The Tower: Slime Summoner (Part 2)
Looking at the status window, Blue Wood Swordsmanship and Blue Wood Cultivation had merged into the single Martial Arts category. Thanks to continuously consuming elixirs, my body was fairly clean, though not as pristine as a child's. Normally, ingesting such a large quantity of elixirs at once would have been a sure way to die. The claim that impurities were flushed out by qi simply meant that a torrent of qi had scraped through the meridians, leaving them ragged. But because I absorbed and recreated my avatar, my body had been restored. There was a cooldown on avatar absorption, but it passed quickly while I cultivated. My dantian had formed safely, and I had succeeded in reinforcing my body with the qi stored within it.
In martial arts, the quantity of internal energy mattered, but the sense for handling qi was even more important. Of course, below the Transformed Realm, physical ability outweighed qi control, but martial arts ultimately came down to training the body. The internal energy of my Tower avatar was considerably less than that of my reincarnation avatar, and its meridians were not clean either. There was almost no latent qi accumulated through elixirs, yet even in this state there was no problem climbing the Tower.
“Let’s see… I still have 32 beginner elixirs left. Should I eat ten more and call it a day?”
The physical fatigue had vanished during the process of absorbing and regenerating the avatar. Mental fatigue remained, however, so I decided to expand my dantian a little further before returning to my main body to sleep. Sleeping in the reincarnation avatar’s body was an option, but it was already past nap time there, and Siwoo might refuse to let me sleep, insisting that a four-year-old needed naps as part of the daily routine.
Magic and Blue Wood Cultivation had both reached level 15. From experience, Magic would grow smoothly up to 19. Then it would hit a wall at 20 before growing smoothly again once that threshold was crossed. It seemed every ten levels marked a realm barrier. When my internal energy had finally reached a level befitting the 3rd-rate realm, both Magic and Blue Wood Cultivation had hit level 20. Of course, the status window only displayed a simplified summary and could not reveal every complex factor, so I could not be certain. There would also be a limit to how far elixirs alone could push my realm.
“Let’s see… I only have 900 credits left.”
One credit was roughly 100 won, so 900 credits came to about 90,000 won—enough to cover a single day’s lodging and meals. The money I had earned selling the goblins’ weapons and combat gear had been spent on food, clothes, and one night’s stay. To survive, I needed credits. That left three options: buy credits with Shop Points earned from hunting monsters outside the city, sell loot obtained from hunting, or sell the high-grade recovery potions I had bought as emergency funds.
Selling the potions felt wasteful. Outside the Tower they fetched a high price, and I needed recovery methods in case my main body got injured. Though my main body was safe on the 1st floor, I had nearly hurt myself last time by accidentally carving the floor with a sword, so caution was necessary.
“I really do need to go hunting.”
Even aside from credits, Shop Points were essential. There were many uses for them, such as purchasing stat-boosting elixirs to raise my lacking Strength and Stamina.
“Should I head to the hunting grounds outside the city?”
According to WTPO information, the 10th floor was part of the Lower Residential Floor that also included the 20th and 30th floors. The Lower Residential Floor was divided into the 10th-floor zone, 20th-floor zone, 30th-floor zone, and common areas. Climbers could only operate within the zones belonging to their floor and the common areas. First Settlers appeared to have no zone restrictions. Each zone contained numerous cities; outside the city walls, monsters appropriate to that floor range would appear. The 10th-floor zone spawned monsters from floors 11 through 19, the 20th-floor zone from 21 through 29, and the 30th-floor zone from 31 through 39. The closer the monsters were to the city, the lower their floor level; the farther away, the higher. Thus, whether monsters grew stronger or weaker served as an indicator of proximity to neighboring cities.
Most climbers in nearby cities belonged to the same nation, though foreigners could be encountered if one traveled farther. However, the distance between cities was considerable, and WTPO agent K’s opinion was that climbing the Tower was faster if one wanted to see foreigners.
“All right. My body is in peak condition. Now it’s just a matter of real combat.”
I removed the combat gear that had appeared when I recreated the avatar, stored it in my inventory, and put on the clothes I had bought in the Tower. Combat gear stood out too much. I could sell it later for living expenses.
After eating at the inn’s first-floor restaurant, I checked out and left. Today’s plan was to earn living expenses through hunting in the morning, then gather information on the community while eating lunch. I would collect intel on the 11th floor and challenge it if an opportunity presented itself. Even if the 11th-floor attempt failed, I could return to the 10th floor. If I decided against challenging the 11th floor, I would visit the Magic Tower branch as the Old Librarian had suggested.
“Are you a climber? The area outside the city is dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better to arm yourself more thoroughly?”
When I reached the walls, a middle-aged guard at the gate looked at me with concern.
“Ah, I just arrived and don’t have any money, so I was planning to hunt some horned rabbits nearby and use the earnings to buy equipment.”
“Is that so? Well, everything comes down to money. Be careful.”
