There was relatively less fanfare on the second landing. By the third. Rafe was sure the numbers of possible contestants was getting smaller. That probably meant less and less people made it past.

The shadow only flickered through two thousand odd people on the fourth floor, and one of them was someone he knew. He had been dreading it. The first of the people he knew, Adrian.

He'd recognise the cocky smirk anywhere. It wasn't Adrian he got to fight though. He fought some kind of purgilist with an armour skill. Her armour was made of bright crystal mana, and it even went on to provide quite the knuckle dusters. Rafe let her hit him once. He did not enjoy the sensation one bit.

He had fought Liam as a pugilist many times. This woman, whoever she was, may have had an epic class and a highest stat that outstripped Rafe's by an order of magnitudes, but he was sure he outstripped her in combat experience. The one advantage he had over all these other apprentices was the amount of time he had been able to spend in the training world.

He was even older than most of them. Sure, rarely someone would come in who was already past level twenty before entering the trial, but the higher your initial level, the lower your potential. And of course leveling got harder the higher your level.

The highest possible level Rafe could face would be a level sixty five, but he hadn't found one so far. This purgilist was just at forty nine herself.

"I'm pretty good at using the spear," Rafe congratulated himself after the fight.

"And you're humble too," the woman he'd just beat soundly enough she'd surrendered chimed in.

"No, it's just—"

'Ding' Your skill Skyholm's fighting proficiency has reached level 36.

That wasn't the first of his skills to level up after four very intense fights. Heavy blow had leveled twice, and so too had Dash. Dodge, his newest skills had leveled five times. The perks of being young. He had also received one painstaking level to Acrobat.

"It's just what?" the woman asked.

"Well I'm wondering why I don't have a Spear mastery skill yet. It's driving me insane. I'm ridiculously good with a spear."

"Wait just one second," the woman interrupted him. "You're telling me you don't have…you're telling me you're not a spear wielding epic class warrior?!"

"No," Rafe replied. "My class is not yet epic."

That was the most he could tell her, remembering these shadows could return to their owners with all his secrets if he blubbed.

"Damn. Got past the fourth landing only to be bested by a guy with a weaker class on the fifth landing. No wonder your veil was basically non-existent."

Rafe went to wave her off. "Yeah, yeah. Everyone is always on about veils and what not. Still beat you even with a weaker…wait, did you say you made it to the fifth landing?"

The woman frowned at him. "Why are you asking me? You should be answering my questions instead. Where do I go now that I've lost?"

Rafe stared at her, changing his perspective even as he went to gesture upwards.

The woman scrunched her brow. "You mean I should just fly upwards. But that's what you guys do when you lose, isn't it? I'm not looking to become a dungeon denizen, for your information."

"No. I know, I know. That's just the way to the next floor," Rafe lied smoothly. "Just will it and you'll leave this floor."

"And then I'll be one step from home. Hey, just so you know, that guy with the blaster, the one I fought on the fourth landing didn't go up like the others," the girl said as she started to float upwards.

"W-wait! Wait a second!"

"Hmm?" The girl turned to look at him.

"You talked about a guy with a blaster? Blonde hair, smug smile?"

"That was the bastard, yeah," the woman said curiously. "He is one of yours so it shouldn't be surprising you know him."

"Right, right. And you said he didn't fly like the others?"

"Yeah. He just dissipated. I didn't kill him, I swear. I did want to though, after I spared his life. He is so annoying. Anyway he dissipated in the air, and I kind of feel guilty because there is the chance my dark thoughts caused that, you know. But on the other hand, maybe it's normal so I just thought you should know. Since you guys are colleagues and all."

Stolen novel; please report.

She waited for a time. When Rafe did not answer she started to float upwards again and she left.

Rafe was frozen in horror though. He knew Adrian. Did not like the guy, but he knew him. He remembered Andragoth's words once. A throwaway comment she'd made one time. She had said Adrian wouldn't make it.

Why had the image dissipated? Why hadn't it flown like the others did, probably as messages to their owners? Could it be? Could the dissipating of the image mean the worst had come to pass? If so, how would Rafe deal with it when he finally found someone he did care about only for their image to dissipate?

It wasn't going to happen, was it? Andragoth had claimed she was alive, and Devila was too. Even Quin who'd been kind of annoying at the end there. They were all alive. No need to panic, Rafe told himself. They were probably higher on the tower. It was no surprise. They were strong, as far as Rafe was concerned. Rafe would be hard pressed to win against those guys at his current strength. He briefly considered distributing the stats he was currently hoarding, but he decided against it.

