The Great Upheaval!

"What the hell is this?"

Community expansion, and even a communication function?

At this rate I could stream from inside the Tower. And a shop plus an auction house? This is basically just a game.

While I was still reeling from the Tower's sudden update, a new alert flared across my vision.

"There's even a bonus reward?"

In that instant, a heat bloomed in my chest, and a sensation I had never known before began to unfurl inside me.

"Hah—"

My vision transformed in a single breath.

Was the world always this sharp?

Everything around me shimmered in a brilliant cascade of color, every hue alive and vivid.

"This is Spiritual Power…!"

At the same time, the life force of nature itself came surging in like a violent tide, flooding every corner of my body until nothing remained empty.

"It's different from internal energy, somehow."

No—on the surface the two felt similar, but the quality was something else entirely.

"Spiritual Power… I only ever saw that stuff in xianxia novels."

If internal energy was natural power filtered and refined to suit a human body, then Spiritual Power was pure energy itself—unprocessed, uncompromising.

There was just one problem.

"Tch. They don't play nice with each other."

I tried channeling a martial technique through Spiritual Power, but for all that overflowing energy the efficiency was poor, and every movement lagged half a beat behind.

"It won't mix cleanly with my internal energy either…"

Learning to handle this properly was clearly going to take some serious work.

I was still experimenting with my newly awakened power from every angle when yet another window appeared.

"Oh, come on. Again?"

I was starting to tense up just wondering what fresh news it might bring. How many announcements could one Tower dump on a person? Still half-skeptical, I looked at the message that had floated into view.

What hung before my eyes was no ordinary notice.

Rankings!

That's right!

At last the Tower had given Climbers something to sink their competitive teeth into. Certainty settled over me. Without hesitation I typed two characters into the field.

"Heavenly Demon."

The moment I did—

My Climber name sat locked at the very top of the rankings, the floors I had reached listed out in full beneath it. And below that, the names of everyone who had clawed their way into the ranked brackets began scrolling in without pause.

"Hold on—it's showing this much detail?"

The already cutthroat scramble to recruit Climbers was about to get hit by a hurricane.

At that same moment, the news detonated across the entire world.

Because the Tower's update had appeared before every set of eyes—ordinary people and Climbers alike—the reactions that followed boiled over with raw intensity.

Overseas, on Reddit:

Korea's Climber Gallery:

Communities in countless other nations erupted in the same feverish disbelief.

And elsewhere—

"Bwahaha, to the moon!!"

In the stock-trading rooms that dealt in Mana Stones, people were losing their minds over the real-time surge in stone values.

"This is clearly a signal from the Tower…!"

"Exactly. We especially need to pay attention to the Community and Dimensional Communication features."

On broadcast after broadcast, self-proclaimed experts clutched at the endless stream of message windows and launched into heated interpretations of what it all meant.

Even the Hard Mode community was ablaze.

Intertwined with the Tower's great upheaval, the epithet "Heavenly Demon"—the one who had driven that upheaval—became the decisive spark that sent the name racing across the entire world.

Separate from the fame of Heavenly Demon spreading across the globe, I dragged my exhausted body home after the long ordeal.

"You're back?"

"Yeah…"

I had starved myself far too long for the climb. My hollow stomach left me one step short of collapsing from hunger.

"Ugh…!"

I flopped face-first onto the sofa, sprawled bonelessly across the soft cushions, and shoved the smartphone that had been rolling around there toward Seonghwa.

"Pick whatever you want to eat. Everything. Go wild…"

"…! Really?"

Seonghwa snatched the phone in a flash. Her eyes lit up as she scrolled through the menu with the focus of someone conducting a precision analysis.

Watching her, I started grumbling about the Tower's difficulty like a sulky child.

"Floor 5, and the difficulty jumped that hard? Doesn't that seem a little much?"

Seonghwa had told me before that even when I was weaker than I am now, I should have been able to clear up through Floor 6 without too much trouble.

She paused mid-order and fixed me with a look of pure disbelief.

"Of course it did. Because you cleared it the wrong way, Doyeon."

"What?"

The wrong way?

"What was the climbing condition the Tower gave you?"

"Escape the Heavenly Net and survive. Right?"

"Exactly. The Tower's condition was to leave the mountain and get free of the Heavenly Net. So what did you do?"

Don't tell me the clear condition had literally just been to leave…

"You're saying running away was the correct answer in that situation!?"

"You thought the correct answer was personally sinking over a thousand Long-Lived Species one by one?"

In other words, according to Seonghwa, everything ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had done amounted to little more than self-inflicted hard labor.

"Haaah—. Unbelievable."

A hollow sigh escaped me. Watching my face, Seonghwa continued.

"From the start, you charged in because they were getting on your nerves, didn't you?"

"Ahem—"

The heavy, accurate fact sealed my mouth shut for a second.

"Still, even so…"

I tried to muster some kind of defense, but Seonghwa cut me off cleanly.

"Even so, that stunt is what let you start handling Spiritual Power—so you should be thanking the Tower."

Right. Spiritual Power.

If anyone knew how to use it, it would be Seonghwa.

"Do you know how to use this Spiritual Power thing?"

"Of course. It's something you deal with every day."

"Huh? What is?"

"Spells."

The spiritual energy acquired through Spiritual Power, she explained, was an indispensable power source for operating spellcraft.

"Wait—I was able to use it with martial arts too, though?"

"Well, in the grand scheme it's the same force. The efficiency just can't keep up."

Spiritual energy—the vast power of nature itself—was far more difficult to control than internal energy, which had been tailored to the human body. Unless it was a shamanic or spell-oriented martial art, she said, it was hard to work with at all.

Then she offered her congratulations on my new ability to handle it.

"Now you'll be able to use me, too."

"Come again?"

Use her? The phrasing was strange enough that I froze in confusion.

"Exactly what I said. What am I?"

"Well… the holy relic of the Heavenly Demon Cult, right?"

"That's right. I'm the Cult's holy relic, and a sacred flame."

She described herself as an eternal fire of white and black that never goes out.

"Among the successive Heavenly Demons, there were those who wanted to command that power of mine."

But the qualification to govern Seonghwa ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠originally belonged to the Divine Maiden, so fully controlling that force had always been difficult, she explained.

"That said, it isn't as though no Heavenly Demon has ever possessed Spiritual Power."

Those Heavenly Demons who could command it, she went on, had conducted endless experiments and gradually reshaped the Heavenly Demon Divine Art so that Seonghwa could be melted into the technique itself.

"Now that you have Spiritual Power too, you'll be able to learn that power."

"Really…!?"

The ability to command Seonghwa…!

I could actually make Fire Punch real?

It was the most thrilling thing I had heard in a long time.

But—

"There's a catch. First you have to clear the trial of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons."

The trial of Manmajeon. That would mean a duel with the 10th Heavenly Demon.

"What? Why!?"

"You already checked, remember?"

Seonghwa reminded me of the trial's reward—the fact that only by completing the trial of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons would the next function unlock.

Ah—right. That.

And with that, the hunger for romance that had been dormant for so long began to surge again.

Fine…! Even if I have to burn every last Point I've got, I'm clearing it.

Imagining the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that would let me command Seonghwa, I steeled my resolve—and ignored the hunger still clawing at my empty stomach.