her weapon. Her boosting skill was activated right from the start, and soon the two of them were locked into a heated battle. It was nothing I hadn¡¯t seen before, so I look up at the king and speak.

    ¡°What must I do to gain entry to the next floor?¡±

    The King looks down at me, a soft smile on his face. There was a hint of something akin to smugness on his face as he talked. ¡°You may choose to move on to the next floor now if you wish to, but if you truly want to experience what can happen when you push yourself to your limits, you can put that title of yours to the test.¡±

    It took a moment to process what he meant, but my eyes widened in shock when I finally realized it. ¡°You want me to duel you?¡±

    ¡°Not to the death of course.¡± He says, shrugging. ¡°But I think both of us would like to see what you are really capable of. Don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t hear that comment about you having yet to push yourself to your limits in this city. That is what these floors are all about, and I can¡¯t let you leave without at least having the opportunity to grow.¡±

    ¡°How did you hear- wait how do you know-¡± I don¡¯t know what question to ask first. A million of them are popping into my head all at once.

    ¡°I have my ways, and I have my ways. I will give you until the end of this fight to make your decision.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡± I say, not needing to think about it. He said it wouldn¡¯t be to the death, and who knows when I¡¯d get an opportunity to face such a stronger opponent than myself again in a relatively safe environment?

    ¡°Very well.¡± The King says. ¡°You are lucky you made your desicion so quickly.¡±

    I am about to ask what he means, when suddenly the spear queen shouts out in pain. A large red line ran from her shoulder to her hip where Flynn''s spear had cut her deeply. The King''s hand glows, and the wound disappears.

    ¡°You may pass on to the next floor.¡± He says to Flynn, and almost instantly a staircase appears under the man''s feet. He falls into it, and a moment later the staircase disappears. ¡°And you may leave.¡± He says to the woman Flynn was just fighting. She quickly speed walks out, not wanting to disobey the King.

    The King steps away from me, walking to the back of his throne room. Each step is slow and deliberate, creating an uneasy atmosphere as each rattle of his armor echoes throughout the large room. Upon reaching the back of the room, the King grabs a staff that I had not noticed previously.

    ¡°I¡¯m lucky to have found someone to duel with so early into the tutorial.¡± He says, turning towards me. His staff taps against the ground on beat with his words, exactly as I had done in my last fight. ¡°And I don¡¯t think I could have gotten any luckier. A mage, someone who will appreciate a well made spell.¡±

    This is clearly leading into the start of the fight, and I quickly inspect the King to know what I am about to be up against.

    Human (Level Unknown)(Boss Monster)

    Mark upgraded, Kings Challenger (Tier 6)

    You have found floor 10¡¯s hidden boss. Experience gained will be significantly increased upon killing a hidden boss.

    ¡°That poor excuse of an inspection skill isn¡¯t enough to see my level.¡± The King says, his staff still tapping rhythmically against the floor. The tapping is getting louder and louder as it goes on. ¡°For the first time since arriving in this tower, you are going to get a taste of what true, overwhelming power is like. Perhaps you can even learn a thing or two.¡±

 Chapter 22: Overwhelming Power

    I had never been much of a fighter before the system. I¡¯d never gotten into a fist fight or anything like that, even as a kid. When the system came around, I had learned pretty quick and got to what I thought was a pretty decent level of skill, even if it wasn¡¯t great.

    Standing in front of the King, seeing the smoothness of every motion he made and the ease with which he swung his over six foot long staff, I felt utterly outclassed in every way imaginable.

    I dumped mana into my mana barrier, using one of it¡¯s less memorable functions to focus all of it¡¯s defensive power on blocking magical attacks. I fired of several bolts of mana towards the King, each one of them harmlessly fizzling away upon coming into contact with his metal armor. His staff traced a large arc in front of him, and a thin blade of mana rocketed towards me. I only barely had enough time to duck under it as it soared past, leaving a deep cut in the stone wall across the room.

    My eyes widen as I feel mana drain from my aura, despite the attack not having even hit me. I look back to the King, immediately activating empower at full burn as I sprint towards him. I couldn¡¯t afford to hold back if I wanted to put up any kind of noteworthy fight.

    A sword of mana appears in my left hand as my bone dagger appears in my right. I dodge out of the way of several more arcs of mana, each one still draining a bit of mana from me. My weapons clash against the Kings staff, every attack getting blocked effortlessly. My resolves harden as I redouble my efforts, trying to get something past his defense. He didn¡¯t even need a mana shield like I did, as his reflexes were quick enough to block everything I tried to throw his way.

    After half a minute of me attacking him relentlessly, the wind gets knocked out of my lungs as his staff slams into my sternum. I go flying back, only having a moment to see the new pattern of mana he had traced in the air. He must have done it while he was blocking my attacks. How could he even be fast enough to do that?

    That entire array of mana lights up, and a beam of mana almost half a meter thick shoots towards me, grazing my mana barrier as I get out of its way. It had been extremely expensive to block, and I was certain I would have lost several kilograms of body mass had that beam hit me.

    I decide to switch up my strategy, tossing my mana made sword up into the air above me. The weapon bursts apart into a dozen mana bolts, each one flying towards the King. It wasn¡¯t unlike when I¡¯d made a mana firework, but this time it was with the intent of firing as many smaller attacks at him as I could.

    With all of the bolts arriving simultaneously, he was unable to block every single one with his staff. Four of them were blocked by his weapon. Another two were swatted away by his hand. Three more fizzled out against his armor.

    The last three managed to finally do some noticeable damage. One of them had hit the crook in his elbow, right where the material was softer to allow easier movement. It had left a light burn on the black material used for the joint. The second left a small but noticeable dent on one of the shoulder plates of his armor. The last of the three had managed to nail him directly on the cheek, turning the skin red and drawing a small amount of blood.

    Despite the red liquid now running down his cheek, the King smirks. ¡°Not bad. I would have tried to have all of those target my face, but it was still impressive nonetheless.¡±

    His words are followed by two dozen orbs of mana appearing in the air all around him, each one instantly recognizable as a mana bolt. From the looks of it, they were about as strong as mine were.

    ¡°My turn.¡± The King says, pointing his staff towards me as all of the bolts fly in my direction.

    The bombardment of spells is effective to say the least. More than half of them hit me directly, draining a chunk of mana with each impact. A few of them had been blocked by my dagger and gloves, and a good handful of them had missed thanks to me dodging out of the way.

    Despite these not being concussive mana bolts, the sheer amount of them that hit me managed to knock me off my feet and throw me back even farther. I gritted my teeth, knowing trying to get in close would just result in me getting blocked and knocked back again.

    I summon bolt after bolt of mana, rapid firing them as quickly as I could as I zig zagged around the room to avoid the hail of attacks also coming after me. Beams of mana, bolts of mana, arcs of it, walls of it, there really didn¡¯t seem to be anything he couldn¡¯t make with it. The display of control made me marvel at just how good a spell could get, and I wondered what the rarity of his mana manipulation skill was.

    I could feel my resources wearing thin, and I knew that I would once more have to change my tactics if I wanted any hope of getting a good evaluation from the King. I sprinted towards him again, and his eyes widened in surprise. He clearly didn¡¯t expect me to retry a strategy that had already proved hopeless.

    He stopped casting spells, probably to preserve mana as he already knew dealing with me at close range was no problem for him. He was right, in a sword to staff fight, I would lose every time. That wasn¡¯t what I was going for though.

    When I got close enough, my hand stretched out and I cast a concussive mana blast. It knocked his staff away enough for me to dodge it easily, casting another concussive mana blast.

    The spell leaves my hands several more times, putting more and more pressure on the King as he is finally forced to take a step back, his first time moving his legs since the start of this fight. That one single movement gives me enough confidence to give my last ditch plan a shot.

    I stop the bombardment of mana blasts for a moment, pouring all of my concentration and most of my remaining mana into what I was about to do. The King could sense that the majority of my mana was now building up in my palms, and he raised a barrier of mana between the two of us to block what I was doing.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    I grin when he does that. It was exactly what I had been hoping he would do. The mana fires out of my hand as ten separate casts of mana bolt are sent out all at once. A split second later, the two casts of the spell stored in my gloves are also released.

    All the remaining mana in my aura disappears almost instantly, leaving me with nothing but the few drops that remained of the mana within my body. All around the King, small points of blue light appeared as a dozen casts of mana blast are unleashed all at once all around him. He tried to muster a defense to block them, but it was already too late to react.

    A loud boom echoed through the room as every single attack hit its mark, and the resulting flash of light prevents me from seeing the results for a moment. The wall of mana he had erected between the two of us suddenly fires forward, slamming into me harder than any of his previous attacks. I am sent flying backwards, slamming into the wall on the opposite end of the room. What little mana I had left worked to lessen the damage of the impact as my mana shield finally shattered.

    I could already feel blood running down the back of my neck from where my head had hit the wall, and I hiss in pain. Something in my left arm felt like it was where it shouldn¡¯t be, and looking down at it confirmed that my shoulder had popped out of its socket. I look back at the King with determination. If I couldn¡¯t cast any more spells, perhaps I could at least stay in the fight a little longer with my dagger.

    The dust around the King clears, and my mouth drops open when I see that his armor has been dented all over. Blood is running down the side of his head where his ear had been blown off, and his staff had been wrenched from his hand and sent across the room. My heart sank, seeing that despite throwing absolutely everything I had at him, the only thing I had actually accomplished was giving the King a glorified flesh wound. Despite all of this, he stood tall and proud, a wide smile on his face.

    ¡°You did far better than I could have ever anticipated.¡± He says, raising his hand towards me. It glows with a yellow light, and the pain in my arm intensifies for a brief moment before dissapearing entirely. I move my left arm back and forth a bit, feeling that my shoulder had been put back in place. The wound on my head had disappeared as well, and my entire body was healed.

    ¡°Thanks.¡± I say, trying to catch my breath. The fight had clearly ended, and it was alright now to let the exhaustion roll in. The lack of mana in my body made me feel a little weak, but it was slowly regenerating. ¡°So, how¡¯d I do?¡±

    ¡°All things considered, you did quite well.¡± He says, walking towards his staff to pick it up. ¡°It has been a long time since I have bled, even longer since somebody below level 50 has made me bleed.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well I am just amazing like that.¡± I joke. ¡°Thanks for at least going easy on me though.¡±

    ¡°Well it wouldn¡¯t have been a very good sparring match if I had just launched you through the nearest wall, now would it?¡±

    ¡°You nearly did.¡± I say, motioning to the crater in the wall behind me that I had just climbed out of.

    The King finally loses his smile for a moment, looking... embarrassed?

    ¡°Sorry about that.¡± He says. ¡°My surprise at your little stunt there kind of got the better of me. I¡¯d meant to simply push you away, not leave a dent in my wall with your outline.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. You had the decency to heal me at least.¡± I say. ¡°On the note of that attack though, I am just blown away by the magic you can bring to bear. No pun intended. I hope to be able to compare to it sometime in the future.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t sell yourself short. Your magic is quite impressive for your level. If you and I were the same level, I can¡¯t say for sure which of us would come out victorious.¡±

    ¡°What level are you?¡±

    The King smirks. ¡°Wanna take a guess? I¡¯ll give you a hint.¡±

    The room fills with a pressure as the King takes a deep breath out. I instinctively know his aura is filling the room, showcasing just how much larger it was than mine. It wasn¡¯t just a quantitative difference though, as the quality felt like it was just on another level. The only logical explanation I could think of was that he had reached the next evolution.

    ¡°Level... 60?¡± I guess.

    ¡°Close, level 63.¡±

    ¡°Damn. Either way, I really didn¡¯t stand a chance did I? How much of what you could do were you really holding back?¡±

    ¡°Most of it. I restricted myself to not using more than half of my mana pool, as well as not using any of my passive defensive skills. I didn¡¯t use any spells either. Everything I threw at you was simply freeform magic.¡±

    I just shake my head in disbelief. ¡°No wonder you are the King.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s just how it is. The strong stand on top.¡± My expression drops for a moment, but the King quickly amends his statement. ¡°Let me rephrase that. The strong lead and protect the weak.¡±

    ¡°Better, I guess. So, did I do well enough to earn your approval to go to the next floor?¡±

    ¡°As I said, moving to the next floor was already a given for you. This sparing match was simply to truly give you a challenge within my city. As for your performance, I think you have earned a reward.¡± He walks towards me, holding his staff out in front of him. It shrinks down to only be a little shorter than me. ¡°Take it.¡±

    I stare at the staff for a moment, stunned. ¡°Really? I didn¡¯t even win the fight.¡±

    The King looks around as he is trying to hide something, before leaning in close. ¡°Listen. I am rooting for you to reach the top of the tower. It has been a good while since that has happened, and I truly miss the excitement of something new. This is the best way I can help you that the system will allow. So just take it.¡±

    I gently grab the staff, not identifying it yet. I look at him. ¡°So... you know we are in a tower? In a tutorial even?¡±

    ¡°I know all of that. I¡¯m not the only one either. You will encounter more who are aware of this fact.¡±

    ¡°So how do you know? How many floors are there?¡±

    The King pauses for a second before waving his hand. ¡°Well that''s about all I can tell you. I¡¯d receive punishment for revealing any more. Goodbye now.¡±

    The floor beneath me shifts, and suddenly I am falling down a staircase just as Flynn had not long ago. As I tumble down the staircase, I shout up to him. ¡°I will find out eventually!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you will.¡± He says, and the floor closes up behind me as a screen appears before me.

    You are now level 38

    You have completed floor 10!

    Due to the nature of chain floors, you will be unable to return to floors 6 through 10.

    Would you like to proceed to floor 11?

    ¡°That cheeky bastard.¡± I mutter, opting to just return to the first floor instead. I appear within the staircase on floor one, identifying the staff in my hands to at least find out if this had all been worth it.

    Kings Royal Staff (Legendary)(Soul bound)

    A staff bound to it¡¯s wielder. The staff can be transferred to a new owner or taken after the owners death, but never stolen. The staff can be stored within the wielders aura and recalled from any distance. Increases the potency and reduces the cost of all spells channeled through this staff. The staff automatically adjusts itself to the proper size of it¡¯s wielder. Allows the wielder to store three charges of any spell to cast later. Each charge is significantly more potent than a standard cast, and if all three charges are used at once the spell will be further empowered. Wielder must be level 50 to effectively use.

    ¡°That glorious, generous bastard.¡± I say, suddenly gaining a bit more pep in my step as I store the staff away in my aura, a smile on my face as I went to go find Ben.

 Chapter 23: The Great City

    Before leaving the outpost, I¡¯d let Ben know to tell my ¡°students¡± to meet me at the staircase the next morning. I¡¯d neglected that particular responsibility for a bit too long, and it was time I caught up with that a bit.

    After that, I¡¯d headed straight to Hassan''s camp to grab some food. I would have used empower to speed to trip up, but I was still pretty low on mana after my fight with the King, and it would be better to just let my mana recover for now. It would take a long time to refill my aura anyways, so it would be best to get a head start on that.

    After arriving at my destination, I was greeted by a much more busy town than I had seen before. Most people seemed to be busy doing something. I made my way through the city, eventually getting to the central building.

    I knock on the door, and a few moments later somebody answers. It is a short man with a clipboard in his arms. He looks up at me. ¡°Did you need something?¡± He asks, sounding impatient.

    ¡°Is Hassan here?¡± I ask, glancing over his shoulder into the building itself.

    ¡°Not at this moment.¡± The man says. ¡°He left for a trip to the great city a day ago. He should be back tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°Oh. Well, thanks.¡± I say, and the man goes to close the door. ¡°Wait.¡± I say, putting a hand on the door. ¡°Can I ask you something?¡±

    The man sighs, looking somehow even more impatient. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a little out of the loop. How come the place is so busy?¡±

    ¡°People are trying to get as many levels as they can before the tutorial ends for the d ranks. A rumor has been spreading that you are rewarded for reaching a high level once the tutorial ends. There is only a bit less than two weeks until it is over.¡±

    ¡°Ah, thanks.¡± I say, nodding. I take my hand off the door, and the man closes it the rest of the way.

    Well, there goes my plan for the moment. I could still eat some delicious food here, but what the man had said planted a seed of thought in my head. I wince, knocking on the door again.

    ¡°What!¡± The man says, opening the door again, his voice louder than last time.

    I look at him a bit sheepishly as I ask my last question. ¡°Which direction is the great city?¡±

    <hr>

    After a solid hour of running at top speed, I finally caught sight of the massive city in the distance. It didn¡¯t take very long to realize why it was called the great city. It was over a mile long and just as wide, sprawling out to accommodate the massive amount of people that lived within. From what I remember Hassan had told me there were about 500,000 people in the city, and that number has probably grown at least a little bit since then.

    The entire city was surrounded by a large wall. It was about eight feet tall, and didn¡¯t seem to be doing very much in terms of actually protecting the city. There were no monsters on the first floor anyways. I could just jump over the wall, quite easily too, but I felt it would be better to just go in through a proper entrance. I didn¡¯t want to make a bad impression on what may very well be the largest collection of people since the system came around.

    After finding an entrance to the city, I walked in and immediately noticed the distinct feeling of somebody using an identification spell on me. I turn my head to glance in the direction of the one who had done it, and notice a man with a notebook and pencil looking back at me. I give him an identification of my own.

    Human (level 18)

    Nothing to write home about. Probably just somebody stationed here to keep track of who comes in and out of the city. That was fine by me. Nothing wrong with making sure the city is safe. As I begin walking through the city, I realize very quickly that it had taken a lot of work to build it up into what it is. With the sheer number of people around here plus the new stats they all had, the kind of workforce they could bring to bear was incomparable to whatever we had before the system. They had erected an entire city in just a couple weeks.

    The city itself didn¡¯t get built very high. The tallest building I saw was a single four story building off in the distance, the city center I assume. There were a couple of three story buildings scattered around, but most didn¡¯t have more than two floors, if even that.

    I had come here looking for good food, so instead of letting my eyes guide me, my nose did instead. With my high perception, I could get a general sense of which direction a smell was coming from, and soon I found myself wandering around looking for whichever building smelled like it served the best food. Every time I seemed to get to a good one, I caught a whiff of another restaurant in the distance that smelled even better.

    Before I knew it, I had come across the best of the best. Directly next to the city center was a two story building with a sign saying ¡°Food and Drinks¡±. That was all it said, but that was all that needed to be said. Upon walking in, the smells intensified and I could hear the sizzling of food being cooked from the kitchen. The place was pretty packed, and I struggled to find a seat.

    When I did finally manage to find an empty looking table in the very back of the building, I quickly sat down to claim it as my own. It hadn¡¯t taken very long for me to realize that this wasn¡¯t like a restaurant I was used to. Instead of hosts and waiters, people were simply brought food after sitting down. They always looked happy at what they got, and it wasn¡¯t until four buttons popped out of the table that I realized how the ordering here worked. Each button had a picture of food, so I pressed the one that looked like a soup.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

    Not even five minutes later, somebody quickly placed some soup on the table in front of me as they were walking by to deliver food to several other tables. I scooped some of it up with the spoon that sat in the bowl, and my mouth was flooded with flavor as the hot liquid washed down my throat.

    I tried my best to savor the meal, but it was just too good. All too soon the meal in front of me was gone, and I had an empty bowl. Before I could even react, the bowl in front of me was taken away, and a bill was placed before me.

    Uh oh.

    None of the other places I have been thus far have needed you to pay for the food you bought. Why didn¡¯t I check if this place did first? Damn, I was in trouble. I guess I could always dine and dash, but that was pretty rude, and I would rather not.

    As I sat there in my internal panic, staring down at the bill, the chair across the table from me creaked and I looked up to see a very muscular man with a large belly sat in the chair across from me. He had a thick beard and long hair like a Viking.

    ¡°Nice to meet you, I¡¯m the owner of this place.¡± He says, sticking a hand out.

    ¡°Nice to meet you as well.¡± I say, trying to keep as straight a face as possible. had he realized I couldn¡¯t pay for this meal? Was he here to make me work for it or something?

    ¡°I couldn¡¯t help but notice you are making my patrons a bit uncomfortable with that robe of yours.¡± He says, nodding to the robe I wore.

    It took a few moments to click, but finally I realized what he meant. There were probably tons of people here more than ten levels lower than myself, and I had completely forgotten about its ability to slowly sap mana from those people around me.

    ¡°Oh I am so sorry.¡± I say, quickly shrugging the robe off and storing it away in my aura. ¡°I forget that the robe does that so often.¡±

    ¡°Uh huh.¡± The man says, nodding. ¡°Well, just don¡¯t do it again.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡± I say, before having a thought. ¡°How¡¯d you know it was my robe that was causing that?¡±

    ¡°I have an eye for enchanted items.¡± He says, tapping the table. ¡°You can thank me for making the ordering and serving system this whole place runs on.¡±

    ¡°Pretty impressive.¡± I say, finally identifying the man.

    Human (Level 24)

    ¡°Thanks. I must say, you are quite a high level. Did you happen to come to the city to cause trouble?¡±

    ¡°No, nothing like that. I just wanted to check it out. I am from a small outpost about an hour away.¡± I pause, stopping. ¡°Well, an hour run for me. I don¡¯t actually know how long others would take to get here.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s nice to hear. Well, I hope you enjoy your time here.¡±

    The man gets up to leave, but I stop him. ¡°Wait! I... can¡¯t pay for this meal. I hadn¡¯t realized that you needed to pay for food here.¡±

    The man just stares at me for a moment before shaking his head and grabbing the bill. ¡°Let¡¯s just say it''s on the house this time. Call it a gesture of good will.¡±

    He walks away before I can thank him, and I let out a sigh of relief. I¡¯d definitely make it up to him if I ever bumped into him again. Before I can stand up from my seat, another person sits across from me.

    ¡°Wait.¡± The cloaked figure says. ¡°I need to talk with you.¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡± I ask, just wanting to get out of this restaurant.

    ¡°Would you be willing to go somewhere more private to discuss this?¡±

    I raise an eyebrow, but agree. ¡°Sure.¡±

    The person leads me out of the building, and straight into the city center. The deeper we get into the building, the more I begin to think I may have messed up by agreeing to follow this person.

    We make it all the way up to the third floor before going into a side room. There were no windows, and it was dimly lit by a few candles. The figure gestures to one of the chairs sat at the table in one of the rooms, and sits in the opposite one. I sit down, the regret getting more and more pronounced.

    ¡°May I ask why you came to this city?¡± The person asks.

    ¡°To just check it out.¡± I say. ¡°Why does everybody seem to think I have bad intentions?"

    ¡°This is just for everyone''s safety. Do you have anybody within the city you planned on meeting while here?¡±

    ¡°Nobody in particular, no.¡±

    ¡°Do you know anybody who resides within the city.¡±

    ¡°A few.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I need to keep answering these questions.¡± I say, standing up. ¡°I am going to be leaving now.¡±

    ¡°If you want to remain in this city for more than the next five minutes, you will answer my questions.¡±

    I sigh and sit back down. ¡°Why do you need to know all of this?¡±

    ¡°Like I said, for everyone''s safety. We have had some bad actors as of late and it is best that all high leveled individuals are monitored.¡±

    ¡°That is fair enough, I guess.¡± I say.

    ¡°So, who within the city do you know?¡±

    ¡°Do you know anybody by the name of Flynn or Ryker? I am familiar with their team.¡±

    ¡°I do know them.¡± The figure says, seeming to become just a little more tense when I mention them. ¡°Would you happen to be River? The one that aided them on the chain floor?¡±

    ¡°Yes, something wrong with that?¡±

    There is a pause before the cloaked figure once more speaks. ¡°No, nothing wrong with it. We had been hoping to come into contact with you at some point, and now is as good a time as any.¡±

    ¡°Why did you want to speak with me specifically?¡±

    ¡°We have our reasons. You may go now.¡±

    I stand up to leave, and the figure remains sitting. I slowly walk towards the door, stepping out of the room a moment later. I almost run right into Flynn as I do, and he seems shocked to see me.

    ¡°What were you doing in that room?¡± He asks, looking over my shoulder and into the dark room. I glance behind me and see that the person who had just interrogated me like we were in a bad detective movie had disappeared. I frown as I realized that I had forgotten to identify them.

    I turn back to Flynn. ¡°Well, I just got interrogated by somebody.¡±

    ¡°That was probably Ram. He is basically the ¡®head of police¡¯ around here.¡±

    ¡°You guys have a police department?¡±

    ¡°Kind of. It¡¯s mostly a group of people who go around and make sure nobody goes on a killing spree for levels. Anyways, what brings you to the great city?¡±

    ¡°Why does everyone keep ask-¡± I stop, calming my annoyance at that question. ¡°I just wanted to see what the place is like. So far, my impressions aren¡¯t good.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll get used to it. I know you are from a more community based town, but around here most people see rules and those that enforce them as the only thing keeping everything from falling apart. For the most part it works, but there are definitely a few... less appealing parts of this way of doing things.¡±

    ¡°You can say that again.¡± I say, tapping the door I just came through with my heel. ¡°I think I¡¯ll be leaving soon enough anyways. I am already sick of dealing with people like Ram.¡±

    ¡°Then you probably aren¡¯t going to like who is walking up behind you right now.¡± Flynn says, swiftly turning around and walking the other way. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to you once you are done with her.¡± He whispers as he passes by.

    I look over my shoulder and see a short woman walking towards me with a less than pleasant look on her face. She was wearing full leather armor and had a short sword hanging in a sheath at her side. Learning from my past mistake, I immediately used inspect on her.

    Human (Level 35)

    Well, that was very interesting.

    ¡°River.¡± She says, stopping in front of me. ¡°We need to talk.¡±

 Chapter 24: Great Disappointment

    ¡°What exactly do you want to talk about?¡± I ask the angry woman who¡¯d approached me. Her less than kind demeanor was definitely off putting, but not a reason to dislike her immediately.

    ¡°Come upstairs and find out.¡± She says, turning to walk towards the staircase. She doesn¡¯t even look behind to check if I am following. Once she makes it about halfway there, she realizes that I hadn¡¯t budged an inch.

    ¡°Nope. Not going to go up there until you tell me what it¡¯s about. I already trusted one of your people here, and got interrogated in a dark room.¡±

    She sighs. ¡°Fine. I want to discuss introducing currency to your outpost the the towns around you.¡±

    ¡°Why would you be talking about that with me? I¡¯m not the leader of any of them.¡±

    ¡°Because you are the highest leveled person around there. People will listen to you.¡±

    ¡°No, people will listen to those they trust. They actually trust the leaders of my outpost, so if you really want to discuss anything like that then bring it up with them.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think you quite understand your responsibilities towards your people.¡± She says. ¡°You are the strongest amongst them, so you help with the major decision. At the very least I am sure you can put in a good word for us once I convince you of the value of having standard currency.¡±

    ¡°Oh I am well aware it would be useful to have.¡± I say. ¡°It¡¯s just not my job to deal with that stuff. Besides, I don¡¯t like how you just assume I should be in charge just because I am the highest level.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps you¡¯d be more inclined to tell them it''s a good idea if-¡±

    ¡°Nope. I am not going to endorse this either. If it is good enough to implement, it shouldn¡¯t be hard to convince anyone to do so.¡±

    She glares at me, taking a moment to think. She pulls out a small pouch from her waistband. ¡°Then how about you just mention the idea of currency to your leaders. You don¡¯t have to endorse it.¡±

    I think that over for a moment, and have to do my best to keep a smirk off my face after a moment. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll make sure to bring it up next time I see them.¡±

    ¡°Great.¡± She says, her glare disappearing as she tosses the bag of coins to me. I look inside, seeing a few gold coins within.

    She walks away, seeming at least content with the outcome of the conversation. I just stare into the pouch a bit longer.

    ¡°I... have no idea how much this is worth.¡±

    Upon exiting the building, Flynn finds me and stops me. ¡°So what¡¯d she want to talk about?¡±

    ¡°She wanted me to implement currency into my outpost. I told her that wasn¡¯t my job, and she kept trying to convince me to at least have me endorse it. In the end, we settled on me at least mentioning it. She gave me this in return.¡± I open up the pouch for him to see into.

    ¡°Wow.¡± Flynn says, counting the coins. ¡°I never expected you would be the type to accept a bribe, even if it was a pretty good one.¡±

    ¡°Oh relax. I¡¯m not actually gonna say anything useful about the currency. I just wanted the money.¡±

    ¡°If you say so. Anyways, there was something very important I wanted to talk to you about. I really need your input on what to do with this information, as this could very much effect everybody within the tower.¡±

    I suddenly get much more serious, understanding the gravity of what I was about to be told. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Let''s go somewhere a bit less crowded first.¡± Flynn says, leading me elsewhere. After a bit of walking, we arrived at the staircase within the city. ¡°Floor eleven.¡± Flynn says before disappearing.

    I also head down to floor eleven, soon finding myself standing right next to Flynn on a beach. It only took a moment to realize we were on an island of some kind, surrounded completely by water.

    Welcome to floor 11: Diving Deep

    Objective: Reach the bottom of the sea.

    ¡°Great,¡± Flynn says, turning to me. ¡°Now that I am sure nobody will hear us, let¡¯s talk about what is so special about getting here.¡±

    I turn to Flynn. ¡°Before that, do you think we would be able to discuss this on our way down to the bottom of the sea?¡±

    Flynn raises an eyebrow. ¡°If you think you can find some way to get down there. Do you happen to have a submarine?¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°No, but I got something close to it. Follow me.¡±

    We walk towards the water, and with a lot of concentration I manage to push my mana shield off my skin and make it form a bubble around us. As we get closer to the water, it is pushed back by the shield. I can feel a very, very small amount of mana get drained from pushing the water back, but it is such a small amount that my natural regeneration replaces the mana faster than it is being used up.

    A bit more walking, and soon enough we are completely underwater with the bubble of air keeping us safe.

    ¡°So, what is this world changing news?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yeah.¡± Flynn says, taking his attention off of the bubble of mana around us. ¡°Reaching this floor upgraded my pioneer title from D tier to C tier.¡±

    The bubble around us shudders slightly as my concentration wavers. That had caught me totally off guard. ¡°Like, the title upgraded it completely? Did your time in the tutorial extend as well?¡±

    ¡°Yes it did. I now have another 42 days left in the tutorial instead of the nine from before.¡±

    ¡°That is just... wow. People are going to start scrambling to get past floor ten if that is really the case. That would finally encourage some people to start gaining levels too.¡±

    ¡°It would.¡± Flynn says, nodding his head. ¡°Unfortunately, it would also cause a lot of people to die.¡±

    ¡°What? How come?¡±

    ¡°If people who previously had no confidence to progress through the floors suddenly try to climb through them, there is a good chance many of them will fall to the monsters they encounter. Just think about how many people are going to die to the skeleton sentinel on floor 5.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure there will be some people who chaperone them through the floors though.¡± I say. ¡°It would be a lot safer.¡±

    ¡°There probably will be, but many will go without them.¡±

    There is a silence for a few minutes as we both think about it. I myself was weighing the pros and cons of telling people about this, and I can tell Flynn was doing the same. He¡¯d had a lot more time to think about this than I did, so he probably had a better idea of how it would affect people.

    As we walk further into the sea, the sand beneath us gently slopes down. It is pretty clear that eventually we will reach a bottom, so we keep going. The light around us slowly begins to dim as the water over our heads blocks the sun out slowly.

    We spend almost an hour talking about what we should do with this information, until finally the first threat of the floor shows itself. All around us, a school of fish appear. They start slamming against my mana shield, draining a small but not negligible amount of mana with each hit.

    I send out a couple of mana blasts to fend them off, and Flynn swipes his sword at them through the mana barrier. I allowed the sword to pass through unimpeded, a neat and convenient function of the spell. By the time the school had thinned out enough for them to retreat, I had a ton of individual kill notifications waiting for me.

    You have slain Aquatic Rat (Level 27 - 30) x 138

    Bonus experience earned for fighting while outnumbered

    Despite the many kills, I hadn¡¯t gotten a level. These enemies were quite a bit below my own level, and even for the level they were they were pretty damn weak. It was likely supposed to be a power by numbers situation, but using concussive mana blasts was akin to dynamite fishing. The shockwave through the water did a lot of damage. Unfortunately, my mana shield had also been affected by the shockwave. It was an indiscriminate attack.

    We continued further into the darkness, and eventually I needed to turn some mana into light to allow us to see anything at all. Several more sea monsters attack us, but with the both of us there to fight back they were trivial to deal with.

    After a few hours of walking, we reach a drop off in the sand. My mana was starting to run pretty low, and my aura was at just under a quarter of its maximum capacity. I had at least gained a level from some of the stronger enemies we¡¯d faced, so I could at least say that this floor was worth something.

    ¡°Ready to jump?¡± I ask, looking over at Flynn.

    ¡°Are we sure that¡¯s the right way to go?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll bet you a coin it is.¡±

    ¡°No deal.¡±

    We hop down into the inky blackness, our speed dictated by how fast we could make the mana shield sink. Flynn was sitting on the bottom of it while I just kind of... floated in the center. The shield created resistance as it moved through the water, and the spell always kept me at it¡¯s center. That resulted in me being forced to float in the middle of the bubble of mana while it slowly descended further and further down.

    Eventually, the blackness rushed in all around us, and I knew we had made it too the bottom of the floor. Coincidentally, it coincided with us coming to a decision about what to do with the information Flynn had discovered.

    You have completed floor 11

    Welcome to floor 12: Challengers Ravine

    Objective: Reach the staircase at the end of the Ravine

    Our feet were once more on solid ground. We now stood in the middle of an air bubble. There was light coming from all around us, so we could at least see. As far as I could tell, this was the only part of the floor that was not under water.

    ¡°So, we agree to keep it to ourselves.¡± Flynn says, looking at me.

    ¡°I think that would be for the best. We don¡¯t want anybody needlessly dying in hopes of a stupid title upgrade. At least, we don¡¯t need it to be our fault. I¡¯m sure everyone will find out eventually.¡±

    ¡°Great. So, You wanna continue on through this floor? I¡¯m sure we can handle it well enough.¡±

    ¡°Not right now.¡± I say, shaking my head. ¡°I need to give my mana a few hours to regenerate, and as much as it pains me, I have some responsibilities to tend to.¡±

    ¡°Then how about meeting here again in a day or so.¡±

    ¡°Sounds good to me.¡± I say. We both exit the floor and return to the great city. I leave quickly after and make my way back to the outpost. I need to be at the staircase soon to help out my students, but first I have something else I need to do.

    I find Ben, walking up to him. He notices me and smiles.

    ¡°Hey River, how''ve you been?¡±

    ¡°Currency.¡± I say, my face completely serious.

    ¡°What?¡± Ben says, confused.

    ¡°Money.¡±

    ¡°I... are you alright?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine. Just fulfilling an agreement I made. Anyways, it¡¯s nice to see you too. I¡¯ve been well.¡±

    We talk for a few more minutes after that before I head over to the staircase. I can already see all three groups waiting for me.

    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news.¡± I say as I walk up to them. ¡°Which would you all like to hear first?¡±

    They all awkwardly stand there for a moment before one of them in the back calls out. ¡°Bad news first.¡±

    ¡°Well, the bad news is that I am completely unable to go to floor six to assist you all there.¡±

    ¡°What''s the good news?¡± Another one of them asks.

    ¡°Well the good news is that I can give you several ways to finish off the next five floors. Now, who here wants to become a slum lord?¡±

 Chapter 25: Progress of the Rapid Variety

    It took me several hours to explain the full scope of floors six to ten. During this time, I had explained how marks worked, the ways I knew of to upgrade them, and potential methods that could help upgrade their marks. This ranged from everything to dueling the gate guards like Flynn had for his first mark, to becoming a crafter for the city to hopefully get into the inner walls.

    During all of these explanations I had done my best to draw out a map of the city. I had spotted one during my brief time in the Kings castle, and thanks to my stats my memory was good enough to recall a good portion of it. What I couldn¡¯t remember I did my best to supplement with memories of the time I had spent in the capital.

    After each team had decided on their plans of action to progress, they headed down to the sixth floor all together. Only one of the groups decided to duel the gate guards, while the other two had decided to try and overthrow some gang leader to upgrade their marks. After that they would make it as far as they could through the progression of tournaments, switching to fulfilling any job contracts people may have once they couldn¡¯t progress any further. A part of me did wonder if any of them would end up facing the spear queen, or if she would even remember fighting me and Flynn.

    That was something that had been on my mind ever since completing the chain floors. If you couldn''t return after completing them, then what was stopping the system from just scrubbing the memories of the city residents to keep from the floors becoming harder or more complicated over time? It made sense that would be how it worked, but I sincerely hoped it didn¡¯t. I still didn¡¯t know if those people within the tower were ¡°real¡± or not, and I was unsure if I wanted to actually know the answer to that.

    It didn¡¯t matter much anyways. By the end of the tutorial they would all probably be gone.

    I spent the rest of the day practicing my mana control while I waited for the meeting time with Flynn. I ran back over to the great city and made it to the staircase almost exactly at the time we had agreed to meet. He was already there, but he didn¡¯t look like he¡¯d been waiting for long.

    We headed down to floor twelve, appearing within the air bubble at the start of the floor. After a little bit of talking, me and Flynn had decided that we would stick together while progressing through the floors, at least for now. With the two of us fighting side by side, there was very little that could pose any kind of threat to us.

    The schools of fish we had needed to fight on the previous floor were now replaced by small groups of sharks that tried to bite right through my mana shield. We had been forced to kill most of them before they could even reach that point, as each bite would take a lot of mana to block.

    You have killed Bull Shark (Level 34) x 6

    I still wasn¡¯t getting any levels, and even by the time we had completed the entire floor, I hadn¡¯t gained a single one. Flynn on the other hand had gained two levels, as his was already low enough to be even with the enemies we faced.

    You have completed floor 12

    Welcome to floor 13: Champions Deep

    Floor 13 proved to be a big jump in difficulty from floor 12. We were now regularly facing monsters around level 40, and after only an hour or so I finally gained my first level since fighting the King.

    You are now level 40

    Skill selection available

    ¡°Let''s stop here for a moment.¡± I tell Flynn. ¡°I have to select my level 40 skill.¡±

    ¡°Fine by me.¡± Flynn says, taking a seat on the ground nearby. I take a look at the skills I¡¯d been offered, pleasantly surprised by how good they all seem. There were various offensive and defensive spells that looked like they would be nice to have, but in truth they didn¡¯t particularly interest me. I¡¯d realized after my level 30 skill selection that the only skills that would be useful to pick were support skills. Sure, learning to cast a fireball would be cool and all, but having a passive skill that boosted just about everything else I did would be far more useful.

    Support Skills:

    Materialize (Rare)

    Materialize an object from within your aura, summoning it to any point within your aura.

    Aura Harvest (Rare)

    Increase the regeneration of mana within your aura by drawing upon the mana in your environment. Also provides a small boost to all mana recovery.

    Aura Blueprints (Epic)

    Store blueprints of mana constructs within your aura to summon at any time for a low cost. Provides a small increase to the strength of all items summoned with this skill.

    They all seemed in some way related to my aura, and I definitely wasn¡¯t about to complain about that. Anything that would increase how useful it was would be a boon in the long run.

    The first option, materialize, just seemed to be exactly what I was already doing. I could retrieve items from my aura, but with this skill I could summon them anywhere within my aura. That sounded like it would have a few niche uses as best, and I didn¡¯t see myself using it much.

    Aura harvest on the other hand was something I would use constantly. Being able to recover quicker between fights would serve to increase how quickly I could progress through the floors of the tower, and would slightly increase my effectiveness in a battle of endurance.

    Aura blueprint seemed like it was tailor made to synergize with my mana-festation skill. I could have premade items ready in my aura to summon at any moment for cheaper than usual, and they would be stronger than normal as well. Given that it would make one of my most useful skills even better, it was hard to overlook.

    After a bit of back and forth debating, and asking Flynn¡¯s opinion on the matter, I ended up choosing Aura Harvest. The boost to recovery it provided was just too good to pass up, especially on a floor like this where I was constantly using mana just to keep the water from collapsing in all around us.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    It took us almost an entire day to make it to the end of this floor. It wasn¡¯t due to any difficulty we had with the enemies, but just because we needed to move slowly with this bubble of mana around us. The water was constantly fighting against any movements we wanted to make, so progress was slow but steady.

    Eventually we reached the end of the floor, having each gained several levels. I myself had made it to level 43, while Flynn had just crested level 40 with this most recent fight. Upon entering the next floor, Flynn was no longer standing by my side. I wasn¡¯t even underwater anymore. I was standing on the deck of a ship with rain pouring down from above.

    You have completed floor 13

    Welcome to floor 14: Sail the Seas (Instanced)

    Defend the vessel long enough to reach the end of the floor. Estimated time to arrival: 18 hours

    This floor was instanced, so me and Flynn had finally been split up. At least it seemed to have a set time to complete it, so me and Flynn would be done roughly at the same time. Looking around me, I saw that there was an entire crew of people manning this ship, and identifying them revealed every single one of them to be level 35. All apart from the captain of course.

    Human (Level 40)

    ¡°Welcome aboard the vessel.¡± The captain says, sticking out a hand. She had a raspy voice, a hook for a hand, and a prosthetic leg that looked barely more advanced than a peg leg. I shook her hand.

    ¡°Happy to be aboard.¡± I say. ¡°Anything you need me to do?¡±

    <hr>

    Many have dreamed of sailing the seven seas with a trusty crew to back them up. Let me be the first to tell you that it is not all it is hyped up to be. Sure it was fun at first learning how to tie a bunch of the knots needed and how to hoist the sails, but eventually it just got tedious and boring. The only thing that broke up the monotony was the occasional monster attacking the ship. The first three times the entire crew had scrambled to grab weapons to fend off the beast, but after I had effectively crushed a level 45 colossal squid with a quadruple cast of mana blast straight to it¡¯s eye, they seemed to realize I had it handled and didn¡¯t panic quite as much whenever a new threat arrived.

    The floor ended right at the 18 hour mark, with me finally getting to leave the ship and stand on dry land once more. I was now on an island with a new appreciation of solid ground. I had reached level 46 in my time on the vessel, and I could tell level 50 was not far off. Talking to the King had made me come to the conclusion that level 50 was when my next evolution would be, and it would likely be accompanied with another jump in power.

    It would also probably be accompanied with my class taking a whole new direction than before. I had already come to the conclusion that I wanted my next class change to focus more on my trait than anything else. It had been nice to have my mana conversion spell, and it definitely had seen its use, but it just wasn¡¯t as useful as I had been hoping it would be.

    A few minutes after I¡¯d arrived on the island, Flynn appeared next to me. It was only then that I checked the notification for this floor.

    Welcome to floor 15: Pirates Rest (Boss)(Semi-instanced)

    Defeat the Boss at the center of the island.

    We both read the notification, and I turn to Flynn. ¡°What would you think about us doing this floor separately? It would definitely be beneficial for levels of nothing else.¡±

    Flynn thinks about it for a moment. ¡°How about we go check out the boss first. We can think about it after that.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡±

    We make our way through the surprisingly jungle-like forest that covers the island. After some time we reach the edge of a clearing and find the boss that the system had spoken of.

    Pirate Lord (Level 49)(Boss)

    It hadn¡¯t even identified as human, despite appearing to be one in just about every respect. At least, I thought it had. When it turned around and faced us, I saw that half of its face was missing, replaced with a green fire that came from it¡¯s skull. A single red eye glowed from behind the fire, piercing through the bright flames and straight into our souls.

    ¡°Think you can handle it?¡± I ask Flynn.

    ¡°I¡¯ll give it a shot. How about you fight it first so I can get an idea of what it is capable of.¡±

    ¡°Using me as a guinea pig? How rude.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t act like you didn¡¯t want to fight it on your own anyways. You were the one who suggested it. I am just taking advantage of the opportunity.¡±

    ¡°Fair enough.¡± I say, shrugging. ¡°Well, watch and see how a master does it.¡± I rub my hands together and walk out into the clearing.

    ¡°Now I am almost hoping you get your ass handed to you.¡± Flynn mutters.

    ¡°Well I am sorry to disappoint, but that will not be happening.¡±

    ¡°Whatever you say.¡±

    I rush towards the Pirate Lord, immediately summoning my dagger in one hand and a shield in the other. The boss raises the blunderbuss it has in one hand, pulling the trigger and firing it at me.

    A volley of mana pellets shoots my way, and with how many there are I struggle to dodge all of them. About a quarter of them hit me head on. The other hand of the pirate lord raises with its scimitar in hand, meeting the swing of my dagger halfway. He parries my strike, once more raising his gun to fire at me. I manage to dodge it this time, delivering a cut across the chest of the boss monster.

    Empower it already at full burn, as I need all the speed I can possibly get right now. The pirate lord''s hands seem to be acting independently of one another, with the left hand firing a volley of mana bullets every few seconds and the right hand constantly swinging the scimitar around to keep up the pressure.

    I manage to sneak in plenty of mana blasts, each one dealing considerable damage when done up close. The skin of the boss is far tougher than the skin of any human should be, and I throw in a few mana splinters to pierce through and deal more meaningful damage.

    By the time the boss seems to have finally gotten sick of me chipping away at it, it suddenly leaps back and far away from me. It raises its hand to the sky, and an utterly massive anchor made of pure mana descends from above and pierces the earth. A chain of mana shoots towards me faster than I can react, and soon enough I am tethered to the anchor now in the ground.

    I am unable to move more than 20 feet from the anchor, and the pirate lord takes this to its advantage. The flames on its face seem to glow even brighter than before, and when it fires its blunderbuss in my direction, a jet of green flames erupts out of it instead of mana bullets.

    I dodge to the side, forced to kite around the monster since I can¡¯t make very much distance. As the jet of flames subsides, I get in close and deliver spell after spell into the monster as it too sends attacks my way.

    Its sword scrapes against my mana shield countless times, and even manages to punch through more than once, leaving holes and gashes across my body. Its flames and bullets are at least not capable of punching through, so I don¡¯t have to worry as much about them as I do the scimitar.

    After what feels like forever of chipping away at the body of the pirate lord, it finally falls. The fight was only about ten minutes, but every second of it had been filled with danger and risk. That was exactly the kind of rush I looked for in a fight.

    You have slain Pirate Lord (Level 49)(Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level. Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss. Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss without assistance.

    You are now level 47

    You are now level 48

    You are now level 49

    Damn. I knew getting to level 50 from this fight was a bit of a long shot, but it was still a little disappointing to see I hadn¡¯t quite made the cutoff. I could probably make it with just a day or so of training my mana, so that was probably the route I would be taking.

    ¡°You ready to give it a shot on your own?¡± I call out to Flynn as he walks up.

    ¡°I am.¡± He says, looking down at the sword the pirate lord had just been wielding.

    ¡°Go ahead and take it.¡± I say. ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to be using it either way.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡± He takes the sword and admires it. His last upgrade to his weapon hadn¡¯t been since floor five, so this would be quite a bonus for him. ¡°Could you come with me to make sure I don¡¯t get myself killed?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t see why not.¡±

    We head back to the first floor, almost immediately teleporting back to floor 15. We make our way to the clearing where the boss is, and I watch for about five minutes as Flynn battles against the Pirate Lord. After a few missed attacks and messed up dodges, Flynn is on the backfoot and is quickly losing ground. He has already dealt enough damage to force the Pirate Lord to drop its anchor into the ground and chain him to it, leaving much less room to maneuver than he had been previously afforded.

    After he gets his arm blown off by a volley of mana, I step in and knock the pirate lord off it¡¯s feet with a triple cast of concussive mana blasts. That gives Flynn the advantage he needs to finish off the fight with a swift decapitation of the monster.

    You have slain Pirate Lord (Level 49)(Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for slaying a boss.

    You are now level 50

    Prepare for evolution...

    I don¡¯t even get the chance to say anything as everything around me goes black and I am forcefully dragged into my soul for my next evolution.

 Chapter 26: Evolution... Again

    The empty void around me quickly filled itself with four stone pillars, just like it had the first time I evolved. Each one had the names and description of new classes I could choose. Before I could read any of them though, a screen appeared in front of me.

    Congratulations for reaching your second evolution! The second evolution marks the first time one gains an Innate skill. Innate skills have no rarity, can not be upgraded by normal means, and are granted by the class selected upon evolution. An innate skill will upgrade at regular intervals throughout the evolution tier it was gained. An innate skill can not be lost, disabled, or otherwise impaired by any means. Upon reaching its maximum potential, an Innate skill will evolve and gain a powerful effect. When all else fails, the only thing left to rely on is ones innate skills.

