Chapter 930: The Tower’s Challenge
The next time Arthur stepped out of Barda’s training pocket universe, 66 days had passed outside, which translated to 198 days within.
Long story short, Arthur was now 79 years old and roughly 4 months along the path to 80, since, as usual, his age wasn’t measured by calendars but by the time he’d personally lived through.
Anyway, the reason Arthur had ended his Law Comprehension Session early and left the pocket universe was that Barda had sent Rishia to call him out.
That naturally led to the question of why Barda would do such a thing, and when Arthur asked Rishia, she told him it was because Barda claimed he’d finally completed his "masterpiece" and wanted Arthur to come see it.
Arthur had been right on the verge of reaching 95% comprehension in Destruction when Rishia arrived, so it went without saying that he was displeased by the interruption, something that was written plainly across his face when he reached the other Continent on Chazat, where Barda had been building whatever this so-called masterpiece was.
When he arrived, he found Raikis standing before a tall tower that stretched up into the skies, and upon sensing Arthur’s arrival, the red-haired dragon turned toward him and spoke.
"I heard you ran into one of Kalonex’s probes in that Valmone place you’re always talking about."
Arthur nodded, yawning lightly as he replied, "Yeah, I did. It was a pain in the behind to deal with."
"Ha ha, tough luck."
Arthur wasn’t particularly eager to think about Valkalonex again, so he shifted his attention to the black brick tower in front of them and asked, "So, is this the masterpiece Barda was talking about?"
Raikis nodded. "Yeah. He called me over a while back and said I should help him deal with it. Said he was basing it on something called ’Roguelikes’."
Hearing that, Arthur immediately turned toward Raikis, his eyes narrowing as he asked, "You’re sure Barda said the word roguelike?"
"Yeah," Raikis replied, nodding again.
Arthur then turned back to the tower, expanding his spatial perception as he tried to scan it, only to come up empty. It was made from the same material as the mountains where he’d found the Levites, and his cosmic energy perception couldn’t see through it.
He turned to Rishia and asked if she could use her special eyes to glean anything from it, but she silently shook her head.
Just then, Barda’s voice echoed as the Continuum Dragon revealed himself.
"Oh great, you’re here! Behold," he said, gesturing toward the tower, "my ’Tower of Fant—"
"Stop! Copyright!" Arthur shouted, cutting him off immediately and earning confused looks from the three dragons.
"Copyright?" Rishia asked, tilting her head.
Arthur pressed his fingers to his temple, sighed, and shook his head.
"Just don’t say what you were about to say, Barda. Just tell me why you brought me here and what this ’Roguelike tower’ is all about."
Barda still didn’t understand why Arthur had shouted "Copyright," but he didn’t linger on it and started explaining anyway.
"Well, when you explained the concept of those roguelike games to me, it gave me an idea for something I could make use of. I did some more digging and found books and comics about people climbing towers to gain treasures and power as they go higher.
By mixing that with the roguelike genre, I made this with help from my siblings."
Arthur nodded, seeing how Barda had arrived at the idea, though the explanation still didn’t address the most important part.
"Okay, you made a tower. Good for you. But what does that have to do with me?"
"Well, you’re going to be the first guest," Barda replied.
Arthur immediately shook his head. "Yeah, no. I’ve got things to deal with, and I want to focus on increasing my power, which leaves me no time to climb your tower."
"Climbing the tower will help you increase your power," Barda argued. "That’s the whole point of the tower concept."
"Still not climbing it," Arthur shot back without hesitation.
Barda had just mentioned that his siblings helped create it, which meant Wyndella had been involved.
That alone made Arthur even less inclined to step inside.
During his time in Valmone, Barda and Wyndella had been working on ’something’, and this was almost certainly it.
Given the timing, which was shortly after his Whip Trials with Wyndella ended in a way that left her deeply dissatisfied after her attempt to force Arthur into fighting enemies wielding creation-based powers failed, Arthur had no intention of setting foot inside a tower she helped design.
But just as Arthur made his refusal clear, Barda added something Arthur couldn’t dismiss right away.
"But what if I told you that Gervod’s Axe Trial is inside it?"
For a moment, silence reigned. Then Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"Gervod’s Axe Trial, you say?"
"Yes," Barda replied. "If I remember correctly, the condition for us training you across different combat disciplines for over 40 years was that you’d undergo six trials, and whichever one you performed best in would decide the outcome of my bet with my siblings.
