It didn’t take long for Ray to realize that there wasn’t much point in remaining on the Second Floor for long. He couldn’t exactly kill more of the Everstead, and without them dying, farming was an extreme chore. The Essence he earned from the monsters wasn’t enough to get him to level 50 in a reasonable timeframe.

“No waiting for a class evolution, then?” Gritty asked.

Ray shook his head. “Getting a little too tedious on the Second Floor to try to get to that.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you from the beginning, wingman.”

“You’re only a couple levels off me, so…”

Gritty stared at him. “Me being just a few levels from you is the reason you decided to stop farming on the Second Floor?”

“Well… we need some kind of metric, don’t we?”

She just glared at him. Was probably cussing him out in her head too.

They reached the centre of what once used to be the royal palace. There were still a lot of the remains of the Spirespine still about, which was what gave the area its fucking awful smell. Ray’s nose was practically burning. Thankfully, it wasn’t going to last long.

“You have arrived,” Ram said, with the other two greeting Ray and Gritty with bows of their heads. The Holdstar trio didn’t look terribly displeased at having to wait here. Maybe the Holdstar didn’t have too keen of a sense of smell. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” Ray said.

“You’ll be heading to the Third Floor immediately after this, yes?” Ram turned to Gritty. “And you as well, yes Gritty?”

“That’s right,” she said. “You already know this, so let’s get on with it.”

“Yes, yes, just making sure.”

Ram summoned up his Tower Node of the Adjudicator. “Now let me just modify some things…”

[Warning!]

Multiple Objectives of Floor II have changed. Under the new rules, you have completed all Objectives.

Ray grinned. There it was. It felt somewhat like cheating to flag his Objectives as completed in this manner, but some of them were just a little insane. They had originally been set with the assumption that the Floor Lord would structure the Second Floor in such a way as to make them reasonably achievable.

That really wasn’t the case. Like on the First Floor, Ray shouldn’t necessarily have needed to farm for weeks on ends to meet some of the seemingly insane requirements. Thousands of Elementals? Seriously?

[Floor II—Complete]

Objective 1: For capturing and controlling the connection between the Floors, you have earned 10,000 Essence.

Objective 2: For defeating 1 out of 1 Spirespines, you have earned 15,000 Essence.

Objective 2: For defeating 2 out of 2 Viledrakes, you have earned 18,000 Essence.

Objective 4: For defeating 3 out of 3 Lostcallers, you have earned 12,000 Essence.

Objective 5: For defeating 426 out of 400 Elementals, you have earned 21,300 Essence.

Objective 6: For defeating the Flesh Plague, you have earned 20,000 Essence.

Objective 7: For defeating 1 out of 1 Arch Imitators, you have earned 13,000 Essence

Objective 8: For clearing 5 out of 5 dungeons, you have earned 40,000 Essence.

Hidden Objective 1: For finding 5 out of the required 2 Tower Nodes, you have earned 20,000 Essence.

Hidden Objective 2: For unveiling the secret of the Second Floor, you have earned 15,000 Essence.

Hidden Objective 3: For finding and defeating the Floor Lord, you have earned 20,000 Essence.

Personal Objective 1: For meeting 23 out of the required 10 new Denizens, you have earned 9,200 Essence.

Personal Objective 2: For conquering 3 out of the required 1 enemy Bases, you have earned 30,000 Essence.

Rewards

* 1 [Evolved Class] Grimoire Page. As you exceeded the required number set by several of your Objectives, [Evolved Class] Grimoire Page has been converted to [Evolved Class] Grimoire Pamphlet, where you may select up to 2 new spells. Grimoire Pamphlet will be available upon class evolution.

* 1 Spell Synthesis Point

* 1 True Mana Tier Point

* 1 True Mana Skill Tier Point

* 1 Origin Mana Tier Point

* 1 Dungeon Seed

* 1 Immortalizer Tournament Auction Ticket

* 100 True Mana shards

* 100 Origin mana shards

* +50 to any 1 [Selectable] stats

* +50 to any 2 [Selectable] non-primary stats

[New Personal Achievement—Floor Conqueror!]

You have completed the challenges of the Second Floor of the Tower of Forging! You have completed yet another vital step in the path of your ascendancy.

Reward

* Reputation: +100 Adept

[Reputation Threshold Crossed]

For reaching the 150-point threshold, your Adeptness accelerates your growth, granting you 30% bonus Essence from Objective completion.

Your Adeptness Reputation has raised your Essence earned to 316,550.

[Level Up!]

Reward

* +5 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +2 Vitality +2 Agility, +10 allocatable free stats.

* 10 True Mana shards

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Essence to Level 47: 137,850/208,200

Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,491/2,500

Ray had forgotten just how much the rewards tended to be all at once. Before he could even assign his free points, he had to take in his physical rewards.

