For a while now I had been wondering just how many floors the tower had. As I progressed through the floors, they got longer and more difficult. Leveling was slower than it had been previously as well. That could not be better showcased than by how long the previous two floors had taken me.
You are now level 68
You have completed floor 22
A full 24 hours spent on completing just two floors and earning two levels. Like floors 11 and 12, they had been all about navigating through challenging terrain and fighting monsters while they were on home turf. Scorpions, swarms of scarabs, and a host of other monsters that were perfectly adapted to fight in the desert. With the loose sand providing little traction and the extreme heat constantly wearing away at me, the whole place was quite clearly targeted towards making travel as difficult as possible.
I had gone straight to the twenty second floor after helping Blair dig out a storage room for materials and items. I wanted to be productive in the short amount of time I had until my scheduled meeting. Checking my status menu, I could see that I had about an hour left until it was time.
Time left in tutorial: 150 days, 1 hour, 14 minutes
In a little over an hour, 80% of the population would be leaving the tutorial. It was assumed they would simply disappear, but nobody knew that for sure. The outpost wanted just about everybody present in case something unexpected happened, so Ben had asked me to return before the countdown was done.
Upon arriving at the outpost, the noise of people milling around and talking replaced the usual sounds of work being done all around. Nobody was cooking, building more buildings, or doing any crafting to speak of. Instead, everybody was nervously waiting for the countdown to end. As the timer reached one hour left, everybody within the tutorial got a system notification.
In one hour all of those with the title D Tier Pioneer will be removed from the tutorial and will be returned to Earth. For those of you with a higher tier title, congratulations! You have proved your worth and earned the right to remain within the Tower of Nixtias.
Upon reaching the end of their time in the tutorial, all participants will be given a score based upon their performance in the tutorial, and will receive a reward appropriate for their score.
To celebrate the last hour of your time in the tutorial, the first floor event has begun.
Just then, everybody in the tower got another notification, this one carrying a similar amount of weight that the previous one had.
Floor Event: Earn Your Place (Floor 1)
Duration: 1 Hours
For the remaining hour all D tier Pioneers have remaining in the tutorial, they may claim an improved version of the title by slaying someone who possesses a C tier Pioneer or better title. Please note that this will only work while on floor 1.
The atmosphere grew intense all around as suddenly everybody was put on edge. The unspoken question that hung in the air was going through everybody’s minds in that moment. Would anybody attack? If they did, who would be first?
No immediate moves were made by anybody present to try and claim the better title, which was a relief. Ben, who currently stood next to me, whispered in my ear.
“Could you raise me into the air so I can get everyone's attention?” He asks.
“I don’t know if anybody wants to see magic right now, so use this.” I say, shrugging off my Cloak and handing it to him. “Infuse a bit of mana into it and you can hover in the air.”
He nods and slips the cloak on, floating about 5 meters into the air a few seconds later. “Listen up everyone!” He calls out to the crowd. “We are all headed for the second floor. We don’t want anybody to be able to take advantage of this and get away.”
With his words, the large crowd that was gathered around the center of the outpost began shuffling in the general direction of the staircase. I had no doubt that many of the people present had never even been to the second floor, and they were probably pretty nervous to go. Anybody who hadn’t been there also likely wasn’t a very high level, and if anybody like that had a C tier or better title, then they were the most vulnerable people in the crowd.
The main thing that I assumed kept people from attacking was the fact that nobody could just tell what tier title another has by just looking at them. The fact that someone with a high tier title could keep it hidden was a boon. Unless it was already well known that they had the title, they were safe.
In the end that was what allowed us to get everybody to the second floor without a single person trying anything stupid. The fact that I was passively putting pressure on everybody present with my aura might have also helped. It was a trick I learned from the King after he had pulled the same stunt on me. They all knew that if they attempted to do something they shouldn’t, they were going to have a bad time.
