In the Tower, there are two types of residents. One who aims for the top. One driven by something that pushes them forward, floor by floor, step by step, until the goal itself becomes the second reason, but the thrill of the climb and adventure the first.
The second are those who stop after they have gained whatever they strove to gain. They plateau at a floor, carve out a settlement, and live their lives freely.
What kind of climber do you want to be?
Adrian reads the messages before he looks around. A stubbornness to get to enjoy the scenery after the Tower is done troubling him with unnecessary messages.
A new one appears as soon as he is done reading the first one.
There are no settlements on this floor.
There are around 10 floor bosses, scattered across the plains. Each once killed takes 2 hours to respawn, with random placement.
To clear the floor:
- You must defeat a floor boss, or at least be a contributor in defeating a boss.
- Sacrifice 100 litres of magically treated blood at the altar after defeating the floor boss.
Adrian removes the messages, and finally looks at the view in front of him.
There lays a grassy plain sprawling in front of him. A field of flowers to his left and a lake cutting through the land to his right. The greenery stretches far into the horizon and then beyond. Up above one can see a clear blue sky with no sun. A perfect day.
This is the first floor of the Tower. A perfect heaven, a perfect starting point to be enchanted by the beauty of the Tower.
Adrian walks towards the flower field. The flowers have two colours: white and black.
Adrian plucks a flower from its stem and looks at it closely. The flower is like a rose, but its petals make a distinct structure. It is the face of a kid.
Adrian drops it and picks up another. This one has the face of a man, an adult in his 40s. One after another, Adrian plucks more and more flowers. A woman, another kid, an old woman, someone in their teenages. There are all ages of flowers here.
“Adrian what are you doing? This is such a pretty garden! Don’t destroy it,” Matthew stops his hand, scowling at him. Adrian returns his scowl with an impassive look of his own, before changing into a quick smile.
“I think I’m still getting used to my new strength. I didn’t mean to pluck them, I’m sorry.”
Matthew nods without much belief in his words, and they both go back to the party.
Yes, Adrian thinks, this is the beauty of the Tower.
The faced flowers are just the first of the delicacies presented by the Tower. Born from the blood of the men and women who die here, the face created by the petals of the flowers change as they grow, growing into adults and then old folks.
Adrian inhales and exhales, releasing all of his rage against the Tower and appearing normal again. Just a normal guy bewitched by the Tower.
“I’m sorry for the delay, let’s go ahead,” Adrian says, flashing a grin at others. Buren grumbles, Leah forgives him, and they start walking again.
“So what are our goals for today? Do we want to go to the next floor immediately, or take our time to level up a little, explore the floor, and then ascend tomorrow?” Buren asks.
“Let’s try to at least reach level 5 on this floor before we head up. I’ve heard that being above level 5 is a much more comfortable level to be at for the second floor with its jungle areas, unless you have a particularly mobile class,” Leah inputs.
“I agree. The monsters here are around 1-10, and they become rarer from level 5 onwards, with only the floor boss being level 10. We should be able to easily reach level 5 within a day. Then we come tomorrow, kill the floor boss, and ascend,” Matthew says.
Adrian nods his head along the other. If it is up to him, he’d have liked to ascend today itself, but this is fine too.
“Let’s go then!” Matthew shouts, walking in front of the others with his huge shield in hand.
#
The first creature they encounter, Buren, almost loses his head.
It was when they were picking some apples from an apple tree that the creature attacked them. It blitzed forward and jumped at a very high velocity, directly at Buren’s head.
It is Leah who notices it and jumps on him to protect him from the creature. The cat-like thing in turn strikes the tree at full speed, breaking the tree in half, and then stands up again, like it hadn’t just bashed a tree to death.
“Splintercats! Matthew!” Leah shouts, as the big guy with the shield stands between them and the splintercat: a cat with a very very hard head.
The splintercat does not stop its attack just because of the existence of a hunk of metal between it and its prey. No, the cat, as if renewed with energy at having something to strike its head against, charges once again, and shoots at the shield.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A loud gong resounds around them, Matthew is pushed back, and the cat falls on the ground as if nothing just happened.
Well, it would have fallen on the ground, if not for Adrian casting a Prison at the exact place it is going to fall. He realises another fatal flaw of the spell as he casts it, that it becomes severely difficult to catch something in motion, if he doesn’t know it’s pinpoint location at the instant the skill is going to take effect.
Thankfully this time, as the cat is just being pulled straight down by the gravity, and also since Adrian is so close to it, he is able to successfully imprison it.
The prison, just like the other times, flashed into existence with a snap of his fingers and a yellow spark preceding it. Only this time, there is a tug of war in his mind. A pitting of his Mind against the cat, and he wins easily.
The splintercat which is about to land on the ground is suddenly suspended into the cage. It looks stunned and tries to claw its way out, but some kind of force is keeping its body in place, only allowing its face to move in panic.
