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[Welcome to the 7th Floor, Battle of Wits]
[Quest: Reach the end]
[Description: Fighting isn't the only necessary skill in life. Solve each puzzle before the timer reaches 0 and enter the next room]
[Reward: 2 Gold]
[1h:59m:47s]
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The two appeared in an empty room, with the exception of a stone podium in the middle of the room. On the podium floated a Rubik Cube similar item, just instead of six sides, colors, and three by three squares, this item had eight sides with five by five squares and runes instead of colors.
It was natural that a normal Rubik's Cube wouldn't have been a challenge as even Urman, who wasn't known for using his brain so much, could easily do a normal cube in a minute max. That was the terror of stats, even a muscle brain could solve a Rubik's Cube faster than a human who trained with a Rubik's Cube for years.
"Seriously? I wanted a strong opponent to test my sword, not whatever this is." Urman complained.
"Sucks to be you but you should at least give it a try, you can't always solve everything with violence."
"I heard people say that but I never encountered such a situation. If you can't solve it with violence, then you're just not strong enough."
Orthis wisely decided that there was no point in arguing with him, partly because he wasn't completely wrong.
"All right, how about this? You will give it a try for…" Orthis checked the timer "30 minutes and if you still haven't figured it out, I will do it. Deal?"
"Grrr, fine," Urman grumbled.
Orthis didn't mind his teammate being on the dimmer side but he would still use every chance to make him use his brain, not to mention it gave him time for a break.
He sat down on the floor, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. If it weren't for Urman making weird sounds as a show of frustration, he would have fallen asleep. Hearing him struggle so much, Orthis couldn't help but grin a little.
"All right, genius, times up, your turn." Urman almost hissed as he threw the puzzle at his resting friend who opened his eyes just in time to catch it.
After fiddling with it for a bit, he quickly understood how it worked.
'No wonder he couldn't do it in 30 minutes, this a 3D puzzle disguised as a simple multi-sided Rubik Cube'
"Got it!" He shouted after barely 4 minutes when the runes suddenly began to light up.
"What? How the hell did you do it so fast?" It wasn't really a question but more of a complaint.
The separate pieces of the device began to float apart, revealing a complicated muster on their inside. After the pieces all separated from each other, they revealed a blue pearl. The moment Orthis grabbed it, the door to the next room opened.
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[Item: Mana Core]
[Description: A mid-ranked core of condensed Mana. It has many impure energies but is still very good material for crafting]
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After entering the next room, they were surprised to find a normal apartment. It had a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a much-needed bathroom. The living room had a heavy metal door that could only be opened by entering the correct code into the pad.
"Is this an escape room?" Orthis questioned. He didn't care too much about the riddles of this floor as even without his cheat Insight, he could easily solve them with his intellect.
"A what?" Urman, as an inhabitant of the Tower, wasn't familiar with this term.
"Basically a room you have to escape by finding clues inside. Well, I'm going to take a shower, you look for whatever you think might open this door." Orthis just turned around to take a refreshing shower, Insight had already given him all the hints to open the door, so he decided to just use this room to relax.
"What? Hey, wait, you can't just…" was all he could say before Orthis clammed the door to his face.
*****
One refreshing hot shower later, Orthis exited the bathroom only to enter a room that looked like a tornado decided to come visit.
"What the hell happened here?"
"I looked for clues everywhere like you said but I couldn't even find as much as a letter" Urman's voice came from the kitchen "So, I decided to just leave that to you and made myself something to eat. Wanna join?"
"…Sure" He honestly didn't expect what he was expecting but he could really go for something to eat.
"Is this pasta? When was the last time I ate that? God, sometimes I really miss the simple life." He questioned when he saw a pot full of pasta and another with a simple tomato sauce. After eating raw monster flesh for so long, something so simple tasted heavenly.
Just when Orthis was halfway done with his plate, he stopped and spat out a small key.
"What the hell, man? You didn't even check if you were really only cooking pasta?"
Urman just ignored him as he devoured his second plate. After putting aside the key, Orthis also went back to eating. They ate more food than what a family would consume in a week but that wasn't surprising.
The stronger their body got, the more energy it needed to operate, luckily this also meant they could go without food for much longer as their body worked with efficiency unseen in normal humans. Until they learned to control their Mana and use it to be self-sufficient, they would just have to eat a lot of food.
"This felt great" Orthis groaned as his stomach stretched itself to the limit, doing its best to not rip and at the same time digest the food.
"No shit, man." He answered in happiness and pain.
"But let's go back to the quest. We can rest later when we don't have a countdown."
Orthis stood up and walked to a painting in the bedroom. After pushing it aside, it revealed a small safe which opened with the key.
