Somewhere in the Middle Tower.
"Oh, Isaac sent us a message!" Yuri Jahad showed an excited expression as she felt a tug from her Pocket.
Slightly at the front, Eva's face turned expressionless when he heard this. Although he did have a good first impression of the two Irregulars, after thinking about things some more, he couldn't help but worry.
They were 'Irregulars' in the end, abnormal existences.
And especially Isaac. Having his level of strength just on the 1st floor, just what level would he reach in the future as he keeps going up the Tower?
Evan looked back and apathetically observed Yuri.
However, as Yuri began to read the message, her curious expression quickly morphed into a shocked one. "No!… Don't tell me the boy is dead!"
Hearing this, Evan raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What? Dead?"
Yuri frowned as she looked at Evan. Her facial expression hardened and she said, "Evan… Isaac sent me a message. He said that he got the Black March back, but… Bam is dead."
"Hm? Bam died?" Evan had already expected that, but he was still somewhat surprised. Although a weak boy, Bam was still an Irregular…
On the other side, Yuri gnashed her teeth and stomped the ground with her foot in anger, causing it to crack. "Damn it!!! I should have expected it! It was a mistake to let that boy go up the Tower!"
After thinking about it for a bit, the chances that an ordinary boy would survive the Test Floor were genuinely extremely slim; it was all up to luck that someone would take pity on him the moment he got there. On one hand, it would be more surprising if Bam instead survived the Test Floor rather than if he died!
In other words, it was also her fault that Bam died.
"Damn it!!!" Yuri roared out in anger and sent out a punch to slightly vent, which in turn created a humongous hole in the cave wall and created a huge canyon.
The other Rankers present reflexively narrowed their eyes and covered them with their hands to avoid the dust that formed from the attack.
They watched this and let out sighs of amazement. Just now Yuri had clearly only used her physical strength, but with just her body alone and no Shinsoo, just with a punch and the fist wind from it, she could decimate normal Rankers.
Evan quickly ran up to Yuri to calm her down and called out: "Lady! You can't blame yourself! Remember! The boy wanted to take that test even without the Black March! It was just bad luck that he died!"
Yuri frowned as she looked down at him. She said, "Damn it, I know this. But… he had such a cute face. He'd surely grow up handsome in the future. It's just such a waste."
Evan stood there with a blank expression, stunned. 'So it was all about his face all along?'
"Tsk." Yuri clicked her tongue and casually kicked off a random pebble, causing it to shoot out like a bullet and crush into a stone wall. She stood tall, hands on her hips, and without looking back said, "I already expected this might happen, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm pissed off."
Whatever happened, she felt that Isaac would have surely done all he could.
Bam was a Tower climber like everyone else. It was just bad luck that he died.
Evan said nothing and only sighed.
He felt there was no point in saying anything. Regulars dying happened all the time. Meanwhile the living, always, had to move on.
As Yuri turned back, her expression hardened. "Whatever. What's done is done."
She felt pity toward Bam's death, but there was nothing she could do.
As she thought about it, Isaac was already an extremely handsome young boy and was fine. This thought made her feel a little better.
Putting aside her preferences, what she wanted to see the most was also an Irregular that could change the Tower. And Isaac had the strength and potential to do that. With Isaac's strength, he would do just fine during the tests; he wouldn't end up like Bam.
"Do you think it's fine to call Isaac?" Yuri then asked.
Evan almost choked when he heard this. He frowned and immediately shook his head. "Lady! You know that the Pocket channel is monitored by the King! It's better not to!"
He said this because he knew that Yuri could not control the words that came out from her mouth for the love of Jahad.
But no one should know that she lost the Black March or that she had relations with an Irregular, let alone find out that she actually helped Irregulars go up the Tower!
"A girl can't even call a boy in this Tower, what bullcrap…"
As Yuri continued grumbling, saying that she wanted to call Isaac, Evan said, "Can I see the message?"
"Go ahead," Yuri said and indifferently threw her Pocket at Evan.
