Chapter 79

We didn’t discuss much as our party made its way back to the Hunters Guild. Conversations were had, of course, but nothing grand or terribly profound. Just a group of five, relaxing, making small talk, and really just enjoying the relaxed ease that was the first floor. Considering Alax, Nyle, Lyn, and myself were all level 7, the level 2 monsters of the floor didn’t concern us. And the path to the exit of the Tower was one Quill had travelled countless times. With Shadow at his side, scouting too and fro for any threats, and considering all those who’d already left the second floor to the first, exiting the dungeon just as we were, there was nothing to stand in our way.

Once we got back to the Hunter’s Guild, Quill took us once again to the Guild Overseer, who recorded our efforts for the day, and released us from the job. Considering we’d only helped Quill slay three gorillas, the 75-copper payout, nothing more, had been expected. Against the gold coin Jade had given each of us, the payout for the job, at that point, simply felt like a cruel reminder of the fact we’d let Quill down on his quota.

There was excitement in the Hunter’s Guild as well, I noticed, that made it hard to feel too disappointed. Many of the hunters who’d been on the gorilla hunt were surrounded by others, and they were all telling tales of how Jade had slain the Jungle Titan. Others had drinks in hand, and were toasting to an easy day, and even easier coin. Others still were shouting loudly, paying money for what Quill explained was a lottery system. A chance to get access to some of the special materials that the guild was going to gain once the Jungle Titan’s carcass and drops had all been appropriately handled. In short, Quill had been negatively affected, but only as a minor inconvenience really. Whereas the guild, and everyone on the hunt, had benefited greatly in the monetary realm.

After we parted ways with Quill, who was off to purchase some new equipment with the coin he’d been given, the four of us decided to head back into the Tower. We still had a couple hours remaining in the day, before the Tower door closed, and we still wanted to reach level 10 for the day, at the very least. For Nyle and Lyn, that meant 23 monsters slain. For Alax and I, considering our deaths had cost us half our stored essence, it was 25 monsters slain. The easiest, and most logical targets for our group were still the slimes on the second floor.

Slimes, of course, were ambush predators. They dropped from the trees, usually aiming to fall on the heads of their prey, using their bodies acidic properties to quickly dissolve flesh and bone, slaying their prey quickly and efficiently, so they could absorb the rest of the body at their own, leisurely pace.

With their only weaknesses being magic, and the floating eye that made up their core, which floated freely through their acidic blobby bodies, they were, in short, kind of a pain to deal with. Under normal circumstances, that was. With four of us, each capable of using magic, finding the damned monsters was actually the harder part of leveling. They didn’t move quickly, you see, and as I’d learned from my first day in the Tower, during the Reaping, if you bunched them up, well, the fireball spell was pretty efficient at taking them out quickly.

In short, using the… er… baiting tactics we’d learned from Quill, once we’d found areas ripe with slimes, we made short work of the population. It took the four of us, and one mana potion from Nyle, to reach the needed essence. Swift, short work, that reaffirmed, at least in my mind, Ryker’s comment about the importance of a party in the Tower. Killing 25 slimes, by myself, would have been a nightmare. There was no way I’d have the mana to do it properly with spells, and cutting into the blobs, over and over, trying to hit the damned shifting cores, was a surefire way to get yourself splashed by acid, as well as have your weapon corrode away before your very eyes.

Upon killing the required number of monsters, our party, having learned from the day before, promptly left the Tower once more, each of us claiming six slime cores and bodies for our inventory, deciding it was best to just split the loot evenly. The last one, we’d opted to give to Nyle. Lyn, Nyle, and I planned to just donate the useless materials to the Speaker’s at the Cathedral. Alax hadn’t said what he planned to do with his loot, but I had a feeling it was going to be the same. After what the Speaker had said, and considering we now knew the Tower could, and did, have ‘feelings’, staying on its good side seemed like a very smart, very good, plan. And, honestly, I had no idea what else slime goop could be used for. Potions, maybe? Or poisons? It was something I figured I’d ask around about later. If it was useful, nothing said we couldn’t easily kill the buggers a different day, while on our way to higher floors. But for now, at the very least, it would serve just as well as a Tower Offering.

