Aaron sat down and cultivated, because if he had to wait, he could do something productive instead right? His perch was a little underneath the top of the monolith and he had found an indentation in the rock that formed enough space to sit. He even considered putting his tent up. No scorpion would come up here, it was perfectly safe and since the Opening into the arena was on the opposite side the chance someone would see him up here was minuscule. He calmed himself down and did his 3 hour meditation cycle assisted by another manastone. There was a bit higher resistance to fill his already 70% full dantian even further and it grew increasingly difficult to cycle with just the Qi he wanted to refine and make his own. It required more focus, but he could spare some since he had grown increasingly proficient in cultivating. It was easier to pull in free strands of Qi from his bloodstream into his dantian, but harder to cycle them. In the end it meant he cultivated at the same speed, just more efficiently overall. The problem was, if he was correct, that the filled Dantian had its own magnetism of some sort. It drew in Qi to its center mass and the mist thickened there considerably. It was still gaseous, foggy, but a thick, dense fog by now.

Aaron woke from his deep concentration when he heard voices echo up from the arena. He was sweaty and while cultivating he had entirely ignored his bodily needs. He was so thirsty, his throat and mouth felt wrong. The headache was debilitating too and he frowned up at the light in anguish. He could not help himself and took a few deep swigs of water, to settle his nerves. Because his condition really did not change much when he drank water. After a minute or two of relief the thirst returned and he felt just as bad as he had before.

Carefully Aaron climbed back up to the edge of the caldera and peered down into the Arena.

A huge group of Aspirants had occupied the arena. It was a small army almost 50 people strong from his initial headcount. His senses did not really reach down there, but from their clothing he counted at least 5 or more mages and his heart sunk. There was just no way to deal with this. There was no way to sneak into that cave and steal the tattoo before it vanished again either. Just no way. If he tried, there was no other way but to fight all of those people and leave through the Arena entrance. And while the high level group was not here, it made no difference. All they had to do is block the arena entrance and the cave. He would be stuck and everyone else not occupied doing that could murder him. The Arena was actually a bit crowded there were so many of the bastards. No, this was a dead end. He could try to wait it out until the next spawn, but it would be a tight thing, even if he did. Most likely the Snake tattoo would expire before he would be able to find a stairway up.

He had to try though, did he not? Aaron hesitated, studied the people far underneath him and then discarded the whole notion. He had to break through the barricade on the first floor. That was the only way. There had to be fewer defenders there now that they had committed that many people to beating and camping this boss, right? Aaron climbed down the monolith dejected and walked towards the wall. They had him thoroughly trapped, didn’t they? He felt like he was in Prison again, but unlike back then he felt no ease, was not indifferent to it all. He could not simply rationalize these feelings away.

Feeling free and powerful had become somewhat the new normal to him. Now when it all seemed like an illusion, like he had never been truly free, he felt terrible. Felt trapped and wronged by this whole world. Aaron was not even sure when the notion of fairness had crept into his thinking but he took a few minutes while he crossed the desert to think about his feelings. Something he had not done much in his previous life since his emotional bandwidth had been much smaller than it suddenly was after his Rebirth. It probably was his new body’s fault again. Still he had to come to terms with it all in the short term.

He did not like feeling wronged because that implied he deserved better than what he had gotten. That whole notion was absurd to him. But he understood why when he thought about it. He felt wronged because he was specifically targeted not for something he had done, but for choosing to become a cultivator. Sure after he had murdered some people it was understandable that they hunted him. It felt normal to be hunted. Aaron had never really felt bad about being hunted before, in fact he had felt flattered at the amount of resources people had thrown at finding and identifying him in his last life.

But that had changed coming here. Why?

Because for whatever reason some part of him had thought it would be better here. That prejudice and corruption were not a universal concept, but just what his old world had to fight against. He was wrong of course, he knew that. People were people and they would try to screw each other if they had the chance. They were selfish, narrow minded fools who often did far worse crimes than he ever did under the guise of profit or the greater good. Aaron had never subscribed to that notion. He knew what he was. He knew why he had done what he had done. He was good at killing and he liked doing it, so he had made a career out of it. No matter its illegality or morality.

