Tutorial — The Ninth Floor

The attack power was better than my current sword, but the swing speed would drop and it would be a pain to use with any real precision. The size didn't help either — too big, too awkward. Still, it wasn't as if I'd never handled a greatsword, and with my current Strength there wouldn't be any real problem.

More than anything, the things waiting ahead were going to be huge.

I drew up my mana, honed my entire body to a razor's edge, and stepped through the door.

Flame whooshed. Light burst.

I moved exactly as my senses told me to. A fireball came screaming in, and the world around me flared so violently that my vision vanished all over again.

Same trick as before. I shut my eyes and slipped past the fireball without trouble.

The attack I'd dodged detonated behind me. I was already running — straight toward the place where the mana was swelling strongest.

Booms rolled one after another. Magic kept coming without end. From above. From the sides. Even from behind. I wove through it at full speed.

The instant I swung at the crystal, the earth split, and a spear of stone erupted from the floor.

I was faster. Other people might have been finished by an ambush like that, but at my physical level I could still react. I killed my momentum on the spot, twisted, and let the stone spear tear past me — and in the same motion I brought the greatsword around.

Just before impact the option triggered, and the pressure on my wrist and shoulder jumped. It wasn't anything I couldn't handle. My Stamina was in the forties. This body of mine wasn't about to struggle with a weapon of this caliber.

Something shattered with a heavy crash, and every magic trap in the room froze. The flames that had been winding up to fire guttered out. The light that had been blazing from every direction, bright enough to make opening my eyes a misery, died all at once.

Silence settled over the chamber.

I opened my eyes. The crystal at the center was completely destroyed.

A progress window appeared at once.

…How the hell did that bastard even clear this?

Even granting that the first room was supposed to be the hardest, the difficulty here was absurd. A trainee at a mere level 12 had broken this? The orc, fine — he'd turned the traps against it. But this? Even if I gave him a hundred concessions and assumed the orc chimera had been stupid enough to play meat shield, he still couldn't see. Protecting your eyes with mana takes real practice. I could do it, but I hadn't needed to; my senses alone had been enough. The tutorial never produced a situation that required that kind of drill, which meant you either had to be an outrageous genius or already know what was coming. That guy hadn't been that kind of genius, and he hadn't been a regressor either. Does he have a Mind's Eye skill or something?

For it to even be possible, the orc would have had to block every spell, he'd have had to protect his eyes, dodge every trap, reach the crystal, and stay suspicious all the way to the end without getting impatient — then still slip the final trap.

Unless the orc had pulled off a miraculous sacrificial play and eaten every trap in the room…

I shook my head. It was already in the past. Being alone was apparently giving my mind too much room to wander.

I dismissed the message window and looked at the three doors in front of me.

Left. Straight ahead. Right.

I knew that the one who'd cleared this dungeon in the first cycle had gone around and around from here, knocking out the outer rooms first before heading for the center. He'd cracked the middle door, taken one look, and nearly had a heart attack, then worked the perimeter instead. The layout was a three-by-three grid of nine chambers, or so I'd been told.

The outer rooms were nothing special. The central hall, though, was supposed to be every bit as brutal as the first chamber.

But the first room hadn't been all that difficult for me. It had startled me, sure — only because it was a level of difficulty that had no business showing up in a tutorial.

…Even so, Rankers used to clear places on the ninth floor that rivaled this.

It struck me all over again what kind of monsters Rankers really were.

There was no time to rest. I had to climb this Tower with talent inferior to theirs.

I headed straight for the central hall. Even if it was the second-hardest room, I was, at this point in time, the strongest trainee alive. There was no reason I couldn't clear it.

I opened the second door, and five hulking chimeras, a vast hall, and what was obviously a staggering number of traps filled my vision.

They weren't even traps, not really. Magic was blooming in every direction as if the whole room were screaming at me not to come in.

…Seriously. How did that bastard clear this?

An arrow screamed in. I twisted and let it pass, then wiped the idle thoughts away and locked onto the situation.