One was the weird Dungeon Seed thing. It did indeed look like nothing more than an oversized seed, kind of like a mango seed, just hard as glass. Something told him it wasn’t going to shatter as easily, though.

[Primordial Gauge—Seed]

Dungeon Seed [Tier 20]

Use this seed to create a Tier 20 dungeon. Granted by the System to select individuals, this Seed channels the Mana variant imbued by the wielder to create a dungeon populated with obstacles and monsters dependent on the imbued Mana variant.

Huh. So Ray basically had his own pocket dungeon. Neat. With this, he could potentially get another level without trouble.

What really intrigued him though was the ticket. It wasn’t an item that interacted with Mana, so Primordial Gauge didn’t reveal any further information. But a ticket for something called the Immortalizer Tournament Auction sounded real intense.

“You know what this is?” Ray asked, waving the piece of gold-foiled paper with alphabets he couldn’t read.

Ram, Bam, and Lam all took a look at the ticket. They shook their heads in unison.

“We have never heard odd such an event,” Ram said. “Although, a ticket and the fact that you have earned it now is rather suggestive.”

“Suggestive… you think I’ll need it on the next Floor?”

The Holdstar trio nodded.

“I got the same thing,” Gritty said. She waved around her own golden ticket. “Auction, huh? You think I can auction you off, wingman?”

“Isn’t that human trafficking?”

Gritty made a face. “Is it? Shit. You’re safe for now, wingman. I hate waiting in traffic.”

Ray stared at her.

Placing the ticket in his Bag of Holding, he went back to his other stuff. All the free stats went to Vitality. Well, the ones he could assign there. Two of the 50 additional ones could only be assigned to non-primary stats, and since he only had two non-primary stats, his Strength and Resilience both received a solid boost.

He didn’t suddenly feel significantly stronger or, well, more resilient. But hopefully, the effects would show up when needed.

“You ready?” Gritty asked.

“Wait, you’re done already?” Ray asked.

She nodded.

“How many rewards did you even get?” he asked.

Gritty shrugged. “Quite a few. Why?”

“Well, give me a minute. I need to think a couple things over.”

“’Kay.”

Ray got back to his rewards. First things first. He had a Spell Synthesis Point to spend. At a glance, none of his spells looked like easily combinable. He could choose haphazardly to see which ones actually were compatible enough to be combined, but he wanted to figure it out himself.

After a bit of thinking, Ray decided to try and combine his two latest spells. There was no point in keeping them separate. The longer his list of spells got, the more unwieldy his overall repertoire became.

Sure, there was the benefit that more spells meant he had more tools to handle an even greater variety of obstacles. But that meant jack shit if he wasn’t using his various tools.

[Information Request—Spells]

Soulsurge Field [Utility] [Tier 6]

A primal spirit spell that creates a soulful field of heightened spell power around the caster, depending on the abilities used by enemies within the range of this spell’s area of effect and the souls that have fallen by the caster’s hands. At Tier 6, this spell creates a heightening field of up to 18 meters, raising the potency of each of the caster’s spells by 12% every time either an opponent uses a Mana-based ability or a fallen soul emerges, and costs 360 True Mana.

Ray smiled. That was a nice evolution for the spell. Now, he could take out two birds with one stone. Or one spell, rather.

Now for his Tier points. He took Mottling Spiritguard to Tier 6, Core Deconstruction to Tier 6, and Vengeful Plunder to Tier 4. All good boosts. In fact, with how many spells he now had, he really needed to start looking into gaining more True Mana Tier points. He’d need them.

“Alright,” Ray said. “Now I’m done.”

“You sure?” Gritty asked.

“Yeah. I probably would have needed more time if I had an actual class evolution to deal with, but since I don’t…” Ray shrugged. “Let’s go.”

Ram, Bam, and Lam confirmed that the two of them were indeed all done on the Second Floor. It was time to get going.

Lime-green light began spilling out of the Tower Node of the Adjudicator. It surrounded both Ray and Gritty, shading them like they were in a rave.

“Be careful up there,” Ram said.

Bam waved in from the left. “Yes, do not die.”

“We would hate to have to come and retrieve your corpse,” Lam said.

Ray laughed. “I hope we meet again, before you leave the Tower.”

A moment later, the light consumed Ray and Gritty. When he blinked and was able to see properly again, he was once again very high up. Again, because this was what had happened when he had been transitioning from the First Floor to the Second.

Gritty was looking around dubiously. “Where the hell are we?”

“You didn’t climb this high on the First Floor?” Ray asked. “You know, right before being grabbed by the Eternal Guardian?”

“I did, but that made sense. We were on top of the same ruined palace the Sylvans had taken over. But there is no palace this time.”

“Oh…”

She was right. The palace’s transformation into the Spirespine and the subsequent demise of the monster had basically eradicated the Everstead royal palace from existence.