Evan hurriedly caught the Pocket that threatened to hit his face, then looked through the text message from Isaac.
After reading through, he nodded in approval.
Isaac mentioned what had happened and apologized.
The message was simple, omitted details and certain words, but that's what it should look like.
As Evan told Isaac, the common communication channel of the Pockets is unsecure. Jahad's forces secretly monitor all messages and calls, so any suspicious words or phrases might get filtered out and investigated, and especially if they were related to the Pocket of a Jahad Princess and not a random person.
After receiving back her Pocket, Yuri rolled her eyes at Evan's lack of reaction. "Well, continue leading the way, my guide. I still have to retrieve the Black March!"
"... Yes!"
… (*mostly training montage paragraphs from the previous version of the story)
The Second Floor of the Tower, Evaknhell's Floor.
Isaac sent a simple text message to Yuri Jahad.
He honestly wrote that he retrieved her weapon, but Bam died.
Regulars die all the time during the bloody tests, and Bam was the weakest of them all.
Meanwhile, he was alive.
Isaac didn't think as if it was a big deal or something he had to seriously apologize for. It seemed like Yuri had a favorable impression of him as well.
As for him absorbing what was left of Bam… that didn't need to be mentioned.
After sending out the message, Isaac went out to visit the training facilities that were open to the Regulars.
What he was interested in first was simply a spacious empty room where he could go all out and test himself.
After asking a guide robot for something like that, he was led to a reinforced training room.
Fortunately it was a private reinforced room that he could use just by himself with no other Regulars peeping on him. The walls and ground were all said to have been reinforced to Ranker level, being indestructible.
'Private or not, I'm sure I'm still being watched by FUG.'
Isaac put these thoughts aside and still began testing what he could do with his Shinsoo on a gray striking wall.
Still in his casual clothes, he presented his empty palm and gathered crimson electric Shinsoo on top of it.
A moment later, he pushed out his palm and a singular lightning current shot out from his hand, directly striking the gray wall ten meters away with a loud bang.
As a result of the strike, there was only an explosion and some smoke, but no damage.
Isaac didn't care about the damage, but focused on what he was able to do with Shinsoo.
'That was easy…'
The control of lightning came to him easily as if it was also Mordred's natural ability!
Issac experimented for a bit and quickly grasped the best way to use this kind of Shinsoo attack.
Using Shinsoo Burst skill as a base to control Lightning, he could send out a powerful lightning strike. It was a single electric current that would travel in a somewhat zig-zag fashion and strike the target, causing an electric discharge and explosion on impact.
Isaac called this move simply: 'Lightning Strike'.
For Lightning Shinsoo control, it will probably be his most basic move.
This attack was slightly stronger than his normal sword strike in case he didn't use Shinsoo Burst. It was very quick too; quick to cast and quick to hit the target.
Another basic move that he could use was when he concentrated more electric Shinsoo and shot it out in the form of a more condensed lightning attack that traveled in a more straight path.
He called it a 'Thunder Bolt'.
Thunder Bolt was more destructive than Lightning Strike and had an even faster travel speed, but took a little longer to prepare unlike the nearly instant Lightning Strike.
Isaac then activated the 'Shinsoo Burst' skill and began to experiment with it while zipping around the room and striking with his sword.
He quickly learned more about it.
Firstly, his Shinsoo Burst skill has two components to it.
The first is that it can be used to reinforce the body from the inside using electric energy, boosting his strength, speed and defense. The effect of this boost for him seemed to be around 25%; it was just as much as Mordred experienced when she relied on Magical Energy instead of Shinsoo.
Secondly, it can also be used by him to cause sudden explosions of electricity to propel himself in one direction, to suddenly accelerate or to suddenly change direction, to overload his sword with electric Shinsoo and also to control lightning.
Perhaps because this skill has these two different functions that have to be controlled simultaneously to fight optimally, Isaac already discovered that he is able to create and manipulate two different Shinsoo attacks at the same time!
At this moment, he had two separate clusters of electric currents dancing on top of his two hands.
