Everything the Incarnate had seen so far spelled to him that a very, very long time had passed since the days when the Ainfidd Kingdom was still thriving.
The armor of the fallen warriors in the sands was rusted to hell.
The ancient structures he had seen when he first woke up on this Floor, large and seemingly not built for or by humans at all, looked a little weathered. According to the councilman, they had risen from the ground under the influence of the Fifth Omen of the Amalgam Sand Fiend.
The skeletons he saw, and the mounds of sand also suggested a great passage of time.
The Incarnate imagined that no less than a thousand years had passed since everything the councilman wrote happened.
Had the King survived through a millennium in that darkness?
He was a fearsome warrior, according to the text, given the moniker Flying Reaper Sword. Perhaps he still thrived.
The only things that persisted wholly in this place, as the Incarnate had seen, were supernaturally-empowered weapons and beings.
Of course, there was the roll of parchment in the Incarnate’s grasp at the moment. While it didn’t appear magical in any way, he thought that perhaps it was an exception protected by this place – Prospect For Reincarnation.
The world on the Floors was rather realistic in a way, but it appeared to the Incarnate that there were rules and limits. For Incarnates like him to try their luck in this place, this roll of parchment seemed to be very necessary; they all needed to read it in order to make sense of what was happening in this place.
Whether there was a continuity to this Floor after the previous Incarnate came and died or passed, seemed to be up in the air, but the Demonling imagined that there were parts that allowed for continuity and parts that didn’t, reverting to their original form for the next set of Incarnates to challenge. For instance…
‘If another Incarnate comes through here, I’m sure they will have to fight Tenyen, his dogs, and Kadyas, and acquire the Vault too. On the other hand…’ the Incarnate thought before attempting to rip a corner of the roll of parchment in his hand.
Even though he was stronger than the average human now, the paper resisted every bit of force he applied.
‘Just as I thought. This paper can’t be destroyed, but it can be moved. That’s why it was in the hands of another late Incarnate. If what I thought before is correct, it was likely in the hands of the dead councilman initially.’
After pondering on this subject, the Incarnate took a breath. Once again, his mind reared back to thinking about King Alabas.
The next stage of this Floor had to involve him somehow, right? There was no way it wouldn’t. Alabas probably wouldn’t be waiting to invite him for dinner either.
‘If I’m going to go down there, I have to improve my attributes,’ the Incarnate thought before dropping the roll of parchment to the ground.
He had been awarded with 8 Incarnation Points after finishing the second stage of this floor.
That said, he had already thought about how to apportion them before being finding the roll of parchment minutes before.
“I need to increase my durability. There’s no doubt the enemy or enemies I’m about to face will be stronger than me still. I need to be able to take their hits. For now, I don’t think I need to enhance my strength and agility by much,” he contemplated.
The Valiant Subject’s Ward was already giving him 5 additional points in Strength while the Fickle Viper gave me 4 points in Agility. Better yet, both items improved more than just his physical prowess. They added to his variety of attacks, especially the katana.
Beyond this, the Spirit Essence the Incarnate had earned had already bolstered him greatly, especially with how it awakened his empowered his skin’s sensitivity to the point of pseudo-clairvoyance.
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In the end, the Incarnate summoned the golden tablet.
“How do I do this?” he mumbled before meekly announcing, “I want to spend my Incarnation Points on attributes.”
Right then, before each of his attributes, save for Spirit Essence, a [0] appeared. As it did, the Incarnate was fed with a degree of understanding on what he was supposed to do.
All that he needed to do was will how many points he wanted to assign to each attribute.
‘I see. So simple.’
Without wasting time, the Demonling added 2 points to STR and AGI, and four to END.
===
STR : 3
AGI : 3
END : 5
===
At once, his body seemed to bulk up a little, his flesh growing tougher. A feeling of lightness also cradled his figure tenderly, and the Demonling leaped in place to truly get a feel of the changes.
Indeed, he felt stronger and faster, but not dramatically so.
