With a look of suspicion, Sam did so, but only as he saw the other man doing the same. He took a few steps back, nothing to an E Ranker, but enough to assuage his own caution.

“Explain,” he ordered.

“Many of those on Prax, and in the Granthar Dominion, loathe their king. He is a cruel man, and immature, despite his power.” The man paused as Sam nodded in agreement. “However, there is no way to defeat him. He can deal with almost any number of E Rankers, and that is an amount far beyond anything we can easily muster.”

“Why would you think I can help? I’m not anywhere near strong enough to fight Granthar. I’m here for a different reason.”

“Yes. The Tower. Only someone on the Challenge Mode track would be here at such a low level, but with such strength. That is precisely why we need you.”

Sam frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“The Tower exists to provide a fair challenge, and it won’t let its challengers die to things they cannot hope to face. You can potentially manipulate it to serve us.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “And if I could potentially do that, what’s in it for me? If I really am a Tower climber, as you think I am, then wouldn’t my only objective be to gain more title bonuses?”

“My organization can give you natural treasures, credits, whatever you could possibly desire,” the man declared solemnly.

“Alright then,” Sam replied, laughing. “I want a hundred billion credits.”

“That’s it? Done.”

Sam looked at the man in disbelief. “Hold on. Just how rich are you?”

The masked figure shook his head. “Not me. My organization. I am but a tool in the hands of my masters. But to answer that question, more wealth than anyone as low level as you could possibly imagine.”

“I see,” Sam said, still a bit shocked. Then again, a whole planet was at stake. “Well, if you throw in a natural treasure that suits my fighting style, I’ll do it.”

“I already have it here,” the other man said, reaching into a pouch that rested on his hip. Out came a tiny crystal filled with crackling electricity. It tugged at the air around itself, sending tiny bolts into the world nearby. “This is a shard of a Fulminating Oracle Beast. A D Rank creature that peers through the paths of fate through the divergent nature of lightning. It will allow you to channel a fraction of that power, adding an element of foresight to your skillset.”

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“And you just have stuff like this lying around?” Sam responded, incredulous.

“No. Believe it or not, I am strong enough to defend it from most inhabitants of this planet, and my skillset ensures that those stronger will never find me.”

Sam let out a huff of amazement. “I certainly didn't expect to find something like this in the abandoned tunnels under Prax’s arena. I guess something is smiling down on me today.”

Sam then snapped to attention as the natural treasure was tossed to him. Just before it touched his hand, there was a puff of smoke, and the shape of his unexpected companion blurred into nothingness, and was gone.

He clutched the natural treasure, and tried to find any trace of the person who had been there a second earlier. There was none. Sam had a suspicion that the only reason he had felt anything earlier was because he had been allowed to.

“Damn Tower floors,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s coming next? A war against the gods?”

A few minutes later, he had reached the end of the tunnel, and stepped out into a derelict portion of Prax. Instead of going straight through as he had before, he took a detour, hearing the sound of voices around the corner. Dozens of identical blocky buildings made up this part of the world, each of which was large enough to hold hundreds of thousands of people.

The voices weren’t coming from a building though. Rather, they came from a small collection of tents set up against the side of one of the edifices. There were about a hundred of them, filled with people with one defining feature. All were in bad shape, both physically and mentally.

A Teruvarian man stumbled out from a tent, his body covered in oozing sores that leaked a clear pus onto his clothes. His eyes were unfocused, and gibberish came out of his mouth. Now and again, a word would appear, with a certain theme to them. “Granthar… Accursed… Bastard.”

Sam walked up to him, but received no indication of his own existence from the man, who simply continued to walk aimlessly, in a world of his own. Sighing, Sam headed deeper into the complex, seeing the same sad story playing out a dozen times over. However, he still had no way of telling what had actually happened here.

Eventually, he reached a tent that was more richly appointed than the rest, and he opened the flap. Inside, there was an old crone, hunched over on a shabby mat, seemingly trying to cough up her lungs onto the ground. Flecks of bloody spittle covered the floor, but she was the first one to take note of Sam.

“Who…” she began, before breaking into a storm of coughing, “are you?”

“What happened here?” Sam asked the most pressing question on his mind.

“What do you think?” She spat, a bit of color coming back to her face. “We are survivors of Granthar’s wars. We were told that a life of pleasure awaited us when we returned, but all we found was this.”

“I see,” Sam said solemnly, understanding now. “What about the illness? If that’s not too hard of a question to ask?”

“We were part of a unit tasked with facing a particularly nasty beast. It was a hydra, replete with enough poison to drown a city. Most of us died, but those that survived were afflicted for the rest of their lives.” There she paused to hack up a gobbet of congealed blood that looked like a minor organ. “Do you know what that bastard Granthar did? He fucking arrived at the last moment, just to pad his gods-damned ego!”

Sam shook his head ruefully. “That sounds like him. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The woman sighed. “It would take the might of a Dao Seed to cleanse the conceptual taint from our systems. The disease alone is not that bad.”

“Is that all?” Sam said, grinning. Then he used his Dao Sight, inspecting the woman before him. Her entire body was filled with a foreign Dao, which empowered the sickness within her.