'It basically means that I can control two 'Baangs' right from the start, huh? That's very convenient!'
From what he remembered, a basic unit of Shinsoo is called a 'Baang'. The more Baangs a person can control, the more talented they are deemed to be as a Wave Controller.
While a newbie would have to start from practicing how to create his first Baang, he could already control two Baangs!
Isaac continued experimenting.
Controlling two Baangs, he sent out two crimson Lightning Strikes at the same time.
With a loud bang, the two currents struck the striking wall together.
Isaac could feel the power behind that attack. As the two lightning strikes overlapped, the resulting damage was around twice as much as before.
Even so, there was no damage on the Ranker-level wall.
[Damn, they have some tough walls,] Mordred commented from a Clarent that laid at the side.
'Yeah. It's supposed to be at Ranker level, so a random attack won't scratch it. But I'm still a little disappointed with the strength of my Shinsoo attacks…'
Following that, Isaac continued experimenting.
He noticed that the strength of his Shinsoo attacks was impressive, but still considerably lagged behind what he could do when relying on his body or when using his sword.
Even when it came to the [Shinsoo Burst] skill, he felt that he wasn't using it to the full extent of proficiency at all. Even though it was a strong skill ranked at A, he simply lacked the ability to use it at full power.
'My Shinsoo Burst skill, when used on top of my A-rank physical statistics, makes me incredibly strong. But what Khun did with his Shinsoo Boost in the arena was way more than increasing his speed by a little bit, but more like multiplying it by ten times or more!'
The base of his body was way stronger than Khun's, so perhaps that played a role. But it still appeared that there was a clear room for improvement in his ability to use Shinsoo.
In other words, his current skill at using Shinsoo was somewhat weak. As a result, his Shinsoo techniques were weak.
'If instead of boosting my strength by 25% using Shinsoo Burst, I could boost it by ten times or more, just what would it be like?..'
Isaac thought about it and felt a bit dazed. If he could use his Shinsoo Burst at this level, his resulting strength would be on a completely different level!
Unfortunately, currently he could only receive a small boost from the Shinsoo Burst skill. His ability to control Shinsoo was lacking.
'I will need to train how to use Shinsoo inside the Tower to bring out the most out of the Shinsoo Burst skill. But I'll take it, whatever. My talent for Shinsoo is high. I'll only need to practice.'
Since he had only just entered the Tower and had his first contact with Shinso, he accepted it.
If he complained that he was too underpowered in his situation, he would feel way too ashamed. His starting point was still very good thanks to the Grail. What was most important was that he had the potential for growth.
At this time, Isaac clearly knew how he could improve - improve his Shinsoo control and his proficiency of using the Shinsoo Burst skill to be able to receive a much stronger boost.
If he could improve his Shinsoo boost from 25% times to at least two to three times, it would already be a huge improvement.
That day Isaac experimented with other ways to manipulate Shinsoo.
Isaac could see that when it came to pure Shinsoo attacks that involved Shinsoo without a quality, his ability to control Shinsoo with Lightning quality seemed to spill over and also made him skilled at those to a decent degree.
Just like Laure, he could already send out long-range Shinsoo attacks.
When using pure shinsoo, his Shinsoo blast wasn't any weaker than the one that Laure had used during the Crown Game against him.
But apart from this he could control two Baangs instead of just one, and could turn his Shinsoo into lightning, making his attacks even more destructive.
If he ended up in the Wave Controller class for some reason, he would still do very well.
That time in the training room, Isaac also tested Clarent.
He noticed that he could raise his striking power by a lot thanks to relying on Clarent's ability of concentrating Magical Energy, the only of Clarent's ability that he currently has access to.
It was his trump card. By relying on Clarent he could efficiently add electric shinsoo to his sword strikes, raising his effective combat strength and destructiveness by a lot.
'And if the strength of my Shinsoo improves, the damage I could cause with Clarent should also increase.'
After testing what he was already able to do, Isaac began experimenting and practicing.
