The next day, I felt a little better. The potions had worked and I could walk, despite my many pains. Once I was upright with the help of a spear from my ring, I slowly and very carefully looked around. I was in a narrow corridor and seemed to be in no immediate danger.

I pulled out my tools and slowly began to draw the formation and the summoning symbols. My hands were shaking, and my mana was very hard to control. I had to repeat same of the steps several times before the diagrams were finally ready. Then I summoned my imps and my rats. I felt pretty exhausted from the effort and was sweating profusely. After a short rest I sent my summons to scout down the corridors.

I was pretty close to the blasted hall with the glowing columns. Ahead, however, was a third room, well lit and containing a huge chest!

I spent about an hour looking for various traps but never found any danger. The chest was firmly shut and my imps could not lift its lid. I then summoned and sent my bear in and it too failed to open the chest. I walked my summons all over the room several times, but nothing happened, then I gathered my strength, sighed, and cautiously made my way to the third room.

When I reached, the mosses in the hall began to glow, forming a strange magical formation. Before I had time to panic, remembering the terrifying columns from the previous hall, the chest opened and tens of thousands of runes flew out. They started circling around me and I heard a voice in my head.

"Congratulations player number 72161 from tower 199, you have reached an epic milestone. As a result, the magic levels on planet Earth will increase by three percent! Also, every future player will be able to start with one more food serving in their starting equipment. Now you can choose your reward. You can upgrade one of your skills, or choose a random reward for all players in Tower 199.”

"What do you seek power for," I remembered the words of the Spirit of the Tower.

"For what do you seek strength," I remembered the words of Nathan, the summoning instructor.

"For what do you seek Power," I remembered the words of Tori Victa, the first night we had met.

"Why am I looking for strength?", I asked myself.

"Isn't it better to use my power to help mankind? Isn't it okay to use the rare opportunities each person has a few times in their life to help others? Especially now, when humanity is facing its greatest challenge?"

"It's true that strength is important, but what does my race gain if I don't use my strength to help it? Can I become so strong that I can carry the burden of a million people, or even all of humanity on my back?" I thought to myself as I watched the runes slowly begin to spin, faster and faster, and driven by my curiosity and noble nature, I finally made my decision and … with heavy breathing, tightness in my stomach and trembling fingers I chose the prize for everyone in the tower!

At that moment all the people in the tower heard the following message in their heads:

“Player number 72161 from Tower 199 has passed a tough challenge and has chosen to share his prize with everyone in Tower 199.”

This is where I got to thinking about luck. What does it mean to be lucky? How often does something on the order of one in ten happen? How many soldiers die and how many survive a bloody battle? Most die, some survive. And so among a legion of warriors, some survive after 30 years of service. Some beat the odds. Even if it was 1 in a 1,000.

But what about those who were born under a lucky star and are lucky enough to win a one in a million chance? Strangely, such people exist in every big enough city on Earth. There are so many of them. Because one-in-a-million chances happen every day, and it happens a few thousand times.

And what about one in a billion? Out of the tens of thousands of activities that people do daily, how many times occurs a one in a billion chance? In my opinion, a lot! After all, if seven billion people try thousands of times, something strange is bound to happen.

"Next week, Tower 199 participants will receive 40% bonus currency units, as well as a one-time bonus of 34 bonus currency units per participant."

“Ha!", I said disappointedly.

At that moment, the tens of thousands of runes began to form an intricate magical formation, each rune circling and waiting for its turn to stand in the right place.

Gradually they all aligned in an intricate formation and a small portal opened in front of me. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then a small coin fell out of it. It clattered to the ground and I bent down to pick it up.

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The moment I touched it, it became somehow weightless and slowly crawled into my body. Before I had time to react, a small tattoo of the coin's image appeared on my shoulder, blinked a few times, and finally disappeared.

After a while I heard someone calling my name.

"Wake up, wake up, Meridin,"

"What's up, let the servants pack it." I replied sleepily.

"Meridin, I don't know what you're dreaming about, but you need to wake up."

"That's the voice of the tower spirit." I slowly recalled. Then the memory of the past few days slowly surfaced in my head and I opened my eyes.

I was in the cave, next to the huge stone chest.

"Meridin, you're only giving me headaches. First you sit in the Choice Room for a few months, refusing to choose a class, now you've passed one of the most terrifying trials in the beginning level of the game, and on top of that, you've missed out on all the intended rewards."

