It only seems impossible because it's really difficult.

John

Welcome to the Eternal Tower Floor 10 Hard!

Goal: Defeat the dragon

Time limit: 1 year

Note: time dilation in effect.

A dragon. I had to defeat an fucking dragon.

Of course dragons would be real. If the Tower had orcs, how could it not have dragons? If they were anything like the stories, the dragon would be large fire breathing monsters. But how big would it be? In most stories they were the size of a house, while in other stories they were the size of mountains. Hopefully it would be a small dragon. A nice wagon sized dragon would be preferable. Well, maybe preferable is the wrong word.

Perhaps I was ready to fight a dragon. I was now level 80 and stuck at a breakthrough. But the real question was not about my strength. It didn’t matter how fast or strong I am if it could just burn me to a crisp. Was there such a thing as fireproof armor? Maybe I could find a mage to cast some sort of fire proof spell on me?

Looking around I could see a city in the distance. The city didn’t look very familiar, but once I opened my map I realized it was Princip. I was on the other side of the city than the Ice Hammer Sect. I expanded the map and found my quest location located to the northeast in a mountainous area. That would be the dragon. Dragons liked mountains, right? Following the mountain range as it moved westward I could see the icon for the hidden treasure. I could not actually get hidden treasures again.

Before I made any further plans I had a new skill and item to review.

Skill: Divine Battle Chant

The goddess of music Serenity bestowed this skill on you.

Effect 1: In a life and death battle, you will hear music from your homeworld in your mind.

Effect 2: While chanting the words of the song, all stats are increased by 30%.

Effect 3: Activation of the skill is considered prayer to Serenity and may draw her attention.

Effect 4: The skill is automatically activated.

Effect 5: This skill's effects will increase with cultivation.

Holy crap. A 30% increase to all my stats was well worth the wait. Did I really get this skill simply because I enjoyed singing while fighting? If anything, it just seemed like my normal singing habit now enabled me to fight better.

Unfortunately there was no way for me to immediately test my skill. What would constitute a life and death battle? In theory I put my life on the line any time I fought. Perhaps it was only when I fought someone as strong or stronger than me. I guess I would find out when I came across the right situation and the skill would automatically be activated.

Next was the storage ring the elder cultivator gave me. I used a knife to make a small cut to the back of my hand and let the jewel on the ring get a couple of drops. Nothing happened but I didn’t know what binding the ring to me would do. It didn’t matter as I extended my hand and willed all the contents of the storage ring to empty.

Four low quality potions. 12 low quality mana gems. One medium quality mana gem.

This was perfect. I could use the medium quality mana gem to advance my cultivation. I quickly moved away from the city and found a secluded stop to cultivate. I knew I was being irrational. I should have finished making my plans for the floor before I worked on my breakthrough, but I needed this.

The dungeon on the last floor had been a huge waste of experience. I had earned enough experience to push me to level 100 if I didn't have bottlenecks. Interestingly when I reached the minor bottlenecks at level 70 and 75 the additional experience helped push through without needing to stop to cultivate. When I had reached level 80, I had hoped continuing to slaughter cave bears would help force my cultivation to the next level, but it didn’t.

I quickly sat down and popped the mana gem in my mouth. Closing my eyes, I started to cultivate. As I circulated my mana to the mana gem, the mana in my body increased in speed. For the first time I didn’t have to direct the mana. As it sped through my system, the increased density and speed of the mana forced several of the mana pools to shift. Soon four mana pools in my abdomen moved together until they seemed to merge into an ocean of mana.

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Congratulations! You have reached early stage celestial cultivation. +80 to all stats.

Two days later I strolled into the city of Princip. In my rush to break through I had ruined another pair of clothes and I needed to buy more clothes. That mattered little as the joy from the breakthrough has lasted so long. Once it faded, I spent just enough time to scrub myself clean and move all my items to my storage ring before leaving to enter the city.

I made a few discoveries when moving the items over. First, if I concentrated on the ring, I could sense what items were stored. My second discovery was that my storage bag would not go into my storage ring. Alternatively when I tried to put the ring inside the bag, I got a sensation of impending doom as a ring came closer to the entrance of the bag. I'm not dumb enough to try and ignore my own senses and instead decided to keep them separate.

