Floor 10, Abyssal Tower. Underground Black Forest. In an ice cave housing a deceased giant Bear-like monster.
An hour already passed since the test on the first floor concluded. The ones Mikaela noticed outside the invisible wall of the first floor's arena already went back to their respective floors or sent messages to their guilds before leaving to recruit new members. None of the participants remained. They all either died, or got transported to the second floor or other locations on the first floor. As for the creepily masked fairies, they vanished from sight the moment they completed their task.
Near the entrance of the ice-caved on Floor 10, a man in red-black plated armor reported as he knelt on one knee before another man in a more glamorous-looking black armor.
"Guildmaster, the welcoming event of the Tower has just ended... and approximately ten thousand people joined the current abyss cycle on floor 1."
The other only hummed a reply. But as if the kneeling knight already expected it, he calmly continued without lifting his head.
"According to the ones we sent down there, out of ten thousand participants, seven thousand were summoned from the surface world. Out of these seven thousand, only four hundred managed to touch the obelisks scattered across the place and passed the first test of the Tower. Then out of these four hundred, only sixteen awakened abyssal powers. The fairies of the first floor already sent all passers to the 'Bridge'. "
It took some time before the man heard the other party speak up. "And the rest?"
"Apart from some lucky locals, they all died, Sir."
The young-looking guild master of the guild 'Red Dawn' stopped inspecting his newly forged sword and directed his gaze at his subordinate. He kept quiet for a whole minute as if weighing something in his mind. Then with an emotionless look on his face, he asked, "So what was the challenge?"
"Mind poison, Sir," came the immediate reply of the subordinate.
Mild interest showed on the guildmaster's face. His grey eyes looked up, seemingly seeing the ever-dark skies of the Underground Black Forest through the icy ceiling of the cave.
After some time, he laughed in a low voice and commented, "So no demons, huh. No wonder so many survived..."
"Yes."
The mind poison the knight in red-black armor referred to was the faint mist emitted by the purple stone obelisk. As Alexei understood it in-game, the monolith had the effect of buffing monsters. Depending on the type of obelisk, it could either increase their physical capabilities or their inherent elemental powers by a large amount. At the same time, if there were humans around, it could also debuff them in the forms of elemental disorder, and lowered intelligence and rationality.
However, everybody on the upper floors of the Tower knew that the strange poison was already the easiest challenge the newbies would face. The rest were tests that could wipe out thousands of people in seconds, for example, a rampage of a Boss that normally resides on a higher floor, or a horde of man-eating insects pouring from all sides of the arena...
Most of the time, not even a hundred would be able to survive. But a tenth of these survivors would usually awaken abilities related to the abyss or its inhabitants.
Although there was no scientific explanation for it, the lesser the number of survivors, the stronger the 'monsters' that would be born.
The folks living outside the Tower called these 'monsters' 'Fallen Blessed'. One strange thing about them was that the majority were summoned from what the abyss locals called 'The Middle Lands'. Rare were exceptions and nobody knew why.
Anyway, all guilds who wanted to clear the required cycles and reach the top of the Tower wanted these Fallen Blessed to increase their strength. Because of this, every time the Tower summoned participants from Mavria, representatives of guilds would descend on the first floor regardless of the penalty from the Tower's fairies.
The grey-eyed man said, "Greg, there's only the two of us, no need to follow rules and ceremony. Speak. Is there any good news on some unique Fallen Blessed? You said earlier that there are sixteen this time."
"Sir, per the Tower's rules, because there too many survived, the ones who awakened did not really acquire any spectacular or unique abilities. The strongest among them only gain control over abyssal fire. Of course, our people still went to recruit them and managed to secure three. In six months at most, they should be able to reach our base. However..."
The knight remained in place, but this time he raised his head. Greg was silent for some time as he arranged the words in his mind. Several seconds passed before he continued.
"Sir, forgive me for acting out of bounds earlier. One of our people reported that a Gift user appeared amongst the newcomers, so I sent the Leopard Twins to recruit her. I thought obtaining that person was more important than those Fallen Blesseds so I acted before getting your permission."
A surprised look appeared on the guildmaster's face. 'What?'
But not long after, doubt flashed across his eyes. "You said a Gift user, right? Somebody who just entered the Tower is a true Blessed One. But how could that happen? The Tower has never summoned a Gift user before. Greg, are you fooling me?"
Before he knew it, the guildmaster's aura had changed. His gaze turned piercing which made the red-armored knight feel suffocated. The latter could only bow his head and stutter out, "S-Sir, I won't ever dare lie to you."
When the other's expression remained cold, Greg added with urgency in his tone, "A-according to my sources, the Gift user was not summoned by the Tower!"