    The system really seemed to want me to understand just how significant this new skill would be. I took the hint and decided to not take said skill lightly when considering which class I would be selecting. I moved on to the first of the four classes I could select.

    Auric Mage

    The Auric Mage relies heavily on their aura for every aspect of their magic. They can reshape, condense, and bend their aura to their will. To an auric mage, their aura is as simple to wield and as effective a weapon as any other. Gain the Aura Shape (Epic) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Overwhelming Presence

    This class was definitely offered to me thanks to all the work I had done incorporating my aura into just about everything I did. While it was certainly the backbone of my magic, I didn¡¯t see the need to turn it into the weapon I fell back on. I turned to take a look at the next one.

    Master of the Metaphysical

    A Master of all that is unseen. Through masterfully manipulating their mana, they can change aspects of the world around them to aid their efforts. Be it gravity, space, or time, the Master of the Metaphysical can exert his will on it. Grants the Gravity Well (Epic) spell upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Spatial Control

    This class seemed so far off from what I was currently doing, and at the same time sounded absolutely awesome. It seemed to be nudging me back towards what my class was truly about, which was learning more about mana and what it could really do. I was almost tempted to pick this one right away, but I knew I had to at least look at the rest. Even while reading the next class, the idea of manipulating gravity and space was in the back of my mind.

    Supreme Dimensional Duelist

    The Dimensional Duelist excels while fighting alone, growing stronger when not having an ally to ensure their safety. The supreme dimensional duelist takes this a step further, fighting enemies far stronger than themselves and coming out on top to prove themselves the superior fighter. Grants the Ambitious Fighter (Epic) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Dimensional Duel

    This seemed to be building on what I was already doing for the most part. Most of my fighting up to this point had been with me fighting one on one, or in many cases one against many. Interestingly, despite being called a duelist, this class had no mention of needing to only fight one enemy to receive the extra power in a fight. It only required me to be fighting alone. This was definitely another class to consider. I now had two great classes occupying my mind as I read through the last of my four possible choices.

    Unyielding Warrior of the Arcane

    The Unyielding Warrior of the Arcane is an unmovable object on the battlefield. None can pierce their defenses, and all fall to their blade. Using magic to empower themselves, the Unyielding warrior of the Arcane is an unstoppable force in any conflict they take part in. Grants the Unmovable (Special) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Unyielding

    Seeing the special rarity assigned to the class skill threw me off for a moment. Was that supposed to be the rarity above epic? I had assumed it went straight from Epic to Legendary, but perhaps that assumption had been incorrect. That only made me marvel more at the gift I had been given by the King, a gift that I could actually use now thanks to reaching level 50.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    The fact that I had that staff is also what put me off of this class. This was clearly a melee fighters class, and even if I often found myself in close quarters, I did not need more reason to stay there. That just left two choices that really had me thinking.

    Master of the Metaphysical, or Supreme Dimensional Duelist. When I had first chosen to become an Energetic Manipulator as my class, my reasoning had been that I wanted to learn more about magic and what it could do. In truth, my logic had been a bit flawed. I had not needed to class for that. I had learned so much about magic purely through using it in everything I did. This new class though, it seemed to be the next step on the path of a magical researcher, so perhaps I would learn even more by selecting that class.

    As for the Duelist class, I think its benefits truly did speak for themselves. I had been fighting alongside Flynn these past few days, and even before I had fought side by side with some allies every now and then. In truth, I really preferred to be fighting alone. I didn¡¯t like needing to worry about allies, and the thrill of having the enemies focus solely on me was just unmatched.

    I stood there for a while weighing the pros and cons of each choice, wondering which would be the most beneficial in the long run. Both innate skills sounded extremely useful, even if they didn¡¯t tell me what they did.

    After a lot of contemplation, I made my choice, my breath catching for a moment as I felt the sheer difference in strength that my body now held. My stats had all gone up thanks to the evolution, and I was already feeling the difference.

    Before I could read through all the changes, another screen appeared before me showing that my subclass had evolved.

    Your subclass Arcane Artificer has been upgraded to Arcane Creator! Mana-Festation (Epic) has been upgraded to Arcane Arsenal (Special)

    Would you like to gain a second subclass?

    I remembered back when the tutorial said that gaining another subclass was not recommended. It had been one of the first things it had said when explaining my stat sheet, so I took its word for it.

    After dismissing that screen, another appeared.

    Would you like to reassign your stat focuses?

    For a while now I had already known the answer to that question. I chose to reassign them, switching Aura to the primary focus of my Spirit stat and Perception to be the secondary focus. I didn¡¯t change any of the others, as I had kind of built my fighting style around my agility being my primary focus for the body stat.

    After that selection had been made, one final screen appears in front of me.

    You may now review your updated status screen. Upon closing your status screen, your evolution will end.

    I opened my stat screen, seeing that it now displayed the change my stat had gone through.

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Human (Tier 2)

    Level: 50

    Class: Supreme Dimensional Duelist

    Subclass: Arcane Creator

    Trait: Planes Walker

    Displayed title: King Killer

    Statistics:

    Body: 525 => 805 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 777 => 1057 (Potency, Capacity, Recovery)

    Spirit: 525 => 805 (Aura-Perception-Soul)

    Class skills: Mana Conversion (Epic), Accumulate (Epic), Superior Mana Manipulation (Epic), Mana Harvest (Epic), Ambitious Fighter (Epic)

    Class spells: Mana Blast (Rare), Mana Splinter (Rare), Arcane Fortification (Epic), Arcane Arsenal (Special)

    Personal Spells: Empower (Epic), Inspect (Common)

    Innate Skills: Dimensional Duel (1/5)

    Titles: S+ tier pioneer, S tier populous, King Killer

    I¡¯ll admit, it wasn¡¯t as dramatic of a jump in stats as I had been hoping. I checked both my race description and class description to see how many stats I would be gaining now with each level, and my frown was immediately turned upside down.

    For each level, my race now granted me 6 in each stat. My Class would grant 50 to my mind stat, 35 to my body stat, and 30 to my spirit stat. A bit of mental math told me that my mind stat would be over double what it was now by the time I reached level 63. I also quickly read through the description of my innate skill.

    I read through the description of arcane arsenal as well, only to find that the only that had changed was the fact that I could make multiple items at once with far more ease than before. The description of my innate skill though was quite a bit different than I had been expecting.

    Dimensional Duel (1/5)

    Effect 1: +20% to all stats while fighting with no outside assistance

    That was just another increase to my stats, and I was a far more formidable opponent than before. The sheer amount of multipliers granted by my titles, my empower skill, and now this skill all worked to make me just that much more potent, and I highly doubted there were many people who would be this strong upon reaching level 50. Remembering the other skill I¡¯d gained, I check out my new Lone Fighter skill.

    Ambitious Fighter (Epic)

    Grants a bonus to all stats when fighting an opponent of a higher level. The bonus increases with the difference in levels between you and your opponent.

    This skill truly settled it. I was tailor made to punch above my weight class. It was a damn good feeling.

    I close out my stat sheet, and the darkness around me fades. I once more find myself standing next to Flynn, who looks annoyed.

    ¡°If you are done with all of that now,¡± Flynn says, his voice a bit harsh. ¡°Do you think you could help me get to a healer?

    I only then remember that Flynn had in fact had his arm cut off in the fight with the Pirate Lord. I quickly grab his sword and carry it for him while he carries his arm. I quickly snag all of the valuables off of the Pirate Lord before we return to the first floor.

    After getting Flynn to a healer and dropping off his loot from the fight, I leave to head back to the outpost. The leaders of the great city already hadn¡¯t been thrilled when somebody at level 39 had entered their city. I didn¡¯t imagine they would appreciate somebody who was now level 50 and could probably level the city if I truly wanted to.

    I wasn¡¯t too upset about leaving though. Right now all I could think of was the legendary staff I could now use, and how I was about to go on a spell upgrading spree.

 Chapter 27: Dungeons

    Reaching level 50 had given me a significant boost to basically everything I could do. Upgrading my spells was only a matter of making them a bit more complicated and potent. With a mind stat that was now over 33% higher than it had been before, the leap from rare to epic rarity had not been a tough on for either of my primary offensive spells.

    For Mana Blast, I had added a function that let me charge the spell for a second or two before releasing it, increasing the strength of each attack without increasing the cost. It had been enough to push it over the edge to epic rarity.

    Mana Blast (Rare) has been upgraded to Arcane Blast (Epic)

    I didn¡¯t get a level from upgrading the spell since it hadn¡¯t been anything impressive. I didn¡¯t get a level from upgrading my other offensive spell either, since that hadn¡¯t been too hard either.

    Mana Splinter (Rare) has been upgraded to Arcane Splinter (Epic)

    I had upgraded this one pretty much the same way I had upgraded my other spell. I could charge either spell to be about 30% stronger if I gave it ten seconds to charge. Any longer than that and any increase in strength would barely be noticeable.

    After both of my spells were upgraded, I headed straight for the 15th floor to test them out and test the new staff I could now use.

    Stepping into the clearing where the Pirate Lord waited, I shot a weak mana bolt at it to get its attention. It started running towards me, firing a volley of mana bullets my way. I dodged them easily, swinging my staff around to be close to its face. A charged arcane blast erupted out of the staff, empowered by the powerful weapon. A chunk of the monsters face was blown off by the attack, and immediately my leg was wrapped up by the same ethereal chain the boss used whenever it was seriously injured.

    I sent an spike of mana through the chain to see if I could break it, but unfortunately the chain was a bit too strong for that. The Pirate Lord began to move quicker and swing its sword at me rapidly, firing off mana volleys at the same time. Every attack was either dodged or blocked by my staff, and after I felt like I had gotten a decent handle on my new capabilities, I decided it was finally time to test the ability my staff offered that I was most curious about.

    Jabbing the staff into the torso of the Pirate Lord, I released all three charges of Arcane Blast that I had stored up before the fight. They all combine into one far more powerful cast of the spell, and given that I¡¯d spent some time charging it, it was only further strengthened. The spell erupted forth with easily five times the power I would normally be able to put into it.

    For lack of a better word, the boss monster before me exploded. It¡¯s entire midsection had been reduced to mush, and blood had sprayed out in a cone behind it when my attack landed.

    The Pirate Lord fell over dead a second later, the fight ending without it having landed a single hit on me. I didn¡¯t get any experience since it was a lower evolution than myself.

    I looked at the staircase that had appeared upon the monsters¡¯ death. When I had been bringing Flynn back to the great city after his fight with this boss, he had told me he wouldn¡¯t be attempting to progress further through the floors until he was able to kill the Pirate Lord on his own, which probably meant he would be getting to level 49 himself before fighting the boss again.

    I saw no reason to not at least scout out the next couple of floors, so I walked down the staircase, wondering what the next floors held.

    Welcome to Floor 16: Dark Dungeon (Chain)(Semi-instanced)

    Each floor of this dungeon contains one boss and one hidden boss. All bosses will drop a powerful item to assist you through the floors, which will disappear after completing floor 20. On floor 20 you will encounter your first raid boss, a designation not earned from it¡¯s power buts it¡¯s pure size. Prepare well as you travel through these floors, as a raid boss is not to be taken lightly.

    So, a new type of boss to worry about. So far in the tower I had yet to ever see a monster that truly seemed too big to deal with. The closest anything had come to that was the sharks on floors 13 and 14. They had been getting quite large, but it had still at least been manageable. I was getting excited at the idea of fighting something even larger, and so I begin walking with a sure stride and determination.

    After taking just a few steps, the floor lowers a little under the weight of my foot. It was a feeling similar to missing a step on a staircase, with dread immediately filling my very soul as my foot does not find purchase. I quickly leap backwards, barely avoiding the arrow that had been fired where my head just was.

    Of course a dungeon would have traps. Why wouldn¡¯t it? I should have expected it. Even still, my eyes were glued to the floor in front of me as I walked. Apparently these pressure plates were well hidden, because there had been one somewhere I was certain I had cleared.

    A large rock rolls through the hallway, filling the entire thing. I brace myself and send a charge of arcane blast from my staff, cracking the large rock in half. While it rolled, the boulder had activated a few other traps as it passed by. That gave me an idea, so after squeezing past the boulder I use arcane arsenal to summon my own boulder. It wasn¡¯t as large as the other one had been, but this one was a cylinder, allowing it to hit any pressure plate it passed over.

    That made traversing the floor a good bit easier, as every trap was activated before I was ever at risk of getting hit by it. There were a few weak monsters in my way, but none of them were over level 49. I mostly ignored them, killing the ones that weren¡¯t already running away from me. It seemed monsters at this level at least recognized the futility of trying to kill something of a higher evolution than themselves. Remembering the overwhelming pressure that the King had exuded, I could absolutely understand the desire to retreat.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    During my traversal of the floor I had plenty of time to think about what was to come on floor 20. The dungeon wouldn¡¯t be rewarding such powerful items if the boss was going to be a pushover. It was probably intended to be near impossible to kill without the assistance of these items. Since I was on my own for it, I would need to collect as many of these items as I could get my hands on. I was pretty curious just how strong these items could be, and if they were anything like the staff the King had given me then I would become a powerhouse in no time.

    It took me a few hours to make my way to the end of the dungeon. The boss at the end was a level 49 Orc that used a bow as its primary weapon. It was pretty easy to take down, and even though it was a boss I got absolutely zero experience for defeating it since it hadn¡¯t evolved. The body had disappeared as soon as it had died, leaving nothing but the bow remaining.

    Tri-Shot Bow (Epic)

    Duplicate a fired arrow into three separate arrows, each with 50% the power of the original.

    The orc had used the triple shot feature of the weapon, not that it had helped much. I didn¡¯t see a situation where I¡¯d be using this weapon. The staircase appeared in the center of the boss room, but instead of going down into it I turned around to search for where the hidden boss of the floor could be. It took almost as long to find that as it did to find the boss room. It had been hidden behind a false wall that was only given away by the fact that light could be seen coming through the cracks.

    The hidden boss of the floor was considerably more powerful than the orc had been. It was a goblin only about as tall as I was. It had two short swords as weapons and a cloak that covered most of its body. The boots on its feet were clearly enchanted, having a subtle green glow coming from the soles.

    Goblin Duelist (Level 50)(Boss)

    ¡°A duelist?¡± I say aloud, not having expected the moniker. Could monsters also have a class? My best guess was that it had some way to isolate a fight against a single target, if for even a small amount of time. Unfortunately for this poor monster, I was also a duelist, and a damn good one if I do say so myself.

    The goblin flew towards me, its feet moving rapidly. Each foot fall was barely audible, I quickly summoned a short sword into my offhand to parry the first incoming strike, the second being blocked by my staff. The monster was thrown back by an arcane blast, landing on its feet with surprising ease. I dashed towards it, not wanting to give any time to recover. Even though I¡¯d been quick, the goblin had still fully gained its footing by the time I reached it.

    Blow after blow was exchanged, and the room was filled with the terrible sound of metal scratching against metal as our weapons clashed time and time again. After almost ten minutes of fighting, the goblin finally seemed to run out of stamina as it collapsed to the ground, succumbing to its wounds. It disappeared in a flash of light, the boots it wore being the only item it had left behind.

    You are now level 51

    Sure Footed Boots (Epic)

    +10% agility. Dampens nearly all sound from the wearer¡¯s footsteps and prevents the wearer from activating pressure plates.

    The stealth provided by the boots wasn¡¯t going to be very useful for me, but the speed and safety against the traps was very nice. If the next floor was anything like this one, that would be a very useful feature. After sliding the shoes on and storing my old ones away in my aura, I went back to the main boss room and headed straight down to the next floor. I was really hoping that there would be some level 50 monsters¡¯ to fight so I could actually start gaining levels again.

    <hr>

    ¡°We¡¯ve done everything we can up to this point to prepare everyone for the end of their time in the tutorial.¡± Ben says, addressing everyone else in the room. The outpost was currently having a meeting regarding what would happen to everybody who left the tutorial in just a bit over a week.

    ¡°Hopefully it was enough to prepare them all for whatever they are getting thrown into.¡± One of the council members says.

    Nobody really knew what would be happening after the tutorial ended. The most prominent opinion was that they would simply be back on Earth, just as it had been before the tutorial. Things would be different with the introduction of the system, but life would go on and be mostly recognizable as ¡°normal¡±.

    The other best guess at what would happen after the tutorial was that they¡¯d return to Earth, but the planet would be much different than it was now. Some guessed that modern infrastructure would have collapsed, others assumed that it would be reverted back to a single mega-continent like it had been during the days of the dinosaurs.

    The scariest guess that people had, and the one that everyone was preparing for, was that they would be dropped onto an unfamiliar planet with danger and battle around every corner. The tutorial was clearly trying to prepare them for something, and they wanted to be ready for whatever that could be.

    Four of the Six members of the outposts council were D rank and would be leaving the tutorial soon. The only two exceptions were Ben, who claimed to be A rank, and Roderick, the main town guard and the sole C rank on the council.

    Surveying the city had revealed that just about everybody who was C rank or higher was fairly capable, and so Ben wasn¡¯t too worried about having just two members on the council soon. They could always ask for help from some of the other members of the outpost if they truly needed it. What Ben was nervous for was the inevitability that was the last 30 days of the tutorial. He still had yet to come across anybody who had an S Tier Pioneer title, let alone an S+ tier title. That meant that the tower would be quite empty for the last 60 days. Hell, even the last 90 days. He had only met a dozen or so A ranks, and most of them had been the leader of a nearby city or somebody making an effort to climb through the floors.

    Speaking of leaders of cities...

    ¡°Are you all ready to discuss what I came here for?¡± An impatient voice asked from the back of the room. Ben looked over and saw the short yet extremely hot tempered leader of the great city. She had arrived just before the council meeting, so she had been allowed to sit in and ask her questions after it had concluded.

    ¡°Go ahead.¡± Ben says.

    ¡°Great.¡± The woman says, standing up and putting both hands on the table. ¡°Now, I am sure a member of your outpost had already mentioned this to you, but we at the great city are making an effort to make trade and commerce among everybody easier by introducing a standard currency.¡±

    ¡°Nobody ever mentioned anything like that.¡± Roderick says, shrugging. ¡°Any of you hear anything about it?¡± He asks the rest of the council.

    His question is met with multiple head shakes, though Ben¡¯s head shakes slower than the others. He briefly recalled when River had come to him and spoke nonsense. He had only spoken the words ¡°currency¡± and ¡°money¡± before returning to normal. Had he met her before? He always seemed to be somehow involved in things. It wouldn¡¯t be too surprising if the leaders of the great city had taken an interest in who was likely the highest leveled individual in the tower at the moment.

    ¡°Oh.¡± The woman finally says, seeming thrown off for a moment. ¡°Well anyways, we want this currency to be something that can be brought out of the tutorial as well, that way the economy can have a chance to grow before we all complete our time in the tutorial.¡±

    ¡°That seems to not take into account those who would be leaving first.¡± Ben says.

    ¡°Admittedly they will have a rough time, but having a way to trade effectively is the anchor that binds all efforts to create a civilization. Without it, we will have a much harder time getting off the ground.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t say that doesn¡¯t make sense.¡± One of the council members says. ¡°What would we use as the standard?¡±

    The woman smiles, sliding a single circular piece of metal on the table. It shone a bright silver and had a large ¡°S¡± engraved into it.

    ¡°An age-old and reliable method. Allow me to introduce the coin.¡±

 Chapter 28: Final Preparations

    The 16th floor had been one that was clearly geared towards equipping an archer for the floor 20 boss. It had given a good mobility item and a bow that increased the power of each shot dramatically. I had been hoping that floor 17 would be more geared towards a mage, but sadly that had not been the case. The boss of the floor had dropped some shiny metal armor that was good enough on it¡¯s own, and the weapon it had dropped had been a sword that was made of an ultra light material.

    Viridium Armor Set (Epic)

    A full set of armor made from viridium alloy. This armor increases strength by 10% when worn, and reduces knockback from all sources.

    I had put on the metal armor since the stats it granted far outweighed the benefit of the robe I typically wore. Honestly, it had stopped being useful around level 30, as the amount of mana it could store wasn¡¯t very high. Being able to store mana in my aura made me much less worried about how much mana I could have access to at once, making most mage robes pretty useless.

    The sword I had gotten was stashed away in my aura, likely never to see the light of day again. Don¡¯t get me wrong, it was a damn good weapon. I just didn¡¯t see myself using it too much, as my own mana swords were already pretty damn light. Thankfully the armor I¡¯d gotten was not the only thing I had to show for my time on this floor.

    You are now level 52

    You are now level 53

    You are now level 54

    The boss on this floor had been level 50, and the hidden boss was level 55. They had each been great for experience, and the main source of my levels. The level 50 monsters scattered across the floor had definitely been helpful, but the experience they granted just didn¡¯t compare to that of an equally leveled boss.

    The next floor was a bit different than the previous two. It was filled with far, far more traps than either of the others, and the monsters were even fewer and further between than before. My boots did well to protect me against any pressure plate activated traps, but the ones with magical sensors or trip wires still managed to catch me off guard more than once.

    The boss of the floor had been a jester-like creature. It wore a typical jester like outfit, with none of its body visible under the odd attire. The boss room had been stuffed with dozens of traps, each made with the full intention of killing. I had gotten hit by a few of them, and it was pretty damn frustrating to see the jester simply dance around all the triggers like they were barely an inconvenience. The thing had finally died after I held it in the path of a flame thrower I¡¯d intentionally triggered. The item it had left after its death made it pretty clear how it had danced around the traps.

    Tricksters amulet (Epic)

    Grants the wearer danger sight, making it easier to spot passive dangers in the environment.

    Once more a good item, but not one that I saw helping too much against whatever I would need to be fighting on floor 20. The hidden boss gave an even more useless item. It had been level 60, so I had been hoping for something great. Sadly, it was just a worse version of what I already used.

    Jesters Staff (Special)

    Store up to two empowered spells for instantaneous casting. Discharging both charges at once results in a far more powerful cast of the spell. All spells channeled through this weapon are slightly cheaper to cast and slightly more powerful.

    It was the discount version of my Kings staff. If I hadn¡¯t received my current weapon, I would definitely have loved to use the jesters staff, but it was outclassed by a weapon I had a feeling most would never get the chance to obtain.

    This just left floor 19 for me to deal with. The previous floors had covered almost all the basic class types one would encounter, so my best guess was that this last one would be focused on the healer class. Sure enough, when I reached the boss of the 19th floor, it was being constantly healed by a figure way, way up in the sky. The dungeon room was as tall as a skyscraper, and up at the very top was the hidden boss of the floor. It was a witch who constantly casted healing spells upon the zombie that acted as the floor¡¯s main boss.

    It had been annoying to deal with a constantly regenerating zombie. It had been extremely annoying to deal with a witch several hundred feet in the air. I had figured out that I could make a few platforms of mana stuck to the wall to climb higher, but it was costly to do. By the time I reached the witch, I was fed up with the spells that had been exploding against my mana barrier for the past several minutes. I had practically ripped the boss monster from the sky, taking it to the ground in a Hail Mary attempt to end the monster quickly.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    I had used a concussive arcane blast to counteract most of my momentum before hitting the ground, preventing me from breaking something against the hard stone floor. The witch didn¡¯t have that luck, and had crashed against the floor at great speed, dying to an empowered cast of arcane blast. The death of this monster also finally allowed me to reach a milestone I had been waiting for.

    You are now level 60

    You innate skill Dimensional Duel has reached its second threshold

    Dimensional Duel (2/5)

    Effect 2: +5% to all stats for each opponent you fight simultaneously, up to +25%.

    Well, that hadn¡¯t been exactly what I was expecting. I had been thinking I would get a skill selection at this level, but it seemed that wasn¡¯t the case. My innate skill had gained a new effect, though it mostly seemed related to the ¡°duel¡± part of my class. Having an extra 25% to each stat would be nice, but if I was in a situation where I was fighting 5 opponents and that extra boost truly mattered, then I was already in quite deep shit.

    I finally decided to check the items dropped by the monsters. The first item was a healing focus, another item to throw into my aura and forget about, but the second item made my eyes widen in excitement.

    Cloak of Flight (Special)

    Allows the wearer to fly through the air at the cost of their mana. Mana drained by the cloak depends on both travel speed and overall force applied.

    ¡°Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!¡± I shout. It was the dream of everybody to experience flight, and I had just been handed that chance on a silver platter. All I had to do was throw this cloak on.

    Equipping the item, I immediately shot up into the air as I willed myself to move up. Mana was drained from my aura instead of my body, which was a nice bonus. Moving quickly was expensive and not particularly worth doing, but gliding around using momentum gained from my mana conversion skill was far more efficient and practical.

    The next several hours were spent with me practicing gliding through the dungeon, getting used to what the feeling was like. I didn¡¯t want to screw up against this boss and end up getting killed by accidentally impaling myself on some poor, unsuspecting spike.

    After a bit of time had passed and I felt like I had a good enough grasp of what I was doing, I headed back up to the first floor to get a few things done. I wanted to be as prepared as I possibly could be, and I already had a few things in mind for how I could do that. The first was upgrading my arcane blast skill.

    I had only upgraded it a few days ago, which would normally make upgrading it again look like a pipe dream. That had been quite an easy upgrade though, and I already had an idea for how I could do it again in mind. I was drawing a bit of inspiration from the bow I had picked up back on floor 16. It had an effect to split up the projectile it fired, while increasing the total power. I wanted something like that, and I had a feeling it would be extremely useful against large targets such as the raid boss.

    Upon leaving the chain floors, all the items I had acquired in them vanished into thin air. It had briefly given me a heart attack, but when I went down to the 19th floor again, they reappeared within my aura. It was a bit sad that I couldn¡¯t take them outside the floors, but I couldn¡¯t complain too much. Having them for even a few floors was a great boon.

    I spent quite a while working on my spell upgrade. The first few hours had been spent with me firing mana arrows out of the triple shot bow and watching them split. Each time I felt like I could grasp how it worked a bit better, but it was a slow learning process.

    My first minor success had been after I managed to split a mana bolt into two. Each individual projectile had been reduced to less than half of the originals strength, but it was a proof of concept more than anything.

    After a bit longer, I was able to split a mana bolt in two with each half being half as strong as the original. That was where I had hit a bit of a road block. How was I supposed to make the two halves stronger without adding any mana?

    The answer was actually a lot simpler than I had expected. Put simply, I couldn¡¯t. Making a spell stronger without extra mana was pretty damn difficult. Instead, as long as the two bolts of my mana were still within my aura, I could infuse extra mana into them and increase their individual power. This resulted in me being able to fire off several mana bolts at a time, splitting each of them into several weaker versions. Dozens of mana bolts, each about half as strong as a standard one flew across the landscape, leaving craters almost a meter in diameter everywhere they hit.

    It was amazing how much stronger the spell was than when I had first obtained it. At level one, each cast of the spell could make a small crater in a tree when it impacted. At level 30, I could topple a tree with a single cast of the spell. Now, I could bring down a small forest with just a few casts of the spell.

    I had been expecting a direct upgrade to the spell, and I had in fact gotten one. What I had also gotten was a skill entirely dedicated to duplicating a spell.

    Arcane Blast (Epic) has been upgraded to Arcane Flash (Special)

    Fire a bolt, blast, wall, or any other projectile of mana to strike down a foe. Attacks with this spell can be converted into a concussive blast upon impact, dealing little damage but imparting a great amount of force upon the target. Attacks with this spell can be charged for a short time to increase damage output without increasing the mana cost.

    You have unlocked the skill Spell Split (Epic)

    Duplicate a spell shortly after casting, dividing it into two or more parts and splitting the power of the original spell equally between its children. If the split spells are still within your aura, you can empower them with an extra infusion of mana.

    You are now level 61

    You are now level 62

    Arcane Blast had improved quite a bit. I no longer needed to use a bolt or a blast of mana. Now just about any projectile would do. The fact that it mentioned making a wall of mana reminded me about how the King had thrown me across his throne room with his own wall of mana. According to him that had been made entirely of free form mana and had not been backed by a spell.

    I was briefly reminded of the King thinking about that. I was no one level away from matching him. I still wasn¡¯t sure if I¡¯d win if we fought, mainly because I still didn¡¯t really know how strong he was. At level 38, it was hard to judge the strength of anybody past level 50. They could be 20 or 50 levels higher than me, and I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell the difference if they simply crushed my skull before I could do anything. I did feel a bit confident in holding my own though, as I was leaps and bounds more powerful than I¡¯d been then.

    That leap in power is what made me confident enough to enter floor 20 on my own. With my new skill and spell upgrade complete, and every item possible obtained from the chain floors bosses, it was time for me to finally take on my first raid boss.

 Chapter 29: Raid Boss

    Welcome to Floor 20: Lone Titans Limbo (Semi-Instanced)(Raid Boss)

    Defeat the titan wandering the floor.

    Upon entering the floor, the first thing that came to mind was just how accurate the name of it was. Limbo was the perfect way to describe the landscape I found myself in. The floor was packed dirt as far as the eye could see with not a single hill, tree, or patch of grass to be found. The sky was an overcast gray, but still emitted enough light to give off the impression of it being mid morning.

    Looking around, the titan that the notification had spoken of wasn¡¯t in the immediate area. Squinting harder and scanning the horizon, I could make out the only imperfection on the otherwise perfectly straight divide between earth and sky. The small bump on the horizon moved, confirming that it was at least something alive. The only thing it could really be was the titan.

    I began running towards it, my feet pounding against the floor. With a quick leap, I gained enough height to begin gliding with the assistance of my new cloak. The landscape beneath me flew by, with me only needing to push off of it once every hundred meters or so. The sprint towards the monster was long, taking nearly a full minute to cross the distance between the two of us.

    It had been hard to judge the sheer size of this monster before I¡¯d gotten this close, but now that I could make it out more clearly, I was more than a little intimidated. By my best guess, it had to be somewhere around 20 meters tall.

    The titan had a very human-like body, with some exceptions. Its legs were longer compared to the rest of it, and its neck was almost non-existent with how short it was. It had thick muscles that wrapped all around his body, and upon noticing me every fiber of said muscles tensed up as it began lumbering towards me.

    The speed that the monster was able to move its body was a little terrifying, especially considering the weight it must be carrying around. It wasn¡¯t quite as quick as my top speed, but it wasn¡¯t too far off. Every step it took shook the earth around it, and dirt was kicked up into the air around it.

    With all of the speed and momentum I had built up while gliding, I was confident in being able to get a good opening attack in. Mana Bolts flew towards the giant, splitting in the air as they were empowered further by the mana in my aura. They were all headed straight for the face of Titan. An arm came up to block my attacks, nullifying most of the damage, but my intent had been to distract the massive creature.

    I finally reached the titan, rocketing between its feet as my mana dagger sliced through its ankle. It cut all the way to the other side, though the cut was only about 20 centimeters deep compared to over meter thick ankles.

    Some of my momentum had been slowed down by the attack, but I was still moving fast enough to avoid any counter the titan could have attempted. The distance between me and the monster quickly grew, and I began circling around for another round. Right now, my sole focus was on slowing this thing down. If I could ensure it wouldn¡¯t be able to catch up to me, I could pick away at it with spells at a distance until it died. Even if I didn¡¯t have enough mana in my entire mana pool to kill it with just spells, my mana could regenerate over time. Unlike most fights I found myself in, this was a battle of attrition I saw myself winning.

    The titan clearly had some other plans in mind, as when I circled around for my second strike it did something I had not been expecting.

    The earth beneath my feet was suddenly sent high into the air as the titan dragged up the dirt below it to form a weak but effective barrier against my speed. I slammed into the airborne dirt, the fragments of rock smacking against my mana shield with quite a lot of force. My attack still landed, but with much less to show for it than the previous one had. I was now brought to a near stand still, and before I could recover and retreat, the titan pulled back its long leg and punted me.

    I had figured there must be some sort of trade off for being this size, and speed was obviously what this monster had traded for its sheer size. What I can tell you for damn sure is that it didn¡¯t sacrifice its strength to grow larger. They say it¡¯s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop. I never liked the saying, as it was like saying the bullets kill you as opposed to the gun, but that didn¡¯t matter right now. What mattered was that my stats meant the sudden acceleration didn¡¯t hurt much, and my mana shield blocked the direct impact of the monster¡¯s foot.

    What it could not stop was the speed at which I now found myself flying through the air and away from the titan. A few hundred kilometers per hour was the absolute minimum I would dare to estimate. I was burning mana in an attempt to slow myself, and infusing mana into my cloak to prevent me from smacking into the ground, but it still hurt when my feet eventually did make contact and I found myself skidding across the ground. I had deactivated my mana shield because while it could have prevented the damage, I also really didn¡¯t want to incur the cost of dampening all that, so I just decided to tank the damage and hope the armor I wore was up to the challenge.

    When I finally stopped and got my footing, I had blood running down my cheek from where my face had smacked into the ground. I was bruised all over and everything generally just hurt. I didn¡¯t have time to think about the pain though, as the titan was already running towards me once more. It had a noticeable limp now, not that it slowed it down much. Now that it had found a counter to my trick of speeding past it like a bullet, I would have to come up with something else. The titan was rapidly getting closer, so I did the only thing I could think of to deal damage while saving mana.

    A wall of mana appeared in front of me, firing towards the massive monster and hitting it right in the ankles. It stumbled forward just a bit, but when I turned the wall into a blast of concussive mana it fully swept its feet out from under it. With how large the monster was it almost looked as if it was falling in slow motion.

    Spikes of mana appeared below the titan, and it landed right on them as it crashed to the ground. They had managed to pierce the tough skin of the monster, forming holes all across its front. I didn¡¯t want to give it too much time to recover, and I ran over to finish off what my first attack had started.

    The titan screeched as my dagger hacked into its ankle again and again. I managed to gut down through its Achilles tendon and to the bone before it finally kicked me away again. I used my mana shield this time to block most of the terrain damage since I didn¡¯t fly nearly as far.

    The titan tries to stand, but quickly finds itself unable to put weight on its right foot. It roars loudly, sinking its hand into the ground and pulling up a massive ball of soil and rocks.

    My eyes widen and I run to the side, narrowly avoiding the hail of small rocks threatening to hit me. A few manage to, though each individual one isn¡¯t too much to worry about. If it had hit me head on, I would have been buried in the small pile of dirt and my mana would take a very significant hit.

    More and more of these chunks of dirt were thrown my way, leaving craters and small piles of dirt scattered across the once flat landscape. I was not simply avoiding the attacks though. I was sending out dozens of spikes of mana to chip away at the impressive constitution of the monster. It was too large to avoid the attacks, so it simply did its best to take the attacks on its arms, where the skin seemed to be the thickest.

    Eventually the giant shouted again, and slammed both fists on the ground hard enough to draw blood from its knuckles. I could sense man flow outward from it in a circle. It dawned on me just then how much magic its body must be able to hold. Even if it had a relatively low mind stat, such a large container for mana would be a waste not to utilize.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    Walls of stone rose all around us, each one as tall as the titan itself. It still left plenty of room to move around though, so I didn¡¯t have to worry too much about getting cornered.

    At least, that is what I had been thinking right up until the first of the walls started moving. With a loud scraping noise, the walls began to slowly close in with the obvious end goal to box me into a confined space with the titan. Even worse, the extra earth that wasn¡¯t being used as the walls got closer together was being put towards making them taller. Soon enough they would likely be too tall for me to escape over.

    Making a quick decision, I decide to sprint straight towards the titan. If I retreated and moved outside of the walls, then the raid boss would have a massive fortification of stone protecting it. I might be able to burrow a hole through to get back in, but the titan would probably just collapse my path through and suffocate me in the wall.

    This was no longer a battle of attrition. I had just been put on a time limit, and it was not a very forgiving one. As I got closer I tried to think of a plan to deal enough damage to kill this thing in time. Mana bolts wouldn¡¯t be enough in this small amount of time. Mana spikes would suffer from the same problem. The sword I had stored away in my aura was much longer than my dagger and could probably do some meaningful damage, but if I was that close anyways I had better options.

    To me, the only path forward looked to be one I¡¯d tread several times before. It was time to fall back on ole reliable.

    As I get close to the titan, I leap high into the air, using my cloak to prolong my airtime as I level with the monster¡¯s head. A concussive mana blast sent behind me propels me towards the titans face far faster than it had been expecting. It can¡¯t turn its head much due to its general lack of a neck, so when I land on its shoulder all it can do is try to grab me with its hands.

    By the time the boss¡¯ hand smacks down on its shoulder, I¡¯d already delivered a double cast of mana blast straight into its ear and found my way into the other shoulder. It smacked that one too, having taken another double serving of my favorite spell.

    I briefly wonder how well the spell would work with my new spell split skill. It wasn¡¯t exactly a projectile, but it did use the same skill my mana bolts did. I may as well give it a shot. I¡¯ll even spend a few seconds charging it up to add that extra umph.

    Mana absolutely bled out of my system as I cast mana blast, using spell split to duplicate it five times over and empowering each of those casts to be nearly as strong as the original.

    The resulting shockwave sent through the head of the titan caved in its skull. I almost thought that had been enough to kill it, but the damn thing still stood. It swatted me out of the air and I crashed into one of the walls around us. They were now over triple the height of the titan and only about 50 meters away. I had less than a minute before I was absolutely screwed.

    Well, if that thing can survive traumatic brain damage, lets see how it can handle not having any brain left to damage.

    I kicked off the wall, gliding towards the titan once more. It had launched me at an upwards angle, so I was coming down from above now. It tried to throw a few handfuls of earth my way, but none of them came close to hitting me. Using mana conversion to maneuver through the air allowed me to avoid them easily enough.

    By the time I was within arms reach, I was already close enough to accomplish what I wanted. The monster was swinging an arm towards me to slam me into the ground, but its fate had already been sealed.

    Behind the titans head, three spikes of mana appeared, standing completely still in the air. With them just barely within reach of my aura, I duplicated them so there were now 12. Using the first ever effect of my trait I had learned, I cast an arcane blast right behind the spikes of mana, rocketing them towards the now much more vulnerable head of the titan. It seemed to sense the imminent danger, and tried to move its head to the side to avoid the fatal strike. Given that all of this happened in less than a second, the result occurred far too quickly for the impressive reaction time of the titan to save it.

    The spikes of mana pierced deep into the skull of the titan, piercing its brain and doing significant damage. The monster roared in pain, but was still alive for the time being. Now that the spikes were embedded in the soft tissue of the brain, they no longer needed the piercing capabilities that they were usually used for. I duplicate six of the spikes a dozen times each, not wasting the mana to empower the now much weaker mini spells. The remaining three mana spikes are all detonated in a concussive blast, scattering all of the mini spikes throughout the cranium of the titan.

    To put it simply, I just detonated a grenade right inside of the titans head.

    I¡¯d been partially expecting the titans head to just explode in a firework show of brain matter and blood, but the impressive durability of the skull prevented that from happening. I never would have been able to pierce through it if I hadn¡¯t first shattered it with the strongest use of arcane blast I could muster.

    The walls stopped closing in around me, having been just 30 meters away in all directions. I had definitely cut that a bit close.

    You have slain Titan Juvenile (Level 70) (Raid Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for slaying a raid boss without assistance. Bonus experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level.

    ¡°That... wasn¡¯t even a fully grown titan!¡± I shout, staring in awe at the system notification. Just how big could these things get? That was almost unbelievable. At a certain point just how much did you have to sacrifice to grow bigger?

    I shake my head, clearing away the thoughts and turning back to my notifications. The one I¡¯d gotten from slaying the raid boss had not been the only one I¡¯d received. Far from it.

    You are now level 63

    You are now level 64

    You are now level 65

    You are now level 66

    Your title, King Killer, has been upgraded.

    Arcane Splinter (Epic) Has been upgraded to Arcane Shatter (Special)

    You have completed floor 20!

    As a reward for clearing floor 20, you are allowed to keep one item you have gained on these chain floors.

    ¡°The cloak! Give me the cloak!¡± I shout, my body immediately filling with excitement. Nothing even came close to the utility that would be granted by this cloak.

    Every item I¡¯d acquired from the past five floors vanishes in an instant. All except for my cloak. I admire it for a moment, now truly feeling like it was mine. Before it had felt borrowed since I knew I¡¯d be losing it soon, but now it felt like it was really mine. It was a comforting feeling. I read through the descriptions of my upgraded title and skill while I waited for some of my mana to regenerate.

    King Killer

    You have proven to be capable of punching above your weight class and besting the odds when the numbers are not in your favor. Be it a difference in level, size, or status, you persevere. Provides a bonus to all stats when fighting an enemy of a higher level or much greater size, and a larger bonus when fighting a system recognized boss monster. Grants +10% to mind and spirit, and +15% to body.

    The effects of the skill had slightly improved, and I now also got a bonus when fighting enemies who were much larger than myself. Over all, a solid bonus.

    Arcane Shatter

    Fire a spike of mana, sacrificing damage for penetrative power. Alternatively, fire a more powerful spike of mana at a closer range for an increased cost. The surface of the mana spike is covered in smaller spike to increase damage done. Attacks with this spell can be charged for a short time to increase damage output without increasing the mana cost. Mana spikes can be detonated into fast moving shrapnel upon impact.

    Recognition for the stunt I had pulled to kill the titan. It was very nice to see the upgrade, as now I could perform a similar effect with just one mana spike instead of needing several like I had used before. This upgrade also marked the first time that it has made a serious divergence from my main spell, Arcane Flash. The only advantage it gave before was armor penetration, but now it was so much more than just that. I couldn¡¯t wait to figure out more ways to utilize it.

    The staircase to the next floor appears by the titans feet, and I almost walk down it before I take a moment to think. I look up at the body of the titan. Aside from the head and a few holes on its abdomen, it was mostly in one piece. Now that I¡¯d switched my spirit stats¡¯ focus to aura, and I¡¯d gained a lot of levels, maybe it was time to see how large my spacial storage now was.

    I place a hand on the calf of the fallen titan and activate the enchantment I¡¯d made in my arm. I double over as all of the mana in both my aura and body are immediately used up, leaving me completely empty. The discomfort doesn¡¯t subside, and the mana I regenerate is all getting poured into the enchantment. After almost an entire minute of this, The corpse of the giant disappears, and a loud clap can be heard as the void where the titans body had just been rapidly filled with air.

    My aura was almost entirely full. The titans body was scrunched up tight, and it almost felt like it was deforming my aura, as if it was a balloon that had just been over inflated. The feeling is comparable to having over eaten at a buffet, just 10 times worse. I quickly hurry down the staircase, heading back to floor one. I sprint through the outpost in a hurry to find the only person I know who would have any semblance of an idea of what to do with this body.

 Chapter 30: The Nose Knows

    As it turned out, I didn¡¯t need to go find the crafter I was looking for. She had found me way before I had reached her station.

    ¡°Where are they!¡± Blair shouts, sprinting towards me. She bumps into several people on her warpath, but she doesn¡¯t stop to apologize to a single one. When she reaches me, she grabs my shoulders, her eyes glowing with excitement. ¡°Where are the monsters you brought me! Oh I can practically smell the high quality materials you have!¡±

    ¡°Can you really smell them?¡± I ask, maybe a bit stupidly.

    ¡°I might as well be able to. I have a bit of a knack for sensing these things.¡± She taps her nose as she speaks. I don¡¯t know if her knowing I had some powerful monster corpse on me was the result of a skill or a terrifyingly accurate intuition, but now wasn¡¯t the time to pry.

    ¡°We probably need to go outside the city if I am going to show you this. Maybe even to a different floor.¡±

    ¡°Ooooo you must have a lot of bodies stuffed into that aura of yours if you are worried about what people are gonna think.¡± She says, grinning. ¡°Any who, it does not matter! We can go to floor eleven. I doubt any prying eyes will be there to see all your secrets.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve made it to floor eleven?¡± I ask, genuinely surprised.

    ¡°Of course I have. I actually just got back from completing floor ten.¡±

    ¡°I thought a crafter would have more trouble than most when it came to fighting your way through the floors.¡± I say as we walk towards the staircase.

    ¡°Fighting? Well there was hardly much of that. Squashing anything in my path was easy enough until I got to floor 9, and from there I just outfitted the royal guards with some shiny new gear. That got the King to let me pass to floor eleven. I even got a shiny new tier for my pioneer title.¡±

    I can feel a bit of the color drain from my face. ¡°Have you told anybody else about that yet?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Nah, didn¡¯t really think to. Should I be telling people?¡±

    ¡°No. Well, you can if you want, but I would strongly prefer if you didn¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Then I won¡¯t tell a soul. You know what they say, happy corpse supplier happy life.¡±

    We arrive on the eleventh floor halfway through the conversation. The small island surrounded by open ocean felt way too nostalgic considering it really hadn¡¯t been too long ago that I was last here. I wanted to continue down the line of conversation we were on and see if she really meant what she¡¯d said, but she tore the direction of the conversation from my hands.

    ¡°Now, show me the goods.¡± She says, eagerly rubbing her hands together.

    I turn away from her and take a quick look at the island we stood on, making sure it would be big enough to fit the titans corpse. It seemed to be big enough, so I released the corpse from my aura, feeling a wave of relief when I did. It felt like a burden had been dropped. The feeling of a full stomach was gone, and I even felt a bit lighter.

    My expression slowly drops for a moment when I think more about the unspoken metaphor, and I quickly derail that train of thought before I start getting disgusted just thinking about my aura. I turn my attention back to Blair, who for once finally seems to be quiet. She is just gawking with an open mouth at the humongous monster.

    ¡°I...¡± She trails off. Without warning, she suddenly sprints off towards the staircase at top speed. ¡°I¡¯ll be right back!¡± She shouts.

    Seeing how fast she moved startled me, and I quickly checked her level, shocked by what I saw.

    Human (Level 45)

    It looks like somebody has been hard at work. No doubt she¡¯s been held back by the materials she¡¯d had on hand, and this corpse would certainly benefit her greatly. Before she returns, I start reabsorbing the corpse into my aura, grimacing at the mana expenditure and the bloated feeling in my stomach that I did my best to ignore.

    Ten minutes later when Blair reappeared, she looked around frantically for the now missing body of the titan. She even did a quick lap around the island in her hysterics as if it might be hiding behind a palm tree or something. The whole lap only took a few seconds, but that was enough for her desperate eyes to turn to angry ones as she looked at me.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°What did you do with it?¡± She asks.

    ¡°Before I answer, just know that I am not giving this to you out of the kindness of my heart.¡± I say.

    ¡°I know that! That¡¯s why I¡¯ll make you an item or two out of it.¡± She complains.

    ¡°No, I want more than that.¡± I say. ¡°It is becoming increasingly clear that I am pretty much the only person who can bring you quality materials. In return, I want you to be a crafter on retainer for me. I want you to be willing to supply me with equipment appropriate for my level as long as I keep supplying you with these rare materials.¡±

    She glares, but sighs a moment later. ¡°Finally you realize it. I was hoping that you¡¯d let me sucker you into basically free materials a bit longer, but maybe you aren¡¯t as simple as I¡¯d thought.¡±

    ¡°Well, no more of that.¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯m thinking of this as an investment, so I want to see some returns.¡±

    ¡°And you will get them.¡± She says. ¡°Just let me work away at the corpse of that thing and I¡¯ll have you some armor in a jiffy.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d much rather you reach level 52 before making me anything.¡±

    ¡°Why level 52? Isn¡¯t evolution at level 50?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but it¡¯d be better to let you get more used to the skills you unlock and upgrade from the evolution.¡±

    ¡°Ugh. Fine.¡± She finally laments. ¡°But I would like your help with one thing before I start working to reach level 50.¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Help me find a permanent spot for all this shit.¡± She says, holding her hand out. I see a ring on her finger briefly glow purple, and suddenly the immediate area around her is dotted with crafting stations of all kinds. There was a tailoring table, a forge, a furnace, an anvil, a table with gems studding it that must be meant for enchanting, and even a mannequin that was made to fit armor.

    ¡°Do you have an idea in mind for what kind of place you¡¯d like?¡± I ask. I don¡¯t bother arguing or telling her no. I could see the reasoning behind not wanting to have the body of a titan laying around the outpost while she worked on one part of it at a time.

    ¡°It¡¯s got to be somewhere that isn¡¯t too out of the way. It also has to be somewhere that basically nobody is gonna find. If they do find it, they better be worth talking to or I¡¯ll chase them out with a bullet to the foot.¡±

    I assumed she meant that figuratively, but her ring glowed again as she summoned a very modern looking revolver into her hand and spun it around on her finger. I wasn¡¯t about to question the lady with a gun, so I elected to ignore it.

