Acid Shot. Acid Shot. I took out another level 4 cubic golem. These things were everywhere. If I wasn’t taking them out, I honestly thought they would begin forming walls to block me in. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about disabling monsters earlier. While it wouldn’t stick for too long, it was more than enough time to get the golden key rod to open up the boss room.

I also noticed the monsters crossing blade traps without activating them. That was annoying. They didn’t avoid blade traps like the monster cats avoided the pit traps. It was a veritable nightmare of fighting and activating the traps ahead of time so I didn’t die.

After getting the golden key rod and unlocking the boss door, I had to sit down to breathe for a long moment. While it had only taken a short time to retrieve the golden key rod and reach the boss room. It had been exhausting both mentally and physically.

One misstep and I would be turned into mincemeat. Still, I was making progress. I rubbed my aching gut. That wasn’t helping matters either. At least having to regenerate my energy forced me to take breaks. Otherwise I would have just kept rushing through the fights as quickly as I could to ascend the tower.

The third version of this floor had been worse, and I didn’t even want to imagine the higher floors. The Astrologer had to be incredibly skilled with a lot of stats to make it so high. It was honestly impressive that he had made it up to the forty ninth floor. While he probably had his Valkyries and help, this place was way too hard.

Even the Divine Empress would have struggled in parts. Well maybe not with her Body stat. She would have just smashed everything in her way. I mean she did handle the pincer attack outside the tower in the level 4 zone. Well once I got the meta-point and maybe freed the Astrologer, we would finish her off no problem.

She was incredibly dangerous, but this constant fighting had been honing my edge for combat. Thank the Almighty System there were no more puzzles. If there were more puzzles, I might have died. Trying to understand System logic was impossible for me. I was never good with people and trying to figure out something inhuman was never going to happen.

I would rather punch, fight, and melt my way to an answer. Perhaps Clarissa could find a psychologist and we could begin putting together a profile about the Almighty System. Try to rule some possibilities out and to work out how it handled various situations.

Probably not that useful, but it would be a good way to pass some time and try to exploit any advantage or knowledge we could get. Whatever the Almighty System was, it wasn’t simple and the reasoning behind this place and this tower was something I had been thinking about a lot in my spare time.

“Any answers?” I asked out loud and there was no response. Well, that was unfortunate but not unexpected. That was the hard part of the tower climb, there was no one to talk to. Just constantly endless fights. I wouldn’t have even minded the Avatar if only to insult her to her face.

I looked at the burnt stump that used to be my left hand. It hurt, a lot. But it was something I just had to endure. My energy was almost back and I forced myself to get to my feet. This tower was exhausting, but I was going to conquer it no matter what.

Tossing my packs to the side after I entered the boss room, I rushed for the boss spawner. All the traps and mini spawners were pointless and dragging out the fight would only make things a lot worse. The red-light walls dropped, and I was moving forward instantly. Air Burst. Acid Shot x5. Acid Shot x5. Force Wave. Air Burst.

That was it. The boss monster was dead, and the elevator door opened up to the sixteenth floor. I retrieved my packs, not putting them one, just carrying them, and took the elevator up. Another safe room. I tossed the packs to the side and sat in the corner on the gray stone bench. The soft blue light illuminating the small room.

“Naran, you would have been complaining with me the whole way, but it would have been fun,” I whispered with a sigh. I missed him. He was steady. Incredibly steady and I felt off center at the moment. The pain in my gut was not helping and making it hard to rest.

It was the sameness of everything. The walls, the lights, and being trapped in an enclosed space. I rubbed my eyes with my hand, snorted, and then spat out the snot that had accumulated in my nose. This entire climb was mentally impacting me.

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I didn’t think it was a monster doing anything, but just the situation in general. The stress, the constant pain, and the large number of floors I needed to go up. It wasn’t like grinding or getting skill points either. There was something else about climbing the tower that was getting to me or it was just the situation.

Being stuck on a single path was something I never enjoyed. I liked being able to choose what I would do. But now there was just a single path, one way up. I could already imagine the next several loops. Each one getting a bit harder, but I would get through them anyways. Unless there was a massive shift in how the floors presented themselves, I wasn’t worried about the climb.

