Before the Tenth Floor

That was the basic information the system gave me.

And that was the additional information my trait supplied.

"This guy again?"

Curiosity about the Magic Tower's inventor—a man who existed, for me, as nothing but rumor—stirred all over again. Synthesis came first.

"Please..."

Let it be a jackpot. With nothing but that hope, I dropped twenty earrings into the Goblin Basket.

Light flared.

"Uh..."

Just as I'd hoped, another option had attached itself—and it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt hopelessly vague. Use it for an ambush... no. If the noise vanished all at once, the enemy would find that strange too, wouldn't they? An ambiguous option. The sort that left you wondering what it was even for. But I couldn't stop now. There was no helping it.

"Let's go!!"

Please, please, some other option. I dumped the earrings in while I prayed with everything I had, and this was the result.

Light flared.

"Nice!"

The prayer meta had worked.

An area debuff! There were conditions, yes, but it was exactly the option someone who had resolved to solo needed. I could use Decibel Noise after Sound Drain. Or I could burst Decibel Noise first, then follow with Sound Drain to force the silence. One artifact, and two spells that chained into each other.

It does seem to burn through the mana stone's mana pretty hard, though. That was a problem I could solve by synthesizing more earrings and stretching the lifespan. Fine by me.

"This is too good!"

Good enough that, before I knew what I was doing, I had the earring clutched to my chest and was rolling around the room.

Thump. Thump.

"Charr! What's going on?"

"Ah, it's nothing! I'm just getting ready to head into the Labyrinth tomorrow!"

"...Prepare a little more quietly."

"Yes! I'm sorry!"

Even while I apologized, the smile kept coming. I couldn't help it.

By the time I obtained the earring—no, even before that—my specs had already left the level of a Novice far behind. Add a sonic earring on top of that, and it would have been stranger if anything had actually stood in the way of floors 6 through 9.

The endless grind did cost me time. Floor 9 in particular took a full month, because I ended up gathering medicinal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠herbs—work that had never been written into my lot—but actually getting it done was never the problem.

"You brat, I thought you were dead! Why are you so late!?"

"Haha. I just had a rough time of it. Some strange quest latched onto me."

I hadn't come away with any special item, but the junk produced by that long Perfect Clear grind and all the butchering, once run through the Goblin Basket, had turned a fairly fat profit.

There was just one problem.

"The skills. Did you evolve them?"

"No. These. There's still no sign of it."

Spearmanship and footwork, already sitting at their high-grade ceiling, still hadn't found a road to evolution.

"It'll happen eventually. Don't rush. You're already far past what your rank should allow."

"I know."

Nothing dangerous had come up, so there had been no reason to spend level-up points forcing an evolution either.

"Right. Even that much puts you ahead. You're doing well. More than well enough."

In truth, even without a level-up, and even with spearmanship and footwork refusing to evolve, my growth hadn't stopped. If anything, it was fairer to say I had grown quickly.

Floor-clear rewards had raised Stamina by 1 and Agility by 3. As the Balgar Spirit Training Art climbed to Lv. 10, its bonus modifiers rose as well, and somewhere in that process my mana itself went up by 3. All of it in a mere three months.

"Rest up properly now, then let's take a shot at the tenth floor. Time you got a class."

"Of course."

The thought made all the time behind me feel strangely short.

"And give some thought to how you'll spend the money you've piled up."

"...Yes. I do have something in mind."

"Think about what? You're buying a spear. Am I wrong?"

"...That... yes, that's right."

"Then why the long face? With that money you could buy the Super Rare weapon I mentioned before, couldn't you? Don't tell me you're still short?"

"No. It's not that..."

Jerik wasn't wrong. Clearing floors 6 through 9, butchering and synthesizing as I went, had brought in over 2,000 gold. A portion had gone to repairing and reinforcing my gear; the rest I had left untouched. No—from the start I had scraped it together, tooth and nail, to buy the Super Rare spear I already had my eye on. The Balgar Spirit Training Art was performing so well that my mana would soon hit 30, and at that point a Super Rare ought to be something I could actually wield.

But.

"...It sold."

"What!?"

"Some summoner from the Royal Palace bought it, they said. I don't know the details."

I still didn't know what to do with how absurd it was.

"Those goddamn bastards!?"

Jerik got angrier than I did.

"What if you ask Ruda whether she can get you a similar weapon?"

"...I already asked, on the way back, while I was unloading the junk. She said it would be difficult."

Super Rare weapons were generally used by adventurers around the fortieth floor, in the level-40 range. That tier was treated as the floor of the elite—the lower bound of what actually counted as the kingdom's strength. Perhaps that was why the Royal Palace took such pains to outfit them. Summoners, especially.

