Arkaon rose from his chair and paced over to the window overlooking his domain. A stunning vista of a world unchained from physics awaited. Marsoon was a land of fantasy and myth, forged from the Dao energy of a large collective of B Rankers.

Its core was exposed to the elements, visible as a bright sphere of light more potent than a star. All around it, continents floated in preset orbits, hundreds of them. The resulting conglomeration was immense in size, almost as large as an average galaxy. The tectonic plates would have turned into black holes long ago, to say nothing of the planet’s core, save for the will of the universe’s rulers. It was made for B and C Rankers, meaning that such distances were nothing. For a C Ranker, it was the journey of a few hours, or minutes at the higher levels. For a powerful B Ranker, it was a journey of seconds. Only the high rank materials that the world was made of, amassed over eons, stopped it from coming apart whenever its inhabitants fought, which was frequent.

As Arkaon watched his people live their lives, he meditated about the meaning of life at such a high rank. Sometimes, it felt like he was the only real thing in the world, with only the A Rankers of the Multiverse being more so. Would Sam and the Overlord one day feel as he did?

Back in the Tower

The other tower climbers were generally doing far worse than Sam and the Overlord. However, there were a few that were comparable. Out of every pack of climbers, there were always some that went above and beyond the average.

This cycle, there were three other climbers at a similar level of power to Sam and his father, at least relative to the formatting of the floors. They were all mages, who found the open floor plan, and lack of one on one battles to be highly conducive to their unique fighting styles. There were other talented climbers, as the sheer weight of numbers ensured that, but none who were moving so quickly through the floors.

The strongest of them was a blue skinned woman from a nymph-like race, who wielded the power of ice at a masterful level. She was a devotee of the elemental arts to a higher level than anyone else in the tower, and she had washed away the first few floors with tidal waves of crushing death. Her name was Glakassa, and she was only a few decades old, a prodigy among E Rankers in every sense of the word. She was the scion of a powerful D Rank sect from the inner universes, and expected that she would be the undisputed queen of the tower this cycle. Little did she know, her position had already been taken.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The other two were less self assured, but they were still E Rankers, meaning that rather than believing themselves to be gods given flesh, they merely considered themselves to be demigods. A brother-sister pair, their rivalry had driven them to great heights. Their names, Jakano and Jakana, did little to distinguish them from one another. Both came from a volcanic world, and wielded the power of elemental lava to sear their foes to the bone. With their E Rank power, they could simulate volcanic eruptions, wiping away their foes with tides of molten rock.

Currently, they were all eagerly awaiting the first of the shared floors, where they could really shine. It was during the competitions between climbers that the attention of the powers that be in the Multiverse were drawn. Everyone dreamed of the sponsorship of a powerful faction, but few ever received it. Such a gift could spell the beginning of the rise of a new elite within the Multiverse, or sometimes, the rise of an entire sect.

In the Fulmination Fields

The last of the Brutes fell to Sam’s inexorable hammer, and the floor came to an end. Rather than instantly ascend however, a pulsing notification appeared in his vision. Sam frowned, and opened it.

For completing the first four floors of the Tower in a time less than a tenth of the average, you may choose to challenge a higher difficulty in order to make up for this. The cap on potential will remain the same, but the difficulty of the individual floors will sharply increase. Every victory there will provide double the benefit of the normal floors, and your current title will be retroactively empowered.

Accept?

Y/N

Sam grinned. It seemed that even the universe itself agreed with him. He slammed yes faster than he had ever done so before, and smiled even wider as white light enveloped him.

A moment later, he came to himself, standing upon a lonely rock, overlooking a similar, but in many ways different, vista. It was like a godlike sculptor had taken the Fulmination Fields as inspiration, and created something greater from it. Rather than being a bland savannah, it had become a graveyard of titans, filled with vast, bleached bones. Their sizes suggested monsters that would have been the stuff of legend on Old Earth.

The general theme stayed the same with the grasslands of the previous set of floors appearing on the vast slabs of bone. Monsters prowled, crackling with potency. Lions made entirely out of lightning had replaced the pathetic creatures of the previous floors, scorching the land with their stride. Before Sam could hunt, he was met with a pair of notifications.

You have completed the Fulmination Fields: Layer 4! (Challenge Mode)

You have upgraded a title!

Fourth Floor Vanquisher: Legendary-> Fourth Floor Obliterator: Mythical

Not content to breeze through the paltry difficulty of the base Tower of Transcendence, you have proven that you are capable of greater things.

Bonuses: +8% to all stats