As we got closer, we spotted more and more climbers. Most of them were either fighting creatures or looting the remains of one. We got a lot of suspicious glares, but no one approached or called out to us. Likely more worried about protecting their spot than actual interest in the direction we came from. Apart from the elves that was. There certainly were a lot of them. Groups of three to five were scattered around everywhere. Some were trying to blend in by slaying creatures, but it was clear their attention was not on their work. Each group kept some distance from each other, making it hard to walk by unnoticed. We got a few looks from multiple groups but were quickly dismissed. I wondered what would have happened if we had not helped the two lost elves and made no changes.

Burin was walking with Miko, giving her some support. She was exhausted but refused to rest. She insisted we reach the tower first, saying she could rest inside. Apart from the increased number of adventurers, the glowing rings of light from the tower told us we were getting close. Curiously, I started noticing a lot of people were watching us, some hiding their glances while others were openly staring.

“All this attention is making me nervous.” Miko said.

“Aye, likely due to the combination of our team.” Replied Burin.

Miko let out a sigh. “Right. Of course. A Dwarf, beastkin, and human walking together? Sounds like the start of a terrible joke.”

“That and our caster, who has the body type of a warrior with an enhancement problem, is carrying around an unconscious woman on his back.”

I stepped closer and lightly kicked Burin in the backside. “What do you mean, enhancement problem?”

Miko let out a tired laugh. “Wealthy warriors will often pay to artificially boost their strength. You have to admit that you are… big.”

“That’s an understatement.” Burin muttered under his breath, earning him another boot.

Burin raised his voice. “Ah, sorry master! Stop hitting this poor servant.”

“Servant?” I growled. “Who’s back were you having a good rest on before?”

“Gives them a story to believe.” He replied.

Sure enough, after the display, many of the climbers stopped gawking. Was it more socially acceptable to have a dwarven servant than a friend? I did not like the implications of that.

After some more walking, we ran into the wall surrounding the tower and followed around to a gate. Much like the other floors, inside were a series of stalls both selling and buying goods from climbers. A few store owners called out to us offering to buy our loot for a "good price".

“Bunch of scammers.” Burin cursed. “Everyone knows it’s better to sell at merchant’s way.”

Miko was leaning more heavily against Burin’s shoulder. “Yeah, but these places are fine if you are just after some quick coin so you can go back out.”

We reached the base of the tower and the shadowy portal that made up the entrance stood before us. There was a tower knight manning a small desk by the side of the portal as usual. What was not usual was that as we got closer and started walking into the portal he stood up and tried to get our attention. Ignoring his attempts to stop us, I pretended not to hear him and followed my companions through the large shadowy doorway.

The dark stone corridor greeted us on the other side of the portal. It looked a lot nicer than what I saw going to the first floor. I’m guessing the higher up the tower, the more impressive it became. To my right the path seemed to lead upwards, while the left led downwards. Despite that, the stone tiled floor beneath my feet felt level. Thinking about it for too long gave me a headache, so I decided to chalk it up to magic.

Miko took a few steps before collapsing. “Finally.” She groaned. She sat there as Burin and I watched her. After a moment she looked up and saw us waiting. “Sorry. I forget that you still don’t know much about the tower. We are safe here. No one can come in and bother us. Think of it as our own private walkway… and for now, campsite.”

Burin grunted and sat down next to her. “Knew this place was safe and isolated from others, but never heard of people using it to make camp in.”

Yui nodded. “It’s a tip from Dad. He said that on some floors this is the only truly safe place to sleep.”

Seeing as we were staying here a while, I gently placed Yui down against the wall of the corridor and picked out a place to practice my shelter spell.

Instead of just a stone box, I tried to think of something more comfortable. A handful of seconds and most of my mana later, a wooden shack appeared, complete with windows and working doors. The inside was still bare but at least there was a fireplace.

Burin walked inside and let out a whistle. “Getting better, but ye should know that wood makes for a terrible fireplace.”

I ignored him and cast my campstone inside the alcove.

Burin chuckled. “Just need a few beds and it would be perfect.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t summon furniture yet.” I had a horrible suspicion that would change once I leveled.

“Beats a stone floor.”

Burin walked out of the shelter and helped Miko inside. I picked up Yui’s sleeping form and placed her on my sleeping roll. For my own bed, I conjured enough robes to create a soft spot to lay on.

I looked over and saw that Burin was helping Miko get comfortable. I was glad how well Burin fit in with the team.

“Want anything to eat before you sleep? I offered.

Miko just shook her head. “Sleep first. Food later.”

Burin made sure she was settled and then came over to sit next to me. “I could eat.”

Chuckling, I conjured some sandwiches.

