It was nice Ray could head out to Cliff Four with minimal fuss. It was a bit distant from Caleb’s manor. But his new Soaring Wings after the class evolution allowed him to fly much, much faster than he had been capable of before. As such, Ray hadn’t needed to use up more than three True Mana shards to get to the spire that led down to Cliff Four.
The journey reminded him of one of the first conversations he’d had with Caleb. Hadn’t he stated that the kingdom’s borders weren’t impeded by the Tower’s bounds?
Ray couldn’t tell how that worked with the cliffs. As far as he was able to tell, the Second Floor of the Tower was basically like a four-step pyramid. Each cliff formed a higher step and grew smaller, and their only connection to anything else was the cliffs above and below them via the cliff faces.
So where were the so-called borders with other kingdoms that Caleb had talked about?
Ray could already construct the answers he would no doubt receive. Oh, they were located below Cliff Four. Denizens just can’t access it so they can’t see. But it was there.
If Ray was asked, it all smelled too fishy.
At the bottom of the spire, he had to shrug off some of the venomous looks he received from the guards as he went on. They clearly detested him for killing one of their kind. Not his fault one of the guards had tried to kill him. Ray was obliged to defend himself.
Interestingly, the spire was back to normal. In the fight against the Lostcaller, the monster had destroyed a huge chunk of its surface to reveal that there was something growing underneath it. A mountainous, pulsating mass of flesh that the Fleshcrafter would no doubt salivate over.
There was no sign of it now. Either the guards or someone else had fixed things, or the spire had regrown its surface on its own.
It took about another half an hour before he met Kredevel at the lake shore. Ray grinned wide as the Sylvan came into view.
“You look lost in thought, Kredevel,” Ray said. “What’s up?”
Kredevel turned with an expression of pleased surprise, smiling at Ray. “The turns of your human phrase are never going to stop being new to me.” He looked back at the water, where the image of the enormous spire in the distance rippled on its surface. “I was wondering what sort of world I’ve come into.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You see the spire there?”
“Yeah Unrestrained Growth Mana.”
Kredevel looked at him with surprise again. “I see you’ve learned quite a bit while you’ve been here.”
“That’s not all I’ve learned. But tell me what you’re thinking first.”
“It’s nothing much. This is the kind of strength that I can only aspire to. That fact that we are seeing manifestations of it in such world-spanning forms means someone must have amplified it.”
“Amplified it? How can one amplify Mana?”
“With Amplification Mana, of course.”
“…of course.” Ray wasn’t about to ask how one could acquire this Amplification Mana, though that did bring up a line of conversation he had hoped to pull Kredevel into anyway. “So my Mana Core can now be attuned with a new kind of Mana, aside from just True Mana.”
“Truly? That is excellent news. Well done.”
Ray nodded graciously. “Thanks. I was wondering what kind of Mana I should imbue into my Core, and funnily enough, I was considering Origin Mana as my top pick. Do you know much about it?”
“That is indeed a strong choice, just as True Mana was. It will allow you to grow in a direction that not many Denizens can lay claim to.” Kredevel frowned a little. “But the reason behind that is because Origin Mana is rare. Have you found a location to imbue it from?”
“No. That was one of my other problems. I might be able to make my own Origin Mana though, if I can find even a small source of it. Guess I just need to find that.”
“Oh. How can—ah, I understand. Using the Tower Nodes.”
“Right.”
Ray possessed the Tower Nodes of the Ingestor and the Abstractor. Those would work well together to grant him basically any kind of Mana he wanted. All he needed were two things. A location where he could draw in a lot of Mana, any kind of Mana, and one instance, however small or big, of the kind of Mana he wanted to convert it all into.
It would be up to Ray to discover where he could find the right variants of Mana on the Cliffs.
“What about you?” Ray asked. “Are you thinking of any new Mana types to complement your Growth Mana?”
Kredevel shook his head. “If I can attain the true heights of power that Growth Mana is capable of, then I shall be happy.”
“True heights…”
Ray looked over the spires reaching into the cloud-studded sky.
His Sylvan friend laughed lightly. “Those may be an unattainably great height. A display of power I can only dream of.”
“Well, I do hope you keep it to your dreams.”
