While they were fighting Lucas realized the Vodyanoy were, in some sense, opposite to Victor. While Victor had learned a lot of techniques with the sword and displayed his ability during their fight, despite his lack of strength and agility, the Vodyanoy had a lot of power and speed but lacked the finesse to cause too many troubles for Lucas in the one-on-one combat.

If it was before he had some practice, when he only had the skills he taught himself, it would be pretty hard to face even two Vodyanoys, even with his increase in power. But now that he had been through his devilish training not only in boxing but with the wooden dolls as well, the situation was reversed, and two Vodyanoys would suffer a lot against him merely due to his formal training. Like caveman the Vodyanoys didn’t have much skill apart from the basics. They were smart, yes, but even that was limited as they didn’t have any formal notion of strategies or anything like that and acted based on intuition. If those were creatures that had any formal training in the arts of combat instead, he would have a pretty hard time even fighting against one of them.

It was worth mentioning as well that, to some extent, their numbers instead of helping them, hindered them, as they kept getting in the way of one another when attacking, leaving a few open spaces for Lucas to explore.

Taking a few of those chances, Lucas produced a bunch of scratches on them with his blades, soon making two of them incapacitated due to the necrotic “poison” doing too much damage to their bodies over time. They were alive, but by the looks of it, not for much longer. Just what Lucas needed. But when he tried his method again against the four others that were chasing him, he realized it wasn’t as effective. The reason being that they were smart enough and soon figured out that they could simply get rid of the part that was infected since most of the cuts Lucas made were superficial, only costing them a little bit of flesh and skin.

Lucas sighed a little, seeing this. He had thought that it would take longer for them to realize this flaw on his attacks. He was counting on that extra time to increase his advantage, but now he had to deal with four of them, with two others only waiting for their chance to attack.

Furthermore, he realized that if he really wanted to land the necrotic power this time around, he would need to pierce deeper into their bodies, in a place where they couldn’t just get rid of it. However, every time he found an opportunity to make use of his boxing skills, either someone was there to block it or it was too dangerous of a position for him to engage and risk getting slashed to pieces.

He realized that his low stamina was taking a toll on him; his speed and reflexes weren’t the same as they were at the start of the battle, and he was missing chance after change of landing a good hit. After a few more failed attempts, however, Lucas moved, and landed a successful uppercut in one of the Vodyanoy’s jaws, piercing right trough its skull. Without taking a second’s rest, Lucas was already dodging and getting away from their encirclement. Two others appeared in the place of the one who had fallen, increasing Lucas’ predicament.

He soon realized that he had made a mistake by killing that one; he should have aimed for the abdomen, but it was too late now. He had done it without too much thought, only because the opportunity presented itself and it was too good to pass up, but now with two others chasing him, it became pretty impossible to land any more hits.

Seeing that his chances of once again taking the upper hand in the battle were pretty low, considering his low stamina and the way his opponents had adapted to his death aura, he was about to ask them to stop when an alarm sounded, and his wish came true. His time on the training room was over, as an hour had gone by.

Lucas looked one last time at the room he was in and saw a lot of mangled limbs and a few dead bodies, with some of them already entering the stage of decomposition. He realized that his sensitivity towards killing decreased massively every time he was in a life and death situation; he didn’t had time to think about such things, when he was dodging and stabbing. But now, after the battle was over and he saw the destruction he had cause, he only wished those NPCs really didn’t have a conscience.

Leaving the building, Lucas thought about all that he had learned during this last battle. He had gained a lot of insights thanks to Nicholas’ money, and he now had a much better understanding of how he could use his bone blades and also the death aura. The boxing was truly much better when compared to swordsmanship when using his blades, but it was still not perfect. His opponents didn’t fight using exclusively fists, and their attacks varied widely, which meant that his dodges also had to vary. Thankfully, he had a lot of experience in that regard so that wasn’t too much of a problem, but the attacks required a few adaptations. He wasn’t worried, however; he had only just started on this path, and he was eager to create his own fighting method later on.

Satisfied with his nightly workout, Lucas went to sleep after a quick shower and was up at sunrise. He met Aysha outside the hotel he was staying at, as agreed upon, and they went towards the blacksmith shop. After arriving the man gave Aysha her order. He had made about five hundred arrows using that metal frame and kept the rest for himself. Aysha was pretty happy with it, so they went to their last stop before going to the Tower: Hilda’s place.

The old lady greeted them with a huge smile, and soon they found out why, Elliot had woken up. She said that he was still not walking but he had woken up the day before and was already talking. They went to see him in his room, and he spent the entire time thanking them for helping his grandaunt and himself. As it turns out, it had been really a couple of men that matched Hilda’s description who had poisoned him with a smoke of some kind while he was out doing his quest.

After they were done talking, Lucas told Hilda that they were going to do the challenge in the Tower, and that they didn’t know when they would be coming back. According to Aysha, people who went to do the challenge came back after a couple of days tops. But Lucas thought it would be better to warn her anyway. The other thing they came to do was buy as many health and stamina potions Hilda had to offer, and this time they made her accept the money, because she would need it to take care of Elliot and send some quests to find more ingredients for her potions.

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Before he left, Lucas decided it might be a good idea to take a cauldron with him and a few ingredients in case he needed to do some potions on the spot for the challenge, so he borrowed one of Hilda’s spare ones as well as a few ingredients. After that was done, they finally left for the Tower together. On the way over, Aysha told him that she had gone to the Tower the day before to learn about all the information they had available for the Ten Floor Challenge, and told him all that she knew.

