Gritty took them through a smaller alley on what felt like the backstreets of the island. They walked for about ten minutes before Ray could no longer hold back his question.

“You sure you know where you’re going?” he asked.

Before Gritty could answer, Marcus butted in. “How do you know where to go? Was this dealer guy that detailed in the directions he gave?”

Gritty had explained to both Ray and Marcus how a shady-looking Sylvan had spotted her enquiring about items or services that could help them gain levels at the auction. Ray was a little sceptical that a Sylvan of all people was offering them assistance, but then, who else would even have access to Sylvan training crystals.

But also, Ray couldn’t shake off the feeling this might be a trap. What a conundrum. If only there were other, more surefire ways of levelling up.

“Kind of,” Gritty said. “But one of the goodies I got was a little map of Auction City, and I looked over it to make sure we’re headed the right way.”

Ray choked a little. “No fucking way they named it Auction City.”

All three of them laughed at that. Ridiculous.

“I actually think it’s some kind of fancy name in the Sylvan language,” Gritty said. “But the System automatically translated it, so I’m just going by what I was told by the System itself.”

“Hilarious.”

Ray remained content to follow Gritty. The city wasn’t that big. It was only about twenty more minutes or before they arrived at a new quarter. This area was more parklike, devoid of buildings and instead sporting wide open areas where people could relax and gaze out at the expanse of nothingness where occasional islands floated by in the distance.

“We’re meeting… at a park?” Ray asked.

Gritty was squinting around. “Looks like it.”

At least they didn’t have to worry about being overheard. There weren’t that many people here. Maybe they were on other islands, observing other dungeons being won.

“There!” Gritty said.

Ray and Marcus turned to see a cloaked and hooded person standing at the far end of the park, near the edge of the island. He was just standing there, observing them silently. Ray’s hackles rose again. This really had better not be some kind of trap.

“Heya,” Gritty said, waving as they approached. “We came, just like I said we would. Now we can talk for real.”

The Sylvan didn’t pull back his hood. Suspicious fellow. Ray had to suppress the urge to barge forward and sink to his haunches so he could look up the hood. At least he could easily remember the horn spiralling off the Sylvan’s chin like a weird goatee.

“Greetings,” the Sylvan said. He had a scratchy voice, like he could use a drink. “I was half-expecting you to fail to show up, so kudos to you for at least appearing.”

“Why’s that?” Gritty asked. “Thought we’d be too afraid to follow up on your offer?”

“Well, I would not blame you if you remained cautious. In all honesty, I would have forgone coming here were I in your shoes.”

“Considering you’re selling us illegal contraband, forgive me if I doubt that.”

The Sylvan laughed. His hood shifted a little as he regarded Ray and Marcus as well. “Good to meet you, Raymond and Marcus. I am Lyvanse. I assume you know the deal.”

Ray nodded. “You want five Mana pearls for each training crystal you can give us.”

“Which is way too much,” Marcus muttered. The only reason he didn’t say it louder was because Ray had insisted that he and Gritty ought to handle that transaction. This wasn’t an auction, after all.

“Mana pearls which you obviously do not possess yet,” Lyvanse said.

“Please, not another guy charging interest,” Marcus hissed.

Ray glared at him. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything more than that.

“But you’re still going to give us some of the crystals, right?” Gritty asked.

Lyvanse nodded, though not so much that the hood fell back enough to reveal his face. “I will sell you the crystals I brought. One for each of you. Of course, there shall be no selling since you possess little to no money. But you will only receive more crystals once you pay for both these and any new ones you might wish to receive.”

That immediately set Ray’s alarm bells ringing. “You’re willing to just… part with your training crystals? For free, essentially? Because we could just take them and run and never come back.”

Lyvanse grinned. Ray only caught a small portion of it above his goatee horn, but it was enough. “You make assumptions without knowing everything.”

“Is that right?”

“The crystals will not last you forever. You can perhaps get one or two levels out of them before you expend its capabilities and return to me for more. As such, you stand to gain little by tricking me. And of course, you mustn’t forget that this is an illegal operation. Should you seek to deceive me, I can land you in a great deal of hot water.”