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Brimming with essence, flush with coin, at least, relatively speaking considering it was our second day as official Climbers, we made our way happily to the Cathedral. The four of us departed, once inside, to the various small, individual booths, in order to interact with the Tower Speakers, to handle our leveling. It was there, in that small space, that I made, in my own way, my first big step forward. It wasn’t major, sure, but it was a step. Tomorrow, I knew, would be the day that led to the largest change. As we pushed our levels ever higher.

But for today, with limited time, and no want to risk taking on the third floor, which none of us had yet ventured to, level 10 was the best I could hope for. Level 10, in two days, wasn’t bad. Especially when level 16 was the highest we could arguably reach without fighting the boss on the fifth floor. Even more so, considering level 15 was the set goal given to us by Flint, to reach before we faced off against the Den Mother again. The number itself, according to the Sharpshooter, being a key cutoff to ensure we could use the next tier of equipment and weapons to help our efforts against the Secret Boss with over 1,000 HP.

Those thoughts all weighed on my mind and pushed my decision for me. It was still early in my leveling, and yet, these past few days, from what I’d seen, what I’d endured, I had learned a few things. First, and foremost, was the importance of hitting the benchmark in a stat. That had been clear the moment I’d used Bloody Howl, and Lyn’s Dexterity had raised to 11. The increase had been extremely apparent. Hitting 11, 21, and so forth in a single trait, was a massive power boost.

The second thing I’d learned though, was that it almost always seemed like the top tier Climbers, at least among those we’d seen, had two primary stats. Ryker, I knew, had constitution and strength. Flint was Dexterity, with a splash in the Arcane for his special arrows. And Jade, well, Jade was obviously Strength and Holy. That meant, at the very least, that I’d not completely wasted my points by putting a level into all of my stats, other than Holy. It also meant focusing right now on Dexterity wouldn’t damn me, or put me down a single path I couldn’t come back from.

Not that I had anything against Dexterity, of course. It was perfect for Lyn, considering she favored the bow. And I wondered if she was going to try and follow Flint’s path completely, and become an Archer capable of imbuing her arrows with magical effects.

For me though, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go a dexterity route. Not a pure one, of course. But right now, for the here and now, I also knew it was the route that made sense for me. Because of Claw and Fang, I had already known I would put at least one more point into Dexterity, at a minimum, to raise my base damage from 7 to 8 for the weapons. But I’d been hesitant, afraid to doom myself by overcommitting to dexterity, without truly considering the other paths. Now though, I confidently dumped my next three points into dexterity. Doing so raised my stat, increasing my Dexterity from 3, to 6. Likewise, my HP increased to 108, as the three points assigned to physical stats made me a little harder to kill. Not a crazy increase, sure, but already, I marveled, my health was almost 10percent higher than it had been when I started as a Climber during the Reaping. My other stats, unchanged, remained at a Strength of 2, Constitution of 3, Arcane of 2, and Holy, sitting lowly at 1.

That last bit, stung even more, as I donated the slime materials to the Tower. In return for my donation… I received, once again, a Holy based item. This time a scroll, oddly fittingly, of Acid Resist. It required a Holy of 10, making it once more, completely useless to me, and marking itself as a prime item to give to Nyle.

I sighed as I closed out the information on the scroll, nodded to the Speaker, and stood to leave the small booth. I was eager to get back to my friends. Eager to wander about the town, visit the shops, considering the gold burning a hole in my pocket, begging to be spent, and of course, to relax. Tomorrow was a new day, and I had a feeling we’d face new challenges. But I wasn’t afraid. I was excited. Because tomorrow, we’d be Climbing to a new floor, in order to keep pushing ourselves, and leveling, so we could take down the Den Mother. Tomorrow, we’d face the third floor, and maybe more. Most exciting of all was the fact tomorrow, Lyn’s Dexterity would be 11, and she’d get to show off the benefits of hitting that first threshold. And ideally, with her at our side, tomorrow, Nyle and I would level enough to also reach our first thresholds, with a single stat.