“Look at him,” Sam said, sounding awestruck. “His eye is gleaming.”

  “It is, isn't it?” Noid said in a similarly awestruck voice.

  “Ha!” Liam said, looking at the smug enchantress with true respect.

  She did not say anything. She instead watched as her plans came into fruition. Sometimes the enchantress forgot how clever she could be. She forgot that she had grown up in a tiny and secluded village, but had somehow grown to become one of the most influential people even in the current iteration of the multiverse.

  ****

  ‘Ding’ Your racial ability Eye of the Void Sage(f) is reacting to external stimuli.

  You have gained the ability spell breaker (f). You are able to read spell formations and dispell them. You are able to copy and learn spell formations and circles and arrays—

  Warning: This ability is incompatible to the user.

  Energy required to temporarily seal this ability. If no sufficient energy is provided, the user's life force—

  Sufficient energy provided.

  Your racial ability Eye of the Void Sage(f) has mutated into Spell seeing Eye of the Void Sage(f). You gain insight into how magical constructs work.

  The whole slew of notifications was a rollercoaster ride. Rafe noted that he was still receiving energy from the legacy trial. It would be dangerous to go through such evolutions once he left.

  The second thing he noted…

  “Huh? Could that be the Soul sight ability Sam wanted? It somehow feels wrong. Souls are magical constructs?”

  Even as he was thinking out loud, he was in the middle of a fight. Now that he could see a bit more, it was much easier to evade while he read through his notifications.

  “I suppose it's time to end this farce,” he said to himself as he danced backward, leading the spear beast into the hordes of monsters he knew were surrounding them.

  The beast tried to retreat at the last second, but shifting its attention from Rafe for that fraction of a second was all he needed to get in close. He tried to strike, bounced off a yellow force field.

  Rafe frowned. The beast came for him in retaliation. There was a reason Rafe had been trying to get the beast into the crowd of others, and it wasn't to use the other beasts to attack it.

  The beast was on him and trying to pin him. Rafe was the better combatant, he thought, but even when he got past the beast's guard, that shimmering fiery barrier that every damn beast seemed to have denied him his rightful hit. The other beasts came in closer. Rafe had no intention of being hemmed in.

  He unslung his hammer from his back.

  “If at least some of the rules of physics apply then…”

  He released one of his attunement charges. Then he swung it at the annoying beast, using his hammer to fight the fiery barrier even as the lightning struck. Lightning snaked out like electricity, thinning the horde around him considerably, burning the annoying beast outright.

  With that thing dead, he shifted his attention to the few mermaids he'd stunned.

  He knew mermaids were supposed to be beautiful women with their lower limbs replaced with caudal fins, but he couldn't see these ones. Only hear them. He could see their souls now though, and they were ugly, shriveled husks of things. They were red and misshapen. They did not match the clean, calm and peaceful aura they were projecting with all their might.

  Die, he cried as he swam past. The horde of monsters recovered fast. Too fast. He only managed to kill three mermaids and then he was swimming at top speed to reach the light. They were faster than him under water.

  He fought as he ran, collecting more and more wounds, losing more blood as he went. Then a siren came at him from nowhere with a ragged uncharacteristic screech. It shocked his ears. He might have even burst an eardrum.

  She fell upon him with sharp claws and teeth he had not heard of in his early mythology lessons back on earth. He brawled with the creature, all the while willing the light closer.

  She was a dangerous opponent. The kind who was ready to die as long as they took their opponent with them. She was like a berserker. Rafe normally had no difficulty dealing with a brute.

  This time was different though. She had ambushed him, injured him on top of all his other injuries, and taken all the initiative and momentum of the fight. Not to mention they were in a not so neutral environment. Yeah, Rafe was not having the best fight ever.

  Then they reached the light, and it took him to the next floor.

  ‘Ding’ Side Quest complete.

  Room objective: Go to the light completed.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Hidden objective: Slay five elder Sirens. (3 / 5) completed.

  Processing rewards.

  Only, the struggling water monster had come with him. Now that he could see her better, she looked young. Like a teenager. Like he had when he first entered the trial. Like he still did now, somehow, even though he felt much older internally.