He was not even sure if any of these feelings were his either. His biology, his new body, his new brain had kept playing tricks on him, had influenced and changed some of his behavior so much that he was still unsure what were his thoughts and what were the thoughts his body was at fault for. But Aaron did not give up, he did not fold in on himself at the odds. That was not his way. Whenever there had been a problem in his life he had tried to solve it. Through any means possible. He had the conviction and the will to try and try again, even if he would die trying. Yes, he would try the barricade. He needed to get back to the cultivators. They were the only source of knowledge and power he had in this tower. That was his goal and he steeled his will to go through with it. There was no way he would not try and even if he failed, it was better to die fighting than slowly wasting away of disease or thirst up here.

Aaron found a stairway down after jogging along the wall for an hour or so, enough time still that the giant group had not even started the scorpion fight. He was careful approaching the stairway, but again nobody waited for him, nothing unexpected happened and he walked down the stairs to the first floor uncontested.

On the way down he thought about what to do specifically, what his tools were and how he could use them to break through. First and foremost he needed information. He needed to observe the barricade with his mana senses and then plot a route through the traps, before they spotted him. There had to be a way through, they were going up and down the stairs every 12 hours or so after all.

Then he had to overwhelm and quickly dispatch the closest guards if that was possible and if it was not, then he had to know the way through and out into the first floor already beyond the first barricade. Surprise was his friend and if he had the time he would probably try to wait until nightfall and for the guards to grow tired before he acted. But the giant group would probably return soon and this probably was the closest stairway. No, actually that was not true, if the Monolith and the scorpion boss were in the center of the desert then the stairways should be the same distance away from the center. But he did not know, it was entirely possible they came down here or never used this stairway. So he did not have the luxury to wait. Maybe he could try to lure them out, create a diversion of some sort. But Aaron really did not know how. An arrow shot through one of the gaps in the barricade maybe? It would ruin his element of surprise though and that was a bad idea.

In the end, Aaron decided to just sneak to the barricade and then improvise. It was a shit plan, but what else could he do?

He felt the cold of the first floor before he heard the guards talking or could see the different color light illuminate the blue tinged staircase. Once he was sure the barricade was around the next bend of the staircase he leaned against the wall and breathed in slowly. He was slightly cold after the sudden shift in temperature. But at least his thirst and headache had slowly started to wane and get better by the minute, which was a relief. Aaron could feel the cold air, the mana flowing in the wall in his back, in the air, how mana saturated everything in the tower. But not equally. The wall was packed with mana, distinct and even, flowing through it at a moderate pace. The air was more chaotic, the mana flowed here and there, its concentration varied and left local spots of thick or thin mana clouds. In the distance he started to sense the spells, dormant but waiting for a trigger to spring into action. There were so many all over the stairs. In the walls, in the ceiling, on stairs, they saturated a 20 feet section of the staircase at least and at first metaphysical glimpse he could not spot any pattern. But then he slowly worked through it, identifying each individual trap and making it a distinct entity in his head until a picture formed in his mind.

It was a tiring thing to do, but better than running into a trap head first. The barricade was quiet, someone yawned, another man hummed a tune. But most of the people he sensed were quiet, sitting or just waiting around. There were only around 10 he could sense, which was good news. Maybe he could do this after all. There was a gap in the traps Aaron could feel. He had to start at the leftmost side of the step and then walk diagonally down the staircase each new step slightly further to the right and then once he hit the right wall, he would have to go the same way back towards the center and the entrance.

Whoever designed this trap knew what he was doing. Competent enemies were a pain, but in the end they were also what made it fun. Aaron smirked to himself. That was more like him. A big obstacle ahead but he was at the moment glad to face someone smart and not some idiot who had left obvious holes in their plans. At least Aaron could not see any. The problem with the pattern of traps was that he basically had to walk through the line of sight of the defenders to get to them and could not use the sides at all without activating some of the traps. Which also meant his initial plan of sneaking up on the barricade would not work. He had to have some sort of distraction and use it to close in on the opening as fast as possible. His plan was to skip all the steps to the right wall diagonally. He marked the spot where exactly where he had to turn and then he would jump directly at the two men standing in the gab between the barricade.