“So… Yui, huh” Burin said through a mouthful of food.

“What about her?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t think I didn’t see what happened between ye.”

“What do… oh that. That was nothing. She just wants food.”

He glared at me. “Was that what she was doing?” He placed the half eaten sandwich between us. “Don’t tell me you expect me to thank ye by…” He gagged and looked away.

“What?” It took a second to realize what he was implying. “First of all, no. Secondly, that was mean.” I sighed and told him what she said to me.

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Are ye a complete idiot? A beauty like her presses herself against ye and locks lips, and ye think she is wanting food?”

Miko stirred in her bedroll. “Mmm, shut up. Trying to sleep here…”

We waited for her breathing to even out.

Burin turned back to me. “Wait. Don’t tell me…” A huge grin formed on his face. “Are ye a virgin?”

“What?” I leaned back from the dwarf. “No. I have known… women.”

Burin held his hands over his mouth and fell back shaking. Occasional snorts and wheezing sounded out from the dwarf. I waited patiently for him to finish.

After collecting himself, he sat back up. “No shame in it. Just surprising, is all.”

I loomed over him. “I’m not a virgin.” I focused on my shadow and willed him to come out.

“Tell him.”

“I’m not a virgin.” My shadow replied.

“See?”

“Oh, very convincing… With who then?” Burin asked.

I shared a look with my shadow. It had been so long that I had to think back to my time on Earth.

My shadow clicked his fingers and pointed to me. “There was that vegetarian girl.”

I clicked my own fingers. “Yes! The vegetarian… Wait… that was just one date.”

“Hmm… Oh, there was that neighbour, what was her name? Claa… something.”

“No, she stopped showing interest after I fixed her laptop.”

My shadow slumped and reached over to grab one of the remaining sandwiches.

Damn, was it true? Looking back, I couldn’t think of anyone. My time on earth was a hazy mess. I decided to not dwell on my past when I entered the tower. The environment was not suited for self reflection and thinking of the past just filled me with regret. Not a good emotion to have in the middle of a battle.

I guess the closest I got to a real relationship was with Lilly’s aggressive approaches. Though I don’t regret refusing her. I thought that if I got too attached, her death would cause my focus to slip. Success was just too important. I honestly never expected the support team to make it all the way to the end behind me.

Burin just watched me with a small smile on his face.

I let out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Yui is just a girl.”

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“Aye, you are old enough to be her father… But that means nothing to climbers. What’s a few decades next to centuries?” He gestured to her sleeping form. “You should keep an open mind. Great things might come from it.” Chuckling, he added. “She might even have more experience than you.”

I pushed his shoulder lightly, but it still sent him rolling onto his side. “Shut up. What about you? Will there be little red furred Dwarves running about in the future?”

Burin spluttered, his face turning a bright red. “What are ye! How could ye! I don’t even…”

Miko shot up from her bed roll and glared at us. “Would you shut up already?! What is so important that you have to yell?”

I grinned at Burin. “Actually we were just talking about y-“

Burin reached up and covered my mouth his both his hands. “Sorry Miko, Reigner was being an ass again.”

Miko harrumphed. “Just be quiet.” She turned snuggled back into her bedroll, putting her back to us.

I waited for Miko’s breathing to even out again before turning to glare at Burin. “I gave you sandwiches.”

“What? Ye expecting a kiss?”

“Piss off. I’m going to sleep.”

I closed my eyes for what felt like a second, only to be shaken awake by my shadow.

“Get up. Time for morning training.”

I yawned and moved into a sitting position. “How long did I sleep for?”

“I dunno, four maybe five hours.”

“Why did you wake me?”

My shadow pointed to his ring finger where a copy of my own party ring was fitted. “I was playing around with this while you were all sleeping. Turns out it does more than just communication and xp sharing. If you send some mana into it, you can bring up your party’s resource bars and if you focus on one at a time, see their buffs or debuffs.”

“What does that have to do with waking me up?”

“Try it out and focus on Miko.”

I stretched out my body and repositioned myself so I could lean my back against the wall behind me. After yawning a second time, I sent a trickle of mana into the party ring. On the top left side of my vision, I could see the names of my team members, including my shadow’s, each with a set of red, yellow and blue bars. Red must be health, while yellow was for stamina, and blue for mana.

“That’s cool.”

My shadow nodded. “Right, just like a video game.”

“One of the few things I actually miss from Earth.”

“Movies too. Did you focus on Miko?”

“Hold on.” It took a while for me to figure out how to single out one of my party members, I found it easier if I looked at the person in question. After focusing on Miko and the ring’s interface at the same time, it showed a list of active effects under her heath bar. There were two positive effects and one negative. One was from the regen my campstone was providing, while the other was because she was asleep and resting. The negative debuff was listed as exhaustion and had a green mark next to it. After focusing on the mark, it showed that the exhaustion debuff was being treated by sleep and would be removed in another three hours.