After saying that, the invisible pressure pressing on Greg's head disappeared. The man found that it was easy to breathe again so he sighed in relief before he raised his head. Sweat ran down his spine though when he saw that the other guy's left hand was already at the scabbard of his sword.
In front of the red-wearing knight, the young man with grey eyes had an astonished expression on his face.
The guild master of 'Red Dawn' was a survivor of a Floor 1 Test from seven years ago which only had 144 passers. As the Fallen Blessed of his batch, he relied on the abyssal powers to form his guild and occupied a place on the tenth floor of the Tower. However, the fact that he convinced people through his strength did not mean that he was not smart. It was actually the opposite, he was somebody who could use his head well.
This was why when he heard that the Gift user was not called by the Tower from the Middle Lands, he immediately realized that the person definitely entered through the eight towns. However, he knew for sure that only inhabitants of Mavria could get a Gift.
So what did Greg's statement just now mean?
'If the person was from Mavria, but was not summoned, it means she reached the Abyss without going through the Tower! Does it mean there's a passage out there that leads directly to the Middle Lands!'
All of a sudden, the man's eyes lit up and the gaze he turned to Greg was full of approval. He then patted the knight's shoulder and complimented him. "Well done, my friend. Well done!"
At a loss, the red knight humbly accepted the compliment, "Thank you, Sir."
"Lead me then! Call the others from the main team. I want them to go with me!" A series of commands then came out of the guild master's mouth. He spoke with urgency and was very eager to come down personally to acquire the said newcomer.
However, Red Dawn was not the only guild on the lower floors of the Tower, and the guild master was not the only one with a sharp brain here. What he realized, as long as the others received the same amount of information as he did, they would also realize why this was a very urgent issue.
"You said her name is Mikaela Hanover?" Somewhere on Floor 8, a woman with fiery red eyes and black hair dressed in a long flowing red dress was hurrying towards the sole teleport waypoint on the entire floor.
Behind her were three red-robed women running to catch up to her. One of them replied, "Yes, Big Sis. That newcomer seems to be a noblewoman of a country in the Middle Lands."
"Good." A satisfied smile hang on the woman's red lips. She said, "A noblewoman. I like her already. She must join our sorority without fail!"
...
In the current cycle, two Gift users actually somehow joined the ones on floor 1. However, only Mikaela and the fairy knew Alexei's identity as the other 'Blessed'. Mikaela saw a corpse wearing Alexei's clothes so she assumed that he was killed and that his Gift was stolen. The fairy knew he was still alive but was not interested in divulging his secrets to anyone. Hence, the youth escaped the fate of being chased by countless people like Mikaela.
Seven days passed since then. Alexei met no one else, no fellow newbie nor scouts from the higher floors, so sometimes when resting after hunting monsters, he would wallow in his thoughts concerning his future or reminisce about his old life on Earth. Of course, the number of times he did so was too few and far in between since he was constantly battling or running away.
The abyss was truly a paradise for monsters. Even on the lowest floor, there were almost no safe zones. Had he been like those people randomly summoned from Mavria, he might have already died, with his bones and flesh feasted on by beasts and monsters.
Although he found it ironic, he currently realized his experiences in the Dark Palace had enabled him to easily adapt to his new environment. Maybe this was the case of finding the worse easy after getting through the worst.
In the laboratory of those madmen, he was nothing but a helpless, powerless guinea pig who could only depend on luck for survival.
However, inside the Tower, while danger also surrounded him on all sides, at least he had the power to fight back. There were no more chains restricting his limbs. There were no automatons monitoring him twenty-four seven. His Gift was also with him. And most importantly, the knowledge stored in his head could be used here since all the monsters he encountered so far also existed in the game.
He was not in a totally passive situation here. He could feel that his fate was in his hands again.
Alexei's reason for actively seeking battles was something else though.
When he was still traveling with Mikaela, he discovered something about himself. In fact, besides his suspicions about her origins, this discovery was another major reason why he decided to separate from her.
"Needles again... A broken dagger... And a useless headgear... This damn luck of mine!"
After another battle with a horde of goblins inside a rocky cave, Alexei began to search the corpses of the mobs he killed. The faint glow from his Gift served as the only illumination in the place. His eyes and hands busily moved, searching for something in the dark.
On the first day of his arrival in the abyss, he somehow discovered that monsters he killed or killed by somebody within a 5-meter radius from him would drop cube-like items that were only visible to him.
Once he picked them up, these cubes would suddenly disappear. At the same time, a picture would pop up in his mind, accompanied by a line of text below.
That was when he realized that he had the ability to 'loot' monsters and store drops in a dimension that only he could access. All items would then be in a catalog that would automatically quantify their value and give them descriptions. It was an ability that totally reminded him of a player's personal inventory bag. At the same time, it became his another reason to be wary of other people...