The next morning dawned bright and early, and unfortunately I was awake to witness it; something the Bestiary told me was called a Flaming Shrieker had attacked the tower in the night and had been obliterated in a single tail swipe by the Stardust Dragon, but it had still made enough noise through the tower wall to wake me up.

Groggily I returned to bed but couldn't get back to sleep. I kept getting annoyed with staring at the lack of ceiling above my head because I’d forgotten to put in any floors above the 20th. Eventually I groaned and got up, swapping my nightclothes with my ninja costume and washing my face in the sink before pulling on my mask. 10 minutes later and there were another 5 floors above mine: two 10 metres apart and three 6 metres apart.

By this point there was no way I’d be able to get some more sleep, so I did some gentle exercise in the form of some of the martial arts I’d enjoyed back in my previous life. It was surprising how much easier to do they were now I was using my own body rather than relying on the exoskeleton for support.

I wondered about breakfast before remembering I didn't need to eat, then decided to eat something anyway. I checked my world storage but could find anything especially breakfasty except for bacon and fried eggs.

Munching on some bacon fried on a makeshift frying pan that was actually a shield taken from an undead paladin over a furnace designed to melt the world's strongest metals, I scrolled around my map. Thanks to the previous day's flight it now covered an incredibly large area, and right on the edge I could see what looked like a city. I checked with my hastily copied map from Old(ish) Man Brown, and decided that was the city of Durell.

A slice of bacon slid over the edge of the shield and was instantly incinerated before I could catch it, followed by an egg. I sighed, ate what was left, inhaled the rest of my coffee, flipped the shield over so the flames could clear away any mess, then removed my gloves and rolled up my sleeves. Chucking the Paladin’s Shield back into my inventory, I carefully placed a bar of iron into the furnace with my bare hand. I’d forgotten I wasn’t wearing my Solar Flare Armour, so it was painfully hot, but not completely unbearable. The iron bar melted like butter. Then started boiling.

“So… maybe not the best idea to use this furnace to melt iron…” I muttered, placing the two other less powerful furnaces into the crafting room to join the Adamantite Forge, then placing another iron bar into the lowest power one - the Furnace.

This went much better, the iron glowing cherry red, then almost white. I pulled it out and held it to an anvil with my bare hand, then began hammering away at it with the flat side of a Molten Hamaxe which, being made of Hellstone, with had the added benefit of keeping the metal hot and pliable. My first few strikes were slow and slightly irregular, and one particularly heavy hit left the metal badly distorted, but eventually I got a handle of how much strength I needed to achieve a particular effect and settled down to rapidly knocking out a frying pan.

A quick quench into a shallow pool of water in the floor completed it, and I held it up to admire my work.

“Not bad,” I commented to myself, “but… it would be easier to just buy the rest of pots and pans. I can practise smithing later on something a bit less essential. Seems like it’s time for a shopping trip.”

I dropped the newly made frying pan onto a nearby table, then pulled up my map again.

The cold morning air blew away what little remained of the cobwebs in my mind, as I plummeted down the side of my tower. I let my wings snap fully open, then opened my eyes.

“Did you get bigger?” I asked the Stardust Dragon.

It opened one eye and blinked at me, which I took as confirmation. “Must be taking in the excess mana from the mana spring that leaks out from the tower,” I speculated. I was also absorbing mana from the spring: since I had started sleeping in the tower, my mana pool had increased by almost half a point! It seemed like it's growth had accelerated once the tower itself had soaked in all that it could, the obsidian becoming largely impermeable to mana, causing the mana to build up in the air of the tower, which had almost certainly been helped by the lack of actual ways in and out of the tower. Walking in through the phased blocks, one could almost feel the mana inside the tower start to soak into the body. A strangely comfortable feeling.

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“Anyway, that's enough thinking,” I thought, and took off in the direction of Durell. I had learnt my lesson from my first flight and gained a fair amount of altitude before accelerating up to Mach 1.

At that speed it only took me three minutes to traverse the 50-or-so kilometres between my tower and the city. I tried again to wrap my head around the fact that I could fly at over a thousand kilometres an hour, and failed. Some part of me refused to accept it.

