The Art of the Proxy

I focused on my ability. A translucent window appeared, just like a status screen.

It was a simple ability window, almost minimalist. Yet somehow, knowledge of how to use it flowed into my mind without any explanation.

When I selected the avatar slot, another translucent window popped up.

Only two dimensions, but I understood the pattern immediately.

“Dimensions, huh… If I choose Earth, does that mean a clone of me will appear in Korea?”

If my senses were right, this ability let my mind—or perhaps my soul—enter the clone and control it like my own body. It had better be Korea, though. The last thing I needed was my avatar popping up in the middle of some random foreign country or the middle of the ocean.

“And Tower Floor 2 is an option? So the rumors were true—each floor really does have its own flow of time and separate world?”

Tower returnees claimed they’d spent years inside, yet only days or months had passed on the outside. Among their testimonies were plenty of dubious or outright unbelievable stories, and most people knew that the WPTO heavily censored information about the Tower after its founding. As a result, the only details released to the public were from the first decade after returnees first appeared, or the information on the first ten floors that the government had declassified for public safety.

I’d never particularly wanted to enter the Tower, so I only knew the basics.

“What are Avatar Points for?”

It didn’t seem to cost any points to create an avatar, but I had no idea what they were actually used for. Since I had none right now anyway, there was no point worrying about it yet.

“It’s a shame it isn’t some flashy, intuitive superpower, but at least it’s geared toward stability.”

Even if the avatar died, I wouldn’t. And I could create as many as I wanted. That was an enormous advantage. As long as my real body stayed safe on the first floor, I was essentially immortal inside the Tower.

I opened the Tower Shop and spent my points on a one-handed sword and a shield. The sword had an 80-centimeter blade, a 20-centimeter hilt, and was about 5 centimeters wide at the base. The shield was a round wooden buckler roughly 60 centimeters in diameter and 3 centimeters thick, reinforced with an iron rim.

“This shield’s heavier than it looks.”

Throwing it like some superhero in a movie was clearly out of the question. Still, a shield needed this kind of weight to feel reliable.

My points dropped from 10 to 8, but that wasn’t a problem. From what I knew, killing monsters gave you Shop Points. The first ten floors were basically a tutorial; I’d heard that even an ordinary person who’d mastered their ability and had a weapon could clear them without too much trouble.

I set down the military bag I’d bought at the PX during my conscript days and tightened the laces on my combat boots. I’d already taken my spare fatigues home when I was discharged, so the bag was nearly empty—which somehow made it even more cumbersome.

“Create avatar. Tower Floor 2.”

The first slot filled with “Tower Floor 2,” and my vision changed.

In the empty white space, a room made of bricks that looked like ancient ruins appeared, along with the same crystal I’d seen on the first floor. Two choices floated above the crystal.

I skimmed over the crystal’s text and checked my body.

“This is the avatar?”

It felt exactly like my own body. There was zero sense of disconnection. It didn’t feel like a clone at all.

“Wait—where’s my sword and shield?”

The sudden panic made me slow to react to the white ball of fur charging straight at me. If I’d swung a fist, I might have been fine, but in my flustered state I couldn’t even manage that. The thing slammed into me head-on.

“Guhk!”

Something sharp and pointed stabbed into my chest, knocking the breath out of me. The white furball thrashed, kicked my stomach, and yanked out the long horn embedded in my forehead. The horned rabbit, now drenched in my blood, looked down at me and smirked.

“Squeak.”

You little son of a—!

That was my last thought before my consciousness snapped back to my original body.

Back in the empty white space with nothing but me and the crystal, I clutched my chest and gasped for air.

“Haaah! Haaah!”

It didn’t hurt. But it did hurt. The sensation had been far too vivid for something that was supposedly just an avatar. My heart trembled as if phantom pain from being stabbed was still lingering.

In my real body’s hands were the shield and sword I’d bought.

“Damn it! It gave me clothes but not the weapons?!”

I ground my teeth. Relief at not actually dying, lingering phantom pain, and a burning mix of rage and humiliation at being mocked by that horned rabbit flooded my mind.

Dying to a damn horned rabbit, of all things!

I, Han Jiwoo, had never been the type to just take a beating lying down. I didn’t care about anything else, but I was definitely going to kill that little furball before I left this Tower.

First, calm down. A bald man’s heart is on fire—no, let’s go with a cool head and a burning heart.

I analyzed the current situation.

“What determines how the avatar is created? Why didn’t the weapons and shield come with it?”

In my panic I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the avatar was wearing the bag I’d set down on the floor. That meant the avatar was created based on my state the moment I first received the ability.

When I got the ability, the common abilities had appeared first, followed by my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠personal one. Did that mean the avatar also had the Tower’s common abilities?

I didn’t know. I’d have to check with the avatar itself.