  Out of water now, she was visibly struggling with both breathing and trying to claw more holes into him. She had a shapely face, very pale although now visibly reddening. There were hints of scales on her cheeks and her eyes were more reptilian than human. She had sharp needle like teeth and her hair was green interspersed with a few whitelocks.

  All in all, ugly was not quite the description Rafe would have gone with. He would probably have chosen something like…

  “Different…they definitely look different.”

  And then she reached forward, moving over his immobilised body and sinking her fangs into his neck.

  When he woke she was already dead. It was the first indicator he had of resurrections in the tower not being quite the same as those in the trial. The second was his exhaustion and series of very serious phantom pain. Instead of attacking solely his head the pain ravaged every part of his body.

  Rafe looked at the dead girl next to him. She had been angry. She had been so angry when she came after him. Had he killed someone important to her? Maybe her mother? Rafe remembered something the enchantress had said about dungeons and life. If life in the multiverse came from these dungeons, then were there creatures stuck mid-evolution already and just waiting for the right time to come out into the multiverse proper?

  How did the creatures come out in the first place?

  There were traces of dried up tears rolling down the girls cheeks, and her now lifeless eyes stared at him with undeniable blame. He closed her eyes for her.

  ‘Ding’ Rewards assigned.

  Rewards: 10 Quest points, 100 credits, wave breaker spear( lvl. 55), health potion (1), stamina potion (2).

  Your class warrior has reached level 3. 2 stat points obtained. 2 spec points obtained.

  Your pseudo class skill mimic has reached level 3. 1 stat point obtained. 1 spec point obtained.

  Wave breaker spear.

  +50 off, +5 def. +100 cont( water magic)

  Enchantment of water element affinity.

  He studied the mineral rock hewn shaft, the tip made of some blue metal he had yet to encounter. His metallurgy skill returned nothing actionable about it.

  “It's a big multiverse, isn't it?”

  With only the metals he'd gleaned from a small planet - that had been admittedly expanded to include races that didn't exist there originally - he had a lot less knowledge than he should. It was still a basic skill, after all. And it was the kind of skill that only grew as he learned more about metals and how to work them. Their melting points and the like.

  He wondered if not having a profession related to the skill would hamper its development too much.

  He was trying to distract himself from the corpse next to him, and in that spirit decided to distribute the stat and spec points from his level ups. It seemed that wasn't in the cards though.

  ‘Ding’ Final room entered.

  Side quest obtained.

  Objective: Defeat as many rock golems as you can before beating the floor boss.

  1.(0 / 25)

  2.(0 / 35)

  3.(0 / 55)

  Rewards: Depends on level of completion.

  Room objective: Defeat the floor boss.

  Hidden objective: Push the boss to use its fledgling concept ability.

  “Shit! Now that is a distraction. A concept ability. So…insights? Past level fifty five obviously. Close to the E-grade, probably.”

  Rafe decided there was no way he was going into this fight without every single advantage he could call upon. He decided to distribute his new stats right away. And then grind out the rock golems as par his side quest to hopefully gain another level before he had to fight the floor boss.

  “Huh? Am I scared? Maybe I shouldn't go with the red gem for my next floor?”

  Name: Rafael Kingsley Wilde

  Race: Human (lvl. 3) F

  Class: Warrior (lvl. 3), mimic (lvl.3)

  Health: 210/210

  Stamina: 280/280

  Stats.

  Strength: 28

  Agility: 56

  Coordination: 45

  Vitality: 21

  Intelligence: 12

  Endurance: 27

  Wisdom: 21

  Paranormal: Luck: 19

  Mana: 210

  ????

  Free stat points: 4(str, agi, end, vit) 2(int, wis). 7

  Quest points: 131

  Credits: 1 E-grade, 310. (1,310).

  Class specs:

  Off: 4. Def: 3. (4 free). Cont: 2. Dens: 3. Regen: 2. ( 2 free).

  He had seven free stat points. His eyebrows shot up, right until when he remembered he'd gained five free points as a reward before from the golem room.

  He continued to focus on his mana density, pumping it up to five. His offense and defense both shot up by two points.

  Then his stat points. Of course all his free mental stats went into wisdom, bumping his mana to 230. His race points went to agility and coordination. Then he put one of his class points into agility, one into strength, and two into endurance