A few hidden messages and secrets later, Orthis had everything he needed to open the door, revealing a room much like the first one, only instead of a puzzle in the middle, it had a creature sitting there.
It had the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head of a human. Something Orthis quickly identified as a Sphinx.
"Enter, strangers, do not leave, or you will encounter danger beyond belief." The creature rhymed.
"To pass my test, thou must best whoever issued this quest."
"Just get on with it already." Orthis impatiently interrupted its rhymes. "We don't have all day, the timer for this room has already started."
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[29m:36s]
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"Very well." It didn't seem too pleased with being interrupted but did its job anyway "I own it yet my friends and enemies use it more than me, what am I?"
"Your name, next" Orthis impatiently answered. This riddle was simply beneath him.
"I shed tears but I cannot cry. I trek, but I cannot walk, swim or fly. What am I?"
"A cloud."
"I have thirty feet, one wing, and sturdy scales. What am I?"
"A boat. Is this all, can't you make them more difficult? I'm getting bored."
"Hmpf, you want something hard? Fine.
I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, water but no fish. What am I?"
"A map. Are you sure you're a real Sphinx? You don't seem to understand that you have to give me hard riddles."
"A boat full of people. You blink and you don't see a single person. Why?" It asked, this time with some anger and frustration.
"They're all married. Don't keep wasting my time."
"What gets wet while drying?" there was starting to be some real anger in the Sphinx's voice.
"A towel," Orthis answered without even thinking. The door to the next room had already opened but he continued to play with the Sphinx. Unlike what he said, he was actually having fun, it was rare to meet someone like this Sphinx.
The two continued this until the timer hit 40 seconds and the Sphinx gave up, having changed from anger to frustration to defeat in a matter of minutes. While all that was happening, Urman was just standing there cluelessly, trying to understand what was happening.
"All right, enough. You beat me and it's time for you to get going but before you do, I have a reward for you."
Before Orthis could respond, the Sphinx put its head on the ground and its top half began to break apart.
"Here, take this. We Sphinx life only for the pursuit of knowledge and it would be our honor to be of use to some who desire all knowledge even more than we do. Take my brain and use it however you like, I have a feeling you will do something great with it." The creature's voice resounded in their heads.
"But what about you? Don't you at least have a last wish before you die?" Orthis asked. He didn't refuse the brain but he was also a bit sad as he had taken a liking to this creature. It was rare to meet another pursuer of knowledge.
"I have no regrets, all I wish for is that you learn more knowledge and wisdom than anyone ever could. Don't let yourself be restricted by what others might call forbidden or dangerous and never be stingy to share your knowledge with those less wise than you."
"So, you're just going to kill yourself so that I might gain wisdom beyond your understanding?"
"Great beings are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser beings to light the flame. Now go."
'Did it just use its last breath to quote Doctor Who?' Orthis thought as he stepped through the door after a very confused Urman.
"Dude, what the hell was that? Did you just make friends with this thing?"
"No idea what its deal was but I will use its brain well." He said as he put the light blue brain into his Inventory "And no, we didn't become friends, we just respected each other."
"Whatever you say, weirdo. Now, what is this?" he asked as he looked around.
Unlike the previous rooms, this one had twenty doors, five on each wall.
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[Choose the right door to exit the room. Only one door brings you to safety, the other will all lead you to your sure death]
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Looking at the first door, Insight informed Orthis that this door would lead them straight to a pit of lava. Most other doors had similar dangers behind them but Orthis quickly noticed something.
The test in this room was not just to choose the right door, but any. The many possible death scenarios are meant to make everyone uncertain about opening a door at all but there is a difference between opening a door and going through it.
Of course, there were even two or three doors that would still kill someone without having to go through it but luck was also a valuable skill of survival.
"Any idea which one we should open?" Orthis asked, trying to test how Urman would respond to the threat of almost certain death.
"Nah, let's just open a random one. Thinking too hard about it only to come up with the same result isn't really my thing." He said as he just walked over to the nearest door and opened it.
The inside was pitch black until suddenly many red and yellow eyes opened and looked him straight in the eyes. Something about these eyes was not normal, almost otherworldly like they didn't belong to many beings looking at him but one being with many eyes but each eye had its own will.
"Okay, maybe not this one." Even a muscle brain like him could feel that there was something seriously wrong with this door.
As Orthis watched his teammate walk to the net door, he couldn't help but shake his head. This intimidation tactic might work on the average person but not on anyone smart, reckless, dumb, or muscle-headed.
Since they already opened a door, they completed the first task for this room and it was only a matter of time before they opened the right one but Orthis was a bit interested in the content of some of these doors.
Orthis opened his first door, which also happened to be one that would have been a sure-death scenario without entering. The moment he opened it, a tall figure clad in black full-body armor and a black long sword stepped out.
Orthis barely managed to duck before the sword made him a head shorter.