Ray had been considering how much he wanted to dive into the gruesome details he had discovered. It was best to be open. Kredevel was someone he trusted fully.
He explained further how he had encountered more results of unrestrained Growth Mana. Ray didn’t go into the very gory details of the Flesh Dungeon, but Kredevel’s grimace confirmed he got the disgusting gist.
“That is rather… horrific,” Kredevel said.
Ray laughed a little. “Oh, there’s a lot more.”
He went on to inform his friend about all the inconsistencies and the general fishiness about the people on the Second Floor who claimed to have been incorporated into the challenge by the Foor Lord. Ray didn’t hide the fact he had ended up killing one of the Sylvans on the spire too.
“Are you saying the Floor Lord is missing?” Kredevel asked. He was carefully avoiding talk of his dead comrade.
Ray nodded. “The Sylvan I met in the Flesh Dungeon didn’t know either, though he did say there was some kind of argument between the Floor Lord and the ruler of this kingdom.” He frowned. “You seem a bit too disappointed about that.”
Considering Kredevel had basically sworn off working with his Sylvan superiors, Ray couldn’t be faulted for wondering why his Sylvan friend seemed troubled.
“It troubles me because I need to meet the Floor Lord to make things right,” Kredevel said. “For all the Sylvans of the First Floor.”
Ah, right. So far, Ray had been the one delivering contextual information about the Second Floor. He had yet to learn about the First Floor.
Kredevel informed him that he and Maya had been able to convince the Sylvans to drop their enmity. Despite the grievous losses both the Sylvans and their Brighthorns had suffered, it wouldn’t be to anyone’s benefit if they all continued their enmity.
As such, Kredevel had agreed to help them by finding the Floor Lord and presenting the facts.
Unfortunately, that was going to be quite difficult.
“When are the other Sylvans coming?” Ray asked. “It’s not like you can go back down to the First Floor.”
“That is the concern…”
“When are they arriving, Kredevel?”
“Within the next few days at most.”
Ray wondered what sort of complications that was going. He just wanted to continue levelling up and climbing the Tower. Why did he have to keep getting mired in these kinds of conspiracies and other business?
They couldn’t do much about the arrival of the other Sylvans. Kredevel looked a little panicked and wanted to talk with Caleb and the other lords of the Cliffs. Ray wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. If they were hiding things, if they were opposed to the Sylvans as Ray had discovered, then they could end up impeding Kredevel instead of assisting him.
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“They might keep tabs on this cliff too,” Ray said.
Kredevel’s expression only grew more troubled at that. “Ah. That means they are likely to know when my brethren arrive.”
“Exactly. Which means we have about—what? Three to four days?—to work with until they cause a stir. It’s going to take figuring out how exactly these people might respond that’ll help us decide what to do.”
Kredevel looked lost in thought. “I am afraid I have no basis to judge their actions. So, I will unfortunately need to depend on you.”
“Unfortunately?”
Kredevel laughed. “I meant as in my contributions to the planning may be unfortunately limited. I would like to be of use.”
“I won’t lie, Kredevel,” Ray said. He looked away, not fully comfortable about the direction that their conversation might take. “I don’t want to get dawn into this. I’m supposed to head up to the Cliff Two soon. Keep getting more levels and Essence, finish climbing the Floor.”
“How are your Objectives coming along?”
“They’re coming along… slowly.”
Now that Kredevel had mentioned them, some of them might actually benefit from the presence of more Sylvans. It could help force the people of Everstead kingdom—the leaders of Everstead kingdom—to reveal the truth, and that would only aid in unveiling what had actually happened on the Second Floor.
“Nevertheless,” Ray said. “I want to keep progressing. And I really think you should too. This Floor has some tough challenges. There’s already one person rushing to complete her goals way too quickly and she’s already suffered a heavy loss. You shouldn’t prioritize your goals over your own progress too much.”
“But for you, your goals are your progress, is it not, Ray?”
“I suppose they are.”
They couldn’t figure out any plans too quickly. It just needed more thinking, more planning, not a rushed solution. As such, they decided to think it over and talk again later. For now, they continued on to the second bit in Ray’s itinerary for the day.
Defeating some Wood Elementals.
It was nice to see that the forests had repopulated with the monsters in short order. System shenanigans, according to Kredevel. One or more Denizens shouldn’t be allowed to wipe out all creatures from an entire Floor and deprive other Denizens the chance to gain more Essence.