When I opened my ability window, I saw that the slot had changed.

So that’s what Avatar Points were for—reviving. A timer I couldn’t see before had appeared beside it, but the time wasn’t ticking.

“Does time stop in other dimensions?”

I’d have to test that too. I created another avatar on Floor 2.

My body was lying on the ground. From the lukewarm, sticky smell of blood behind me, it seemed the new avatar had been created exactly where I’d died.

The hole in my chest was gone. The horned rabbit, unaware I’d come back to life, was proudly wiping my blood off its face with its tiny front paws.

I stayed perfectly still and first checked whether the shop window would open. It did. I immediately bought a one-handed sword, stood up, and swung it at the rabbit with all my strength.

“Squeak!”

The damn rabbit sensed me moving and tried to dodge, but its vision must have been blurred by my blood. It failed to evade and was cut down.

“This is revenge for Avatar Number One, you stupid Bugs Bunny!”

Yes! I won!

I raised the sword high in a victory pose. Now that the fight was over, the blood soaking my back felt gross.

“…I can’t wash this off, can I?”

My pants were clean, but my shirt and bag were caked in blood. The wound Avatar One had taken hadn’t been that big, but the heart stab had caused massive bleeding.

I wanted to wash and change right away, but that wasn’t possible until I reached the tenth floor. I knew that once you hit Floor 10, a public area appeared—a town of sorts. You couldn’t go back to cleared floors, but you could return to the public residential floors.

The text on the crystal had changed too.

Before heading to the third floor, I pulled a fingernail-sized mana stone from the horned rabbit’s corpse. Mana stones were a new energy source that had appeared after the Towers and Gates emerged, drawing a lot of attention as a novel material.

As I picked it up, I noticed a small green stone next to the blue one.

“Two stones?”

I felt something from the green one.

“Oh… Is this an Ability Stone?”

Unlike natural ability users, Tower returnees possessed more than one ability. One came from entering the Tower, and the other came from absorbing these stones. I’d heard Ability Stones were extremely rare, yet here I was getting one on the second floor.

The problem was that you couldn’t tell what ability it contained until you absorbed it. I’d heard you could get something called an Appraisal Document while climbing that would identify unknown items, but I didn’t see any in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Tower Shop.

“Well… I guess I’ll just absorb it and find out.”

Ability Stones were called lottery tickets alongside high-grade healing potions, but ability always beat money! Now, how did I absorb it? Did I eat it?

While I was wondering, the stone reacted to my will and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sublimated from solid to gas before vanishing. At the same time, a swordsmanship style I’d never seen before was etched into my mind.

When I checked my status window, a new ability had appeared beside Multidimensional Avatar: Blue Wood Swordsmanship Lv 1.

I swung the sword exactly as the knowledge instructed. My body couldn’t quite follow the movements in my head yet, but it felt distinctly different from when I’d swung at the rabbit earlier. It was a strange and fascinating experience to wield swordsmanship I’d never learned.

“Blue Wood Swordsmanship doesn’t have its own window like Multidimensional Avatar. Is that because the avatar ability came from the Tower? Or do different abilities work differently?”

Even Tower returnees rarely explained their core abilities in detail, so I had no way of knowing whether mine was special.

I tried to put the bloodstained mana stone into my inventory and opened it. Inside was the discharge bag I’d stored with my main body.

“Whoa! Does that mean common abilities are shared between the avatar and the main body?”

That meant my real body wouldn’t need to waste Shop Points on food. I was about to store the stone when I remembered the time difference between dimensions. I lightly tossed it into the air and returned my consciousness to my main body.

I counted a full twenty seconds, then switched back. The stone was still falling.

“So time really does stop in other dimensions.”

I caught the stone, stored it in the inventory, and opened the ability window with the avatar’s body.

On the avatar, it showed the main body’s location and time instead. The spot that had said “Avatar Points” now read “Absorb.” When I selected it, an explanation appeared.

There wasn’t much detail, but I got the general idea. It let me transfer abilities and stat growth gained by the avatar to my main body. The avatar would disappear after the transfer, but since I could create as many as I wanted, “disappear” wasn’t really the right word.

“So this is how I’m supposed to grow.”

I selected Absorb. My consciousness immediately returned to my main body.

When I returned to my main body and checked my status, the Blue Wood Swordsmanship ability that had only existed on the avatar had been added. Then another notification window appeared.

“So Avatar Points come from absorption and level-ups?”

It seemed the ability’s level and point total were determined by how much I grew the avatar. Fortunately, simply absorbing and recreating the avatar didn’t appear to consume points. If it had, the whole absorption mechanic would have been far more limited.

I shifted my consciousness back into the avatar, placed my hand on the crystal on Floor 2, and headed for Floor 3.

It wouldn’t make the sword disappear again… right?

(To be continued)