{Ace Hayes}
Returning to the waiting room, Ace collapsed into his chair and checked his gains.
{[Name: Ace Hayes ]
[Age: 17 ]
[Race: Human ]
[Talent: Clone]
[Class: Player]
[Skills: Swordsmanship Lv.9, Mana Manipulation Lv.5, Mana Sense Lv.4, Dodge Lv.4, Bleed Resistance Lv.4, Pain Tolerance Lv.3, Heightened Hearing Lv.3, Mana Augmentation Lv.2, Night Vision Lv.2]
[Titles: Beta Tester (Unique), Pioneer (Unique), Hell Difficulty Challenger (Epic) ]
[Conditions: ]
[Stats:
Strength: 12
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 10
Vitality: 3
Luck: 0.5
Charisma: 2
Free Points: 15]
[Coins: 30 Tower Coins]}
It sucked seeing that many of his skills were gone, and the ones he'd just relearned were low-leveled, but whatever. At least he now had three titles that gave him a 40% permanent boost to allocated stats. He put 7 of the free points into vitality, 3 into intelligence, and 5 into strength.
The wolf had messed him up pretty badly, so his vitality needed to improve significantly.
Strength: 12 → 19
Intelligence: 10 → 13
Vitality: 3 → 10
He now understood why Marcus had told him to finish the floor as fast as possible. If the direwolf had gone berserk, it would've been nearly impossible to kill. He wondered just how Marcus had managed to kill it without prior experience.
[Hell Floor 2: Ace- I killed it. How were you able to kill it?]
[Hell Floor 5: Marcus- I didn't actually think you would survive. I only managed to kill it because I accidentally tripped and stabbed it in the eye.]
[Hell Floor 2: Ace- What's your luck stat…]
[Hell Floor 5: Marcus- Don't worry about it lil bro. I'd just focus on the second floor. It's dungeon-themed, that's all I can say.]
Of course, Marcus's luck stat was significantly higher than his pathetic 0.5. Annoyed, Ace focused on the system messages he'd received when clearing the floor. Not only was the God of Adversity pleased, but multiple other gods were apparently watching him.
Ace wasn't sure why they were watching him, though he figured they were probably observing Marcus too. Marcus couldn't reveal much about the floors, or else the gods might get pissed at him for spoiling things. If the God of Adversity found out Ace knew what was coming, it wouldn't be much of a struggle anymore. The god would be furious with Marcus, and Ace doubted Marcus wanted divine wrath raining down on him.
Ace wasn't about to jump straight into the second floor. Hell difficulty was way harder than normal—he needed to train first. Just as he was about to start, he remembered something that made his blood run cold.
Millions of people had joined Hell difficulty when the tower opened to everyone on Earth.
He checked the survivor count for the first floor, and his heart sank. Besides himself and Marcus, only two other people had made it through. That was it. Four survivors out of millions.
The other two hadn't even messaged in chat yet—probably still in shock or passed out.
Someone needed to reach the 10th floor and warn people away from this nightmare. Otherwise, they'd just be sending more people to pointless deaths.
{Aasal Hayes}
Aasal closed the book and set it aside, reviewing what he'd learned in the past few hours. Mana Burst wasn't too complicated—it took him about 30 minutes to read through the entire book. Actually practicing it, though? That was trickier.
He stood up and faced the training dummy, ready to test his understanding.
Channeling mana from his core through his body up to his epiglottis, he held the pressure as more and more energy built up. When he couldn't contain it anymore, he opened his mouth and released everything at once.
A massive beam of pure mana erupted from his throat, burning straight through the training dummy and leaving scorch marks on the wall behind it.
His esophagus and mouth felt like he'd swallowed lava, burnt from the raw mana and aching from the pressure. His natural recovery would fix it eventually, but damn, that hurt. The technique was incredibly destructive, but it also drained a significant portion of his mana reserves.
He could definitely refine this further. Right now, the beam was wild and unfocused, like a flashlight. With practice, he could make it precise, like a laser pointer—or maybe even better. There had to be other applications for this kind of technique, too.
Once the burning sensation faded, he turned to the other skill he'd been working on. The Book of Intent had been annoyingly vague, so he'd decided to just call it Intent—it was far easier to say. It had taken longer to understand since there wasn't much concrete information to practice with.
When he activated the skill, he could see things that had never been visible before. Faint colors, indescribable sensations—it was like putting on glasses that revealed a hidden layer of reality.
Looking at the destroyed training dummy, he sensed no intent from the charred remains. But he could feel its original purpose, its meaning. After focusing on it until his head hurt, he finally understood what it was for:
Training.
That's crazy.
When he looked at the locked door he couldn't open, things got more interesting. Faint hues drifted from it, carrying emotions he could actually feel—anticipation and longing. The door itself had a clear purpose: to be opened, but only if you were good enough to open it.
This whole learning process had made him realize something important he'd overlooked. He'd been thinking too much like a mortal, letting normal limitations restrain his creativity. Back on Earth, people built supercomputers, genetically engineered humans, and created drugs.
Why should the tower be any different? Maybe he couldn't edit his genes right now, but eventually? Who said he couldn't take those very concepts and make them part of himself?
Anything to survive in this place.