Unlike the orc chimera in the first room, all five of these were quadrupeds. They'd been fused primarily from animals — wolf, lion, leopard — so they moved on four legs, but their backs were swollen to a grotesque degree, and grafted onto that mess were bizarre humanoid torsos, goblin or orc, I couldn't even tell.

Yeah. Those.

Their entire bodies were patchwork, stitched together from scraps. If my party had seen them, they would have recoiled in horror. I was different. It wasn't as if this was the first or second time I'd laid eyes on things like that, and my training wasn't so shallow that I'd look away.

I threw myself inside before the second arrow could come.

The moment I crossed the threshold, magic poured down. The earthen spears that had only appeared at the very end of the first room now erupted with every step I took. Ice chunks and fire-arrows rained from the walls and ceiling; rocks detonated in midair and flung shrapnel in every direction. And that wasn't all. Poison arrows and needle-fine physical traps mixed in, bombarding every stretch of floor I'd just passed. A single slow step, a single hesitation, and any one of those attacks could have left me maimed.

The physical ones had a decent chance of being stopped by my armor. The magic was another matter.

It was a truly nightmarish space. I had no idea what the mage himself had been thinking, building a place like this and then living in it.

The instant I broke through the traps and drew near the center, the chimeras charged.

They were slower than I'd expected. Of course they were. Moving with that garbage bolted to their backs was never going to be easy. Their means of attack looked to be the spears in the humanoid arms and the fangs of the animal bodies underneath.

Apparently the mage who'd built this dungeon had been far worse at making chimeras than he was at magic traps — or at his own magic, for that matter.

I smashed through the remaining traps and poured mana into the greatsword, then took the chimeras' legs off in a single pass.

A strangled, broken cry tore out of them. The gap in speed was overwhelming. They couldn't even react to the attack properly.

I slipped the magic still sniping at me and cut the other chimeras' legs in turn, stripping them of every last bit of mobility. Then I closed on the crystal at the center of the hall.

It looked at least twice the size of the one in the first room. Crystal was still crystal. I turned the flat of the mana-loaded greatsword and smashed it the way you'd swing a baseball bat.

The crystal couldn't take the blow. It came apart in a spray of shards.

The magic traps died at once. And in the same breath, the information my senses were feeding me let me guess how the previous trainee had been able to clear this place at all.

The moment the central hall's crystal broke, it wasn't only the traps in this room that stopped. Several of the magic traps in the other chambers within my sensory range went still as well. The crystals were affecting one another, room to room.

…So that's it.

If you cleared the other rooms first, the traps in the central hall would weaken, or some of them would vanish outright. What I'd just done was brute-force the highest difficulty in the dungeon, head-on. No wonder it had felt off. The first room, with enough luck, had at least a sliver of a chance of being cleared. The central hall did not. A trainee at tutorial level simply could not break this place. Not even a Ranker. Even Na Seoyun, whom I had raised with my own two hands, would have found this impossible.

I huffed a quiet laugh. I would have done the same thing even if I'd known. If the party could see me now, what would they say? They'd cling to me and tell me to stop doing dangerous things. I didn't need to see it to know.

I flinched.

Have I already grown attached?

It wouldn't have been strange if I had. How many years had it been since I'd cared for anyone this much — fussing over them, pouring everything I had into them? No. It hadn't even happened in the first cycle. I'd let the guild use me like a doormat, sure, but among my party members I'd always kept a proper distance.

I'd invested so much. I'd raised them like precious jewels. How could I not grow fond of them?

A bitter smile tugged at my mouth, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I muttered under my breath.

Honestly, I was afraid. Not of growing close to them. I was afraid of being swayed by that attachment.

This cycle was my last chance. A last chance I hadn't even known existed. Feeling attachment was fine. Yes. I was human; it couldn't be helped. I could cherish this party a little more than I would anyone else. But if I let that sway me — if the result came out worse than the first cycle — that was what terrified me. If the fondness deepened and I started treating them like a sucker? If I got pulled along? What about Earth? What about my family on Earth?

