Floor 3 (1)
📌 I Trust You, 39.7 — You Have Earned the Right to Be Gallery Owner
📌 [Image Heavy) Speculation Post: Who Is 39.7?]
📌 Whuh-oh? Wait, Isn't This That Thing From Back Then?
📌 So You're Saying 39.7 Is a Lab Experiment a Guild Raised?
📌 ToToToTo, It's Those Collaborator Bastards Again
📌 ???: Actually... I've never been to school either...
📌 Please Go Die, JOAT
"Wh-what the hell..."
Something serious was setting the Tower Gallery ablaze — and at the center of it all sat a familiar IP address. Half-flustered, I started speed-reading through the concept posts.
[ Photo: The miserably shredded bud of a Ferum Flower ]
From today, I cast off my dependence on others
39.7 and I are now one flesh, one body
— AnonymousClimber: You have finally opened your eyes
"Huh. It's... just a normal Tower Gallery."
The scenery was no different from that of any ordinary gallery that usually produced nothing but shitposts. The only change was that the subject of all the gossip had shifted from other Awakeners to me.
A faint, strange pride welled up inside me at that, and I scrolled right along to the next post.
39.7. As you all already know, a newbie who popped up on the Awakener community recently. The fourth confirmed Lunatic climber from Korea to date. Gender presumed female. Weapon confirmed as a sword. A melee-type swordswoman — probably a rare class like [Swordmaster] or [Weaponmaster], right? Up to this point I doubt anyone would object, so let me pile on a little more speculation...
One-shot destructive power capable of obliterating Black Sludge, the Floor 5 boss, in a single blow? The [Aura (A)] trait is an absolute must, yeah. Beyond that, she's presumed to hold at least an S-rank sword-related skill. The safe bet is [Swordsmanship (S)]. Or maybe wuxia-style arts like [Plum Blossom Swordplay (S)] or [Heaven-Sundering Divine Technique (S)]. Since she ignored the vines entirely and struck only at the bud, we can also deduce something like [Weakness Insight (B)].
Now, withstanding a Ferum Flower's vines is a struggle even for respectable B-rank hunters. So shouldn't she have some kind of defensive trait too — [Adamantine Body (A)], [Indomitable (B)], [Iron Frame (C)]?
No.
[ Photo: The Ferum Flower's corpse, posted by 39.7 ]
Look closely at that photo and you'll notice the ground is scored with countless thin, carved lines. Which means 39.7 didn't tank those attacks — she dodged them. So naturally she must carry evasion skills like [Blink (S)] or [Shadowless Step (A)]. Or perhaps sensory traits like [Sixth Sense (S)] or [Spatial Sense (A)] as well, wouldn't you agree? Per her own mention, she also has the [Inventory (A)] skill. Therefore we can reconstruct 39.7's status window as follows:
Class:Swordmaster
Traits:Aura (A), Spatial Sense (A)
Skills:Swordsmanship (S), Shadowless Step (A), Inventory (A), Weakness Insight (B)......
"...Huh? Nope."
Not a single guess lived up to the word "speculation." Swordmaster? Aura? Spatial Sense? And what the hell were Shadowless Step and Weakness Insight even supposed to be?
So she'd gotten one thing right — the swordsmanship skill? And even that was a C-rank skill, not an S-rank one.
But judging by the comments, most people seemed to buy the theories of one 'SpeedVegan.' Not a single soul had even considered the possibility that I was an alchemist with a drug-related trait.
"And they believe that..."
Well, I couldn't blame them. Everything I'd ever dumped into the Tower Gallery was only a tiny sliver of the truth. Nobody in their right mind would imagine I was carrying an EX-rank trait.
I kept scrolling through the concept posts.
[ Article: Baekhwa Guild and Human Experimentation Allegations ]
The Baekhwa Guild ran experiments to artificially awaken ordinary civilians a while back, remember? Then there's the fact that she deliberately picked the dangerous Lunatic difficulty. And she has a suspiciously large number of skills despite only being on Floor 2. Abnormally small stature, and she's a little girl...
Whuh-oh... don't tell me...?
"...Now what on earth is this?"
Human experimentation by the Baekhwa Guild? That was a famous conspiracy theory — enough of one that it used to make the rounds as bait even on this gallery. When that bait was fresh, I'd gleefully spread every scrap of tabloid garbage I could find too. Granted, I did it through VPN-and-Tor-driven disposable-identity conjuring.
Which was partly why the incident blew up big enough that the Baekhwa Guild had to issue an official statement. The investigation concluded it wasn't human experimentation at all — just clinical trials on potions.
Still, even so...
"Are there actually people who believe this...?"
It had started as gallery tabloid garbage in the first place, and there was nothing in that story connecting it to me. That article was, what, five or six years old? But as with most bait, apparently the credibility of information didn't matter much to people.
You gotta say things that actually make sense;;;
What exactly would a major guild want with an unawakened test subject? Sure, the guilds shun non-Awakeners, monopolize the potion market, gatekeep hunting grounds, manipulate the media, have cozy connections with the Association, and conveniently no-show whenever a Gate Break happens, but...
...huh?
Thanks to all this, the Awakener community burned merrily for hours on conspiracy fuel, regenerating concept posts at such a frantic rate that a fresh one appeared every time I hit refresh.
"Should I come clean...?"
