"Hello? Hey! Are you awake?" Somebody calls out but it seems muffled.

"Marcus! Hey! You awake?!" It called once again. Marcus finally opened his eyes, seeing that it was Zero who was calling out to him.

He smiled arrogantly and spoke, "Oh, what's this? Worried about me, darling—?"

Bam—!

His head swayed to the side as a punch struck his cheek.

"You motherfucker! I almost died because of you!" Zero grabbed the seated Marcus by the collars of his clothing and began shaking him aggressively.

But despite being punched, Marcus instead laughed. "Haha, did I? That's not me, I lost control, remember!?"

While the other two fight, Ugong and Andres talked.

"Are they normally like that?" The former asked.

"They just had a bad blood against each other." Andres shrugged.

"Oh, really?"

"Anyway… Why are you smoking?"

"Oh, this?!" He raised his cigarette. "To calm my nerves! Haha..."

"For what?"

Ugong then showed Andres his shaking hands. "See? That's what."

"Why are your hands like that?"

"Well… It's a side effect of me sealing most of my stats away, leaving my Magic stat unaffected. My body, lacking in stats can't handle containing this much mana, making my hands like this."

"You sealed them? So we weren't fighting you at full power, huh?"

"Hah, I guess so, but the passive Penalty on me will be way stronger if I've never done that."

"So… How'd you seal it? You sealed everything aside from Magic?"

"Yup, my father sealed it upon my request. But I can break it slowly! For each level up I achieve, it will leak more and more of my original stats back to me. Then I can access my full power, and added on top that are my additional gained stats I've gained over time after leveling up to 200."

"I see, but why?"

"It was boring. I'm simply too powerful, ya know? I'm lazy and talentless but I love my inherited powers and the feeling of being strong, but they seemed excessive at times. I want to be strong but still face some challenge, you know? It's complicated…"

"I get the gist of what you want. I also think it would be boring to not be able to face any challenge. But at times, I kind of want that I would be too strong that no one would be able to touch me and those I cherish." Andres spoke as he looked at his fist.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah…" Ugong replied and took another puff before flicking the cigarette away, finally stopping his shaky hands.

"Anyway, how about your Yin-Yang Healing technique? Did you learn that?"

Ugong leaned back against the tree he was seated beside and replied. "Learn? A talentless guy like me, learn something as complicated as that?! Hah! You must be joking…"

Andres sighed. "So, that was also part of your bloodline power?"

"Of course, it is! It's from my mother though. She's from the Shogunato Domain."

"Oh, really? Was she a High-Ranker as well?"

"Yup! She's Kagutsuchi's descendant, if I recall correctly…" Ugong caressed his chin.

"Why don't you have any affinity with fire, then?"

"Like I'd know the reason! Besides, it's not like my mother had fire-based abilities anyway."

"Then how'd she became a High-Ranker without notable abilities?" Andres raised his brows.

"Eh… She's just that strong." Ugong smiled.

"But I read somewhere that that healing technique was only passed down on members of the royal family, is she one?"

Ugong shrugged. "Dunno, hell, I'm not part of that, but I have it as one of my bloodline powers… So, who knows?"

"Well yours was just a coincidence because of her High-Ranker status."

"Well… I don't really care about things like that. How about you? You're not a God-Kin, but why are you super strong?"

"I'm powerful because I am me." Andres said jokingly and Ugong smiled awkwardly.

"So arrogant…"

"No, really, I just trained diligently, that's why."

"Do ya mind sharing more about your past?"

"I'm not really going to hide that aside from some secrets of mine. We're comrades, after all."

"Alright, alright, go ahead, I'm listening..."

"Well… I and my brother were adopted by an old man who we called our grandfather. He took care of us and trained us. But some sick fuckers killed him for reasons unknown to us. That's my goal in climbing this tower, to find them and find answers."

"Oh… Revenge, huh? That's quite different from the usual drive that most climbers have. How about your past before that? Can you…?"

"Nope, that'll be confidential."

"Oh… dang." A thought then struck Ugong. "What is that teleportation thing you're using anyway? I'm sure that's conditional, though. How are you doing that?"

"Do you want to learn that?"

"Nah, I can't learn anything. Just tell me, I'm just curious."

"It's called Shunpo. I don't know where he learned it, but my grandfather taught it to us. I'm not really that good at using it, though."

"You mean, you're still bad at that?! I wonder how much more troublesome would it be to fight someone who mastered it..."

"Then you'll have a very hard time fighting my brother."

"Haha, your brother must be very strong too!"

"Then watch who had beaten Zero in Floor 1."

"Oh, there's footage?! I'll watch it later. Come on, tell me how it works now!"

"Oh, I digressed… Well… It works by first learning a summoning technique or spell of any kind then possessing a competent mana control… You then create two Oaths for that summoning technique or spell:

One, In exchange of being unable to summon anything else, allow the user to summon oneself and rendering said summoning ability useless for anything else.

Two, In exchange for giving said summoning technique a second of casting delay, grant the user the ability make a remote casting of it by marking something with their mana and then activate the technique later.

Do that, then you'll be able to use Shunpo, although successive usage of it is way harder than simply using it one at a time. Because of the casting delay of a full second, it gets harder to time getting away against quick attacks..." Despite the lengthy explanation, Ugong simply scratched his head in frustration.

"That's… too complicated…"

"As I thought, you wouldn't get it."

"Why does that feel like you're looking down on me? Oh! If you need an object to mark, how can you teleport to me?!"

"Haha.. Check behind your clothing."

Ugong leaned forward and immediately twisted to see behind him, sure enough, there was a small flesh coiled around on the back of his trouser. "Oh…"

Andres walked towards the other two and shouted. "Hey! We'll get going. Stop fighting."

"Huh?! Where to?" Zero asked in annoyance while still holding onto Marcus.

Andres gestured, "Floor 3."

Marcus finally pushed Zero away with his telekinesis, making the latter click his tongue as the former hurriedly stood up. "Let us go then." He smiled slightly.