Floor Collapse

"Huh?"

A foolish exclamation slipped out of my mouth at the notification that had suddenly appeared. It was so bewildering that my brain simply stopped working for a moment.

I stared at the notification window for several seconds before belatedly grasping what it meant.

What? Floors 17 through 19 had collapsed?

Why all of a sudden?

Could it be because I killed the Emperor? Or because I successfully defended the fortress?

Unlike Ha Heijeong's first regression, I had no way of knowing what the cause was. The other climbers were probably just as baffled as I was.

I didn't need to check to know that the climber community forums must be burning up with speculation.

Party messages were already flying in with urgent questions. I told my party members that I honestly had no idea what was going on, then sent a message to Ha Heijeong.

Since this was something that hadn't even happened in Ha Heijeong's first regression, there was no clear-cut answer to be had. If anything, the regressor herself seemed the more bewildered of us.

After mulling it over for a while, Ha Heijeong offered the most plausible hypothesis she could come up with.

What Ha Heijeong said seemed accurate. With the Emperor dead, the Tower of Trials had evidently judged that the trials left behind on the fallen planet were no longer worthy of the difficulty of floors 17 through 19. And so the floors themselves had simply ceased to exist.

Hmm. I more or less understood the cause of the collapse now. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠What I couldn't tell, however, was whether this collapse would be a blessing or a curse for us.

By default, we were told it awards 8,000 achievement points and six stat points.

Since that was stated as an average, it would be more than generous compensation for lower-tier climbers. There were also additional rewards distributed according to ranking.

For high-tier climbers, though, the situation was a little different. They would need to recoup their losses through those additional rewards — and there was no way of knowing whether those rewards were truly adequate compensation.

On top of that, all the combat experience they could have gained by conquering each floor was gone. In a sense, we'd missed three opportunities to grow stronger.

Certain climbers would come out fine if their bonus rewards were decent, but for others, the floor collapse could actually prove a loss.

For now, I carefully reviewed the rewards I'd been given.

First: +2 to all stats. Honestly, viewed on its own, that was a loss — clearing three floors would have raised them more.

But…

Second: permanent ownership of Ronsyark's Dagger. Now the math changed. This was an absurd, almost unbelievable windfall. The average price of a unique-grade item ran around 50,000 points. I had earned an enormous haul of achievement points on Floor 16 in particular, but even so, scraping together nearly 50,000 points across three floors would have been a tall order.

And finally.

The Dimensional Forge free-use voucher. Hmm — I had no information on this one, so there was no way to judge it. It wasn't just any forge, but a dimensional forge, so it seemed like it had to be good for something…

All things considered, I've come out ahead, at least.

Whether because the hidden mission reward was factored in, I had profited to a frankly ridiculous degree. I had no way of knowing what additional rewards the other climbers had received, so I sent Ha Heijeong another message — partly to ask about the Dimensional Forge as well.

The bottom line was this: the floor collapse turned out to be a greater gain than I'd imagined.

I already knew how precious a unique-grade item like Ronsyark's Dagger was. But the Dimensional Forge free-use voucher was worth even more than that.

Ha Heijeong said she only saw it twice in her first regression, right?

And in both cases she hadn't used it herself — she'd merely watched others use it. Once by me, and once by Alexei Brakham.

The Dimensional Forge voucher connected the requester free of charge to master craftsmen who suited the equipment they wanted — craftsmen hailed as the very best in the universe for that particular piece of gear. The only catch was that the requester had to supply the materials.

But I have the dragon's corpse, so that's not an issue.

A dragon's carcass is precious. It's valued even higher than metals of greater hardness. So as long as I negotiated well with the craftsman, I could potentially come away with equipment even better than anything crafted from the dragon remains themselves.

On top of that, supposedly there was no risk of getting ripped off when using the voucher. Excellent. So this was how the snowball from landing a good sponsoring deity came rolling in…

Wait a second.

The thought of my sponsor made a question suddenly surface. A fundamental one. If sponsoring deities could intervene in the floors like this, why had it happened only to me? It wasn't even a hidden mission — it was an action that had caused a floor to collapse. Something other deities could have done on other floors just as easily.

Simply because my sponsor is a good one?

That didn't seem to be it. If that were the case, other sponsoring deities would have dangled hidden missions in front of their climbers as bait to raise their stake percentages too.

I spent a little time puzzling over it, but no answer came, so I messaged Ha Heijeong.