    ¡°Is here not fine?¡± I ask. ¡°Anybody getting here would be a pretty high level and definitely worth talking to.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯d also be able to teleport right in the middle of my workspace.¡± She says. ¡°I need it to be a place at least a decent bit away from the entrance to whatever floor its on.¡±

    I think for a moment. I think for a few minutes actually. There wasn¡¯t really anywhere I could think of that met all of her requirements within the first five floors, and neither of us could travel to floors 6 through 10. The idea finally hits me, and I look to Blair.

    ¡°How confident are you in making a forcefield?¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°Done!¡± Blair says, clapping. It snaps my attention back to what she was doing, the small but complex mana construct in my hands falling apart from lack of concentration.

    ¡°Finally?¡± I ask. ¡°Am I free to go?¡±

    ¡°Not quite yet. I have to make sure it works still.¡±

    I groan, tired of sitting in this bubble of air. I¡¯d been here for the past twelve hours while Blair had been hard at work setting up her base of operations. I had escorted her down to the 13th floor, and after walking a short distance from the entrance, made a large bubble of air for her to start working in. She had spent some time studying the barrier of mana I had made. Within 6 hours, she had made an enchantment on the ground beneath us that roughly mimicked what mine could do, though not nearly as well. Spells could pass right through, and the only thing it really was made to hold back was the water.

    I had spent the entire time fending off sharks that had come to attack us. It only took a single strong mana bolt to take them down, which meant it didn¡¯t require much of my attention. I had been getting extremely bored waiting for her to finish up making a defense system to protect the place for her. Said defense system was made up of two turrets that would fire big balls of mana at anything too close to the bubble wall. A few other enchantments she had drawn would then draw in the mana from the corpses, using it to power the system. Assuming the sharks never stopped attacking, it could run by itself indefinitely.

    The first victim of the turrets arrived after only a few minutes of waiting. The shark had rammed into the mana barrier, and almost immediately after was pelted with several balls of mana. It died shortly after, and its energy was absorbed and put back into the system.

    ¡°The cycle of life truly is a thing to behold.¡± I say sarcastically.

    ¡°It really is.¡± Blair says without a hint of sarcasm. She was clearly proud of herself.

    ¡°So where are you going to be storing the corpse, or any other materials for that matter?¡±

    ¡°Well now I just have to dig myself a storage bunker.¡± She shrugs. ¡°It will take a bit on my own. But it could always be sped up if you help.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not doing more free labor.¡±

    ¡°Damn. Guess you really are done being suckered into this stuff.¡± Blair says, shaking her head. ¡°I¡¯ll pay you 25 silver coins for your time.¡±

    ¡°Coins?¡± I ask. ¡°Wait, did that woman from the great city actually convince our council to adopt that?¡±

    ¡°Yep! I was actually pretty stoked too, as now I can set standard prices for my work. Not to brag or anything, but I am starting to accumulate some disgusting wealth.¡±

    ¡°Good for you. So how much is 25 silver actually worth?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡± She laughs. ¡°When you have so much money, it¡¯s hard to appreciate its value.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like an excuse to underpay me.¡± I say, crossing my arms.

    ¡°You caught me.¡± She throws her hands up overdramatically. ¡°I¡¯ll pay you 50 silver, which should be enough to buy a couple of fancy meals if you really want to splurge on that. I¡¯ve heard you have a bit of an affinity for tasty food.¡±

    ¡°Well, I guess I can¡¯t deny that.¡± I say, a shovel made of mana appearing in my hand. ¡°So, just point to what you want dug up and I¡¯ll get it done.¡±

 Chapter 31: So Long D-Tiers

    For a while now I had been wondering just how many floors the tower had. As I progressed through the floors, they got longer and more difficult. Leveling was slower than it had been previously as well. That could not be better showcased than by how long the previous two floors had taken me.

    You are now level 68

    You have completed floor 22

    A full 24 hours spent on completing just two floors and earning two levels. Like floors 11 and 12, they had been all about navigating through challenging terrain and fighting monsters while they were on home turf. Scorpions, swarms of scarabs, and a host of other monsters that were perfectly adapted to fight in the desert. With the loose sand providing little traction and the extreme heat constantly wearing away at me, the whole place was quite clearly targeted towards making travel as difficult as possible.

    I had gone straight to the twenty second floor after helping Blair dig out a storage room for materials and items. I wanted to be productive in the short amount of time I had until my scheduled meeting. Checking my status menu, I could see that I had about an hour left until it was time.

    Time left in tutorial: 150 days, 1 hour, 14 minutes

    In a little over an hour, 80% of the population would be leaving the tutorial. It was assumed they would simply disappear, but nobody knew that for sure. The outpost wanted just about everybody present in case something unexpected happened, so Ben had asked me to return before the countdown was done.

    Upon arriving at the outpost, the noise of people milling around and talking replaced the usual sounds of work being done all around. Nobody was cooking, building more buildings, or doing any crafting to speak of. Instead, everybody was nervously waiting for the countdown to end. As the timer reached one hour left, everybody within the tutorial got a system notification.

    In one hour all of those with the title D Tier Pioneer will be removed from the tutorial and will be returned to Earth. For those of you with a higher tier title, congratulations! You have proved your worth and earned the right to remain within the Tower of Nixtias.

    Upon reaching the end of their time in the tutorial, all participants will be given a score based upon their performance in the tutorial, and will receive a reward appropriate for their score.

    To celebrate the last hour of your time in the tutorial, the first floor event has begun.

    Just then, everybody in the tower got another notification, this one carrying a similar amount of weight that the previous one had.

    Floor Event: Earn Your Place (Floor 1)

    Duration: 1 Hours

    For the remaining hour all D tier Pioneers have remaining in the tutorial, they may claim an improved version of the title by slaying someone who possesses a C tier Pioneer or better title. Please note that this will only work while on floor 1.

    The atmosphere grew intense all around as suddenly everybody was put on edge. The unspoken question that hung in the air was going through everybody¡¯s minds in that moment. Would anybody attack? If they did, who would be first?

    No immediate moves were made by anybody present to try and claim the better title, which was a relief. Ben, who currently stood next to me, whispered in my ear.

    ¡°Could you raise me into the air so I can get everyone''s attention?¡± He asks.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if anybody wants to see magic right now, so use this.¡± I say, shrugging off my Cloak and handing it to him. ¡°Infuse a bit of mana into it and you can hover in the air.¡±

    He nods and slips the cloak on, floating about 5 meters into the air a few seconds later. ¡°Listen up everyone!¡± He calls out to the crowd. ¡°We are all headed for the second floor. We don¡¯t want anybody to be able to take advantage of this and get away.¡±

    With his words, the large crowd that was gathered around the center of the outpost began shuffling in the general direction of the staircase. I had no doubt that many of the people present had never even been to the second floor, and they were probably pretty nervous to go. Anybody who hadn¡¯t been there also likely wasn¡¯t a very high level, and if anybody like that had a C tier or better title, then they were the most vulnerable people in the crowd.

    The main thing that I assumed kept people from attacking was the fact that nobody could just tell what tier title another has by just looking at them. The fact that someone with a high tier title could keep it hidden was a boon. Unless it was already well known that they had the title, they were safe.

    In the end that was what allowed us to get everybody to the second floor without a single person trying anything stupid. The fact that I was passively putting pressure on everybody present with my aura might have also helped. It was a trick I learned from the King after he had pulled the same stunt on me. They all knew that if they attempted to do something they shouldn¡¯t, they were going to have a bad time.

    <hr>

    Flynn was having a very bad time. He kicked the corpses of the two dead council members to the side, wondering how they¡¯d ever managed to gain a position of power within the great city. One of them had a C tier title while the other had a D tier title. They each knew Flynn himself had the C tier version, and incorrectly assumed that they could gang up on him and claim it for themselves. It seemed being newly evolved had inflated the confidence they each had to stupid heights.

    The great city did not operate like most towns that formed after the system came around. The leader had a strong sense of justice and ensured that she knew absolutely everything going on within the city. She disliked those who committed crimes and despised those who would kill others.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    Unfortunately, this is exactly what had led to her biggest mistake. Since she wanted to know everything that was going on in her city, she had issued wooden seals to every single resident in the city to prove the tier of their pioneer title. The intent had been to prevent anybody from making a deal they couldn¡¯t fulfill due to leaving the tutorial, effectively ripping off the other party in the deal.

    This meant that everybody who had a D tier title could prove it, leaving them to be safe. Anybody who didn¡¯t couldn¡¯t pretend they did, since they had no seal to show, leaving them as a target for those desperate to remain within the tutorial.

    Countless back alley fights and sudden murders occurred all across the great city, with those strong enough to bring order being completely overwhelmed. Andrea, the leader of the Great City, had immediately rushed off as soon as the notification popped up, wanting to stop as much of the chaos as she could.

    Now, the actual amount of people willing to kill another over something as simple as a title was extremely low. The chain reaction of panic that was kickstarted by the first few attacks was enough to have people stampeding through the streets of the city, rushing into whatever building they could to get to safety.

    As soon as Andrea had left the room, the other two council members present had begun whispering to themselves. A short minute after that, they had attacked Flynn. In an even shorter amount of time, they died to his blade. He rushed out of the City Center, sprinting through the city to find anybody that was causing trouble.

    He saw more than one corpse in the middle of the street, the killers long having retreated and blending in with the crowd. As the highest leveled person in the city, the ground he could cover was insane, and before the hour had ended he¡¯d made a full sweep of the entire city. While he didn¡¯t see any murders with his own eyes, he knew that seeing a strong individual running around at easily a hundred kilometers an hour would deter many from trying.

    He finally came to a stop when the timer reached just ten seconds left. People finally were calming down, and just waiting in anticipation. As the timer ticked down to three, then two, then one, everybody who possessed the D tier Pioneer title vanished in a flash of light, exiting the tutorial and returning to Earth, in whatever state it may be.

    He breathed out a sigh as he prepared to head back to the city center. He knew that there was about to be a very lengthy meeting about what just happened. He also felt that Andrea would probably want an explanation for the two dead bodies that now rested in her council room.

    Turning back in the direction of the council room, he was almost immediately stopped when he spotted the fiery city leader storming towards him.

    ¡°Shit.¡± he muttered to himself. She must have already found the corpses and deduced he had been the one to kill them. That would make it a bit harder to explain. Instead of the scolding and potential fight he was expecting, she stopped in front of him and stared him down.

    ¡°Why are you still here?¡± She asked, nothing but pure hatred in her eyes. ¡°You told me long ago that you had a D tier title. That means you either lied to me, or you stole it from somebody else. Which one do you want to confess to?¡±

    Flynn thought for a moment, realizing that now that anybody who could take advantage this information was gone, there was no longer a reason to hide it. ¡°Reaching floor eleven upgrades your tier from D to C.¡±

    ¡°Do you have any proof that you didn¡¯t just make that up on the spot?¡± She asks.

    ¡°How am I supposed to prove it?¡±

    ¡°Do you know anybody else that know about this? Somebody that I can go ask about it?¡±

    ¡°I mean, there are probably a lot of people who knew about it. Ask anybody who has made it to floor eleven.¡± Flynn says, at a loss for any other way to prove his innocence. He didn¡¯t exactly have a big medal for upgrading his title.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know of anybody else who had a D tier title before reaching that floor, so I can¡¯t confirm that for a fact.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure there is at least one. You could just search for them.¡±

    ¡°Nope. That would give you a chance to escape and never be seen again. I need to keep you in my sights until I know you didn¡¯t kill a person in the last hour.¡±

    Flynn sucks in a breath. ¡°Yeah, about that.¡± He explains the situation and what went down in the council room. She lets out a frustrated breath.

    ¡°As much as I want to hold that against you, I wouldn¡¯t put it past those idiots to try and pull something like that. I figured your presence would keep them from trying it, but I guess I was wrong about that.¡±

    ¡°So what now?¡± Flynn asks. ¡°You don¡¯t believe that I am innocent, and you won¡¯t go out and find evidence of my innocence.¡±

    Andrea takes a moment to think before coming to a conclusion. ¡°It looks like we are just going to have to complete floor 20 together so you can prove that your title was upgraded. If it happened after finishing floor 10, I see no reason to believe it won¡¯t happen again after floor 20.¡±

    Flynn wants to argue for a moment, before deciding to just give in. He knew that there was little sense in arguing with her, and he didn¡¯t want to have to deal with being banished from the city by running off and escaping her. He had already been planning to take on the chain floors that lay ahead of him soon, and if the raid boss it had informed him of was every bit as powerful as it was hyped up to be, he would need a little help.

    ¡°Fine.¡± Flynn relents. ¡°We can go do that, but only if you agree to us finding one more person to help us through those floors.¡±

    ¡°I can get one of the other council members to help us out.¡± Andrea says, waving off the request.

    ¡°No, they need to stay and run the city. I would ask River, but I have a feeling he is already done with these floors. You can¡¯t return to chain floors after finishing them. I still think we should go and find him though. Maybe he knows somebody who would appreciate the help on those floors.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°I think I know somebody.¡± I say to Flynn. He¡¯d brought the leader of the Great City with him, and had explained the whole situation he had found himself in. I had tried to explain that he really had upgraded his title, but according to the leader she couldn¡¯t trust me enough to take my word for it.

    I tell them to stay where they were, heading to the staircase for the floor and teleporting directly to floor 13. After wading through the ocean water for a bit, I spotted Blair¡¯s air dome and headed towards it. When I was within about 10 meters of it, one of the turrets within it fired a ball of mana at me. I slapped it away easily enough. They were meant to kill creatures more than 20 levels below me after all.

    Upon entering the dome, I see Blair tweaking something on the turrets.

    ¡°Sorry about that. I still need to work on the targeting system for these. Can¡¯t tell a friend from a foe.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, best work on that. Say, how would you like a nearly free ride to completing floor 20? You¡¯ll probably get another upgrade to your pioneer title as a part of the deal.¡± She wasn¡¯t seeming convinced as I spoke, until I offhandedly threw in one more part of the offer. ¡°You¡¯ll also get to snag another one of those titan corpses.¡±

    She immediately dropped what she was doing, pulling out the revolver she had stored within the ring on her finger. I noticed it had been improved since I last saw it. She probably worked on it after reaching level 50. With the access to rare materials and non-stop hard work, she had gained four levels in just a single day and reached her evolution. I was a bit jealous at the leveling rate, but I also knew that her class was one that simply didn¡¯t gain as many stats per level as mine had before evolving.

    ¡°When can we get going?¡± She asks, clearly very eager to go. ¡°I¡¯m sure with you carrying me through the floors, we can knock it out in a day or two.¡±

    ¡°Sorry to say, but you aren¡¯t going with me.¡±

    ¡°Well then who the hell am I going with?¡±

    ¡°The strongest person I know, and the one who made all of those precious coins you hoard like a dragon.¡±

    ¡°Ugh, fine. As long as they don¡¯t mind me taking all the monster corpses.¡±

    ¡°Talk to them about that. They are waiting for you on floor one right now.¡±

    ¡°Alright then, let¡¯s go.¡± She says, walking towards the edge of the dome and looking at me. ¡°I haven¡¯t made a way to fend off the water yet, so I¡¯m gonna need you to escort me again.¡±

    ¡°Seriously? I feel like that should be the first thing you made.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve had more important things to worry about. Now get over here.¡±

    I walk over and make a bubble of mana for us to walk in. As we pass through the barrier, the turrets once more fire at us, bouncing off my mana barrier.

    ¡°You really need to work on those.¡± I say. ¡°Some poor sap is gonna end up getting shot by them when reaching this floor.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll get to that eventually. Right now, I just wanna test out my latest and greatest weapon.¡± The pistol in her hand disappears, and in its place appears a large sniper rifle. It had a scope, stabilizers, and even a magazine of ammunition. ¡°Say hello to Gloria.¡±

 Chapter 32: A Greater Power

    I¡¯ll admit it, I was a bit bummed that I wouldn¡¯t get to see Blair¡¯s sniper rifle in action. It would no doubt prove to be very valuable in the group¡¯s fight against the titan. Long range attacks and single, extremely powerful attacks were both effective, and that sniper looked like it had both in spades.

    While they made their way through the chain floors, I got back to the grind of making my way through the tower. They would probably take about two days to finish those floors, and Blair knew the titans strengths and weaknesses well enough to let the others know what to expect, so I wasn¡¯t super worried that they¡¯d have trouble with that fight.

    I envied them. They got to do the fun floors while I was stuck slogging through a desert. Floor 24 was when I finally got to have some fun. That is because the end of that floor was when I finally reached level 70.

    You are now level 70

    Innate skill upgraded!

    Dimensional Duel (3/5)

    Effect 3: Place an arcane tag on a target within sight. Those marked with an arcane tag take slightly more damage from all attacks. If either party successfully retreats from the battle, they are given a temporary 10% reduction to all stats. This reduction is immediately nullified upon another tag being placed on the target.

    The new ability to tag enemies to deal extra damage was nice, but that drawback seemed pretty nasty. If I didn¡¯t manage to kill my opponent, I¡¯d be slapped with a significant demerit to my stats. I didn¡¯t even know how long it lasted, only that it was temporary. For all I knew it could last an entire week. Given that a large part of my class was about fighting monsters of a higher level, that penalty would also cripple my level gains for that time.

    I also had something else waiting for me, something that I had been waiting on for a while now.

    Skill selection available

    I scrolled through all nine skills, reading over their descriptions and eliminating anything I obviously wouldn¡¯t need. That ruled out almost every rare rarity skill, every attack spell, and all but one defensive skill. That left me with four choices that were actually worth considering. One defensive and three supportive.

    Anchor (Epic)

    Anchor yourself in place, canceling out all knockback you would have otherwise taken. Mana cost is determined by the amount of force canceled out.

    Sustain (Rare)

    Mana Regeneration is increased while an arcane tag is placed on a target. Leeches mana from a tagged target while they are within your aura.

    Powerful Presence (Epic)

    Slowly drains energy from the user when in use. While Powerful Presence is active, increases the passive pressure outputted by their aura, reducing the cost of all spells cast within.

    Reflect (Epic)

    Reflect a spell cast at you, with the mana cost determined by the strength and size of the spell.

    They were all great. They wouldn¡¯t be up for consideration if they weren¡¯t. Sustain and Powerful Presence seemed to be all about increasing my effectiveness in a longer fight, though I didn¡¯t know which would improve that more. Powerful Presence had the benefit of making my aura have more pressure when I ¡°flexed¡± it.

    Anchor would have been useful against the titan. I probably could have cut clean through its hand by anchoring myself in place while holding a sword in the path of the attacking hand. Reflect wouldn¡¯t have been as useful, but I can think of several times in the past that it would have been useful.

    Eventually I decided to just pick Powerful Presence. I needed to be able to last longer in a fight, and I already had enough skills and spells draining my mana. Being able to reduce the cost of those would definitely be nice. The fact that it specifically pointed out that it drained my energy instead of my mana probably meant I¡¯d be exhausted after using it for a while, so I would have to save it for fights against bosses or very large groups of high level enemies.

    Floor 25 passed quickly with me killing a sand shark that swam through the desert. I got another level under my belt for finishing that fight. To absolutely nobody¡¯s surprise, floor 26 turned out to be another chain floor.

    Welcome to floor 26: Hall of Divinity (Chain)(Instanced)

    Throughout the history of the true universe, many have risen to power and claimed the title of God. Many such gods gain power through the worship of those weaker than them. On this floor, you will choose a god to serve for the next several floors. Explore the pantheon, and find the perfect deity for you.

    I was in a large temple-like building. Dozens of shrines and altars of all kinds littered the place, with very powerful auras coming off of many of them. They each had a unique design, probably representing what their god was all about. There were shrines that had vines growing on them, others with fire coming off, and even one with skulls all over it. I¡¯m pretty sure I won¡¯t be picking that one.

    I walked around the entire pantheon, the whole walk taking almost 30 minutes. The entire time I took note of any altars that were either interesting or had a particularly powerful aura. In total, there were ninety eight shrines, and out of those only six of them interested me. I walked over to the closest of the six, placing a hand on it. The altar had jagged edges and was made entirely of black stone. It had an elaborate pattern etched into the top of it, so I placed my hand in the center of the pattern.

    My surroundings shifted from the pantheon to a dark field. Everything around me was grey, all except for my own body. A fog prevented me from seeing much further than a few dozen meters in front of me.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    I take my hand off of the altar, and instantly the field disappears, leaving me in the pantheon once more. I gingerly place my hand back on the altar, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest when just a few inches in front of me, the face of a very old and very pale man fills my vision. He quickly moves back, giving me some space.

    ¡°Hello there.¡± The old man says, bowing to me. ¡°I must say, I am honored that you have visited my altar first.¡±

    ¡°Are... you a god?¡± I ask, realizing the question was pretty pointless before I even finished asking it. Looking at the man before me, all I could feel was a sense of inferiority that let me know I was lesser than he was. It wasn¡¯t a bad feeling or one that put me down, but simply a feeling that this man was just on an entirely different place of existence than myself in terms of power.

    ¡°Indeed I am.¡± He says, nodding. ¡°A god of death, one of the strongest in the pantheon.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± I say, a bit put off by the title.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I am a god of death, not a god of killing. I don¡¯t kill anymore than those who are gods of fire or water. I simply understand the importance and conceptual power of death.¡±

    ¡°Still, worshipping you might not be the right choice for me.¡± I say. I am about to remove my hand from the altar before the man chuckles.

    ¡°You say that as if I¡¯d already extended an invitation to serve me.¡± He shakes his head, still smiling. ¡°Though as the first to reach this floor, you would certainly be a valuable asset.¡±

    I get a vague sense of Deja vu before latching onto what was just said. I¡¯d let the opportunity to find an answer slip away last time such an opportunity had arisen, and I wasn¡¯t about to do that again.

    ¡°You know you are within a tower?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Of course. I know this is the tower of Nixtias, I know that this is the tutorial for a newly introduced star system, and judging by your level I¡¯d guess we are currently on floor 26.¡±

    ¡°How do you know all of that? I would have thought the system would prevent anyone from the tower from knowing they are within it.¡±

    ¡°You cannot trap a god and expect him to simply not notice.¡± The old man says, frowning. ¡°I can¡¯t say much more than that, as while the system cannot prevent me from knowing I am trapped here, it can punish me for overstepping my bounds.¡±

    ¡°Damn, that must suck.¡± I say. ¡°Is there at least a reason you are trapped here, even if you couldn¡¯t say what it is?¡±

    ¡°Oh yes, and a very good reason too. But enough with all this downer talk. How about I help you find which god here would actually suit you. I¡¯m sure that given you are the first to arrive at this floor, any of the gods you meet would be eager to invite you to serve them.¡±

    ¡°Is serving a god really necessary?¡± I ask. ¡°I mean it¡¯s cool and all that I could gain the support of someone so powerful, but I don¡¯t really like the idea of serving anybody.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that. There are plenty like you, and even if you don¡¯t serve a god there are other ways for there to be mutual benefits.¡± The old man waves away my concern.

    ¡°There are several ways one can benefit from a god.¡± He says. ¡°The most common is worshipping a god and being able to draw a small fraction of their power to grow stronger. Depending on how favored you are by said god, the more power you can draw upon. This is the route you¡¯d rather not go down, correct?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°Then the second option may very well be for you. You can bargain with a god to draw upon their power in exchange for just about anything the god desires. Let me tell you now, with you being the strongest participant in the tutorial, you already have a hell of a bargaining chip to work with.¡±

    ¡°That does sound a lot more appealing.¡± I say, thinking about that. I don¡¯t know what exactly about me being so strong gave me leverage when bargaining with a god here, but I¡¯d probably find out eventually.

    ¡°The last method is one that you would be very hard pressed to achieve. It involves earning the mark of a god. For just about anybody in the universe, earning the mark of a god is a rare and once in a lifetime opportunity. A god¡¯s mark indicates that you are held in their highest regards, and should you die, said god will not take it lightly. They are expensive and risky to bestow, and by many are seen as too great a risk to ever consider.¡±

    ¡°Why would that even be an option?¡± I question. ¡°If it is so risky, why would a god not just let it publicly be known that the person is in their good graces?¡±

    ¡°Because, placing a mark upon somebody is an investment. If you die, they will feel the backlash of your death through the loss of the mark. If you survive and eventually reach godhood yourself, the benefits to all those who marked you are great, and are greater the earlier in your lifespan they gave you the mark.¡±

    ¡°So it is basically a god¡¯s version of gambling?¡±

    ¡°Basically. I myself have only ever bestowed a single mark, and it backfired quite badly. Now, let¡¯s find you a god who would actually be of great benefit to you. Let me have a look at your status page.¡±

    ¡°How do I do that?¡±

    ¡°Just don¡¯t resist.¡±

    Before I can ask a follow up question, the old man¡¯s eyes glow a piercing purple, and when I squint I can just barely make out the fact that there are tiny, indecipherable magic circles spinning around his irises. A feeling of nakedness fills my mind, and in front of him I can feel that there is nothing about me that is hidden.

    ¡°There is quite a lot to be proud of here.¡± The man says, now reading through my status sheet. ¡°It is quite the list of accomplishments. Slaying a raid boss on your own, having one of the great traits, and on top of that having the S+ tier version of the pioneer title. I¡¯m almost sad that I am going to help you find another god to work with.¡±

    ¡°Great traits?¡± I ask, raising an eyebrow.

    ¡°Hm?¡± The man says, looking away from the stat sheet for a moment and turning his attention to me. ¡°Oh yes. I keep forgetting you are coming into this universe blind. The universe has collectively decided on 10 traits that are the ¡®Great Traits¡¯. They are essentially traits that are inherently more powerful than any other. That isn¡¯t to say that one cannot grow their mediocre trait to be as good as yours, but as a baseline the great traits stand above the rest.¡±

    I¡¯m filled with a bit of pride that my trait is apparently considered so good, and I know it shows by the small smile on my face. ¡°So, based off of all of that, what god would you recommend I try to work with?¡±

    ¡°Well if we were going purely off of your trait, then without hesitation I would recommend Hiradelle. He shares the same trait as you, and would give insight into it that no other could.¡±

    ¡°By your tone I get the feeling that you had someone else in mind?¡± I ask.

    The old man sighs before speaking. ¡°This is going to sound very selfish and extremely biased, but I think that what I can offer you if you serve- I mean work with me lines up very well with your skill set. During my time I was known as one of the greatest aura mages in the universe, even if that is no longer necessarily true.¡±

    I think about that for a moment, genuinely considering it as an option. There was no reason to take a provided opportunity lightly. This was kind of like a job interview, and while I had never been good in those types of situations, I actually had some leverage this time.

    ¡°What makes you a better choice than that other guy?¡± I ask. ¡°If him and I share the same trait, I am sure he is fairly good with his aura as well.¡±

    The old man seems excited for a moment that I am actually considering his words. He begins to speak, eager to show what he is worth. ¡°Well the most obvious reason would be that I am far more powerful than he is. He may be a great mage in his own right, but even in his specialties I outclass his capabilities through sheer level difference. He also has not taken his path down the same road you seem to be walking. You are a more combat focused individual, while he was always an enchanter and rune maker.¡±

    ¡°So even if he would be able to provide assistance with learning about my trait, you say you would be more all round helpful?¡± I ask, already knowing he¡¯d be confirming it. Learning more about my trait was honestly pretty tempting, but that tidbit about the other god being an enchanter put me off of the choice. That was far from the path I walked, and he likely didn¡¯t have too much advice on using the trait in combat that I wouldn¡¯t be able to figure out by myself in due time.

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you all the time you need to think.¡± The old man says. ¡°Though if you need any extra reason to choose to work with me, just know that should you complete the final floor of the tower, you will earn my mark.¡±

    ¡°Can I have some time to think about it? I don¡¯t see any reason that this would be a time sensitive choice.¡±

    ¡°Of course. Though if you do decide not to choose me, I do ask that you please come and let me know. I¡¯d rather not sit and wait in anticipation if you¡¯ve already run off with some other god.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll let you know my choice when I make it.¡± I promise. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be too long anyways. I¡¯d like to meet with several of the other gods while I weigh my options.¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± The old man says, before reaching out into the air and grabbing a piece of paper that had not been there just a second ago. ¡°Take this. I imagine you don¡¯t want to go through that uncomfortable process of being scanned again.¡±

    I look down at the paper, seeing that it was a complete copy of my status sheet. I could sense mana infused into the paper, and it was of a quality and purity that I couldn¡¯t even dream of matching. It was likely there to prove the legitimacy of what was written on it.

    ¡°Thanks.¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ll see you again soon.¡±

    With that, I finally take my hand off of the black altar. The gray field disappears and I am once more in the pantheon. Looking around, I silently speak aloud to myself as I gaze upon the 97 other altars in the room.

    ¡°Now... which one of you belongs to Hiradelle?¡±

 Chapter 33: Not Guilty

    I had a theory as to how I could find the altar of Hiradelle. Sure, I could just turn right back around and ask the god of death which one it was, but I already had a pretty good idea of where I might be able to find it.

    98 seemed like a really strange number of altars for this room to have. I was sure I had counted it right, as I¡¯d even double checked shortly after my discussion with the old man. If anybody saw a room with ninety eight altars in it, the first question they may ask themselves is why weren¡¯t there one hundred? I doubted the tutorial couldn¡¯t be bothered to make two more altars. To me, the answer seemed pretty simple. Two of the one hundred altars were hidden.

    One of these two probably belonged to a god of illusion. I had basically no hope of finding that one. The other I was almost certain belonged to the god I was looking for. If you were a god who focused on dimension magic, why would you want somebody who couldn¡¯t even peer into separate dimensions.

    I did another lap of the pantheon, using my dimension sight in one eye while my other remained unaffected. It was definitely a little jarring to have one eye see everything with a blue tint while the other didn¡¯t, but I was slowly getting used to it.

    After a bit of walking, I finally found my target. An inconspicuous, completely mundane alter. The aura coming off of it was definitely weaker than that of the death god I¡¯d met, but still many orders of magnitude more powerful than my own. The altar was only visible through the eye that was using dimension sight, and was completely invisible to my other eye. Actually, invisible wasn¡¯t even the right term. That altar just straight up didn¡¯t exist in the world my left eye was seeing. Reaching out and trying to touch the altar proved fruitless as well. My hand simply passed through as it was not within the dimension the altar sat within.

    My brows furrowed in concentration as I attempted to mimic the feeling of casting a spell through my aura, to have it move through a higher dimension and arrive somewhere else. My hand slowly began to glow blue, and while I could still see it with my normal vision, a faint outline of it was now visible through dimension sight. Placing my hand on the altar now, I could feel it and touch it.

    The world around me turned a deep royal blue, without my dimension sight having been a part of it. deactivating dimension sight, I could see that I was still within the pantheon, and standing directly behind the altar was a tall man wearing a regal blue robe. He had an aged face, but not elderly as the previous god I had spoken with had.

    ¡°I see you have at least a passable grasp of our school of magic.¡± The man says, looking down at me.

    ¡°Are you Hiradelle?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Indeed I am. I assume you¡¯ve spoken to one of my fellow prisoners.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± I say, pointing in the general direction of the death gods altar. ¡°I spoke with him. He said you may be a decent choice of god to work with.¡±

    ¡°Work with?¡± The man says, frowning. ¡°I believe you have misunderstood. Nobody works with me. You serve me and obey me. I will be your god and-¡±

    I remove my hand from the altar, and everything returns to normal. There is a brief pause before the aura given off by the alter flares with anger. I just ignore it and walk away. While walking, I feel another aura within the room slightly strengthen. It is the altar of one of the several gods of life. It almost feels like it is amused at what just happened. I consider walking over to the altar and speaking with the god, but decide against it. There was very little chance I would be following a god that had such a wildly different path than myself. I guess I was considering joining up with a god of death, but that was different. Totally different.

    I returned to the old man¡¯s alter once more, placing a hand on it. When I appear in his grayscale field once more, I see a slight grin on his face.

    ¡°You really pissed off Hira didn¡¯t you.¡± He says, chuckling.

    ¡°Perhaps. How do you know? I thought you all couldn¡¯t see the pantheon itself.¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t, but I can feel the auras of all the gods around me. He is a fairly young god, and much like how a child wears their emotions on their face, a young god wears them on their aura.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t even know aura could be affected so subconsciously.¡± I say, shaking my head. ¡°Being here has already made me realize how little I¡¯ve scratched the surface when it comes to these things.¡±

    ¡°That is why I could help you. I know nearly all there is to know about aura and a lot about general mana control-¡±This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    ¡°Yeah, you don¡¯t have to keep trying to sell me on it. I¡¯ve already decided you¡¯d probably be my best option.¡±

    ¡°Splendid.¡± The old man says, sticking out his hand. ¡°Just shake my hand, and you will have my support.¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t like a ¡®sell my soul¡¯ kind of handshake right?¡± I ask, hoping I was making the right choice.

    ¡°Of course not.¡±

    ¡°Just making sure.¡± I say, finally shaking the old mans hand.

    You have chosen to be sponsored by Talus, Harvester of Souls

    You have completed Floor 26

    Welcome to floor 27: Lessons of Old

    ¡°Harvester of souls, huh?¡± I ask, looking at the old man.

    ¡°Yes, that is what I¡¯m known for.¡± Talus says, nodding. ¡°Many fear the title, but in truth it isn¡¯t as terrifying as it sounds. Not that it matters right now, as for the next several floors, my goal is to prepare you for the rest of the tower. Tell me, how much time do you have remaining in this tutorial?¡±

    ¡°About 150 days.¡±

    His eyes widen slightly. ¡°That is definitely more than I was expecting. That should give us plenty of time to prepare you though. I can tell you for a fact that you are approaching the first great wall of power, being level 99. It is easy to break through this wall and reach level 100, but like any obstacle it will slow your momentum.¡±

    ¡°So you are going to try and give me as much ¡®momentum¡¯ as you can before I reach that level?¡±

    ¡°Exactly. If we were outside of the tutorial I would certainly spend quite a bit of time doing this, we are on a bit of a time limit, and I cannot have you falling behind. We are going to have to rush this and complete these next few floors quickly.¡±

    ¡°What even is the goal of these floors?¡± I ask. ¡°The notification that I¡¯d made it to floor 27 didn¡¯t specify an objective.¡±

    ¡°The goal of this floor is to be trained by whatever god you chose in preparation for the next few floors. Each floor is complete when your god decides you are ready to move on. For floor 28, it will be about performing services for your god. For 29, it is all about dealing with worshippers of other gods. Floor 30 is where you will either decide to split off from your patron or to stay tethered to them for the remainder of the tower.¡±

    ¡°So if you are the deciding factor on if I have completed a floor or not, you could get me through them basically instantly?¡±

    ¡°I can, yes. But we are going to cheat the system a bit. This floor is the only one in the entire tower where we will be able to converse so directly and regularly. If you have yet to notice, you can take your palm off of the altar now.¡±

    I do so, and the gray field we stand in doesn¡¯t go away.

    ¡°You are now in my divine domain.¡± Talus says. ¡°Until the day I decide you are ready, I will train you to become a master of your aura and everything within it.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°Aim for its eyes, they¡¯re the only exposed weak point!¡± Blair yells, firing another bullet of mana out of her rifle. The bullet flew through the air, hitting the cheekbone of the titan, which was currently over a kilometer away. She frowned at the inaccuracy of the shot, taking a tool from her storage ring and tweaking a few parts of the weapon.

    Flynn and Andrea both nodded, running towards the titan. Each of them focused heavily on the body stat, and quickly ate up the distance between them and their target. Flynn leapt into the air and swung his sword at the face of the titan, leaving a superficial wound behind as he used the cloak of flight to dodge the hand that attempted to grab him.

    Andrea also leapt up, slamming a large metal gauntlet into the knee of the titan. She felt something give as her fist made impact, and she knew she¡¯d managed to do some internal damage.

    The three of them slowly chipped away at the titan as time dragged on. Blair would constantly shoot for the raid boss¡¯ face, attempting to blind it by shooting an eye out. Flynn began to focus on the more fleshy parts of the monster, using a combination of several skills to cut deep gouges in its torse, thighs, and arms. Andrea did her best to immobilize the monster by slowly turning its ankle and feet into worthless puddles.

    Eventually, the monster fell backwards, landing right on its rear. It roared and slammed both fists down onto the ground. Walls of stone sprouted up all around them, with Blair being outside of the range of the wall.

    As the walls closed in, the titan sustained more and more damage from the repeated onslaught of blows. This wasn¡¯t to say that Flynn and Andrea were doing too hot, as they each had taken quite a bit of damage. Small cuts littered their bodies where debris from thrown rocks had grazed them. They were both heavily bruised, and the bones in Andrea¡¯s arms had fractures from repeatedly punching with such great force.

    The fight was finally ended when a supercharged bullet of mana smashed through the closing in walls of earth, piercing through the ear of the raid boss and exiting the other side of the monster¡¯s head. Andrea leapt up to the head and used one of her more powerful skills to release a wave of force into the wound, reducing the brain of the monster to mush.

    After the fight was over and Andrea received confirmation of Flynn¡¯s pioneer title upgrading, the two of them waited as Blair took apart the corpse of the titan.

    ¡°You take the arms, you take the legs, I¡¯ll take the rest.¡± She says. She didn¡¯t have enough room in her storage ring to carry it all by herself, and she certainly was not about to leave behind such precious materials.

    ¡°Do you have any plans for what to do moving forward?¡± Flynn asks during their trip back to the great city. ¡°I¡¯m sure with the population being so much lower there is going to be a lot less work for you.¡±

    ¡°I have thought about it.¡± The city¡¯s leader admits. ¡°My class is mostly focused around taking care of a city. While my subclass is focused on fighting, that is really only so I can defend the city if need be. I think I am going to continue as I am, and once my time in the tutorial ends I will assist in setting up a more permanent city back on Earth. What will you be doing?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to keep climbing the tower. I need to put in a lot of effort if I want to keep up with my current pace.¡± Flynn says. ¡°Though, I am going to try and put in even more effort than I am already. After all, I do have somebody I need to be catching up to.¡±

 Chapter 34: Divine Lessons

    I had never been the most physically active person before the system came around. I¡¯d always promised myself that after I got rich and didn¡¯t work 14 hours a day that I would get myself a personal trainer and get in shape. I can now confidently say that if a personal trainer was anything like Talus was, I would have just quit day one and worked out myself. This was pretty much exactly the same as having a personal trainer, but instead of taking rest days and eating right, I was working around the clock under the close tutelage of the God of Death.

    Things had started off pretty slow. The first few hours were spent teaching the basic theory about auras, as well as a few more nuanced things about it. I¡¯d learned quite a bit during this time, and a lot of the information was actually very surprising.

    One bit of information I had learned was that the aura could stretch and deform when acted on by outside forces. I had experienced this personally when I had stored the titans corpse within my aura. It had stretched to be able to fit the massive body. The reason the god¡¯s explanation stuck with me so much was because I also learned that an aura could rip if stretched too much. It was a far more difficult thing to mend than a body, though with time it could still be done.

    Many more dangers of using one¡¯s aura were also explained to me, but many of them wouldn¡¯t be a serious concern until many levels down the line. I really wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the mana within my aura having to maneuver around a mountain if I couldn¡¯t even fit something that big in my aura.

    The potential applications of an aura were far more numerous than I had been expecting. The god had demonstrated how he could condense his aura into solid objects, reel it in to act as a barrier, or even crush anything within his aura. The aura I could feel coming from him was only about as large as my own, but his was condensed to be far smaller than it usually was. According to him, I would have little hope of being able to even traverse the distance his aura could expand to within my lifetime. That was both really cool and slightly unnerving. I still really didn¡¯t have a good reference point for just how much stronger this man was than me.

    After we had covered most of the relevant theory, he had begun teaching me how to reshape my aura.

    ¡°Think of it like a balloon.¡± Talus says. ¡°It has a natural size it likes to be, and generally wants to remain a sphere. You can condense it by willing the sphere to become smaller or willing just one part of it to come closer.¡±

    ¡°How exactly am I supposed to will it to do that?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Some prefer to think of it as sucking in a big breath. Others think of gripping the entire thing and squeezing. Personally I always found it similar to flexing a muscle, though that was only after I had gotten more acquainted with my aura.¡±

    I do my best to picture what he said. I tried flexing it like a muscle, but it was like trying to move a limb that had fallen asleep. I felt like it should be able to move, but I just couldn¡¯t budge it. I tried squeezing it like he said some people do, but that was also difficult. I did manage to make it deform into a roughly oval shape, but it wasn¡¯t a particularly elegant attempt.

    What had finally worked for me was trying to picture it like I was breathing in. I had tried to pull my aura in all around me, simultaneously breathing in through my nose to help picture it better. The edges of my aura drew closer to my body as I did so. I let out a small chuckle of celebration, but as soon as the air leaves my lungs my aura returns to its original shape.

    It was a bit frustrating if I was being honest with myself. Mana control had come pretty naturally to me when I had first started doing that. This on the other hand was finicky and tedious to learn. Having a world class teacher helped, but it¡¯s not like a math teacher who could just show you the answer and the steps to reach it. All he could show me was a recommended method, and I had to figure the rest out on my own.

    According to him, learning to reshape the aura was fundamental to all magic involving the aura, so until I finished this there wasn¡¯t much else we could do.

    ¡°How long have we been at this so far?¡± I ask Talus as I once more try to shape my aura.

    ¡°About 37 hours.¡± The god says, shrugging.

    ¡°How long did it take you to figure this out when you were first learning?¡±

    ¡°About five hours to get to where you are now. In all fairness, my trait did help me quite a bit, as it is heavily linked with my aura.¡±

    ¡°Mine is too, yet I still feel like it is taking me longer than it should to learn this.¡±

    The god looks confused for a moment. ¡°Your trait isn¡¯t known for having a particularly strong connection with your aura. You have managed to steer the development of it towards an aura-based direction. Most with your trait don¡¯t do that.¡±

    ¡°So others with the same trait might use it in a far different way than I do?¡±

    ¡°Indeed they do. For example, a crafter with your trait may make an enchantment or large scale ritual, then condense it down to a single one dimensional line that can be placed on a staff or something of the sort. You have focused on the higher dimensions, while another person may focus on the lower ones.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°That sounds nice, but I don¡¯t think the lower dimensions are going to be super useful to me for the time being if those are the types of things it¡¯s used for.¡± As I speak, I finally manage to achieve what I had been trying to do for the past several hours. ¡°Got it!¡± I announced with glee, excited to see that my outburst had not wrecked my control.

    My aura hugged my body, not extending more than a few centimeters away. It was extremely dense now, and I felt that its presence alone could weaken an incoming attack.

    ¡°Congratulations.¡± Talus says, clapping his hands. ¡°Now we get to move on to the fun part.¡±

    The fun part turned out to be more aura control practice. He hadn¡¯t been lying though, what we were doing now was definitely more enjoyable. He would shape his aura a certain way, and I would do my best to copy the shape. It made me both practice manipulating my own aura, as well as honing my ability to sense the aura of others. He had to significantly weaken his aura to make it an actual challenge, as training with his aura at maximum power was like training your night vision by staring at the sun.

    We spent our time training in conversation, passing the time as I got the hang of my aura.

    ¡°So what is it like being a god?¡± I ask. ¡°I imagine obtaining all of that power must have taken a long time.¡±

    ¡°It did. Becoming a god is far from a quick process. As for what it is like being a god...¡± He takes a moment to think. ¡°It¡¯s pretty nice.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all you have to say about it?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, that is all. I¡¯m not one of those gods with a superiority complex, even if I am truly superior.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, no complex at all.¡±

    ¡°Oh shut it. My point is that many gods see themselves as fundamentally different, when in reality we are just a bunch of old farts with a lot of power.¡±

    ¡°That is a pretty down to earth way to look at it.¡± I say, a thought occurring to me. ¡°Were you born into the system or did your star system get integrated into it?¡±

    ¡°My star system was integrated into it.¡± He says. ¡°After our population crested 50 billion on my home planet, we were brought to the true universe with a D tier tutorial that barely lasted 30 days.¡±

    ¡°What determines the rank of a tutorial?¡± I ask. ¡°I mean, this tutorial is S tier, but I almost feel like it is wasted on the seven billion people here compared to the fifty billion on your planet that could have benefited from it.¡±

    ¡°There are a few contributing factors, but it mainly involves how you were introduced to the system. If your star system was dragged in to save it from overpopulation or a cataclysmic event, you earned yourself a D tier tutorial. If a particular individual in your system reaches a certain threshold of power, you get a C tier. If the general population was extremely technologically and mathematically advanced, you could earn a B or even A tier. An A tier is guaranteed if you enter the true universe with the assistance of the system, and S tier is reserved for star systems that enter the true universe through no assistance of the system.¡±

    ¡°So you are saying that my planet managed to do it all on our own? That seems like a stroke of luck, as we were about a millisecond away from killing ourselves with a blackhole.¡±

    Talus looks surprised for a moment, as he has several times since I met him. ¡°Tell me, how advanced was your civilization technologically speaking? What did you really know about blackholes?¡±

    ¡°Well, not much. We knew what they were, the bare basics of how they worked, and how they were formed. We had hundreds of scientists who dedicated their lives to unlocking the secrets of these massive things, and eventually managed to create one ourselves.¡±

    ¡°Are you familiar with the theory that blackholes lead to alternate universes?¡±

    ¡°I am. Is it a common one in this universe?¡±

    ¡°It would be, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that it wasn¡¯t true. In some universes it holds true, but as I am sure you can tell by what we are doing at this very moment, not all universes have the same fundamental laws. In your universe, a blackhole was likely a one way trip to this universe.¡±

    ¡°That...¡± I rub my forehead. ¡°Is a lot to think about. I dedicated my life to studying and understanding the fundamental laws of my universe, and hearing that some of them may not hold true is pretty jarring.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t fret over it too much. Most of them should work just fine. If you really want a good example of how things have changed, what is the speed of light in your universe?¡±

    ¡°A bit under 3 million meters a second.¡± I say. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me even that has changed. How does everything even still work? How does-¡±

    ¡°Like I said, things work differently here. Light here travels instantly, and doesn¡¯t drag its feet quite as much as it does in nearly every other universe.¡±

    ¡°But... wow.¡± My mind is just filled with so many more questions, but at the same time I don¡¯t know what to ask about first.

    The next many hours are spent with us talking about the greater universe as a whole. I probe him for more information on how things have changed, and he asks about what Earth was like. Overall it is a very engaging conversation for me, though I can see boredom on the old god¡¯s face every time I ask a physics question. It didn¡¯t stop me though, because I was not about to let it slide that gravity no longer relied on mass. How could it possibly make sense that the system just ¡°decided¡± how much gravity a planet should have?

    Eventually, our conversation came to a close. It had been triggered by me finally obtaining the skill upgrade that Talus had been waiting for me to get. It was for a skill I had gained during our time training, and had already upgraded several times.

    Advanced Aura Manipulation (Epic) has become Fluid Aura Control (Special)

    Fluid Aura Control (Special)

    Manipulate your aura in various ways. Stretch it, condense it, or reshape it to your whim. While condensed, your aura can weaken incoming attacks. When interacting with another aura, you can push against theirs, forcing it to condense or push back the target. Provides a small increase to the effectiveness of all aura based skills and spells.

    You are now level 71

    You are now level 72

    It was so-called base skill for aura manipulation. Everything else would branch off of this.

    By this point, it had been nearly two full days of aura training. I had been annoyed for nearly every moment of it, and while my control had gotten better, I still felt like I was not particularly proficient.

    Apparently, Talus felt the exact same way. Looking back, those two days almost felt like a vacation compared to what I would be put through over the course of the next 10 days.

 Chapter 35: Goblins Revolt

    Tower Announcement! Floor Event Beginning in 2 hours!

    Floor Event: Goblins Revolt (Floor 2)

    The notification broke my concentration, causing the contraption of mana I had just made to fall apart. I stared longingly at the sparks of mana that quickly dissipated away, having just a few seconds ago been a miniature clocktower. A functional one too. Talus had told me that working on both my mana-festation skill and my aura control simultaneously could improve both, so that is what I had been doing during this most recent session of training.

    ¡°I got a floor event notification.¡± I tell the god. He already knew what I was talking about, as I had told him about the first floor event that had taken place just before the D tiers left the tutorial.

    ¡°Is it one that seems worth participating in?¡± He replies, seeming annoyed that my attention was being dragged away from my training.

    ¡°Let me check.¡± I say, reading through the description of the event. If it was anything like the last one, I¡¯d probably want to be there if only just to prevent chaos from erupting.