Clearing my mind with a quick loop-the-loop, I was just about to descend when I noticed a streak of light drop to the ground in the distance past the city.

“Was that a meteorite?!” I exclaimed, then paused. Would they want me to interfere? After all, a meteorite crash site was a good source of resources... I shrugged and landed in the forest about a kilometre away from the city. A short walk and I emerged onto the paved road running up to the imposing stone gate. There was a steady stream of traffic moving in both directions through the fully open timber doors, and the guards on duty seemed content to just let people pass.

I walked through and down the central street, looking around at the multi storey buildings. Almost all were terraced, only the occasional dark alley or wider road cutting into the solid rows. There were many shops and stalls bustling with people, and I couldn't help but compare it with the relatively undeveloped Outpost. I walked along randomly, peering into stalls and occasionally buying something, mostly sampling various different foods.

Every now and again I took a corner, gradually moving further away from the crowds of the Main Street.

I was walking briskly along a less crowded street when there was a quiet ‘tink’ and I felt a slight pressure in my lower back. I turned to see a young street urchin, gender ambiguous under rough rags and a layer of grime, standing behind me. My eyes were drawn to the short knife in their hand.

“Did you just try to stab me?!” I asked incredulously.

The urchin replied by lunging forward again. My Stardust Guardian manifested instantaneously and let loose a flurry of blows. Dust blasted into the air; the urchin flew out of the cloud and across the street.

I stepped out of the shallow crater and rushed over to them, letting out a sigh of relief as I noticed them coughing. Luckily for them, I had just barely managed to place my hand in the way of the Guardian’s Fist otherwise the urchin would have been little more than a messy splatter.

A whistle blew shrilly and hurried footsteps approached. I looked up to find a squad of guards bearing down on us.

“Everyone hold it right there,” the lead guard commanded gruffly, “nobody move.” He turned to another guard to one side. “Jack, you find out what happened here.”

“I can tell you that,” I said, “this child tried to stab me, I'm not sure why, and a defensive effect of mine activated. Umm, sorry about the crater.”

The guard lifted his steely gaze and turned back to the other guard. “Ok Jack, you heard what he said, confirm it.”

“Yes sarge!” 'Jack' said before jogging over to the remaining people on the street and pulling a notepad out from under his leather breastplate.

The 'sarge' looked back to me. “Sorry sir, but until your story is confirmed, you're going to have to stay with us in the station.”

I sighed but assented and followed along behind the group of guards. One carried the groggily unresisting urchin over his shoulder, and we soon reached a large stone building. I activated my depth vision for a moment and noted that it was simultaneously a barracks, an office space, and a jail. My guess as to our destination was quickly confirmed when we stopped outside a barred cell.

“Sorry sir, but you'll have to wait here for a bit,” the sergeant said, gesturing inside the cell.

I sighed but stepped in without complaint. The door was closed and locked behind me.

Several hours later, I was going crazy from boredom when a guard, the 'Jack' from earlier walked past and did a double take. Quickly regaining his composure, he coughed and said “Sarge would like to see you sir.”

“Thanks,” I said, flipping off the ceiling to land back on my feet under normal gravity again. I shifted the gravity-altering accessory back into my world storage, replacing it with the accessory I usually used in that slot.

“Well, I would report this to Sarge, but I feel like he might send me to a physician, so I won't,” said Jack, rubbing his eyes.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Don't worry! There's nothing wrong with your eyes, I just got very bored.” The only thing of note that had happened was the Stardust Dragon icon greying out, signifying that the Dragon was still in existence and attributed to me, just not taking up my summon capacity. I’d tested it by summoning Terraprisma blades, and the Stardust Dragon icon didn’t disappear even though I’d summoned 11. Weirdly enough, I’d managed to summon a 12th, which I hadn’t known to be possible. I had then dismissed them all and changed back to my usual armour and accessories which definitely felt much more comfortable to me. “But more importantly, you said someone wanted to see me?”

“Yeah, he's this way,” Jack said, starting to walk off down the corridor muttering “he got bored so he started walking on the ceiling? No one will believe that.”