You’ve completed every trial except the last one, Gervod’s Axe Trial, and it’s on one of the floors of this tower. For the record, there are six floors."
"This isn’t the trial structure we agreed on," Arthur said, his eyes narrowing.
Barda simply shrugged, looking unconcerned.
"When I asked Gervod if I could place his trial inside the tower, he said it was fine and personally spent about a day designing that floor. If you don’t believe me, I can send you to him so you can ask him yourself."
Arthur didn’t hesitate even for a moment to accept the offer.
"Yeah. Send me to him."
Barda didn’t look surprised by Arthur’s answer at all. He simply snapped his fingers, and cosmic energy wrapped around Arthur, teleporting him across space and time to another universe.
Arthur’s vision blurred briefly, and when it cleared, his Anti-Divine Gravity Authority activated on its own, adjusting his body to the crushing gravity of the red, sandy planet he now found himself on.
He was standing on a cliff swallowed by a sandstorm, violent winds whipping dust through the air.
Arthur looked around and noticed a humanoid figure standing near the cliff’s edge through the churning dust, and he walked over to them, leaning forward to look down at the heaps of massive crystalline desert scorpions scattered at the base of the cliff.
While he was doing so, the dragon standing beside him spoke.
"If you came to ask about the trials, do them inside that tower Barda’s making. I told him to tell you that. I’m busy right now."
Arthur pulled his gaze away from the scorpions below and turned toward the olive-skinned dragon as he asked, "Really? Of all times? Can’t we postpone it until you’re done, so I can take the trial in the same format as everyone else?"
Gervod shook his head in response to the question.
"Unfortunately, I don’t know when I’ll be done."
Light flashed within his green eyes as he looked through the thick dust storm and spotted a group of elves moving across the desert below.
"Leave now, Arthur. You don’t want to get caught in a battle between Ultimates, do you?"
As soon as he finished speaking, he summoned a massive war axe, gripping it and leaping into the air, cosmic energy gathering along its edge as he brought it down onto the elves.
A brilliant green flash followed, and Barda immediately pulled Arthur out of the space just before the planet was obliterated by the power of Gervod’s attack.
◇ ◇ ◇
The moment Arthur reappeared on Chazat, he heaved an exasperated sigh and clicked his tongue as he spoke.
"Fine. This better be worthwhile."
He was still not comfortable stepping into anything that had Wyndella’s involvement right now, and seeing that, Barda simply chuckled before speaking.
"You’re not going in alone. Rishia’s coming with you."
Arthur glanced at the crimson purple-haired woman, then back to Barda as he asked, "Are we cooperating or competing?"
The answer didn’t come from Barda, but from Raikis instead.
"Competing’s boring," he said. "Work together."
Looking toward the top of the tower, he added, "Besides, if you went in by yourself, you’d never clear the last floor."
Arthur was already dreading whatever waited there from the way Raikis said it.
"Who designed the last floor?" he asked.
"Not telling," Barda replied immediately, cutting Raikis off before he could speak.
He then pointed toward the tower and continued, "Since this was originally meant as a test for Rishia, there are gonna be restrictions.
For one, your Authorities, Skills, and Techniques will be sealed."
Arthur rolled his eyes right away, but Barda ignored the reaction and kept going.
"We’ll be sealing your energies too, so no Divinity or Anti-Divinity for you, Arthur, until you unlock them while climbing the tower."
Turning to Rishia, he added, "No cosmic energy for you either. Magic power only."
Now it was Rishia’s turn to frown. For someone who’d been using Cosmic Energy since her age was in the single digits and who hadn’t once found herself unable to rely on it across the five decades she’d lived since then, this restriction was not an easy thing to accept.
"Anyway, you’ll be unlocking your Skills and Authorities at random as you climb the tower," Barda said, then raised five fingers as he continued,
"Each floor except the last one is randomised. Even I don’t know the order you’ll encounter them in. If your luck’s bad, you might run into Gervod’s Trial on the first floor."
He finished that with a snicker, but Arthur didn’t even have the mental energy to react. Instead, he studied the tower piercing through the clouds, weighing its visible scale against what Barda had just explained.
’Just six floors and it’s this big? Each ’Floor’ has to be an entire pocket universe or something.’
Another sigh escaped his lips, and at that moment, Barda gestured toward the tower’s doors.
"In, in, in you go."
With a clap, the dragon teleported them directly in front of the doors, and as soon as they stepped inside, their vision went completely dark.