While it was more convenient to keep everything in my storage ring, I wasn’t going to just get rid of the bag. It was a hidden treasure from the third floor after all and who knew if I would use up all the space in my storage ring in the future. Still the ring was more reliable as I didn’t have to worry about it getting damaged or misplaced during a battle.

Now the real question was what to do next. The elder had kicked me out of the Ice Hammers Sect on the last floor. While I could try and break into the sect, I wasn’t going to risk getting locked in the dungeon again. If I had more time, I could try gaining admittance to the Ice Hammer Sect. With a cultivator who was level 200 I was sure they would be able to help me get stronger and continue to grow my level.

Still the thought of leaving my family to wait longer than necessary wore on my mind. If I beat this floor after a year, that would mean it took me two and a half years to complete the first ten floors. If I held the same pace for the rest of the Tower, I wouldn’t finish until I had spent 25 years in the Tower. That was too long and so I needed to move faster. If I could complete each of the remaining floors in a month or less I would be done in nine years. It was still a long time but much better than 25. Each little time saved or delayed would add up. Every additional day I wasted on the remaining 90 floors would lose me a quarter of a year.

I wanted to ignore my status and the oddity that became apparent to me when I was leveling in the sect’s dungeon. I was still only 29 years old. I've been in the Tower for a year and a half yet my age has not increased. Would my time in the Tower not age me? Would I be doomed to return and find all of my family old? I need to stop wasting time and get moving.

I didn’t want to spend more than half a day in the city and quickly moved through stores in the marketplace. I bought a new set of leather armor to replace the one damaged in the sect’s dungeon. Then I bought three spares. You can never be too careful. I bought a dozen more outfits and stocked up on food and supplies. It was worth testing to see if the storage ring held food in the same condition as I put it in and I bought hundreds of plates of steaming hot food.

I was tempted to add more weapons to my arsenal but everything was the same quality as I had found in Windgate from the fourth level. I still bought another dozen throwing knives and a couple extra swords. I doubted they would be helpful against a dragon but I would rather have too many than too few.

Unfortunately, I did not find a solution to my flammability. Apparently there was armor that could block fire but it was exclusively made in the sects and sold to their members. Interestingly there were no wizards in the city or country. I guess I would just rely on the technique every child was taught: stop, drop, and roll.

The sun was setting as I made my way out of the city and ran towards the hidden item. While I wanted to save time, there was a chance that the item might give me some fire resistance. There was no road leading to my destination, but luckily the ground was flat and I could easily see monsters before I came upon them. The farther I went from the city, the higher the monster levels became. Initially all of the monsters were under level 10 but gradually increased to level 70.

I would be happy for more experience, but the pitiful amount of experience the lower level monsters gave were not worth the delay. The higher the level of the monsters the less frequently I would encounter one. If I found a pack of higher level monsters, I may have stopped to level but anything under level 50 was no longer worth my time. I was now definitely getting less experience for monsters since my latest cultivation breakthrough. Anything under level 20 did not even award experience.

This appeared similar to the professions the prince had told me about. If this continued there would be few monsters that I would bother fighting. If they gave me no experience and only a poor quality mana gem were they even worth the time? I needed to hurry. I needed to keep my momentum and defeat this Tower.

Name: Miki Meadows

Age: 29

Race: Human - Earth

Cultivation: Celestial - Low Stage

Level: 80

Exp: 714/62,800 to next level

HP: 1,810/1810 HP Regen 15.08/min

Stamina: 1,828/1,828 Stamina Regen 15.23/min

MP: 1,780/1,780 MP Regen 14.83/min

Strength: 352

Agility: 355

Endurance: 356

Intelligence: 356

Wisdom: 346

Luck: 368

Skills:

Let Your Sword Do the Translating

Superior Scan

Enhanced Interactive Map

Enhanced Senses - Vision

Hidden Item Detector

Languages:

Orcish - Tamerish

Marcosian

Treant

Galactic Common