“They’re not that hard to beat,” Ray said. “Especially if you’ve got ranged abilities.”
Having evolved his class, Kredevel was actually pretty adept at taking out groups of monsters on his own. The Elementals fell to his Growth Mana powers in no time at all.
It was a bit weird to see a Sylvan fighting and grinding monsters. A part of Ray still held onto the idea that the Sylvans were supposed to be the guides for the actual new Denizens to the Tower. They even had their own levelling methods, using certain training crystals, as Kredevel called them. But since he no longer had access to those, monsters it was for him.
Interestingly, Kredevel said that Maya had managed to strike a deal with the Sylvans to obtain some of those training crystals too. It eased up the process of reaching level 20 and a class evolution for people.
In other words, it wasn’t just an injection of Sylvans that they were likely to see soon. There would be people coming in quicker too.
Kredevel wasn’t the only one killing the Elementals, of course. Ray joined in too. He was not going to pass up some minimal-effort Essence. It took about an hour or two longer, but Ray eventually had neared another level up as well.
[Enemy Defeated]
Tier 8 Monster: Wood Elemental [Level 18] x21
Tier 9 Monster: Forest Amalgam [Level 20] x2
Essence: + 33,840
Knowledge: +69
True Mana Restored: +4,180
Essence to Level 30: 50,760/59,200
Knowledge to next Threshold: 1,121/1,250
A good run, honestly. Ray was now really close to breaking through to level 30 and reaching another Reputation Threshold with his Knowledge.
But their time together was coming to an end. Ray decided that he was going to move on to Cliff Two, though they were going to keep in touch. Meanwhile, Kredevel would continue levelling up on Cliff Four. They decided that an early confrontation with the people of Everstead wasn’t going to be good.
But one thing was starting to be clear. The people of Everstead were most likely the enemy of the Sylvans.
Of course, there had been that one Sylvan fighting for the Everstead. But when Ray had reported to Kredevel that the Sylvan hadn’t spoken once, had attacked completely suddenly with no warning, had basically acted so strange, he had said that there was something quite wrong.
It only reinforced the impression that the Everstead kingdom was not to be trusted.
“I fear we won’t get any proper answers till we reach the source of everything,” Kredevel said.
Ray nodded with no small amount of resolution. “We’ll find everything where the king and the other important people are, I’m sure of it. Cliff One, here we come.”
Kredevel took a deep breath before letting it out slow and easy. “Enough of all this, though. Let us speak of lighter matters, my friend. Or at least, more personal matters. Tell me about your experiences on the Floor.”
“Well, I already did, basically, didn’t I? The dungeon, the fight on the spire, the weird people. That’s all there is to it.”
Unconvinced, Kredevel shook his head. “You gave me a rote summary of the main plot. But you neglected to elaborate the associated feelings. The little details about yourself.” Kredevel smiled. “That is what I am interested in now, Ray.”
Slowly, Ray smiled too. Had he really been moaning about a lack of friends thanks to that dickwad Timothy? Ha, well who needed that ass when he had good old Kredevel to rely on.
So, Ray told him all about his experiences on the Second Floor. Properly this time.
----------------------------------------
Before leaving Cliff Three, Ray headed over to where Alice was buried. Mary had left instructions with a guard on where the location of the grave was, and Ray was guided there. Apparently, Mary had also said that he might come asking.
Despite having not received any answer from Mary yet, he had to appreciate her foresight in the matter.
Alice’s grave was located near the spire to Cliff Two, which made things quite convenient. Not that Ray was rushing things. He was here to pay his respects, and he was going to take his time doing so.
The headstone bore Alice’s full name, along with a small quote.
“The will to survive, the will to win, can always be found within us,” it read. “Never give up. For you do not fail when you fall. You only fail when you refuse to rise back up.”
Poignant. Ray wondered if that was what Alice had said to her sister in the end. He could see how something like that would light a fire in Mary’s spirit.
He shook his head. Pondering things like that wasn’t why he was here. Instead, he closed his eyes and remembered the moments he had been with Alice. He impressed her face on his mind, her friendly attitude, her cheerful and positive demeanour, her unflinching courage against her foes.