Yui also had exhaustion with an hour left, and Burin was only showing tired as his debuff, also with an hour left.

I focused on myself and could not see any debuff of my own. “So, you were watching this while I slept?”

“That… among other things.”

“Right…”

My shadow summoned and handed me a smoothy. “Lesson over, drink this and then it’s time for training… before the others wake up.”

After performing a few light stretches I started morning training. If it was actually morning, I couldn’t tell what the time was in this dark hallway. Like before I trained both my weapon arts and magical ability. I fell into a kind of meditation as I performed the movements and before I knew it, I was joined by Yui and Burin. We continued until Miko woke up and then decided it was time to leave.

I dismissed the shelter and campstone before we left. I didn’t think anything would happen by leaving it behind, but I wanted to keep the corridor clean of my summons. I also resummoned my shadow and had him hide inside my own, just until we reached a dungeon or something. Resummoning him was a pain but it seemed like that was the only way the skill ranked up.

We walked out of the corridor and onto the eighth floor. The tower knight manning the crystal ball by the entrance rose to his feet and held out his arm. “Hold on there. Reigner, right? I have orders to keep you here until the representative arrives.”

The tower knight was an orc, wearing grey robes, and had an impressive looking great axe resting against the table next to him. He looked to be a good twenty centimetres taller than I was and had a stern no fuss attitude.

“By representative, do you mean Mac?” I asked.

“Yup, that’s the one. You can wait here or roam about inside the walls.” He leaned forwards, placing his hands on the desk. “But, if you take one step out from the wall, then I will personally come and drag you back here.”

I rolled my eyes. “Got it big guy, we’ll hang around for a bit.”

He nodded and sat back down. “As long as you know.”

I looked at the others, who were all staring back at me. “Well, what do you guys want to do?”

Miko and Burin shared a look before saying. “Breakfast.”

“Ah but not yer stuff today.” Burin quickly added. “Nothing against it, just we can have some real food here.”

Yui nodded. “After eating let’s find a place we can go over some group tactics. I don’t like how chaotic things got before. If it was not for a certain someone…” She glanced at me, “We would not have made it to this floor.”

“Aye, we get it. Reigner is overpowered.” He gave me a bored look. I grinned in return.

Yui nodded. “We can learn a lot from him. Along with his practice each morning, we should also work on our endurance. Prolonged fights seem to be a weak point for us.”

“Some more than others.” Miko muttered under her breath.

Yui turned to glare at her. Miko responded with a big smile and two thumbs up.

Yui let out a sigh. “Let’s get some food.”

As we started walking, Yui stepped closer to Miko and poked her under the arm, causing her to jump. “I’ll get you back for that one.”

“Oh really? Want to spar?” Miko grinned. “The last time you had a level on me. Things might turn out differently.”

This floor was a nice change compared to the one before. A blue sky with just enough clouds to make it picturesque. The ground was grassy with paved sandstone walking paths. The air was cool and had a salty smell to it. Best of all, there was no fog.

Burin found a bunch of tables with food stalls arranged around them. We decided to pick a place and grab two plates to share. I decided on a stall that cooked different kinds of eggs. I selected a plate of various boiled eggs and another of fried. Before handing me the plates the lizardman chef sprinkled different coloured power on each of the eggs.

He passed the plates of food to me and showed off his teeth. “Enjoy.”

I met up with the others and we spread out our selection on the table. The eggs were nice, but I really enjoyed the noodles that Miko picked out, they were both sweet and spicy.

As we recovered from the breakfast, some climbers could be heard nearby in conversation.

“Did you see the recording of that match yesterday?”

“The one between that Dwarf mage and Orc warrior? Yeah, I saw it.”

“That was nuts! The way he ended it. ‘Let this be a lesson to you, punk.’ So cool! That Orc was hopeless against his control spells.”

“I dunno, I thought he could have ended it better.”

“What do you mean? That last spell took him a full five seconds to charge up. The warrior could do nothing but watch.”

“He was already at one percent health left. It was overkill… and that line? Hah, if he really wanted to humiliate him… ah forget it.”

“Hah, what could be more humiliating as a warrior to be completely helpless while watching your opponent freely cast a large spell?”

“A slap.”

“What?”

“He should have slapped him. Backhanded preferably. Think of it, being bound, completely helpless, only for a mage, who sucks in physical combat, to slap you to defeat.”

The two laughed. “Would he even be able to out damage his natural regeneration like that? Still, that would be hilarious. Watching him slap the guy over and over until he either wins or breaks his hand.”