    Goblins Revolt (Floor 2)

    Once the event begins, all who enter the second floor will arrive at one of several set points on the floor. Periodically, waves of goblins will arrive to attack the gathered populations, ramping up in strength over the course of 24 hours. Event rewards are determined by how long you remain on the floor as well as participation in defeating the waves. Groups will be determined by level and capabilities. Once the event ends, you will return to the point at which you entered the floor. All participants must be a minimum of level 20 to enter this event.

    ¡°Seems like it will be worth it.¡± I say after reading the entire description to the god. ¡°I¡¯d finally get a chance to test out my better mana and aura control in combat.¡±

    ¡°It will be a great chance for you to meet with a few other strong individuals as well. Perhaps one of the several individuals who has also entered floor 26 will be there.¡±

    ¡°How many people have made it to that point?¡± I ask.

    ¡°I am not at liberty to say.¡± The god explains, shaking his head. I was a bit disappointed, but then I see him blinking rapidly at me. I count, and I see him blink thirteen times.

    ¡°Oh well.¡± I say slowly, hoping I wasn¡¯t just reading into that too much. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll just have to find out when I meet them.¡±

    Thirteen people on the same floor I was on. That was quite a few. I was pretty confident Flynn was one of them, and if I got to meet more people that were as strong or even stronger than him, that alone would make leaving for the event worth it.

    ¡°I guess I¡¯ll go get to that.¡± I say, about to leave the floor.

    ¡°Not yet.¡± Talus says, stopping me. ¡°You still have almost two hours to train. We cannot let that go to waste.¡±

    I sigh, turning back and facing the god. After an hour and a half of more concentration based training, he finally lets me go back to the first floor to wait for the event. I had a pretty good feeling that I would be able to stay in for the full 24 hours it would be running, especially with the two skill upgrades and three levels I¡¯d gotten in the past ten days.

    You are now level 78

    Superior Mana Manipulation (Special) has been upgraded to Omni-Mana Manipulation (Special)

    Omni-Mana Manipulation (Special)

    Manipulate the mana within your body and aura to perform various tasks. Provides an increase to mana control within your aura. Increases the effect of your mind stat while manipulating your mana. Slightly increases the size and potency of your aura.

    Fluid Aura Control (Special )has been upgraded to Auric Authority (Legendary)

    Auric Authority (Legendary)

    Manipulate your aura in various ways. Stretch it, condense it, or reshape it to your whim. While condensed, your aura can weaken incoming attacks. Use your aura as a weapon to crush those weaker than you, clashing your aura against their own. Disrupts all hostile mana within your aura passively, with the effect growing stronger when boosted with mana. Provides a small increase to the effectiveness of all aura based skills and spells. Increases the size and potency of the users aura.

    As it turns out, being personally tutored by a god had its perks. Without the guidance and assistance of Talus, I would have had no hope of getting my aura skill to this rarity. He was a master of his aura, and had spent most of his life learning to use it effectively. It was to be expected that he would have some tips on the subject.

    The only thing I didn¡¯t like about the past ten days was that I had only gained three levels. It felt like I was falling behind a bit in that regard, even if I knew the skill upgrades were a bigger boost in power than a few extra levels would have been. Even still, I really wanted to know what the next upgrade to my innate skill would be at level 80. Hopefully this event could push me over the edge to reach that point.

    The outpost was buzzing with activity as it so often did. Quite a few people were clearly excited for this event, and I could spot more than one group that looked like they were planning to enter it together. I didn¡¯t have anybody I planned on entering with, but I still had a feeling there would be at least one familiar face in the group I was placed with.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°Yo, River!¡± I hear someone shout.

    I look over and see Ben speed walking towards me.

    ¡°Hey Ben.¡± I say, waving. ¡°It¡¯s been a while.¡±

    ¡°A while?¡± Ben says as he reaches me. ¡°You¡¯ve been gone for almost two weeks now. Where have you been?¡±

    ¡°Training. I¡¯ve been stuck on floor 27 trying to get stronger.¡±

    ¡°Wow. Whatever is there must be pretty tough if you have to spend so much time getting ready for it.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. Very strong individual.¡± I say, not elaborating further. I knew that Ben was a fairly religious man, and I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how to bring up the topic of an actual god to him. I would rather just dodge around the topic entirely. ¡°So are you planning on participating in the event?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I am. Hopefully with my level I get lumped in with people that are worth networking with, though I suppose you will have a much higher chance of having that happen.¡±

    ¡°Probably.¡± I say, nodding. ¡°I am actually really curious to see just how many people there are around my level. I¡¯ve met a few people who are comparable to me in level, but given that there are still about a billion people left in the tutorial there has to be many more who are at or above my level.¡±

    ¡°My guess is that you¡¯ll be the strongest there.¡± Ben says, laughing. ¡°I don¡¯t know just how many people out there would go to the almost suicidal lengths you have for a good fight. I heard from Blair about the titan you fought. I have to say, that was pretty ballsy of you.¡±

    ¡°I guess it was.¡± I shrug. ¡°I doubt I¡¯ll get another fight like that for a while, as I already know floor 30 isn¡¯t going to have another big boss like floors 10 and 20 had for me.¡±

    ¡°How do you know that?¡±

    ¡°Chain floors. It¡¯s not too difficult to predict how they end.¡±

    I knew how floor 30 would end. It would end with Talus waving me through and me leaving within about a minute of entering the floor. I wonder how other people are going to handle the floor, with their gods having high expectations for their performance and such.

    Tower announcement!

    Goblin Revolt has Begun! Enter the 2nd Floor to Participate!

    We walk over to the entrance to the next floor, with Ben managing to get us to the front of the long line waiting to head down. As soon as I entered the next floor, I knew that this was not the usual entrance point. It was still a forest, but the trees were a lot taller, thicker, and more spread out. People began appearing all around me, and when people finally stopped showing up I counted exactly 20 individuals in the group.

    Out of the entire group, I only spotted a single person that I recognized. Flynn stood off to the side, observing everybody present. I had been kind of expecting to be grouped up with him, but it was still nice to see him.

    ¡°Hey Flynn.¡± I say, walking up to him. ¡°Looks like you¡¯re stuck with me again.¡±

    ¡°I can never get a break from you can I?¡± I joke back, grinning.

    The two of us talking seems to finally kickstart the group into interacting with one another, and everybody present begins making small talk with each other. Even still, I can tell that the atmosphere is much more tense than it appeared on the surface. Through my now much more sensitive aura, I can feel people using identify and inspect on one another left and right. I am guilty too, as I check the levels of everybody present. There isn¡¯t a single individual who is lower than level 65. Flynn had reached level 74, just a bit behind me.

    Out of the twenty people present, one of them matched my level. That wasn¡¯t what really drew my attention though. What really caught my eye were the two people who were a higher level.

    Human (Level 79)

    Human (Level 80)

    The lower leveled of the two was an archer. She wielded the triple shot bow from the dungeon floors. She must have chosen that as the item she would keep. It was a pretty good item for an archer, so it made sense. The person standing next to her, well I had pretty much no idea what their deal was. They were about my height, but that is the only thing I can make out. They are wearing a long, dark robe that seemed to artificially hide their face and body behind a shadow. That made me think that they may be a rogue or assassin of some kind, but that was flimsy evidence at best.

    They both spotted me, and I could feel both of them using an identify skill. They looked to each other and exchanged a few words I couldn¡¯t hear, then turned their attention to the others in the group.

    ¡°Guess you finally have some competition.¡± Flynn says, whispering to me.

    ¡°Yes I do.¡± I say. ¡°By the way, which god did you pick on floor 26?¡±

    ¡°A war god named Brindle.¡± Flynn says. ¡°He taught me a few sword techniques before sending me off to floor 28 to go hunt the champion of some other god. Barely even spoke to him. How about you?¡±

    ¡°A god named Talus. He¡¯s been training me to better utilize my aura.¡±

    ¡°How has that been?¡±

    ¡°Miserable. Extremely productive and helpful, but he¡¯s a real stickler when it comes to doing things right. I haven¡¯t even left floor 26 yet, as he wants me to be fully prepared before moving on. I should probably ask soon when he plans to let me move on.¡±

    ¡°Well you have some catching up to do then.¡± Flynn says, chuckling a bit. ¡°For the first time, I¡¯m actually ahead of you. Don¡¯t take that as a challenge though. I definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to beat you if it came down to it.¡±

    ¡°You sure you don¡¯t want a fun little spar? I¡¯m sure it wouldn¡¯t be too much of a one sided beat down.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have to pass.¡±

    I was getting so absorbed in my conversation with Flynn that I didn¡¯t notice one of the people present walking towards us. I see Flynn look over my shoulder. His face lights up when he sees the person, and I turn around to see a woman wearing black leather armor walking towards us. She had a long dagger at each hip, and the bottles at her waste practically screamed poison.

    ¡°Flynn!¡± She shouts after reaching us, hugging the swordsman suddenly.

    ¡°Fionna! Oh it has been so long since I¡¯ve seen you!¡± Flynn hugs her back. ¡°I¡¯ve missed you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve missed you too.¡± She says, pulling away from the hug. ¡°I see you¡¯ve handled yourself well. Besides, it hasn¡¯t been that long. We¡¯ve had longer stretches of not talking before.¡±

    ¡°Still, I¡¯ve been worried.¡± He says, before finally turning back to me. ¡°River, this is my older sister, Fionna.¡±

    That sentence hits me like a hammer. This badass assassin looking girl was Flynn¡¯s sister? What were the odds both of them performed so well in the tower? What am I saying, I already know the odds. Damn low at best, near impossible at worst.

    ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet you.¡± I say, shaking her hand.

    She smiles, nodding. ¡°Nice to meet you too. I¡¯m guessing you know Flynn? Have you two been climbing the tower together?¡±

    ¡°A few floors, yes. He¡¯s actually ahead of me right now.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like him. He¡¯s always been super competitive, even if he doesn¡¯t show it. He¡¯ll just abandon his teammates as soon as he surpasses them-¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough.¡± Flynn cuts her off. ¡°We already split off well before that.¡±

    ¡°Well I don¡¯t know why you would. Imagine how far you two could go working together. You¡¯re the dream duo!¡±

    ¡°The floors are instanced-¡± Flynn begins, before stopping. He seemed to come to the realization that arguing with her would be pointless. ¡°Whatever. Anyways, how have you been doing? I imagine you¡¯ve been tearing through these floors just as well as I have been?¡±

    ¡°Of course I¡¯ve been.¡± She says.

    They keep talking and I decide to give them some space. I didn¡¯t want to get in the middle of the joyful family reunion. Before I can even take two steps, a hand grabs my elbow and pulls me back over.

    ¡°Oh don¡¯t let me drive away Flynn¡¯s one friend here.¡± She says, letting me go. ¡°He¡¯s never been the friendly type, and I don¡¯t wanna make it worse.¡±

    Flynn just looks down and shakes his head in exasperation. ¡°I¡¯ve had plenty of friends.¡± He argues. ¡°Let him go do what he wants.¡±

    ¡°Nonsense. I was just about to leave and talk to a few other people anyways. I know a few other people here so I am going to go chat with them real quick. I¡¯ll see ya in a bit!¡±

    She jogs off to go talk to some of the other people present. I watch her go, wondering how somebody with such a bubbly personality had ended up going for a clearly poison and assassination based fighting style.

    ¡°She is quite a handful.¡± Flynn says.

    ¡°I can tell.¡± I say, turning my attention back to him.

    ¡°Since that is over, we should probably deal with the horde of goblins coming our way now.¡±

    I turn my head and see the first wave of goblins coming our way. I identify and few of them, seeing that they were all about level 20. That was pretty weak, but the event description did mention that it would get harder over time. Besides, if the minimum level for people to enter the event was 20, it made sense that they would start with monsters at that level.

    One of the mages present is the first to act, sending an arc of mana towards the horde. In one fell swoop, half of the goblins are dead. In another few seconds, the rest of the wave has fallen.

    The way things are looking now, the next several hours were going to be pretty damn boring. Looks like I am in for a whole lot of talking until things actually got interesting.

 Chapter 36: A Little Too Easy

    Hours passed by with the waves steadily getting stronger and bigger with each one. One of the archers even got so bored that he just decided to count how many goblins were in each wave and what their levels were.

    The fifth wave, and the first one that got counted, had about 50 goblins in it. Most were level 24, but there were a few larger goblins that were over level 30. The wave after that had 55 goblins, with most of them being level 26. By the tenth wave, the archer stopped counting as it didn¡¯t take a genius to see the pattern. Every wave would be about one level higher and have about five more goblins than the previous wave. Keeping count, a wave appeared roughly every 18 minutes.

    If this pace kept up, then the final wave at the 24 hour mark would have a horde of around 450 goblins, with the minimum level being level 99. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how we would do once that time came, but given that there were 20 of us we should be able to manage. Goblins were weak for their level, and the sheer amount of them is where most of the difficulty would be coming from.

    Okay, being real for a minute, this event seemed like it was going to be pretty easy to complete. I don¡¯t mean that in an arrogant way or anything, but when you had the twenty strongest humans in the tower work together to fight off monsters, there was little chance of anything below level 100 being a meaningful threat. Even if they threw two or three level 99 raid bosses at us, I was pretty sure we could deal with it. This solidified in my mind that there just had to be something more to it, and I was not the only one thinking that.

    ¡°We need to conserve our mana.¡± The level 79 archer says, addressing the group as a whole. ¡°No more big flashy attacks. There is likely going to be something near the end of this event that takes a lot of power to deal with, and we need to be as ready as we can to face it.¡±

    ¡°I agree.¡± I say. ¡°Though with little to no magic, we are going to need to get more people involved to kill each wave before the next one can arrive.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯d be nice.¡± Says the mage who initially took out the first wave. Since then, he¡¯d been the one most focused on dealing with the goblins as he had the best spells for dealing with crowds.

    With the 20 of us now all actively involved in taking out each horde, time seemed to pass a bit faster. Nobody was too hasty to kill the goblins, as we didn¡¯t want to spend 30 seconds fighting and over 17 minutes waiting, so a lot of the time was spent simply sparring against the goblins.

    After a while, we were fighting goblins that had reached level 50 and spiked in power. They were larger and had larger muscles, though they were still shorter than the average human. Instead of primitive weapons and armor, they now had very well crafted sets of metal armor and sharp weapons. Goblins mages even joined their ranks as spells now flew at us from the air. I pulled my aura in to act as a shield against the spells, nullifying their damage without wasting any mana.

    This entire time, I had been using my bone dagger to fight. It was a mediocre weapon for my level, but against the goblins it did just fine. Eventually, I finally decided to test out one of the features of my aura that Talus had eluded to during our training.

    I was currently facing off against a goblin that was taller than I was and well above the average level of the wave. It was level 60, and wielded a massive club that was nearly as big as I was. I could take it down with just my two hands if I really wanted to, but the technique I was about to try wouldn¡¯t even require that.

    The goblin got within range of my aura, and soon I could feel its aura hanging in the air around it. It was wild and uncontrolled, having not been reigned in and tempered like my own had. After the refinement mine had gone through over the past several days, it was like comparing a water hose and a pressure washer. Even if they had similar throughput, one would cut through things far more effectively than the other.

    My aura began to slowly push down on the goblin¡¯s, squeezing it to be smaller and smaller. The goblin paused its charge, seeming to understand that something was wrong. It tried to take a few steps back, but soon it fell to its knees as the pressure pushing in all around it was becoming overwhelming. My own aura was condensing its aura so much that the goblin was slowly being crushed.

    It all reached a tipping point as the goblin crumpled, the bones in its body all shattering and the sensitive within becoming no more than slop. The goblin fell over dead without me expending a bit of stamina or mana.

    The next unfortunate goblin to cross my path met a similar, if less gruesome fate. My aura penetrated its own, ripping it away with great force and tearing it apart. This was a good deal harder than the feat I had just performed, but it also left the goblin crippled and unable to use any magical attacks.

    That goblin soon fell as well as my aura collapsed inwards to crush the monster. I looked around, wondering how other people were handling their opponents, when I see the cloaked individual from before looking towards me. I couldn''t see their eyes, but they had their head turned towards me.

    I give a halfhearted wave, looking away. It was a bit awkward being watched, but he¡¯d probably only looked because of my little aura trick. Actually, could he even tell what was happening? Most people couldn¡¯t sense their own auras yet, let alone that of others. I¡¯d only been able to sense my own aura after I¡¯d gained the accumulate skill, and only been able to sense others auras after training specifically training to do so.

    I went back to using my dagger to fight, as using my aura was both boring and felt kind of unfair to the goblins. They could get a luckily parry or block an attack, but attacking their aura directly was something they couldn¡¯t defend against.

    By the time the goblins reached level 70, they were bringing weapons more powerful than mere bows and swords. Catapults and trebuchets were brought into the mix, firing large rocks at our group. The archers got bored of bashing in heads with their bows, and finally decided to just eat the minor mana cost of summoning arrows to fire at the distant targets.

    At level 80, the goblins were bringing in ballista''s and other various siege machines. The few goblins that still approached melee range were extremely heavily armored and seemed to be focused entirely on tanking blows while the large projectile weapons dealt damage from a distance. My aura crushing trick would have actually been quite nice here, as armor couldn¡¯t block it, but around the time the goblins passed my level I could no longer muster enough force to outright kill them. I could still slow them substantially, bringing many of them to a halt, but I had to finish them off with a spell or my dagger.

    The higher leveled goblins in the horde were beginning to crest level 90, and I was actually starting to get worried that they would climb past level 100 when the normal goblins were around level 95. That would actually start to cause some major issues for out group.

    When the goblins began to reach level 90, I had to finally begin using magic. Up to this point, my dagger and aura alone had been enough to deal with these monsters thanks to the fact that they were weak for their level. Even so, facing down hundreds of monsters at a time was straining me. I didn¡¯t want to activate empower, as this was more a battle of endurance than anything. That spell was meant for shorter fights where my mana reserves weren¡¯t nearly as much of a concern.

    ¡°How are you holding up?¡± I ask Flynn between the level 93 and 94 waves.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ¡°It¡¯s getting pretty tough, but I think I¡¯ll be able to make it to the end of this.¡± He says. He looks off into the distance, where a cloud of green fog is slowly being blown away by the slight breeze in the forest. ¡°I¡¯m more scared of getting caught in that than by the goblins.¡±

    ¡°You can say that again.¡± I note, watching as a person steps out from the thick cloud of poison.

    They pull off the gas mask once they are clear of the toxic cloud, revealing said person to be Flynn¡¯s sister. She was already pulling out a bottle to begin mixing poisons again to prepare for the next wave.

    ¡°What kind of place were you two raised in to both be so strong?¡± I joke.

    The joke seems to accidentally strike a sensitive subject, and I see Flynn grimace. ¡°I¡¯d rather not talk about it.¡±

    ¡°Oh, sorry man. I didn¡¯t realize-¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯d just rather not talk about it.¡±

    ¡°Got it. So...¡± I trial off, not knowing how to fix this conversation.

    Flynn just sighs, seeming to understand that I was still thinking about what his backstory could be.

    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll tell you,¡± He says. ¡°but only because I don¡¯t want you coming up with something worse.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, you don¡¯t have to if you really don¡¯t want to.¡± Despite my words, I am still stupidly curious. What secrets does this guy hide?

    ¡°Me and my sister grew up in a pretty rough place. We were raised by some pretty rough people. My father in particular was a career assassin, and wanted to raise us to do the same. That is why we both are decent at fighting and are not afraid of these monsters.¡±

    ¡°Oh, wow.¡± I say. ¡°I... I¡¯m sorry I brought it up. I never would have guessed anything like that.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well usually I¡¯m not so open about anything. You are just a pretty good dude. I never really wanted to follow my father¡¯s line of work, but going against him would have gotten me kicked to the streets. Same goes for my sister, who actually did want to follow in our father¡¯s footsteps.¡±

    ¡°Her? A trained killer? I can¡¯t believe anybody so bubbly could come from a life like that. She must be either crazy or really tenacious.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a bit of both.¡± Flynn shrugs. ¡°So, I told you pretty much all you need to know about me. What¡¯s your story?¡±

    ¡°My story? Well, I don¡¯t really have one. I had a relatively normal childhood, went to university to study physics, and eventually became a physicist. Not one of any particular note though.¡± I leave out the project I¡¯d been working on up until the system arrived. I was still reluctant to tell anyone about that. I probably would have been a famous physicist had that not nearly destroyed the planet. I still don¡¯t quite know how it could have gone so wrong.

    ¡°That sounds more interesting than you seem to think it is.¡± Flynn says. ¡°I myself would have loved to be a scientist, but life doesn¡¯t always go the way you want. My sister went to college for a degree in chemistry, but I think you can take a guess why she might have wanted to do that.¡± He gestures to the still drifting cloud of poison.

    We talk for a little while longer, sharing a few minor details about our lives but still not going into very much depth. After a while the next goblin wave arrives, and I just so happen to use identify on one of the larger ones.

    Goblin Vanguard (Level 99)(Boss)

    ¡°So that¡¯s how they are making it harder without going past level 99.¡± I say after pointing the boss out to Flynn. ¡°Think you could take one of those on?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure. It may be a goblin, but a boss monster is still a boss monster.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go give it a shot. Challenge yourself a bit.¡±

    ¡°I guess I should.¡± Flynn says, taking off to go fight the boss. I knew he could beat it. Thinking back to when bosses were first introduced, the description had mentioned them being much stronger than a typical member of their race for their level, not as being extremely strong for their level. The skeleton sentinel from floor 5 could absolutely curb stomp a goblin boss of a similar level.

    That had also been part of what made the titan such a tough battle. I had a feeling they were already strong for their level, which could only be amplified by being a raid boss. I wonder if there was ever a possibility of me getting a ¡°boss¡± title. The King had one on floor 10, but he was probably just an exception made for the tutorial.

    Like I had thought, Flynn managed to take down the boss, though it was quite a close fight. A level difference of over 20 was nothing to be scoffed at. I myself had managed to grow to level 79 since the event started, but killing large quantities of comparatively weak enemies was basically the opposite of what my class represented. Flynn had a more general fighting class and had already gained two levels, probably a third after beating that boss.

    I decide to finally step up and get that last level for myself. Running over to one of the other few bosses in the horde, I quickly slow it down with my aura before releasing an absolute torrent of mana blasts at point blank range, each empowered by my aura and the tag I¡¯d placed on it with my innate skill. The goblin didn¡¯t stand a chance, it¡¯s death awarding me with the one singular level I had needed to reach the upgrade I had wanted.

    Innate Skill upgraded

    Dimensional Duel (4/5)

    Effect 4: Up to 10 arcane tags can be placed at a time. Up to 2 tags can be placed on a target at a time, with the second being only half as effective as the first.

    The upgrade made the arcane tags slightly more useful, and I could now place them on multiple opponents. That seemed to go against the whole point of ¡°Dimensional Duel¡±, but I¡¯m sure there is some reason for the upgrade. Perhaps it would be explained by the final upgrade to the skill.

    The skill came in handy for now at least, and allowed me to deal with the horde slightly easier. In theory I was still running the risk of one of my marked targets surviving and running away, leaving me with a stat penalty, but in reality there was basically no chance of any of these goblins getting away.

    The system event finally hit the 24 hour mark shortly after the last wave was defeated. We could all breathe a sigh of relief that no level 100 enemies had shown their faces. Everybody read the system notification that arrived as the time expired.

    Floor Event Complete!

    All who have remained to the end of the timer will receive a special rarity item tailored to their class.

    Exclusive Floor event! Goblins Last Stand (Floor 2)

    The goblins have mobilized their strongest assets to squash the threat on floor 2! Leave the floor now or face great danger! Alternatively, run to the floors brave the goblin¡¯s final attempts to fight off humanity and run to the main exit of the floor!

    All previous rewards will be upgraded to legendary rarity upon completion. If no individual completes the objective, floor 2 will be permanently closed off for the remainder of the tutorial, ejecting all who remain within.

    Once you have decided to take on this floor event, you may not leave until you complete it.

    Time left to leave floor 2: 5 minutes

    Most people present are sent deep into consideration upon seeing the notification. About half of those among us just turned and left right away. It was very obvious that there were going to be some level 100 monsters during this part of the event, and that was enough to deter most. Flynn seemed to be thinking about it for a bit, but eventually looked at me.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I am going to be sticking around for this.¡± He says. ¡°I might be able to do it, but the risk is just too high.¡±

    ¡°I completely understand.¡± I say, nodding. ¡°You might want to talk to your sister though.¡± I point over to the woman, who is currently bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement.

    He sighs and walks over to her. They walk for a minute, before he sighs again. Walking back over to me, he looks like he¡¯d rather be anywhere else.

    ¡°What¡¯d she say?¡± I ask.

    ¡°She is staying, which means I am staying. I am not about to let her run into danger alone like that.¡±

    ¡°What a good younger brother.¡± I say, teasing him.

    ¡°Shut up. Could you at least travel with us so it is a little safer?¡±

    ¡°Of course. Can¡¯t have you running into danger alone like that.¡±

    He punches me in the shoulder, and I laugh. By the time the opportunity to leave has passed, there are only six of us left on the floor. Me, Flynn, his sister Fionna, The cloaked individual, their archer friend, and the mage who had first fought against the goblins. He was also the lowest leveled of us all, being only level 77 after all of that fighting. Flynn and Fionna were both level 79, and the other two had both climbed to 83.

    The system event begins, and over the course of a few seconds the skies darken to be almost midnight. I could still see, but not nearly as well as I would have liked to. A massive pillar of light appears way off in the distance, letting us know where we needed to get to. I spotted a few movements in the shadows, and quickly used identify to get an idea of what we were dealing with.

    Goblin Assassin (Level Unknown)

    The system event has begun! Reach the floor exit before being killed by the goblin elites! It doesn¡¯t matter how long it takes you, so long as you remember your ultimate goal.

    Current Objective: Survive

 Chapter 37: Special Floor Event

    ¡°Level 100, 101, and another at 100.¡±

    I looked over at the archer who had just pointed to each of the goblins. She must have had a much better identify skill than the one I had if she could see their levels, and also better perception if she could see all three goblin assassins. I¡¯d only spotted two of them initially, but now that she had pointed it out I could see the third peeking at us from behind a large tree.

    ¡°I vote we simply ignore the monsters and go collect our rewards.¡± The cloaked individual says. ¡°We may be able to fight them off for a while, but it would be far more beneficial to simply get our rewards and get out of here.¡±

    ¡°I agree.¡± Flynn says. ¡°I don¡¯t think our odds of killing more than just a few of them are very high.¡±

    ¡°Great, then we are in agreement.¡± The figure says. A second cloak appears on top of the one they already wore, which I recognize as the same cloak of flight that I wore. With a quick motion, he scoops up the archer in his arms and flies off towards the beam of light. A few of the goblins give chase, but the cloak allows him to outpace them.

    ¡°I suppose that means the four of us will travel together.¡± The mage says. ¡°I¡¯d really appreciate you all not running away as well.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we won¡¯t abandon you.¡± I say. ¡°Though, try not to slow us down too much.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    We begin running towards the pillar of light. Out of the four of us, I am the fastest on foot, with Fionna being just barely slower than I am. Flynn, who has his body stat focused on strength, is a good bit slower than her, and the mage is even slower than him. We can only move as fast as our slowest member, meaning that we have to keep pace with him.

    As we run, the goblins all follow us, easily keeping pace as they wait for the perfect opportunity to attack. We all keep watch in all directions, not wanting to let any of them land a surprise attack.

    After some time, the goblins finally seem to think they have their chance. With little warning, one of them leaps from the trees above and falls straight towards the head of the mage. I knock it off course with an arcane blast, saving the man from being split in two.

    The goblin recovers before the mana from the spell is even done dissipating, and is once more on the mage. The four of us fight it off, managing to keep it from killing its target. The goblin moves really quickly, and with the two daggers it wields it is very hard to keep up with its movements. Another goblins joins the fray, and we are forced to continue running while doing everything we can to keep our distance from the two enemies. My spells smack against their armor, slowing them down. Clouds of poison trail behind us, slowing them down just a little bit more.

    Several more of the goblins give chase, and soon we find ourselves being hunted down by five of the high leveled monsters. We wouldn¡¯t have much hope fighting them directly, but keeping them at bay is feasible enough for now. Our problem is how slow we are moving. It is only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

    And almost as soon as I had that thought, something goes wrong. The mage stumbles slightly, having tripped over a root he hadn¡¯t noticed in the dark. It was a small stumble, barely slowing him down at all, but that miniscule loss of speed and coordination had been enough to screw him over.

    The fastest of the goblins caught up to him, grabbing his ankle and dragging him to the ground. In that vulnerable position, there was nothing he could do as he was torn apart over the next few seconds. I stopped for a moment to help, but thought better of it and continued running. There was nothing I could do for him, he was already dead.

    With him dead, we were able to pick up the pace a lot and actually start putting some more distance between us and the goblins. Our feet pounded against the ground as all of us ran at Flynn¡¯s top speed. The goblins, having been breathing in Fionna¡¯s poison for the past several minutes, began to slow down as they were losing the energy to keep up the chase. They weren¡¯t dying by any stretch of the imagination, but the toxic cloud had been enough to deter them for now.

    New goblins replaced their brethren, and we were once more running away from them. There were only two of them this time, which briefly gave me an idea.

    ¡°Flynn, take my cloak.¡± I say, removing my cloak of flight and handing it to him.

    He quickly puts it on without question, suddenly realizing why he¡¯d been handed it.

    He takes a leap in the air, gliding back to the ground slowly. He only hopped up a few feet, but in that stride he traveled hundreds of meters. His foot once more makes contact with the ground, and he pushes off. He repeats it over and over, and soon he is running at Fionna¡¯s top speed.

    He doesn¡¯t speed up further than that, but the three of us are now running extremely fast. I could slow down the pace of my spell casting now that the goblins were having much more trouble keeping pace.

    After almost thirty straight minutes of running, things once more were kicked up in difficulty. Arrows flew in from all around us, having been fired by the many goblin archers in the trees. The first one sank itself directly into Flynn¡¯s shoulder, the second arriving a moment later and piercing through Fionna¡¯s thigh. Two arrows get fired at me, but neither are able to penetrate my mana shield, despite the massive mana cost of blocking them.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    My shield flares out from my body, and the three of us get closer together as my barrier now covers all of us from the absolute barrage of arrows that I was now enduring.

    I silently thanked the heavens above for my recent aura training, as it had allowed me to store more mana than before thanks to the increased potency of my aura. The energy cost of blocking so many powerful attacks was stacking up quickly, and I even started deflecting some of the arrows to the side with arcane blasts just to save every bit of mana I could.

    Whenever Flynn was able to, he used his sword to knock an arrow away. Fionna¡¯s daggers also blocked several arrows, helping to alleviate the drain on me. After almost an hour of running at full speed, the attacks stopped coming. No more goblins are chasing us, and we are rapidly approaching the light above the floors main exit.

    We come to a stop several kilometers away from the exit, having spotted a monster guarding it. The three of us gaze at the very large goblin, which was about seven feet tall and as muscular as a body builder. It had a massive bow strapped to its back, and leather armor that covered every inch of skin besides its face.

    ¡°We are going to have to run past it.¡± Flynn says. ¡°That is a boss monster if I¡¯ve ever seen one, and I am not about to try and fight it.¡±

    ¡°You sure you don¡¯t even want to try?¡± I ask, identifying the boss. ¡°We might have a realistic shot at killing it.¡±

    Goblin Patriarch (Level Unknown)(Boss)

    ¡°If those other two had been here to help, we may have been able to. Without them here, I would really rather not risk it.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be trying to fight that thing either.¡± Fionna says, looking at it. For the first time he bubbly personality seems to slip away, a more serious expression on her face. Even Flynn looks a bit thrown by it.

    I sigh. ¡°Fine, I guess I can understand not wanting to face it down. Could I ask you two to rest here with me for an hour or two so I can recover my mana enough to give it a shot after you escape?¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t possibly be considering fighting that thing right?¡± Flynn says, shocked. ¡°I know you are damn strong, but there is only so many levels that strength can overcome. That thing is both a boss monster and at a higher evolution than you.¡±

    ¡°That is exactly why I want to fight it so badly.¡± I say. ¡°Also, I¡¯m not just strong for my level. I am stupidly strong for my level. Tell me, what is your highest stat after you have applied all of your title multipliers and skill buffs.¡±

    ¡°A bit over 3,500.¡±

    ¡°Well after all of my multipliers, my mind stat is a bit over 4100, with my body stat being 3700. That isn¡¯t even including all of the increases to my stats I¡¯d get from my skills and titles, and the fact that my entire class is based around fighting one on one against monsters that are stronger than myself. This is exactly the kind of fight I am built for, and this is my chance to really see how far I can push myself when I go all out.¡±

    ¡°I-¡± Flynn stops, understanding that I was not going to be backing down on this. ¡°Just please remember that if things go south, the floor exit is going to be close by.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll make sure to keep that in mind.¡± I say. ¡°Besides, if I do win I would almost certainly reclaim my title as highest leveled in the tower. Seeing those two people out leveling me sparked my competitive side.¡±

    ¡°You assume you were always the highest leveled before they came along.¡±

    ¡°I know I was. I was the first to reach floor 26, and that doesn¡¯t exactly happen by being number two. Honestly I am wondering if those two even knew each other, because fighting together only decreases level gains.¡±

    ¡°Probably from constant battles instead of taking as many breaks as you do.¡±

    ¡°Hey, those breaks are well deserved and every bit as important as the days I spend training.¡±

    ¡°Right, because sitting back and eating food is how most people gain levels.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised. I¡¯ve had skills upgrade from just sitting back and enjoying myself. That¡¯s how I learned to make fireworks and upgraded my mana manipulation skill.¡±

    This back and forth goes on for a while, and eventually it returns to just normal conversation. Despite the fact that no more goblin assassins are attacking us, we still keep watch all around just in case something does happen. The boss monster never budges from its spot, also showing that it isn¡¯t anything to worry about at the moment. Its lack of movement is actually kind of unnerving.

    Once my aura had completely regenerated its mana, we prepared to make our move. Flynn had returned my cloak to me, which I now prepared to use.

    ¡°Are the two of you ready?¡± I ask.

    ¡°As ready as we can be.¡± Flynn says, taking a deep breath.

    ¡°Alright, then prepare for takeoff.¡±

    I rise into the air with the cloak, hovering about 50 meters off the ground. In each hand I am holding the wrist of one of my two companions, preparing to toss them. The goblin boss seems to notice us, though makes no move to attack.

    Mana gathers in my arms and hands as empower pushes past its 25% limit. Using the skill only on specific parts of my body lets me push it further, but it also runs the risk of damaging the muscles and tissue.

    My arms both go back behind me, and with a quick motion I throw both of the siblings as hard as I can towards the stair case. It is not nearly fast enough, so I burn mana to add to their kinetic energy, speeding them up substantially. They fly through the air at over a hundred meters per second. The mana cost had been exorbitant, but getting them to safety before starting this fight was my top priority.

    The goblin boss swiftly took its bow from its back and fired an arrow at the two of them, but they were going too fast to accurately hit.

    They pass by the boss, moving faster than the monster can react too. I wince as they both bounce off of the ground. That had looked like it hurt. They use the brief contact with the earth to redirect themselves, launching straight into the staircase behind the boss and exiting the floor.

    I breathe a sigh of relief now that they were out of the way and no longer a concern. I lowered myself to the ground, staring down the goblin patriarch. It stared right back at me, an arrow nocked and ready to fire.

    I could already feel several of my passive skills activate as my body was flooded with strength. Dimensional Duel, Ambitious Fighter, and Empower all worked to raise my stats far beyond what they usually were. I don¡¯t even hesitate as I place two arcane tags on the monster. I didn¡¯t even care about the backlash that would hit me should this fight end prematurely.

    ¡°Sorry Flynn,¡± I say to myself, pulling my staff from my aura. ¡°but I will not be escaping from here. It¡¯s either I never leave this floor, or this monster doesn¡¯t live long enough to watch me leave.¡±

 Chapter 38: More Than The Numbers

    This goblin boss was far and away the strongest thing I have encountered in the tower thus far. It was pretty clearly something that was not intended to be fought head on, but instead avoided or out-maneuvered. I couldn¡¯t see its exactly level, but I doubted it was much higher than 100.

    The goblin didn¡¯t fire any more arrows. It simply watched from a distance, waiting for me to make the first move. I¡¯d already placed two arcane tags on it, so I had committed to the fight. Running now meant a 20% decrease in my stats that would last god knows how long. That was something I really couldn¡¯t accept happening.

    At last, I made the first move of the fight. A powerful bolt of mana fired from my staff, launching towards the goblin. Instead of dodging, the monster simply shot an arrow towards me, piercing right through the spell. The distance between us was enough that I could roll to the side, but it was also quickly made clear that I would need to get closer to do just about anything here.

    My feet pounded against the ground as I began closing the distance between me and the boss. It fired off several more arrows, with each once getting harder to dodge as I got closer. One of them actually did manage to hit me, piercing through my shield and sinking a few centimeters into my arm. I couldn¡¯t rely on that to absorb all of the damage this fight.

    I rip the arrow from myself as I finally get close enough for what I wanted to do. My aura reshapes as it extends towards the goblin, becoming more of a cylinder than the sphere it usually was. That allowed me to extend its range far beyond what it could usually reach.

    My aura wrapped around the goblin, and I began applying pressure while releasing a volley of spells. Not expecting to suddenly be hindered, the goblin fails to dodge two of them, and the mana bolts slam against it without leaving any meaningful damage. The goblin isn¡¯t slowed very much, maybe by only about 10% or so, but anything I can do to close the gap of power between me and it is enough.

    The goblin certainly still had me beat in terms of stats, but with all my magic techniques and aura control, I was far more than just the numbers on a screen. It was almost funny thinking about that. When the system had first come around, I liked the fact that I could look at a screen and know exactly what I was worth based off of a few numbers. Now, I knew that couldn¡¯t be further from the truth.

    A double cast of arcane blast leaves the end of my staff, the tip of it just half a meter away from the stomach of the goblin. It¡¯s knocked back a bit, but quickly recovers. It begins to fire more arrows at me, but at this distance it is actually easier to dodge since I can see exactly where the arrow is pointed at before it releases.

    The goblin begins stepping back to make space between the two of us, and for the first time starts to add a bit of finesse to its attacks. The arrows split into two, then four, and when they get close to me they detonate in an explosion of magic. My shield is able to tank this damage, but it still is expensive to counteract.

    Thanks to my aura slowing it as well as empower increasing my speed, I actually manage to keep up with the goblin while it is on the backfoot. Attack after attack berates my mana shield, but for every blow it takes, I manage to land one of my own. I switch it up and begin sending spikes of mana as opposed to bolts. The boss¡¯ armor is tough, and I need all of the penetrating power I can get.

    Small holes begin appearing in the monsters armor, and soon I manage to draw blood as its leathery skin is finally injured. For the first time this fight, I had actually done meaningful damage to the monster. It seemed to realize this too, and it seemed to start taking the fight more seriously once it had determined I wasn¡¯t a non-threat.

    The goblins arms and bow glow, and over the next few seconds an absolute flood of arrows is sent towards me. I can¡¯t count exactly how many there are, but at least ten arrows a second are being fired from the bow of the monster as it uses some kind of rapid firing skill.

    Each arrow isn¡¯t as strong as a normal shot, but the sheer amount of them is almost overwhelming. Several of them scrape against my mana shield, sheering mana from my aura as they are negated.

    The goblin stops running away for a brief moment, and I use this time to close the distance. Once I get in melee range, two daggers of mana appear in my hands. The goblin quickly puts its bow on its back, pulling out two daggers of its own. It was an odd sight, seeing an archer and a mage going head to head in a battle of blades, but at this distance this was the best thing either of us could do.

    Our daggers clashed against one another, and over time small cuts and gashes began to appear on our bodies as attacks managed to slip past our guards. My mana shield was deactivated for now, as I knew I could take almost any hit from the daggers without suffering lethal damage. I didn¡¯t want to waste the mana to prevent a simple flesh wound.

    Now that the goblin was closer, my aura could tighten around it much more than before. Compared to the speed it had previously been moving, it was almost sluggish now, moving only a little bit faster than myself.

    A grin appeared on my face as we exchanged blow after blow. This goblin was definitely not well practiced using these daggers, while I had just spent nearly 24 hours practicing with them during the event. I was used to fighting enemies stronger than myself, and that provided me with a slight advantage in this exchange.

    The goblin finally broke off, realizing that it was not going to come out on top if things continued that way. It once more began running, but instead of firing arrows at me, it began firing them directly into the sky. I had a bad feeling about what it could be doing, but that was not about to make me let up the pressure on the monster.

    I finally use the first empowered spell charge in my staff, releasing an extra powerful mana spike that pierces through the bicep of the goblin. That manages to stop it from firing for a few seconds, but it quickly continues as if it had never been hit. The blood dripping from its arm still made it clear it was not entirely unaffected.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    The second charged spell is used not long after, being another powerful mana spike. This time, it is fired straight at the leg of the goblin. It pierces into the thigh of the boss, and with a quick burst of mana, the spell is detonated into shrapnel, dealing significant damage to the tissue all around the impacted area.

    The injury to the monster¡¯s leg is enough to slow it down, allowing me to fully catch up. The last charge in my staff is used as I both charge the spell and split it to empower it further. Mana blasts batter the goblin from all directions, not breaking through its defenses but definitely bruising it all over.

    The goblin looks panicked for a brief moment, but there is a glint in its eye as it raises its bow again. Its eyes and bow glow an almost blinding green for a split second, and a massive green arrow appears on the bow string. Before I can even react, the arrow is fired straight at me far faster than any of the previous ones had been. I try to dodge, but it is completely hopeless.

    My blood runs cold as the tip of the arrow makes contact with my stomach. The arrow head pierces through, then the entire shaft, and soon the entire arrow has pierced through my body. My hand quickly grabs at my stomach, looking for the terrible wound that I was almost sure had been left behind.

    My brows furrow in confusion when I don¡¯t feel a hole or any injury to speak of. I turn around and see the arrow stuck into the ground, still glowing brightly. An ethereal chain extended from the arrow straight towards where the arrow had exited out my lower back. I tried to pull against it, but it had me stuck in place. The goblin took this time to retreat and make distance, firing more arrows at me that I dodged and blocked.

    Slowly, a loud whistling sound begins to fill my ears. I look up, seeing the hundreds of arrows that the goblin had previously fired in the air. They were all descending now at great speed, centered directly on the arrow currently stuck into the ground. They suddenly disperse, with not a single one overhead, but their momentum is again redirected a moment later as they all turn directly towards me.

    The arrows came at a 45 degree angle to the ground, and they were coming from all directions. I conjured a shield, walls of mana, anything to nullify the incoming attacks. My aura wrapped around my body like a protective blanket as I did everything in my power to keep myself from becoming a pin cushion.

    I can feel the mana within my aura draining faster and faster as my defenses are overwhelmed, and by the time the barrage is finally done, I am not left unscathed. There weren¡¯t any arrows left in me, so that was a plus. The reason though was less positive.

    Every single arrow that had hit me had pierced all the way through. There was a hole in my left arm, two in my right, a hole in my right calf, and one straight through my stomach.

    Despite all of these wounds, I could still fight. They hurt, and they would definitely be a hindrance, but even through the pain I looked at the goblin, smiling.

    ¡°Now, just how much mana did that little stunt cost you?¡±

    I knew better than anyone else just how expensive powerful attacks could be. This goblin was definitely more focused on it¡¯s body stat than on its mind stat, and I had a damn good feeling that the attack it had just pulled off wasted most of its already limited mana pool. I only had a bit less than half of my mana pool remaining after all of that, but given the frankly ridiculous amount of mana I could store, that was plenty.

    The goblin continued firing arrows at me, but there were no longer any skills or fancy tricks to back it up. Each one was just a simple, mundane arrow. Now, I¡¯m not saying the incoming attacks are weak, far from it. In comparison to what was just thrown at me though, they were not a huge concern. The final nail in the coffin that convinced me that the boss was run dry was when the ethereal arrow disappeared, the chain keeping me bound disappearing along with it.

    With a burst of momentum, I exploded forward. I could not give the boss even a moment to recover its mana, as that would likely mean the death of me. I had absolutely no hope of surviving another attack comparable to that last one, so I needed to end this now.

    I rapidly cast mana blast and arcane spike over and over again after getting close enough to the goblin. It was slowing down more and more with every attack, but it wasn¡¯t taking them lying down.

    Arrows began piercing my body again as any care for dodging was being slowly abandoned in favor of dealing as much damage as I possibly could. The injuries on both me and the boss were accumulating at a steady rate, but thanks to the fact that the boss was out of mana, it simply could not keep up with my damage output.

    The goblin patriarch was getting desperate, each attack becoming more and more frantic. Without warning, it¡¯s arms began to glow again as it once more used the rapid fire skill. I dodged most of the arrows, but still took some damage. I wondered for a moment where it got the energy for the attack, but within my aura I could feel it.

    This was a suicide attack by the goblin. It was burning more energy than it had to fuel these attacks. The boss was drawing upon the energy that kept it alive just to fuel these extra skill uses. It no longer had any delusions of surviving this battle, but just wanted to take me down with it. The attacks were only stronger for a very brief time before they began to slow down.

    The aura of the goblin was weakening by the second, and with it out of the way I could sense the mana pathways within the goblin¡¯s body withering away as the very mana they were made of was used in the desperate onslaught of attacks.

    The fight ended unceremoniously as the attacks simply stopped coming. The goblins body had shrunk a few inches and its skin became even more wrinkly than it had already been. Its eyes were now sunken and its once dark green skin was now a far paler shade. It was a corpse, well and truly.

    I didn¡¯t look much better. I was riddled with holes and arrows sticking out of my body, my skin was badly burned from the many explosions, and now that the fight was over I began swaying back and forth on my feet as the adrenaline left my system.

    I quickly stored the corpse and items of the patriarch, not yet reading over the notifications I¡¯d gotten. All I could focus on right now was getting to the floor exit. I was a good distance away, and each step hurt like hell. Despite all of this, I still felt a sense of satisfaction. This was exactly the kind of fight I had wanted. Once where it was as close as it could be.

    I didn¡¯t have any wounds that would kill me if left unattended, and that was what kept me from worrying too much. Sure, I was bleeding, but having a high body stat meant that if nothing was actively trying to kill me like poison or acid, I was going to naturally recover from the damage.

    I grunt in pain as the soreness of my muscles also kicks in. Just because I¡¯d recover doesn¡¯t mean a healer wouldn¡¯t be damn good right now. I was briefly reminded of when I had fought the skeleton sentinel back on floor 5. I had returned to the outpost in a pretty bad state. This time would not be unlike that one.

    As I leave the floor and return the first floor, I collapse to my knees and let the healers around me do their thing. Flynn must have known that if I returned from the second floor, I¡¯d be in rough shape. I¡¯ll have to thank him later for getting healers ready. Now, with all these burns, I wonder if I can convince him I fought a dragon.

 Chapter 39: Stable Space

    High up in the trees not far from where the fight had just taken place, two figures stared down at where the boss had just been slain. The two of them had been watching the entire fight, intending to swoop in and finish the boss off after the mage either died or retreated.

    ¡°I really would have liked to be able to get that goblins bow.¡± The archer says, looking at her cloaked companion. Said companion pulls his hood down, still looking down at where the fight had just taken place.

    ¡°I¡¯d say he thoroughly earned it.¡± The man says. ¡°Though you couldn¡¯t have wanted it that much if you didn¡¯t just go down there to kill him for it.¡±

    ¡°What kinda of barbarian do you take me for? We will just have to go find him and barter for it after we leave here. Do you have anything we could give him?¡±

    ¡°Not that he doesn¡¯t already have a better version of. He already has a better staff than mine, and there isn¡¯t a chance in hell I¡¯d give up this cloak.¡±

    ¡°Oh well. Maybe the item we get for finishing this event will be valuable enough to trade. Now, let us get back to some goblin hunting.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, a massive dragon swooped in and did all of this to me.¡± I say to Flynn, gesturing to the burns on my body as the healers around me work to repair the damage. ¡°That goblin boss was a pushover, barely even touched me before dying.¡±

    ¡°Sure it was.¡± Flynn rolls his eyes. ¡°If you actually fought a dragon, Blair would already be trying to tear those scales away from you to make some armor or something.¡±

    ¡°I guess I can¡¯t argue against that.¡± I shrug. ¡°But if one day I do fight a dragon, you¡¯d better actually believe me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure I will. Anyways, what¡¯d you get for finishing the event?¡± Flynn holds up a very nice looking sword with a purple blade and a golden hilt. ¡°I got this sword.¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t actually checked my notifications yet, so I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m going to check them after getting back to floor 27. I want to be able to talk about the event with the god I¡¯ve been training with.¡±

    That sentence draws a few looks from the people around us, though nobody asks any questions about it. After getting all patched up, I start heading towards the floor exit. I was planning on going straight to Talus, but I get intercepted by Blair. I assumed she was going to ask me for the goblin boss¡¯ corpse, but instead she had a surprise waiting for me.