Aaron did not really have much that he could use as a distraction, he could throw a manastone in there, but that was not really going to make enough noise. So he had to try and get an arrow in there that would spook people and make them raise the alarm. If he timed it right, the guards at the gap would turn around or get distracted by what happened behind them. Aaron took a slow breath and leaned a bit around the curve of the stairway. He spotted an arrow slit in the barricade and took careful aim. His skill with the bow had increased steadily since he had come to the tower and this was a relatively short range shot. But he had to have perfect accuracy. So he took his time, he made sure everything was correct, his arrows fletching nice and even, the bow’s string nice and taut. Then he aimed without drawing back the string, knocked the arrow, drew back and released the arrow in one smooth motion as he exhaled.

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The arrow flew into the opening, its back end hitting the top of the murder hole and then the arrow was bouncing off the ceiling behind the barricade and then went back down somewhere. Shouts echoed and Aaron drew his dagger, peered around the corner and kept the spot he had to jump to in mind. The guards in the entrance were distracted, both had turned around to see what the commotion was about. With one Wind steps empowered leap Aaron was on the left most stair and then he leapt to the right side just a moment later, hopefully passing all the traps. He was in the air, his body taught and full of murderous intent when he felt something tingle in his perception. It felt like a spring was uncoiling and Aaron stared at one of the traps he thought he would evade as it activated. In the air he shifted his momentum, doing a front flip, evading the invisible projectile before another one uncoiled and this time he was too close to the trap to evade.

He felt something that felt like a steel band wrap around his arms at chest height and it drove the air out of his lungs. Aaron stumbled and hit the wall he had jumped towards instead of landing on the last step. The invisible band of force tightened for a moment before it stopped. Aaron caught himself on the wall and felt how his arms were constricted, how tight and unforgiving the magical spell bound him. He could barely move his forearms and he had almost stabbed himself in the stomach if he had not been conscious enough of the sharp blade to move his wrist.

Aaron tried to break free for a moment before he heard someone call the alarm right in front of him. The two melees had turned back around at his very audible collision with the stairways wall and had their shields up, their weapons drawn. There was a commotion behind the barricade but it would not take long for the Defenders to get into position. With a curse Aaron jumped back the way he had come from, landing flawlessly on the top of the step where the gap in the traps started and sped back up the stairway.

He could not fight with his arms trapped and he had lost the element of surprise, there was no way he could break through without serious injury or death and that was obviously not worth it to Aaron. What the hell had happened? Why had the traps activated? The traps that had gotten him had felt like they had been in a totally different direction and should not have activated at all. But it did not matter how. The fact was the traps had caught him and he had to deal with the consequences now.

Aaron struggled with the invisible rope and felt it resist his physical strength with ease. It felt as unforgiving and solid as steel. Once it had tightened there was no give at all, it cut a little bit into his flesh, but luckily it was not painfully tight. He had no idea if someone was following him or not, but he did not take any chances. He needed to get out of the stairway and not be trapped here too. Because that would really be the end of him. Aaron flew up the stairs, struggling all the way with the spell, but it would not budge at all. Finally the temperature spiked and he found himself in the desert again. There was nobody here and he heard or felt nothing behind him on the stairs. Cursing up a storm he leaned back against the wall next to the stairs and tried to shrug the spell off like a rope, by pushing it off him. But it would not move, no matter how he tried and he could not break it.

“Fuck.” he cursed and threw back his head in fury, hitting the wall and winced. He struggled a bit more just to vent his rage before he sagged down against the wall. He felt suddenly so helpless it made him physically uncomfortable.

This was the spell the Leader of the high ranking group had tried to catch him with, right? What was his name again? Merlin?

