[Xvin wants to trade – Accept or Decline.]
[Accept.]
Ching!
While everyone was heading toward the final room to get or to upgrade their classes, Kane was looking through many items that Xvin has been sending.
[Ryore wants to trade – accept or decline]
"What's this? Why do you want to trade with me? Shoo! I have nothing to give you."
"Just do it."
[Accept.]
Kane's eyes widened as Ryore placed a lot of items on their trade. Kane recognized them. They were the items that Ryore won from their duel. Kane was about to dismiss as he didn't have any items to exchange, but Ryore had already confirmed the trade. Now, Kane only needed to confirm his side to the transaction to complete the trade.
Seeing that Ryore already confirmed it, Kane eagerly clicked the confirm button without giving anything at Ryore. Ryore was a little bit annoyed about how Kane didn't even have any sense of guilt that he received items without anything in exchange. The only thing that Ryore received was an ugly smirk from Kane.
Pixie suddenly approached them and bowed.
"I'm going now!"
Xvin smiled back at her.
"Yeah, good luck, girl!"
"I will! I brought a lot of potions with me!"
"Have fun."
Pixie approached Kane and then caressed his hair, which prompted Kane to weave away.
"Ummm, what are you doing?"
"Mmmmmmmmm..."
Pixie only hummed at Kane while smiling before walking away.
"The fuck was that? Did she just patted my head like I'm a dog?"
Pixie gazed back at Kane before stepping the portal.
"Hey! Good luck leveling up! I hope to see you again, newbie!"
Pixie gave a bright smile before stepping to the portal that Kane didn't even have a chance to react. Ryore shook his head.
"What a weird lady."
With that, All 15 members of Xvin's party entered the portal to fight the final boss of the Tower to acquire or to upgrade their jobs. Xvin, Ryore, and Kane were left on the room in front of the giant portal. Xvin reminisced his moments before when he cleared Valian Tower.
"I initially cleared VALIAN TOWER up to its 100th floor. That's when I got the Master Wizard Class. I managed to climb that Tower with the help of my father's money. We hired some of the strongest mercenaries for hire in the game, and we climbed the Tower for the sole purpose of bringing me to the top."
"Master Wizard? I thought you're a Pyromancer?"
"Sometime later, I managed to track down this cult and revived a sun deity. That deity was the one who gave me the Pyromancer class. That was a long time ago. I am glad that I could help these kids acquire their own classes. Maybe one day, they'll also find a secret class of their own."
"Is your Pyromancer a secret class?"
"It was until another Pyromancer class appeared on the Mythical rarity. Now, I heard there was at least a handful of us. Why? Are you also hoping to find one?"
"Yes! Of course! Why would I climb this shit!?"
Xvin and Ryore simultaneously laughed. They knew that Kane only managed to reach the top because of their collective effort. Even without Kane's help, Xvin and Ryore could still get to the top. However, without the GM15 guild's help, Kane could never reach the top. But the next-door only required one person to step in. Xvin asked him one last time.
"Are you sure? You can already escape and run away, and the quest will still be completed. If you proceeded on that door, you would be forced to defeat the boss inside. If you died, you would lose all your progress, and you'll get kicked back to the first floor along with the minus 2 levels penalty."
"Yeah, damn these shitty developers. I just leveled up to 10, and now they'll reduce it back to 8."
"Haha! Why are you blaming them? They literally placed many measures to prevent low-leveled users from reaching this place, like requiring the door to be opened only by someone with 100 STR. You're the one who did something unordinary that's why you reached this place."
"What will I lose aside from the minus 2 levels?"
"Your items that you equipped right now and the quest."
"I already placed my gun back and all my golds at my personal storage box. Can you give me tips?"
"That boss right there had the same moveset as Epicus. This boss was just as big as humans, which means it is harder to hit because he's just small. But his health was much higher than the Epicus. So, basically, he's sturdier than Epicus and also harder to aim. You could defeat him by dodging all the attacks if you observed his sword properly."
"If you're gonna score this tower out of the rest. How difficult is this tower?"
"Among the five towers, Jacob was literally the easiest. Anyone can climb that since the mobs are just from level 20 up to level 50. Not to mention it's only up to floor 25. Then this Wallace Tower is the next since it was up to the 50th Floor. Then Arthur Tower with 75floors and then Valian Tower with 100 floors."
"That's just 4."
"The last one was Axel Tower. No one considered climbing it because the floors are unlimited. They called it Infinity Tower or Tutorial Tower because of that. There is no final boss. The rewards ain't that good either since the monsters were just as weak as those in the Jacob Tower."
"Are you sure? Maybe no one just climbed that Tower."