    ¡°Here is what I promised in exchange for you giving me the titan corpse.¡± She says, summon a large wooden box on the floor next to her. I took the lid off the top and saw that there were pieces to a set of armor within. ¡°I¡¯ve been working on it off and on while trying to perfect the enchantments that would be going on it. It took a while to make because I¡¯d never used half of the enchantments on here.¡±

    I use identify on the set of armor, my eyes widening when I see the description.

    Titan Skin Armor (Special)

    A set of armor crafted from the skin and bones of a juvenile titan. This set is extremely resilient to all forms of physical damage. When infused with mana, the armor increases in both weight and durability. Increases the body stat by 10%, up to a bonus 600 points.

    ¡°It isn¡¯t mentioned when identifying the armor,¡± Blair continues. ¡°but the seams in the armor also disappear when the full set is equipped, making the entire thing airtight.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, this is better than anything I had expected.¡± I say. The armor quickly gets stored away in my aura, and Blair takes the box back. I summon the corpse of the goblin boss on the ground. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you will do with this, but here is the body of a boss I took down.¡±

    She stores that away as well before running off to get back to work. Now, I finally have nothing impeding me on my path to the staircase. At last, I make it back down to floor 27, and find Talus waiting for me.

    ¡°Welcome back.¡± He says. ¡°I assume that the event went well?¡±

    ¡°Couldn¡¯t have gone better.¡± I smile. ¡°I was waiting to come here to check my notifications so that we could go over what I¡¯ve gained.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like a good idea. Now, read them aloud so I don¡¯t feel left out.¡±

    I open up my system notifications, seeing that quite a few of them were waiting for me.

    Goblin Patriarch (Level 105) Slain!

    Bonus Experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level. Bonus experience earned for defeating a boss without assistance. Bonus experience earned for defeating an enemy of a higher evolution. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    You are now level 81

    You are now level 85

    Skill selection available

    King Killer title upgraded!

    King Killer

    You have proven to be capable of punching above your weight class and beating the odds when the numbers are not in your favor. Regardless of Level, size, status, or evolution, you persevere. Provides a bonus to all stats when fighting an enemy of a higher level or much greater size, and a larger bonus when fighting a system recognized boss monster. Grants +15% to mind and spirit, and +20% to body.

    Floor Event Completed, Legendary Item gained!

    In my hand appeared a small spike with a large blue orb on one end of it. I identify it, and I can already see Talus nodding in satisfaction.

    Dimensional Anchor (Legendary) (Soul Bound)

    Stabilizes the space within a 50 meter radius, greatly increasing the ease of using spatial and dimensional magic. Only works when the bound individual is the only one present within the radius.

    ¡°How is this supposed to be helpful?¡± I question, looking at the item. ¡°It won¡¯t even work if someone is close by, so I don¡¯t see how this could help me in a fight.¡±

    ¡°I think you are overlooking the value of this item significantly.¡± Talus says, still looking at the orb. ¡°Tell me, how much do you know about the rarity of items? Do you know what actually determines it?¡±

    ¡°Is it not just how powerful the item is?¡±

    Talus shakes his head. ¡°It kind of is, but that is an extremely simple way of looking at it. A Special rarity weapon wielded by a level 50 swordsman may be deadly, but hand that same weapon to someone double or triple their level, and it is little better than any other sword. At this level I doubt you¡¯ve noticed, but your strength as an individual is taken into account when the rarity of an item is displayed to you. For example, when I look at that staff of yours that you use, I see it simply displayed as a common item.¡±

    ¡°That seems... disappointing.¡± I say. ¡°So my items will be shown as a lower rarity to me after I level up or evolve?¡±

    ¡°Most likely they will be, yes. This does only apply to weapons and armor type items though. That anchor right there is a true legendary item. It will remain as such no matter who identifies it. Through and through it is legendary rarity.¡±

    ¡°Okay, but how good is it actually?¡±

    ¡°As an aide in combat, near useless. As a training tool, it is priceless. Dimensional anchors are difficult to create, and rarely do they have a radius as large as the one you have. If you ask me, the tower was throwing you a bone for accomplishing what you did during the event.¡±

    ¡°Awesome. So I can use this for training?¡±

    ¡°Try it out, see for yourself.¡±

    I stick the spike into the ground, and Talus steps far back. Almost immediately I can feel the space around me stabilize. The feeling is very jarring. Nothing in the environment actually changed, but it was like a background sound had suddenly been silenced. Everything was just so uncannily still.

    I raise my hands and cast a few spells, using my aura to transport them further away. To my surprise, the spells don¡¯t cost nearly as much to cast at a distance as they usually do. It is barely more expensive than a typical cast.

    ¡°Oh wow.¡± I say in amazement. ¡°It feels so easy now.¡±

    ¡°That is the value of a dimensional anchor.¡± Talus nods. ¡°I would highly recommend practicing with it whenever you have free time. Over time, you will become more proficient with dimensional magic simply by learning to stabilize the space around you.¡±

    ¡°I can do that? I hadn¡¯t even thought to try that.¡± I activate dimensional sight, seeing more of the unnatural stillness in the environment. ¡°I almost feel like I can just...¡±

    I reach my hand out, an ethereal outline of it appearing in my dimensional sight. My mana burns from my system as I push further, and my hand disappears from the normal world, appearing solely in my dimensional sight. I try to push farther, but I get light headed as I feel the mana drain from my body.

    My hand reappears as it leaves that other dimension.

    ¡°Like I said, you will get better at it.¡± Talus says. ¡°Even in this stable space, dimensional magic is far from an easy thing to master.¡±

    ¡°Oh I have to learn to get better at that.¡± I say, getting excited. ¡°If I can learn to do stuff like that in the middle of a fight, just imagine the kinds of surprise attacks I could pull off! One moment I am there, and the next I am literally in a different dimension!¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t get too excited about it. Coming across another user of dimensional magic could prove troublesome in that case. Even a normal mage could figure out a way to detect you or even attack you if they were smart enough.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll just have to be smarter about it.¡± I say, shrugging. ¡°If my enemy figures out a counter measure, then I¡¯ll just have to counter that.¡±

    Talus chuckles. ¡°And just like that, you have discovered the endless struggle many gods face when fighting one another. When it often takes days of fighting to kill somebody, they have quite a bit of time to come up with a way to counter you.¡±

    ¡°Sounds frustrating.¡± I say.

    ¡°It is. Now, no more distractions. Go ahead and pick from your skill selections.¡±

    I obey and quickly read through all of them. Like always, most of them I¡¯d never dream of picking. Unlike last time though, there are only really two that seem like they would be a good choice.

    Aura Grab (Epic)

    Exert force on anything within your aura, allowing you to pick up, push, or squeeze things with negligible mana expenditure.

    Mana Thrust (Epic)

    Increase your speed in a given direction by releasing mana in the opposite direction. Speed gained is dependent on both the quantity of mana expended as well as the Mind stat.

    They were both very utility based spells, but that was exactly the kind of spells I liked selecting during a skill selection. I was pretty set on skills to use for combat, so having something useful outside of it was always nice.

    I ended up picking mana thrust after some consideration and talking with Talus. He let me know that having a good skill for travel would be invaluable both within the tutorial and once it ended, as traveling long distances was always a relevant issue.

    After the skill was selected and a part of my arsenal, I looked to Talus, ready to continue our training. He understood what I was after though, and shook his head.

    ¡°You are done training for now. Right now, it is time to rush you through these next few floors in record time.¡±

 Chapter 40: A Gods Faith

    Talus and I had spent quite a bit of time discussing what I would be doing on the next several floors. As it turns out, the god that one chose on floor 25 had a lot say in how those floors could play out. This was information that the vast majority of people would never be privy to, but for whatever reason Talus decided to let me in on the secrets.

    Floor 28: Sanctuary defense (Instanced)(Chain)

    Defend the temple against invaders.

    I appeared at the top of a temple very similar to a Mayan temple. It was pyramid shapes with a very blocky texture. The steps were steep and descended down all four sides. I was immediately on guard, knowing what was going to be coming.

    Immediately, well over a hundred monsters of all kinds came pouring out of the forest that surrounded the temple. They began climbing the steps and jumping up the stone ledges, coming from all directions. Mana bolts appear above me, each splitting into several weaker versions. As they fire out, more appear above me.

    The attacks are unleashed in waves, tearing through the horde of monsters. Every now and then I throw in a few mana spikes to act as grenades to deal with the packed crowds.

    Talus had told me I¡¯d be defending a temple on this floor, and had also told me that it was up to him how long I defended it for. That meant that he could choose to send out every single monster at the same time, which in his opinion I was unlikely to struggle with.

    He was right. The various monsters died by the dozens, with none of them being able to put up much of a fight. The highest level monster I spotted was only level 83, which explained why this was so easy. The main challenge was probably supposed to be paying attention to the monsters for extended periods of time. When all the monsters showed up at once, that difficulty was eliminated.

    The last monster died less than five minutes after they¡¯d arrived, and soon I found myself on the next floor. This one could have several possible variations, but the core idea of this floor was that I would be dealing with another god, or at least the followers of one. It was up to Talus to decide what the exact interaction would be, and so he had picked the one that would likely end the quickest.

    Floor 29: A Divine Duel (Instanced)(Chain)

    Defeat the champion of a rival god on their home turf.

    I was now in a green field that was absolutely brimming with color. The plants were all healthy and happy, some wildlife roamed around, and the entire place just smelled like a pleasant spring morning.

    ¡°Champion of the god of death!¡± I hear somebody shout from nearby. I look over and see a man wearing armor that appeared to be made of wood and leaves. He wielded a spear that looked like a tree branch and a shield that resembled the knot in a tree. ¡°You dare encroach upon this sacred domain of life? For you arrogance, you shall perish!"

    The plants around me all mobilized at once, moving to restrain me as the champion rushed me with his spear. I could feel the mana in the area fill with the energy of life, and overall it just seemed like the perfect way to deal with somebody who wielded the power of death.

    Too bad that I was not the kind of target these attacks were meant for.

    My mana shield flared outwards as it pushed back the incoming vines and roots. The life mana in the air had no effect on me directly, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about it too much. The champion¡¯s spear met my mana shield, sliding off as it was unable to pierce through the defenses.

    The champion wasn¡¯t particularly strong. Sure he was strong for his level, but he wasn¡¯t exactly a master of the spear or anything. If I had to estimate, I¡¯d say he is about as strong as Flynn before the floor event we just finished.

    The fight ended shortly after it started. The champion had fought valiantly to the end, but it wasn¡¯t a very close fight. The vegetation all around us had been reduced to shrubs after I had used my arcane shatter spell to tear it apart, and I almost felt bad for the state I was leaving the place in.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    I didn¡¯t have time to feel bad though, as I once more found myself within Talus¡¯ domain. The grey field and colorless landscape once more was all that was visible for a long distance, and after a few seconds I received the floor¡¯s notification.

    Floor 30: Divine Judgement (Instanced)(Chain)

    Await the judgement of your god.

    Talus had not told me what this floor would be about. He had mentioned wanting to keep it a surprise, though I already had a pretty good idea what that surprise was going to be. I¡¯d talked with the god enough to know he enjoyed putting on a show.

    The sky darkened to an even darker shade of gray than it had previously been, and clouds rolled in as an utterly massive figure appeared out of nowhere. Before me, a version of Talus that stood several kilometers tall looked down at me.

    ¡°For your final challenge,¡± The booming voice of the god calls down. ¡°you must face me.¡±

    I can feel the god¡¯s aura pressing down on me. He had no energy infused into it, but the sheer power of his presence was enough to leave me feeling slightly unsettled. I quickly got over it though, knowing that the tower probably wouldn¡¯t let the god kill me even if he wanted to.

    ¡°Yeah, not buying it.¡± I say, rolling my eyes at him. ¡°Impressive trick though.¡±

    The god frowns before the massive figure disappears. In front of me is a now normal sized Talus, though his aura is still as big as the giant he just was. I don¡¯t even think he notices that, and I can only shake my head at the stupid level of control you need to have to forget that your aura was as tall as a skyscraper.

    ¡°You could have at least played along.¡± He says. ¡°I can just decide you aren¡¯t worthy of passing on to the next floor and make you do the previous couple of floors again until you do play along.¡±

    ¡°You couldn¡¯t be that petty, right?¡± I ask.

    ¡°I can be as petty as I want. Unfortunately, no. I will not be doing that.¡± Talus raises a hand to the sky, speaking in a strong yet still disappointed sounding voice. ¡°I hereby declare this individual worthy of passing on to the next floors.¡± He announces to the heavens.

    A notification appears in front of me.

    Floor complete!

    As you have completed the floors dedicated to the gods, you may choose to still follow your chosen god, to switch which god you follow, or to not follow any god from this point forward.

    ¡°Don¡¯t decide yet.¡± Talus says, appearing next to me and placing a hand on my shoulder. ¡°Before you do, allow me to do this first.¡±

    The screen in front of me disappears, and I suddenly feel the aura of Talus envelope me again. It doesn¡¯t seem to be pressing down on me, but instead is... sinking into me? I can¡¯t tell exactly what is happening, but after a few moments a new screen pops up.

    Title Gained!

    Mark of Talus

    Until the day you die, you will be regarded as an individual held in the highest esteems by the Harvest of Souls, Talus. To stand against you is to stand against Talus. Provides a 5% resistance to the death aligned attacks. When this title is set as the display title, the mark of Talus appears on the back of your hand.

    My eyes widen in surprise looking at the mark. I look over at the god, who is staring at me with deadly seriousness.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say these were expensive to bestow?¡± I ask.

    ¡°I did, yes.¡± The god nods. ¡°Very risky too. This is only the second mark I have ever bestowed upon somebody.¡±

    ¡°But why do this?¡±

    The god pauses for a moment, speaking after collecting his thoughts. ¡°I¡¯ve told you before that the earlier in one¡¯s life they are given a mark, the greater the benefits are for the bestower if they reach godhood. After seeing everything you have managed to accomplish in such a short amount of time, I believe your odds are not terrible at one day becoming a god. Even if you don¡¯t, this mark will allow me to occasionally communicate with you while you are still within the tower.¡±

    ¡°But what if I do end up dying in the tower? I take a lot of risks that could very well get me killed.¡±

    ¡°That is true. Thing is, you don¡¯t grow stronger without taking a few risks. This mark here is a symbol of the trust I place in you, and my confidence that you will at least not die in the tower. Even if you do, I am still trapped here. Any downsides to you dying would fix themselves long before I ever get a chance to escape again.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean escape? You could leave the tower?¡±

    The god hesitates, but seems to regain his confidence a moment later. ¡°Now that you have that mark, I can actually tell you these things. Yes, I am trapped in the tower. If you manage to complete the tutorial within the 180 days you have been given, I will be free from the tower. If not, well then you have the mark of a powerful god to carry with you for the rest of your life, free of the obligations involved with it.¡±

    ¡°This is a lot of pressure you are putting on me you know.¡±

    ¡°I know. Pressure is good though. It is what drives us to better ourselves.¡±

    I sigh. ¡°I guess I am choosing to keep you as my god for the rest of the tutorial. This better be worth it.¡±

    ¡°I promise you, it will be.¡±

    With that, I reopen the notification that I had previously been given. I selected to keep Talus as my god for the remainder of the tutorial, fully completing the floor and solidifying him as my patron.

    A staircase appeared in the ground nearby.

    ¡°Go now, and make more progress in the tower.¡± Talus says. ¡°You can come back here at any time, even if right now there won¡¯t be much reason to.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll make sure to drop by from time to time.¡± I say. ¡°I don¡¯t want you getting lonely out here.¡±

    As I descend the staircase to the next floor, I can see a faint hint of a smile on the gods face. The pressure I had been feeling is slightly alleviated seeing that, and I feel confident that following this god is not a decision that I will come to regret.

 Chapter 41: A Great Return

    ¡°Thirty percent.¡± Andrea says, looking at the papers in front of her. ¡°Are you sure that number is correct?¡±

    ¡°As sure as I can be.¡± One of her advisors responds. ¡°It was higher than expected, but still well within what we were prepared for.¡±

    Andrea rubbed her temples as she thought about what to do with the statistic. The city had thrown off balance quite badly when over 80% of its population had disappeared 30 days into the tutorial, and it had taken a while to stabilize again. Around that time, they had anticipated 80% of the remaining population would be kicked out once they reached the 60 day mark, and had been down sizing all operations to deal with the shift.

    During this whole process, a spark seemed to ignite in the population of the great city, and many began to travel through the floors of the tower in an effort to increase their title tiers and gain levels. This had resulted in the expected population of the city increasing by about 50% once the cutoff day came around. They needed to make plans to adapt to the change, and given that there was only one week left until all of the C tier individuals were kicked out, it would be tough, but she did have one idea for how they could adapt.

    Andrea sighed as she looked back to her advisor. ¡°Do we have estimates for how many have died trying to get past floor 20?¡±

    The man slid over another piece of paper, showing the amount of individuals who had left and had yet to return. The general assumption was that anybody who had been gone for more than 4 days at a time was to be presumed dead unless somebody else could vouch for them being still alive.

    ¡°189 people.¡± She frowns. ¡°189 people, killed by that titan.¡±

    ¡°We did warn them of the dangers involved.¡± Her advisor says, nodding solemnly.

    ¡°It is still a tragedy.¡± Andrea sets the paper back down, waving her advisor away. ¡°I need to be alone for a few minutes.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    Her advisor leaves the room, and she lets out a deep breath.

    ¡°189 people.¡± She says again. ¡°It is less than I thought it would be. That titan is pretty tough after all. What did you think of it?¡±

    From the corner of the room, a dark figure emerges from a powerful stealth skill. Andrea only knew he was there because she had seen him activate the skill. When he really didn¡¯t want to be seen, Ram was nearly impossible to find.

    ¡°It was strong, there is no denying that. From what I hear, people are taking it on in teams of 10 at a time, the maximum allowed on a semi-instanced floor. It makes the boss far more manageable.¡±

    ¡°I imagine it does.¡± She nods. ¡°Though I imagine it can¡¯t be great for their levels.¡±

    ¡°I believe they are doing it for the title, not the level.¡± Ram responds. ¡°Though I can confirm that very few of them are progressing much farther after completing the floor. The biggest boon of this is the influx of high rarity items that people are bringing back from the chain floors. They have been helping our higher leveled fighters significantly in progressing through the floors.¡±

    ¡°How far along are they by the way? I heard some of them are nearing the end of floor 33.¡±

    ¡°Yes, they are. A few have already finished it, though floor 34 is proving to be a challenge for many. It is an instanced floor, so working as a team is not an option there.¡±

    ¡°What is the challenge of the floor?¡±

    ¡°It appears to revolve around diplomacy and negotiations. You may not have a very difficult time with that floor if you decide to go there.¡±

    ¡°Probably not. Anybody with a decent grasp of negotiations could deal with a constructed scenario. I have yet to ever see one that can accurately capture the chaos of a real debate between kingdoms.¡±

    <hr>

    Well, I have completely and utterly failed at my job. Right now, I was using all my strength to pull back on the chains I had wrapped around my kingdom appointed advisor. I knew there was a possibility of him losing his cool, but this was a bit more explosive of a reaction than I had been expecting.

    Across the table, there was another individual being restrained by their attendant. They had evidently also lost their cool. Right now, the only two people with a level head were me and the level 115 attendant that was there to protect the other individual that was a part of this discussion.

    Floor 34 had been an absolute train wreck from the beginning. It had not been centered around combat or fighting like the previous few floors had been, instead being focused entirely on battles of words. Those were not really my forte, and I had been struggling immensely for the past two days.

    It had all started when I appeared in a throne room and was told that I would be in charge of foreign affairs, tasked with steering the kingdom away from an inevitable war with a neighboring empire. I had a bit of time to prepare, then arranged a meeting with the empires equivalent of my position.

    I knew that I had absolutely no hope of avoiding war if left to debate the issue on my own. I had basically no experience in this area, and I knew I would somehow get half of the damn kingdom annexed if I tried to do this alone. That is why I had relied heavily on my appointed advisor, a hot headed man who at the very least was politically savvy.

    The plan had been to present the advisor as the real head of foreign relations while I simply stood back and listened to the conversation. I would butt in where necessary, and generally just do my best to ensure that this whole thing didn¡¯t go sideways.

    When the debate had devolved into two individuals shouting at each other, ready to leap across the table at one another, I figured it would be a pretty good time to step in.

    My advisor was strong, being just a bit over level 100. All the people on this floor were high leveled, as combat was not meant to be a viable option here. It took all my strength, and several chains of mana, to restrain the man. Even then, I knew he wasn¡¯t trying his hardest to escape. If he was I am not sure if I could have kept him in place.

    The discussion cooled down shortly after, and eventually the two of them decided on not so peacefully coexisting. The two countries would be pretty much locked in a cold war for however long it took for one side to open fire.

    That unfortunately did not fulfill the objective of the floor.

    Floor 34: Age of Peace (Instanced)

    Stop the incoming war while benefiting the Hyra Kingdom.

    I pointed to a cup sitting on the table. ¡°Excuse me, but could I have that cup?¡± I ask, pointing to it.

    Everyone else in the room looked confused, but tensions were so high between the two who were actually sitting that they didn¡¯t have time to care about why I wanted that cup.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    After picking the cup up, I hand it to my advisor. ¡°That is now property of Hyra kingdom.¡± I say, before looking to the empire¡¯s diplomat. ¡°Would you say that discussions are done for today?¡±

    ¡°I guess you could say that.¡± He shrugs.

    With that, the floor is complete. I am immediately greeted with the floor completion notification and am asked if I would like to go to floor 35 or return to floor 1. I choose to go back to floor 1, as after all of this diplomacy garbage I just really wanted to cool off. This was actually my first time returning to floor one since the floor event a while back, so it was nice to finally be back somewhere with a complete lack of danger.

    I decided to head right for Hassan¡¯s town after arriving back on the floor. It had been a while since I had a really good meal, and I just hadn¡¯t seen the guy in a while. After running over to the town, I was met with quite the surprise. The entire place had been abandoned. I look around a bit and couldn¡¯t find a single person there. After about ten minutes of searching, I gave up and just headed back to the outpost.

    Why would the city have been abandoned? Did something drive them out? I honestly had no clue what the reason could be for the absence of people, so it was time to put on my detective hat and solve the case of the missing townsfolk.

    ¡°Oh, the people at Hassan¡¯s old town?¡± Ben said after I asked about the missing people. ¡°They all moved to the great city together a few days ago. There weren¡¯t very many of them left after the first wave of people left the tutorial, so they went to the great city to be around more people.¡±

    And just like that, another case had been solved by the great detective River. For now I could set aside my detective cap and tobacco pipe.

    ¡°Any reason that we didn¡¯t also move everybody there?¡± I ask Ben.

    ¡°Well, the average level of the people here are actually a good bit higher than pretty much everywhere else, and we didn¡¯t lose nearly the same amount of people that the other towns and cities did. Since everything is running pretty smoothly, we didn¡¯t see much reason to merge ourselves with another city.¡±

    ¡°Huh, I hadn¡¯t realized the people here had higher levels? Any idea why that is?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve talked to a few others about it, and our best guess is that it is due to Blair being a part of our outpost. The constant supply of high quality weapons and armor has been a boon from day one. People feel much more confident taking on the floors of the tower when kitted out in a full set of gear.¡±

    ¡°Is she still salty about how long it took for you guys to start sending some resources her way?¡±

    Ben winces a bit. ¡°Yeah, she still thinks we are not valuing her work enough, despite the fact that she is probably the wealthiest person to be using the coins that Andrea and the others in the great city put together. That has made her a bit... difficult to work with.¡±

    ¡°Well besides simply buying the things she has made, has the outpost actually provided any further support?¡±

    ¡°No?¡± Ben responds, sounding a bit confused. ¡°I feel that her being quite wealthy is already quite a bit of support.¡±

    ¡°Okay, but what can she actually do with that money? From what I am hearing, it sounds like you guys give her money to buy materials from you. You are essentially just giving her some meaningless coins that are only good for buying materials you could simply give her for free. I¡¯m sure she isn¡¯t going to just hang on to the dozens of weapons and armor sets that she makes as practice.¡±

    ¡°That might be a viable option.¡± Ben says, nodding.

    ¡°Well it is starting to look like your only option if you don¡¯t want to her just disconnect from the outpost entirely.¡±

    ¡°You have a good relationship with her right? How do you manage to keep that stable?¡±

    ¡°Because it is an equal exchange.¡± I say. ¡°I give her materials she can¡¯t get anywhere else, and she gives me items I couldn¡¯t get anywhere else. She is giving you items of a quality you can¡¯t get anywhere else, while she receives materials that she could easily go and get herself.¡±

    ¡°I guess I¡¯ll have to go talk to her about it.¡± He relents. ¡°Though I can¡¯t just dedicate half of the outposts resources to earning her support.¡±

    ¡°I think you are overestimating how difficult that will be. Just the occasional monster corpse given with no compensation would go a long way. Hell, even just some ores from the fourth floor would help. I heard some people discovered veins of ore deep within that floor.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, we have people working to dig even deeper to find better metal. I¡¯ll be sure to direct some of it her way.¡±

    With that, I left for the great city. The conversation I had just had felt eerily similar to one I¡¯d had a while ago. I shook off the feeling of deja vu, focusing on the run to the city. It was not a very long run. I used empower to speed it up, and with my cloak of flight I used the same hover step strategy I used against the titan to speed up my journey even more. Finally, I used my newest skill mana thrust to accelerate even more. With all of these compounding sources of speed, I was beginning to approach 500 kilometers per hour. The ground beneath me was nothing more than a blur, and even with my high perception it was hard to track objects as I passed by them.

    At this speed, it was difficult to steer effectively. I had to move out of the way of trees long before I reached them, and stopping would take quite a bit of time. I had been trying to avoid hitting any trees at all, but after an unfortunate run in with one particularly dense clump of forest I had turned two of the large oak trees into splinters. I had been unharmed at least. The splinters were not nearly strong enough to penetrate my mana shield, even at the frankly insane speed I was moving at.

    After catching sight of the great city on the horizon, I began slowing myself down by equipping my titan skin armor and increasing its weight. Mana thrust activated in the opposite direction, working to rid me of the speed I had built up. I leaned back as far as I could and dug my feet into the soil. A trench about 30 centimeters deep stretched the distance of a few kilometers, marking just how much distance I had needed to stop moving. I sent my armor back within my aura.

    Using my aura to sweep the dirt off my body, I approached the city at a much more leisurely pace. Almost as soon as I reached the gate to the city, I saw two familiar people walking out of it. One was the cloaked figure from the floor event, and the other was their archer companion.

    The archer waved at me, walking over as the cloaked individual followed her. ¡°Hey, just the person we were looking for. We were actually just about to go to your outpost to look for you.¡±

    ¡°What did you want to talk about?¡± I ask.

    ¡°Well, we just so happened to hear that you took down the goblin boss back during the event, and I was wondering if you¡¯d be willing to trade for that bow it was carrying.¡±

    She seemed really eager to get her hands on the bow. She didn¡¯t seem very good at hiding her emotions. Her ever stoic companion didn¡¯t have any outwardly obvious thoughts on the matter, standing as still as a scarecrow.

    I just shook my head as I responded. ¡°Sorry, but that bow has probably been taken apart by now. I gave it to somebody to study the enchantments and craftsmanship.¡±

    Just as the excitement had been easy to see, the complete horror at the bow having been destroyed was just as plain to see on the woman¡¯s face.

    ¡°You- You¡¯re kidding right?¡± She says, astonished. ¡°That bow was legendary rarity. It is one of the most powerful weapons any of us have seen in the tower so far. You mean to tell me it was just ¡®taken apart¡¯?¡±

    ¡°Yep. I¡¯m surprised, did you not get a better weapon for finishing the bonus objective on the floor event?¡±

    ¡°I got a legendary rarity bow, but it is barely even that rarity. I feel like we were robbed on the rewards.¡±

    ¡°Maybe you were.¡± I say, deciding not to mention the item I got for completion of the event. That might just sour her mood more.

    ¡°We definitely were. After the event, all this guy ended up getting was-¡±

    She is cut off by an abrupt cough from the figure behind her, who was clearly telling her to shut up. She at least got the hint, and didn¡¯t say anymore on that matter.

    ¡°Anyways,¡± She continued. ¡°we were just about to go and finish off floor 33. Maybe after finishing that we¡¯ll catch up to your level again. We had thought staying within the event for a bit of extra time to kill goblin assassins was the way to go, but I guess just killing the boss ourselves and leaving would have been better.¡±

    I identify both of them, seeing that each of their levels had grown to 88. Through me climbing the past four floors, I myself had reached level 89, keeping my lead over them. It was surprising to hear that they¡¯d stayed to kill goblins but-

    ¡°Wait, so you were still on floor two well after I left? Were you there to see me fighting that boss?¡±

    The woman looks momentarily taken off guard. She clearly hadn¡¯t meant for that bit of information to slip. Once more her lack of being able to hide her emotions makes it easy to figure out the answer without her saying anything. Before she could come up with some response though, her cloaked companion speaks up.

    ¡°Yes, we did watch your fight.¡± He says in a very normal voice. I don¡¯t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn¡¯t something so ordinary.

    ¡°Well, thank you for not interfering.¡± I say, nodding.

    ¡°If we had, I feel we wouldn¡¯t have learned nearly as much as we did about you.¡±

    Those words were a bit too ominous for my liking, but the actual tone itself didn¡¯t hold any malice.

    ¡°So, what¡¯d you think of the fight? If I knew I had spectators I may have put on a bit more of a show.¡±

    ¡°It was... impressive. I will admit that much. At the start of the fight I¡¯d been expecting you to lose and retreat. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see that you didn¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Do you think you¡¯d be up for a sparring match in the future then? I¡¯m kind of curious about what you are capable of. I have yet to see you in serious combat.¡±

    ¡°Maybe some day in the future.¡± The man nods. ¡°Not now though. I would need time to prepare.¡±

    ¡°Take all the time you need.¡± I say. ¡°Because whenever you are ready, I¡¯ll be expecting a damn good fight from you.¡±

 Chapter 42: More Great Disappointments

    After I finished talking to the two other most powerful individuals in the tower, I entered the great city, looking around for any familiar faces. I recognized some people who had been from Hassan¡¯s town, though most people seemed to be either from the great city originally or from another town I hadn¡¯t yet been to.

    The city was as busy as it ever was. People were in a constant state of motion as work was being done all around. There wasn¡¯t as much construction going on as there once was, but given that roughly 80% of the buildings had been emptied out that wasn¡¯t a big surprise. I had heard about how during the first wave of people leaving, there had been multiple people who had killed others for the upgraded title and never been caught. Assuming they hadn¡¯t fled the city, I would have to be aware of my surroundings.

    I navigated through the streets, eventually finding the restaurant that I had been to upon first visiting the great city. The food had been quite good, but I also had another reason for being here. I walked in, scanning the room for the owner of the place. After a few seconds, I spot him tinkering with some machinery that lay within one of the far walls. It seems he has been improving upon his designs for the place.

    ¡°Excuse me.¡± I say, walking up to him.

    He turns away from his work, looking at me. ¡°What¡¯d you need?¡± He asks.

    From my aura, I pull out a pouch of coins, digging through it and pulling out a few. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you remember this, but you let me off the hook when I couldn¡¯t pay for a meal a while back. I just wanted to repay you for that.¡±

    I hand him 2 silver coins. I¡¯d needed to really dig through my memory to recall the price of the meal, but after that had failed I just handed him what was likely far more than the meal actually cost.

    ¡°I can¡¯t say I do remember that, but thank you.¡± He says, stuffing the coins in his pocket and getting back to work. With that burden lifted from my conscience, I sat down and enjoyed a proper meal. It was the meat of a shark that had been killed on floor 13. It was fabulously good, as all meals seemed to be now that people could have classes based around cooking.

    After I finished eating, I headed over to the city center to see if I could find anybody else I knew. Pretty much as soon as I walked in, I spotted Hassan milling around the main area. He had a few papers in his hands that he was reading through. He glanced up and noticed me walking over, and the papers quickly disappeared, likely being put into the storage ring on his finger.

    ¡°Hey Hassan.¡± I say, waving. ¡°Nice to see you again.¡±

    ¡°It is nice to see you too.¡± He says, nodding. ¡°How¡¯ve you been?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve been well. What have you been up to lately? I haven¡¯t seen you in forever.¡±

    Hassan sighs, but keeps his smile. ¡°I¡¯ve joined the council for the great city. and we have been working to keep things running as smoothly as possible while we integrate the populations of more and more cities into this one.¡±

    ¡°Sounds boring.¡±

    ¡°It is. Mix that with healing the injured who come back from the higher floors, and overall things haven¡¯t been great these past few weeks. Thankfully I¡¯ll be leaving the tutorial in a week, and I won¡¯t have to be in charge of anything anymore. Hopefully I can take things a bit slower once that happens.¡±

    ¡°Are you not planning to push for a B tier title?¡±

    Hassan shakes his head. ¡°I can¡¯t handle the stress of everything involved with the tutorial for much longer. I¡¯d rather not prolong it longer than necessary.¡±

    ¡°I guess I can understand that.¡± I say, thinking about everything that has happened in the relatively short time since the tutorial has begun. I¡¯d spent most of my time off of floor 1, but from what I have heard things tended to be in a constant state of controlled chaos here. I was honestly glad it wasn¡¯t my job to deal with all of that.

    ¡°What have you been up to?¡± Hassan asks.

    ¡°The same thing I¡¯ve been doing since the tutorial started. Climbing the floors and gaining levels. This most recent floor was actually pretty hectic. You¡¯d likely have had an easier time of it than I did.¡±

    I tell Hassan all about what went down on floor 34. He found it amusing when I recounted my attempts to be a proper diplomat, and about how I ended up delegating my job to somebody else. When he heard about how I had taken a cup to fulfill the requirement for benefiting the kingdom, he had a look of surprise.

    ¡°That actually worked?¡± He asks.

    ¡°Yep, and I actually still have the cup.¡± I pull the silver cup from my inventory, showing it to him.

    ¡°I know quite a few people who have struggled quite a bit on that floor. They can stop the oncoming conflict, but doing so while benefiting the kingdom has been the big sticking point. You wouldn¡¯t mind me sharing this method with others, would you?¡±

    ¡°Go for it.¡± I say. ¡°I feel bad for anybody who has to handle that floor by doing any actual politics. My brain just turns to mush the moment I try to wrap it around all the schemes and hidden meanings behind every word spoken in those meetings.¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    ¡°You know, somebody as strong as you should have at least some knowledge of how to handle yourself politically. I imagine that once everybody is back on Earth people are going to try and put laws and such in place to limit those who are at the top.¡±

    ¡°Like hell they will.¡± I shake my head. ¡°I am pretty sure those in a position to make decisions like that would be the strong or powerful. I don¡¯t think they¡¯d want to limit themselves like that.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps, but it is still something to keep in mind.¡±

    We talk for a while longer, but eventually Hassan has to get back to work. I walk around the city for a while longer, but don¡¯t see any more familiar faces. It is actually kind of disappointing. Everyone was just always so busy. Well, I guess that actually goes for me too. I spent days at a time on other floors, working to progress through them. If there was an emergency, nobody would have any way to contact me.

    ¡°Huh.¡± I say, thinking about that. Maybe it was time I did something about that.

    <hr>

    ¡°Cellphones?¡± Blair asks, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. ¡°Do you already miss modern technology that much?¡±

    ¡°No- well, yes. Kind of. I miss the convenience and utility of it. I realized that if anybody needs to get a hold of me, they really have no way to do so. I was wondering if you could make something to make sure people have a way to contact me and vice versa.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t exactly be the easiest thing to make.¡± She sighs. ¡°Do you know where you go when you go to another floor? Probably not, so I¡¯ll tell you. We go to another dimension.¡±

    I am about to say something, but she stops me.

    ¡°Let me finish. It¡¯s not another dimension in the same way your fancy little trait does it. You can go to a fourth dimension, maybe even eventually a fifth one. This one goes pretty much infinite dimensions away, effectively making it another reality entirely. This means that not a single one of the floors exist in the same ¡®space¡¯. No matter how far you travel or how many dimensions you move through, you will not reach another floor.¡±

    ¡°That explanation makes very little sense, but I get your point.¡± I say. ¡°How could you possibly know all of that though?¡±

    ¡°My trait.¡± She says. ¡°It lets me understand more about something the longer I focus on it.¡±

    My eyes widen in surprise. ¡°You unlocked your trait early as well?¡±

    ¡°Yep. Unlocked it all the way back at level 29.¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell anybody?¡±

    She shrugs. ¡°Nobody ever asked about it.¡±

    ¡°So is this how you¡¯ve been able to craft stuff so much better than everybody else?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a part of the reason. Don¡¯t discount the fact that I am just damn good at making things though. I have certainly put in the hours of practice necessary to get this far.¡±

    ¡°I guess that''s true. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen you doing anything that wasn¡¯t productive. You should take breaks from time to time, find a while to relax.¡±

    ¡°This is how I relax. When I want to decompress, I do some metal work. Smacking hammers against heated metal is more therapeutic than you¡¯d expect.¡± She seems to remember something, pulling out a large machine from her storage ring. With a loud clank it plops down onto the ground. The thing is as tall as I was. It had treaded tires and claws that looked very sharp.

    ¡°What the hell is that?¡± I ask, looking at the thing.

    ¡°This is Douglas the digging bot.¡± She says, patting the machine. ¡°It is the prototype I¡¯ve been working on to extract materials from the ground. The miners down in floor four are nice and all, but they work slowly. This bad boy would work quite a lot faster than them. Do you think you could go set it up for me? You are the only person I know other than myself with spatial storage good enough to transport it.¡±

    ¡°Sure. How do I turn it on once I get it there?¡±

    ¡°Just infuse a bit of mana into it here.¡± She points to a rune on the side of it. ¡°Once it starts digging, it will absorb mana from all around it to continue operating. At least, it should in theory. This is the first version that I felt confident in testing, so I am going to have to go check up on it in a few days to make sure it is still working.¡±

    ¡°Why not go do it yourself though?¡± I ask. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be wise to see it working in person?¡±

    ¡°Well I¡¯d like to, but I have to keep an eye on that thing.¡± She points to an anvil on the other side of the air bubble we were in. On it was a glowing piece of metal that occasionally shot a spark of mana in a random direction. ¡°It could explode at pretty much any time, and I¡¯d rather be here to prevent that while it cools down. I would also like to not wait to test this device, so until you came here I was contemplating whether or not to just send it down into the sand and hope it hit something.¡±

    ¡°Well, I guess you won¡¯t have to worry about that anymore.¡± I say, still looking over the digging machine. ¡°So where does it store the materials it finds?¡±

    ¡°The inside is spatially expanded. It can compartmentalize the space if it finds more than one material, because unless the material being stored is pure it will mess it up quite badly. I am still working out the kinks in that system so I¡¯m expecting most of the harvested materials to be unusable.¡±

    ¡°How long did it take you to make this thing?¡±

    ¡°About a week. I¡¯ve had the idea for something like this in the back of my head, but for the longest time I didn¡¯t know how to make it. The rune book I earned from the system event helped quite a bit though. Funnily enough, I can actually process books faster than just reading them, as my trait makes me understand its contents without even reading it.¡±

    ¡°What is the name of your trait?¡± I ask. ¡°It sounds pretty useful.¡±

    ¡°Scholar''s Eye.¡± She says. ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°No reason. Just curious. I should go and get this thing set up. I guess I¡¯ll see you later.¡±

    She gives me a wave goodbye, and after some time I arrive at floor four. I don¡¯t know where she would want the device to be placed, but I figure there is no better spot for it to go than at the lowest point in the floor.

    10 minutes later, I am in the final chamber of the floor. There is a kobold shaman and kobold archer attacking me, but I just let their attacks bounce off my barrier. There was no reason for me to be killing the monsters, so I wouldn¡¯t. My barrier grows in size, and the digging machine appears within it. I infuse some mana into the rune that had been pointed out, and the machine instantly gets to work.

    It sinks into the ground, quickly disappearing from sight and digging a tunnel in its path. I kick the earth surrounding the hole to cave in the top part and cover the hole up. I wouldn¡¯t want any monsters to interfere with the device.

    Blair probably had some way to track down and retrieve the device, so I wasn¡¯t too concerned about her not being able to find it. She said she would check on it in a few days, so I¡¯ll try to remember to ask her about how it went-

    A loud boom echoes up the hole, blowing the earth above it into the air. The rock all around the hole fractures as the spiderweb of cracks spreads for several meters. I look down the now clear hole to see what happened, but I already knew what I¡¯d see before I even looked.

    The machine had exploded, and parts of it were embedded in the stone all around the hole. I shake my head and start digging. She would probably want the pieces of it to see what went wrong.

    ¡°Somehow, I feel like she is going to blame it on user error.¡±

 Chapter 43: Halls of Knowledge

    Surprisingly, Blair wasn¡¯t upset about the fact that her machine blew up after less than 30 seconds of use. She was grateful I had brought the pieces back. Somehow it had allowed her to know exactly what had went wrong. Even after she explained her reasoning, I still didn¡¯t fully understand how she could get so much information from the metal scraps left behind by the boom.

    Much of the device was unrecoverable. Many pieces of it had been blown through the Earth so far that I couldn¡¯t find them. I may have been able to if I had spent more time digging, but that would have just been annoying and I didn¡¯t want to waste the time on it.

    After leaving her air bubble of a base, I headed straight for floor 35. I felt like I had relaxed enough now after having plowed through 4 floors in a row. I didn¡¯t really have any guesses as to what the boss fight could be. The past few floors weren¡¯t as intertwined with one another as floors 11 through 15 and floors 21 through 25 had been. It had been similar to the first five floors, where there were basically no similarities between floors.

    Upon entering the thirty fifth floor, I could tell that it was going to be at least a decently interesting fight. The floor appeared to be a massive library, with hundreds of bookshelves holding what must have been tens of thousands of books. They were probably meant to serve as an obstacle given that they extended all the way to the ceiling 50 or so meters above me. They were in neat rows, with about 5 meters between each bookshelf. Depending on the boss, that could prove to be a serious hindrance.

    Floor 35: Halls of Knowledge (Boss)(Semi-Instanced)

    Defeat the Head Scholar of the library or escape through the exit unseen.

    The ¡°head scholar¡± wasn¡¯t anywhere to be seen. At the very least, they weren¡¯t nearby. If they were, I would have been able to sense their aura. My ability to sense them had a much larger range than my actual aura did, but it wasn¡¯t as reliable at locating far away targets as simply seeing them was.

    I tried giving one of the shelves a good punch to test how much of an obstacle they would actually be, only to find that my fist had barely chipped the apparently very strong wood.

    Seeing no other way to progress, I started walking through the library. Through the occasional gaps in the books I could see that there were more shelves beyond them. Overall the place was similar to a massive labyrinth.

    It made sense for the boss to not be near the entrance of the floor. The description of the floor made it clear that fighting this boss wasn¡¯t actually required, which got my hopes up that it might be stronger than most other boss monsters.

    My searching proved to be fruitful after about ten minutes of walking. At the very edge of my senses, I could detect an aura slowly moving around in the distance. It was moving slower than my walking pace, and it was headed in my direction. At least, I assumed it was. It was moving towards me, but I didn¡¯t actually know if it was getting closer in terms of moving through this maze of books.

    I started slowly navigating towards the aura. I had to backtrack several times after reaching dead ends and loops, but eventually I got close enough that whatever the aura belonged to noticed me.

    There was an ear piercing scream as the aura suddenly moved far faster. In the distance, I could hear something massive drop. It sounded like it was made of metal, and I had a feeling that was the exit to the floor slamming shut.

    The monster headed my way seemed to know the maze far better than I did, and it quickly reached my location. The entire time, it hadn¡¯t made a sound. I realized why as soon as it turned the corner and spotted me.

    The ¡°head scholar¡± of the library looked like a very old woman. Her skin had deep wrinkles and sagged under her chin. Her hair was snow white, though it was actually very thick and full of volume contrary to most her age.

    She wore black robes and rode upon a massive book. She hadn¡¯t made a sound because she hadn¡¯t even needed to touch the ground. She once more screeches louder than anybody should be able to, and I use identify as I cover my ears.

    Head Scholar (Level 95)(Boss)

    The screeching stops a few seconds later, but it is quickly followed up by the sound of hundreds of nearby books floating off their shelves. They flutter open and pages begin tearing themselves out, folding themselves into sharp needles before flying towards me.

    I begin firing mana bolts towards the old woman, occasionally shooting one at the books to reduce the amount of incoming attacks. They blew apart easily. They might be made of some stronger materials than normal books, but they were still just books. A single mana bolt could easily shred them.

    The incoming paper needles were a bit stronger. Each one was infused with some mana to reinforce them. Hundreds of the needles began poking at my shield, crumpling upon impact. The mana cost for blocking each of them was miniscule, as they weren¡¯t very strong, but there were so many of them that the cost was starting to add up.

    I reduced the size of my barrier, making it only cover my head. The attacks began smacking against me, but not a single one of the needles was capable of piercing the through the tough armor. The titan had been strong against large quantities of weak attacks, so it made sense that armor made from its body was similarly effective against them.

    The librarian seemed to realize the futility of these attacks, and several more books lost their pages as they were ripped out and began folding up against one another. I tried using mana blast to interrupt the process, but a barrier of paper formed and blocked my spells. She hadn¡¯t stopped sending the needles my way, and even if they weren¡¯t doing any damage they were damn good at tanking the damage of my spells before they could reach the boss.

    The paper finally finished its dance of origami, and soon a paper sword nearly 3 meters long was swinging towards me. I was forced to conjure an actual shield of mana on my arm to block some of the attacks, as the weapon moved faster than I could reasonably dodge. It was pretty light and thus easy to parry, but that lack of weight was made up for with the speed.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    Every time I landed a spell on the sword and knocked a chunk of it off, it was almost immediately repaired by the paper flying all around us. She couldn¡¯t have an infinite amount of paper. I might be able to keep destroying her attacks until she runs out. Looking around at the library, that plan was almost immediately crossed off the list. I don¡¯t know why it had even crossed my mind in the first place. Sure, I¡¯ll just go ahead and hope that a library the size of a small town could run out of paper.

    I released a charge of mana blast from my staff as I equipped my cloak of flight. My mana barrier extended to cover the cloak from being torn to tatters as the particularly strong cast of mana blast destroys most of the material on the paper sword.

    I launch up towards the Head Scholar, taking advantage of the small opening to get close. Barriers of paper appear in my path, but after reforming the shield in my hand to be a sword, I cut through them easily. I activated empower as I got close, putting all the strength I could into swinging for the old woman¡¯s neck.

    She leaned back, barely avoiding the brunt of the attack. The very tip of the sword just barely managed to scratch her neck, and she retreats while the paper sword once more comes around to attack.

    While I am locked into a sword duel with the flying weapon, entire books begin flying towards me, not bothering to turn into weapons or anything. Out of the corner of my eye I see once of them flash with mana, and I instinctively turn towards it with my sword raised to cut it in half.

    Once it gets close to me, the book explodes in a concussive blast, slamming me against the nearest bookshelf. I let out a wheeze as the air is knocked out of my lungs, but recover quickly enough to not get cleaved in half by the still threatening paper sword. I slice the weapon in half and begin closing the distance between me and the boss again.

    I swing my sword in a vertical arc, once more barely missing the Scholar. Thankfully, she hadn¡¯t been my target. The blade cleaves through the book she stands on, and she tumbles towards the ground. A few more books fly under her to support her weight, but I can tell her mobility is now severely hindered without the large book she used before.

    I close the distance again, but a much louder sound of paper tearing brings my attention to the two halves of the large book behind me. I turn just in time to see that there are now three massive swords of mana looking to cut me in two. One of them is the friend I¡¯d been dealing with before, while the other two are larger and made of the thicker pages that large book had held within.