The threat was stated so plainly, so casually, Ray was almost fooled into thinking it wasn’t a threat at all.

“You like playing with fire, don’t you?” Ray asked, smiling back. “But what’s stopping you from ratting us out after we take the crystals off your hands? How do we know that all this isn’t some kind of trap?”

“Well, you do not. I can give you no further proof beyond my own promise that I seek to cause you no harm until and unless any harm is caused by you upon me. That will have to do.”

“No, I don’t think it will.”

“Wingman…”

“No, Gritty.” Ray stepped forward. “I’m not endangering myself or my friends, no matter how good a deal looks. No point in levelling up if we’re only going to be targeted immediately afterwards.”

“So what?” Lyvanse asked. “The deal is off, then?”

“Not necessarily. You said you could only give us your word? Wrong. You can give us your vulnerability, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not. Explain yourself.”

Ray noted the imperious way the Sylvan had spoken just then. “Tell us how you got these training crystals. My understanding is that they’re heavily regulated and no one but a Sylvan is supposed to use them. Yet, you’re giving them away. Why is that? How’d you get your hands on them, because it sounds like you possess a lot of them? Who are you, Lyvanse?”

The Sylvan snorted. “So many questions at once.” Lyvanse shook his head. “We had a deal for training crystals, not for tales of our own lives.”

“We have no deal if you don’t give us an anchor.”

“Fine, then.” The Sylvan stepped back. “No deal it is.”

“Seriously? You’ll run away instead of making a profit? I guess selling these training crystals doesn’t mean much to you.”

“It does not, yes.”

“Alright, alright.” Ray sighed. “I thought I’d give you a chance to come clean yourself, but I guess I have no choice.”

Lyvanse had paused. “What are you talking about now?”

Gritty and Marcus had both been silent so far because they had already discussed this bit of the conversation beforehand. They knew what was going on.

“I have my own sources of information too, you know,” Ray said. “Very reliable ones, at that. Just because I’m a human Denizen doesn’t mean I’ve got no contacts at all. And one of my contacts told me about you.”

Lyvanse petrified in place. “You lie.”

“Oh yeah? Is it a lie that one of the main patrons at the auction is the Sylvan who oversees the training crystals that your people use, and that he has auctioned off a bunch of training crystals?”

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

Lyvanse said nothing, remaining frozen in place.

“We’re aware the Sylvans who are running the Tower have no wish to let anyone but their own get a hand on the crystals. But the auction patron was unaware of that mandate and bullishly auctioned off a chunk of which he intended to sell anyway. The trick was that it was another Sylvan who was forced to outbid any other race to get all the training crystals.”

“And now you need to sell enough of it off,” Gritty said. “You might have mollified both the patron and the Tower faction, but that meant you had to sacrifice your own money to do it.”

“We’re not as ignorant as you think,” Marcus said.

Lyvanse stared at them all. Just the way he stood confirmed to Ray that he had landed on the truth. Eventually, he took a deep breath, then sighed heavily.

“You are correct,” he said. “And since you already know enough, there is no point in me backing out of the deal. But question—how did you come by such information?”

Ray grinned. “Oh, we have our sources.”

“If you’d like to know more, just sell another batch of the training crystals and—”

Ray cut off Marcus before he made them take a deal they’d all regret. “No, no that info is not for sale.”

Marcus and the Sylvan both groaned. Fuckers.

“But I still don’t know your stake in this, Lyvanse,” Ray said. “Why are you the one caught in the middle of all this? What are the Sylvans to you?”

Somehow, Lyvanse’s glare was very tangible even through the hood hiding his features. “Perhaps, since you already know such a great deal, you could find that out for yourself too. Now, do you wish to take the training crystals you came here for not?”

Ray sighed. He supposed they already had enough dirt on each other. No need for him to dig for more for now. “Alright, fine. Hand ‘em over.”

“Here you are.” Lyvanse pulled out the training crystals from nowhere. Apparently, unlike the treasures, these could be put into inventory spaces like storage rings and bags of holding. “Let us meet again, once you have some profit in your hands.”

The crystals were nothing more than a cube the size of an egg. Their exterior surfaces were transparent, but when Ray looked inside, it appeared as though they were lined with mirrors, reflecting his face back in odd ways.