Ray had known her for the briefest of times, but she had been the kind of person to leave a powerful impression even in those short moments. He was not going to forget her.
Once Ray was done—after leaving a little flower he had picked up near the cliff’s edge to lay down on her grave—he headed for the spire. The guard who used to accompany him everywhere went with him one last time.
“I’m surprised you’re not coming up,” Ray said, not bothering to hide his snideness.
The guard didn’t spare him a smile, even at the end. “My duties cease beyond this point, sir.”
“What’s your name? You’ve been with me all this time, but you’ve never told me your name.”
“My duties are not to reveal my name, sir. I am just one guard of many.”
Ray was getting better at smelling lies when he heard one, and this had to be one. Ah, well. He hadn’t expected a satisfying answer to begin with.
The journey up the spire was almost pleasant. A small company of armed med accompanied him like Ray was some kind of hero receiving an honour guard. It was almost embarrassing. Thankfully, it took them only about half an hour to make it to the top. The raptors made good time.
Another small company was waiting for him there. These soldiers were led by a man who looked quite similar to Caleb, if a bit older. He had the same golden uniform and similar silver hair on his head, hanging via a braid along his back.
“Welcome.” The old man’s words were stiff and formal, nowhere near as welcoming as Caleb’s had been. His expression was strictly professional too. No affability at all. “Please come with us. I will take you to my abode, where we may discuss matters further.”
“Thanks for the welcome, and for coming personally,” Ray said. “You really didn’t have to go to so much trouble just for me.”
“Oh, I did.” He turned his raptor around. Ray noticed the dinosaur was attired in armour, where the rest were more or less naked. This lord was definitely more ostentatious than Caleb. “Please, follow me.”
Ray did so, the guards maintaining a respectful distance behind him. The journey to the new lord’s manor was quite interesting, mostly because Cliff Two was quite different from Cliff Three. Where the area Ray had just left had been mostly rural, filled with villages and farmland, this new one was very urban.
They entered the gates of a city basically half an hour after reaching Cliff Two. A city that felt almost as big as the entirety of Cliff Three itself.
Ray rode in silence as he took in the sights. This whole area was a lot more developed than the one he had been in.
The roads were wider, the stone houses and buildings sported slate roofs and chimneys. People walked along tree-lined thoroughfares, but also rode carriages pulled by crested, pickup-sized dinosaurs Ray didn’t recognize. Drains pulled away runoff water, artful shops caught his eyes here and there, and restaurants tried to seduce him with enticing smells.
Before long, they arrived at the lord’s manor. It almost seemed smaller than Caleb’s one on Cliff Three, but that was because the city all around them made it feel that way. Ray was pretty certain… he realized he didn’t even know the lord’s name yet.
“Welcome to my little home,” the man said, almost as though he had sensed Ray’s thoughts. “You must be quite tired and famished. Rest assured—all hospitality that is due from a host will be granted to you for at least a while.”
Ray dismounted his raptor as they all stopped. “Thank you. Although, I admit I never caught your name.”
“Cory. I am Lord Cory of Cliff Two, but please, call me Cory.”
Ray was used to the fact that people inhabiting the Floor had names similar to those back on Earth. It still felt a bit surreal to hear this old-timey, fantasy lord to call himself Cory of all things.
After about half an hour of resting and refreshing in a chamber not dissimilar from the one he had occupied in Caleb’s manor, Ray was invited to dinner with Cory.
The affair was again much the same as he had experienced before. The main difference was that they had the full discussion about the deals and everything else right while they had food. It was good they had it while sitting. As the conversation started and progressed, Ray got the feeling Cliff Two was going to be a far different experience from his last area.
“You understand?” Cory asked, all business. He hadn’t even bothered pretending to be curious what Ray had been up to in the on the previous Cliff. Though, he already knew enough, most likely.
Ray swallowed down another spoonful of pasta. It was actually pretty good. “I do. But I don’t necessarily agree.”
“A shame. For, if you do not agree, then we cannot—”
“Host me any longer. Yes, I know.”
“Oh? That is incorrect.”
Ray paused. “It is?”
“Yes. After all, we cannot allow you to progress to Cliff One unless you complete the tasks we have set out for you. We cannot allow you to go free if you do not agree.”