Since I'd already told her about my original sponsorship offer, Ha Heijeong explained in greater detail.

Ah. Now it made sense. That was why deities didn't sponsor information about hidden missions or special equipment freely. Why they didn't just throw sponsorship at anything and everything. And why there was a separate reason behind sponsoring climbers who couldn't refuse — because sponsoring cost the deities something too.

Since sponsorship had never really mattered much to me personally, this was information I'd never thought deeply enough about to learn.

Ha Heijeong admitted, somewhat vaguely, that she didn't know the fine details about deities herself. Fair enough — even before her regression, she had only been a climber. There was no way she could know every inner working.

Just as I thought the conversation was winding down, another message arrived from Ha Heijeong.

Using the Dragon Heart Cutter I'd purchased from the shop, I split the Dragon Heart cleanly in two. The reason I'd bothered to buy the cutter was simple: the Dragon Heart was extraordinarily hard, and cutting it precisely in half was no easy feat.

After paying the required transfer fee and sending one half to Ha Heijeong, all that remained for me was to make use of the Dimensional Forge. I'd already discussed with her how I intended to use it.

"Yes."

I answered forcefully to the notification's flat, businesslike voice. Immediately, a message came through.

"Full plate armor."

I had debated briefly between a weapon and armor, since the edge of my axe had been chipped in the chaos of slaying the dragon on Floor 16 — but in the end, I decided to spend the voucher on full plate armor.

The reason was simple. I didn't yet own any armor worth using. That had been Ha Heijeong's forceful argument. The weapon could be repaired at the Floor 20 Waiting Room, so it got pushed down the priority list — and there was the synergy with the Wild Blood skill to consider as well.

There is armor I want to buy from the shop, sure…

But this would be armor made by the finest master craftsman in the universe. Of course it would beat anything else.

Ha Heijeong was right. Up to now, I had neglected my defense far too much. Starting Floor 21 meant starting a new solo trial, and my protective gear was woefully inadequate.

Above all, I had to survive whatever attacks came my way. Even if the axe broke, I still had my lightning and Ronsyark's Dagger. But armor could not be substituted.

With no telling what a solo trial might throw at me, armor was the top priority. And I had earned quite a pile of achievement points besides — if the axe repair proved too difficult, I could simply buy a new one.

As I was thinking this, a voice reached me.

"Climber Kwon Suhyeok, a pleasure to meet you. I am Roxant, a blacksmith who makes armor. What sort of armor do you require, and from what materials?"

The voice came from somewhere distant — exactly like the sound of the Dice of Fate rolling.

Am I supposed to just… speak?

"I have the carcass of a Red Dragon in my possession. An Ancient Dragon, that is. I intend to have a full suit of plate armor made from it. Should you have better materials available, I would also be willing to pay for them with the dragon's remains."

"Hmm, a Red Dragon, is it… The carcass of a dragon is difficult to work with, you see. Crafting it into armor would take considerable time. And that's rather inconvenient for a climber waiting on it, I imagine. You must climb the next floor soon, no?"

"Yes. I need to ascend within two or three days."

"Hmm…"

Over the voice line, Roxant hesitated.

"As it happens, a supply of top-grade metal has just arrived from Jiuchuan. How about this instead? It would, however, require additional achievement points."

Hmm. Now the conversation had shifted somewhat. I thought Ha Heijeong had said the voucher simply came with an upgrade included…

Could a top-grade metal from Jiuchuan really be more valuable than a dragon's carcass?

"How much would that require?"

"The carcass of an Ancient Red Dragon. You have set aside the Dragon Heart separately, I trust?"

"Yes, the Dragon Heart is excluded."

"Then it will require an additional 20,000 achievement points."

Hmm, 20,000 points. With nearly 80,000 points on hand, I could certainly afford it. If the metal Roxant mentioned was as good as he implied, it seemed like a fine deal. Ha Heijeong had told me there was no chance of getting scammed through the voucher…

Still, better safe than sorry. I asked Ha Heijeong in an offhand way.

Judging from her reply, Ha Heijeong seemed genuinely startled. Was it really that valuable?

As I was wondering, another message flew in.

Oh — right. The Jiuchuan's Mana Storing Gauntlet. I'd gotten so used to calling it just the mana-storing gauntlet that I'd forgotten its origin.

The metal Roxant mentioned was unique-grade — the very material of the 75,000-point gauntlet I was wearing. I hurriedly replied to Roxant.

"Yes, please proceed. Let's go with that."