__________
Flynn was having a very bad time. He kicked the corpses of the two dead council members to the side, wondering how they’d ever managed to gain a position of power within the great city. One of them had a C tier title while the other had a D tier title. They each knew Flynn himself had the C tier version, and incorrectly assumed that they could gang up on him and claim it for themselves. It seemed being newly evolved had inflated the confidence they each had to stupid heights.
The great city did not operate like most towns that formed after the system came around. The leader had a strong sense of justice and ensured that she knew absolutely everything going on within the city. She disliked those who committed crimes and despised those who would kill others.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what had led to her biggest mistake. Since she wanted to know everything that was going on in her city, she had issued wooden seals to every single resident in the city to prove the tier of their pioneer title. The intent had been to prevent anybody from making a deal they couldn’t fulfill due to leaving the tutorial, effectively ripping off the other party in the deal.
This meant that everybody who had a D tier title could prove it, leaving them to be safe. Anybody who didn’t couldn’t pretend they did, since they had no seal to show, leaving them as a target for those desperate to remain within the tutorial.
Countless back alley fights and sudden murders occurred all across the great city, with those strong enough to bring order being completely overwhelmed. Andrea, the leader of the Great City, had immediately rushed off as soon as the notification popped up, wanting to stop as much of the chaos as she could.
Now, the actual amount of people willing to kill another over something as simple as a title was extremely low. The chain reaction of panic that was kickstarted by the first few attacks was enough to have people stampeding through the streets of the city, rushing into whatever building they could to get to safety.
As soon as Andrea had left the room, the other two council members present had begun whispering to themselves. A short minute after that, they had attacked Flynn. In an even shorter amount of time, they died to his blade. He rushed out of the City Center, sprinting through the city to find anybody that was causing trouble.
He saw more than one corpse in the middle of the street, the killers long having retreated and blending in with the crowd. As the highest leveled person in the city, the ground he could cover was insane, and before the hour had ended he’d made a full sweep of the entire city. While he didn’t see any murders with his own eyes, he knew that seeing a strong individual running around at easily a hundred kilometers an hour would deter many from trying.
He finally came to a stop when the timer reached just ten seconds left. People finally were calming down, and just waiting in anticipation. As the timer ticked down to three, then two, then one, everybody who possessed the D tier Pioneer title vanished in a flash of light, exiting the tutorial and returning to Earth, in whatever state it may be.
He breathed out a sigh as he prepared to head back to the city center. He knew that there was about to be a very lengthy meeting about what just happened. He also felt that Andrea would probably want an explanation for the two dead bodies that now rested in her council room.
Turning back in the direction of the council room, he was almost immediately stopped when he spotted the fiery city leader storming towards him.
“Shit.” he muttered to himself. She must have already found the corpses and deduced he had been the one to kill them. That would make it a bit harder to explain. Instead of the scolding and potential fight he was expecting, she stopped in front of him and stared him down.
“Why are you still here?” She asked, nothing but pure hatred in her eyes. “You told me long ago that you had a D tier title. That means you either lied to me, or you stole it from somebody else. Which one do you want to confess to?”
Flynn thought for a moment, realizing that now that anybody who could take advantage this information was gone, there was no longer a reason to hide it. “Reaching floor eleven upgrades your tier from D to C.”
“Do you have any proof that you didn’t just make that up on the spot?” She asks.
“How am I supposed to prove it?”
“Do you know anybody else that know about this? Somebody that I can go ask about it?”
“I mean, there are probably a lot of people who knew about it. Ask anybody who has made it to floor eleven.” Flynn says, at a loss for any other way to prove his innocence. He didn’t exactly have a big medal for upgrading his title.
“I don’t know of anybody else who had a D tier title before reaching that floor, so I can’t confirm that for a fact.”
“I’m sure there is at least one. You could just search for them.”
“Nope. That would give you a chance to escape and never be seen again. I need to keep you in my sights until I know you didn’t kill a person in the last hour.”
Flynn sucks in a breath. “Yeah, about that.” He explains the situation and what went down in the council room. She lets out a frustrated breath.