Ray looked around too. All he saw were clouds. They were standing on some kind of rocky precipice, one that jutted out of the white puffs like a mountain peak piercing into the sky. Overhead, the actual sky was nothing more than a canvas of greyish-white. No sign of any sun, but there was definitely more than enough light.

“Beats me where we are,” Ray said. “But get ready. It’ll be here soon.”

Gritty hummed and looked straight up. Ray did the same. Just as had occurred on the First Floor, the Eternal Guardian came flying down.

Ray smiled at the huge, avian creature. Its massive wings stilled as it neared them, though not before it had launched a small gale via its approach, making Ray stagger in place as he tried to hold himself steady. He really didn’t want to find out what happened if he fell off the peak.

“How are you not struggling?” Ray asked, staring at Gritty a little slack-jawed.

She grinned at him, then raised one foot to show how the sole of her boot was covered in sticky blood. “I already showed you how, wingman.”

“Oh, right.”

She had. Way back on the First Floor. Ray recalled how she had sauntered up to meet him while walking on the ceiling.

The Guardian came to a floating rest before them, holding out its humongous hands for them to get on. Ray and Gritty did so. Huge fingers closed around them, caging them in to keep them safe during the ascent.

[Transmission to Floor III]

Congratulations on completing the Second Floor, Denizen. Please wait patiently as you are transported to the Third Floor of the Tower of Forging.

Ray shook a little as their ride took off. “I wonder what we’re going to see this time…”

If his hypothesis was correct, when travelling between Floors of the Tower of Forging, the Eternal Guardian actually momentarily took them out of the Tower. It was almost as though the Floors weren’t directly connected.

“Space,” Gritty said.

Ray smirked at her. “Now that would be something. Although, I’m not sure we climbed that high.”

She shrugged, though the motion was hard to tell in the general shaking. “Pretty sure space is all we got after the level we passed through last time.”

Turned out, Gritty was right. The Eternal Guardian was moving so fast that things outside rushed by at a blurringly fast pace. It was impossible to make out where—or what—they were rising through. But then, everything darkened. Ray began to feel colder.

And then he saw stars.

“No fucking way,” he said, his voice almost a hushed whisper. “You were right. We are in space.”

Gritty’s face was pressed between the giant fingers of the Guardian. She was drinking the sight in. “Yeah… but we’re still breathing.”

Ray laughed shortly. “Can’t have the Guardian taking corpses to higher Floors.”

He gazed at the universe stretching out before them. It was breathlessly incredible. Stars spanned the dark canvas, twinkling diamonds floating down a black river. The moon hung half-veiled in shadow far to his left. Ray even caught a glimpse of the edge of Earth, though its surface was clouded over.

It wasn’t just Gritty. He drank in all the sights too. How often did one get to become an astronaut, borne on a living rocket and magically sealed away from the adverse effects of space’s vacuum?

Ray was reminded of the time he had spent with the Marauder. Technically, he had been taken into space by the Paragon too. He had seen different planets, each with their own Towers as well. It had been an eye-opening little journey to see just how expansive the universe was, just how far beings with the System existed.

“I think we’re getting close,” Gritty said.

She was right again. The stars were winking out one by one. Everything was going dark.

“Almost there,” Ray said.

When Ray was able to see again, they were on the Third Floor.

He gasped, as did Gritty. This Floor was strange. Ray caught the briefest glimpse of floating islands, of streams of energy jumping from rocks to rocks, of strange creatures and stranger structures flying this way and that, before a figure floated into view. A familiar figure.

“Ah, so you did manage to arrive,” the Third Floor Lord said. Growth Mana spiralled off his shoulders to form wings, sparking with red lightning, keeping him afloat like everything else Ray could see. “Excellent!”

“Shit,” Gritty cursed. “Who is that? He looks strong.”

Ray’s heart had begun to race. Why was this guy waiting for them here? “That’s—”

“I’m afraid your stay on my Floor is about to be quite short-lived.” The crimson sparks arcing off the Floro Lord’s shoulders now leaped even higher, forming a wide, sweeping blade about the size of a battleship. “Let this scythe of blood-red lightning be a warning for you and that thing you ride. The Third Floor does not welcome your ilk.”

Fuck. Fuck. They hadn’t even gotten a welcome message from the System before this bastard Floor Lord was trying to do them in.

Ray tried to push through the gaps between the Guardian’s fingers, tried to call up Mottling Spiritguard as a quick defence. Gritty was trying to get out of their flesh-and-feather cage too. Even the Eternal Guardian itself was screeching out.

But none of them could do a thing as the scythe of lightning crashed in far too fast. And in a storm of screams and scarlet sparks, Ray, Gritty, and the Eternal Guardian were sent plummeting.