    My mana barrier once more wraps around my entire body as my focus is now fully taken up by the three weapons. I store away my staff and summon a second sword of mana to bolster my defense against the weapons. A quick glance at the scholar tells me her full concentration is being spent on controlling the three swords. There is still the hurricane of paper needles all around me, but they are moving considerably slower now. They were now only there to block any spells I might try and throw her way.

    With a flash of movement, I take advantage of a brief break in the onslaught of attacks to shred the weaker of the three swords. This slows the rate of attacks coming my way long enough to dispel and sword and pull my staff back out. Both charges of mana blast stored within are now used and destroy the other two swords.

    I know I don¡¯t have too much time before the three weapons are fixed and on me again, so I use mana thrust to close the distance between me and the boss in record time. She summons thick walls of paper to defend herself, but half a dozen casts of mana spike shred the wall as I break through it easily.

    With one hand, my sword swings to cut her head from her shoulders. With the other, a very powerful cast of mana blast is being released in the direction I anticipate her to dodge.

    The plan works perfectly, and she moves to avoid my sword swing, running directly into my pre-fired mana blast. The attack leaves a large crater in her torso, and the force of the hit knocks her back into the path of my sword.

    In an instant, the paper hurricane ceases as the Scholars head is sent flying far away from where it should be. The paper swords that had been headed for my back fall to the floor, now a useless pile of paper.

    You have defeated Head Scholar (Level 95)(Boss)

    Bonus experience earned for defeating a boss without assistance. Bonus experience earned for fighting an enemy of a higher level.

    You are now level 90

    You are now level 92

    I stood there for a few seconds, waiting for the next notification that I had been anticipating. After it is clear that none is coming, I stare defiantly at my status screen.

    ¡°Where the hell is my innate skill upgrade?¡±

    I¡¯d gotten an upgrade to my innate skill every ten levels ever since I got it. I had been expecting for it to be completed once I reached level 90, but I guess that wasn¡¯t the case despite the fact that the system had told me the skill would upgrade at regular intervals. I¡¯d have to ask Talus about this whenever I saw him next. I should stop by and visit after leaving this floor.

    I shake my head and loot the body of the head scholar. I take the robes she been wearing and the necklace she had around her neck.

    Scholar¡¯s Robe (Special)

    Increases the mana regeneration of the wearer. The cloth of the robe is extremely resistant to magical attacks, negating any magical attacks below a certain damage threshold.

    Focus Charm (Epic)

    Increases the mana regeneration of the wearer.

    Both items seemed focused on increasing mana regeneration. With how much mana the constant barrage of attacks must have cost, being able to mitigate the drain was probably the best way to increase how long you could stay in a fight.

    I could wear both, but whenever I wore the robe I would need to unequip my cloak of flight. This was a topic I had discussed with Talus a while back. I had posed the question of why somebody couldn¡¯t just wear a ton of armor and increase their stats by a massive amount, and his answer had been pretty simple.

    ¡°Because the system doesn¡¯t let you.¡± He¡¯d said. According to him the system just flat out wouldn¡¯t let you benefit from more than eight articles of clothing at a time. It was a restriction put in place so that you couldn¡¯t just put on 30 heavily enchanted shirts and suddenly be able to fight somebody double your level. There was also the restriction of not being able to double up on any one piece of equipment. I couldn¡¯t just wear 8 really thin but strong pairs of gloves and have invincible hands.

    I was already approaching that 8 article limit. My boots, pants, chest piece, gloves, and helmet all counted separately, bringing me to five. The cloak of flight brought me to six, and the amulet I had just acquired brought me to seven. That left room for just one more piece of equipment. Soon I would have to start seriously considering carrying around multiple sets of equipment just so I could counter whatever my opponents threw at me. Being able to store things in my aura made it pretty easy to unequip and equip armor pretty much instantly, so the only issue would be actually acquiring more than one set of equipment actually worth wearing.

    For now, I would just stick to my titan skin armor. I stored away my cloak of flight and pulled on my new robe to test how it fit. As I did, something fell out of a hidden pocket on the inside of the robe. It looked like a scroll of some kind.

    Unrolling it, I saw that it was actually a map of the library, and a very detailed one at that. Every single section was labeled, down to the very shelf. Everything was written in such small print that even with my extremely good vision, I needed to hold the paper close to my face to read it.

    My eyes stopped on one particular part of the map labeled ¡®restricted tomes¡¯. I immediately start following the map towards the marked location. How could I just avoid going somewhere labeled as ¡®restricted¡¯. I mean seriously, who¡¯s gonna stop me?

    I passed by the severed head of the Head Scholar as I followed the map.

    ¡°Oh yeah, I guess you were supposed to stop me. Oh well, time to go somewhere that I am not supposed to!¡±

 Chapter 44: Dont Judge a Book by its Very Pretty Cover

    Navigating through the pathways leading to the restricted area of the library was tricky, even with a map. It seemed that the section had been placed in a particularly hard to reach area, as there was no short path to get to it. After finally reaching where the map had marked the section, I was greatly disappointed to find absolutely nothing there.

    Out of curiosity, I started pulling on random books. Maybe the exit was hidden behind some James Bond style secret lever. After about two minutes of pulling books, I got impatient and used a combination of mana and aura control to knock every single book within 50 meters of me off of their shelves. It had been costly, but its not like my mana had anything else to be used on right now.

    None of the books had revealed a secret exit, much to my dismay. Sometimes, a guy just wanted the thrill of finding a hidden entrance without having it pointed out. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and began to focus on the area surrounding me. My aura brushed against every surface, looking for even the smallest imperfection in the ground around me. My eyes flew open when it finally caught something. Under one of the nearby bookshelves there was a hole in the ground.

    After several uses of mana blast, the pesky shelf was out of the way. I stared down into the hole that had been revealed. Despite its size, my aura still had some trouble spotting it. I guess being perfectly aware of what was around me wasn¡¯t something I could expect any time in the near future.

    The hole was only a little wider than the width of my shoulders, and I shuddered even just thinking about going down there. I had never been a big fan of tight spaces. Spelunking was a hobby that I simply never understood the appeal of. The though of forcing myself through a small hole that I might get stuck in just made every inch of my skin crawl. That wasn¡¯t even mentioning people who do cave diving. It was the same thing, but with the risk of drowning. No thank you.

    After taking a few minutes to steady my nerves and convince myself that I wouldn¡¯t get stuck, I convinced myself to jump into the hole. The only way I had been able to do it was by promising myself that should I somehow get wedged in a small crevice, I would dump my entire mana pool into the largest blast of mana I could manage to free myself.

    A bright light appears on the tip of my finger, courtesy of my mana conversion skill. An often forgotten skill in the heat of battle, but an extremely useful utility spell.

    The light from the hole¡¯s entrance disappears as the tunnel takes a slight curve and my shoulder slides against the cave wall. I have to hold my breath to keep it from quickening too much, but after just a few more seconds of falling I can see a light source below me.

    I quickly reequip my cloak of flight, storing away my new robe. My momentum slows, and soon comes to a stop as I now find myself in the middle of a much smaller library. It is very dimly lit, the only light in the room coming from my finger and the subtle blue glow coming off of some of the books. My attention was momentarily pulled away from the mysterious tomes around me as a notification appeared in front of me, one I really had not been expecting to see.

    Floor 35 Subfloor: Forbidden Knowledge

    ¡°Well that is interesting.¡± I say, noting the distinct lack of a ¡®instanced¡¯ tag on the floor. It also didn¡¯t show a ¡®boss¡¯ tag, but maybe there were just no tags at all since it was a subfloor.

    It was pretty obvious what it meant by subfloor. It was an area separate from the main floor. The difference between this place and the main floor was that I didn¡¯t actually have to come here at all. Hell, anybody sneaking past the head scholar wouldn¡¯t even know this place existed.

    I close the notification and start walking around the much smaller library. I pull a few of the books from the shelves and read their titles. It¡¯s nothing I recognize, but I doubted I would be finding a copy of ¡°Moby Dick¡± anywhere here. Instead, the shelves were filled with classics such as ¡°Materialistic Ritualism¡± and ¡°Catalysts for Alchemy, Third Edition¡±.

    After skimming through the shelves, I decided to take a look at the three larger tomes that had their own pedestals in the room. I could feel mana coming from each of them. I checked out the weaker of the three first. On its cover were the words ¡°Advanced Ritualism¡±. I was about to reach for it when I felt the mana in the room react to my motion.

    I instantly threw up a shield of mana around myself, expecting traps to try and protect the books. Instead, a notification popped up.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    You may choose one tome, and the others shall vanish. Choose wisely, for a book is not to be judged by its cover.

    I dropped my shield, once more looking at the books. If I could only chose one, then that meant that this was probably a pretty important decision. I read the covers of the two other books, seeing that one was titled ¡°Spatial Theory¡± while the other was called ¡°Tower of Legends¡±.

    Of the three books, the one I felt most inclined to pick right away was spatial theory. It may help with learning more about how I could use my trait, and potentially give me insight into an entirely new branch of magic.

    On the other hand, ignoring the title, it seemed to be the worst pick of the three. Each of the books had mana within them, and with my aura I could sense that the spatial theory tome had the weakest mana within it. The Tower of Legends tome had the strongest mana within it, which only made me more curious about what could be within. Using identify didn¡¯t give me any information, so I couldn¡¯t rely on that.

    The notification did say not to judge a book by its cover. I guess if I ignored the titles of the books all together it would be an obvious choice. I mean, how much of a difference could one book really make?

    Making my decision, I took the ¡°Tower of Legends¡± tome off of its pedestal. The other two tomes disappeared along with their pedestals. Now that my choice had officially been made, I used identify on the book again and found that it was no longer blocked.

    Tower of Legends (Special) (Soul bound)

    This book contains some secrets behind the Tower of Nixtias. Within it holds the history of the tower, as well as a select few secrets of the floors within the tower. This tome will be immediately destroyed upon completion of the tutorial.

    So, it was pretty much a guide book for the tower. That sounded like it could be very useful. I open it up and flip through a few pages. Within it I see a description of all of the floors I had visited so far. By the time I reached where floor 30 should have been in the pages, they became blank. Looks like there would be no easy scouting of the future floors for me.

    The book also held several pages pertaining to some lore behind the tower and how all the floors were really linked, but I decided to just read that part later. In the middle of a room a staircase had appeared.

    I was about to walk down the staircase when a thought occurs to me. Looking around, none of the other books in this mini library had disappeared. Some of them seemed pretty damn useful too. Maybe not as good as the other two tomes would have been, but definitely not worth leaving behind.

    The books all disappear from their shelves as they are dragged into my aura, all stacked neatly within it. The shelves are now all completely empty, and I walked down the stairs feeling like I had just gained quite the repository of knowledge. Now I would just have to find some time to actually read them all.

    <hr>

    For the week leading up to the next wave of people leaving the tutorial, everybody in the tower had been hard at work preparing. For some, it was preparations for after they left the tutorial. Deals were closed, debts repaid, and levels were gained. For others, it was a time to train and grow stronger, whether it be to stay in the tutorial longer or to simply progress further in the floors.

    For a select few who did not want to run the risk of dying while trying to upgrade their titles, they schemed. It was of great concern to many that there would be another floor event that involved killing others for personal gain. Many planned to move to a higher floor to hopefully avoid the chaos, but many more were worried that the event wouldn¡¯t just be limited to the first floor this time around.

    Exactly 5 days before the C tiers were to be kicked out of the tutorial, a system notification was received by every single person in the tower. This notification threw off the plans of many who planned to stay, but for many it only renewed their vigor to train and grow stronger.

    System Event: Humanity¡¯s Greatest (Floor 10)

    As of right now, 25% of the remaining tutorial participants, representing 5% of all those who entered the tutorial, have achieved the B-tier pioneer title, securing their stay in the tower for the next 35 days. In five days, the floors 6 through 10 will reopen to all those who have cleared them.

    Shortly after the floors have opened, a tournament will begin where humanity¡¯s greatest will fight to prove themselves the strongest. Excellent performance in this event will be greatly rewarded by the King himself.

    This tournament is completely safe to participate in. Elimination from the tournament will result in being fully rejuvenated and revitalized by the system. Be warned, the bottom 10% of participants in this tournament will be ejected from the tutorial early.

    Plans changed at the announcement of this event, and many people debated whether or not they even wanted to participate. Being ejected from the tutorial early would not be ideal, but if the rewards from this event were anything like they were for the last one, that risk would be one many would see as worth taking.

    Just like that, the time for C tier¡¯s to be kicked out of the tutorial came and went. There was no event encouraging people to kill one another like there had been last time. They had simply popped out of existence once their timers expired. Barely a few seconds later, floors six through ten opened up to everybody remaining within the tower.

    People flooded into the chain floors, headed straight for where they knew the event would certainly be taking place. Hours passed as people signed up for the tournament and awaited its beginning. After a bit of waiting, a new system notification arrived, signaling to everybody that it was time for the tournament to begin.

 Chapter 45: A Test of the Best

    I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited for the tournament to begin. After the system had announced the event several days ago, I had been very excited for it. I could finally have an excuse to measure myself against others in the tower. Obviously I always had the metric of levels and highest floor traveled to, but now I could really put those numbers to the test.

    The past five days had been a back and forth between me grinding for levels and practicing to upgrade one of my skills. In these 7 days, I had managed to get all the way to level 96. Two of those levels had been gained not from fighting, but upgrading a skill that I often used yet rarely thought about.

    Powerful Presence (Epic)

    Slowly drains energy from the user when in use. While Powerful Presence is active, it increases the passive pressure outputted by their aura, reducing the cost of all spells cast within.

    This skill had been one of the ways I slowed my pretty absurd drain of mana. I wouldn¡¯t have known how I could upgrade it if I hadn¡¯t gotten my hands on the dimensional anchor I had gotten from the goblin revolt event.

    Powerful Presence (Special)

    Slowly drains energy from the user when in use. While Powerful Presence is active, it increases the passive pressure outputted by their aura, reducing the cost of all spells cast within. Provides an additional minor reduction to the cost of dimensional magic within the user¡¯s aura.

    Through a lot of practice, blood, sweat, and maybe some not so constructive criticism from Talus, I had learned to slightly stabilize the space within my aura in a manner similar to the dimensional anchor. It was still not even remotely close to fully replicating what it could do, but every bit counted. It also helped lower the cost of the new trump card I¡¯d acquired. That was something I¡¯d be saving for much later though.

    After what felt like forever of waiting, the notification letting me know that the event had started arrived. At almost the exact same time, I was teleported from my spot outside the arena directly into the stands. The arena was quite a bit larger than last time I had seen it, probably spatially expanded to accommodate the much higher levels that people now had. The stands were filled with spectators and participants, and after taking a quick look around I read the system notification.

    System Event: Humanity¡¯s Greatest

    Welcome to the tournament!

    All participants have been assigned an evaluation score based various factors, including pioneer title tier, level, and many more. You will not battle against any participants with a total evaluation not within a 25% margin of your own.

    Evaluation score may fluctuate throughout the tournament depending on performance. Ending with a higher score than you began with will result in a reward at the conclusion of the tournament.

    As the tournament progresses, higher scored individuals will begin fighting, and less fights will take place at a time. The event will conclude with a final fight between the two with the highest evaluation score.

    Another notification arrived after I finished reading that one.

    Calculating Evaluation Score...

    Evaluation Score: 28,960

    Evaluation Rank: #1

    That seemed like a pretty damn high score. It had to be, since it was apparently the highest one anybody had gotten. For a brief moment I wondered if my rank or score would be shown, but that was answered for me quite promptly when thousands of numbers suddenly began appearing above the heads of every single person present. It showed the rank of each person, and suddenly I felt a lot more eyes on me than I was comfortable with.

    I did my best to ignore them as I looked around at the arena proper. My previous assessment of the place being large had been a slight understatement. The place was absolutely titanic.

    I remember a few times in university where my friends would drag me away from studying to go to a game of whatever spot happened to be in season at the moment. I remember being fascinated by the fact that nearly 80,000 people could fit in one of the stadiums they had brought me to. My brain had a hard time processing so many people being in one space.

    This colosseum dwarfed that place dozens of times over.

    From the outside, it was no bigger than your typical football stadium. The system had to have done some work behind the scenes, because even with spatial expansion, there was just no way that making a space that could fit everybody was within the capabilities of the Kingdom.

    Now I was beginning to wonder how many people were actually here. I started looking around for the lowest rank I could find when I spotted one man with a rank in the seven digits. I checked his level as well, and figured he was probably pretty close to the bottom of the barrel.

    Human (Level 27)

    Rank: #2,194,512

    Well, I think it is fair to assume he will be getting the boot after this is all done. My guess is he had a high tier title at the start of the tutorial, but only now saw an opportunity to leave early. He¡¯ll probably throw his fight when it is his turn to-

    Oh, and there he goes.

    The man disappears from the crowd, and I spot him reappear in the arena proper. Walls of mana shine briefly, dividing the massive floorspace into hundreds of smaller arenas. They turn transparent a moment later so as not to hinder anybody''s view, though I get the sense that the fighters within can still tell they are there. I wonder if they can see the crowd?

    The man that I had seen disappear bows down and almost immediately surrenders his fight. As soon as he surrenders, both him and his opponent are sent back to the stands. The man¡¯s rank drops by a few thousand instantly, and while I have no idea where his opponent went, I suspect he didn¡¯t move very far up in the ranking given how easy of a victory that had just been.

    I was about to settle in for a comfortable few hours of watching fights when I feel somebody tap my shoulder. I turn around to see a man in full metal armor, notably not having a rank above his head.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    ¡°Sir, please come with me. The King would like to speak with you.¡±

    I stand up and follow the man, having no qualms about getting to go speak with the King. After pushing our way through the crowd for a while, we reach a raised portion of the spectators area that is closed off from the rest by massive walls. A gate opens and allows us in, and soon I am seated next to the King.

    ¡°Hello again.¡± I say, looking at the imposing man. He may be a lower level than me now, but he is still very tall and broad. Actually, now that I can feel his aura... ¡°Did you get stronger?¡± I ask him, using identify. Much like the last time I had tried to use it on him, it does not work.

    Human (Level Unknown)

    ¡°Indeed I did.¡± The King chuckles. ¡°The system gave me a little boost to still be as intimidating as I was the first time everybody met me. It is quite nice, even if it is temporary.¡±

    ¡°How big of a ¡®little boost¡¯ are we talking about?¡±

    ¡°Oh, just a small one. Level 125 if you want to be exact about it.¡±

    ¡°You are very bad at humble bragging.¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t being humble. Anyways, I called you here to talk to you about how this tournament will be going once it gets to a point where you will be fighting.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like I am getting a bit of an unfair advantage don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°You can look at it that way if you want, but depending on how this discussion goes that very minor advantage could turn into quite the disadvantage, if you want it to of course.¡±

    My interest is now piqued, and my attention turns from the lackluster fights in the arena to fully be on the King. ¡°Disadvantage? So it¡¯s sabotage?¡±

    ¡°In a sense.¡± The King laughs. ¡°First, before we get to that. I¡¯d like to know that you have been treating my old staff with the love and affection she needs? I hope at the very least you¡¯ve had some good fights with her, right?¡±

    ¡°Plenty. You should have seen me fighting the goblin patriarch from the last system event. It was a close enough fight that a weaker weapon could have very well been the deciding factor.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear that. Now, back to the matter at hand.¡± The King summons a piece of paper into his hand. ¡°As the system designated ¡®organizer¡¯ of this event, I have quite a few strings I can pull on to change how this event goes. I can set up fights, see everybody''s evaluation scores, and a few other things I probably shouldn¡¯t yet disclose. Speaking of things I probably shouldn¡¯t disclose, take a look at this.¡±

    He hands me the paper, and I take a look at it. Before I can even glance over it, parts of the paper are blacked out by some mysterious force. I¡¯d felt no magic behind the action, the text was simply censored without warning.

    ¡°Guess the system didn¡¯t want you seeing everything there.¡± The King shrugs. ¡°Tell me what you can see though.¡±

    I look over the paper, and it doesn¡¯t take too long to realize what I am looking at. It is a list of the ten highest ranked individuals in this tournament. My score of 28,960 is at the very top of the list, followed by the next several scores. As soon as I look at it, one question immediately comes to mind.

    ¡°Don¡¯t the rest of these seem awfully low for the top ten?¡± I ask the King.

    ¡°Maybe from your perspective. Every single person on that list has quite a bit of talent, and has been working hard since day one of the tutorial. They represent the best of the best when it comes to the nearly eight billion that entered the tower just 60 days ago.¡±

    ¡°I understand that much, but still.¡±

    I couldn¡¯t see who second place belonged to. What I could see though was their evaluation score. The evaluation score of the second strongest person in the tower sat at a cozy 25,670. Exactly 3,290 points below my own. The lowest score on the list that I was looking at was 24,880. For the difference between second and ninth place to be around four times smaller than the gap between second and first just seemed pretty damn insane.

    ¡°You can probably tell simply by looking at these numbers, but you almost certainly have a free win for this tournament.¡± The King says.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t call it a free win.¡±

    ¡°Maybe not free, but a near certain win. That is why I wanted to propose a new challenge for you once your time comes to fight.¡±

    ¡°And what do you propose?¡±

    ¡°I say we switch up the format a little bit towards the end. You will not fight until the very end of the tournament, when there are very few people remaining. What fights you do take on will be against two opponents at the same time.¡±

    ¡°That almost seems like it is tipping the scales against me way too much.¡±

    ¡°It is, I can¡¯t deny that. You are level 96 now though, so that does mean your first innate skill is completed, correct?¡±

    ¡°It is.¡± I say. The skill had received its final upgrade upon reaching level 95. I had gone and asked Talus about it after reaching level 90, and he had informed me the final upgrade didn¡¯t come until shortly before evolution.

    ¡°That already gives you a pretty large edge in any fight. I don¡¯t know exactly what the upgrade was, but I am guessing it is some kind of get out of jail free card? Something to escape death? Most¡¯s first innate skill has something like that.¡±

    ¡°Actually, it¡¯s not.¡±

    ¡°Really? What is it then?¡±

    I grin, looking back to the fights in the arena. ¡°I guess you¡¯ll just have to find out once I use it. I¡¯m up for trying out this plan of yours. At least tell me the rewards for managing to do it will be great.¡±

    ¡°Better than great. If you manage to win the tournament through purely two on one fights, your evaluation score will likely climb over 30,000. The rewards for that would be extremely good.¡±

    ¡°I sure hope so. If I am going to be risking a ¡®free¡¯ tournament win as you call it, then the rewards better match the potential loss.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t even worry about that. The levels alone for winning those fights would likely make the whole thing worth it. Now, I shall call the others on that list into this room.¡±

    The King motions to one of the guards in the room, and they leave. After about ten minutes of waiting, every single person in the top ten were present in the room. It took a bit for everyone to arrive since there was a crowd of roughly 200 million people to push through.

    More chairs had been brought in so everybody could sit, but nobody yet dared too. Even if there was no open hostility, having so many strong people in one room would always lead to some tension in the air.

    I knew five of the people present. Flynn and Fionna were two of them. The Archer and the Cloaked man from the previous system event were two more. The last was somebody I had not been expecting to see in the top ten. Ram, the sneaky rogue from the great city. I¡¯d only encountered him one time before, but I some of the conversations I¡¯d had with Flynn made me understand that he was quite strong in his own right.

    The second and third ranks belonged to the cloaked man and the archer respectively, while ranks 4, 6, and 7 belonged to Ram, Fionna, and Flynn in that order. The rest of the people in the room I did not know, though a few faces I did recognize from the previous system event.

    ¡°For the sake of transparency I¡¯ll tell you all what I already told River here.¡± The King says. A stack of papers appears in his hand, which he hands off to one of the guards to pass around. ¡°I¡¯ll make this short, but whenever any one of you is fighting against River, you will be doing so in pairs.¡±

    There was a moment of silence in the room as everybody looked at the paper they¡¯d been given. I could see a few looks of shock from some of the people I didn¡¯t recognize, looks of mild surprise from those I did, and looks of annoyance from Ram and the archer. I assumed the cloaked man was also annoyed, but given that I couldn¡¯t see his face it was hard to tell.

    ¡°How is that fair at all?¡± One man asks. Glancing over his head let me know he was rank 10. ¡°Two on one doesn¡¯t seem like a fair fight. I mean, two of us would add up to over 50,000 score.¡±

    ¡°Do not underestimate him.¡± The King shakes his head. ¡°In a one on one fight, he could beat any one of you present. He wouldn¡¯t even need to push himself to his limits to do so.¡±

    Gonna be honest, I had not been expecting the King to suddenly become my hype man, but I was not complaining. Sure, he was kind of making some of the other people present pissed off at me, but what he was saying was probably the truth anyways. Nobody else in the room was higher than level 94, with the man who had spoken up being the lowest level at level 90. In a one on one fight, I doubted I would even need to use most of my passive skills against him.

    ¡°Bullshit. He may be strong, but we are strong too. I bet we could at least push him to go all out, if even for just a brief moment.¡±

    ¡°Be my guest to try.¡± The King shrugs. ¡°Say the word, and I¡¯ll gladly put you in the arena with him. It¡¯d give the crowd a good show and get them excited for what is to come later on.¡±

    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s do it.¡±

    Everybody in the room is surprised at that. Even the King hadn¡¯t expected the man to actually go for it. He just shrugs again. ¡°Suit yourself. Once the fights that are still going on come to an end, I¡¯ll put you two in there for an intermission match.¡±

    While we waited for the fights to end and for the arena to clear out, I debated just how much of what I could do I should show off. Would it be wise to show everything I was capable of? Probably not. I¡¯ll stick to simply using spells for this fight. I¡¯ll avoid melee combat, as that looks to be what this man is built for. He has a large axe strapped over his back and thick metal armor wrapped all around his body.

    When the time came for the match between me and the man, the entire arena dimmed slightly as the King¡¯s voice boomed throughout the entire colosseum.

    ¡°We will now have an intermission match between two of the top ranked fighters in this tournament. This will give you all a chance to rest and enjoy a good show.¡±

    The other man disappears, arriving in the arena a moment later. Before I get teleported, the King looks to me and speaks, not bothering to hide his words from everybody else present.

    ¡°Go ahead and make an example of him for me. I¡¯m not fond of those with egos as inflated as his.¡±

    I don¡¯t get a chance to respond before I am suddenly in the arena. We have the entire place to ourselves, a massive battlefield to accommodate our high levels. The man looks at me with pure confidence and smugness. He probably knows he is going to lose, but his goal is simply to prove I am not as untouchable as the King was hyping me up to be.

    Well, you can¡¯t have a good show without a little drama. If he really wanted to see me putting some effort in, he was certainly about to see it.

    Time to make an example of this prick.

 Chapter 46: Making an Example

    During my preparations for this tournament, I had wanted to make sure that my defenses were as good as my offense. My titan skin armor was effective against physical attacks, but I wanted to have more of my bases covered than just that.

    As soon as the tournament had been announced, I had commissioned Blair to make me two more sets of equipment. One set was to fight off piercing and slashing attacks, which the titan skin armor was not as great at dealing with as it was with blunt attacks. Another was purely to absorb the damage of magical attacks. I had lent her my robe to study so she could have a better idea how to make magic proof armor, and the final result had been quite nice.

    For now, I equipped the armor I had prepared against slashing and piercing attacks. The black metal armor appeared on my body, having been pulled directly from my aura. My cloak of flight appeared over my shoulders, though I doubted I would use it this fight.

    The man began running straight at me, closing the large gap between us quickly. I simply raised my staff to the sky, charging a cast of mana bolt. I used one charge in my staff to empower the spell, and after it reached full charge I let the large bolt of mana appear above my head.

    I split the spell into 5 pieces, each of those splitting into five more. A very large chunk of my mana was used up doing this, but that didn¡¯t matter to me much. Each of the now 25 bolts was empowered to be as strong as the original, draining even more of my mana.

    The man slowed his run slightly, seeming wary of the attack. I still was not done though. In front of the mana bolts, arcane spikes appeared. Each one was ready to punch right through the metal armor that the man wore.

    Now he seemed really worried as he used a skill of some kind to set up a barrier in front of him. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of not covering his sides. He was just barely within range of my aura, meaning that I could control my attacks however I wanted.

    Each of the 50 attacks shot away from me at a different angle. It took a lot of concentration, but given that each of them was following a pretty simple arcing path, it wasn¡¯t too difficult to manage.

    The man seemed to realize what was happening as he set up two more barriers on each side of him. Once more, he made the mistake of not covering his rear. If he believed that those barriers could hold back my attacks, then he must have put quite a bit of energy into summoning them. Let¡¯s see if he is willing to sacrifice the energy to make another one.

    The first mana spike hits his heel from behind. He lets out a pained yelp before summoning another of the barriers behind him. It takes 10 total mana spikes to puncture the thing, a testament to the strength of that defensive spell. Too bad there were still 39 more spells coming to tear him apart.

    His body is turned into glorified Swiss cheese as the many spells bombard him all at once. Still, once the dust settles and the spells stop coming, he remains standing. There were holes all over his armor where the many spells had pierced through, and there were nearly as many holes in him.

    His skin started to take on a slightly redder shade as his wounds began to heal at a visible rate. The holes in his body closed and his muscles began to budge as energy seemed to fill him once more. He began running towards me again, this time moving far faster than he had before.

    ¡°A berserker type skill,¡± I note. ¡°neat.¡±

    I still wanted to avoid melee combat for the time being, so as he got closer I began hitting him with close range mana blasts. Each time I left a crater in his skin or knocked a chunk of skin off, the wound would heal within a few seconds. Meanwhile, his axe was swinging at great speed, and dodging it was getting harder and harder as he kept up the pressure.

    One particularly powerful swing was aimed at cleaving me in two at the waist. Thankfully it had been extremely telegraphed, and I bent backwards at a very awkward angle to avoid the strike. The blade still grazed the part of my mana shield that covered my nose, but hopefully nobody noticed. It probably still looked pretty cool from the outside.

    I launch my upper body back forward with mana thrust and deliver a flurry of mana blasts at the man. My staff comes around as the remaining two charges of the spell are used, and the berserker is forced to heal more and more wounds that would ordinarily be very fatal.

    Eventually, he seems to run out of energy. He didn¡¯t slow down over time as he got tired. No, a berserker would never be so graceful. Instead, the man seemed to lose every last bit of stamina in his body as he collapsed to the ground mid-swing of his axe. He looked nearly immobilized from the strain of using whatever powerful boosting skill that was, so I take a moment to charge up a powerful spell.

    The mana blast is in my hand, being charged up to its maximum potential, but before it can be released the man looks up to me.

    ¡°I yield.¡± He manages to say, his head falling right back to the floor as soon as the words are past his lips.

    We both reappear back in the King¡¯s spectating booth. I take a moment to steady myself as suddenly my mana reserves are completely topped off again. It is a weird feeling going from having so much missing mana to suddenly being full again, despite how used to going the opposite direction I was.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    The other man looked just as revitalized as myself. You couldn¡¯t even tell he had just been in a fight. The many wounds on his body were gone, his armor was completely fixed up, and he didn¡¯t even have a look of fatigue on his face.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t have to go all out with that attack from the very start.¡± The man huffs, sitting down in one of the seats. ¡°You could have at least let the fight last longer than a minute.¡±

    ¡°Oh don¡¯t worry, I didn¡¯t go all out.¡± I say, smirking a bit. ¡°That was just a combination of a few skills that happen to work very well together. Speaking of skills, whatever one you used at the end there was pretty damn powerful. In a close losing fight, that could probably eek out a win most of the time.¡±

    ¡°It usually does.¡± He says, seeming to calm down now. ¡°I guess it just wasn¡¯t as close of a fight as I¡¯d really been expecting it to be.¡±

    ¡°Now,¡± The King butts in. ¡°Would anybody else like to challenge River to a one on one fight before we get to the later stages of the tournament?¡±

    There were no volunteers, which I was happy about. I didn¡¯t want to have to jump into another fight right after that one. Against probably about half of the people here, I would have had a harder time concealing my capabilities while also still winning the fight by a comfortable margin.

    The next many hours were spent chatting amongst ourselves while watching fights down in the arena. Me, Flynn and Fionna talked with each other while the others also formed their own little groups. The cloaked man and archer just stuck to themselves, while Ram didn¡¯t speak a word to anybody.

    The other four people present talked to each other without much care for the rest of us. Eventually, somebody I knew was finally put into the arena. I squinted my eyes as I spotted Hassan appearing in the distance. I was surprised to see him. I had thought he¡¯d planned on leaving the tutorial in this most recent wave. Perhaps he had changed his mind? I¡¯ll need to go and ask him about that later.

    I infused my eyes with a bit of mana to try and see a bit better, which actually helped a bit more than I expected it to. Actually, my vision was getting better the longer I focused.

    Identify (Common) has been upgraded to Keen Eye (Uncommon)

    See basic information about any target. Focusing on a specific target will steadily increase the effectiveness of the skill and enhance your vision while paying attention to the target.

    That was a very conveniently timed upgrade. Now I could watch Hassan¡¯s fight much more clearly. At this distance, I had to wait a few seconds before I could get a response from the skill.

    Human (Level 76)

    Level 76, not too bad. I don¡¯t actually know what his fighting style is. I¡¯ve never seen him in combat. Above his head, I could see that he was ranked in the top 5,000 contenders. It had taken a long time for the fights to get to this point. Since the tournament had actually started, 18 hours had passed in total. The fights got more interesting as time passed, but in truth just about everybody was getting bored.

    I watch as Hassan pulls a spear from some spatial storage device. Despite my enhanced vision, I can¡¯t tell whether or not he is wearing a ring that could act as storage.

    I watched for several minutes as he dueled against his opponent, who wielded a mace as their weapon. From the get-go, Hassan had the advantage due to being faster and having longer reach with his weapon. With each hit, he seemed to drain a bit of energy from his opponent. It reminded me of when he sucked the very life out of the assassin that had plagued his camp during the first few days of the tutorial.

    Eventually, his opponent collapses to the ground, dead. Hassan had taken a few hits here and there, but he had been able to heal the damage done and prevent the damage from slowing him down.

    A few more people I recognize begin entering the arena, and most of them win their fights. Hassan got pitted against somebody else, losing the fight unfortunately. Andrea managed to win a few fights in a row, eventually defeated by somebody with five levels over her.

    It wasn¡¯t long until the tournament reached the most interesting parts. The final 100 contestants were left. 24 hours had passed since the start of the tournament, and we were finally in the home stretch. Of the hundred people left, all of them were over level 80 and were quite talented when it came to combat. One of the people in the top hundred was Blair, who was the highest leveled person in the tournament that had not been placed in the top ten. She was level 94, though I knew that was thanks to her obsessive crafting and improvement of her skills.

    The numbers were whittled down more and more until the inevitable finally happened. One of the people within the top ten had been dragged into the arena. The berserker from before appeared within the arena, looking ready to defend his title as one of the top ten strongest individuals within the tower.

    The berserker stood on one side of the arena. I was about to start silently rooting for him, right up until I saw who was standing opposite of him on the other side of the arena.

    There, about a kilometer away from the heavily armored man, stood Blair. He had a wicked grin on her face that even at this distance I could see. In her hands she held her signature anti material rifle. She had a pistol holstered at each hip, and slung over her back she had a rotating machine gun pointed straight at the ground.

    The fight began quite dramatically, as a bullet fired from her rifle at great speed. The berserker held up his axe to block the shot, barely deflecting it. He began running towards the woman in order to close the distance, but just about everything that could go wrong for him went wrong as Blair smiled.

    She flipped a lever at her waist, and as soon as she did the gun strapped to her back began firing. The recoil from the gun was way more controlled than should be naturally possible, and soon she was flying high in the sky, far out of reach of the poor berserker.

    Her rifle charged up another shot, and the man was forced to throw up a defensive barrier in order to block the deadly attack. Then, something unexpected happened. I don¡¯t know why exactly he didn¡¯t pull this trick out against me, but maybe it was just because I hadn¡¯t been flying with a machine gun jetpack.

    He threw his axe with all his strength, and it spun through the air in a graceful arc as it traveled like a boomerang. It moved very fast, and seemed to be homing in on Blair¡¯s position. She tried to dodge, but the axe managed to catch her. With a swift chop, the gun on her back was cut cleanly in half and stopped shooting. Blair plummeted to the ground, landing on her feet as she stored away her rifle and pulled the two revolvers from her hips.

    Her voice echoes through the crowd, clearly projected to everybody through some magic in the arena.

    ¡°Looks like I can¡¯t just cheese this fight. Guess it¡¯s time to get serious about it.¡±

 Chapter 47: First Contact

    One thing I had wondered for a long time was how effective a crafter would be in a fight. They had comparable stats to anybody else, I¡¯d always assumed they wouldn¡¯t be particularly good in a fight given that they didn¡¯t have the skills to back them up, but right now I was being proven wrong quite quickly.

    Blair pretty clearly had either her class or subclass based around guns. That much was made clear by just how many of them she had. So far I¡¯d seen a sniper rifle, a machine gun, and the two revolvers. That was already four, and I had a sneaking suspicion that she had more she¡¯d yet to pull out of storage.

    The fight between her and the berserker didn¡¯t move at a particularly fast pace once she had lost her ability to fly. She took several pot shots at the man with both her rifle and handguns, with the man reacting quickly enough to either block the bullets or flat out dodge them. With the distances involved in this fight, he had plenty of time to react after seeing the guns fire, a feat that was pretty much impossible before the system came around.

    This back and forth lasted for a while, with the two of them both trying to get a feel for how strong the other was. What most people didn¡¯t know was the massive advantage that Blair had on that front. I don¡¯t know exactly how quickly her trait gives her information about what she is studying, but I had a feeling that it was at least quick enough that she¡¯d fully understand what she was dealing with soon enough. She had probably even been analyzing the man before their fight began. She had seen him fight me after all.

    Eventually, the berserker decides it is time to make the first big move of the fight. He activates some kind of skill, and for a moment I see his calves bulge under his armor. It must have been some localized boosting skill. He sped forward towards Blair, with her being unable to run away fast enough. He caught up to her, his massive axe swinging towards her to cut her in half.

    The revolver in her hand disappears, almost instantly replaced with another gun. This one looked quite similar to a blunderbuss, with the front of it flaring out like a horn. With a loud bang, she fired the gun at the axe, knocking it off of its collision course with her.

    That... that looked very similar to my mana blast. Now that I am actually paying attention, a lot of what she does has similarities to my own spells. Her revolvers can mimic mana bolt, that blunderbuss mimics mana blast, and her rifle can mimic mana spike. It is interesting, sure, but likely just a coincidence. There was only so many ways you could throw around mana. I was probably just reading into it too much.

    The berserker spins around, carrying the momentum from his previously missed swing into this second one. There must be some kind of cooldown between uses of that blunderbuss, because Blair can¡¯t deflect this second attack.

    ¡°Oh you have got to be shitting me.¡± I say in disbelief. The entire leather tunic that Blair had just lit up, and a very familiar looking barrier of mana appears over her to block the incoming axe strike.

    There was no mistaking that for anything else. That particular skill was one complicated enough that I highly doubt we both developed it the same way. Infusing a bit of mana into my eyes, I could even see that it was constructed almost exactly the same way mine was. I felt that warranted a few questions once this fight was over.

    I lean over to the King. ¡°Do you think you could invite her to this room once the fight is over?¡± I ask him.

    ¡°I was already planning on doing so,¡± He says. ¡°assuming she wins the fight. I may have a lot of control over this event, but the system limits only the top ten participants to enter this room. If she loses, you are going to have to search through the crowd for her yourself.¡±

    Suddenly, I am very invested in this fight. I¡¯d already been paying pretty damn close attention before, but now that I was running the risk of searching through a crowd of 200 million, I was actively rooting for Blair to win.

    Her opponent was starting to put on a lot of pressure he was and slowly speeding up, a result of a berserkers natural tendency to grow stronger as a battle went on. His axe swung through the air faster, and his armor was visibly growing in order to accommodate his growing muscles. Blair was forced to retreat further in further just so she wouldn¡¯t get overwhelmed.

    The berserker was attacking so furiously, I was beginning to think he didn¡¯t notice the trap he was falling into.

    Blair had only been using her blunderbuss and a single revolver for the past several minutes now. Each one had its own cooldown between shots, which she expertly juggled to keep from being left with no available options. During this time, one of her revolvers and the revolver on her back had begun accumulating more and more mana in them. I only noticed thanks to my mana supported vision, but I imagine in close proximity it must have been easy to sense for even a non-mage.

    This all built to a tipping point as she suddenly pulled her charged up revolver from her side, firing it straight towards the man. He was too close to react in time, and took the hit directly to his right shoulder. The arm went limp to his side as something clearly pretty important had just been reduced to a red spray that exited out the back of his arm. He was forced to use his remaining arm to wield his axe, though the damage he had taken had clearly given him a boost in strength, making it manageable.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    He seemed to finally realize what was about to come, and threw up a quick shield of mana between himself and Blair. Just like he¡¯d been anticipating, the charged rifle shot impacted a split second later. What he hadn¡¯t been anticipating was that the attack would pierce right through his defense like it wasn¡¯t even there.

    He tried to dodge away, but that only resulted in his other arm getting blown off entirely by the powerful attack. Blood sprayed from the wound, and his skin started to take on a red shade as his berserker skills finally seemed to fully activate. His arm began regrowing rapidly from the shoulder, and his other minor wounds began healing themselves. His speed and strength both increased as he quickly picked up his axe and began putting the pressure on once more.

    Now that Blair had her full arsenal again, she wasn¡¯t letting a single bit of it go to waste. I was mentally timing the timing between each weapon firing, and quickly realized that she was using each one as soon as its attacks came off of their cooldown. I¡¯m pretty sure this is about as high as her damage output is going to be getting. I guess that is the limiting factor of relying too heavily on weapons as your damage source. My own damage output was only really limited by how much mana I was willing to expend at a time, even if I did get diminishing returns at higher mana costs.

    All of the berserker¡¯s energy was going into sustaining his current state as well as healing the damage from the many attacks. His lack of dodging did mean that he was getting really close to Blair, and it was only a matter of time before he would get a very strong attack to land properly.

    As it was now though, Blair was not getting out unscathed. Deep gashes in her leather armor appeared as the axe managed to hit her. Several spots on her arms and legs were bleeding where the axe had cut deep enough to taste flesh.

    I truly did not know which one of them would win this fight. If it dragged on too long, the berserker would run out of energy. I didn¡¯t know if it would even get to that point though, as Blair was taking more and more damage. This fight would be a lot more one sided if she had managed to gain even one more level before it started. At level 94, she was pretty damn close to getting her innate skill to be maxed out.

    On the other hand, the berserker was still several levels from his getting upgraded for the final time. It was pretty clear that it was already pretty good though, as I assume it was the source of him growing stronger as the battle went on.

    Something in the battle seems to shift suddenly. It is a shift that I almost didn¡¯t catch, and by the looks of it nobody else did. Blair seemed to start moving just a tiny bit faster, like she had activated some kind of really weak boosting skill.

    No... that wasn¡¯t it. I would be able to see the mana within her at least act a little differently if that had been the case. Having a brief idea, I use identify on her, my eyes widening in surprise at what I see.

    Human (Level 95)

    I hadn¡¯t known people could just level up mid-fight like that. I mean, I saw no reason why you wouldn¡¯t be able to. Had she done anything particularly special to earn the level? Maybe she¡¯d managed to upgrade one of her combat focused skill in the heat of battle. That¡¯d explain the level at least.

    This did mean one more thing though. Something that I am not sure many others knew about. I leaned back in my seat as I realized that she now had this fight in the bag. Just like that, she¡¯d earned her trump card. What exactly that was, I¡¯m not sure. I knew it had to be something good though.

    I was proved right pretty damn quickly too. The energy within her suddenly began moving differently. I thought I¡¯d already been as surprised as I could have been when she leveled up, but that surprise came back with a vengeance as her skin turned red and she grew slightly larger.

    The wounds across her body began healing at a visible rate, though not nearly as fast as the berserker¡¯s wounds healed. She did start moving faster though, closing the gap in power between her and her opponent. Her damage output didn¡¯t really increase, as it still relied on her guns, but it didn¡¯t need to. In fact, she had stopped firing them entirely.

    The next 30 seconds were now a battle of attrition. Blair just had to wait for the man to run out of energy and collapse to the ground, while the berserker needed to kill her before that happened. My guess as to why she stopped shooting was that she didn¡¯t want to run out of energy first. While she had clearly mimicked the skill the berserker used, it seemed to be both slightly weaker and less efficient.

    The two of them danced back and forth as the mans axe flew through the air at breakneck speed. He was handling it as if it barely weighed anything, and it was clear that if he managed to land even a single solid hit, Blair would be in some serious trouble.

    The worst came to pass, and his axe made contact with her arm. The limb detached from her, but instead of letting it heal Blair quickly pulled some leather from her storage ring and wrapped it over the wound. She clearly did not want to waste the mana to heal that wound.

    That seemed to make the distance, as a few seconds later the berserker collapsed to the ground, helpless and defenseless. Blair quickly shot his head with her rifle, the energy expenditure draining her fully and causing her to collapse a moment later.

    With that, the fight had ended. The two of them disappeared from the arena, though the berserker did not reappear in the room with us. Instead, Blair arrived in the exact spot the other man had left from.

    She looked around for a brief moment before pumping her fist in the air. ¡°Hell yeah! Top ten!¡±

    ¡°Good job.¡± I say, nodding to her. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure you¡¯d win that. Good thing that extra level saved you, huh?¡±

    She just waves it off. ¡°Nah. I would have won even without it. It just would have been a bit closer of a fight.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think it can get much closer than that.¡± Flynn notes.

    At almost the same time, Fionna skips over to her. ¡°You owned that fight! That last minute comeback was crazy! What was the crazy skill you used to copy his?¡±

    The two of them start chatting animatedly, with Blair confirming my suspicion that it had been her upgraded innate skill that allowed her mimic her opponents skill, and I have a suspicion that the earlier upgrades of her trait are what allowed her to create a weaker version of some of my spells. While the two of them talk, me and Flynn gave each other a look. Maybe it wasn¡¯t such a good thing that Blair won, because now the two craziest people we knew had just made first contact.

 Chapter 48: A Small Flaw

    The next fight, just like the last, included the berserker in it. I actually felt kind of bad for the guy. He¡¯d been defeated in both fights he had been in now, and was now being forced to fight against the rank #9 participant in the tournament.

    His new opponent though was one that he was actually pretty well matched up against. Both me and Blair were pretty good at long range, with me being almost equally as effective at close range. This had put the melee fighter at a disadvantage from the get-go. His next opponent didn¡¯t have that kind of range though.

    On one side of the arena was the berserker. Even from here I could feel the annoyance at his loss practically pouring off of him. His opponent wielded two short swords and wore chainmail armor. He was clearly a more agility based melee fighter, focused on speed above strength.

    As it turns out, strength trumps speed. The metal armor the berserker wore didn¡¯t let very many attacks through, and the few that the swordsman did manage to slip past his guard were healed within 30 seconds of landing. The swordsman did pull some pretty flashy attacks, such as when he stabbed forward and doubled the length of his sword for a few seconds. The fight had been pretty much decided though once the berserkers boosting ability reached its peak.

    At that point, the swordsman no longer had quite the speed advantage he did before, and the brute strength of the berserker managed to win out. The swordsman was cleaved in half from shoulder to hip, a powerful skill having been used to plow the axe through his armor.

    The berserker reappeared in the King¡¯s observation booth, having been promoted back to the top ten. Blair had been sent up to number 9, and the other man was nowhere to be seen.

    The next several fights were pretty much title defense matches. There weren¡¯t any more upsets, as typically the higher ranked person would win. The only two upsets out of the next 10 or so fights was when Blair defeated the person at rank 8, with the berserker also beating him. That had raised Blair to rank 8 and put the berserker at rank 9. Finally, it was once more my turn to step up to the plate. Just like the King had said, I would be challenging two people at a time.

    Still, we needed to find my limit for how strong the two people could actually be. We would be starting fairly low within the top ten. My first two opponents would be Blair and the berserker, who had both been very much underestimated by the system¡¯s evaluation.

    My main goal right now was to not need to use my trump card. By that, I meant the active ability I had acquired upon upgrading my innate skill to its final state. It was a very powerful card I could play if I needed to, but I wanted to try and restrict myself to only using it once it was absolutely necessary.

    As I appeared in the arena, I instantly threw two arcane tags on both of my opponents. Every extra bit of damage I could eek out here would be a huge help, as while I could easily beat either of these two on their own, it was a whole new story when they were paired together.