"...Our kingdom just doesn't produce many spears."

"Damn palace lot. All flash and no substance. Where are you going to find a weapon more efficient than a spear..."

Jerik was only half right. A spear was, without question, easy for a beginner to handle and powerful besides—but in the Labyrinth, where the ground under your feet never stayed the same, it could just as easily become dead weight. In a narrow cave, or somewhere like a maze. I'd had a taste of that myself. Even so, that was a separate matter.

"That long spear is honestly still a weapon you could use through the tenth-floor range, but next to your level it's fallen too far behind."

"Well. That's true enough."

The tenth floor. The last floor of the Novice stretch, where the first and most important class was decided—and for preparing for that, what I had felt sorely short. I was someone who had to aim for a Perfect Clear. Like the fifth floor, it could drop some completely unforeseen, sideways quest on me. I had to account for the worst case. No. Honestly, it was fair to treat it not as a worst case at all, but as a future already fixed.

Vartus's words from the fifth floor were still fresh in my ears. Just as he had told me to, I had Perfect Cleared every floor through the ninth. If that was so, then I had to assume a quest would appear that looked nothing like the information anyone knew.

The heart of an adventurer's skills is the training art. Balgar Spirit Training Art, Stage 1 (High — Lv. 10). So I had to find the path that came after it. If something happens that I didn't predict, I'll have to spend level-up points. Even so, it seemed best to go as far as I could on my own first. Which meant the weapon absolutely had to change. A Super Rare, if possible—the highest grade my mana could handle.

How nice it would be if a spear could go into the basket. The itch to have the world handed to me kept breeding idle thoughts like that.

"If you happen to have any other connections..."

"Ah, right. Wait just a little longer and an auction opens. How about entering? This round it's being held in Bartus."

"...Pardon?"

The Labyrinth Auction. At those words, my ears shot up. It had to have been more than four months already since I'd sold that special taming Ability Stone.

"They still haven't held that?"

"It's once a year, I told you. Still a month off. How about waiting until then? A fair number of Super Rare weapons ought to turn up."

"...You think so?"

It was not an offer I could easily refuse.

"That works out, actually."

"Works out?"

"Yes. I was thinking of training anyway. This time I really feel like I can evolve the spearmanship and the footwork."

"I could swear you said that last time, too."

"Come on. This time I'm sure of it!"

The feeling was real. Even so, if it failed again, I meant to force the evolution with level-up points before I set foot on the tenth floor. There was no telling what would happen there.

"...Well. Fine. If that's the case, all the better. Shall I put in an application for the auction, then?"

"Yes. Thank you!"

I answered once I'd sorted my thoughts, and Jerik nodded. Then, abruptly, he glanced around, stepped in close, and lowered his voice.

"Ah. And—still. No sign of some other strange bastard tailing you?"

He meant the Kim Hyun-shik incident.

"No. Fortunately, nothing so far..."

I'd kept my guard up even when I entered the sixth floor, but after that there had been no movement worth the name. Even so, every time I came back from the Labyrinth, Jerik asked.

"...Hmph. No way those palace bastards would give up that easily."

"Maybe once they looked into it, they decided I wasn't anything special?"

"You? A Novice pulling in more coin than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your average mid-grade adventurer? Don't be ridiculous."

I gave a bitter smile at that. There was also what I'd heard from Ruda.

"I did hide as much as I could about you, Mr. Charr, but pressure is still coming down from above."

"They say we're keeping a good relationship for now, and since the pressure hasn't gotten any worse, you needn't worry just yet... I can't speak for what comes after, though."

"...Well. I'll just have to be as careful as I can."

The nail that sticks out gets the hammer, or so they say. Even if that hammer found me someday, I wanted to put the day off for as long as I could.

"In that sense, the auction as well—under your name, if possible, Instructor..."

"Obviously. You brat. You think a Novice can walk into a mid-grade auction?"

"...Ah."

I hadn't known my place.

"So... there are grades for that, too?"

"There are. Low-grade for under the thirtieth floor, mid-grade from the thirtieth to the sixtieth, high-grade from the sixtieth up. Simple enough, isn't it?"

"I see."

"Once you've decided, put it out of your head and train. Who knows? Pour your whole heart into it, and even if the skills never evolve, heaven might find the devotion pitiful enough to let a fine artifact fall into your hands."

Jerik had surely meant it as a joke. After that, though, I trained with absolute seriousness.

And just before the month was up—as if heaven truly had been moved—I brought both skills to an evolution. Spearmanship and footwork alike.

A full three months after they had reached their maximum level.