“As much as I want to hold that against you, I wouldn’t put it past those idiots to try and pull something like that. I figured your presence would keep them from trying it, but I guess I was wrong about that.”
“So what now?” Flynn asks. “You don’t believe that I am innocent, and you won’t go out and find evidence of my innocence.”
Andrea takes a moment to think before coming to a conclusion. “It looks like we are just going to have to complete floor 20 together so you can prove that your title was upgraded. If it happened after finishing floor 10, I see no reason to believe it won’t happen again after floor 20.”
Flynn wants to argue for a moment, before deciding to just give in. He knew that there was little sense in arguing with her, and he didn’t want to have to deal with being banished from the city by running off and escaping her. He had already been planning to take on the chain floors that lay ahead of him soon, and if the raid boss it had informed him of was every bit as powerful as it was hyped up to be, he would need a little help.
“Fine.” Flynn relents. “We can go do that, but only if you agree to us finding one more person to help us through those floors.”
“I can get one of the other council members to help us out.” Andrea says, waving off the request.
“No, they need to stay and run the city. I would ask River, but I have a feeling he is already done with these floors. You can’t return to chain floors after finishing them. I still think we should go and find him though. Maybe he knows somebody who would appreciate the help on those floors.”
__________
“I think I know somebody.” I say to Flynn. He’d brought the leader of the Great City with him, and had explained the whole situation he had found himself in. I had tried to explain that he really had upgraded his title, but according to the leader she couldn’t trust me enough to take my word for it.
I tell them to stay where they were, heading to the staircase for the floor and teleporting directly to floor 13. After wading through the ocean water for a bit, I spotted Blair’s air dome and headed towards it. When I was within about 10 meters of it, one of the turrets within it fired a ball of mana at me. I slapped it away easily enough. They were meant to kill creatures more than 20 levels below me after all.
Upon entering the dome, I see Blair tweaking something on the turrets.
“Sorry about that. I still need to work on the targeting system for these. Can’t tell a friend from a foe.”
“Yeah, best work on that. Say, how would you like a nearly free ride to completing floor 20? You’ll probably get another upgrade to your pioneer title as a part of the deal.” She wasn’t seeming convinced as I spoke, until I offhandedly threw in one more part of the offer. “You’ll also get to snag another one of those titan corpses.”
She immediately dropped what she was doing, pulling out the revolver she had stored within the ring on her finger. I noticed it had been improved since I last saw it. She probably worked on it after reaching level 50. With the access to rare materials and non-stop hard work, she had gained four levels in just a single day and reached her evolution. I was a bit jealous at the leveling rate, but I also knew that her class was one that simply didn’t gain as many stats per level as mine had before evolving.
“When can we get going?” She asks, clearly very eager to go. “I’m sure with you carrying me through the floors, we can knock it out in a day or two.”
“Sorry to say, but you aren’t going with me.”
“Well then who the hell am I going with?”
“The strongest person I know, and the one who made all of those precious coins you hoard like a dragon.”
“Ugh, fine. As long as they don’t mind me taking all the monster corpses.”
“Talk to them about that. They are waiting for you on floor one right now.”
“Alright then, let’s go.” She says, walking towards the edge of the dome and looking at me. “I haven’t made a way to fend off the water yet, so I’m gonna need you to escort me again.”
“Seriously? I feel like that should be the first thing you made.”
“I’ve had more important things to worry about. Now get over here.”
I walk over and make a bubble of mana for us to walk in. As we pass through the barrier, the turrets once more fire at us, bouncing off my mana barrier.
“You really need to work on those.” I say. “Some poor sap is gonna end up getting shot by them when reaching this floor.”
“I’ll get to that eventually. Right now, I just wanna test out my latest and greatest weapon.” The pistol in her hand disappears, and in its place appears a large sniper rifle. It had a scope, stabilizers, and even a magazine of ammunition. “Say hello to Gloria.”