Stamina: 290

  Strength: 29

  Agility: 60

  Coordination: 48

  Endurance: 30

  Wisdom: 23

  Mana: 230

  Off: 6. Def: 5. Dens: 5.

  Rafe tried out his new map ability as he traversed the island like room. It was an island standing in the middle of an endless white expanse. He was growing jaded to the fantastical, in his own opinion as someone who'd once lived in a nonmagical world.

  The map screen was divided in two. One part showed the schematics of the whole tower but only named a third of the bottom floor. The parts he had explored so far. It also marked the room just ahead of the one he was in. There were three floor configurations to choose from. He was in the fifth room of one if these floors, hence why only a third of the first floor was marked.

  “A safe room, huh?” he asked as he looked at the room ahead of the one he was in.

  The other half showed almost three quarters of the island he had been exploring in his bid to try and gain a level before he faced the big boss. He had been unsuccessful, but he knew he was close. He was going to level up again after the boss fight. Especially considering how much stronger than him the monster was.

  ‘Ding’ Your skill quick draw has reached level 192.

  Your skill Parry has reached level 211.

  His least used skills in combat had grown just a little. Then there was the one he was sure was going to give him the most trouble.

  Your skill Acrobat has reached level 5.

  With how Acrobat was similar to Puppeteer's Rubber body, Rafe wasn't surprised it was growing slower than his other new skills even when he focused on it. Getting it had been a kind of experiment anyway, so it wasn't a big disappointment.

  Your skill Unarmed combat has reached level 13.

  He had been using less of it in the last few rooms, but it had somehow managed to grow a little.

  Your skill battle intent (aura) has reached level 297.

  Yeah, he had no idea how that worked. It was very passive, after all. Even more than Acrobat and Puppeteer's Rubber Body.

  Your skill Puppeteer's Rubber Body (uncommon) has reached level 51.

  On top of being an uncommon skill, it shared its origin with his Acrobat skill, so he wasn't shocked it was growing slowly.

  Your skill Adamance of the blade (???????) has reached level 2.

  “Huh?” Was all Rafe could think to say.

  Then the most valuable suspects.

  Your skill Skyholm's fighting Proficiency has reached level 29.

  Your skill Heavy blow has reached level 245.

  He quickly riffled through his skill screen to see which skills were lagging. He frowned. His map ability did not have a level or anything, just like his racial ability. His appraisal skill was still at level 1. Then there was Sword'sman’s footwork, Steady footing, Survivalist and Physical fitness. Not to mention Black smith and Metallurgy.

  He wondered if they would get some kind of penalty to leveling speed since he did not have a dedicated class or profession, but ultimately just shrugged and left that up to fate. He looked at his map again, looking at that bloated out centre ring.

  “Why is it not like google maps?”

  It could have been like that, in his humble opinion. The system was like a satellite watching over the whole multiverse, right? The ability should have been a guide for his upcoming foray into the multiverse. Instead he got a reminder of places he'd already visited and more often than not would never return to.

  “It's not like it can map the void?” he said questioningly.

  Because if it could, then he'd know exactly where in the void to find the enchantress when the time came for their clash over Aeon's fate.

  He shrugged. That kind of thing was so far in the future, he couldn't even imagine it. He was already having a hard time leveling as an F-ranked human. How much more difficult would it become once he advanced? It might take months to gain a single level. Years even.

  “But I have the time dilation advantage,” he thought slowly, truly trying to think through Sam's reasons for encouraging him to make use of this tower. His Adamance skill.

  Few were the dungeons were time dilation was a thing. So was it that towers had time dilation? Enith had been climbing a tower in the vision he saw of her fighting the Demon God. And she had reached the S-grade at a relatively young age of twenty-five. Practically unheard of.

  Could he be like her? Could he blow through the grades in only a few years of normal time? Somehow he knew it would not be that easy.

  When the essence gave someone an opportunity based on precedence, it was often weaker than the original. Liam had told him as much.

  Besides, he had the whole soul injury issue to deal with. His leveling was so slow it was depressing. Once his skills were upgraded and their leveling speed was halved…he would know true desperation.

