“What the fuck happened here?!“ Alan demanded, casting his gaze out in a wide arc, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of Su'ong. He tried to send out a mental query, requesting that she share her whereabouts. It was an painful reminder that he was utilizing forces that he didn't fully understand. In return for his troubles, as soon as he opened up their specific mental channel, several lines of the scripted calligraphy etched into the side of the tower emitted a pulse of silver light.
Without missing a beat, a mind-numbing blast of white noise laced with an underlying buzzing sensation crashed over his senses in a rogue wave of sound and pressure that made his teeth vibrate under its intensity. Standing as far away as he was, Alan could only imagine how bad the reaction would have been had he made the same mistake any closer to the tower.
Mental communication was proven painful and dangerous, and was therefore abandoned. In all honesty, Alan wanted nothing further to do with this island, yet he decided that since he had already taken the time to come out here, the least he could do was check the far side of the tower and do a bit of investigation before making his way back to camp.
Every fourth step he took was over another dead bird. Several were split cleanly into two pieces, and it only took a cursory look to determine those had probably fallen due to the collared Roc's Soul Skill. On the other hand, the vast majority of the corpses were littered with circular puncture wounds, most that he took the time to examine having been run all the way through at least three times.
It might've been more than that, but with so many holes piled up in such close proximity to one another, it was hard to say for sure. Regardless, it wasn't difficult to imagine this being Su'ong's handiwork. What with her being the only proficient spear user that he knew of within the Dungeon, it would've been far more surprising to learn that she wasn't the source of all those stab wounds.
The opposite side of the tower was more of the same. Battered and broken birds were strewn about at random, left to die wherever they fell, their loose feathers decorating the plateau. Whatever it was that had happened here, there wasn't a single living Roc left in sight. Fearing the worst, Alan kept his eyes peeled for the familiar white feathers, but by the time he finished making his second full lap of the island, he was confident that his future Rune Beast wasn't among the dead.
Struck with a sudden idea that was so obvious he almost wrote it off as a joke, Alan called up his PSA and took a long look at his Mini-map. As far as the map was concerned, Alan was alone in the Lakeside area, yet when he viewed the Safe Zone map in its fully expanded form, he saw a small blue dot on the West side of the Plains Zone.
So much for not leaving the Lakeside area… Alan sighed, clenching and unclenching his jaw while staring off towards where he assumed Su'ong was doing… something. It was a bit irritating that she had already gone off exploring without him, but it was far more annoying that she had left behind a note sending him out to the island on a wild goose chase.
Doing his best to ignore the stench of blood, Alan unslung his Storage Case and studied the tower from a safe distance. A constant outpouring of opalescent energy radiated from the painstakingly detailed script work ringing its single round wall. It was so thick and heavy that it was visible to the eye, reminding Alan of heat refracting above an ingot of heated iron.
From this side, the tower had no obvious entrance. It was beginning to feel like he should've just stayed in bed. “Might as well get something out of swimming all the way out here…” Although far from a fan of stringy Roc meat, Alan blatantly refused to leave the island with nothing to show for his efforts other than a freakishly disturbing crab. It was with that thought in mind that he began the grim task of collecting bird bodies and tossing then into inventory. By the time he made a full circuit of the island and retrieved them all, he had collected twenty seven complete Rocs, as well as enough dismembered portions to bring the tally up to forty-one.
Perhaps it was a waste of time, but if all else failed, Alan planned on trying to give them away in the Tutorial Town. Surely someone would be desperate enough to eat that shit. “If nothing else, it'll make for some decent bait…” Alan snorted, imagining how ridiculous he would look hooking up an entire twenty pound bird and casting it out in hopes of catching a monster of a fish.
As far as Alan could tell, the tower was completely sealed to the outside world. There were no doors or windows he could use to enter the chalky white structure, and the roof that he had, at first, assumed to be thatched was actually just a conglomeration of a countless number of Roc nests cobbled together from dried grass and twigs all piled on top of one another.
After hearing Su'ong speaking of males warming eggs in their nests and protecting them from predators, Alan wanted to get up there and collect any eggs that still remained. The combination of a complete lack of handholds, and the fact that at what had to be fifty feet tall, the tower was by far the tallest structure he'd ever seen, made getting to the top easier said than done. Unless he created his own handholds, or learned how to fly over the next couple days, those eggs would forever remain out of reach.
Determined to test the buildings defenses, for several long and painful minutes, Alan wailed on the side of the tower with his scale-encrusted fists, and when that proved to be a painful failure he tried again. Only this time with a Mana-Steel spike. Another failure. He only lasted five solid blows before he had to give up. The metal had begun vibrating so violently that he wasn't sure which would happen first; the rod being torn from his grasp, or the forces traveling up his arms increasing to the point that his elbows dislocated.
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He tried chipping away at it with his Basilisk Fang, and at one point, he even shoved the mouth of his Storage Case against the Stone wall in hopes he could tear it down bit by bit. It was all to no avail. His efforts had failed to leave so much as a single scratch upon the pristine surface. Each time a blow landed, a line of thick runes flashed and while he could only make guesses, Alan's best theories boiled down to those pesky runes either spreading out the point of impact, or canceling it altogether.