I briefly considered revealing the truth, but in the end I shook my head. Survival in the gallery, Chapter One: as long as it's not me, we're fine.
Far better to let people misjudge things on their own than to have my actual information floating around the gallery. Mmm, stalkers are a frightening thing, after all. That's exactly why I use Tor and a VPN. Absolutely, definitely not to dodge the moderators' bans.
Besides...
"It's entertaining, so I'll just leave it be~"
I had no intention of dousing cold water over a bait fire this delicious. Cutting these things off midway just kills the fun.
📌 ToToToTo, It's Those Collaborator Bastards Again
📌 ???: Actually... I've never been to school either...
📌 Revisiting: Baekhwa Guild's Official Statement
📌 "Public Sentiment Test"
📌 Please Go Die, JOAT
So there I was, sipping vodka and gazing at the Tower Gallery raging with big-guild conspiracies — how long had I been watching?
The bait fire seemed to be running out of fuel, with new posts trickling in slower and slower, when a thread from a regular with a familiar nickname climbed onto the concept board.
[ Photo: Floor 20, a blackened crater ]
What's better than firepower? MORE firepower.
"Oh. Sounds like she finally got it."
Had the caffeine candy I'd handed over actually done its job? Honestly, I had no idea how candy was supposed to help boost firepower in the first place...
A subjugation proof-post, uploaded less than a few hours after I'd given her the candy. The instant the big-guild conspiracy died down and the Floor 20 drama caught fire, boredom drove me to shut down the Awakener community entirely.
"The Tower Gallery's not fun anymore..."
A Tower Gallery stripped of its very essence — the faction-warring, the flame-baiting, the mindless hate-reading. What even is that? That's just a normal, wholesome Awakener community.
"That's it for the gallery today."
Of course, for a gallery rat, quitting gallery life is tantamount to dying. Under normal circumstances, me stopping my scrolling would have been a flat impossibility...
"Yaaawn..."
Perhaps my dopamine levels had finally run dry, because drowsiness began crashing over me in waves. I definitely wasn't drunk, but drinking alcohol for the first time in ages had left me extra tired on top of it all.
"Mmmnh..."
Unable to resist the surge of sleep any longer, I flopped back onto my bed and passed out cold — looking forward to tomorrow's climb of Floor 3.
The next day. The moment I woke up, I entered the Tower's third floor.
[ Do you wish to enter Floor 3? ]
[ Yes ]
Vuuuum──
Brilliant light, and then a forest of familiar scenery unfolded before my eyes. The floor-transfer motion sickness that I could never, ever get used to struck again, and I let out a small groan while clutching my throbbing head.
"Ughhh..."
You bastards still haven't patched the floor-transfer motion sickness bug? Something like that, you could patch a little faster, you know? From the receiving end, it feels like my organs are being churned inside out every single time. Though having actually experienced my organs churning inside out before, I'll admit it's not quite to that degree...
Thankfully my body had adapted to at least some extent, because unlike on Floor 1, I was feeling fine again in short order. But before I could even savor the departure of my nausea, a familiar rotten stench suddenly came wafting in from somewhere.
"Ugh... damn it..."
Right on the heels of motion sickness, a stench assault? The Tower must be dying to torment me today.
As if it were second nature, I pulled a dagger from my Inventory and kept watch over my surroundings. The stench kept thickening, and soon purple liquid began to come oozing out from between the trees.
"A review session this time?"
Black... Sludge? Slushie? Something like that — I vaguely remembered the name.
Of course, "review session" didn't mean this was some repeatable quest identical to Floor 1's.
Glrrrbbb!!
Gluck!! Grrrgle!!
Urk, urp, urk...!!
"Whoa! Burning!"
Three Black Sludges! Three of the Floor 5 mid-boss! On Floor 3!
Seriously, Tower-bro? Is this right?
[ Photo: Three Black Sludges ]
Black Sludge? Slushie?
This thing is supposed to be the Floor 5 boss.
So why are THREE of them spawning on Floor 3;;;;
The moment I posted the photo to the Tower Gallery, comments came pouring in. Apparently most people shared my exact opinion — a difficulty that truly, genuinely deserved the phrase "mother got f***ed."
As I, a fellow orphan, felt a strange kinship with that phrasing, a chime rang out and the main quest materialized before my eyes.
Ding!
Slay the monsters. (0/3)
🎁 Rewards: Floor 4 Entry Ticket, Random Skill Box x1, Random Trait Box x1
Reward normalization. Righteously ordered burning.
I dropped to the floor in a full prostration before the status window.
"Arigato!!"
Dammit, Tower-bro!! I believed in you!! A sudden wave of philosophy washing over me from the quest screen... The slushies in front of me are starting to look kind of cute, actually...
GLUUUEEEEBB!!
"...F***."
Come to think of it, no, they weren't. That half-chewed, spit-back-out black kimchi pancake was a little too...
🎁 Rewards: Floor 4 Entry Ticket, Random Skill Box x1, Random Trait Box x1
"Still, double gacha is not something I can pass up."
With practiced ease, I drew an aluminum can from my Inventory. Then I used Transmutation to mold the aluminum into a spike-shaped blade, gripped it in both hands, and murmured.
Shhhhring!
"Ready, aren't we?"
📌 Trait:Drug Addiction
Grade:EX
Effect: Stats rise in proportion to addiction rate.
🧪 Addiction Rate:420%
It was time to test out my strengthened power.