Floor 30. Human's Royal Castle. Throne Room.
After watching the figures of Ein's group disappear behind the large gate, the King motions his most trusted aide to come near.
"Your Majesty…?"
"Do you think those three are not very Heroic?"
"I will speak my honest thoughts. The boy seems to have some sense of justice, however, after dealing with nobles my entire life, I could see that he is just putting on airs…"
The King nods then impatiently asks again. "Then what about the two girls?"
"They don't speak much but… Drei is a decent girl but she can't do Hero's job. And I believe that the girl who didn't name herself was accidentally dragged in the summoning spell."
"I feel like all three of them were accidentally dragged in."
"Your Majesty, why do you think like that?"
"Although we detect strong Crystal Energy from them, I feel like it's just residual Energy and not the actual Cryst. Whatever emitted such strong Energy, it escaped our summoning spell."
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Floor 0. First Pivot Town.
As we walk back, I keep twisting my ID Cube while listening to dad's explaination for it.
"Crystallized Energy?" I pause the twisting to stare at the semi-transparent Cube in my hand. Although it feels solid, dad said that it's just energy in crystal form.
"Yeah. Cryst is the most powerful source of Energy in this world, like an infinitive battery. For example, if you have 3 Cryst, you can power something that requires less than 3 Cryst forever."
"Then how many of that 'Cryst' do you have?" I say with my eyes shining. Well, I couldn't really see my eyes, but with the greed I'm having, I'm sure they are shining.
"Each Cube always has at least 8 Cryst." He then points at the white gloves I'm wearing. "And to create a piece of non-enchanted magical equipment, one Cryst is used."
"So I'm having 9 Cryst?"
"No, the Cryst that powers the magical equipment can't be used for anything else anymore."
"Then how many magical equipment do you have?"
He shakes his hand, summoning his Cube and raises it close to my face. From close by, I notice something strange about his Cube. It seems like containing something.
"Each Cube like this can contain 8 pieces of magical equipment and only magical equipment."
Taking a closer look, I could see a tiny set of equipment is contained in the seven smaller cubes of dad's Cube. One of the smaller cube is empty which probably contained these gloves. There are a baseball cap, a T-shirt, a bat, two different rings, a pair of short legging and a pair of sandals; all of them are white in color.
Other than the rings, the rest of them are modern suit for playing sport. I've never seen dad playing anything and he watches all kind of sports on TV. However, what makes me concern is the fact that dad used precious Cryst to create something like these. I really want to question his sanity, but seeing his constant smile, I've already had the answer.
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Soon we reach home. I've been used to walk through a shop to enter my room back on Earth so we just enter the front door. Dad gets to behind the counter and tells me to prepare to set off in the afternoon.
Looking around, I can see the racks have been filled with clothing, tools and food. The clothing won't make good armor but with the colorful decoration printed on, some people might probably buy them. The "tools" are knives, hammers, saw, etc… They might even make a better weapon than my costume wooden sword.
"What are these?" I hear a familiar voice at the back of the shop. Avoiding the racks at the front, I can now see the aunty we met at the Guild's entrance. What a coincident, just like a web novel.
"These are fruit juice and the white one is milk." Tez is currently dealing with her. His voice seems to be timid, contrasting with the loud voice of the woman.
"Fruit juice? Never heard of something like that. And milk, why are you putting milk in potion bottle?" She picks up the bottle containing the blue fluid, raising it to her face and gives it a shake. "This looks like Magic recover potion, but this price is too cheap."
"Because it's Blueberry juice."
"Blueberry?"
"It's a fruit that grow on the Floors of Tier 2." Tez answers. Seeing the doubtful look of the woman, he continues. "Our shop keeper came from Floor 30."
She suddenly lets out a snort. "Floor 30 again?"
"Hello aunty." I step out from behind the racks. "I see you are shopping in my family's store." I say then point at one of the bottle on the rack. "That fruit is good for your skin. You know, I think it might make you look ten years younger."
Seeing me, the woman has a slight annoyance on her face. However, as I mention the effect, she puts down the bottle on her hand and picks up the one I pointed at. "Really?"
"Yes, it would make you look like twenty." I walk pass her and climb up the stair with a silent smirk. She doesn't suspect anything and buys it. Such a no-brainer.