At my answer, the guard wished me luck and let me through. Even after earning money I intended to buy a spare sword at most; I had no plans to purchase armor. In the Galaxy Murim, martial arts had developed around evasion and survivability rather than defense ever since the gunpowder era, so armor was merely cumbersome. The common sense among Galaxy Murim practitioners was that if defense was needed, one should raise one’s realm until defense was no longer required.
“If I die, I die.”
There were penalties for death, but I could afford to die a few more times. No matter how I thought about it, being overly cautious would only waste the avatar ability. I drew my one-handed sword and scanned my surroundings. Training with Siwoo and Cheon So-yeon had taught me to read the qi waves of living beings. Fortunately, the training experience benefited all my avatars without exception. I immediately detected the qi waves of a small creature in a nearby bush. Approaching it, the foliage rustled and a horned rabbit leapt out. Normally I would have blocked with a shield or armor, but I swung my sword and severed the rabbit’s neck in midair.
“…So I really did die to an attack like that?”
I was struck anew by how weak I had been when I first entered the Tower. I was still far from strong, yet the gap felt immense.
I collected the mana stone and rabbit carcass. A cleanly killed rabbit whose blood had been drained could fetch a decent price for its meat and hide. Come to think of it, rabbit dishes had appeared frequently on the restaurant menu. Koreans rarely ate rabbit, but it was a fairly common ingredient abroad. If I dressed the rabbit myself, the meat sold for about 20 credits per animal and the hide for 40, but without skill I could sell the whole thing for around 30 credits. The mana stone was separate, of course.
I tossed the headless rabbit into the bag I had bought at the general store, then wandered near the walls. While roaming, I caught six more rabbits that mindlessly charged with their heads, twelve blade-legged fighting chickens the size of two or three Brazilian chickens, and three watermelon-sized rodents. Judging by the fact that each gave only 1 point, they were all 11th-floor level monsters. According to the community, 11th-floor monsters gave 1 point, 12th-floor monsters 2 points, 13th-floor monsters 3 points, increasing by 1 point each floor until reaching 10 points per floor at the 20th floor and 100 points per floor at the 30th floor.
“Well, this is the area right outside the city, so it can’t be helped.”
The bag was so heavy that I had to tie the headless chickens to it with rope. I returned to the city and sold the horned rabbits and blade-legged fighting chickens to a butcher near the gate. The chickens fetched a higher price than the rabbits, apparently because demand was greater. Rabbits went for 30 credits each—seven of them. Chickens went for 50 credits each—twelve of them. I earned a total of 810 credits.
“If there are so many prey near the city, shouldn’t the price be lower because supply is high?”
At my innocent question, the butcher answered nonchalantly.
“Demand exceeds supply, so the price stays this way. How many people do you think live in this city?”
“Uh… I don’t know?”
Now that I thought about it, the city was quite large.
“A full fifty thousand. Of those, climbers like you number only about five hundred.”
The population was far larger than I had imagined. I had guessed at most five thousand.
“You lot don’t hunt like this every single day. There are professional hunters in the city who barely meet demand. The amount climbers bring in isn’t nearly enough to satisfy it.”
Even with abundant game, if there were few people to hunt it, supply would fall short. Of course, even with abundant raw materials, production would be insufficient without enough processing facilities.
“Besides, hunters use traps instead of fighting monsters head-on like you do. We don’t have superpowers like you climbers, so even a moment’s carelessness outside the city can send us to our graves.”
He had a point. I had died twice reaching the 10th floor and been turned into a pincushion by arrows, so I knew that well. Still, the butcher seemed to fear the outside of the city more than I had expected. Was this fear also one of the Tower’s methods of control?
Having earned a day’s wages, I decided to move farther from the city to find monsters. Following the road out of the city, I came across a narrow trail leading into the forest. Looking around, I saw that the area was a basin surrounded by mountains; without using the trail, I would have to cross the mountains to go farther. Since taking the trail was easier than climbing, I headed down it.
Fortunately, the trees were not densely packed, so sunlight reached the forest floor in many places. After walking along the path for a few minutes, I sensed goblins hiding among the trees and approaching me. Before they could attack, I slipped between the trees and ambushed them first. Whether because I had learned martial arts or because the goblins were careless, killing them was not particularly difficult. The goblins moved in groups of two or three; among those I ambushed, some even carried crude bows and arrows. If I had fought them on the plains I would have struggled against multiple opponents at once, but the forest allowed me to defeat them individually, making things easier.
“The ones using bows give 2 points.”
I picked up a bow and arrows and drew the string. Crack! The bow could not withstand my strength and split. The arrow flew only about five meters before embedding itself weakly in the ground. It was partly because the bow was broken, but even intact, my full-power slingshot would probably have been more powerful.
I collected the goblins’ mana stones, hand axes, and daggers, then ventured deeper into the forest. From afar came the sound of “Kaaak!” I hid and observed carefully. A girl who looked like a high-school student with a slime perched on her shoulder was being chased by goblins.
(To be continued in the next episode)