As it was an item interacting with Mana, Ray could check out what Primordial Gauge had to tell him about it.

[Primordial Gauge—Training Crystal]

Sylvan Training Crystal

Crystals used to raise memories of the wielder to face once again. Mirrors within appraise the wielder’s current strength and aptitude, ensuring that even old recollections hold the essence needed for proper growth.

“Will we meet again at this exact place?” Gritty asked.

The Sylvan nodded as he retreated. “We can keep in touch via the System chat if anything goes awry. Farewell, for now.”

“No helpful tips on how to use these crystals?” Ray asked.

Lyvanse just left, grinning in farewell as he did so. Ray sent out a Scouring Eyeball trailing after the Sylvan, but he suspected their dealer’s ultimate destination was well beyond the range that his construct could go or even see. Well, at least he would get to see the direction Lyvanse went for a while.

“Alright, let’s get back to the hotel,” Ray said. “Then we can test how these crystals actually work.”

“You know how?” Marcus asked, looking down at his training crystal.

“I got a small description with one of my spells, but it’s not super helpful. We’ll figure it out, somehow. Maybe we can ask Sridayne too. She’s bound to have some intel, just like she had for our dealer friend.”

“We don’t need all that,” Gritty said. “I’ve got a reliable source of information already.”

Ray raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, yeah? Who’d that be?”

“You know him, wingman. Can’t you guess?”

He stared at her for a bit. The only him they knew in common who could possibly have information about Sylvan training crystals was… “No way. How?”

Gritty grinned. “Like I said, I got some interesting little goodies at the auction. Let’s get back to the hotel and I’ll show you.”

----------------------------------------

Ray was pretty excited all the way to the hotel. He was finally going to level up—hopefully, once he got to actually use the training crystals.

More than that, he was also going to talk with Kredevel again.

“You sure you weren’t tricked?” Ray asked. “Like, it’s not a scam or something? Someone looking to take advantage of potentially desperate and gullible Denizens? Because the ability to chat with people on other Floors sounds a bit broken.”

Before, when they travelled from one Floor of the Tower of Forging to another, they were always restricted from making contact with people on other Floors. Ostensibly, Ray understood this as a way for the System to prevent any Denizens from getting a leg up on others.

Now, however, there were apparently those at the auction who had found a workaround for it.

Gritty leaned over the backrest of the chair in Ray’s room. They had those same weird pods they had spotted back at the auction. The ones that could transform from one kind of furniture to another. Gritty had turned Ray’s bed into a chair and taken it for herself.

It being a two-person room meant Marcus had his own furniture pod all to himself, so Ray was basically the only one left standing.

Gritty tutted. “I had Mr. Knight Guy helping out at the auction. Nobody could take advantage of me under his paladinous gaze.”

“Paladinous?” Marcus looked like he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to roll his eyes or not. “I don’t think that’s a word.”

“Anyway, wingman, eat this.”

Ray took the little pill he was supposed to swallow whole. “Does it ever feel like we always have to ingest things to do anything different around here?” He looked at the two of them staring back. “No? Just me? Alrighty then.”

He swallowed the little blue pill. It went down easy, without even needing any water. Next, he had to wait for a minute or so, before taking a peek at his System chat options.

“Oh, no way,” he said. “It actually works. People on the other Floors aren’t greyed out anymore.”

That had always seemed a little odd to him. The only other time anyone was greyed out was when they were dead. Ray still winced whenever he saw Alice Feld’s name eternally petrified after the events of the Second Floor.

But that wasn’t the case any longer. They were all there. All available for chatting. Maya, the Holdstar trio of Ram, Bam, and Lam, and most importantly, Kredevel.

Nodding at Gritty’s and Marcus’s grins, Ray got to messaging.

Ray: Hey, buddy. Long time no see. Well, okay, maybe it’s only been a day or two. You doing alright?

Kredevel: Ray? How—are you not on the Third Floor? Do they allow Denizens on the last Floor to contact anyone?

Ray: No, no, things are… pretty different from what you might expect. Idk what you know about the Third Floor, but there’s this whole tournament and auction thing going on. I don’t have a lot of time, though. I managed to get this pill that lets me contact people on other Floors, but it lasts for like ten minutes at most.