  “Still, it doesn't matter. There are a hundred ways to progress in the multiverse. I'll just focus on my truth if all else fails.”

  And for that matter, Rafe decided it was high time he stopped stalling and finished the damn floor.

  ****

  “What will you have him do on the next floor?” Noid asked Enith.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Depends on what he chooses,” she replied with a shrug.

  “No it doesn't!” Liam and Sam said at the same time.

  “Fine,” Enith said with a shrug. “I want him to work on his aura a little bit, if he chooses that kind of room. I'll bait him until the last floor if I have to.”

  “Oh?” Sam said. “Is it because his aura skill seems so close to a breakthrough of some sort?”

  Liam and Enith stared at each other with frowns. Liam had received permission from Rafe to access his skill information even after he left the trial, though the boy didn't know he'd given it. Obviously sharing someone's private information was not cool, but the Enchantress could be convincing at times.

  “Not exactly. See, if he was unaware of the skill level, he'd just ignore it and the skill would just continue to level upwards like it did in the trial. Now that he is aware his condition is abnormal, he'll probably subconsciously create thresholds for all his skills to evolve,” Enith explained.

  “That… could be dangerous,” Liam said with a thoughtful nod. “It's lucky you had a room that would force him into this early. There is a lot we don't understand about how his skills work. He needs to learn these things too. In a safe controlled environment.”

  ****

  Rafe panted as he waited for the boss he'd just downed to rise again. Somehow, he knew the fight was going to get a lot tougher. Fighting someone with a concept ability without even an insight of your own was… Still, the ability should be at a low level.

  It was a mud elemental. Rafe watched the puddle of sludge flow upwards and into the shape of a golem. This was the floor boss.

  Rafe thought a straight up earth elemental should have been stronger, only…

  He thrust forward with his spear, blew a hole in the creature's gut. The creature stumbled back a little, righted itself again even as the hole filled back in.

  He studied the mana and frowned. He was taking the time to train his racial ability to distinguish different mana types. There was something wrong though. He could also see the internal energy of magical constructs now, so he should have been able to see the core.

  “Huh? Which one is its core? It should be the central one, but that's the smallest one. And what's with the mana?”

  The creature finished reforming. There were dark pits in the position eyes should have been. A hole formed in the place where a mouth should have been, and the creature screamed.

  Rafe thought it was fine until the sound froze his body suddenly, almost breaking his ear drums from how. The creature barreled towards his frozen form.

  Its gait was unique. Its legs did not move up and down and forward. They flowed on the earth, like the way a shadow moved. It was unimaginably fast and reached Rafe before he could get his body under control.

  Instead of flying, he found himself stuck in the mud monster's embrace. Because this was no mere elemental. It had grown. Mutated. Become something else.

  “That was an insight?” Rafe spoke even as his control returned. “An insight into sound an earth creature should not have. Huh?”

  But then he was starting to see it. The creature was trying to absorb him, or something of the sort. Could it absorb creatures and steal their powers. If he remembered the little herbology he knew, that sound ability was something a certain plant whose name he couldn't remember had.

  So then, was that what was special about the mud monster floor boss? Did it still have hidden abilities under its hat?

  They wouldn't be enough. Sure, the whole absorption thing was terrifying, and it seemed it wasn't even an insight. More an ability it perhaps got after evolution. The insight Rafe could feel had to do with quick mud or something very like it.

  Once you were caught in it, only a stronger insight could get you out. And this beast had a concept ability, so chances were it had very high level insights.

  Another way to fight insights, Rafe had once found, was to overpower them. Mud mana was a mixture of water and earth from what Rafe could see. There was a density to it though. It was denser than the mana in the ocean he'd fought in.

  It seemed stronger than the mana that animated the gargoyles in the first room. He had underestimated the mana without factual evidence in the beginning.

  There was water mana though, and earth too. A perfect recipe with a perfect counter if science had anything to say.

  “Get ready to die,” he said, stretching his free arm to the handle of the hammer strapped to his back.

  He had one more charge of elemental lightning. There was really no better time to use it, as it was his only logical move. He could also die and resurrect if all his other very much force based means were proven futile.