If he had caught him with that during their little fight on the first floor he would have died. Aaron had thought he had done well against that group and he had, but really he had gotten lucky. There was no way he would survive if just one of these invisible ropes entangled his legs. He would just be dead instantly. Same would have happened if the ice spell that had frozen his foot had caught both of his legs. He had come so close to death so many times and often he had barely realized the danger he was in. But Aaron knew now, understood the importance of having something that could break spells. He understood now why the Great Master had warned him to climb up too high where these kind of spells were common. They were lethal if used in combination of a group.

Aaron sat there next to the wall and he knew he should move. But he did not want to at the moment. He just felt like shit. He had no idea how long a spell like this would last and if it would lose any power over time. A part of him wanted to find out, so he could deal with them better in the future. But he was tired, so tired all of a sudden. Tired of being hunted, tired of not having the tools required to deal with his enemies. A handful of grenades and an old M16 with 6 or 7 mags would have been enough to get rid of every single man or woman who had come after him. But he had neither, he was stuck with bow and arrow and daggers against people who threw lightning and fireballs, people who used telekinetic daggers and could summon ice and fire from their fingertips.

How was any of that remotely fair? If he had even a fraction of their offensive potential he would have killed all of them already.

But wallowing in despair was not a solution and he would not allow himself the disgusting self pity that he felt. Aaron took a deep breath to calm down, felt the air inflate his lungs as he cleared his head. He felt the mana move around him and got an idea. The spell was in the end mana given form or a task of some sort right? He had no idea how the whole spell casting thing worked, but he could feel it doing something. It was an active thing unlike the tattoo on his hand. But in the end it did not matter how it worked, just that it was still mana in the end. And his body ate mana for breakfast. Literally. So, he could try to absorb the spell and just sort of eat it with his body? His body was used to absorbing mana after all. Aaron concentrated and tried to feel the mana that constricted him, tried to focus on it with his mind and then he tried to coax it to be absorbed, tried everything he could to influence the mana. With absolutely zero success.

He tried again and again with no reaction at all. It felt like his body was not recognizing the mana at all in the spell, like it was something entirely different than the stuff it had been absorbing all day long.

Frustrated he focused again, tried to feel around him for anything to grasp, anything to influence with his senses and he paused as he felt something respond. He blinked and concentrated on his back where the feedback had come from and then he felt it again. It was like an electric shock in his sensation. He felt for it, using his mana sense and got nothing. He almost believed he had imagined it all when he felt it again. It felt like fire was running behind him along his spine. It was a familiar feeling.

Aaron gasped when he realized what he was feeling. He was feeling Qi, outside of his body, flowing….flowing in the wall? He struggled up and looked at the wall suspiciously. There was no Qi in the tower. That had been the Great Masters words and he had no reason to doubt them. What the hell was this then?!

He leaned his forehead against the wall and felt for the sensation of Qi instead of mana, felt for it where his head touched the wall instead of in his blood saturated with the amazing energy. Soon Aaron could feel the Qi pulse through the wall, felt it steadily run up the tower. It was a bit like very slow Morse code or a heart beat, although so far the rhythm had not changed. He wondered what would happen if he tried to send something back. Aaron hesitated and stood back, studying the wall right next to the staircase intently. But it looked no different from any other spot. He frowned and walked a bit further away from the stairway and tried to sense the Qi again in this part of the wall. But the pulse was gone and when he slowly moved back along the wall to the stairway he started feeling it again until just 2 or 3 meters from the stairs he felt it with the highest intensity.

Qi was so much denser in energy than mana, it felt like fireballs ran through the wall although it was a minuscule amount of Qi compared to what he had inside of his dantian. Carefully he turned around and pushed the sole of his boots against the wall. He had no real way to use Qi on anything external besides his movement technique. He was not sure if it would work, but he had to try. This was too strange, too curious.

Aaron pushed some Qi through the sole of his foot resting against the wall, activating Wind steps and suddenly the wall behind him moved back and he almost fell backwards. He caught himself and turned around. With slight disbelief he stared at a secret door leading into a dark tunnel made out of the same stone the wall had been made out of.