Kredevel: What do you need?

Ray smiled. Good, old Kredevel. He was probably very interested what Ray could tell him about the Third Floor and what his former Sylvan masters were up to, but he was holding his questions back.

Ray: Opportunities to level up on this Floor are hard to come by, but I got my hands on some training crystals. I’ll explain how I got them later. Right now, I just need some information on how I can use them. I’m kind of hurting not being able to level up as much as I’d want.

There was a moment of silence. Kredevel was probably trying to process the idea that a human Denizen like Ray had gotten a hold of restricted Sylvan goodies. But once more, he held back his questions.

Then he proceeded to fill Ray in on how best to use a training crystal.

There wasn’t a lot of information that Kredevel provided. Maybe because of the timed nature of their chat, he was keeping things to the most pertinent info for now. Ray appreciated it, honestly.

Ray: Alright, I think I know enough to be going on with, for now.

Kredevel: Good. One last reminder—do not remain within once the cracks settle in.

Ray: Right, right. Thanks so much again. This is going to be invaluable. I owe you one.

Kredevel: You can repay me once I make my way up there.

Ray: Which will be…?

Kredevel: A few more days. I want to make sure Ram, Bam, and Lam are fully comfortable here for now. The job of a Floor Lord is far more difficult than I imagined. And I say this as one merely assisting the Floor Lord for now.

After learning a few more details on how the Holdstar trio were handling things on the Second Floor, they cut off the chat for now. Ray made sure to thank Kredevel once more before doing so.

He grinned at Gritty and Marcus. “Alright, I’m going to test everything Kredevel just told me. If everything works out, I’ll explain it all to you guys too.”

“Why can’t you explain before diving into your training crystal?” Marcus asked.

“Someone has to make sure we don’t accidentally make it explode on us. We’re humans after all, not Sylvans. Things might be a little different for us.”

Without further ado, Ray brought up his training crystal. He took a little preparatory breath. Then, as Kredevel had directed, he used one of his spells on it.

It didn’t matter what spell, so long as it was tangible. All Ray needed to do was make his Mana touch the crystal, upon which, it would automatically activate. Mottling Spiritguard was enough. As soon as one of the sparking chaos orbs contacted the crystal’s surface, it activated.

Sucking Ray into its own little dimension.

[Training Crystal]

Appraising…

Species Detected:

Attempting Override…

…

…

Success!

Denizen, please use training crystal to further yourself.

Ray swallowed. Kredevel had mentioned there was a small chance that the training crystal just might kick him out because he wasn’t a Sylvan, but it looked like he was good to go.

It was a good thing he had talked with Kredevel beforehand. He knew what to expect. As such, he wasn’t as concerned as he might have been had he come in blind.

Ray was in a little chamber, surrounded on all sides by dozens upon dozens of mirrorlike surfaces. They merged into each other at irregular edges, like the surfaces of a crystal, and every single one of them reflected back a distorted picture of Ray.

He took a moment to find the image of himself that was the most defined, as far as he could tell. Ray walked over and placed his hand on the surface.

Immediately, the mirror rippled like it was liquid. Ray was teleported again.

When he could see again, he was facing a Duskshell. No. Not just any Duskshell. This was the Duskshell. The one that he had killed to protect Maya’s settlement, way back on the First Floor.

“Hey, pal,” Ray said with a big a grin. “Been a while, huh?”

Ray hadn’t just been transported to face the Duskshell. He was in the exact same situation too. Memories, the description had stated. That was exactly what it was. Ray’s memory of standing before the repurposed keep, with all the other Denizens far behind him, and he himself standing between the Duskshell and the keep.

The monster roared at him. Recalling the description of the training crystal, Ray took a peek with Primordial Gauge. What he saw made him smile.

[Presence of the Primordial]

Duskshell [Monster] [Tier 26] [Level 49]

Ray was well aware that the Duskshell he had faced back on the First Floor hadn’t been that Tier or level. So the description was correct. His opponent was being scaled up to give him enough Essence for decent growth. Perfect.

The Duskshell roared at him. Ray grinned. Then got to fighting.