Rank Ascender 1
-Prologue-
At first, I thought I had fallen into the pits of hell.
When it happened again and again, I thought it was a terrible nightmare. However, it felt too real to be nothing but a dream.
I would wake up as a lowly monster in a dungeon with myriad floors every night.
I started to become confused.
Was my life, during the day, as a penniless loser living in Korea real, or was my night, with me desperately struggling to survive, real?
I didn't need to worry about it for too long as both of these realities were equally unbearable and inescapable.
But a strange thing wove the two lives together.
The thing became suddenly engraved within me once I remembered my life in Korea during the night and the dungeon during the day.
[You have acquired Mobius Superstring]
***
Chapter 1. sleepless person
Sure enough, when I closed my eyes on earth, I opened my eyes here.
It had been two weeks since I last slept.
For two weeks, whenever I had tried to sleep, I had woken up here.
"Kkuruk."
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrr."
The first floor of the dungeon spread out before me.
I was a low-ranked monster with a brain, eyes, stomach, and a body made of scum and slime.
[Time left to survive: 34s]
The only reason I knew about this dungeon was because of the Mobius Superstring.
It had been engraved within me when I simultaneously remembered my experiences from the day and from the night.
Maybe it had been within me from the beginning.
[Time left to survive: 13s]
"Grruup."
Only filth and excrement covered the first floor.
I had to spend every moment consuming and breaking down the overflowing piles of waste as if I were being punished. Even a minute of not doing so meant this body would perish.
[Please continue eating to survive.]
This was also something the Mobius Superstring had told me.
I had thought about dying, thinking it was just a nightmare. But frighteningly, the Mobius Superstring had spoken to me even during the day.
The Mobius Superstring would talk to me even while I studied at the cram school or worked at my part-time job at the convenience store as a regular human.
Therefore, there was a large possibility that the warning that it would be the end if I died here was real.
[Time left to survive: 43s]
Every time I closed my eyes to have some much-needed rest, I would wake up to be tormented by the fear of death.
Millions of creatures, similar to me, were crawling through the waste and grime all around me.
As disgusting as it was, survival always came first.
"Kkuruk,"
I swallowed the vile filth before me, and my digestive organs disintegrated them painfully.
This was the hell that I was thrown into every night for two weeks.
I tried to stay awake and not fall asleep, but I would always find myself here no matter what I did.
But I suppose one can hardly stay awake forever.
Crack! Rumble rumble rumble.
The first floor was always torturous and boring. But, for the first time in two weeks, something different happened.
The ground shook violently, and a blinding light flashed from the hole where all of the excrement fell out from.
Vroom! Crash! Boom!
Three golden capsules came crashing down from the hole.
The number '130' was written on the capsules.
[VIPs from the 130th floor have arrived. Run]
I knew I was a low-class monster on the first floor but I couldn't have imagined that this dungeon extended all the way up to the 130th floor.
I realized I didn't know where the summit was.
Pshhhhhh
"Kurruk."
The capsules opened with a hiss and figures wearing golden armor walked out.
Compared to me, who was about the size of a fingernail, the figures were about 130cm tall.
"Find it!"
"We have to find it!"
"Otherwise, a tenth of our floor will get devoured!"
I did as the Mobius Superstring told me to do and began to crawl away from the figures as quickly as possible.
I was only a bug, the size of a fingernail, crawling through the muck.
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"Now, where is it!"
Whooom.
The figures from the 130th floor took out a grotesque-looking lantern.
A purplish light shrouded a wide patch of the first floor.
Sizzle.
I felt a stinging pain in my body.
It was the first time I had experienced a pain different from the agony caused by digestion since I had come to the dungeon.
[Escape outside of the range of the Mana Lantern.
Reward: Unlock 3 Mobius Power]
For the first time in two weeks, I was in a life-threatening situation.
The Mobius Superstring kept telling me to run away.
It was the first time it had mentioned a reward, too.
"Grrrup."