    The fight started off with the two of them splitting up. It was a pretty smart move, as if they stuck together that only made a very easy target for me to aim for. The berserker began closing the distance between us as Blair used her machinegun backpack to fly up into the air. I dodged several shots from her weapons before the berserker managed to catch up with me.

    Once he did, I activated empower at full burn. For what I was planning here, I needed to be able to be able to surpass the raw strength of this man. While I was sure my body stat was higher thanks to all of my multipliers to it, he almost certainly had his focus set to strength rather than agility like I did. That meant that even with a higher body stat he was about the same strength I was when I didn¡¯t use empower.

    My attention was split as I focused on parrying and blocking the attacks of the berserker while simultaneously firing a stream of mana bolts towards Blair. They weren¡¯t landing, but I hadn¡¯t really expected them to. I just didn¡¯t want her getting too comfortable in any one spot. Forcing her to constantly reposition slightly slowed the rate that she could fire her weapons at.

    The berserker in front of me was what took most of my concentration though. My attacks were slowly dealing damage which was quickly healed. It only served to empower the berserker as he began moving faster and faster, though for now I could still handle the man at close range.

    I was pretty damn reluctant to use any super powerful attacks. I didn¡¯t know the exact limitations of Blairs mimicking skill, but I was worried that if she saw me throw out a powerful use something like arcane shatter, she would be able to use it for herself and pierce my defenses.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    One of my greatest advantages in just about any fight was the fact that I had put a lot of effort into my defenses. The metal armor I wore, which I had yet to change out of after my previous fight against the axe wielding man, was great at dealing with his attacks. My mana shield on top of that nullified most of the damage, meaning that until I ran out of mana it was extremely hard to do meaningful damage to me. You needed to be able to pass through a certain threshold of damage in a single attack to overwhelm my defenses, which neither of these two could quite manage. Blair probably could with a charged up shot from her rifle, but at the distance she was at now I had confidence in dodging it.

    My first hint that the charged shot was coming was the fact that she was now only using her revolvers. The rifle was slung over her back, on top of the machine gun. Shortly after that, I passed over the damage threshold to fully activate the berserkers boosting skill, his skin turning red and his muscles bulging as he sped up and began swinging his axe harder.

    I had to put a bit more focus on the man now, which is why I was hit with quite the surprise when Blair was suddenly at his side, her skin also now turning red and her muscles growing larger. With the both of them at close range, I couldn¡¯t block every attack. Several hits per second were slipping through and hitting my mana shield, quickly draining my mana.

    I was about to use mana blast when Blair suddenly whips her rifle around to point at me. I try to dodge, but the berserker had already positioned himself to block my easiest path of escape. The shot went straight through my thigh, having pierced my mana shield.

    ¡°Nice hit.¡± I say through gritted teeth. Finally, I use mana blast to knock the both of them back quite far. Now that I had distance from the two of them, I leapt and used my arcane thrust skill to make even more distance.

    After that, I simply kited them around the arena for a little over a minute. At roughly the same time the two of them collapsed, having run out of energy to continue. They both surrendered before I finished them off, and we reappeared in the observation room.

    ¡°Good fight.¡± The berserker says, seeming to have cooled down now that he actually had a few wins under his fight. ¡°Can¡¯t say I am happy that we lost a two on one, but I kind of expected it.¡±

    ¡°How low on mana were you?¡± Blair asks, frowning. ¡°I swear, you seem to never run out.¡±

    ¡°I was around half of my total mana pool.¡± I say, shrugging. ¡°I didn¡¯t need to waste too much on attacking after you copied his berserker skill. I just had to last long enough for the two of you to run out of energy.¡±

    Blair now frowns at her teammate. ¡°You have to work on finding a way to deactivate that skill early. People being able to run away and leave you helpless seems like a huge downside.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I guess I probably should work on that.¡± He sighs. ¡°I haven¡¯t had monsters try and just run from me yet, so it had never really occurred that I needed that. The skill usually just turns itself off when the fight is over.¡±

    ¡°Well,¡± the King says. ¡°a large part of the tournament is finding your weaknesses so you can fix them before you reach level 100. It is no coincidence that this all is happening while you all are so close to your next evolution. It is often discussed as a ¡®wall¡¯ for progressions. For those of you that have yet to unlock your trait, it will be unlocked for you. Getting used to that is going to slow progress for a while compared to those who have had time to adjust to them. Leveling will also be significantly slower.¡±

    ¡°Damn, and here I was hoping that level 1000 was only a few good years of intense training away.¡± I say, chucking.

    The King full on laughs at that, but not because he found my joke funny. ¡°You wish it took that long.¡± He says. ¡°Reaching that level is something that very, very few will ever achieve. Statistically speaking, not a single person in this room is expected to reach that level at all. Now, when you take into account that you are the ten strongest on your planet, your odds are a bit better but still not great.¡±

    ¡°Why is it something that is so difficult to do?¡± Fionna asks, confused. ¡°I mean, wouldn¡¯t it just be doing what we are already doing for a really long time? I am assuming that our lifespans are increasing dramatically with our levels increasing, but is time not the only concern?¡±

    ¡°There are a few reasons, but the biggest one is that every hundred levels, leveling gets a lot slower and each one is harder to achieve. Putting that aside, for those of you focused on combat you constantly run the risk of death. For every individual you slay, that is one more that had their chance at growing to greater things taken away.¡±

    That thought is a bit sobering, and looking around I can tell most of the people present would agree.

    ¡°That is just how things are though.¡± The King shrugs. ¡°It is a hard truth, but it is the truth. I see nothing wrong with fighting your way to the top, but I despise the people that step on those below them instead of using those above them to pull themselves up.¡±

    The room is silent for a few minutes after the King is done speaking. Eventually Blair and Fionna start talking to one another again, and soon everybody in the room is back to talking. The fights continue for a while, with no more upsets occurring. One interesting thing I noted was that even if someone lost a fight, they could gain evaluation points simply from performing very well in it. This closed the gap between a lot of scores, and after Flynn¡¯s most recent fight where he won against Blair, a fight started that I was extremely interested in.

    Fionna versus Flynn. Both of them were level 93, so I had my doubts that either of them would upgrade their innate skills in the nick of time if they got into a bad situation. This would be a one on one fight where they would be putting everything they had into it. Out of the two of them, I honestly had no idea who would win. Fionna had the higher evaluation rank, but after seeing Flynn fight Blair it was hard to believe that someone would have an easy time against him if they were the same level.

    All I could wonder now was what was going through their heads.

 Chapter 49: Two Sides of a Coin

    Flynn¡¯s life had always been just about as far from normal as one could imagine. From the day he could walk, his father had trained him to follow in his footsteps as an assassin. He¡¯d been conditioned to believe that killing for money and ideals was a perfectly acceptable thing.

    Around ten years old, he had begun realizing that he didn¡¯t necessarily agree with that. His sister, who was already 15 by that point, did not share his sentiment. She had been exactly the kind of child that her father wanted to raise. He had cut off ties from most of his family after becoming an adult, though he had still kept regular contact with his sister.

    Flynn did not have confidence in winning this fight against his sister. She had spent her entire life training, while by the time the system came around it had been over a decade since Flynn had done any serious combat training. In direct hand to hand combat against her, he knew he would lose more often than not.

    Things were different now though. This was not hand to hand combat. Flynn had a sword, and his sister had daggers. A large part of their training had been in the use of firearms, but that was pretty much useless now. The guns that Blair could make weren¡¯t strong enough to be better than a powerful attack with a sword or spell.

    The fight had already been pretty even so far. The two of them were the same level and had nearly the same exact stat total. They each had put a lot of practice into using their respective weapons, and their armor had been upgraded shortly before the tournament. Hell, even their evaluation scores were only about 50 points apart. On paper, this was a very balanced fight.

    Flynn knew the other half of the story though. He had been eyeing the poison bottles at his sister¡¯s side during the entire fight, wondering why she wasn¡¯t using them. His sword danced through the air, the sound of metal impacting metal reverberating through the arena as their weapons met several times every second.

    Flynn activated one of his skills, and his sword began to feel lighter as it started moving faster. Fionna responded in kind as her weapons began swinging faster. The two of them matched each other perfectly, not a single attack managing to make it past the other¡¯s blades.

    Flynn activated several more skills, trying to get something to slip past his sister¡¯s guard. A few attacks did manage to leave cuts in her armor, but each of those strikes was paid for in blood as he felt her daggers dig into his skin.

    The sensation felt almost nostalgic. He remembered days where he would spar with his father and end up with a few bruises on his arms where the wooden weapons his father used had managed to hit him. Back then, Flynn had also used daggers as opposed to the sword he used now.

    He frowned as he continued blocking and counter attacking. It felt like so many years had been wasted learning to properly fight with daggers and his fists, only for him now to use a sword. It felt like it was too late to make the switch though, as most of his skills required him to specifically be wielding a sword of some kind.

    ¡°Having trouble keeping up?¡± Fionna asks him, speeding up her attacks once more. Her daggers leave more scratches on his armor as most of the attacks fail to cut all the way through the thick leather.

    ¡°Not at all.¡± Flynn responds, redoubling his efforts to get in a good hit. In a gamble, Flynn decides to activate one of his more straining skills. His speed increases once more as he begins swinging his sword far faster. The daggers Fionna wields are no longer sufficient to parry these attacks, and she takes multiple wounds across her body as she fails to back up in time.

    Her eyes flick to Flynn''s feet, noticing that he had ever so slightly overextended. Her leg whips towards his ankle, managing to hit it hard enough to make his foot slip and cause him to slow down briefly. She uses this time to make a bit more space.

    Her daggers glow green briefly, and a few of the wounds on Flynn¡¯s body begin to burn. There isn¡¯t much additional damage done by the skill, but the pain is quite intense. He too backs up, and there is a moment of peace as they both stare at the other.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you use those?¡± Flynn asks, pointing his sword to the bottles of poison at Fionna¡¯s hips.

    She looks down at them, then back at him. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t want this to be too one sided.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like an insult.¡±

    ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you prove me wrong then.¡± She taunts. ¡°Come and show me that I have to use everything I have if I want to beat you.¡±

    The words cut deep. Deeper than her daggers have so far. Flynn remembered the days where his father would beckon him to ¡®just try harder¡¯ or to ¡®come show me what you can do¡¯. It was a time he would rather not think back on much, but now his mind couldn¡¯t come off of it.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    When Flynn raised his sword to fight now, it felt like it wasn¡¯t just his sister he was fighting. Their father died several years ago, but before that he had taught her everything he knew. In his mind, this was his chance to finally get back at him for the years of being a terrible parent.

    He ran forward, his sword once more dancing through the air. The screech of metal on metal was loud and painful on the ears, but he ignored it. Even as his wounds began throbbing in pain, he ignored it. His mind was racing, faster than his body could keep up with. Using two hands for a single weapon just felt so limiting, so unnatural to him.

    He took one hand off of his sword, letting it rest by his side for a moment. He activated one of his skills, a special ranked skill that allowed him to grow his weapon to get off a powerful attack. He strained himself as he instead shrunk his sword slightly, making it small enough to wield with just one hand. Another sword appeared in his other hand, having been pulled from the storage ring on his finger.

    That sword too shrunk down to a manageable size. Before ever having swung the swords, he felt back in his element. His muscle memory from over a decade ago was barely there, but still very much sat in the back of his mind. His sister¡¯s eyes widened in surprise, but then narrowed in excitement.

    ¡°Looks like you are finally going back to your roots.¡± She says, twirling her daggers. The two of them ran at each other again. Flynn¡¯s increase in speed had worn off by this point, and he was already feeling the slight exhaustion that came from using it. It was not enough to slow him down, but it very slightly fogged his mind.

    The skill activated again, his speed increasing once more as his rustiness was slowly being shaken off. He¡¯d spent thousands of hours fighting against his father, and he could see the echoes of his fighting style in the way Fionna moved. She really did take after him.

    She leans down slightly, having seen an opening in Flynn¡¯s defense. She lunges forward, knocking away one of his swords as her dagger flew straight for his stomach.

    This was a move that his father had pulled many times, and was often what ended their sparring sessions once he doubled over in pain. Flynn was prepared this time. His sister taking after their father so much was a bit of a disadvantage, as he knew a lot of his tendencies in the fight.

    He had made that opening on purpose. He¡¯d baited out this lunging attack, and he was already poised to dodge the attack. He pushed off the ground and moved to the side, his sword being brought down in a reverse grip to stab straight through his sister¡¯s back. The sword that had been knocked away came back and also stabbed through her.

    Flynn looked down at his opponent. His eyes hardened as he stared down at the eyes of his father. No, the eyes of his sister. The fog lifted from his mind as he remembered who this fight was truly against.

    Fionna rips herself away from the swords through her, leaving a deep gash through her torso. Blood spilled out, but she quickly pulled something from a storage ring to pack the wound. It was green leaves of some kind that slowed the bleeding.

    ¡°Not bad.¡± His sister says. ¡°Looks like I can¡¯t take this lightly.¡±

    Her dagger quickly cuts through a string at her hip, the bottles falling to the ground and breaking. She quickly pulls a mask up to her face, covering her mouth and nose. A pair of goggles appears on her face, covering her eyes.

    Flynn watches as the cloud of poison around them rapidly begins to grow. The speed boost was wearing off again, the exhaustion of using the skill now far worse. The gas began to fill the area all around them, and he was losing sight of his opponent.

    He smiled slightly as he stood there. For a moment, he had almost forgotten who he was fighting. He had won against his father, but that is not who he was fighting. The last he saw of his sister was her nodding to him as the poison fog fully obscured her.

    Yes, while he may have won against his father, he was fighting somebody that had long ago surpassed that man. How could he possibly know that? Well, that is because his sister is the one who had killed him.

    ¡°I guess I still have a bit more catching up to do.¡± He mutters, and only a second later a dagger sinks into his throat.

    __________

    I look down at the cloud of poison in the arena. It had fully engulfed both Flynn and his sister, and even with mana sight I could not see through it. For about 30 seconds the fog hung over the arena. I was about to ask the King if he could see anything, but the cloud began to disperse.

    As the fog thinned enough to see the fighters, I realized that Flynn had lost the fight. He lay on the ground riddled in cuts and stab wounds. Each one was clearly irritated by the poison in the air, with some of the cuts having turned various shades of black and green. Only a few seconds after catching sight of them, the fight ended. They were teleported back and neither had changed in rank. Both of their scores had gone up though, with the difference in their scores still being just 50 points.

    ¡°Good fight.¡± I say to Flynn. ¡°You got pretty close to beating her with that last attack of yours. A bit more practice and you could very well win the next sparring session between the two of you.¡±

    ¡°Maybe.¡± Flynn nods, staring off into space. ¡°Hey, what will you do if you lose your last fight?¡±

    The question catches me off guard for a moment, but I respond honestly. ¡°Then I would train hard enough to be able to win it the next time. Having something like that to work towards is a great motivator for me.¡±

    Flynn seems to think for a moment, but doesn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°I¡¯m guessing you are a bit bummed about the loss?¡± I guess.

    ¡°No, not exactly. Actually, I am starting to get motivated again. I want to grow stronger without the help of anybody else. I was taught to fight the way I do, but I want to make a fighting style of my own.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a good goal.¡± I say. ¡°You really think it¡¯ll be that easy though? I mean, having somebody teach you a thing or two could do wonders for your technique.¡±

    ¡°I think it will be better if I do it myself.¡± Flynn says, finally looking at me. ¡°I¡¯ll pave my own path to the top. If I don¡¯t quite get there, then I¡¯ll at least know what I am really capable of.¡±

 Chapter 50: Home Run

    The fights had started to get a lot more interesting now that it was exclusively people in the top 10. I¡¯ve already seen quite a few skills and abilities that I wouldn¡¯t have even thought of trying to create. I had a feeling that soon there would start being quite a few people copying the fighting styles of those at the top.

    The next fight was Fionna versus Ram. I still had yet to ever see Ram fight, though from what I have heard he primarily fights with daggers with a very heavy focus on stealth. In other words, he was an assassin. I wasn¡¯t sure how effective that would be with him starting in clear view of his opponent, but he would probably find some way to overcome that. He definitely hadn¡¯t earned rank 4 by not being a very skilled individual.

    When the fight started, it became pretty clear that in terms of sheer technique with daggers, Fionna had a slight edge. Her blades seemed to always be positioned perfectly, ready to block an attack that she had correctly predicted.

    On the other hand, Ram was noticeably faster. His weapons could move quicker and his feet seemed to blur across the ground. Actually, his entire body was kind of blurry at this distance. It took me a moment to realize I was looking at some kind of stealth spell. It was making it hard to see him, but after infusing some mana into my eyes it became a bit easier.

    The skill was clearly a passive one, and if I was standing up close to the man I probably wouldn¡¯t even notice it. At this distance though, it did have an effect on me. Hell, a good chunk of the crowd was probably having trouble tracking him, if they could even see him at all.

    The two were pretty evenly matched as it was, but it was clear that neither were operating at their full capabilities right now. Fionna still had yet to release her poison cloud, while Ram didn¡¯t have any way to use his active stealth skills. The real fight would begin once the poison cloud came out, as while Ram would suffer from the poison, his real power as a rogue would be brought forth by the cover of the gas. That was probably why Fionna was so hesitant to use them.

    Eventually, the real fight did start. Ram managed to smash some of the bottles at his opponents hips, and a spray of gas erupted outwards. A large area was quickly filled up by the gas, and Fionna retreated away.

    Ram had fully disappeared into the smoke, while Fionna now stood a few hundred meters away from the expanding cloud. There are a few beats of silence as everybody waited for the assassin to emerge, but instead a dagger flew out of the smoke, narrowly missing Fionna¡¯s head.

    Several more daggers fly out, then even more. Dozens of daggers pierce through the fog as Fionna struggles to dodge them. She manages to avoid most of them, but a few do manage to pierce her armor and dig into her skin. She seems to be waiting for Ram to run out of daggers, but given that they are made of mana she is going to be waiting a while.

    The skill that Ram is using to summon those daggers seems pretty similar to my arcane arsenal skill. The biggest difference is that daggers seem to be the only thing he can make. It is difficult to tell at this distance, but each dagger seems to be exactly the same. I have been keeping count, and at any given moment there are no more than 5 daggers. They move with such speed though that it is hard to really tell.

    Fionna finally seems to come to a decision, putting on her gas mask and diving into the poison cloud. That decision seems to be a very poor choice on her part. I couldn¡¯t tell you exactly what happened over the course of the next minute, but I can take a few guesses. She probably managed to catch sight of the man briefly, landing an attack or two.

    She then lost track of him again, allowing all of his stealth skills to reactivate. From there, she was a dead woman walking. He had sliced her up from all directions, leaving dozens of deep cuts and gashes across her body. That is my best guess at how it all went based off of how the two fighters looked once the smoke cleared. Fionna was almost unrecognizable, her body completely covered in cuts and blood. Ram was mostly fine on the outside other than a few cuts, but the poison did seem to have a lasting effect as he bent over and dry heaved.

    The two of them appeared back in the observation room. The King then looked to me. ¡°Are you ready for your next fight?¡± He asks, nodding over to the two that had just shown up.

    ¡°Ready as I¡¯ll be.¡± I say. ¡°Am I going against those two?¡±

    ¡°Yes you are.¡± he nods.

    ¡°So I have to deal with both of them in that poison cloud?¡±

    ¡°Yes you do.¡±

    ¡°Great.¡± I say, not particularly excited for having to deal with that. Ram had a massive advantage against Fionna because he could use her tactics against her, but if they worked together then I¡¯d practically be fighting two shadows. Hopefully it wouldn¡¯t be bad enough to force me to use my trump card. I still wanted to save that for the last fight of the tournament, which was almost certainly going to be against the cloaked man and the archer, who held ranks 2 and 3 respectively.

    I was teleported back down to the arena, already trying to think of a plan to deal with that poison cloud. Going directly into it was absolutely off the table. Fighting off two rogues in an environment where I would barely be able to see did not sound like a fun time. I could try and use my mana shield to push the fog back, similar to what I had done on the underwater floors, but if the poison had even minor anti-magical properties then that would be extremely costly to pull off given that it would cover the entire surface area of my shield.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    If I didn¡¯t need to deal with that poison cloud, this would be an easy fight. The two of them were skilled fighters and all, but high quantities of comparatively weak attacks such as the ones they would be unleashing with their daggers was exactly what my mana shield was good at dealing with.

    Almost immediately, Fionna threw down several vials and created a massive poison cloud. She seemed to have at least some control over its shape, because while it was only a few meters tall, it extended for hundreds of meters in every other direction.

    Daggers begin flying out from the poison, which I tediously dodge. There are a lot more of them now, and I suspect that Ram is conjuring some for Fionna to throw as well. I can¡¯t dodge all of them, but the ones that do hit me don¡¯t manage to pierce my shield.

    As ideas race through my mind on how I could possibly deal with the poison, one finally crosses my mind that makes me pause.

    ¡°Would that actually work?¡± I ask myself aloud. The idea is so ridiculous that it feels weird not to question it. It can¡¯t be this simple can it? Well, by the end of this fight I will probably still have at least some mana to spare, so I might as well waste some on this little gamble.

    I stop dodging, needing to stand still and focus on what I am doing. My aura pulls in closer to me, taking the shape of what I had in mind. My arcane arsenal skill then activates, and thanks to the mold I made with my aura it is slightly cheaper to cast.

    A structure about 2.5 meters tall manifests in front of me. I have to increase the size of my mana shield to protect it, but the daggers don¡¯t chip away that much mana.

    I start burning mana with my mana conversion skill, adding momentum to the three elongated blades on the front of my new device. The windmill spins to life, the air from behind me getting pushed forth to flow towards the poison cloud. I summon two handles on the back of it, and with quite a bit of effort pick it up and start moving towards the smoke.

    I am not ashamed to admit that there is probably an easier way to do this that I just didn¡¯t think of. This was just all I could think of in the moment. There was the bonus of it being really amusing to me, and really that is what matters the most.

    The air being blown from the windmill slowly begins to disperse the cloud of poison. Emphasis on slowly. Even if it is working, it is not a fast process. There is simply so much fog that it takes a while to clear out. The entire time I am doing this, daggers are flying out to attack the windmill, though none are able to pierce through my barrier and stop it.

    The smoke suddenly coughs out a very pissed off woman. Fionna rushes towards me, intent on stopping me, the windmill, or both. I had already thought of what I would do once this eventuality came around, and so I activated empower to its full 25% boost.

    The windmill shrinks significantly as I move to hold it over my shoulder. All of the mana from the lost mass is now put purely into speeding what is left of the windmill up.

    My new makeshift weapon moves at quite honestly an insane speed as it comes around and hits Fionna directly in the side of her head at a speed she had no hope of dodging. For a little extra oomph, I use my aura to cast a few mana blasts directly at the moment of impact, only increasing the force imparted onto her.

    She is sent flying across the arena, slamming into the far wall with a very meaty thud. I wince a little as I hear the noise. That had sounded like it hurt. She quickly disappears in a flash of light, the two impacts have been enough to knock her out of the fight.

    Now that she is no longer around to keep her cloud of poison from naturally dispersing, the gas starts to thin out and float away. There is a light fog of poison that now coats the ground, but as long as I don¡¯t bend over and try to inhale the dirt I am probably going to be fine.

    As the fog dispersed, Ram was nowhere to be seen. He must have managed to slip away before I could notice him, meaning all of his stealth skills were still fully active. I infuse a bit of mana into my eyes, looking all around to try and find the assassin before he gets to me.

    After a few seconds, I do manage to spot him. Unfortunately, it was about a quarter of a second before his dagger was about to pierce my throat.

    My back bends at a very unnatural angle as I try to avoid the attack, which only results in the dagger hitting the bottom of my jaw. The attack pierced right through my mana shield, going up through my lower jaw and exiting out my upper lip. Damn rouges and their stealth attacks. Normally that wouldn¡¯t have been able to do that much damage, but his skills probably allowed him to do far more damage if I don¡¯t see the attack coming.

    Thankfully, the dagger had hit nothing vital like my brain. Having high stats meant bleeding out wasn¡¯t much of a concern, but if I took a few more attacks like this one then I would have to start worrying about it.

    I quickly pull myself off of his weapon and unleash an absolute carpet bombing of spells. The attack may not have killed me, but it still hurt pretty damn bad. The faster this fight ends the faster I can get this wound healed up.

    The rogue, having evidently run out of tricks, soon dies to the bombardment. There really wasn¡¯t much he could have done against the hundreds of spells that had descended upon him from every direction. It was pretty cool to see how well he dodged many of them though.

    When we show up back in the observation room, I open and close my mouth a few times just to make sure everything was working properly. I knew logically that the system would fully heal me, but the phantom pain still lingered. Sometimes it is nice to get a reminder that I wasn¡¯t invincible.

    This was not one of those times.

    ¡°That was a good fight.¡± I hear from behind me. I turn and see Ram giving me a small bow. ¡°This has shown me pretty clearly that I need to find more ways to deal with not having any cover to regain my stealth. Thank you for the insightful battle.¡±

    He walks away before I can even say anything else. Fionna walks over with a slightly annoyed look on her face. ¡°What the hell was that? One second I was running towards you and your big ass fan, and the next I was right back in here!¡±

    Blair walks over, answering for me. I am kind of glad she did, because nothing I could have said would have been as good as the response she gave.

    ¡°River just hit one hell of a home run!¡±

 Chapter 51: A Little Reading

    ¡°Can I make a request?¡±

    The King looks at the cloaked man who had just asked the question. It was the first time he had spoken since entering the room, and just about everybody went silent. We all wanted to hear what the ever stoic man had to say.

    ¡°What is it?¡± The King asks.

    ¡°For the fights that either she or I,¡± he points to the archer, ¡°participate in, I request that River be unable to watch them.¡±

    ¡°Why is that?¡±

    ¡°We both believe that the advantage of him not knowing our capabilities is one we can not give up.¡±

    ¡°That seems like it would be unfair considering you have already seen him participate in several fights.¡± The King points out. ¡°You already have the advantage of having two people.¡±

    I can¡¯t see the cloaked man¡¯s face, but I can practically feel the frown. He seems to accept the King¡¯s response though, and instead of arguing further he simply returns to being his stoic self.

    The next two fighters are announced, and it is a battle between Ram and the archer. The two of them both appear in the arena, and there is a short moment before either of them actually do anything. I take this moment to turn to the King and ask a question.

    ¡°Actually, if you could somehow make it so I can¡¯t watch this fight that would be great. I think it would be a much better battle if I don¡¯t know everything that my last two opponents can do.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± He asks, surprised. Actually, everyone in the room looks surprised. Nobody had been expecting me to so willingly give up a chance to improve my odds in the coming fight.

    ¡°I am sure. In exchange though do you have somewhere that I can warm up my mana control for the fight? I want to be as prepared as possible once the time does come.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t really have anywhere to put you.¡± The King frowns. ¡°I have some authority over the tournament, but not that much.¡±

    ¡°Could you not put him in his own fight?¡± The cloaked man asks, speaking up once more. We both look over to him, and he elaborates. ¡°Anybody in the arena can¡¯t see the other fights going on, right? Well in that case you could simply place River in a sparring match with somebody else until it is time for his next fight to take place.¡±

    ¡°That actually sounds like a pretty good idea.¡± The King admits. ¡°I could even make it so nobody can see your practice. I can¡¯t exclude a single spectator, but I can exclude them all. Though you would still need an opponent. I don¡¯t know who would want to sit there and watch-¡±

    ¡°Me!¡± Blair shouts, skipping over. ¡°I¡¯ll watch!¡±

    The King raises an eyebrow to me, and I nod. ¡°Yeah that should be fine.¡± I say. ¡°I am actually really curious to see how that innate skill of yours interacts with mine.¡±

    ¡°Does that mean I get to see what it does now that it¡¯s fully upgraded?¡± She asks, getting even more excited.

    ¡°Well I¡¯ll have no better chance to test it out than now.¡± I shrug. ¡°At the very least, I¡¯ll get a good idea of its limitations.¡±

    ¡°Then so it shall be.¡± The King says in overdramatic fashion. He waves his hand and both me and Blair are whisked away into our own little arena. This is the first time that I am in an arena while there is another fight actively going on, as all my previous battles had taken place when we were down to only having one fight at a time.

    Massive gray walls boxed us in, and they extended up seemingly forever. The stone box is only about 100 meters wide and long. Is this what people were seeing in the earlier stages of the tournament? I am just glad I didn¡¯t have to deal with this in an actual fight.

    ¡°Alright, show me the skill!¡± Blair demands. ¡°It has to be great! What is it? Is it a massive mana bomb? Maybe a storm of magic or something?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see it when I try it out.¡± I say, cracking my knuckles. ¡°It is going to wear me out quite a bit after I use it, so I am just going to do some normal control exercises first.¡±

    I pull the dimensional anchor from my storage and stick it into the ground at the very center of the stone box. Nothing happens for a few seconds, and it takes a moment for me to realize why.

    ¡°Could you go over to the corner?¡± I ask, pointing to one of the corners of the box.

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°Just do it please.¡±

    She walks further away from the anchor, and as soon as she makes it past the 50 meter threshold it activates. I had forgotten about the fact that it wouldn¡¯t work when anybody else was within its range. When I had used it during training with Talus he had used some weird trick with his mana to make a hologram of himself next to me. That didn¡¯t count as him being there, so he had been able to be right there while I trained.

    The space all around me stabilizes, and it feels like a weight is lifted off of my shoulders. My mana feels like it is practically falling into a separate dimension. I fully allow it to, and soon my mana is flying all around me in intricate patterns. None of it is visible to the naked eye thanks to it being in a higher dimension, but I¡¯m sure Blair won¡¯t mind too much that she can¡¯t see it. She¡¯s probably too enamored with the dimensional anchor.

    I glance over at Blair and am a little creeped out to see that she is watching both. One eye is staring unwaveringly at the anchor, studying every bit of it. The other has what looks like a circle of magic spinning around in front of it as it darts all over the place.

    ¡°You alright over there?¡± I ask her.

    ¡°Better than alright.¡± She says, her voice finally a normal volume. Probably due to the fact that she was too distracted to be loud.

    I finally realize what her eye is darting around to look at. Part of my mana flicks towards her, and I see her flinch back despite the fact that she shouldn¡¯t have been able to see it.

    ¡°You can see all of this?¡± I ask her.

    ¡°Yeah, I figured out how to do it after learning you used a lot of dimension magic.¡±

    Well, there goes my plans of being an undetectable ninja by placing my entire body into a higher dimension. I remember Talus mentioning that people could figure out ways to deal with me no matter what tricks I tried, and apparently this was her way of doing it. I wonder if she has some way to harm me if I did retreat to a higher dimension?

    ¡°So, you still want to see my big skill?¡± I ask her.

    ¡°In a bit, in a bit.¡± She says, her eyes still working independently of one another to absorb all the information possible. It was actually pretty creepy to see.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll give it a bit before I actually activate it. That way you can finish... whatever this is.¡±

    Well, I got some time to kill now. Talus had told me that one way to make mana control feel like second nature is to do it in the background while having your attention turned to something else. So, I decide to give that a shot. It wasn¡¯t usually something I could do with a lot of ease, but with the stabilization of the dimensional anchor it shouldn¡¯t be too bad to do.

    I pull the ¡°Tower of Legends¡± book from my aura and flip to the first page. I glance at Blair, and see the eye that was previously focused on the dimensional anchor now flicked back and forth between that and my book. After a moment it finally comes to rest back on the anchor. I let out a sigh of relief. I had half been expecting her to somehow sprout a third eye to study the book as well. If she had done that, I doubted I¡¯d be able to focus at all.

    My eyes skim over the pages of the book, but often I have to reread a page or two after drifting into the ever tricky mindset of ¡°reading but not really comprehending¡±. It happened quite a bit thanks to needing to keep quite a bit of attention on the mana that was slowly knitting a blanket in my aura.

    I had been expecting the book to give detailed explanations of each floor, but after I had finished the chapter about the second floor I came to realize that it gave way more information than I could have possibly hoped for it to.

    As it turns out, speeding my way through the floors of the tower resulted in me missing quite a few secrets on the floors. For instance, on floor two there is a set circle about 20,000 kilometers where monsters would be about as strong as they were when I had first gone to the floor. This was where everybody would arrive when they went to the floor.

    After leaving that massive circle of land, the levels of the goblins start steadily increasing. That explains why there were goblins that were such a high level during the goblin raid event. I¡¯d been under the impression that the tower had simply summoned the goblins for the purpose of the event. Hell, we may have been tens of thousands of kilometers outside the main circle. The event wasn¡¯t mentioned in the chapter, but I had a suspicion that there was another section somewhere in the book covering it.

    The goblin patriarch was apparently the hidden boss for the floor. I don¡¯t know if it is still there after killing it during the event, but either way I wasn¡¯t going to go and find out.

    The higher leveled goblins were far, far from the only thing I had missed on the lower floors though. In all fairness, traveling that kind of distance while being anything lower than level 50 would take forever, but there were instances of floor mechanics that I had completely missed while traversing them.

    On floor 3, there was apparently a function that prevented anybody from dying during the trials. If you were killed during one of the ten trials it put you through, you would be kicked out for 24 hours before being allowed to reenter the floor. I hadn¡¯t failed any of my trials, so I never discovered this feature.

    It did make me think back to when I had sent the initial batch of trainees Ben had given me to floor 3. I¡¯d told them to finish it within 24 hours if they wanted further training. I had assumed that the ones who¡¯d failed had left the floor after either facing a trial or a fight that they couldn¡¯t yet handle, but it was very possible that they had discovered this feature and been locked out for the remainder of their time limit.

    By the time I feel our time here is running low, I had finished the chapters on the first five floors. There were a few things I wanted to check out after the tournament now that I¡¯d read about them, though it was more likely I wouldn¡¯t get around to them until after I reached my next evolution.

    I stand up, and pull all of my mana back into my body. Not a trick I could normally do, but once more I could thank the dimensional anchor for doing the bulk of the hard work. I pluck the implement from the ground and store it away. The weight of dimensional instability once more presses down on me, but it only takes a few seconds to get used to again.

    ¡°Are you ready to see what I have in store for my last fight?¡± I ask Blair.

    She hops up from where she had been sitting in the corner. ¡°Absolutely!¡± She exclaims, storing away the various diagrams and sketches she had made on some paper. I hadn¡¯t even noticed she¡¯d been taking notes, but it makes sense. Higher stats gave us pretty good memory, but with the amount of information our heightened senses gave us some of it was sure to not make it into long term storage.

    Once she is finished packing up, I place an arcane tag on her. Unlike all of the other tricks I¡¯d used up to this point, she doesn¡¯t seem to notice it. I take a deep breath and activate the skill granted to me by reaching the max level of my innate skill.

    __________

    We reappear in the observation room a short time after my skill had been activated. I blink a few times, adjusting to once more being somewhere other than a stone box. We had probably been in there for about 2 hours by the time I¡¯d activated my skill, and the scenery had gotten dull quick.

    I take a quick look at Blair, who for once is not her normal bundle of energy. She is currently slack jawed, staring off into space. I can¡¯t blame her, as I¡¯d had a similar reaction when learning about the last effect of my innate skill. She¡¯d even gotten to experience it firsthand, as she had used her own innate skill to copy it.

    ¡°Welcome back.¡± The King nods. ¡°You have good timing. There should only be one or two more fights before it is your time to shine.¡±

    ¡°Good to hear.¡± I say, glancing down at the arena. Flynn and Ram are down there fighting one another. ¡°What¡¯s up with this matchup? Aren¡¯t they a few ranks apart?¡±

    ¡°They are.¡± The King confirms. ¡°We went through the top ten again to solidify everybody''s ranks and give everyone a good boost to their evaluation scores.¡±

    He hands me the same paper he had when I first entered the room, and I see what he means. Everybody''s evaluation scores were higher than when we¡¯d started. Most had increased by around 2000, with those closer to the top of the leaderboard having gained upwards of 3000. In second place was the cloaked man, who currently had 28,860. That was 3190 points higher than when the tournament had began, and exactly 100 points lower than my starting score.

    My score currently sat at 29,970.

    ¡°Damn, haven¡¯t quite made it to 30,000.¡± I say.

    ¡°It is impressive you even made it so close while still having another fight left.¡± The King notes. ¡°I only expected you to barely crest that mark, and here you are about to blow right past it. Even if you lose, your performance will likely be good enough to raise your score past that threshold.¡±

    ¡°Awesome.¡± I grin. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll even make it past 31,000.¡±

    ¡°A long shot, but it may be possible.¡± The King says. ¡°We will have to see.¡±

    ¡°So who is fighting after they are done?¡± I ask, looking back to the arena.

    ¡°Your next two opponents will be. I will be hiding the fight from all spectators though, as they would still prefer that you are unaware of what they are capable of.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    The current fight ends, and soon the cloaked man and the archer are sent down into the arena. A massive gray wall appears all around the arena, and I lean back in my seat a bit. It seems I had still not yet fully escaped the mind numbing dullness of the featureless gray obstructions.

    While the two of them fight, I take the time to read over the chapter about the first chain floors. Most of it is about the history of the kingdom and a bit of backstory about the world it is in, and about halfway through the chapter I just skip over it. I was looking for juicy secrets, not a history lesson on a kingdom that wouldn¡¯t even be relevant after I left the tower.

    The fight soon comes to an end, and the two of them are brought back to the observation room. Having a suspicion of how the fight went, I use identify on both of them and see exactly what I had been expecting.

    Human (level 95)

    Human (level 95)

    ¡°Looks like things just got a lot harder for me.¡± I say. ¡°Not that you¡¯ll hear me complaining about it.¡±

    ¡°Hopefully it is enough.¡± The cloaked man says.

    ¡°No time for anymore chat.¡± The King cuts in. ¡°When you get down there, give me a moment to hype up the crowd for this. They¡¯ve been sitting here for over a day now, and it is finally going to pay off for them.¡±

    Before any of us can say anything else, I am once more in the arena. On the other side of it I can see the cloaked man and the archer standing there. The King¡¯s voice fills the arena, the deep baritone to it shaking some of the loose particles of dirt on the ground.

    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the final battle of this tournament! On one side, we have a mage of great power, and on the other we have a duo that has trained endlessly to work as the best team we¡¯ve yet to see!¡±

    I look around at the stands, and see that some energy is finally entering the crowd. I even feel myself getting excited, more than I already was. It must be the effect of one of this King¡¯s leadership skills.

    ¡°No matter the results of this battle,¡± The King continues. ¡°Understand that what you are watching is the best humanity has to offer! For decades to come these will be the people you look up to in times of hardship and fear! Rejoice, as you will see for yourselves just how well protected you are!¡±

    The weight of his words hit me hard, and they don¡¯t even need to be affected by the skill that I¡¯m sure backed them. People would be looking to me for protection in the future? I already felt a bit of responsibility to protect others with my strength, but hearing that it would be actively expected of me felt like a lot of pressure. If that pressure weighed down on my opponents, they didn¡¯t show it.

    The pressure is lifted off me a moment later as the calm of an impending fight settles on my mind. It was a calm that was triggered by two words that had come from the King.

    ¡°Fighters, begin!¡±

 Chapter 52: Big Bout (1/2)

    At the very beginning of the tutorial, I had been given a massive head start thanks to the fact that I had earned an S+ tier title. The 25 percent increase to my stats had been a great boon, and had allowed me to surpass others quite quickly.

    As everybody had progressed through more and more floors, they upgraded their own titles and closed the gap that I had made. By now, everybody left in the tutorial had at minimum a B tier title, with many having an A tier one. At that level they were given a 15% boost to their stats, not too far off from what I got.

    Thanks to the other titles and passive skills I had accumulated, my stats were still quite a bit higher than everyone else¡¯s. That gap wasn¡¯t as large as it used to be though, and the flaws in my strength had begun showing themselves throughout this entire tournament.

    If I had to guess, almost every person in the top 10 participants could defeat me in hand to hand combat if we had the same stats. My martial prowess just wasn¡¯t up to snuff compared to the best of the best. The only person I had confidence in winning such a bout against was Blair, and her class wasn¡¯t even focused on combat.

    That is why for this battle I decided that I could not rely on my ability to fight in close range. Soon I would have to learn to properly wield some weapon, but for now I would be falling back on what were by far my two greatest strengths. My overwhelming stat advantage, and the fact that my magical capabilities were completely unmatched.

    I start the fight by immediately activating powerful presence. The space around me stabilizes slightly and mana bolts begin flying towards my two opponents. The archer responds in kind, sending a storm of arrows my way.

    The cloaked man does something that I had not been expecting. When he had been fighting in the goblin raid event, he almost exclusively used simple weapons and spells. He had a sword that he¡¯d picked up from some monster, and had an upgraded version of the mana bolt spell. I don¡¯t know why he¡¯d been hiding what he could do back then, but the point is that I didn¡¯t really know what his strengths were.

    As it turns out, he is a mage. Not just any mage, but an earth mage.

    A pillar of stone erupts from the ground in front of him, shattering into hundreds of shards a second later. Each of the shards fly towards me, and with the sheer quantity of shards it is damn near impossible to dodge all of them. The ones that hit me scrape against my shield, taking a bit of mana with each impact.

    I draw my aura in closer to my body, adding slightly to my defenses. Since neither of them were close enough to be affected by my aura, this was the best use of it for now.

    More arrows are fired towards me, and I am knocked forward when a few of them strike me from behind. I glance over my shoulder and see that some of the arrows are bouncing off the ground or far wall and redirecting themselves back towards me.

    I use my staff to knock a few of them away before deciding that it is too inefficient. I summon a wall of mana behind me to block most of the arrows, continuing to send my hail of mana bolts.

    This pattern only continues for about 30 seconds. The two of them quickly realize that the odds are in my favor if this turns into a battle of attrition. My high capacity for mana storage, coupled with the mana in my aura, meant that they were burning their resources faster than I was.

    The earth mage begins closing the distance between us, and I retreat closer to the wall behind me to get away. I only take a few steps before the ground beneath my feet shifts. I am now stuck up to the knees in the earth, and by the time I can free myself the man has already made it to me.

    He slams his staff into the ground between us, and it gets embedded into the ground. The end of it glows a bright yellow, and I feel something about the ground under me change. It felt kind of similar to when the space around me stabilizes, except he had done something similar to the ground under us.

    I instantly summon my cloak of flight, using it to hover about a meter off the ground. If the entire floor was a weapon he could use against me, then the last thing I wanted to do was to be standing on it.

    Two pillars of stone rise under the man¡¯s feet, and soon he is at the same height as me. Before I can go any higher his fist is flying towards me. It is a bit of a blur, but I can barely make out the fact that his hand looks jagged and rough, as if the skin itself was made of stone.

    I summon a shield of mana in my offhand, using it to ward off the flurry of punches as the rest of my attention is dedicated to deflecting the still ongoing storm of arrows. My shield shatters after a few seconds, catching me by surprise as a fist slams into my gut.

    I don¡¯t try to push against the blow, instead letting it throw me away from the earth mage. If his staff worked similarly to my dimensional anchor, then it should only work within a certain radius. Getting out of that was my best bet for evening the odds again.Stolen story; please report.

    Soon the ground beneath me felt normal again, but I didn¡¯t dare to land on it again. The mage was already closing in again, and distance was my best friend right now.

    Mana thrust activated at full throttle as I flew towards the archer. She doesn¡¯t seem surprised, and readjusts her aim to be pointing almost straight up. The next several shots from her bow are fired towards the sky before I reach her. Several consecutive blasts of mana erupt from my staff, but not a single one manages to land. She had disappeared from where she stood before any of them had reached her.

    I glance up at where she had fired the arrows, seeing that they had duplicated into many smaller arrows. In the middle of the cluster was the archer, already drawing the string of her bow again. I want to chase after her, but the mage is already on me again.

    His fists have grown in size, and the air around them ripples as they fly towards me. I am too close to dodge the strikes, and so I store my staff away as I grab both of his hands with my own. Each of my gloves use up the charge of mana blast I had stored in them to cancel out the strikes, and just like that we are locked in a standstill.

    I activate empower at its full 25%, and begin pushing the man back. That is at least confirmation of one thing. I was stronger than him. Thanks to my king killer title and empower, my body stat wasn¡¯t too much lower than my mind stat. He must have had his focus set to strength, because even with the difference in our body stat he is only a bit weaker than myself.

    I am forced to let go and retreat as the rain of arrows arrives. The mage doesn¡¯t pursue me, instead backing up to avoid the hail of arrows as well. The archer lands gracefully a moment later, releasing a shot from her bow that had evidently been charged up during her fall.

    It rockets towards me, and I am forced to throw up a thick barrier of mana to prevent it from skewering me. The barrier shatters on impact, but the arrow is disintegrated as well. I see the archer frown after seeing the powerful attack fail. She shouts out to the mage.

    ¡°Cover me!¡±

    The mage nods and runs towards me. The archer begins firing more and more arrows into the air, and she activates some kind of rapid fire skill several times to increase the rate of fire.

    I don¡¯t know what exactly she is planning, but I have a feeling it is related to her innate skill. It might just be her preparing to use one of the effects of the skill, but if she needs to be protected during it she is probably preparing to use the active ability granted by completing the skill.

    I try to maneuver around the mage with mana thrust, but walls of stone rise all around us. I am boxed in, and it feels eerily similar to the trick the titan had pulled off way back on floor 20. The walls start closing in slowly, and the mage is once more on me and battering me with blows.

    I summon thick barriers of mana over my forearms, using them to block most of the attacks. The ones I fail to block send shocks through my mana barrier, and I can tell that if this goes on for much longer he would almost certainly break through it.

    That chance never comes though.

    ¡°Now!¡±

    I barely make out the muffled shout of the archer through the stone walls, but the mage had heard it loud and clear. Without warning, he jumps to the side and goes right through the wall of stone like it isn¡¯t even there.

    The remaining walls collapse in, trapping me in my own tomb of stone. I can¡¯t see what is going on outside, but if the massive amount of mana I detect coming from directly in front of me is any indicator, it isn¡¯t anything good.

    ¡°Alright, time for a little gamble.¡± I say to myself.

    My aura tightens in a cylinder between me and the massive source of mana, which should hopefully slow down the impending attack a bit. My mana shield flares as it is infused with even more mana, and in particular the shield around my head is given even more mana.

    In less than a second, the massive mana source fires towards me, and light once more fills the world around me as my tomb is turned into glorified Swiss cheese. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of small arrows pierce straight through the stone, and nearly all of them hit my mana shield head on.

    The mana in my aura is nearly all gone in an instant. That one attack had drained damn near everything I had to block. My mana shield was very good at handling large quantities of weak attacks, but in exchange blocking so many attacks was also stupidly expensive.

    My mana shield oscillates in brightness before stabilizing. That lapse is enough to tell my two opponents that my defenses were pretty damn close to failure. They both begin to lay on the pressure, but one quick glance at the archer tells me that she is running on fumes after using that skill.

    It was pretty expected, as the amount of mana I had detected getting used in that skill was nearly as much as my total mana pool. She didn¡¯t have the same kind of capacity as me, meaning that the skill probably used a massive amount of mana from her while adding to it through some unknown means.

    I do my best to get some attacks in while the two of them break away the last bits of my mana shield, but eventually the inevitable comes to pass. With a sound like glass breaking, the mage¡¯s fist smacks against my chest, sending me flying back as my defenses give out entirely.

    I use mana thrust to reorient myself mid air, landing on my feet and sliding back several dozen meters.

    Before either of the two can get another attack off, I finally pull out the trump card I had been saving for the entire tournament. It was becoming increasingly clear that my odds of winning without it were essentially zero, and the only thing I had been waiting for was my aura to run out of mana.

    I feel the arcane tags I had placed at the beginning of the fight flare up, and the world begins to shift to a blue hue as the space all around us stabilizes. Powerful presence redoubles its efforts to assist the innate skill, though even with all of this it is still not as effective as my dimensional anchor.

    A massive hemisphere of blue encases me and my two opponents as I let out a deep breath, the feeling of my aura expanding taking over. It is like taking off compression socks after a full day of wearing them.

    I look to the two who are now trapped in here with me, smiling as dozens, then hundreds of spells appear in the air all across the enclosed space. I can¡¯t help myself from getting at least one good quip in before my spells are released. I had spent several hours trying to think of what to say after using this skill for the first time in real combat. Call it corny or basic, I don¡¯t care. It probably is both of those, but it just feels so good to say.

    ¡°We don¡¯t have too much time in here, so let¡¯s make this quick.¡± I say. A moment later, the mage and the archer are bombarded by hundreds of spells.