“Hah, yeah. Or the warrior begging for mercy and forfeits.”

The others must have been listening too as they cracked smiles or let out a small chuckle.

“Hey there!” A voice called out to us. After looking around I couldn’t find the source of the voice.

“Down here.” A little hand poked up from between Burin and Miko. Looking over the table, there was a gnome wearing a bright yellow shirt and dark green pants. Her hair was black and tied back in a ponytail.

“My my. Aren’t you an interesting group.” She dragged over a chair from a nearby table and climbed on top. “I have never seen you lot on this floor before, so let me be the first to say welcome!”

Yui went to speak but the little gnome waved her hands. “Now now, before you say anything I know what you are thinking… Just what’s on this floor and where are the best places to get items or experience?”

“That’s not…”

“Well, it’s your lucky timing that you arrived when you did!” She pulled out a colourful pamphlet. “I just happen to have the most currently updated map of the floor!” She moved her hand, causing a second pamphlet to appear. “and a listing of where the best places for loot and experience are!”

She paused for a millisecond to take a breath. “But that’s not all.” She leaned forwards conspiratorially. “I also happen to have locations on all… that’s right, all of the rare, named, and titled creatures on this floor. This I have personally and painstakingly collected over years of exploration and research.”

She gave us a large smile. “Prices are negotiable.”

We turned to look at Yui, who was sitting cross armed while staring at the gnome. She saw us looking at her and raised a hand to rub against the side of her cheek.

The gnome noticed and focused her attention on Yui. “I’ll tell you what. If you decide to buy all three, I will toss in a listing of the most popular spots, so you can pick a less crowded place. You wouldn’t want to have to wait in line for a rare creature, right?”

When Yui did not respond right away, she continued. “I mean lately this floor has seen more climbers than ever, you would be a fool not to accept, and you don’t look like a fool to me.” She laughed and again only waited a millisecond for a response before continuing. “Okay, you sure know how to haggle. I also have a list of items that each rare and named has dropped. That has to be useful right?”

Yui went to speak but was again interrupted. “Okay, look. You have really pushed me, but I like you guys and think you should know...” She made a show of looking around before leaning forwards. “There is a very valuable and rare item that…”

A hand landed on the back of the gnome and lifted her off the chair. Mac turned the gnome around so he could look her in the eye. “So, this is where you decided to peddle your lies to?”

“Ah, Mac. How good to see you!” Replied the gnome.

“Mmm.” Mac looked at us while holding the gnome up. “You have not purchased anything from this little… artist have you?”

“Honestly, she did not give us a chance to.” Said Yui.

Mac nodded and placed the gnome back on the ground. “This is your third warning. If I see you again on the newbie floors, I’ll make sure that you will have to find another tower to sell your little art projects in.”

The gnome bowed quickly before running off. “Yes, thank you Mac! You won’t see me on this floor again!”

Mac sat in the chair the gnome was pulled from and stared directly at me. He normally did not look happy to me, but he seemed particularly annoyed at that moment.

He pointed an accusing finger towards me. “Why did you take off your robe?”

“Uh, to blend in?”

He let out a sigh. “The reason you were told to wear the robe is because it allows me to track where you are.”

He took a deep breath. “I was this close.” He held his thumb and finger slightly apart. “From finding you when you decided it was a great idea for a change in wardrobe!”

Burin barked out a laugh. “Wait, That yell…”

Mac nodded. “If it was not for that cursed fog... And then where did you go? I had a report of you leaving the seventh floor early last night only to hear nothing until this morning. Did you sleep in passageway?”

“Yes.” Yui said, pulling Mac’s attention. “Since there are elves everywhere looking for Reigner, we decided to rest out of sight, inside the passageway.”

Mac placed his hands on his head and rustled his own hair. “Okay, as annoying as it might be, that was good thinking.”

“Um.” Miko lifted her hand. “If that was you that yelled, what was that explosion?”

Mac sighed. “That was Zelphar, he dropped on me soon as I yelled out.”

“And you’re okay?”

Mac turned to Miko. “What? Yeah, he is no threat to me. After giving him a spanking, he ran off into the fog.”

Burin slammed his fists on the table. “Why did ye let him go if he was nay a threat?”

“I could have sure, but I have more important duties. Chasing him in a fog filled floor would have taken a lot of unnecessary time. Plus, the backing of his family is annoying to deal with. I might have done, if I knew you were staying in the pathways for the night.”

Burin sighed. “So, what now?”

Mac smiled. “Breakfast. After I have eaten, I’ll escort you to floor ten. Unlike some little scammer, I actually do know the best locations.”