The Eve
Lizardman heroes were definitely very strong. Each one handled weapons more freely than their own bodies, and their combined linked techniques were excellent too. But after my long-term closed-door training on Floor 3, my skills had already surpassed theirs. I won without much difficulty, grabbed the underwhelming clear rewards, and headed to Floor 4.
By then, both my specs and skills far exceeded Floor 4 level, and the monsters there weren't even close to being my match. Of course, that didn't mean it was a cakewalk.
There was something far worse than the monsters on Floor 4. That goddamn sun glaring down from the sky.
"Fuuuuck, it's hot as balls."
Floor 4's main theme was the desert. An endless scorching desert with no night. Whether I was crashing at the inn or out hunting, I had to suffer under the blazing heat all day. Even the monsters all used fire-attribute attacks. They were palette-swapped versions of goblins, kobolds, or lizardmen I'd seen climbing the Tower so far. Their patterns weren't much different from before—just with fireballs or flames added.
They didn't help my growth at all. Fighting them just made me hotter and more pissed off. Plus, I'd already maxed out my fire resistance on Floor 3, so there was nothing to gain.
"No heat resistance or anything?"
I grumbled to myself, stepping over the wreckage of the field boss I'd just taken down. I knew there wasn't a skill like that, though. Fire resistance probably covered it. The dehydration symptoms mentioned as dangerous in the open community's guides weren't even fazed by me.
Drip, drip. The ice chunks I'd stuffed inside my clothes to cool off melted and trickled down in seconds. My body was heated to near-iron-plate levels. And yet, my core temperature hadn't changed much, and I'd never really suffered from the heat. That meant the fire resistance skill was protecting my body from it. Just not my mind.
"Maybe I should just head up."
With this field boss down, I'd pretty much claimed everything Floor 4 had to offer. There was still the quest to escort the caravan crossing the desert, but the reward sucked, so I could skip it. I'd looted almost all the mid-to-large treasure chests on my first day here, leaving only small ones for gold or reinforcement materials. Even scraping up every last quest and monster wouldn't yield much more growth.
"Let's move on."
Four days after entering Floor 4, having conquered the entire field, I headed straight for the boss.
* * *
Floor 4's boss monster was a fire-breathing lizard beast called a salamander. After seeing bipedal lizardmen all the time, spotting a normal four-legged crawling lizard felt weird as hell.
The salamander's main patterns were flame breath, fireball tosses, and biting with flaming teeth. With my sky-high fire resistance, I could've tanked them no problem. In phase 2, it wrapped its body in flames and charged, but the attack was so straightforward I dodged everything.
It was probably a tough boss for normal Floor 4 challengers, but our matchup was terrible for it.
Congratulations. You are the first to clear Floor 4 of the Tower of Trials.
My first clear reward was the [Salamander's Soulstone], which could imbue items with fire attributes. Sounded fancy, but the added fire damage was meh. A quick community search showed better imbue items were easy to get on higher floors. So I slapped it on some junk item and tossed it.
The max contribution reward was [Fire Resistance] skill. Yeah, the one I already had. What the hell? But it merged with my existing one and leveled it up by one.
Final strike reward was the [Salamander's Eye] staff—a mage item destined to rot in my inventory. I thought about selling it to other challengers during Festival, but trades aren't allowed on event maps. Only event currency and items. There were community posts about indirect trading loopholes, but they didn't work for a solo player like me.
"Wonder if it'll be useful anywhere."
* * *
The soulstone and staff from Floor 4 came in handy on Floor 5. The theme there was the polar opposite: a frozen wasteland. In the frigid snow mountains, those two items were a big help.
As firestarters. I couldn't equip them due to restrictions, but smashing the red ornament on the staff's end sparked flames. Prep some flammable tinder, whack it with the staff, and boom—campfire. The fire-imbued dagger made a perfect hand warmer too.
Floor 5 monsters showed more effort than Floor 4's. Most were still rehashed with ice attributes, but some new ones popped up. Snowfield snow rabbits with powerful ice attacks, or snowfield trolls that looked like white orangutans. Especially those snowfield trolls—they were right up my alley.
Trolls had near-human builds except for their size, with exceptional regeneration. Perfect for bare-handed technique practice. Hell, even after pounding one with my fists for 30 minutes, it wouldn't die. Sure, it started wailing like it wanted death midway, but whatever. Thanks to that, I leveled my bare-handed combat skill by 2 in a week. Grappling improved a ton too.
Still, as beasts, there were limits to what techniques I could practice. Excluding trolls, the rest were so-so, and like Floor 4, I'd grabbed all the early gains. Quests and hidden elements were mostly mage-oriented, so nothing worth digging deeper.
"Let's move on."
Two weeks later, having pacified the snowfields, I went for the boss.
* * *
Floor 5's boss was a yeti—like a giant snowfield troll. It wasn't exactly the same; it showed real intelligence. Patterns: ice club swings, icicle magic shots, and pounding the ground with its fist like a retard.
The massive yeti's ice club swings covered huge areas, but the trajectory was obvious. Icicle shots packed power but moved like lizardman arrows—easy dodge. The ground-pound turned out to be a paralysis AoE, per community posts after the kill.
"Oh, that was the paralysis wide-area skill."
My high paralysis resistance no-sold it, but challengers said it was surprisingly dangerous. With all attacks being wide-range and high-damage, getting paralyzed even briefly could fuck you. Standard strat: ranged DPS stay out of range, elite tanks fully mark aggro. Tanks need specs to survive at least one hit even if paralyzed.
I said fuck that and in-fought it to death. Solo play's like that.
Floor 5 clear rewards: [Yet's Ice Club] (blunt weapon, huge like Goblin Lord's axe, high attack) and [Yeti Fur Cloak] (unique with cold resistance).
Good options, but item resistances might hinder skill growth. Equipped both, claimed achievement rewards, then inventory'd them.
Do you wish to activate the Floor Transition Gate?
"Yes."
Less than a month to clear Floors 4 and 5, I entered Floor 6.
* * *
A slight floating sensation, vision swallowed by light, and suddenly another world. Floor 6's entrance differed sharply from previous areas.
"It's actually indoors."
Like the labyrinth already, a lightless, enclosed passage loomed. As the open community said, Floor 6 was a traditional maze overall. Minotaurs, skeletons, zombies, slimes—various monsters.
I reopened the community for detailed info after a while. First thing that caught my eye: new breaking news.
The massive event where Tower challengers gather, the Festival—exactly one month away.