"What do you mean?" I said, confused.

"It's very simple. If you had solved the secret of the first room, you would have received a huge improvement in your spiritual power. Also, there was a special item hidden there, with the help of which and your new powers, you would have been able to face the challenge of the second room. Look, I can't tell you its secrets, but I'll just mention that the potential rewards are incredible. They can raise your potential to the top of all participants in the whole game! And the third room... Well, even I don't know what the prizes are and how they are won. All I know is that you went through the challenges but didn't take any prizes."

“What are you talking about, I got a reward. I chose to share it with everyone in the tower. And also ....”

“No, that was a reward for reaching an important milestone.” Interrupted me the spirit of the tower. “I'm talking about the rewards hidden in that place. But you don't have to worry. I, your faithful friend, have taken the liberty of addressing the council on your behalf. With my modest efforts, I have managed to win you a consolation prize. It cannot compare at all with the things you missed, but it is still something.”

At these words, the spirit handed me a few magic stones.

"Each one of them can unlock and improve one of the elements in your body. This isn't unique, in fact such rewards are relatively common and can also be made using higher alchemy. They can even be found in random places here on this very island. Well those are slightly more advanced versions, but that's another topic. Pick one and be careful with your choice. Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Each one will cost you 2500 currency units. This deal is a one-off, special for you, since they're generally not for sale anywhere."

“Excuse me?! I do not even have 2500 currency units. Besides, I was saving up for training and magic elixirs! “

What impudence. Not only could these stones be found anywhere, but I had to pay for my reward.

"Hehe, Meridin, my friend. There was no other way. It was the only way I could see you. Maybe you could have gotten some other consolation prize, even one that didn't cost you anything, but I wanted to bring you this reward in person."

I fixed my gaze on the tower spirit and thought deeply. "Something strange is going on here. Why does the tower spirit want to meet me? What is it trying to accomplish?"

After looking at the stones, I chose the one that unlocked and enhanced the fire element. The spirit of the tower explained that to unlock its powers, I would need a lot of concentrated meditation in a specially drawn formation, the scroll of which he handed to me. He advised me to find a safe place, and better yet, people to guard me while I struggled to unlock the stone's powers.

I paid with the currency units I had and I even ended up owing a lot of currency units, and we agreed to withhold 20% of my earnings until I paid the difference.

I then pressed the spirit of the tower with questions, and after many attempts, from the things he said in his half answers, and the things he didn't, I managed to learn his purpose.

It turned out that he and Nathan had staked a lot on me and even humanity. Turns out that that was a common practice between the game organizers.

The stone I had to buy was just a pretext for the Spirit to point out to me a small chest hidden in a well disguised hole under the now empty chest.

The Spirit could not tell me this bluntly and could only speak in vague hints. Finally he knocked the magic stone away and it fell under the chest. I used my bear to move the now lighter and unlocked chest, and during this time the spirit stood so that he was always looking to a certain spot, and when he was satisfied that I understood his hints, the spirit disappeared and I began to dig.

It wasn't long before I found a small box and hurried to open it. There was a magic ring with a whole 1000 cubic meters of private space!

You may not be able to appreciate this, but for me, it was a very important thing. My ring, with its three cubic meters, was never enough. Here, even now, to cleanse my wounds, I had wasted a large amount of water and medicine. And with 1,000 cubic meters, I would even have room to help the other participants.

I could carry the food of a whole army, for example. Or I could load up multiple tons of strategic alchemical reagents. If I had such a ring earlier, I would have been able to collect a lot more stuff after my battles and adventures. Imagine a thief entering a bank vault with such a ring and robbing tens of tons of cash! Or a country's gold reserve!

Shortly after putting the ring away and checking the hall a few times, just in case, I set out to find my way out of this strange place. At that moment I heard a strange voice in my head. "Player 72161, do you wish to finish and leave the Island of Three Crowns?"

After much deliberations, I agreed and suddenly found myself next to the swamp about a mile from the island. Beside me were my summoned animals and somehow I knew that the entire island was gone forever from the tutorial.

Since there was nothing else to do here, I decided to focus on hunting wildlife to somewhat fill my financial deficit. So, over the next day I slowly made my way to camp, managing to kill a large number of animals along the way, as well as practicing my hunting skills and developing interesting hunting strategies. The instincts of the hounds helped a lot here, and I often found the tracks of different kinds of game.