[Time left to survive: 40s]
But running away with this pitiful body wasn't the only thing I had to do.
I had to continue ingesting to survive.
"Craaack!" "Kreeek!"
I started to hear screaming from behind me.
The figures were mercilessly stepping on the first-floor creatures to walk where they needed to. Every second, dozens of monsters were crushed to death under their feet.
"Ggurek."
Only then did the fear of death become even more intense.
Although they were low-class insects that couldn't even communicate, I was just like them.
Seeing them die so easily, I truly felt that my life was no better than a bug's.
I was just like them.
"I have a reaction here!"
"This way!"
"Graaack!"
There was no way that I could get away from them with my pathetic crawling.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
The figures were closing in on me with their Mana Lanterns.
"Guruk!
I fervently looked around.
My vision was worse than an old, low-quality monitor.
I saw a frothing river of filth flowing near me.
"Gke."
Okay.
This was a gamble, but it was the only way.
I threw myself into the river of excrement with all my might.
Gurgle.
Fortunately, my light body did not get buried in the river of shit.
I was swept down the filthy river to a lower part of the first floor.
I wriggled to look back.
I saw I was getting further from the figures from the 130th floor.
"Damn it! What are we supposed to find in this garbage dump!?"
"How are we going to find it this way?"
"We need to get more people. We'll continue this way for two more hours, and if we haven't succeeded by then, we'll return with more people and Mana lanterns!"
I could hear the figures yelling angrily behind me.
When I had put some distance between us, I rolled over to the edge of the river and flopped onto the riverbank.
"Gguk."
I crashed into a rock on the edge of the river of filth.
Fortunately, the figures from the 130th floor did not get their hands on me.
The filth I had consumed from the river also kept me from starving to death.
However, that wasn't the only good news.
[Success. You receive 3 Mobius Powers]
[Your two weeks of Soul Calibration in the dungeon have been completed]
[You can now use 3 Mobius Powers]
[The 3 Mobius Powers are Night Colored]
[You can only use Night Colored abilities within the dungeon]
I had thought that this was just an incurable disease.
An illness that made me tremble in fear every night, eating filth to not starve to death.
But things were different now.
What was terrifying was that the Mobius Superstring knew that I only existed in the dungeon during the night.
[3 Mobius Powers - Learning Rate 1000% / Awakening / Ability Absorption]
Until now, I had been an insect. The only thing I could do was endlessly consume excrement.
But I could tell that these new abilities gave me incomparable, transcendental powers.
Would I be able to change? If there was a 'first floor, then there must be a second floor.
[Would you like to see the descriptions of the abilities?]
Of course, I did.
I accepted in the hopes that night could be more than just pure agony. Then I could see a new path.
The Mobius Superstring explained each ability to me.
Seeing the explanations, I was consumed with only one thought.
I can go up.
I can escape the first floor. A fire lit in my belly.
[Power 1 - Learning Rate 1000% - You will gain 10x the experience needed for intrinsic physical growth]
[Passive Ability - Rank Instincts! You can know the rank of every creature on the floor of the dungeon. You can compare your rank to the opponents]
[Your name within the dungeon is Karmon]
[Karmon - 1st floor - Rank 1,334,120,223]
I realized just how insignificant a being I was, even on the first floor.
I was ranked billions below these insects.
I had hope that things would change in the future. That was enough for now.
[Power 2 - Awakening - You can awaken 100% of your current body's potential. This ability gets stronger in correlation to your physical growth. Your growth is calculated in relation to your original state and not the awakened state. You can only activate one power at a time]
Awakening.
It seemed that I couldn't use the 1000% learning rate while Awoken.
I will have to use it to increase my strength in times of emergency for a short time.
[Power 3 - Ability Absorption - There are beings with superior physical capabilities and special abilities on each floor. You can absorb their abilities. Depending on your skill level, the conditions and the number of abilities you can absorb change]
[Current Mobius Superstring Skill Level (1st floor - F) / Absorption Capability: 1]
This was completely different from Awakening.