  A blinding blue light flared to life, causing the mud to shiver and start boiling, causing the elemental to start losing its shape. Rafe was not immune to the effect as well, his body convulsing as the lightning danced between them.

  The elemental fell back into a puddle once the blitz was over. Rafe got to his feet faster. He had been expecting the blast after all. He had his spear out, thrusting toward all the tiny orbs of swirling flames in the puddle. All of the beast's cores fizzled out.

  “Yeah, there is no way I'm managing that thing with a concept ability. We'll get the top prize next time. When I'm at level ten or higher.”

  He sat back and leaned against one of the cave walls.

  “I wish the floor I chose had something I could hunt for food. Rocks and…very human-like creatures though…”

  Then he realised he wasn't all that hungry anyway and started to wonder what that was about. He was starting to get lost in this spiral of thoughts when the cave rumbled.

  “Huh?” he looked around in confusion.

  Then he remembered he had not gotten the normal ‘Ding’ he got when he killed a monster, or whenever he got a message and wasn't paying attention to his status.

  How had the monster survived all seven of its tiny cores getting destroyed? It made no sense. Rafe searched around frantically. Trying to sense any bit of Essence he needed to destroy.

  Then he saw it, in the position the monster had come from when he'd first entered the cave. The puddle he'd made not half a minute ago was now motionless. There had been an original one though, and it was swirling, unfurling, producing the true form of the monster.

  Rafe started to run before it finished growing into a golem that dwarfed its old form by a magnitude of ten. It had separated its main core into six, and those six had been sent with an avatar. This current form had only one core. One central core so large, it must have been three times the size of Rafe's chest.

  He was too late. The concept ability was unleashed before he could get too far towards it.

  It wasn't that Rafe was scared of the damn monster. On the contrary, he knew he could beat it the moment he saw how large and centralized its core was. He had realised what its concept ability was though, and it was going to be a pain to clean his white robes if they got muddy.

  Alas, the multiverse liked to laugh at neat freaks sometimes. Not that Rafe was particular about his neatness. Still, since he got these robes, they'd been torn, bloodied, sanded, and wet in the mermaid room. Now they were going to be muddied in this most bizzare mud domain. They had a self clean and self repair enchantment that he hoped would come in handy once in the room labeled a ‘safe room’, but what if the dirt and destruction became too much?

  “You absolute menace!” he growled.

  The ground had turned wet and slippery, as had the air too. The air was murky, wet feeling, smelling pungent.

  Rafe pointed his spear forward with a growl. His movement technique required he use a sword but he had a skill now. And he had his Heavy blow too.

  He collided with the core in a shower of sparks. He thought it was over once he got the ‘Ding’ even as he bounced back.

  ‘Ding’ Your skill, Skyholm's Fighting Proficiency has reached level 30.

  Then he watched in horror as the creature's core started to separate into tiny motes of swirling flames as it tried to limit its vulnerability. Somehow, the core was always meant to be split like this. This then, was the elemental's true ace.

  Anyone who couldn't see its internal circuitry, well… they'd have to fight a long time.

  The large body of the elemental started to grow other tiny golem shaped beings like some kind of bacteria. The young bodies stretched their arms toward Rafe. Then one spouted twigs from its hands. One blew a green and deadly looking gas toward Rafe. One just started to bubble into ever heating mud as it moved towards him.

  He moved to take a step but quickly retracted his leg. The point he'd put his leg into had tried to suck him in.

  “I guess I'll have to abuse my racial ability in order to find the traps so clearly placed everywhere.” He had to sharpen his ability to see all the mana around him.

  He grinned at the muddy juggernaut.

  “You will die though, mark my words.”

  Level sixty or above, it didn't matter. He'd fought a level one hundred human genius, and won. Sure, he'd been lucky, and she wasn't using any concept abilities, but she was still a genius. An overgrown slightly alive statue couldn't possibly be his undoing.

  He didn't even need a weapon for this one. His clothes were already filthy anyway. It was time to grind his unarmed combat skill. He just had to defeat an army of weak mud golems. He'd fought similar odds many times before.