All he needed to do was climb. He needed to climb higher and he'd find them, and after he beat them their images would float away and back to their bodies. He took some time to rest.

He took a health potion for the first time on this floor. He had let the pugilist get a few hits in to test his mettle and that was a mistake he wouldn't be making again.

His stamina wasn't full, but it wasn't too limited either. His health was below half and he needed to move on. The curiosity was killing him.

The next landing came too fast. And before he knew it, Rafe was standing in front of the shape shifting humanoid shaped shadow. The first two faces were alien to him. The third though, was a man in a team Devila had once destroyed with an array trap spell she had constructed with her feet.

As usual Rafe knew the numbers this high up were much lower than the literal hundreds of thousands on the first landing. They were still in the thousands this low down though, and Rafe couldn't see anyone else he knew before the scene settled.

He immediately used his new skill, after ensuring his mana pool wasn't disastrously empty of course.

Name: Saliel Wais

Class: Arcane Meister (epic lvl. 45)

Race: Elf

Strongest stat: Wisdom: 232

Strongest skill: Arcane storm (epic lvl. 25) Fill the air with clouds of arcane. Let bolts of pure destruction rain down on your enemies.

"Hmm," Rafe said as he wondered about his latest opponent.

'Ding'

He opened the notification immediately, ready as he was for any sort of distraction.

Your skill Adamanance of the blade has reached level 3.

He had thought his new skill had already gained a level, but of course he remembered how hard even Appraisal had been to level despite being basic. Now this new skill was ancient rarity. Of course it was harder to level.

"I suppose the tower is under time dilation too," Rafe said to himself.

He had spent longer in the tower with his second floor taking an unknown amount of subjective time. He supposed that if everyone got somewhat personalised floors, the gods would try to give them rooms they could clear fast. Not easy rooms, but rooms that didn't require a lot of time, like his first floor which he'd run through in about eighteen subjective hours or so.

He was sure most never finished the tower even after all those considerations. First of all, finishing towers was no easy feat. This was a very short tower, but that was what made it all the more impossible.

The tower was designed for training purposes, and death didn't mean failure as it did in many others.

Here death simply meant moving on to the next room, which would have made it possible to clear the tower now that Rafe thought about it. If one could overcome the time dilation then it should be possible. Easy even. Unless there was something impossible up there. Something worse than the worst this floor had to offer.

Sam had said it didn't matter what he chose for the last two trials. Rafe gulped as he remembered his body being torn in half. He had survived that though. He had survived and now he would win.

What he found on the sixth floor surprised Rafe quite a bit. Not because he finally found people he knew and had been dreading to find, but because there was more than one shadow here.

'Ding' Side Quest received (only three side quests can be active simultaneously)

Objective: This landing has no holder, so the challenger is required to fight two combined challengers from the lower range whose combined prowess is estimated to be just a touch weaker than the weakest on the next landing. Conquer this landing and proceed forward undaunted.

Rafe didn't bother looking at the reward section. He stood patiently as the shadows finished morphing into images.

"Hey there, mate," a stalky, girthy fellow with a huge hammer and an even bigger beard grinned at Rafe.

But Rafe had eyes only for the other half of the pair.

"Why must I partner with such a brutish looking little fellow?" Adrian said as he tossed his blonde hair over his head and started to collect it into a ponytail.

Rafe stopped pitying him immediately. He touched his own relatively short hair. Back in Aeon, Rafe had grown his hair out. It was a popular trend among barbarians as they were called. Rafe had loved it. He had done the exact same thing Adrian had just done before so many fights. It was his thing. Adrian was stealing his thing. And he looked cooler doing it.

He was also dead if Rafe's assumptions had any bite to them. Rafe immediately felt a bit terrible. Just a bit though. He used his new skill almost instinctively.

"Argh," he cried as a sudden headache made him drop his spear.

"Are you alright, level guardian?" Adrian asked in his forcibly refined voice.

Rafe gave him a sour look but otherwise ignored him. Half his eye sight was red. He'd forgotten about the disadvantage of abusing this skill at his current level.

"I will be fine," he said as he bent down to pick up his spear. "I hope you gentlemen are ready."

He felt something wet trickle from the position of his left eye and down along the margin of his nose and lower past his mouth and to his chin.

His two opponents shared a look. Then they shrugged. They somehow worked well together, the dwarf with the hammer attacking Rafe while Adrian fell back to start pelting him from a distance.

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