“I'm getting nowhere like this,” Alan sighed and shook out his wrists. He had no idea what that tower was made of, but between the materials used in its construction and those annoyingly effective lines of magic script, he would need to figure something else out if he was going to get in there and snatch the Celestial Essence.
If I can't get in there, not only am I going to fail the task the System laid out for me, but we'll be forced to take those stupid fucking Trials… Alan clenched his fists. There were still two days left, and Alan knew that if he was going to break through that sturdy tower he was going to have to gain as many levels as possible. His current Stats simply weren't going to cut it for this.
As far as Alan saw it, there was nothing left for him to do here. He could either screw around and test out the rest of his Class Skills, or figure out what Su'ong was up to, and possibly get some hands on learning experience with his new Class out in the Plains Zone.
Realistically, I gained more insight in that one short fight with the Pistol Crab than I ever did when activating Skills at random. It's tempting to play around and get a hang of things a bit more, but I think my best bet is going to be getting my hands dirty.
Practice was all well and good, but if Alan was going to survive, he knew that what he really needed was practical experience. “A million experience points wouldn't make me cry either…” Alan said wistfully. At this point, he would settle for a measly thousand. Ever since reaching the (F-Stage), the rate he'd been gathering experience had dropped precipitously.
The beasts were providing the same amount of experience as they always had, but just as Su'ong had warned, evolution had greatly decreased the value of the experience they provided. Or perhaps it was actually the potency that had dwindled? The way he understood it, experience energy was basically a beings remnant life-force.
Using his body like a fleshy sponge and filter combo, the System somehow simultaneously gathered up, and then cycled the residual kill energy through his body before wringing it all out. His cells had a fraction of a second to absorb whatever they could before what little remained dispersed. Returning to wherever it was that departing souls went to be at peace.
As for what exactly it was that his cells were feeding on, he was trying his best not to think about it. Every time he did, the mental image of a lost and destitute spirit came to mind. Desperate to remain on the mortal plains, the snarling soul wisp would lunge forward, seeking to possess the one who so casually took everything away. Only to phase through its intended host and have the last of its willpower and resolve stolen away for trying to survive against all odds.
Alan grunted, shifting his thoughts to something more productive. Su'ong and the Roc had already cleared out the tower's native Roc population. Unless he was willing to search out more Pistol Crab's, which he most assuredly wasn't, there was no reason to remain. Prolonging his stay any longer just seemed like a waste of what little time he had left to prepare.
Gaining a few Levels and adjusting to his Class was only the start of the days mission. “You might've won this round,” Alan said, shaking his fist at the obstinate building that refused him entrance. “But it's not over yet. I'll be back to finish this shit. I'm going to go and gain some levels, so enjoy your last days.“
I'll put every Stat Point I get into Strength and just have to hope that will be enough… Alan could think of a few alternative methods should plan A fail. The tower was able to absorb everything he threw at it, but how would it fare against two equally powerful attacks arriving simultaneously? Even better, how about three or four?
If Alan could get both Su'ong and the Roc to add their strength to his, and hit the tower with a coordinated barrage of attacks his odds of shattering those walls would surely increase. He could even suck it up and purchase [Blighted Guardian] to increase their firepower. [Pathogenic Accumulation] was another option that hovered on the forefront of his mind.
Amongst the negative pathogens listed for purchase, there were also several beneficial varieties to choose from. With the energy so thick around the plateau, Alan couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he were to unleash a storm of mushroom spores. Would the energy-rich environment allow them to grow into mushrooms faster than normal? While reading his Class Upgrade tab, Alan remembered seeing a listing for a bacteria called [Mycorrhizal Acceleration] that was supposed to speed up the rate plants grow, as well as make them hardier.
Alan grinned wildly, the faint stirrings of a plan starting to form. If three attacks weren't enough, then realistically four probably wouldn't be enough either. But if he could get a jungle of mushrooms and bacteria to start growing on the tower, perhaps that extra drain on the protective enchantments ringing the walls would provide them with an opportunity to blast through the defenses and be done with it.
And if not, well, there was always the Trials. While that wasn't the route that Alan would've preferred to take, if that's what it took to defeat the Dungeon and start the Tutorial in earnest, then that's what he would have to do. With a hop in his step that hadn't been there only moments before, Alan turned his back on the tower and made his way back to the solitary staircase leading back down to the lakeshore.
While he was determined to leave any further testing of his Class Skills until either later that evening when things had settled down, or when he could do so in an actual fight, {Mirage Step} was something that Alan had been itching to try for so long that in the end, he couldn't even restrain himself long enough to reach the lake. Heart thudding with anticipation, Alan had yet to find a suitable location when he stopped at the foot of the stairs and peered down at the Pistol Crab's former hunting ground.
The silt clouds had finally settled, and as far as he could tell, there were no further rock-launching turtle-crab monstrosities hidden in the shallow pool. He only gave it a cursory examination, so he honestly couldn't say for sure without first searching the deep crevices that littered the bottom. Spotting an unusual shadow with no obvious source to speak of, Alan leaned in for a closer look and froze.
Right there, plain as Alan's Human face, was a narrow tunnel that he could likely squeeze through.