Unlike Awakening, I could only use it once.
Well, now I knew the difference in floors wasn't the only marker of rank.
There was a hierarchy within each floor.
[Target - 1st floor - Rank 1,174,136,433rd]
Looking around with the upgraded Mobius Superstring, I could see the ranks of other creatures.
Only then did I know why certain creatures would step aside when the meal routes overlapped.
Even if they were dumb monstrous bugs, they had recognized their position in the hierarchy.
"Grruuu."
Grow, learn, absorb, and Awaken!
The message of the Mobius Superstring was simple and powerful.
Ascend the ranks.
Quickly and efficiently.
I felt pleasure for the first time during these agonizing nights.
[Eat while using Power 1 - Learning Rate 1000%]
The past two weeks were a calibration period, apparently.
It was only natural that I would need time to adapt if this wasn't just a delusion.
This was just the beginning.
[Activate Power 1 - Learning Rate 1000%]
[Mini Quest - Consume 0.1L of waste and digest it! Reward: Level up]
It seemed that my intrinsic physical capabilities were evaluated in levels.
I could suddenly see my Character Stats as soon as the thought struck me.
[Lv.1 / Power: 0.0001]
It couldn't have been more pathetic.
Being alive and consuming waste.
It seemed that my existence was useless for doing anything other than that. For now.
"Ggurek."
I started eating.
It was the same agonizing labor and torture that I had been inflicting on myself for the past two weeks.
However, now, it was no longer meaningless.
My attitude towards the agony had changed.
I was no longer being forced to do it, but volunteering to it.
[Level Up!] [Lv.12 / Power: 0.0012]
I felt my body quiver and grow a little.
Although it was a fraction of a millimetre, I could feel my body change.
I couldn't believe that I had grown this much by consuming only a little of the waste.
"Ggurek."
It wasn't empty hope. Once I was sure of it, a fire lit in my belly.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrr."
I started to fervently consume the muck.
I shoved the excrement down my gullet until my digestive tract was at its limit.
I considered the pain an honorable price to pay to get to a superior state.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrr."
[Level Up!] [Lv.223 / Power: 0.0223]
I didn't even know how long my eating frenzy had lasted. But after a few hours, I became an entirely different creature.
My body had grown and advanced enough to for me to be able to crawl faster.
Moreover, the amount I could consume and digest had also increased.
[Karmon - 1st floor - Rank 1,101,280,774]
Now that I knew that 'Rank Instincts' existed, I started to pay attention to my ranking.
I was very pleased to have advanced 200 million places in less than a night.
"Kkuruk."
I felt as if I were high on drugs.
The pain from eating now felt like a part of the joy called growth.
At this point, the agony felt no worse than the bitterness of strong coffee.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!"
[Target - 1st floor - Rank 878,751,142]
My path crossed with another creature as I continued to eat.
[Time left to survive: 21s]
The lack of time forced me to quickly swallow some grime in front of me.
I had to crawl to the next pile of waste even while eating because the fear of starving to death was always looming above my head.
The upper ranked creature opened his jaw to try to swallow me.
"Ggurek,"
I turned around quickly and began running away.
There was a reason this creature was ranked higher than I.
Even at a glance, I could see he was larger than me and would be able to digest way more food than me.
If we bit each other, while we both might die, I would surely die first.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Although we were nothing more than insects, always consuming trash, it appeared that all the creatures were conscious about the Rank Instinct, just like the Mobius Superstring had said.
After all, this creature could have continued to consume the trash, but it had chosen to aim for me.
I began to tremble at the narrowing distance.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!"
"Kkuruuk!"
It was a slow, silent but brutal chase.
Then, I suddenly remembered the 2nd Power I had recently acquired.
[Activate Power 2 - Awakening]
Grrsshhh.
My body puffed up and grew, and my crude eyesight improved.
When I looked behind, the creature that had been chasing me suddenly looked much smaller than I.