Chapter 26 - Targeted

"Great, I commend your courage. As a reward for your valor, you will be under my protection for the next 30 days, this way that skeleton will not trouble you again and the quest I gave you will be fair." Tower Admin's words rang an alarm in my mind because considering the context so far 'that skeleton' she spoke of was Lich King Grayroch. And according to her Lich King appears to be targeting me for some reason.

"Master, if you don't mind could you tell me why Lich King Grayroch is targeting me." Since the Tower Admin was kind enough to inform me that Lich King Grayroch is gunning for me and was generous enough to provide me limited time protection against him, I hoped she was patient enough to explain to me why Grayroch was specifically targeting me. 

"How would I know what is going on in the hollow skull of that skeleton? But, if I were to guess it may be because you were able to cheat death without any consequences while it could not." the Tower Admin answered as she returned to grooming her snow-white fur with her forepaw. Indicating that she had lost interest in the conversation.

Looking at the floating white cat grooming itself I thought, 'Adorable, are you sure you're not a cat?' I wouldn't dare to voice this thought so I immediately replaced it with what Tower Admin said, 'You were able to cheat death without any consequences while it could not.'

"..." I grew silent trying to understand what the Tower Admin meant by these words. Soon a thought that Tower Admin and Lich King Grayroch might know that I transmigrated crossed my mind making my heart skip a few beats but I quickly denied it and calmed myself because the T-system status panel read my name as Rayn Hunt, not Riyan Rebel. Since the omniscient T-system cannot detect that my soul did not belong to this world. The chances of Tower Admin and Lich King Grayroch, who were confined to the limits of the T-system, knowing about my secret was near zero unless they read my memories.  

So, what did the Tower admin mean when she said that I had cheated death without consequences and why does it bother Lich King Grayroch? 'It couldn't cheat death without consequences.' Was that it? What the hell am I supposed to make of that? Tower Admin's answer was missing too many details for me to come to any conclusion, so I decided to further question her on this—

"Before I leave let me give you one last piece of advice, don't be stingy with your T-coins, buy skills/items related to your meta in the T-commerce, later you may regret not using them. See you on the 10th floor. Don't be late, I will not wait for you." bidding me goodbye the Tower Admin vanished in thin air. Her words couldn't be clearer, if I don't get to the 10th floor in 30 days I won't be meeting her again. And as far as T-coins go I don't plan on saving them.

"Master, wait..." Tower Admin vanished before I could seek the answers to the questions bothering me. 

Once again I was all alone in the house, not letting the loneliness get to me I thought of taking up the Tower Admin's advice to buy skills/items I required and related to my meta in the T-commerce, but before that, I decided to check if there was any information on the 1st floor of the tower of trials on the internet. This way I could buy items/skills that could prove helpful in clearing the 1st floor. Since I was going to climb the tower of trials through the black gate I had to be more prepared to make sure that the 1st floor doesn't become my grave.

Browsing through the internet I was surprised to find that many people had already completed the 1st floor, netizens even came up with a nickname for this floor, EXP Farming Floor. 

The task of the 1st floor was survival, to be more precise Arachnid Apocalypse Survival for a stipulated amount of time. The prescribed amount of time the trial taker had to survive the Arachnid Apocalypse varied from 1 to 5 days based on the color of the gate used to climb the tower. 

Reading the task details for the 1st floor I couldn't help but wonder how the heck these people cleared the 1st floor when it hasn't even been a day since the tower of trials became available to humans. Even if they entered the tower through a blue gate they needed to survive for a day in Arachnid Apocalypse, clearing it sounded impossible considering it hasn't even been 12 hours since the Tower Admin's announcement. 

The answer for this madness was that 1day spent on the 1st floor equals 1hour spent out here. This time difference was the reason why many people were able to clear the 1st floor despite its Task conditions. Whether this time difference applied to all the floors? Probably not, the tower tutorial didn't display this time difference and the task window listed it as a privilege of the 1st floor.

Out here in the regular world, I was barely able to survive, how were the other trial takers able to survive a minimum of a day in Arachnid Apocalypse. Not only did they survive and clear the 1st floor but they dared to nickname it as EXP farming floor. It seems many people have had their fateful encounters in the tower, like me. If I don't keep up with their adventurous spirit then the head start I have right now will grow narrower with time. 

The internet was a lot of help thanks to the posts and stories of the trial takers who completed the 1st floor, but it failed in many ways. Like how it failed to caution us with the stories of those who failed on the 1st floor because the dead don't tell tales or maybe they did but couldn't access the internet.