Then why did I feel stressed out? I focused on my breathing. “Calm, I need to calm down,” I said and focused on breathing in and out. The focused breathing helped unclench my muscles and I felt a bit better afterwards. I was too tense and too stressed.

“Too much thinking,” I muttered. That was the other problem with the tower. Now that I was thinking about it. While grinding or rushing to get skill points, I would keep going until I was tired or it got dark. But here in the tower, I had to stop and go constantly. It was throwing me off my normal rhythm.

I wasn’t used to this kind of long term situation. With the floors worked out, it was more about paying attention in the moment and knowing my route. This down time to regenerate my energy could be taken up with pointless speculation, which was stressing me out as I considered all the possibilities.

Thinking was good, but over thinking was juts as bad. But there was nothing to do other than think. I hadn’t brought anything with me to entertain myself for the climb except my own mind. I could turn off my brain while grinding, but just sitting here while I wasn’t that physically tired, only gave me a chance to worry and think over everything.

“What problems will I have on the upper floors?” Traps, null, skill zones, and some horrid mix. It was all a possibility. I considered the issue but just like trying to figure out how I would get down once I got to the top, that was something that I would figure out once I got there. The only thing to do was to keep moving forward and deal with the changes in the floors and traps as they came up.

Thankfully my energy was almost regenerated. It would be foolish to risk a floor without a full tank. It also meant less time waiting outside the boss room. Since I would not be going into one of those without a full tank no matter what. I could probably rush a floor, but there really was no need.

Better to stick with my stop and go strategy since it was working quite well and gave me a bit of a safety buffer. I got up and stretched to help get my blood moving for the next round of running and gunning. That was what I thought of the tower.

I put on my packs and left the room, racing out into the sixteenth floor. I already knew which way I needed to go as monsters and traps impeded my progress. I managed to activated a saw trap with some spider golems in it.

It was hilarious to watch them get shredded, which also confirmed that the traps were instant death. If they could easily shred a level 4 monster that meant they could easily shred me as well. I raced through the floor, getting the golden key rod.

The pit traps around it were new, but not unexpected. Another reason to keep a full energy tank for situations like this. I raced to the boss room, noting how the null skill areas had been growing. I winced at that. The forty fourth floor, or seventh iteration, would not be fun, that much was for sure. Reaching the boss room, I put in the golden key rod and noted the golems chasing me turn off.

If that changed, it would make things even worse. I needed to focus on conserving energy as much as possible while moving through a floor. That would be a challenge, but if the monsters didn’t shut down or deactivate once the boss door was opened, I would have to immediately go into the boss fight without regenerating my energy.

Something I would need to plan for, just in case. I couldn’t half ass my alpha strikes. That meant I needed to go into the boss fight with at least six to seven thousand energy at the very least. Otherwise the risk would be too great, that I couldn’t kill the boss in a single attack.

That was just too critical for climbing up the floors to not do. I needed that much energy no matter what before I entered the boss room. Time to do a little exploring. I looked for a loop I could exploit near the boss room. Unfortunately, there was no loop.

Even when I backtracked quite a ways, the only loop was with the golden key rod room and the null skill room to the North of it. I made a note of the loop in case it was needed. I couldn’t afford to be caught in a dead end and waste more energy. Golden key rod, loop, and boss room.

I smiled at myself. All my thinking might actually be paying off for once. What else could the tower throw at me to give me a headache? That was the main thing unless it changed the boss room too much where I couldn’t use skills. But that seemed like too much. I don’t know what I would even do in such a fight. Punch a monster to death?

I chuckled at the thought as I made my way back to the boss room. I was not the Divine Empress, or a muscle headed idiot. Punching monsters seemed incredibly stupid, or took a lot more courage than I wanted to dredge up. I was not a melee fighter and I was missing a hand.

Trying to punch a level 5 monster would be a struggle. Especially since the one time I had tried to physically do anything to a level 4 monster, I wasn’t able to. No, physical attacks could be left to other crazy people. I would stick with my skills and skill combinations.