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[Black Knight of Ruin]
[Strength: 32]
[Endurance: 38]
[Agility: 29]
[Mind: 33]
[Description: A legendary knight of the past, bound to the Tower by an Unbreakable Oath. Even when being severely weakened, he is still beyond what beginners can handle. He possesses the artifact, Armor of Ruin, which negates 90% of physical damage, and the artifact, Sword of Forgotten Promises.]
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Hearing the heavy, metallic footsteps behind him, Urman turned around, just to see a menacing knight rush at his friend with killing intent.
"A little help here?" Orthis called over. This was all the concentration he could spare at the moment, this knight was too fast to dodge and blocking would send him for a few steps.
Urman didn't have to be asked twice as he jumped right into the confrontation. The knight was stronger, faster, more skilled and experienced, and had an armor that made the few attacks they landed useless but together it became more manageable.
The knight swung his sword in a wide arc at Orthis, only to get blocked and have Urman cut off his arm using his talent. This scene has happened a few times now but each time it did, Urman would either not hit the line his talent showed him and only leave a scratch that would disappear shortly after or he would hit and cut through his defenses, only for the knight to heal back in a few seconds.
Having lost his arm, he headbutted Orthis without any hesitation, breaking his nose and fracturing his skull. While Orthis took a step back out of reflex, Urman tried cutting off his head, only to get kicked in the stomach, crashing him into a nearby door.
The knight just casually walked over to Orthis as his arm already healed back. With a sudden quick step forward, he surprised Orthis and stabbed him in the stomach, this time however, instead of taking a step back, Orthis punched the knight's helmet with all his strength, creating a metallic sound as he broke all bones in his hand and the knight took a few steps back. He might not have suffered much damage but knockback still existed.
Urman used this opportunity to attack the black knight from behind, hitting his mark and cutting him in two halves. Instead of taking a sigh of relief, we prepared for the next round as we already knew that it wouldn't be long before he stood up again.
"I'm starting to think that we really aren't supposed to survive this guy." Orthis tried to joke as he looked at the hole in his stomach and felt the pain of his fractured skull.
"No shit. Just so you know, I blame you for this. If I die here, I will make sure to haunt you in whatever afterlife we end up in." Urman grunted, not in an all too good shape either, having multiple broken ribs and a dislocated jaw.
"Can't you try to somehow cut his healing factor?" He said as they watched the upper and lower half of the knight pull each other back together by some fleshy tentacles.
"I tried but my sword isn't nearly sharp enough for this and I don't know how to make it sharper yet."
Just as he said that, the knight got back up but this time he grabbed his sword by the blade instead of the handle. Urman swung down his sword from above, only for the knight to grab his arm mid-motion and ram the end of the handle into his liver, incapacitating him instantly.
Watching his only hope of winning fall together like a sack of potatoes, Orthis was starting to feel death approaching him as the knight once again grabbed his sword properly and swung at him.
Orthis managed to block but the recoil made both his arms go numb and send him flying across the room. Knowing that without a partner and two numb arms, he had no realistic chance of survival, he stood up one last time and mustered all the remaining strength he could muster as the knight walked towards him with no hurry in his step, showing how unconcerned he was by his last struggle.
Getting ready to throw his spear one last time, Orthis drew every ounce of power in him and more before throwing it. The spear traveled through the air faster than he could even follow, the next thing he knew was that the knight had a large hole in his chest that didn't seem to be regenerating.
Like the legend he was, the dark knight didn't even struggle in his final moments but welcomed his end with open arms as he went down to one knee and bowed before taking his last breath.
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[For using Mana before even having your Mana unlocked, you gained the Trait: Genius]
[You absorbed the Dark Knight of Ruin, Str +2, End +4, Agi +3, Min +3, Auxiliary Skill: Regeneration]
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[Auxiliary Skill: Regeneration]
[Body (Low): 2%]
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[Genius: Makes learning anything even easier, boosts the effect of each point in Mind]
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Unlike the knight's regeneration, his was a lot slower and weaker. If he wanted to regrow limbs, he would have to increase his proficiency in body regeneration, maybe even evolve it to a higher level.
With his last strength, Orthis grabbed his spear and Urman by the foot and dragged himself to the door he knew was the exit for not only this room but this entire floor. He would prefer not to go to the next floor in their condition but whatever was waiting for them there would not be as bad as whatever would happen if they decided to still be here when the countdown hits 0.
Upon opening the door, he was greeted with a blinding light but he had no remaining strength to cover his eyes, so he just threw Urman in and stepped into the light after him as the door shut close behind him.
He passed out the moment he made it through the next floor, he could only pray that nothing would kill him or that the floor had a countdown.
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[Welcome to the 8th Floor, Trial of Choices]
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