Prelude II
A howling gale flooded the hallways of Arcanarus University, in a moment what had been a place of untold training and magical glory imploded on itself. Hundreds of students perished overnight, while hundreds more went missing in the spirit tower that erupted on its campus, the first ever spirit tower recorded in Biprism.
“Everyone knows the rewards that come from being the first to conquer a tower; new spells, new skills, if your class is exactly suited for the tower in question then you could look at a class evolution or more. The sky is the limit for what a new tower offers, just being the first regressor to enter will earn us a delving title, one that is based on how long it takes others to enter the tower.” Mannis, the leader of the Regressor Kingdom guild, a guild as the title might explain is entirely built by and for regressors.
“That’s just the problem, ‘aint it?” Vinny began, “how do we even get into Arcanarus University to begin with?”
“Simple, we fight our way in.”
“Fight our way in? Like with guns and mechanoid suits?”
“Exactly, Vinny, together, we can be gods. Stealing lost tomes of knowledge and secrets of the newly spawned tower, we will live like kings.”
“Uh, don’t we have to survive that first?” Doxton said, who despite the way his orcish character sounded while speaking the common tongue was actually quite intelligent. Of the three main leaders of the Regressor Kingdom, Doxton likely had the most to gain from raiding Arcanarus University, as he always prided himself on his spell theory and knowledge of how to form spells. While he had never quite learned the Spell Creation skill, he knew he was close and knew that searching the right tomes in the library would likely allow him the insights he had so desperately been looking for.
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“We, do, but the tower is new. Right now, it is still building up and if we enter the tower will be based on the average level of the first group that enters. Meaning if we want it to be based around us, we should enter as quickly as possible, lest it be designed for someone else entirely.” Mannis said, citing the world lore as if he were reading it from a book. Mannis’ class also benefited from a high intelligence, but he was a Hybrid Infuser, one who crafted peak end mechanoid suits, then powered them with magical spells and effects. He was one who prized himself on being near peak at two different but equally robust disciplines. For him going into the ultimate magical academy in the world would be like raiding the world bank, and the hidden temples of Egypt all at once. Untold fortunes and power awaited him, if he but reached out to grasp what was right before him.
“So when do we go?” Vinny asked.
“We? You need to stay here. I will be taking an expeditionary force to Arcanarus first.”
“Ah, come on.”
“No, Vinney, he is right. You are too low of a level to do anything but lower our reward for reaching the end.” Doxton chided.
At that Vinny reluctantly nodded. He had taken the slow and methodical road to leveling, which put him at far less risk of danger, but also meant that key moments like this were forever lost to him.
“Don’t worry, I will reward you with a quest to keep the guild up and operating in my absence.” Mannis said.
At that Vinny nodded, it wasn’t much, but it would be a way of earning some passive experience while the rest of the elites were out exploring the new zone that opened up.
“Question, if it is a tower, how does that work?”
“A tower is potentially infinite. Going up to ten times the number of floors the original entrant climbs. Each level will gradually increase in difficulty starting with being equal in level to the tower climber when they first enter, then increasing in difficulty by 1% each level, until one of three things happens. First the explorer turns back due to lack of rations, two they find a safe jump spot and get teleported back to the beginning, or three what is most common, they die.” Mannis said.
“Ah, but how far can you truly go inside a spirit tower? Won’t it sort of be wasted on you?”
“Vinny, that hurts, but you aren’t wrong. I have a few healing salves that should help, but mostly I expect our diamondized spirit-fused suites to keep us protected.”
At that Vinny nodded, “I guess I just have one last question then.”
“Go on?”
“Where exactly is Arcanarus University?”