 Chapter 53: Big Bout (2/2)

    Casting hundreds of spells is not a cheap or easy endeavor. Being able to pull something like this off was the culmination of all of my experience so far wielding magic. My focus was entirely bent towards keeping up the onslaught as the spells worked to eliminate both of my opponents. Of course, none of this would be possible if it weren¡¯t for my innate skill giving a helping hand.

    Dimensional Duel (5/5)

    Effect 5: Enter a dimensional rift, taking any targets marked with an arcane tag with you. Upon activation, the user¡¯s aura is instantly replenished of mana. Within the dimensional rift, space is stabilized and all dimensional magic is cheaper to cast. Escaping the rift is difficult, but not impossible. Drains the user¡¯s mana and energy for the duration of activation. Allows unrestricted access to the mana within the user¡¯s aura. Requires a long recovery period between uses due to the strain this skill puts on the soul.

    There were several things in that skill description that were very important. For one, the drain that the skill mentioned was immense. If I simply stood still and did absolutely nothing for the duration of the skill, it would drain all the mana from my aura in about a minute.

    Of course, I wasn¡¯t just going to stand there and do nothing. This is why I had decided on a good balance between time spent in the rift and spells cast. In total, I only planned to spend 20 seconds in here. The other 40 seconds worth of mana would go straight into the unparalleled destruction being sent towards my two opponents.

    Speaking of said unparalleled destruction, this was only something that I could achieve thanks to what was probably the single most important facet of the skill, being that I had no restriction on accessing the mana within my aura.

    My aura had long ago outclassed the mana capacity of my body several times over. Thing is, that mana could only be used for powering passive skills such as my mana barrier and empower. With a lot of effort and concentration, I could extract it from my aura to use for active spells, but it was such a slow process that there is pretty much no hope of it becoming applicable in combat.

    Now though, I could use all of it to rain hell upon whoever I pleased. It was working quite well as the spells smashed through every wall of earth and shield of magic the two managed to conjure. About five seconds after the onslaught had begun, the archer had been killed.

    The earth mage looks around frantically for a second before his entire body becomes encased in a dark stone. It looks quite similar to when he trapped me in a ball of rock, but judging by the fact that my spells were failing to penetrate it, this was clearly a much stronger version of that.

    I couldn¡¯t stop now though, and many of my spells were now becoming arcane spikes to chip away at the nearly impenetrable defense. The seconds ticked on as more and more spells slammed against the stone, each taking very small chips off of the surface.

    By the ten second mark, I¡¯d made it halfway through the shell. By the 15 second mark, I could see the mans arms. By the time 20 seconds had passed and the rift began to collapse all around us, I had managed to utterly destroy his right arm and deal significant damage to the other.

    The blue dome that surrounded us cracked and shattered like glass, and soon we were once more standing in the arena with a crowd of spectators all around us. I have absolutely no idea what that looked like from the outside, but I¡¯m sure Blair is up there with meticulously written notes that I can read through later.

    The fight is now in the home stretch, that much is certain. I am positive that the skill the man used to survive was his innate skill. The King had even mentioned that most first innate skills are akin to get out of jail free cards. I guess mine is pretty similar in that regard, as since it replenished the mana within my aura it was most effectively used once it was completely empty.

    The wounds on the mages arms fill in with sediment and pebbles. They form themselves to match the missing flesh, and he readies himself once more to run towards me. He isn¡¯t in great shape, but I am definitely not in peak condition either.

    My innate skill was not without drawbacks. The biggest one by far was that I could not deactivate it. It simply kept going until my aura is once more completely empty. That meant that right now, I only had my mana pool to rely on. I knew that it might come to this point, so for the first half of the fight I had been pretty sparing with spells and other wastes of mana.

    The mage sprints towards me once more, his stone fists balled up and ready to beat me to a pulp. I didn¡¯t have my mana shield or empower to rely on here, meaning that this is a very tricky position for me.

    I channel the mana within my staff, using two of the three charges. Two gauntlets of mana appear on my hands, and I quickly store my staff away in my aura.

    This was an idea I¡¯d had shortly before the tournament began. If I could store spells in my staff, is there any reason I couldn¡¯t store a use of arcane arsenal? As it turns out, no there wasn¡¯t. There¡¯s of course a limit to how big of an item I can store, and these gauntlets barely fit within that limit.

    The mage finally reaches me, and soon we are exchanging punches. He doesn¡¯t look to be using any skills, probably because that innate skill of his had drained most of his remaining mana. I wasn¡¯t yet using any of my spells, worried about the fact that I only had about half of my mana pool remaining. If I win this fight, it is going to be by the skin of my teeth.

    Each attack that the man lands on my armor leaves small dent, but those are quickly adding up. My body is getting bruised and it feels like some of my bones are close to breaking. My attacks aren¡¯t quite as devastating to him, but small chunks of stone fly off of his body every time I land a hit.

    At the very start of this fight, I knew that if it came down to an exchange of blows I would be at a disadvantage. That was before I knew that the mage was also a monk hybrid. If nothing changed, I would lose this fight. The damage to my body is piling up faster than I can deal it, and the exhaustion from using my innate skill was slowing me down slightly.

    Thankfully, I didn¡¯t have to rely solely on my capabilities as a melee fighter. I have an advantage here that my opponent doesn¡¯t. Despite the fact that I often get up close and personal with my opponents, and often use swords in a fight, I am still a mage at the end of the day. I use magic to supplement my shortcomings, and right now I had a major shortcoming that needed to be fixed.

    Mana burns in my arms, firing out my shoulders and elbows as mana thrust activates. My arm flies forward, slamming into my opponent¡¯s chest with a loud cracking sound. Some of the noise came from the stone on his chest being reduced to pebbles, but I knew that some of it came from my bones. They did not like taking impacts like that, but right now it was the only real option I had.

    My other arm flies forward, slamming again into the man. He stumbles back from the impact, giving enough time for my fist to slam into him again. My arms go numb, but even then I continue to use mana thrust to slam them into the mage.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    With one final punch, the man falls to the ground. His body is littered with cracks and his face is completely covered in blood. He disappears in a flash of light a few seconds later, though I still remain in the arena. I look around at the crowd and at the people watching, and a moment later the King¡¯s voice echoes through the entire arena.

    ¡°We have our winner!¡±

    Cheers erupt from the crowd all around. I want to raise a hand or something and wave to the crowd, but neither of my arms can move of their own accord anymore. I just look around at the crowd, taking in the applause. After a few moments when it dies down, my body is fully restored and my mana reserves are topped off. It hits me like a truck when it happens, and I need to take a few deep breaths. I don¡¯t know why this couldn¡¯t have been done right after the fight ended, but whatever.

    In the middle of the arena, a podium with ten spots appears. A second later, I am teleported onto the top of the highest podium, with each of the other ones being filled by the other top competitors. A screen appears before me, and I read it.

    Select a name to be displayed on the final leaderboard. Displayed title will be included with your name.

    I choose to just be shown as ¡°River¡±, since I don¡¯t feel the need to go by an alias. People knew me by River, so there was no need to confuse anyone. I am kind of curious how everyone else will choose to display themselves though.

    After a minute, massive screens appears above the podium, as well as another appearing in front of me. On it is the final leaderboard for the tournament with everybody''s rank and evaluation score put right next to their name. A bit of exploring the screen reveals that it shows everybody¡¯s rank, all 2 million of them. As it turns out, the lowest rank person is rank 2,385,392 with an evaluation score of 73. How they got one that low, I have no clue. I don¡¯t bother reading anything other than the top ten after that.

    #1: River the King Killer (31,025)

    #2: Granite the Earth Mover (30,000)

    #3: Sharp Shooter Jane (29,243)

    #4: Unseen Shade (28,974)

    #5: Fionna the Rotten (28,563)

    #6: Flynn the King Killer (28,398)

    #7: Deadeye Blair (28,056)

    #8: Unstoppable Ryker (27,684)

    #9: Jeremy the Chilled (27,579)

    #10: S Tier Pioneer Iris (27,523)

    Well, I¡¯d have to make sure to stay at least 10 meters away from Flynn. Having the same displayed title felt like wearing the same outfit to a party. I¡¯d also need to tease Ram about that name later, because ¡°Unseen Shade¡± sounded edgy as hell.

    On a more important note, I had not been the only one to cross 30,000 points in my score. The earth mage, who I assume isn¡¯t actually named Granite, just barely managed to get that score. Apparently his performance was admirable enough to deserve it.

    The King spoke up once more as people finished reading through the top ten.

    ¡°Rewards will now be distributed to all who have participated in the tournament in order of rank.¡±

    The entire crowd flashes a bright green for a moment. A much smaller portion of the crowd flashes blue. A much smaller portion than that flashes purple. After that there are only small blobs of people that flash a cyan color.

    ¡°And now,¡± the King continues, ¡°the top ten participants will receive their rewards.¡±

    There is a small flash of purple in front of all of us, and purple orbs floats in the air in front of all of us. I use identify on it, and my eyes go wide.

    Upgrade Orb (Epic) (Soul bound)

    Upgrades any item to epic rarity. Weapons and armor will be upgraded relative to the users level up to level 99.

    An instant epic rarity item seemed like it could be quite useful. Getting one of these was pretty cool, but every single one of us got 3 of them. I store mine away in my aura, and a few seconds later a cyan flash summons two cyan orbs in front of us. I look around and notice that the people who were lower than rank 5 only got one of these orbs.

    Upgrade Orb (Special) (Soul Bound)

    Upgrades any item to Special rarity. Weapons and armor will be upgraded relative to the users level up to level 99.

    It is the exact same thing, except it upgrades to a rarity higher than the previous one. Like before I store these away in my aura, and two more orbs appear in front of me with a yellow flash. Everybody got one of these, but only me and the earth mage got two of them. This was the exact same thing once again, but for legendary rarity.

    Honestly, I thought for a moment that might be it. I was already very happy with what I had gotten, but it seemed that for at least two of us the rewards were not done coming.

    In front of me and the earth mage appeared a silver token. Its appearance was not accompanied by a flash like the others, but instead it just kind of faded into existence.

    Floor bypass Token (Legendary)

    Bypass any floor within the Tower of Nixtias, including any Champion Floor. All rewards for the floor will be given as if it had been completed through conventional means.

    What a champion floor is, I have no idea. What I do know is that I am going to be holding onto this thing until I absolutely need it. To top it all off, I got one more reward, one that nobody else had earned.

    Title Gained!

    Earth¡¯s Champion

    You have proved yourself the strongest inhabitant of Earth. +10% to all stats. This title can be stolen in the event that you are killed by another denizen of Earth.

    Yeah, all in all I would say that this tournament went pretty damn well. On top of all of these rewards, the fight I had just been in was intense enough to earn me a single level.

    You are now level 97

    We stand on the podium for another minute or so before they all lower to the ground, leaving the ten of us standing to just kind of stand there awkwardly. A screen appears in front of me, and as I read it people all throughout the stands start disappearing.

    Floor Event concluded. As you have already completed the chain floors 6-10, you will be ejected from the floor in 5 minutes. You may also exit early if you desire.

    I close the screen, deciding that it is for the best that I stay all 5 minutes. I walk up to ¡°Granite¡± and stick my hand out.

    ¡°That was a good fight.¡± I tell him.

    He looks at my hand for a moment, and instead of shaking it his hands move up to the hood of his cloak. It comes down and for the first time I can see his face. It¡¯s nothing remarkable. He just looks like a normal guy. Still, it feels like a meaningful gesture.

    He finally reaches forward and shakes my hand. His hand still feels coarse and rocky, and when I look down I see that it is still made of stone.

    ¡°Yes it was.¡± He says. ¡°I guess after that I should at least introduce myself properly. My name is Grant.¡±

    ¡°River.¡± I say. ¡°So, is your hand always like that?¡±

    The question is pretty blunt, but I just couldn¡¯t help myself.

    He rolls up one sleeve of his cloak, showing that the skin all the way up his arm has a rock-like texture to it. ¡°Most of my body is. I am an earth kin after all.¡±

    ¡°Earth kin? When I use identify on you I see you as a human.¡±

    He tugs his sleeve back down. ¡°That would be the cloak at work. I had it made for me shortly after hitting level 50 when I got the opportunity to change my race. It hides my real race when getting identified.¡±

    ¡°What is it like not being human? Was it a difficult adjustment?¡±

    ¡°It was a bit much to get used to, yeah. As for not being human, I don¡¯t really think about that much. My body feels just as natural as it always has. Still, learning to shift the rocks around my body was like learning to walk again.¡±

    ¡°Sounds difficult. Anyways, you have any ideas for what you are going to use those upgrade tokens for?¡±

    ¡°Honestly, I have no clue.¡± He shrugs. ¡°At least one of my legendary tokens is going to this cloak. As for everything else, I don¡¯t think I will be using it for personal equipment. I assume you know that items of a high rarity are more valuable when they aren¡¯t weapons or armor?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I do know. I wasn¡¯t planning on any of my tokens going to my equipment since the upgrade will likely be irrelevant after we evolve.¡±

    ¡°So what will it go to?¡±

    I don¡¯t respond for a few seconds, thinking about what I have that would benefit from such an upgrade. After a few seconds, something finally does come to mind.

    ¡°You know, I can think of at least one thing.¡±

 Chapter 54: Legendary Legends

    ¡°So what I am hearing is that you are onboard with this idea?¡± I question.

    ¡°Very much so.¡± Talus answers, nodding. ¡°In fact, I think it is a very good idea.¡±

    After the tournament had ended and I¡¯d said my goodbyes to everybody, I had come straight back to Talus and explained everything that had happened. I had also told him about all the rewards I¡¯d earned at the conclusion of the tournament, as well as what I had planned to do with one of my two legendary upgrade orbs.

    ¡°Well, now that I have your approval on this, that means I have somebody else to blame if it turns out to be a complete waste.¡±

    Before Talus can say anything in response, I use the upgrade orb. It disappears from my hand, and the item in my other hand glows a bright yellow for a few seconds. There are no noticeable changes to the item, but the notification I get lets me know that the process had been completed.

    Tower of Legends (Special) Has been upgraded to Tower of Legends (Legendary)

    It had become extremely clear to me that the knowledge within this book would be very useful as I climbed the tower. The knowledge it held within would have completely changed the way I approached some floors if I had known their secrets beforehand. Even if this book would cease to exist at the end of the tutorial, the value it could bring me now more than made up for that.

    I quickly check the description of the book with identify, seeing that it has in fact changed, though not very much.

    This book contains the secrets behind the Tower of Nixtias. Within it holds the history of the tower, as well as the secrets of all floors and champion floors within the tower. This tome will be immediately destroyed upon completion of the tutorial.

    The description had gone from saying it held ¡°some secrets¡± to holding ¡°the secrets¡±. That probably meant that it would tell me a lot more about each floor, despite the fact that it already felt like it was telling me all there was to know. Just how much more could there be to learn?

    More importantly, it mentioned the existence of champion floors. This is the second time I¡¯ve heard of them, with the first time being not even 10 minutes ago when I obtained the floor bypass token.

    ¡°What¡¯s a champion floor?¡± I ask Talus, looking to him.

    ¡°Unfortunately, I cannot tell you.¡± The god responds, shaking his head. ¡°While I know quite a bit about the tower, I am still restricted from telling you all I know about it. What I can say is that all I would be able to tell you should be contained in the book anyways.¡±

    I sigh, my shoulders sagging a bit. ¡°I¡¯m guessing that means I have a lot of reading ahead of me.¡±

    ¡°Just skip to the sections about the champion floors for now. You can skim over the others later.¡±

    I crack open the book, flipping close to the end of it. When I¡¯d first obtained the book, it had only shown the information for the first 30 floors. Given that there were a lot of blank pages in the book after that, I am pretty sure more information would be available after progressing further through the floors. Now, it looks like I won¡¯t have to worry about that at all.

    ¡°Holy shit.¡± I mutter, flipping through page after page of dense text. It seems like the book being upgraded had completely removed that restriction, and now it simply held the information for every floor, regardless of if I had been to it or not. I quickly flipped past the pages for floor 40, then 45. Eventually, I reached the last normal floor of the tower.

    50 floors. That is how many are contained within the tower. I had already completed floor 35, meaning that I had only 15 floors left to go. That made the 128 days I had remaining for my time limit seem like an absolute eternity. Even if the progression of floors getting longer and longer continued, there was just no way that time limit could pose a problem.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    At least, that is what I had been thinking. That thought process had come to a screeching halt after I reached the section on champion floors. It came right after the floor 50 chapter, and just reading about it made my thoughts stir with anticipation.

    Champion floors are unlocked upon the completion of floor 50 and the tutorial. They are the ultimate test of one¡¯s capabilities, demanding mastery over each facet of one¡¯s power. There are 10 total champion floors, and each one is highly personalized to the individual taking them. Upon leaving a champion floor without successfully completing it, access to the floor is locked for 100 hours. Completion of even a single champion floor is a massive accomplishment, and a testament to one¡¯s skill that proves to everybody they are not to be taken lightly.

    The chapter went on and on about the floors, such as possible challenges that may be given depending on the type of class you had. As a mage, I¡¯d probably get a test on my ability to manipulate my mana. As a duelist, I¡¯d probably be put in a very difficult fight for another floor. As an arcane creator, I¡¯d probably need to make some complex device with my mana for one of them.

    All of this was interesting, but what piqued my interest even more was when I got to the section about rewards for completing champion floors.

    Rewards upon completing champion floors:

    1% increase to all stats per completed floor

    1 level per completed floor

    Pioneer title upgrade after 1 and 5 floors completed

    Each of those rewards were extremely good, but the next rewards sent a shockwave of thoughts through my head as I read them.

    Rewards upon 10th champion floor completion:

    Option to free 1 god from the tutorial

    True Completion of the tutorial

    Personal meeting with Nixtias

    There are suddenly so many questions I want to ask Talus, but I don¡¯t know which to ask first and which he can even answer. Stumbling over my thoughts is going to result in zero questions being asked, so I just say the first one that my mouth can snatch from my brain.

    ¡°What the hell?¡±

    Okay, not the most useful question. Let¡¯s try that again.

    ¡°What does it mean true completion of the tutorial?¡±

    That¡¯s more like it.

    ¡°True completion in the sense that you¡¯ve fully completed it. Sure, 50 floors is technically when you finish the tutorial, but beating every champion floor is truly completing it.¡±

    ¡°Well, it says as much by it calling the tenth one ¡®true completion¡¯.¡± I shake my head. ¡°I¡¯ll even get to meet somebody named Nixtias for doing that. Who is he anyways? I know the tower is named after him, but other than that I have no clue what his deal is.¡±

    ¡°Well that¡¯s an easy question. Nixtias is the creator of the system.¡±

    ¡°Creator? As in he made the whole thing from the ground up?¡±

    ¡°Yep. Nobody is completely certain why he did it. Some people have theorized it is simply his way to grow stronger himself, others think he did it to stave off boredom as the most powerful being in existence.¡±

    ¡°How powerful even is he?¡±

    ¡°That is a pointless question to ask. To try and quantify his power is like trying to count to infinity. There is simply no limit to his power. He has complete omniscience and control over everything. My title of ¡®god¡¯ may be one that was hard earned, but to call him anything other than an all powerful deity would be understatement.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like he is pretty powerful. Have you ever met him?¡±

    ¡°Once, yes.¡± Talus nods. ¡°It was quite a long time ago. In the earlier days of the system, Talus would personally greet every single person entering it from a new solar system. I¡¯ve heard he doesn¡¯t do that anymore, though I don¡¯t know why.¡±

    ¡°Is there anything I have to be nervous about when I meet him?¡±

    Talus chuckles. ¡°Look at you, already seeing it as an inevitability. Don¡¯t get ahead of yourself, because the champion floors will be tougher than anything else you have faced so far within the tower.¡±

    ¡°Yeah yeah, but if I don¡¯t complete them then you will still be stuck here. That means that there is nobody outside the tower who will know about my extreme levels of overconfidence.¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t saying it is a bad thing to be so confident. In fact, that is exactly the mindset I want you to have. If I am being honest, the odds of me escaping this tower are not high, not at all. Very few gods have ever left once they were imprisoned here, and I was one of the first to be trapped in the tower.¡±

    ¡°Now look at who needs some confidence.¡± I joke.

    Talus smiles. ¡°Well, by the very nature of probability sometimes it is ok to bet against the odds. If you want my true opinion, I have full faith that you will get me out of this tower. When you do, you will have a very powerful ally to back you up in whatever you choose to do. Now go and do some reading so you are as knowledgeable as possible on the remaining floors in the tower.¡±

    I halfheartedly salute to him. ¡°Sir yes sir.¡±

    I stick my dimensional anchor in the ground and begin to flip through the book. It is much thicker now than it had previously been, so a lot of information must have been added. I¡¯d need to reread the chapters I already went through. I sigh, knowing that I had a lot of reading ahead of me. At least I could also spend this time practicing my mana manipulation, as before I evolved I wanted to upgrade that skill one last time.

 Chapter 55: Skill Eat Skill World

    My plan to upgrade my mana manipulation skill was pretty simple in concept. Ever since I had gained my mana conversion skill, I had used to to boost the power of just about every other spell in my arsenal. It was similar to my mana manipulation skill in that while it could be used directly in many ways, it really shined in supporting other skills and spells.

    I wanted to take advantage of that fact. I used them both primarily as supportive skills, and that gave me high hopes for possibly combining the two of them. I had done something similar way back when I had combined mana shield and mana barrier into arcane fortification. This would be a bit different though. Instead of a mutual combination, my much more valuable mana manipulation skill would be cannibalizing mana conversion and integrating parts of it.

    One of the reasons that I wanted to do this was due to the time investment it would take to upgrade the skill any other way. Sure I could probably practice controlling my mana until it upgraded to a higher rarity, but that would take far longer and would only work to lessen the time I had to complete the champion floors. Now that I was actively working towards that goal, my 180 days within the tutorial turned from a generous time limit into a rapidly approaching deadline.

    Mana conversion itself is only at epic rarity at the moment, and the first step to having this combination properly work is going to be upgrading that to special rarity. It has yet to be upgraded since I obtained it, mostly because I have absolutely no idea how to upgrade it. I still don¡¯t. That means that the time to experiment with it has come.

    I¡¯ve already spent a good amount of time messing around with the skill and testing some of its limits, of which there really aren¡¯t that many. I can turn my mana into kinetic energy, light energy, concussive energy, and just about every other kind of energy I can think of. One of the few that I can¡¯t really recreate is magnetic energy. I can make a decent electrical current required to make an electro-magnet, but if I want to make one I need some kind of medium to push that electricity through in a coil. I tried using a coil made from my mana, but that unfortunately hadn¡¯t worked.

    I¡¯d considered getting some kind of metal wires wrapped around the fingers of my gloves to use as magnets, but I have yet to be in a scenario where I think that would truly be useful. Overall it just didn¡¯t seem worth the time and effort.

    Another limitation of the skill is that I can¡¯t go back and forth on the conversion. Once my mana is converted to something else, I can¡¯t get it back or convert it to a different kind of energy. That is the limitation that I would most like to get rid of. Hell, perhaps I could even find a way to soak up energy to restore a bit of my mana. I could be my own thermal generator if I ever wound up fighting a dragon in a volcano or something along those lines.

    So, that is exactly what I start to work on. I head to the 13th floor to practice, as being completely surrounded by water would provide some minor assistance in keeping my mana from dissipating into the environment.

    I start by simply converting some of my mana into heat energy, boiling the water just outside of my mana barrier. I had chosen this specific kind of energy due to the fact that it stuck around longer than most others. Kinetic energy was gone the second an object stopped moving, and keeping up with light was a tad unrealistic.

    I keep doing this for a while, boiling the water around me to try and really feel the heat. I needed to be able to sense it in a manner similar to my mana if I wanted to be able to convert it back. After what felt like hours of doing this, I started to feel some of the energy. At first I almost thought it was in my head. It was such a faint feeling that I nearly chalked it up to boredom. A bit longer though and I was confident that I had a feel for the energy.

    It took even longer to really be able to sense it properly. Knowing it was there and really understanding that it had a presence were two different things. Now I could faintly feel the way it moved as it spread out evenly through the water.

    I begin working from there to convert the energy back into mana. After an hour of absolutely zero progress I take a break and grab a meal at the great city. With the speed I can travel at now it is not a very long trip, and only two hours later I return to the water to continue working on the skill.

    It takes a while.

    Okay, that is a bit of an understatement. It takes a lot of time. I didn¡¯t even get my first drop of mana back until about 3 hours into the process. Obviously that wasn¡¯t going to be enough to warrant a skill upgrade, so I took the win and worked to improve the efficiency.

    After nearly an entire day I manage to get the skill to the point of upgrading it. I¡¯m glad that it is enough, because I felt like I¡¯d hit a wall in terms of efficiency. No matter how hard I tried I struggled to recover more than 20% of the spent mana. Thankfully that was enough to break through to special rarity, because I did not want to spend the time to break through that threshold.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    Mana conversion (Epic) has been upgraded to Energetic Conversion (Special)

    Energetic Conversion (Special)

    Using your will and skill, convert mana into various forms of energy, and convert said energy back into mana. Efficiency of this conversion is determined by your mind stat and your proficiency with this skill.

    Now that I have that done I can start the next step of the process, actually combining the two skills. Last time it had been as simple as trying to use mana shield and mana barrier at the same time, but I had a feeling it wouldn¡¯t be as simple this time.

    I couldn¡¯t have been more right about that.

    Hours later I was hyping myself up as my mana was almost done regenerating. Each attempt at this was quite costly. It used nearly my entire mana pool each time I wanted to do it. I¡¯d left the 13th floor in favor of doing this particular step of the process back in Talus¡¯ domain. He could give me a few pointers where needed, but really I just didn¡¯t want to risk anybody intruding on my practice and getting hurt. As far as I knew only I could enter this place, and Talus was in no danger of being accidentally injured by somebody so much weaker than himself.

    My dimensional anchor was sunk into the ground nearby, which had helped quite a bit with these attempts so far.

    ¡°I think this is the one.¡± I say to Talus once my mana fully regenerates.

    ¡°You¡¯ve said that a few times now.¡± He responds, though he doesn¡¯t sound like he doubts my words. ¡°Just be prepared to evolve as soon as you upgrade the skill, as I am quite sure it will be enough of an accomplishment to grant you the two levels you need.¡±

    ¡°Hopefully it is. Otherwise I am going to have to go kill a few monsters and probably evolve in the middle of a floor.¡±

    I take a deep breath and begin the exercise I¡¯d been doing to try and merge the skills. I needed to integrate the skills with one another, which meant using them simultaneously as if they were already one in the same. To accomplish that, I was making elaborate patterns with my mana and moving it all around at once. Parts of the pattern were made up of beams of light that stretched for small sections, being converted back into mana after a few meters of travel.

    Converting light wasn¡¯t as nearly easy as converting heat, and had taken a lot more practice to figure out. Even then, I didn¡¯t get even close to the same kind of efficiency when converting from light back to mana. I didn¡¯t even get 10% of the initial investment back.

    I did get some back though, which meant that I could essentially make my mana move almost instantly anywhere as long as I was willing to sacrifice the extra mana. That sounded like it could have great applications in combat, but it would mean that every single spell I cast would be about ten times more expensive. I could already accomplish the same thing with my trait and at a lower mana cost.

    The point of this exercise wasn¡¯t about practicality though, it was about using my mana in a unique way that heavily relied on both of the skills I wanted to merge.

    Each section where the mana converted to light and then back to mana was a spot where 90% of the mana would be lost. That is what made this particular use of my mana so expensive. It was inefficient as hell.

    With one last burst of mana, each section shines brightly for a second before a blast of mana erupts forward. The radius of the blast is about 10 meters in every direction except for the one towards me, and the air shudders from the force as the boom of the explosion reaches my ears.

    The pattern of mana quickly falls apart and my reserves are instantly emptied. I feel light headed and sit down, avoiding reading my notifications quite yet. If I had just gained the levels necessary to level up, I knew that until I read the notification informing me of that fact that my evolution wouldn¡¯t actually begin.

    Almost instinctivley, I knew that my plan had finally worked. I don¡¯t know how exactly I knew, but I just had a feeling that the two skills had turned into one. Maybe it was the presence of another legendary skill in my arsenal that made it easy to feel. When my aura manipulation skill had been upgraded to legendary rarity it had left a feeling of power in my very being, a feeling that I once more felt.

    ¡°I did it.¡± I say, smiling and giving Talus a thumbs up.

    ¡°Congratulations.¡± The god nods. ¡°Now I suggest you get on with your evolution. No point in wasting any time.¡±

    ¡°I guess that¡¯s true. I¡¯ll just read over the skill description first, then get it over with.¡±

    I check my notifications, confirming that the skills had successfully merged.

    Mana Conversion (Special) and Omni-Mana Manipulation (Special) have merged to become Omni-Energetic Mana Manipulation (Legendary)

    Omni-Energetic Mana Manipulation (Legendary)

    Manipulate the mana within your body and aura to perform various tasks. Provides an increase to mana control within your aura. Allows you to convert all aligned mana into various forms of energy and convert all aligned energy back into mana. Efficiency of conversions is determined by proficiency with this skill and your mind stat. Increases the effect of your mind stat while manipulating your mana. Slightly increases the size and potency of your aura.

    You are now level 99

    You are now level 100

    Prepare for evolution...

    And just like that, as has happened two times before, I am dragged into the deepest parts of my soul to undergo some major upgrades in power. Unlike the past two times it has happened, I am greeted by a notification before ever fully entering the liminal space.

    You have met the requirements for 3 new races.

 Chapter 56: Third Evolutions a Charm (1/2)

    I knew from day one that there was a potential for people to change their race upon evolving. The system had told me that when I first entered the tutorial. Up until now I hadn¡¯t gotten any new races offered to me, and aside from Grant I knew nobody else who had. My guess was that they were more commonly offered at later evolutions, but given that I was the first person in the tutorial to reach this point I couldn¡¯t really confirm that.

    Despite the fact that these races seemed like my only choices, I had a strong feeling that I could choose to not change my race at all. It wasn¡¯t a feeling I could explain, and was probably one being forced upon me by the system. At least I knew that I could remain human if I really desired to.

    Unlike the classes, which had been shown to me on massive stone pillars during both of my previous evolutions, my new race choices were all displayed on the pedestals of very large and very lifelike statues of myself. Each of them looked like me, but had slight changes. One of them looks like a taller, more muscular version of me. Another looks like a slightly more handsome, pointy eared version of me. The last doesn¡¯t seem to have any changes from my current appearance.

    I randomly pick the taller statue to check out first. I walk over to it and read the description carved into the pedestal.

    Arch-human (Tier 2)

    A human who has broken through the barrier of level 100 and ascended past their base form. Arch humans receive a bonus balanced across all attributes as well as the skill Endear (Special)

    Race requirements: Level 100, Human

    Something about the race felt wrong. I double checked my stat screen and confirmed the feeling, noting that the tier of the race was the exact same as my current one. Did that mean I¡¯d be getting the same amount of stats from my race as I was before? I really hope that isn¡¯t the case, because that increase is one of the main things that contributed to the massive power gaps between evolutions.

    Obviously there had to be some benefit to picking this race over sticking with my current one. Perhaps it was the attribute bonus the race provided that was supposed to provide the increase to power. Maybe there was some benefit to remaining at the same tier as before. I could deliberate more and decide once I checked out the other two options.

    For no reason in particular I decide to run my hand over the text on the pedestal. As soon as my fingers come into contact with the stone, the world around me transforms into an arena much like the one I¡¯d been in not long ago. Before I have a chance to question it, a flash of movement in front of me grabs my attention. Two monsters clashed against each other, both a blur as they exchanged blows and cast spells at one another.

    For a brief moment their weapons lock long enough to give each creature pause, which gives me enough time to see them. On the left was a tall monster with green skin and heavy metal armor. It looked like a stereotypical orc. On the right was not a monster, but someone that looked a lot like me.

    No, that is me.

    This copy of my was a bit taller and a bit more muscular, clearly visible through the armor. It wielded a sword made of mana in one hand and my staff in its other hand.

    The two beings once more turned into a blur of speed and exchanged blows that shook the ground under them.

    Well, I didn¡¯t have to worry about not seeing a jump in power anymore. If this was supposed to be a preview of what choosing this race was going to be like, then I could confidently say this was better than whatever increase in stats not changing my race would provide. I still didn¡¯t know what the Endear skill would do, but that would just be a side benefit compared to the raw power this option could give me.

    After about thirty seconds of watching the intense fight, the world once more fades to the black void that is my evolution space. I look to my right and see one of the other statues, this one the pointy eared version of myself.

    Half-elf (Tier 2)

    A mix between the elven and human races, taking the best of both worlds. Half elves have a greater aptitude for magic than humans, while not being quite as magically potent as their pure-blood counterparts. They also display physical strength beyond what elves possess, while being weaker than a human. This class provides an increase to magical abilities as well as the Coalesce (Special) skill.

    Race requirements: Legendary Mana Manipulation skill

    This was clearly meant to lean more towards magic and away from close quarters combat. Aside from how obvious that was, it was also confirmed when I placed a hand on the pedestal and got to see my half-elf self in action.

    Once more in the arena, there were two slightly slower blurs of speed from before. While they were slower, the power they displayed was no less than what was shown off by the previous option. What made up for the lower speed was the sheer power behind every single spell that launched out from the staff the half-elf wielded. Dozens of spells fired towards the orc that was being fought, each one rivaling the strength of a triple cast mana blast at point-blank range.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    On top of that, the shell of mana around the half elf shrugged off every attack from the orc as if they hadn¡¯t even made contact. It didn¡¯t even shimmer as mine tended to do when taking powerful attacks head on. If I had to bet on it, I doubted that I could break through that shield without activating my innate skill. Even then, I wasn¡¯t too confident.

    After the display ended, I moved on to the last statue. It was visually the least interesting, looking exactly like me. For that reason I¡¯d saved it for last.

    Manaling (Tier 1)

    The manaling has become so intertwined with their mana that they incorporate the energy into their very body and soul. A manaling¡¯s body is primarily made up of their mana. Provides massive magical potential as well as the Reconstruct (Special) skill.

    Requirements: Legendary mana manipulation skill, Legendary Aura manipulation skill, Mind attribute primary focus - Capacity

    This one was an even lower tier than the other two, and had much steeper requirements. It required not one, but two legendary skills. It also required me to have capacity as the primary focus for my mind stat. I didn¡¯t have that at the moment, so I assumed it meant capacity would be forcibly switched into the primary slot once I selected it.

    That was far from ideal. Potency being my primary focus meant that I pretty much always had firepower far stronger than anybody else my level. Now though, it would be a smaller margin than it was previously. I wonder if Grant had been forced to change his attribute focuses when he changed his race.

    I place my hand on the pedestal, and what I see sucks any objections I may have had right out of my mouth.

    As soon as the preview started, it was instant action. My copy was still fighting the same orc as before, throwing spells and fighting with weapons made of mana. Each individual spell wasn¡¯t quite as powerful as they were in the preview of the half-elf, but they weren¡¯t too far off. On top of that, the spells were coming out of every part of my body. They shot out from my hands, arms, shoulders, hips, back, and legs.

    On top of the massive quantity of spells that were firing out, I could feel the massive amounts of mana stored within the body of my copy. The description wasn¡¯t lying when it said my body would become primarily mana. With how much power was sitting in that body, it felt like I was staring at a massive bomb ready to explode at any time.

    About halfway through the preview, the orc seemed to use some kind of skill as it swung its massive club down to cave in the head of my copy. To my amazement, my copy raised its arm, transforming the limb into a shield to deflect the blow.

    The preview ended not long after that. My mind was pretty much made up by now. I still wasn¡¯t completely sure what the tiers of the races meant, but given that the requirements for this race had two legendary skills instead of the one that the half-elf required, I felt that this was probably the rarer option of the two. Besides, the previews showed that the lower tier wouldn¡¯t result in a significant loss of power, so it couldn¡¯t be that bad right?

    I resolve to choose manaling as my new race, and a confirmation prompt appears before me.

    Are you sure you would like to select Manaling (Tier 1) as your new race? Upon confirmation, capacity will be automatically slotted as the primary focus of your mind attribute.

    ¡°Yes.¡± I say. Once the word leaves my mouth, I can feel my body start changing. A tingling sensation spreads across every inch of skin, and after about a minute it fades. I look down at my hands and legs. Nothing has visually changed, but I can feel that they are now made entirely of mana.

    I spend a few minutes looking through my body and taking note of all of the changes. For starters, it seems the only parts of my body not replaced by mana are my brain and my heart. Everywhere else has been replaced by extremely dense mana. Even that might be an understatement, as one leg alone contains more mana than my entire body did pre-evolution. I don¡¯t know how much of that I can access before it starts damaging me, and I resolve to figure that out as soon as this evolution is complete.

    I take a look at the familiar stone pillars that had appeared while I was becoming a manaling. Each one had a class and a description on them, like they always did. I begin reading through all of them, giving each a once over.

    Mana-Made Menace

    Striking fear into all who dare oppose them, a mana-made menace displays overwhelming power over those weaker than them. The mana-made menace specializes in defeating hordes of enemies of a similar or lower level, gaining strength as they become outnumbered. Grants the Overpower (Special) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Suppression

    Dimensional Warden

    Showing total control of the space around them, the dimensional warden wins their fights not only through self empowerment, but through the sabotage of others. Using their skills to weaken all within their aura, the dimensional warden traps all who enter. Grants the Dimensional Chain (Special) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Lockdown

    Auric Annihilator

    A battle can be won before it ever begins. The auric annihilator aims to use their aura to utterly and thoroughly destroy any who cross their path. With far more ease than any other, the auric annihilator can shatter the aura of their opponent, leaving them vulnerable at best, and dead at worst. Grants the Aura Crush (Special) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Aura Dominion

    Peerless Dimensional Duelist

    An utterly undefeatable foe in a fair fight. The peerless dimensional duelist looks higher for true challenge, often facing opponents of far greater power than themselves, taking them on alone. Now being comprised entirely made of mana, the peerless dimensional duelist is harder to put down than ever. Grants the Indomitable (Special) skill upon selection.

    Innate skill unlocked upon selection: Untouchable

    Wow.

    In my previous two evolutions, there had been one or two classes that obviously stood out from the rest. A few that were so obviously better that the rest weren¡¯t even worth considering. This time, all four looked like they would be extremely powerful if used to their fullest potential. This was not a decision I could make lightly. None of my evolutions were, but this time it was especially important for a few reasons.

    From talking to Talus, I knew that my next evolution wouldn¡¯t come until level 200. That meant that whatever class I picked now would be what I was stuck with for far longer than I¡¯d had any of my others. The only class out of this list that I had any reservations about was the Mana-made Menace due to it seemingly clashing directly with my current class. If I picked it though, it would mean that whether I was fighting those weaker than me or stronger than me, I¡¯d be receiving a boost to my stats. I¡¯d be able to take on armies by myself. It would make me far more versatile. But would that versatility be worth the trade off of not specializing further by becoming a Peerless Dimensional Duelist?

    This is going to take a lot of thinking. So, that is exactly what I do. I plop down on the floor, cross my legs, and begin to think about what choice would be the best pick for me.

 Chapter 57: Third Evolutions a Charm (2/2)

    Alright, the first class that I should consider is pretty obvious. Peerless Dimensional Duelist would be a direct upgrade from my current class, likely boosting the bonuses I am already getting from my dueling skills. It would allow me to more easily take on enemies that are more powerful than myself, and could help close the gap in stats between me and them. That was all well and good, but there was one major question in my head that was holding me back from immediately picking this as an option.

    Would specializing further be as big of a power boost as branching out into other sources of power? Sure, it would make some of my core skills far stronger, but I highly doubted it would straight up double the stats I was receiving from them. I won¡¯t completely discount the possibility of that being the case, but if it was true then that would mean I could potentially take on enemies dozens of levels higher than myself. Given everything I knew about how power scaled throughout an evolution, that really didn¡¯t seem too realistic.

    In other words, I would pretty much be gambling on it being a better choice than the next class of interest.

    Dimensional Warden also seemed pretty centered around closing the gap in stats between me and my enemy. The only difference between this class and Dimensional Duelist was that it would be working from the opposite direction. Instead of raising my combat abilities, it would lower that of my opponents. Problem was that I didn¡¯t know exactly how much it would do that. If I ran into an enemy that could somehow resist the weakening effects of the skills I would gain, that could also be a big problem.

    The next potential pick for my class was Auric Annihilator. If I am being honest, it is pretty hard not to have a little bias towards the class with how badass the name sounds. Reading through its description, it seems focused around suppressing my enemies by either attacking or outright destroying their aura. I knew that outright destroying someone''s aura, even with skills specially made to do it, wasn¡¯t an easy thing.

    Way back during the goblin raid event, I had tested out my newly upgraded aura skill on a few of the monsters. I could pretty much instantly kill any of them 10 levels below me, and significantly hamper any that were around my level. By the time they had 10 or more levels than I did, I could only slow them a bit.

    Despite the overwhelming power my aura had over the goblins, I hadn¡¯t been able to completely destroy the aura of any of them. Perhaps it was because I didn¡¯t know how or simply because I was still getting used to using my aura as a weapon, but even considering all of that, goblins are still goblins. They are weak for their level and easy to kill for even non-combatants.

    On top of all of that, it also just didn¡¯t fit my fighting style very well. Leveling this class quickly would probably involve finding hordes of monsters who were just barely weak enough to be either killed or nearly killed by my aura. That didn¡¯t sound particularly fun.

    The more I thought about it, the more I realized the class was probably not what I would be picking. It was just too focused around killing enemies that were around or just a bit above my level. Sure it might be great for levels given its potential to wipe out massive amounts of enemies quickly, but the only thing about the class that was appealing to me was the name.

    Mana-made menace fell in the same vein. It was focused around killing many weak enemies quickly. Sure, having the ability to take on a lot of weak enemies or 1 strong enemy would be nice, but the other two choices I¡¯d been offered would let me take on 1 really strong enemy instead.

    Now that just left me with Dimensional Warden and Peerless Dimensional Duelist as my choices. Both seemed great for a multitude of reasons, but since I didn¡¯t have any idea how good the skills would be I would have to make some assumptions.

    Let¡¯s say that my stat total is about 10000, and the stat total of my enemy is 20000. I knew from experience that fighting an enemy twice my strength gave a massive boost to my stats, closing the gap by about 40%. That meant that as it was currently, I¡¯d have a 14000 total in my stats in a fight like this. This left a gap of 6000 between our totals. In my opinion, the most likely result of further specializing my class would be that my current abilities get a 50% boost in strength. That would mean closing the gap by 60% instead, resulting in a total of 16000 stats and a 4000 stat difference.

    Now instead of getting that 50% bonus, let¡¯s say that Dimensional Warden allows me to hamper the strength of my opponent by about 10%. That would bring them down to an effective stat total of 18000, just 4000 higher than my total of 14000. This left the exact same difference in stat total. You did also have to take into account relative differences though.

    If I do that, then some back of the napkin math tells me that with the Duelist class, I¡¯d be 20% weaker than my opponent. With the warden class, I¡¯d be about 23% weaker.

    Simply looking at the math, Dimensional duelist seemed like the obvious pick here. It would provide the best increase in stats and would be an easy stepping stone from my current class.

    However, I knew from experience that numbers weren¡¯t everything. Most of the skills granted by my current class were all about numbers. They increased my stats and the damage I did to my opponents. I had a few tricks such as arcane tags, but other than that all of my spells and skills were made and upgraded by me either through my own efforts or the tutelage of Talus.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    With the Warden class, I had a feeling many of my skills would be less focused around numbers. The skill I would gain upon selecting it seemed like proof of that. Dimensional Chains sounded like it would hamper the movement or strength of my opponent in some way, which could prove to be more valuable than lowering the difference in stats.

    So now my choice boiled down to which one I thought would be the best fit for me. They both seemed quite powerful, and I had a feeling that neither choice could necessarily be considered worse than the other, at least not enough to make the choice obvious.

    After a few minutes of deliberation, I finally decide that for my third evolution, I would become a Dimensional Warden. What made up my mind was the fact that I enjoyed using active skills as opposed to relying so much on passive skills. A passive skill will give a flat boost through an entire fight, but using an active skill at just the right time or in a creative way could provide results far beyond what a passive skill could.

    I select Dimensional Warden as my new class, and as soon as I do I feel the rush of stats. The next notification appears in front of me, notifying me of my subclasses¡¯ new upgrade.

    Your subclass Arcane Creator has been upgraded to Dimensional Creator!

    Arcane Arsenal (Special) has been upgraded to Dimensional Armory (Legendary)

    Would you like to select a second subclass?

    Like I did last evolution, I decline the second subclass. I am pretty giddy to see that my Arcane Arsenal skill upgraded to a legendary skill, so I quickly read through the new description.

    Walking Armory (Legendary)

    Using magic and willpower alone, manifest one or more temporary items into existence made wholly by your mana. Initial mana cost and upkeep are determined by the size and complexity of the item created. Grants a significant boost to the effectiveness of the Mind stat while manifesting an item. Items can be created within your aura to be equipped at a later date. Maximum amount of items that can be stored is determined by your aura stat and the size of the items.

    Two things had changed about the skill. The first was that it now granted a larger bonus to how effective my mind stat was while creating things with the skill. The second was that I could create items in my aura, storing them for later use. I could see a few uses for that. It would help me not waste mana on making weapons in the middle of a fight, saving me some more mana. Not that mana capacity would be much of a problem, as being a manaling meant it was the primary focus of my mind stat now. Still a little sour about that.

    You may now review your updated status screen. Upon closing your status screen, your evolution will end.

    I take a look at my status screen, taking note of all the changes my stats went through during this evolution. It seemed a lot more dramatic than the past few evolutions had been, but that¡¯s just the nature of exponential growth.

    Name: River Banks

    Race: Manaling (Tier 1)

    Level: 100

    Class: Dimensional Warden

    Subclass: Dimensional Creator

    Trait: Planes Walker

    Displayed title: King Killer

    Statistics:

    Body: 4332 => 7467 (Agility-Strength-Constitution)

    Mind: 5866 => 9002 (Potency, Capacity, Recovery)

    Spirit: 3920 => 7055 (Aura-Perception-Soul)

    Class Skills: Omni-Energetic Mana Manipulation (Legendary), Auric Authority (Legendary), Dimensional Chains (Special), Accumulate (Epic), Mana Harvest (Epic), Ambitious Fighter (Epic), Spell Split (Epic), Powerful Presence (Epic)

    Class Spells: Walking Armory (Legendary), Arcane Shatter (Special), Arcane Flash (Special), Arcane Fortification (Epic), Mana Thrust (Epic)

    Personal Skills: Empower (Epic), Inspect (Uncommon)

    Innate Skills: Dimensional Duel, Lockdown (1/5)

    Titles: S+ Tier Pioneer, S tier populous, King Killer, Earth¡¯s Champion

    I quickly check the description of my new innate skill and my new Dimensional Chains skill.

    Lockdown (1/5)

    Effect 1: Lower the base stats of all enemies within your aura by the difference in your levels, up to a maximum of 10%

    Dimensional Chains (Special)

    Create chains in a higher dimension to shackle a target. Each chain binding the target lowers their speed and strength, with the effect scaling with your mind stat. The Durability of these chains is determined by the mind stat as well as mana invested.

    Huh, that isn¡¯t quite what I¡¯d been expecting. I had assumed that choosing dimensional warden would fully step away from me getting stronger against higher leveled enemies, but by the looks of it the class still incorporated some aspects of it. I remembered Talus mentioning once that changing the direction of your class gets more difficult the higher leveled you are. Perhaps this was the system¡¯s way of still incorporating my general fighting style into my new class. Maybe it knew I still intended to fight high leveled enemies.

    Either way, this meant that I couldn''t just apply the debuff to an enemy one level higher than me and suddenly have a few levels worth of stats over them. It says it scales with the difference between my and my opponents levels, so I wonder if that works the other way too. Would I be able to lower the stats of people 10 levels lower than myself? I don¡¯t see that ever being useful, but maybe something worth testing.

    After another once over (technically now twice over) of my stat sheet, I close the screen. Just like that, everything fades to black and I am once more in Talus¡¯ domain where I¡¯d just begun my evolution. As soon as I am back, I see Talus¡¯ eyes widen in surprise.

    ¡°A manaling,¡± the god says, his eyes studying me. ¡°It has been quite a while since I¡¯ve seen one of those. Looks like you had quite the interesting evolution.¡±