The gates shut with a deep, resonant thud, sealing Jiang Ming inside. The muffled roar of the Ice Hell winds was replaced by an oppressive silence that seemed to press against his skin. The air was thick, laced with the faint metallic tang of mana, as if the walls themselves were breathing.
Dim lines of violet light traced the obsidian tiles beneath his feet, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. The light converged into an enormous, circular sigil in the center of the hall. At its heart floated a crystalline obelisk, about the size of his arm, rotating slowly in the air.
[System Notice: You have entered the First Tower Hall.]
[Trial Progression: Awaiting Initialization.]
Jiang Ming stepped closer. Every instinct screamed at him to be careful, but his curiosity outweighed caution. The obelisk's surface shimmered with shifting glyphs—none of which he recognized, yet somehow, deep in his mind, meaning bloomed.
"Offer… proof."
The words weren't spoken aloud. They slid directly into his thoughts like a blade of ice.
He placed his palm against the surface. A warm pulse surged from the obelisk into his Eternal Core, and a new window flared before his eyes:
[Qualifying Assets Detected.]
[Resource Multiplier: 10x active.]
[Potential Ascension Path: Combat, Crafting, Dominion.]
Three pillars of light erupted from the sigil floor, each one showing an image:
The first was a battlefield strewn with monstrous corpses, Jiang Ming's own silhouette at the center, sword raised high.
The second was a forge blazing with impossible heat, his hands shaping weapons that gleamed like starlight.
The third was a sprawling fortress of black and silver, bristling with towers and walls that pulsed with protective wards.
Jiang Ming's lips curled into a smile. "Why not… all three?"
The System hesitated. Then:
[Warning: Path fusion will drastically increase difficulty.]
[Confirm fusion?]
"Confirm."
The pillars merged into a blinding column of light, swallowing him whole.
When his vision cleared, the hall had changed. The sigil was gone, replaced by a massive spiral staircase climbing into an unseen height. The air vibrated with a low hum, and every few steps, stone alcoves jutted from the wall, each holding a pedestal. On every pedestal floated a single item—some weapons, some scrolls, some strange, organic things that pulsed faintly as if alive.
Jiang Ming reached for the nearest one: a dagger made entirely of translucent crystal.
[Frostfang Dagger – Tier 2]
[Effect: Absorbs heat from surroundings, freezes target tissue on contact.]
He could feel the cold radiating off it even before touching it. Without hesitation, he activated Sublimation Protocol. The dagger's sheen deepened, its surface swirling with patterns of snowflakes that never melted.
[Upgraded: Frostfang Dagger → Glacierfang – Tier 3.]
"Still works in here," he murmured. "Good."
He took it, and as he did, the pedestal crumbled to dust. Somewhere above, something growled—a deep, echoing sound that rolled through the staircase like a warning.
The climb began.
The first hundred steps were uneventful, save for the occasional pedestal. He collected a handful of items—an alchemist's vial of molten gold that never cooled, a fragment of obsidian that whispered possible future events, and a skeletal gauntlet that enhanced grip strength tenfold. Each one he sublimated immediately, feeling the addictive rush of power with every tier jump.
But at the two-hundredth step, the real trial began.
The air shimmered, and a figure stepped from the wall—no, formed from the wall itself. An armored knight, faceless, with a blade the length of Jiang Ming's body.
[Tower Guardian – Floor 1.5]
[Objective: Eliminate the intruder.]
The knight lunged, faster than expected. Jiang Ming barely sidestepped, Glacierfang carving a streak of frost across the stone floor. The Eternal Core kept his breath steady, his muscles burning with endless stamina. He darted in and out, testing the guardian's patterns.
It was relentless. Every blow the knight struck splintered the steps beneath their feet, and every miss left deep gouges in the walls. But Jiang Ming was no stranger to adapting mid-fight. On the seventh exchange, he feinted left, then sublimated the floor beneath the knight's feet. The stone instantly hardened into black diamond, locking the guardian in place.
One clean slash through the neck, and the knight shattered into fragments of obsidian that dissolved into motes of light.
[Victory: +2 Ascension Tokens.]
The staircase above shuddered. Jiang Ming looked up, grinning. "Guess I just announced I'm coming."
And he kept climbing.
The higher he went, the stranger the items became—feathers that weighed more than anvils, seeds that pulsed with heat like tiny suns, bottles of liquid darkness. Each step felt heavier, not because of fatigue, but because the air itself grew thick with mana, and the hum of the tower deepened into a rhythm, almost like chanting.
At the eight-hundredth step, the spiral opened into a vast platform. In the center stood a throne of black crystal, and on it, a figure sat waiting—slender, androgynous, with eyes like twin galaxies.
"Challenger," the voice rang in his mind. "You seek dominion, mastery, and war. Then prove you can bear all three burdens."
The figure rose, and the entire platform shifted into a battlefield—waves of spectral soldiers charging toward him, siege engines rolling from the mist, walls collapsing around him.
Jiang Ming's grin widened. "Finally."
He drew Glacierfang in one hand, the skeletal gauntlet tightening on the other. His Eternal Core burned bright, Sublimation Protocol ready to twist the battlefield itself into his weapon.
The trial wasn't just about surviving anymore—it was about claiming the tower as his own.
And he wasn't leaving without it.