That could not happen. I had to steel my heart.

What I should fear, what I had to dread, was throwing away even this cycle — this last chance. I could not forget that.

I would keep the line. Everything I did in the Tower had to be poured into saving Earth. Be methodical. Use what needed to be used. Remove whatever stood in the way.

I had decided to live that way, so that I could see my family again.

And yet, in one corner of my heart, a doubt unfurled. Could I really do it? Could I hold onto that resolve until the very end?

It's not about whether I can. I have to.

I seized my wavering heart and locked it down.

The remaining rooms were as simple as expected.

The magic traps had been all but neutralized. What was left were physical traps and a handful of chimeras. The highest difficulty among them was a chamber that looked like a chimera-making site, where a fair number of the creatures had been stationed. Because it was a synthesis room, there were no magic traps and no physical ones either, which actually made it more comfortable for me than the rest.

I headed for the last room. There were no chimeras there, and no traps.

What occupied the space was a skeleton, lying on a bed.

Living quarters, by the look of it. That skeleton had probably been the archmage.

An old book sat on the desk. I opened it.

A diary, apparently. An experiment log as well.

Clumsy records of chimera synthesis, and notes that the alchemy had gone far better by comparison. He'd abandoned the chimera research and devoted himself to refinement instead; the entries ran on and on in that vein. The archmage who had wanted to live a long time had run ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every experiment he could think of toward that end.

He hadn't wanted to become a lich, or so he wrote.

The final stretch of the diary ended in anguish. The alchemy had succeeded at last — but only as a half-measure. After that, the writing stopped. He'd either spent his remaining days dying in despair, or he'd made his peace and gone quietly. One or the other.

I wasn't particularly moved. What was the point of feeling anything for a man who was already a skeleton? If anything, the latter would be better. It was as good as handing me a completed elixir.

There was a crystal in the living quarters as well. The moment I shattered it, messages bloomed in front of me.

Was I insane? I hit N at once and bought myself time.

Then I searched the desk drawer, exactly as the diary had described. A wooden case came to hand immediately. I opened it. A round elixir sat inside, and the moment my fingers touched it, an information window unfurled.

A Legendary-grade elixir I'd only ever heard about in stories. The greatest reward in this entire dungeon.

If I thought only about the all-stat increase, maybe I should save it for later — but the rise in potential was worth far more than that. No. Compared to the potential, the stat boost was almost trivial. My High Potential couldn't become Supreme, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it would at least become High Potential bordering on Supreme.

There were only a handful of elixirs in existence that raised potential at all.

The one who'd consumed this elixir in the past hadn't been particularly gifted, as I recalled. I was willing to revise that estimate upward a little, given that he'd cleared a dungeon of this level — but even then, his talent had been mid-grade at best.

And yet the man who'd lucked into conquering this place had, for a time, made a name for himself as a talented warrior.

Judging by the skills he'd used, his initial skill slots had numbered around three. Four, if my guess was right and he'd had Mind's Eye. Nothing impressive. His physical stats hadn't been anything special either. His mana, though — that I remembered as being quite good.

On the back of that mana, he'd made a name as an outstanding melee fighter for a while. From the middle floors onward his talent ceiling started to show, and he was left behind. If he'd clawed his way up anyway, maybe it would have been different, but his body had already become something that could no longer climb the Tower. I only knew any of this because he'd later told the story himself — that he was still alive thanks to having consumed a legendary elixir. He'd partied with me for a short time. Not long after, he died in someone else's party.

Maybe he only challenged the central hall after he'd already digested this.

This was an elixir that mages and priests — no, anyone climbing the Tower at all — would kill to get their hands on.

I didn't consume it. I walked back out to the central hall.

There was still one thing left. The man from the first cycle had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made a name as a talented warrior for a time, but he'd been even more famous for something else.

It was time to claim the next opportunity.