"Siso is the blood of the tower. It exists within everything in the tower. In the air we breathe, in the light of the sun, in the darkness of the night." Ghetto poured the potage into a bowl then handed it to Andrew, before he poured another one for himself then set aside the wooden ladle. The sun was past its zenith and well into the horizon, and the three were sitting by a lakeside, waiting for the night to fall. "By taking in siso, we become stronger - better. We become closer to the tower." At the end of his sentence, Ghetto brought the potage to his mouth as though to illustrate.

Andrew felt like he could grasp what the beaver meant. Frankly speaking, he wasn't above cheap fantasy novels. He imagined that this siso thing must be something like Qi or mana or what-have-them. "So, it's like some kind of energy."

"Hmm, not quite," Ghetto hummed, "darkness does not contain energy; darkness is the absence of light, just like coldness is the absence of heat. However, in both, there is siso.

"What we are trying to do right now is skip past 25 floors' worth of study and training material so you can practice what is essentially the most important skill to survive in the tower; Cultivation." Ghetto reminded him. "And you must be thankful we have Nyx to facilitate that. The ability to grant boons are usually reserved for those who have broken through the second turning point and above, but incarnations like her retain much of the skills their originals possess."

At the mention of Nyx, Andrew looked down to the sight of the snake still lazily hanging around his neck. "You mentioned that the darkness of the night has siso. Does that mean there is siso in Nyx or she is emitting siso, her being the Goddess of the Night and all."

Perhaps she found the question funny, Nyx chuckled on Andrew's shoulder. "I'm not the Goddess Nyx yet, silly. I am an incarnation of her. My original is far up above, watching over me and everything under the blanket of the starry sky." Nyx opened her reptilian eyes and gazed at the darkening sky. "We will once again reunite as one, I becoming her and she becoming me, but until then, I am my own being. And when my journey ends, another incarnation of Nyx will be born from the chaos, thus repeating the cycle."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Me, I'm not aiming that high," Ghetto chimed in, "All I ask is a stable position on a floor above the third turning point. I can elevate my kin's status that way, bringing them up from some backwater region on the 6th floor to at least the town on the 28th floor."

Andrew looked down at his now empty bowl. Both the beaver and the snake had noble purposes behind their journey, and yet the only reason why Andrew was here was because he off-handedly requested to go to some fantasyland. He felt dirty and out of place.

Nyx suddenly moved, she uncoiled herself from Andrew and slithered away. Seeing the serpent going away from him almost made him miss her clinging weight, before she gradually grew bigger and bigger right in front of his eyes, inviting a nervous gulp. How could he forget that Nyx was big enough to swallow him whole? With the moon's out and the night fell, Nyx had returned to her 15 meters long glory.

With her now towering height, Nyx looked down at Andrew as she opened her mouth. "Give me your hand." Her slurry, melodic voice echoed throughout his entire body.

Andrew wasn't sure if she meant he had to stick his hand out or literally give her his hand. He figured that going against the not-Goddess with her muscle mass almost tripled his own body weight wouldn't be wise, so he went with the safest option and offered his left arm still attached to the shoulder, though he couldn't hide the fact that it was trembling.

"Don't be afraid, little boo. I entrusted you with my safety, so yours I have with me." Nyx coiled the end of her tail around Andrew's wrist, engulfing it tightly until no skin was seen. The fear that Nyx meant her words literally crept up his mind, but Andrew decided that he would put his trust in the serpent just like she did in him. Her grip on his hand kept tightening and he could feel blood stop flowing, until - clack, the dull sound of something porcelaine hitting each other. Slowly, Nyx loosened her grip, revealing a pair of bracelets under it.

The bracelets were jet black with silvery white outline, showing an etch of a snake chasing after its own tail. "The bracelets are the bond between you and I, the Boon of the Moonlit Serpent. Through it, I will teach you the correct way to cultivate."