Floor 50

"Graaaah!"

The blade sank home with a wet, heavy thunk.

"Hah—hah—hah!"

Jin-soo drove the Blood-Sucking Sword into the boss monster's heart and hauled in ragged breaths. His body was a ruin of wounds, and he had nothing left to spend on healing. The Revival skill bound to the Ring of Revival still had a long cooldown ahead of it, and with his mana scraped dry he couldn't call on the Ring of Recovery either.

Is it over?

Clearing a full ten thousand monsters was never easy, trash mobs or not. On top of that, Jin-soo had set himself a time attack: twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, twenty-two seconds. He had driven himself without rest to hit that mark, and with some twenty seconds still on the clock he found the last boss and cut its life short by a hair.

The rewards came pouring down in a cascade. Titles and skill books, he could let pass.

Of all places for these to drop.

A Dark Body Pellet and a Demon Spirit Divine Pill. Both at once.

Only one Dark Body Pellet, but three Demon Spirit Divine Pills.

On top of that, three class-change tomes.

Shame none of them are any use to me.

Of the three, one was holy and two were dark, and the affinity was poor. The holy tome was a healer advancement; the dark ones were a mage and a warrior. Set beside Blood Demon Swordsman, each had more flaws than virtues.

All three are useless to me.

A choice rose before him. Press yes, and he would climb to Floor 50 at once. Choose no, and he would go up in one hour and thirty-five minutes.

Rest first.

Jin-soo chose no. He was badly hurt, but the pain was bearable, and with every monster already dead this mission space was the safest place he would get to take the Dark Body Pellet and the Demon Spirit Divine Pills.

Status Window Switch.

He flipped his status window to the dark line, then tipped the Dark Body Pellet into his mouth.

I know.

Muscle and bone wrenched with a wet crack and a grinding pop. Cold sweat poured off him as he tried to ride the pain out.

"Gaaaaah!"

It was worse than the first time he had swallowed a Holy Body Pellet. He had expected the opposite. Taking that pellet had given him a Holy Body, and the Demon Spirit Divine Pills had grown it further; a body already remade like that ought to have carried some of the change over even after he switched his window to a dark-type class, so the agony should have been lighter. It wasn't. What seized him was a pain so fierce it felt as if his mind would snap on the spot.

I cannot black out. Not for anything.

Lose consciousness, and the Dark Body's efficiency would fall. Jin-soo set his jaw and endured it while the muscle all through his body tore and the bone twisted out of true. It paid off.

He had drawn out the rise in the Dark Body's efficiency.

The smell's milder than last time.

He had sweated less of that turbid filth, and only a few scraps of sloughed skin clung to him.

Because it's the second time?

Jin-soo pulled a damp cloth from his treasure pouch and wiped himself down in a few quick passes.

Status window.

Once he was clean, he opened it.

Got it.

Just as with the Holy Body, he had gained the constitution itself.

Level 2. Same as the other.

Jin-soo closed his eyes and set the mana in his body moving.

Fast.

The flow was vastly quicker than before.

How much will a Demon Spirit Divine Pill actually do?

He swallowed one.

He moved his mana at once.

Incredible.

This was already his second Demon Spirit Divine Pill. By rights the efficiency should have dropped to a tenth, and he felt nothing of the kind. It was hardly different from the dose he had taken after gaining the Holy Body. Other people saw a real effect only on the first swallow. He had taken the pill twice, and the second had landed almost as hard as the first.

Two status windows is straight-up broken.

It wasn't only that he could take both a holy class and a dark one. Constitutions, and the pills on top of them — for Jin-soo it was practically the same as owning two bodies. Nor were the two sides wholly without interaction. Skills couldn't be shared, but the constitutions pressed on each other, which was only natural. Switching the window didn't literally swap his flesh for another. Holy Body, Dark Body, and the Demon Spirit Divine Pill all left permanent marks on the body, and though the efficiency dipped a little, their bonus effects could still be shared.

What happens if I take one more right here?

Most likely the return would collapse to a tenth, the way it had before the regression.

Let's find out.

He took another.

As expected.

The mana did run a little more smoothly, but just as before the regression the efficiency had fallen off a cliff. The system message itself had grown a new word: slightly.

Take another in this state and it'll do nothing.

Switch the window, though, and the terms changed. Jin-soo used Status Window Switch and turned his profile back to the holy line.

There's an effect.

His mana moved far more freely than it had before he took the Dark Body Pellet and the pills. He swallowed another Demon Spirit Divine Pill.

Same story.

The efficiency had dropped hard again.

So four is the limit on what I can gain from Demon Spirit Divine Pills.

Still, there was nothing to regret. Before the regression only two of them had done him any good. After it, he had gotten a return on four.

Might as well get ready before I go up.

He switched the window to dark once more, then moved every item he had no immediate use for out of his inventory and into subspace.

I wish I had a second Inventory skill.

The holy status window didn't carry one, and the lack was a quiet inconvenience. The treasure pouch covered the gap, which was a mercy, but a pouch was a thing with a shape — something you kept against your body or carried in hand — and anything like that could be destroyed or lost.

