In a different dimensional segment of the Tower

The Overlord smiled as red energy crackled around his fists. The first few floors, a series of moonlit tundras filled with mutated wolves, had been a breeze. His Dao had built upon itself with every victory, granting him greater and greater power the further he went.

So far, he was finding the Tower to be boring, more than anything else. Sure, the setting was highly detailed and starkly beautiful, with snow covered trees extending out over a moonlit landscape of soft curves, but it was devoid of what he really wanted. A challenge.

The wolves would all have proven a challenge for most freshly ascended E Rankers, and the point of the floor was to force the challenger to survive while hunting them down. For a normal person, a single floor might take days, if not weeks. There was a reason that most people either died, or were forced to leave relatively early.

Meanwhile, the Overlord had spent mere hours completing the first floor, and mainly because he had a hard time tracking down the monsters. Many of them were incredibly cautious, hiding in dens under the snow and only emerging when he drew near. As a result, he had been forced to use his aura like a snowblower, melting away the snow to expose the monsters beneath.

The wolves were imposing specimens, as large as horses. However, their rippling muscles and dusky fur only managed to be shown off for a few moments before they were utterly obliterated by the man’s Dao.

The second floor had been a bit more interesting, what with the introduction of the Alphas. However, it had still been boring. Rather than be intimidated by the tower, like most were, the Overlord was finding it almost to be a waste of time. The essence granted was minimal, and the floor was annoyingly set up.

By the time he had reached the third floor, he was a bit relieved to find the most basic species of wolf removed from the rotation, replaced by an elite variant. He found himself wondering if Sam was going through the same process right now. Information on the floors of the Tower was vanishingly rare, save for the fact that there were a few commonalities between floor designs. Unlike Sam, he had done a bit more research into the topic. Every tenth floor represented the culmination of the previous nine, with a boss appearing instead of a monster horde with a layout specialized to that boss. Then, on the eleventh floor, the next theme started. On the twenty fifth floor, there was an opportunity to meet other challengers, and compete against them for special prizes. It was theorized that this also occurred at the seventy fifth floor, but because everyone who reached that level, and was still alive, was a B Ranker, it was quite hard to find information about it. There were only a few hundred thousand of those vaunted beings in existence after all.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

These themes could be anything, but they generally grew more complicated the higher one went. The anonymous account of a challenger who had reached the fortieth floor spoke of entire civilizations created at the whim of the System. Who knew what might come later?

Back in the Fulmination Fields

Sam killed Elites like they were ants, and Alphas like they were cockroaches. The floor vanished before his hungry pace, quickly yielding to his power.

The Elites were strange beasts, halfway between the basic monsters and the Alphas in strength and construction. They generally possessed a singular body part that was elementalized, in most cases, their teeth. Sam had let one bite him on a whim, and found that teeth made of lightning were quite painful to be skewered by, even with multiple thresholds in Resilience.

Afterwards, he had broken the creature’s neck with a snap of his arm, but the sting still lingered. He hardly had to use his hammer, save for when he wanted to take out a large group of monsters at once. Otherwise, it was simply overkill.

All of the monsters’ power seemed to be contained in their bodies, with few energy attacks present. This severely limited their overall destructive potential, but they were quite strong and fast. If not for his Perfect Ascension, Sam would have been hard pressed to keep up. As it was, he enjoyed what felt like a manyfold increase to his physical capabilities that went beyond his stats. If he went all out, he would be capable of caving in a small mountain with a single, non Dao enhanced punch. It was because of things like this that E Rank was when the power of people started to drift into the realm of the gods.

Sam found himself wishing that he knew exactly what the boost to his parameters was, but that was a question for later, perhaps on the Interweb. It would all be revealed when he fought against an opponent that did not simply cave in to his blows.

The floor vanished before his strength, turned into a landscape of craters and blasted corpses. Soon, he stood over the body of the last Alpha, and was met with the floor clear message. He ignored the title upgrade, as it was the exact same thing as last time.

The next floor appeared before him, extending out to the horizon in every direction. This floor was different from the others though. There were strange hills dotted across the land, and vast trees that reached up to touch the stormy sky.

You have entered the Fulmination Fields: Layer 4.

Your objective is to kill a total of 50 E Ranked Lightning Lion Alphas and 5 E Ranked Lightning Lion Elemental Brutes.

Completion: 0/50, 0/5

Rewards: Title Upgrade

Sam raised an eyebrow at the message, intrigued by the appearance of the new monster type. Going by what he had seen so far, it would likely be a further elementalized species of Lion. Perhaps by the end of the section of the tower, he would be fighting against full blooded elementals.

Curious about the new terrain feature, Sam headed towards the nearest hill. Perhaps that was where the Brutes lurked. He counted the hills in sight, and saw five of them. He nodded. This might be a bit more interesting than the last few floors. The nearest one was still a few hundred miles away, so he might have to fight some of the Alphas before then.