I lay on the floor, my vision wobbling. Five minutes later, I was coherent enough to view my surroundings and make sure that there was no more enemies lurking in the shadows. This must be the effects of having low stamina. While resting, I ate my final inferior stamina petals and a few inferior healing petals until I felt well enough to check my notifications.

Congratulations! You have gained +1 Endurance and +1 vitality due to strenuous activity

You have killed [Killer Rabbit - LVL 10] - 300 EXP [Extra EXP gained for killing an enemy above your level]

Congratulations! You have levelled up! +3 free stat points. Happy Climbing.

This time I carefully thought out about where I should put my stat points. After some thought, I decided to add one point to perception, one to strength and one to endurance. I was lacking in all of these aspects in my recent near death experience.

Status:

Name: Cad Cooper

Level: 6 (15/500)

Class: N/A

Race: Human

Health Points (HP): 112/120

Mana Points (MP): 110/110

Stamina: 113/140

Stats:

Strength: 14 Agility: 19 Endurance: 14 Vitality: 12 Toughness: 9 Wisdom: 12 Intelligence: 11

Perception: 13 Willpower: 9 Luck: 6

Free points: 0

Skills: Identify

Titles: Trailblazer

Quests: N/A

Well that was terrible. I took stock of my equipment: one unbroken dagger, an empty water bottle, 2 inferior snake poison cures. Oh well. At least I levelled up.

Maybe I should be slightly more careful from here on out... Just slightly. This is so weird. I almost just died and I barely feel anything physically or mentally. By now, I was almost certain that the tower was messing with my head. Now that I think about it, some of the stories I used to read had an emotion suppressor used in the novel. Maybe the gods or aliens or whoever the hell created these towers are suppressing our emotions so we perform better? I guess that's as good a theory as any.

I better get some loot from this dungeon. I walked down the tunnel for a few more minutes - much longer and I wouldn't be able to function without water. A wooden, rusty chest greeted me. Not taking any chances, I stabbed my almost completely dull dagger into it a few times; I have read enough books to get a fear for mimics. Thankfully, the chest stayed unanimated.

Putting mimics on the first floor would be, well to put it lightly, a horrendous, nasty, awful and very appalling thing to do.

I opened it and was greeted by a pair of daggers and some coins.

High-Steel dagger (left):

+20 damage

+2 agility

+1 strength

High-Steel dagger (right):

+20 damage

+1 agility

+2 strength

17 copper coins

Not bad. This is suspiciously the exact thing that I need... Well other than water. The daggers were quite sharp and shiny, much better than my old ones. I grabbed the weapons and money then continued around the corner. A portal awaited me. I was done questioning things at this point and just walked through.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Congratulations! You have completed the first floor! You will be sent to your safe room where a bathroom and the 4th Great Store has been added. Happy Climbing.

With a little disorientation, I found myself back in the plain grey circular room. However, this time there was a market stand on the side and a small walled off area with a door which must be the new bathroom in the corner. I refilled my water bottles and relieved myself before checking out the Great Store.

It was a small wooden market stand. I walked over to it and noticed some screens embedded in the wood where the products would usually be. I checked out the first screen which had the title of climber auction. It was formatted similar to an online shopping website. However, there was no products listed for sale. The second screen had a title of sponsor store. It was filled with every kind of item and was not auction style, it was instant buy. I scrolled through the list and noticed many different magical armour, weaponry and support items. Almost every item was listed for at least one gold coin.

Seems like I was a long way from rich. I used the advanced search option to filter for items under 20 copper. There was some random mundane items and some that were obviously cheap alien made items. There was also a wide range of food to chose from. I ended up deciding to buy a few MREs that looked human-like for 10 copper.

I used my bag as a pillow and my coat as a blanket. I ate an MRE, which was surprisingly not that bad, and then almost immediately drifted off to sleep. My daggers were never far.

Some time later, I awoke. I stretched for a few minutes to get rid of my sores. I thought about wanting to advance to the next floor and the system responded:

Proceed to Floor Two?

Yes

Light flashed in my eyes and I found myself in an arena similar to the Roman Colosseum. The stands were empty and the sun we blazing down on me. However, the most eye-catching part was the small, green and ugly creature standing across from me. I guessed that it was a goblin.

Greetings Climber.

This floor is a solo wave floor. You only have to complete three waves to advance to the next floor. However, your prize will be much better for each wave you complete. The final wave is wave 10.

Good luck and Happy Climbing!

I quickly move into a slight crouch and readied my daggers. The goblin ran towards me and attempted to bite my legs. It did not expect my extremely high agility and quite good strength. I quickly dodged the monster a stabbed both daggers into its brain.

You have killed [Small Goblin - LVL 4] - 20 EXP

The extra EXP for killing mobs higher levelled than me made a huge difference. Now I barely get any experience for killing monsters under level 6.

Wave two commencing

Three goblins materialised. They looked exactly the same as the other goblin. I easily dodged the low levelled monsters and killed them swiftly.

Wave three commencing

Three more goblins appeared. However, two goblins carried rusted swords and one carried a bow. The sword goblins rushed me while the bow user pulled back. Without hesitation, I rushed the goblins. Even with swords, they proved to be almost no threat. I swiftly took them out. I saw an arrow whizzing towards me out of the corner of my eye and barely managed to ensure it didn't hit any vital parts. Gritting my teeth in pain, I ripped out the arrow that was stuck in my left arm. Noticing the goblin pulling back his bow, I threw my right dagger at it while rushing the monster. It dodged the dagger which luckily enabled me to have the time to cross the gap. A couple slashes later, the goblin was no more.

I collected my weapons at quickly ate my final inferior healing petal.

Commence wave four or exit?

I delayed responding to allow my healing petal more time to work. The system didn't care any just started the wave. This time I was ready.

Wave four commencing

From the previous two waves, I noticed that the goblins would always spawn around 3 meters from me. Hence, I started running as soon as the goblins started to materialise. This time, there was three sword goblins and one archer. I managed to reach the archer before it could react and cut it down. The fight was simple after that.

Using the same method, I cleared every wave up to wave nine. There was only ever one archer each wave with increasing amounts of sword goblins. Wave nine had 8 sword goblins and one archer and I cleared it with minimal injuries. The goblins were just too slow and too weak. It was time for wave ten.