In a different dimensional segment of the Tower
Jacob Atlas sat in meditation, pondering the way forward. Rather than be greeted by a pile of paraphernalia related to his profession, he was instead met with the sight of a vast warehouse, filled with supplies for a thousand different pursuits. After all, he had yet to form a profession. Thus far, he had seen it as a useless endeavor, best left to crafters and the weak of mind. Now that he needed one to progress though, he had a choice to make.
So far, he had narrowed it down to alchemy or enchanting, as both would grant him the greatest amount of power. The former would let him brew potions that could enhance his abilities to many times their normal strength, whereas enchanting could add onto his weapons, increasing their strength to untold heights. Both of them were among the most difficult professions to pick up, but considering all he had to do was learn enough for it to be quantified on his stat sheet, it hardly mattered.
Eventually, he made up his mind. For most of his tenure as a cultivator, he had been a pugilist. Why would he change anything now, taking up a path that required weapons and armor to be powerful? He got up and made his way over to the shelf filled with alchemical ingredients, and got to work. This would be a journey of many failures, but he had faith in his own abilities. This had to work.
Over the next few days, Jacob toiled over an alembic, mixing together various distillates, guided by his Dao. He quickly found that the path of Supremacy applied to not only battle, but to anything that he laid his gaze on. He would become the greatest alchemist this Multiverse had ever seen, or he would die trying.
The chemical burns that covered much of his body lent credence to the latter of those predictions. His concoctions had blown up in his face more often than not, splattering him with acid and other bubbling mixtures that were strong enough to harm even his E Rank body. No matter the pain, he kept going, knowing that almost nothing here could actually kill him.
Then, for the first time, he succeeded. A vial of vibrant red liquid sparkled in his hand as he gazed at it, scanning it with the System. A smile grew across his face. It was only a G Rank healing potion, but he had to start somewhere. Even more welcome was the notification alerting him to his ascension to the first rank of mastery.
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This would be a path almost as long and hard as his martial progression, but he knew that seeing it to the end would be one of the best decisions he ever made.
In Glakassa’s segment of the Tower
Plates of metal etched with beautiful patterns of ice surrounded the woman as she worked, filled with elemental energy and mana. She was a proficient enchanter, and her skills had remained sharp, even though she had only studied for about a year as a child, before she had ever stepped fully upon the path to the heavens that was cultivation.
Enchanting was a highly complex art that revolved around placing magical effects into inanimate objects. It was almost diametrically opposed to alchemy, which was the process of placing magical effects into animate flesh.
Each of the plates of metal next to her represented enough concentrated power to blast mountains apart, but just by looking at them, nobody would have sensed that. They were one of the prized secrets of her sect, bombs that relied on the concealing nature of ice to hide their true power. They were dangerous to make, and many an artisan had lost limbs or their lives to their construction. As a master of elemental Ice, Glakassa was far more suited to their production than most others at her level, and for her, they were simply an effective means to practice.
Unlike Sam and the Overlord, she was used to long periods of seclusion. A month was like a few days of meditation compared to the time she had spent preparing for E Rank. She had remained in a cave for almost a year, meditating on her Dao and the universe around her. Even earlier in her life, she had spent months of time cultivating her Dao, gleaning insights like grains of rice gradually picked off the floor of a warehouse.
This was more like a bit of light entertainment than anything else. Not that she didn’t enjoy cultivation, but actually making something rather than just shoring up the metaphysical edifice of her mind and soul was quite satisfying.
Glakassa counted herself lucky that she had not been the most astute of students, mainly out of preparation for this. Her father had coached her on the Tower, and warned her that this could potentially appear on one of the competition floors. It was a deceptively dangerous challenge, in that it penalized those who had devoted excessive time to their professions. In other words, cultivators who slacked off on their actual cultivation.
She had already made more than a dozen of the elementally imbued metal plates, and there would be many more to come. Enchanting was a discipline where one could make the same thing over and over again, and grow better at it every time. By the end of this challenge, perhaps they would be potent enough to use in battle. That was her goal at least.