“Holy shit, what the fuck is this?” he muttered and looked around suspiciously. He was still tied up and he was not sure he wanted to stay here and explore this mystery while a whole army was probably on their way back here from the Scorpion boss. But in the end he was too curious. A hidden door that could be opened with Qi? What was going on here?

The tunnel was narrow, barely wider than Aaron, so more or less a meter in width, and a few meters tall. Suspiciously and with the light of the second floor in his back he walked down the tunnel that softly curved around towards the stairway. The light got dimmer the further he followed the tunnel and his steps echoed eerily in the silent, slightly cooler tunnel. The air smelled fresh though, not like he had opened an ancient tomb or something. The further down the tunnel he got, the longer the shadows grew, the deeper the darkness until he could barely see his own hand in front of his eyes. He paused until his eyes acclimated to low light. Then he kept walking a bit deeper. He guessed he was behind the stairs now and Aaron stopped when the darkness widened. He frowned and slowly edged closer to what looked a dark hole in the wall. Aaron could barely make out that the darkness was vaguely round and it looked like a hole, a deep hole in the floor. After a second or two blinking into the darkness he suddenly knew what this reminded him of. An elevator shaft.

Aaron peered over the edge curiously, but there was nothing to see but thickest darkness. He looked up and could see the shaft stretch upwards as well. It really was some sort of elevator shaft. Or a giant’s garbage shoot. Or if he was unlucky there was a snake as wide as the tunnel waiting for him in the darkness. Aaron frowned and looked back towards the light. He could see that the tunnel curved around the staircase and continued to curve to his right where the tunnel continued into darkness. Curiously he stepped up to the inner wall and followed it into the darkness. He shuffled his feet so that he would not step down another hole or something and he kept the hand that still clutched his dagger in it in front of him. Eventually the blade of his dagger hit a solid wall and he turned a bit and tried to identify the nature of this wall with his fingertips. Was this another hidden door, or just a wall and he had missed a turn?

Gently he traced the outline of the wall and frowned. But then he felt it again. Qi running through the stone. So it was a door then. He lifted up his foot, stepped back and pushed some Qi into the wall just like he had done before. The wall clicked and swung back, revealing the bright sunlight and scorching heat of the second floor. Aaron stuck his head out of the tunnel and looked around. He was on the other side of the stairway and he could see the opened secret door on the other side. With furrowed brows Aaron tried to think about what that all meant. What he should do now. The elevator shaft beckoned him. It led downwards and if he was lucky then it was another alternative way down to the first floor. If he was unlucky a giant unkillable boss waited for him that he would struggle to fight with his arms bound like this.

The invisible rope still did not budge and Aaron sighed and made a decision. He could not stay on the 2nd floor and if they were coming for him, then he had no time to lose. Theoretically he could jump back up the elevator shaft if he had to with wind steps. It would take a long time and be very Qi intensive, but he had that option will his dantian as full as it was. So there really was no downside, besides sudden death by hidden monster or trap.

So yeah, it was time to take a leap of faith. But first he had to make sure nobody would follow him. The hidden doors were swinging around a central hinge and so he could step back in and push the door closed. The wall clicked shut and Aaron found himself back in deepest darkness. He blinked the bright spots away and followed carefully the inner wall around the stairway until he was back at the other door. He hesitated only a moment, then he pushed this door shut as well.

The darkness was so absolute it was uncomfortable for a long moment. Then Aaron closed his eyes and felt for the outer wall of the tunnel. Slowly he walked back until he felt the wall end. So he probably was standing right in front of the giant elevator shaft now. He paused and used all of his senses to feel for anything. His mana senses did not tell him much besides that there was mana around. Yeah, no shit. But there was no living thing using mana in the vicinity. He did not smell or hear anything either. His breath was the loudest thing in the darkness and he held his breath for a moment until his heartbeat was the only thing he could hear. It was absolutely silent. Aaron shrugged, activated Wind steps and stepped into the void.

He felt himself falling slowly downwards, felt the air brush through his hair and he righted himself, then paused and reactivated the movement technique to regulate his speed.

Aaron fell into the darkness and he fell for quite a long time.