I'll buy one right away.

When he purchased the shining longsword that would one day become Baekcheonsingeom, he could pick up an Inventory skill book for the holy window in the same breath. He wouldn't be short of points. He had three Impossible Feats behind him and a heap of achievements besides, and from Floor 50 onward every bit of merit he had stockpiled converted into points. Sell off the elixirs, skill books, and class-change tomes he had gathered at the auction house on top of that, and he could buy tomes and skill books that only appeared on floors far above this one.

There was nothing left to do here.

Straight up.

He had chosen no a little while ago, but anyone who had already met the clear conditions could ascend whenever they pleased. A newbie with no information would have had no choice but to sit quietly until the timer ran out. Jin-soo had no such need.

The instant the words left his mouth, a blaze of white light wrapped his body.

The light broke apart, and the moment he arrived on Floor 50 every wound was healed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clean as the system messages rose.

So there was an achievement like this, too.

Even Jin-soo had never seen this kind before. Nothing like it had existed below Floor 50. A midpoint floor, more or less, and so they handed out a record for reaching it. The moment he finished reading, voices reached him.

"A chick just showed up."

"What? It's only one person?"

"Party must've all died on him."

"Well, yeah. The survival rate on Floor 49's clear mission is brutal."

Jin-soo put on a face drawn tight with nerves, took the Blood-Sucking Sword in his right hand, and settled into a fighting stance. He wasn't actually tense. The stance was a show, nothing more, so he wouldn't look suspicious.

"Don't scare so easy. We're not your enemies."

"Right. From here on, it isn't a lawless waste anymore."

Jin-soo looked over the four men and women in front of him and lowered the sword.

"Follow me. I'll tell you what Floor 50 is."

One of the women stepped forward as she said it.

"Sure."

At his answer she let out a short smirk.

"Convenient, someone who actually catches on. First thing — Floor 50 has something called points. What those are is..."

She set off, and the explanation of Floor 50 went with her.

Nothing I don't already know.

He almost certainly knew more about the floor than she did. The mission for guiding newcomers paid poorly, so it was usually players who had only just found their feet here, angling for a handful of points. In army terms, a buck private giving the unit tour to a recruit who had just transferred in.

From Floor 50 on, the situation was different. It wasn't only the auction house and the use of points. A great many NPCs existed here — not true NPCs, of course. They were beings a player couldn't attack, in the manner of peddlers, and they ran the shops, the inns, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the taverns, the forges.

The greatest difference was the safe zone. The city safe zones that began on Floor 50 stopped monsters at the first line, and special safe zones such as an inn room stopped PK as well. No more snatching sleep up in a tree, listening for monsters or other players. Pay the points, and you could stay in a safe zone where the system ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠itself guaranteed that PK was impossible. That was why so many people lingered on Floor 50 for a long while. Unlike the floors below, the time limit on the mission was generous — five full years. There was no need to scramble up to Floor 51 in a panic.

And so a certain kind of person appeared. Even when they could no longer raise their level on Floor 50, they didn't go up. Even with the strength to remove the gatekeeper on the spot, they stayed. Those people had made the same choice. Before the regression, Jin-soo had been bitterly disappointed in the first companions he had met on Floor 1 and partied with. He had to conquer the Tower as fast as he could and get back to the young sibling left alone. Returning to Earth was something he could neither abandon nor put off. He had also guessed, back then, that the Tower might be only a hundred floors, and so he had believed that another fifty would carry him home.

Well. Forget Floor 100. I climbed past Floor 1,000, all the way to Floor 2,000, and I still hadn't conquered it.

For no reason he could name, a bitter taste pulled at the corner of his mouth.

This time, I see it through to the end.

He would prepare without a single gap, and he would make it so.

"This is the inn. Book a room and the place turns into a perfect safe zone — PK included, impossible. Figure at least fifty points a night. It's a single, but if you're willing to crumple up on the floor, three or four people can sleep in there together. You've got no party, so that doesn't apply to you. Advice: hoard your points. Killing monsters does pay out, but they hand the points over in crumbs. A point list showed up on your status window, so check how many you've got. Usually, if you've just hit Floor 50 with more than thirty thousand, you're above average."

She rattled through the floor's facilities and how to use them without a pause for breath, as if she were grinding a level.

Wants the mission cleared as fast as she can get it.

None of it was news to Jin-soo, but there was no point in letting that show.

How many points have actually piled up?

He had unlocked points before ever reaching Floor 50. The merit he had stacked since, though, only converted once he arrived.

Didn't even crack forty million.

Any other player who saw that number would have gaped until they forgot how to breathe. The average on Floor 50 was all of thirty thousand points. It wasn't lavish, but once he sold the elixirs and the rest of the items, it would serve well enough as seed money. To Jin-soo — who, before the regression, had spent everything he meant to spend, styled himself flat broke, and still held points in the trillions — a sum that didn't even reach forty million was, quite literally, a speck of dust.