Sometimes he simply sat on the ground and focused on creating powerful thunderbolts, sometimes he would run around the room with Shinsoo Burst to or send out energy sword slashes at the striking wall.
He stayed locked up inside the training for a few hours.
…
When Isaac finished experimenting for the day, he went out to eat dinner after receiving a text message from Khun.
Afterwards the two went to take a shower.
After the shower, looking into a large clear mirror, Isaac could see his appearance again.
It was a very attractive face with long blond hair and bright crimson-red eyes.
'That's basically like my ideal, huh?' Isaac thought to himself.
Long straight golden hair and crystal-clear blue eyes, inspired by the Ainsworth family that he knew and slightly admired, or instead bright ruby-like eyes - this was probably his personal ideal for what he would want his ideal self to look like.
It appeared to him that the Grail had fulfilled this wish, except that his appearance was slightly influenced by Mordred's Class Card. He started with his hair being bound into Mordred's ponytail and his facial features also being similar to hers.
He didn't mind it because he still looked great in his opinion.
His body itself was rather tall and slim; a swimmer's physique with a bit of muscle, but not much, similar to how Mordred is. His apparent age was of a handsome young man around 16 years old, so he was quite young.
For his ideal self, he would probably not want to be as skinny, but have a little more muscle.
'I guess you can't have everything,' Isaac thought with a small smile. He was satisfied with what he saw nonetheless.
At that moment, he also decided to build more muscle in the future. He felt that perhaps building his ideal physique himself might feel only more rewarding.
After leaving the showers, Isaac eventually parted ways with Khun and began to walk back to his room while following the GPS map on his Pocket.
As his Pocket was scanned by the computer next to the door, the electric door automatically opened.
After walking in, Isaac pressed a button on his Pocket and the doors closed.
Isaac sat down on the bed and then began to browse through his tablet-like Pocket to find out more about it.
Before this, he had already exchanged his contact information with Khun.
Khun was completely shocked when he saw that Isaac's Pocket was custom made and an A-grade at that.
Apparently, even most Rankers don't have an A-grade Pocket! It was worth a fortune.
Bam's Pocket was also retrieved by Khun, after it dropped to the ground in a visible mode after Bam disappeared. Rather than concealing it, he then freely gave it to Isaac.
It was clear to Isaac that Khun cared more about their relationship than some money and was just a good friend to have.
At this time, Isaac discovered how his Pocket has all kinds of functions like: a calculator, timer, text messages, voice messages, video calls, a video browser, music player, flashlight and many others, the same as a phone, but also more.
There was even the 'Network' he could browse which seemed to be the Internet of this world.
The Pocket, in essence, was a mixture of a computer and a magical Iphone. It could even be controlled by thought to a degree.
It even had a magical space for storing items and food!
One good thing that Isaac was forced to notice about the Tower was that it was an ultra high-tech world, even though it still included fantasy-like fights, special races and magical powers.
Even at this very moment he was staying on top of a giant floating ship.
Putting his Pocket aside, Isaac reclined on the comfortable bed and thought, 'After transmigrating here, I at least don't have to crap into a bucket and worry about not being able to take a shower, huh? Not that I would mind being in a fantasy world with swords and magic, but it's also something to be appreciated...'
Apart from the utopia-like technology, the Tower also seemed like a place designed for nurturing powerhouses. Climbing the Tower, you become stronger and stronger like in a game.
Inside the Tower, achieving eternal lifespan isn't too hard either, since each Ranker is granted unending lifespan, while the power levels of High Rankers and the Family Heads are quite high.
And if you get to the top and manage to conquer the entire Tower, wouldn't you basically become a God?
All things in consideration, the Tower wasn't a bad place for him to transmigrate to. If he has enough power and some luck to pass through all the dangers, if he succeeds in the end, it's almost like a paradise.
Not only this, but Isaac was also excited to meet all kinds of interesting characters that he only read about before, like Endorsi, Hwa Ryun, Yuri, Yeon Yihwa (even though she's quite stupid)…
Isaac suddenly noticed that he only thought of girls at that moment.
'Ah well, I'm a guy...'