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After lunch, I go downstair with my backpack that I used to carry to school. This fake-leather school-bag doesn't look very fantasy-like, but with all the things dad did with the theme, I stopped caring about it. Furthermore, after filling it with food, he tells me to "return home at night", just like when I left home for Library, Game center or a Convention. Except for the set of armors I'm wearing, nothing else makes me feel like I'm going on an adventure.
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This time, the road to the Gate doesn't take much time because I walk in a straight line. Okay, I admit it, I ran toward the Gate due to excitement. It's like I just escaped the tutorial part of the Game of the year and finally can play the actual game.
My excitement is soon cut short by the line of people waiting in front of the Gate. Each time the Gate "opens", a party enters, and they have to wait a few seconds for it to close before opening it again. At first I thought that it had fixed opening time, but when only one person enters, it closes right behind him.
"Excuse me!" I try to get the attention of the friendly-looking man in front of me. "I am new to this. Can you please tell me, why do they only enter in small group?"
"Kid, you look too young to start…" Ah, not this again.
"I'm from Floor 30."
"That explains your expensive looking suit. Anyway, do you have any Cryst?" He says and summon his Cube. What, do I have to pay for information?
"Um, I have one Cube, but…" I awkwardly summon my Cube by shaking my hand a few times. I should practice more.
"When you open the Gate, you have to power it with Cryst. Doing it one by one would be too troublesome so they would let someone power the Gate for the entire group. One Cryst per person that would enter your Gate."
"So expensive!" I audibly exclaim.
"Kid, do you even know how Cryst work? It's infinitive. When you return to a lower floor, the used Cryst returns to you." Seeing me having a perplexed look, he sighs then explain again. "Minus one Cryst per person per Floor when advent; Plus one Cryst per person per Floor when descend."
"Ah, thank you. I understood it."
"Do you want to go with me? One of us will pay on each Floor in turn." The man suddenly offers.
Oh, so there is such thing. However, I'm afraid that he would steal my Cryst so I hesitate. It's possible, right? I still don't know much about how it works, not to mention how trustworthy he is.
Seeing my hesitation, he chuckles. "Don't worry, when I return to lower floor, the Cryst you use on me will automatically return to you."
"What if you won't return and end up living on an upper floor?" I blurt out. Although it might be rude of me, I try to speak with a joking tone.
"That… You are right."
In the end, I decide to go alone. The man before me found another group. Declining him might be a good decision as I could see a group of people, each of them 'pay' for themselves but still go in group. It's a bit time consuming but I guess that it's better be safe than sorry. As for how to 'pay', I have to learn by watching.
Soon, it's my turn to open the Gate on my own. As per what I saw, I press my Cube on the Up arrow. The arrow slowly light up from bottom to top like a filling meter. As soon as it's filled, the colorful floating-up mist fade into existence. However, something I didn't expect happens: A symbol appears in the empty sphere of my Cube.
"Kid, you are just alone but you spend too much time." Someone behind me urges with an impatient tone.
"Sorry." Ignoring the symbol in the Cube, I quickly walk through the veil of mist.
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Floor 1 - Crystal Mine.
I expected somewhere like the green grassy plain but instead, it's a dark cavern. As the colorful mist of the Gate dissipates behind me, the only color that fills my vision is the blueness of the glowing crystal on the walls. There is no one else here, not even a voice echoes back in this closed cavern. Carefully, I draw out my wooden sword and slowly advance forward.
The Gate is stationed inside a chamber, facing a corridor. On the wall next to the corridor, there is a billboard written in the language of this world. I decide to take a picture of it and send it to dad with my phone.
Before I could decide what to do next, my phone rings. He is calling. Is this place such a dangerous place that he have to call immediately?
"Hello Dad." I answer the phone.
["You are so lucky and unlucky at the same time, Rex."] I could hear a chuckle on the other side.
"Dad, what does it mean?"
["You are in a Crystal Mine where you could harvest Cryst. However, since you are at a low floor, there is only one Cryst there. What a pity."]
"Aw, then the party that came before me probably got it."
["Oh, you have a group already?"]
"No, I go alone."
["Ah darn. No one told you that each time the Gate open to ascend, it leads to a random place of the next Floor?"]
"So... My first random dungeon is actually the Crystal Mine?"
["You are really lucky, Rex."]
At this point, I just want to scream: Plot Armor is REAL!