“The first thing they said was that in the Ten Floor Challenge the possibility of death is very real, and you have to be aware of that when you decide to enter it,” she said. “However, despite the possibility of death being real, at the start of your Challenge you are given one extra chance, or an extra live. What that means is that you can choose to give up and start over on the same floor once, and also that at any point during your Challenge you can also choose to quit, only needing to say the words. They also said that if you can’t advance any further, but also don’t opt to quit, the Tower will throw you out after a few days.”

“That’s fair,” Lucas commented. But one question appeared in his mind. “This extra chance that you mentioned—is it an extra chance per floor or during the entire challenge?”

“During the entire challenge,” Aysha said nervously, and Lucas nodded.

That definitely increased the difficulty and made one think twice before using that option. He kept listening as she continued.

“Each floor represents a new level in the challenge, starting on the first floor and ending at the tenth. That’s why it’s called the Ten Floor Challenge. As you complete the challenge, your performance will be evaluated and rewards will be given accordingly. The higher you go in the tower, the more valuable your rewards will likely be, save a few exceptions. But if you are able to reach a certain floor but aren’t able to complete it, your rewards will be given according to your overall performance on said floor and the ones below it.”

“That’s pretty much what you’ve said before,” Lucas said.

“Yes, but they also said that between each floor there will be a room where you can rest for twenty four hours. After that period is over, you will be forced to enter the next floor or quit. They also mentioned that the time inside the challenge is warped and is not the same as the passing of time on the outside.”

“So does that mean that those people who left after a couple of days spent maybe weeks inside?”

“Maybe. It’s hard to tell since they didn’t specify the exact difference between the times. Maybe two days can be only a week on the inside, or four days, I can’t say,” she shrugged. Lucas nodded.

“I guess that’s not overly important, as long as a month don’t go by on the outside, it should be fine,” Lucas said, and then thought of something else. “And what about levels? Can we level up during the challenge?”

“They didn’t mention anything about that, but judging by the people I know who have done the challenge, a few of them have leveled up inside.”

Lucas felt a little relief hearing that. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was beginning to bother him to be stuck for so long at level ten. Aysha had said to him that it was much harder leveling up after level ten, that made him think that he needed to get it started or he would lag too far behind at this rate. But it was a nice surprise to know that he could do both. Soon, he saw the Tower rising above the other buildings on the horizon. Its circular shape was truly unique in the city, and it made it stand out among the others.

It took them only a few minutes to arrive after that, and once there, they stepped inside the building and were received by the same mustached man that had led them towards the tutorial room on their second day in the city.

“We are here to do the challenge,” Lucas stated, unsure if the man remembered them.

“Good, all you need to do is go to the elevator hall and wait for your turn; only one person can use the elevator at a time. Do you already know how the Ten Floor Challenge works?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then, good luck!” The man said with a smile, and Lucas and Aysha went towards the elevator hall.

The place hadn’t change much since they had gone through it to reach the tutorial room on the underground, only increasing in the number of people that were standing there. Looking around the circular-shaped hall, Lucas saw, for the first time, that there was a scoreboard on the wall near the roof. Naturally, Nicholas’ name was listed first, with the amount of points he had earned displayed beside it: 33,456. Lucas had no idea if that was good or bad, but considering he was first, it should be pretty good. A name he didn’t know was second with 33,153. That probably meant they had reached the same floor, but Nicholas’ performance was better overall, Lucas thought.

He kept looking around and saw quite a few people he had never seen before, but one in special caught his attention. It was a woman with curly hair, about thirty years old. She was wearing very colorful clothes and had her hands full of rings, with a handmade necklace completing her outfit. That was a hippie if he ever saw one. What made him wonder, however, was where she had gotten those clothes and rings. Has she come from Earth dressed like this? How did she survive? Lucas simply couldn’t imagine someone fighting in the woods with a hand full of rings like that; it seemed extremely unpractical.

The woman looked at him and nodded in recognition and he returned the compliment in kind. Aysha, however, just kept staring at her, apparently her appearance was even more intriguing to the elf than it was to Lucas, who had already gotten over it. He had seen plenty of weird stuff recently, so adding one more hippie to the count wasn’t much.

After that quick look around, each of them entered a line for an elevator, side by side. A few minutes later, they saw a man with hair reaching the shoulders and a very obnoxious smile coming towards them; it was Nicholas.

Before he could say anything, Lucas greeted him with a smile. “Hi, how unexpected to see you here. Did you come to give me more gifts?”

The smile on the man’s face disappeared immediately, and Lucas was very happy he wasn’t the one who needed to be polite with him. He felt for Aysha because it was too funny to torment the guy. In the background, a muffled sound could be heard coming from her direction.

“Actually I came here to wish you two good luck,” Nicholas said, holding back his rage. “Especially you, Aysha. I believe you’ll do extremely well; maybe even reach the fourth floor like I did.” Despite him saying that with a smile, Lucas captured the condescending tone behind his words.

“Thank you. I hope my performance is acceptable,” she said, simply, having recovered from earlier.

“As for you,” Nicholas said, turning to Lucas. “The second floor will already be a great achievement, but there’s no need to feel bad if you can’t go any further,” he said, making it clear he didn’t rate him very highly. Lucas didn’t reply, and after some little pleasantries between him and Aysha he left along with his followers.

As the line became shorter and shorter, nervousness took over. It made him remember the times he had to take a test for school; he had always studied like crazy before each test, the same way he had prepared a lot for this challenge, but he still felt nervous. I guess some things never change, Lucas thought as the door of the elevator opened up for him, and he stepped inside, saying his goodbyes to Aysha.

Its time! He thought with a nervous smile as the door closed in front of him.