Through this, he understands that time is not frozen in his prison. It makes sense, because what’s the point of a prison where the prisoners don’t even feel the torture. Regrettably, he won’t be able to keep food fresh in it.
Also that sound has no way of being transmitted through the prison. Perhaps in some future upgrade, an opportunity like that can appear, but what would be the point? To talk to his prisoners? Why would he want to do that?
“Nice job!” Buren says, scrambling up from where he has laid sprawled.
“Ad, you can release the prison whenever you want, right? Or is there some kind of time limit we are playing with here?”
Adrian shakes his head, “I don’t know if there’s a time limit or not, but I don’t think I’m going to near it anytime soon, so don’t worry too much.”
“That’s good. Everyone, take your positions! We kill it as soon as Ad releases it. Matthew, be ready with your shield in case the cat has some other tactics,” Leah orders, and everyone quickly takes their position.
Matthew directly in front of the prison lantern, while he and the others take a spot in the other cardinal directions. Buren moves away a little further to its south, away from where it can see him in the prison.
“Can you keep it suspended for 5 minutes? I might be able to get all the criteria for my spell. I wanna see how it works,” He says. Adrian looks at Leah who nods, so he gives him okay.
And so they wait.
And as minutes tick by, the adrenaline of the fight fades, leading to more of a boredom than anything. A very dangerous feeling in the middle of a fight to be honest, but such is the state of things. Leah and Matthew even munch on apples in wait.
“Goddammit Buren! I don’t even want to kill it anymore!” Matthew shouts.
Leah and Adrian too give him nasty looks. The guy in question chuckles awkwardly and says, “Just one more minute. It’s almost ready. I promise!”
“If it’s gonna take so long in the middle of a fight, then what’s the point of such a skill?” Adrian asks. He still has been a little salty about the dud thing from earlier.
“The time will decrease with the increase in my Kinesthetics! It’s really just gonna be like this for a few more days, and then I’ll be able to use it regularly in a fight!”
Adrian shakes his head.
A few moments later, finally, Buren yells, “Now! You can do it! I can feel the criteria being fulfilled!”
“I’m sorry for the torture little guy,” Matthew says, sighs, and readies his shield.
Leah too brings her blade forward, while buffing the others and ready to debuff the splintercat. Adrian feels a small boost of strength flow in his body. Like his blade stayed much more firmly in his hand, and his eyes saw just a little bit more.
Leah nods, and Adrian releases the skill.
Instantly a sharp cry of the splintercat resounds through the area, as three blades simultaneously pierce its body–Buren suddenly appearing beside them with no preamble.
The cat instantly dies.
You have killed a Splintercat lvl 2
You are the highest contributor in the fight.
You have levelled up! Manifold Warden lvl 2
And that is how Adrian gains his first level in this tower. By torturing a splintercat because his party member couldn’t finish fast.
Adrian sighs. The level up doesn’t even feel that celebratory.
“Are you done? Can we go and find something else now? And you are not using that skill until you have already fulfilled the criteria, or you have decreased the waiting time.” Adrian says.
“Yes yes, let’s go now. I’m sure we’ll find a lot more enemies very quickly.” Buren waves off the remark, this time taking the lead in the party.
And it is only 10 minutes later that the party finds another prey. Something much much more dangerous than the splintercat. A splintercow.
Unlike the splintercat, this one is a legitimate magical creature, boosting acceleration magic. A tough hide, an even tougher head, and a capacity to accelerate its 1000 kgs self. The only thing worse than getting hit by it–at least for people like them–is getting hit by a cannonball at their face.
Neither of which are very admirable prospects.
“Buren,” They all look at Buren after scouting the cow who is peacefully munching on the remains of some careless climber. Truly a dreadful creature.
“What?” Buren asks.
“You take the lead,” Matthew says smiling.
“Bullshit. I’m not going near that thing. Didn’t I do my job as the scout? What else do you want?” Buren complains.
“You just saw it ahead of us, what’s scouting in that?” Adrian asks.
“And I can already see three more of these through the path we just walked. Do you want to catch them, or not?”
Adrian hums in thought. No need to continue the joke after such a good offer.
“Anyway, stop piling on Buren now. Adrian, see if you can capture it with your Prison. If it fails, then instantly create some avatars to keep it busy and encircle it. While it is busy defeating them, we will move in from the side and kill it then, understood?” Leah said. Everyone nods.
Adrian looks at the distant creature and snaps his fingers. The mental tug of war happens again, but this time the opposition is more fierce. Adrian pulls with all of his strength and focus, but eventually loses.
He opens his eyes, and finds himself being dragged up by Matthew as the splintercow chases after them with blood on its face and anger in its eyes.
How did I lose to a fucking cow?
#