After relaxing for a little bit longer, Aasal got up and dusted off his pants. Although he hadn't gotten that much stronger since the last floor, he had added two more techniques to his repertoire that would surely help him survive longer. He looked at the glowing portal and wondered how much longer he would see these portals.
One foot in front of the other, he walked into the portal, which closed behind him with a soft shimmer.
{Error Difficulty - Floor 4}
There was a luminous moon hanging above in the vast dark blue sky, casting an ethereal glow on everything down below. Snow fell steadily, though there wasn't a single cloud in sight. The air was crisp and clean, with a faint smell of... peppermint? Either way, that's not what surprised Aasal.
Looking around him, he could only see towering stone walls with several openings that curved and bent into different regions he couldn't see into. The passages twisted away, blocking his line of sight. This looks like some sort of maze, Aasal thought. Confirming his suspicions, the system announced the goal of the floor.
[Escape the labyrinth]
There were multiple paths ahead, but Aasal had no way of knowing which was the right one. He picked one at random and started running. The walls soared far into the sky, impossibly tall, and the floor beneath him was made of cold, smooth stone. He kept sprinting, making sharp turns whenever he had the option, until he spotted a brighter section ahead. He picked up his pace, heart thudding with anticipation. Remembering a certain movie, he started calling himself a Runner—not like he had anyone to tell.
Finally reaching the illuminated area, he looked around and felt his heart sink. It was the exact same clearing he had started from.
"What the..." Confused and frustrated, Aasal entered another opening—one that wasn't the path he had just exited from.
He ran again, following the turns and twists just like the last time but different. After a grueling hour, he finally saw another bright region ahead, and his stomach dropped again when he realized it was the same starting place.
"What the fu—" Trying to self-soothe, he attempted all the other paths, but after countless hours wasted, he realized he was just coming back to the same clearing over and over. Recognizing this impossible pattern, he started keeping track of the directions he turned, how long each corridor was, and calculated where he should have been.
Although for a regular human it would be nearly impossible to remember and track their position after hundreds of changes in direction, for Aasal it wasn't a problem. Even before he was introduced to mana and the tower, he could memorize complex patterns without breaking a sweat.
When he returned to the clearing again, he was completely stumped. By his calculations, he should have been tens of miles away from here, yet here he was in the exact same place. Having a growing suspicion, Aasal tore off a small piece of his shirt and placed it carefully in front of the path he was about to enter. This run would determine what was really going on.
Running at nearly full speed to get it over with, he went through the same process he'd done countless times before. Reaching the bright region again and stepping onto the familiar grass, he looked down and saw the piece of fabric lying right next to his shoe.
Aasal clicked his tongue in frustration as he realized this might be a much harder challenge than he'd initially thought. There were two possibilities. One: the region he found after going through the labyrinth for an hour was actually a different clearing, but an exact copy. However, finding his own fabric confirmed he was somehow entering and exiting from the exact same path—which made absolutely no sense.
Aasal had already used his mana and heightened physical senses to examine the walls thoroughly, and nothing seemed out of place. The mana was calm and solidified into the stone structure, and his enhanced senses showed nothing unusual. He didn't know how it was possible for space to bend like this. Perplexed about what to do next, he punched the wall with full force, hoping maybe he could smash his way through.
After the dust and smoke cleared from his devastating blow, he noticed that the wall bore no blemishes whatsoever—he even felt a sharp sting radiating through his knuckles.
He attempted to dig through the earth at the base of the walls, but at a certain depth, the surface became impossibly hard, like trying to dig through solid steel. He quickly returned to the surface, frustrated. He couldn't climb the walls either, since their surfaces were perfectly smooth.
The moon that had been directly overhead when he first arrived was now sinking toward the horizon. When it finally disappeared behind the stone walls, that's when everything changed...
[Night 1 completed]
[Difficulty Increased!]
All of a sudden, Aasal could sense the air shifting ominously around him. He focused on the strange sensation and finally realized what was happening—it was getting hotter. Much hotter. Aasal immediately started running, having nothing else to do. His lungs began burning as if he were breathing fire, and the moisture in his throat evaporated instantly.
He reached the clearing, which was now brighter and more oppressive than ever, and noticed that all the grass had been burned to ash. He collapsed onto the scorched ground, gasping for air, and tried to focus his mana, solidifying it around his dying body as well as his internal organs.
Even though he had initially reinforced himself, the superheated air was somehow burning through his defenses. He poured all his concentration into protecting himself, and at a certain point, the temperature finally steadied and stopped increasing around him. Unfortunately for him, the temperature didn't go down.
He spent the first few hours desperately trying to repair the damage to his body and ensure his protective barriers held. From his position on the ground, he watched the moon appear again on the opposite horizon, rising slowly into the star-filled sky. Snow was still falling somehow, landing softly on his cheek and giving him a minuscule amount of relief from its coldness.
Groaning, Aasal rolled over to his stomach and pushed himself up with his trembling arms. He stood up and walked around to stretch his aching muscles. He had to consciously focus on maintaining his mana shield to prevent the hostile air from harming him further.
"Every night, the difficulty increases," he muttered to himself, voice hoarse. "I have to somehow figure out how to escape this place."
He activated his Intent technique and looked around carefully. Ignoring the rising headache that felt like nails being driven into his skull, he saw a golden light darting between the paths at lightning-fast speeds. Trying to track its impossible movement caused his head to feel like it was splitting in half, and he immediately canceled the technique.
Although the pain was excruciating, he couldn't help but smile grimly.
He finally had a lead on how to escape from this nightmarish place.