"Well, I can tell you when and where you can start asking them.
When we enter the Inner tower, and somewhere within the first ten floors."
Replying to Eliza's words in such a manner, Evan resumed walking towards the inner tower, stopping a few metres in front of it and double tapping his legs on the floor.
The ground around him lit up with the glow of a massive six-ringed spatial magic circle, with Evan smiling wryly as it was exactly how he remembered from the Game.
"Shall we?"
Evan gestured to his companions and they all moved over, stepping into the magic circle. Once all of them were on, it activated and bathed them with a spatial light, before whisking them away.
◇ ◇ ◇
This teleportation was rather short and the group was dropped on the first chamber of the first floor of the 'Tower of Trials'.
Once again, they were faced with another bizarre sight that had the Aidos natives among them widen their eyes in surprise.
A verdant, thick field of rich green grass stretched in every direction. The tower's outer circumference suggested they should be able to see the end of it, but no matter which direction they turned, I didn't see walls anywhere.
Looking up, there were greeted by the blue sky, as clear and cloudless as a hot summer day.
[The size of this place, let alone a sky inside a tower, doesn't make physical or logical sense…]
"This is probably some sort of Dimensional Realm, and a high-level one at that."
Pride spoke up as she used her energy to scan the area, with Eliza nodding in affirmation as she also had the same thoughts.
|Challengers have entered the 'Tower of Trials'. |
|The 'Tower of Trials' consists of 100 floors with a maximum of Ten chambers on each floor. |
|Clear the Floor Quest of Each Floor to proceed to the next Floor. |
| Recovery and Enhancement, potions, items or artifacts are inapplicable within the Tower. |
|Challengers would receive a 'Trial Aid' to assist with challenging each Floor. It is possible to refuse the 'Trial Aid'. |
|Once Challengers begin Challenging a floor, exiting is not allowed until all chambers are cleared. |
This series of notifications popped up in front of the eyes of everyone in the group, giving them a few details on some of the tower's mechanics.
|Challengers are currently on Floor 1. Generating Floor 1 Quest… |
|Floor 1 Quest: Exterminate all the monsters on this Floor. |
|Trial Aid: Fire Elemental Damage dealt by all Challengers is increased by 75% |
"75?!"
Eliza let out an exclamation of shock as even she could not amp up someone's elemental damage by 75% with her support magic.
The most she could currently achieve was 35%, a little less than half of that.
"It's not really useful though."
"Huh?! How is that NOT useful?"
"Because the monsters on this floor are so weak you don't need to use elemental attacks to kill them."
Evan replied before turning to Greed who had pulled out Mammonas and continued.
"You're not gonna need that for a while."
"Are the monsters THAT weak?"
"For now, yes."
Greed unsummoned his weapon with a shrug of his shoulders, spreading out his aura to scan for any monsters in the area but not finding any.
"Where are the monsters?"
"Hold on for a moment."
Evan looked through the archive to see if there was any updated information about the tower that differed from what he was aware of besides the otherworldly monsters but saw nothing of note.
"Very well. Begin Challenge."
|Beginning Challenge. |
The instant that notification appeared, everyone's senses picked up incoming monster presences, 5 of them in number, heading straight to the group at full speed.
[Aren't they kinda slow?]
Kayla asked with a yawn as she got up from where she was napping on Evan's head, turning her gaze in the direction of the monsters, just In time to see a five-strong horde of one-metre-tall blue-furred wolves.
From the frosty air escaping their jaws as they panted, it was obvious that they had some sort of ice elemental power, and if that wasn't enough, the fact that their tails were encased in ice should do the trick.
The five wolves ran up to Evan's group and pounced on them, letting out aggressive growls that would make children flee in fear.
But to the 'Anomalies'—
"Is this some sort of joke?"
Greed asked that question as he held the neck of one of the wolves who was trying to scratch his arm with its claws, however, it was so weak that even if Greed removed the defensive demonic rune enchantments on his clothes, it still would not be able to tear even a single thread.
Kayla transformed her body into a wolf and entered a snarling contest with another, while Amy and Milena respectively incinerated and froze their assailants.
Even though it was resistant to ice-type abilities, Milena easily bypassed its resistance like it was nothing.
As for the last unfortunate wolf, it perished to an accidental backhand slap from Eliza.
"This…Is overkill."
[I know right!]
Kayla replied as she squashed the head of the wolf she was playing with a few seconds ago, turning to Evan to speak only to the young hero shaking his head silently.
The Lightning spirit felt chills down her spine as she instantly inferred that she and the others were having a terrible misunderstanding about something.
"You guys know this is called a 'Tower of Trials', right?
In other words, Each Floor Quest is a trial of some sort.
These monsters may be so weak that you simply cannot gain any experience points from them, but what if…they weren't just five monsters?"
Evan's question came right before it happened.
Vibrations strong enough to shake their legs shuddered through the ground.
"What's happening?"
[Another Earthquake?]
The party members whipped their heads around to find the source of the vibrations and they found it relatively quickly.
A massive black shadow advanced across the field toward them.
Rather, it wasn't a single shadow. It was so many monsters gathered together that they appeared to form a single unit from afar.
This Floor Quest wasn't a question of killing one hundred or two hundred monsters.
A notification popped up in front of their eyes, and reading it made all except, Evan, Pride and Kuro want to curse out loud.
|Floor 1 Quest: Exterminate all the monsters on this Floor. |
|Monsters defeated: 5/5000 |
"Now then, shall we?."
Evan's statement marked the beginning of the party's first battle in the 'Tower of Trials'; against 5000 Level 10 Ice Magic Wolves.
???
Author's Note: Should Have Stated This Earlier but It Was Never Really Relevant So I Never Considered It.
It Is Impossible to Receive Experience Points When Killing Existences Less Than Half Your Level.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l