What truly stood out beyond this was how he felt as though a meaningful stab from the average warrior from his original world wouldn’t even be able to cut through his skin, let alone his compact muscles.
Also, if he were to take that flurry of hits from Kadyas – the armoured figured he had fought in the ovular room – now, they were likely to do slightly less than half the damage. To the Incarnate, that was a priceless upgrade.
‘I’d test out the true extent of my durability with the Fickle Viper, but I probably shouldn’t,’ he thought, discarding the idea to try and stab himself.
Besides feeling tough, the Incarnate also felt like his body was equipped to endure strain for much longer than before.
‘Well, just like that, those 8 points are gone. If I had gotten 10…’ he wondered when he suddenly stopped.
A twinkle of curiosity sprang in his eyes and he rushed to where he had emerged from the dark, cavern-like space. The Incarnate formed a hypothesis.
‘I only earned 8 points here and before, I imagined that perhaps I didn’t get more because I didn’t do something about Marar’bel’s corpse. Maybe I should go back and—’
Right as he set to dip back into the opening on the thick wall of stone, the Incarnate shuddered and came to a screeching halt.
What greeted him was an overwhelming sense of dread.
The dull luminance of the night didn’t penetrate the space he had hoped to enter and return to the ovular room. There was only what felt like solid darkness which didn’t encourage the Incarnate to approach at all.
The Demonling turned pale and gulped.
‘I suppose there’s no going back,’ he thought.
Of course, that made sense. There could be no do-overs after the performance review. That would be too easy. He slowly turned and faced the slope feeding into the gargantuan well of darkness yonder.
With a heavy sigh, he started to slowly march down it.
He summoned his Valiant Subject’s Ward, which he had stored in his Vault before.
‘There are a lot of slopes on this Floor. I keep going further and further down with each stage. Does that mean something?’
The area was quite rocky and the splintered skeletons strewn about only made it more of a chore to traverse this land barefoot as the Incarnate was. Thankfully, because of his increased Endurance, he was tough enough to not get cuts on his feet.
Funny. The Endurance denoted in this place expressed one’s ability to persist against cruel odds in two forms – durability and stamina. It was almost as if Prospect For Reincarnation really wanted to make its participants endure as much punishment as possible without dying a second, miserable death. At least the Incarnate thought so.
After an hour, Incarnate ^8001 had reached the vibrant, verdant forest on the least steep part of the slope before it transitioned to solid, flat ground.
Taking a breath, he grabbed the trunk of a slim tree, and its bark crumbled lightly with his slightest effort. He barely noticed though. He was busy scouting the surroundings.
Getting caught off guard again like when he met Tenyen was the last thing he wanted.
Fortunately for him, there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary around and thus he relaxed slightly and increased his pace.
The Incarnate was surprised to see brooks amid the humid ground which caused tall grasses to flourish.
‘This place looks surprisingly lively…’ he thought.
He hesitated a little before drinking from one of the brooks. He had deemed it to have the cleaner-looking water – not that he could discern that well with the lack of visibility.
When the cool water trickled down his throat, the Incarnate felt his flesh grow at ease. This was his first time pouring anything into his mouth since coming here and it was a refreshing experience even though his Demonling body didn’t seem to need the sustenance… yet.
He moved on.
Three hours later, he was finally faced with the deep darkness at close range.
It devoured the land ahead, whose degree of vegetation had become sparse once again.
Wisps seemed to dance deep within the darkness and the Demonling couldn’t help but be deeply unnerved.
‘Well, here goes,’ he thought, convincing himself that there was no other way but forward.
The moment he stepped forth, every sense he had, save for one, died.
He saw nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing, heard nothing.
However, the sensitivity of his skin persisted.
At first the Incarnate panicked, wondering if perhaps this was a bad idea after all, when suddenly, the Valiant Subject’s Ward’s enchantment came into effect.
It barred a decent portion of the darkness from the Incarnate, restoring his senses.