The Axel Tower, or also called the Infinity Tower or the Tutorial Tower. Is was considered as the easiest Tower and also the shittiest Tower in the Miranda Kingdom.
A lot of people already tried to climb the Tower, but never found the top. Xvin claimed that he also managed to climb the tower up to the 50th floor in just 30 mins because that was how easy and stupid that Tower was. Xvin also said that he had a friend who managed to reach that up to the 100th floor, thinking that it would lead him to the final boss, only to get transferred to the 101st floor.
Aside from the monsters that were as weak as the monsters in Jacob Tower, there were also default summoned statues stationed on every 5 floors of the Tower. These statues were called Familiars and would help the Players clear the room.
Because of those Familiars, the Jacob Tower was perfectly fit for newbies like Kane. Because they could just stand in the corner of the room and let the Familiars kill all the monsters. Because they're just default statues, they're not getting any XP, and all of the XP would be taken by the players.
However, why didn't people exploit this Tactic? Because there was this XP reduction rule in Arcadia. This wasn't the first time that Kane encountered this rule.
Higher difficulty, higher rewards. That was the main motto of the game.
XP reductions would be applied if a player literally fought the same opponents repeatedly in a short amount of time. If a player fought the same opponent frequently, the player would most likely master the timing of that opponent's attack pattern, making it a lot easier for them to defeat that opponent. That was why XP reductions were made.
If was also the same reason why Xvin and Ryore no longer leveled up in their whole run of the Wallace Tower even if they defeated the level 100 Epicus because they already cleared the Tower a lot of times. They only leveled on the Red Gate because it was their first time facing the Heraldian Horrors in the Wallace Tower.
That was another reason why nobody liked climbing the Axel Tower. Its floors were repeated every 25 floors. The opponents that a player would face on the 1st floor would be the same on the 26th and so on. Even if I player chose to climb the Tower continuously without repeating a floor, the XP that the player would gain would still drop to 1 when they reached the 100th floor.
Xvin managed to explain everything to Kane properly, but he was flustered as Kane was interested at something else.
"I have a question about Familiars."
"Go on."
"Does they stay at their default floor? They didn't move with me when I reached the next floor?"
"Wow! That was just too much. They only helped you on the floor, and you wanted more?"
"Aren't they getting bored staying on that floor?"
"No! The heck?!"
Kane smiled as he finally found a way to level up quickly on the Miranda Kingdom. But for now, he was focused on taking the Class Quest. He suddenly stood up and walked away from Xvin and Ryore. The duo noticed him, but they didn't even move their heads. Still, while looking away, Xvin gave Kane a piece of advice.
"Can you see the torches in front of you?"
"Uhhh... yeah?"
In front of Kane and beside the large portal, 15 torches were lit up.
"What are those?"
"If a person entered the portal, another torch will light up. If a person comes out of that room, then their flames will vanish. If a torch was deactivated when no one came out, it only means that the owner of that torch died inside. I'm telling you this because we'll know if you died inside."
Kane understood what he was trying to say. Yet, he still headed to the portal. Seeing that, Xvin lauded Kane's confidence.
"I liked your conviction. I wanna ask you something, do you wanna join the GM15 guild?"
"Do you have some kind of monetary benefits or something?"
"Just say you liked money. Yeah, we do. Around 100,000 Golds yearly for starting members."
Kane was astounded upon hearing that their starting members were getting 100,000 Golds per year. He couldn't even farm for 1,000 Golds.
"Yes! I'm on board. You definitely need someone like me! Uhuh! You saw my skills, right? I'm GM15 material!"
"Come with us after you come out."
"What? Oh, yeah, sure. And if I don't?"
"If you don't, then you'll not GM15 material. Maybe if we'll meet each other again. But you'll come out, right?"
Kane already cleared the Fruit Eye Cave. He even participated in the battle against the Great Titan Nethalion. Believing that, all of Kane's worries suddenly vanished.
"Yes. I'll come out. Definitely. Lastly, have you heard of the Moonwrath Armor? An armor that could manipulate gravity?"
"An armor with that caliber can only be around Epic or above. I have rarely seen any Epic weapon before."
"I see."
Kane took a last glance at the smiling Xvin and Ryore before entering the room. As soon as Kane entered, a torch was ignited while another one was extinguished. Suddenly, a person from the GM15 came out of the portal with a smile on his face.
Xvin suddenly remembered something.
"Shit. I forgot to tell him he could change the name that was showing on top of his head. It seems he wanted to hide it. I forgot he could use aliases. Well, he'll come out anyway."
[You entered a new area – Wallace Tower Throne Room.]
Upon entering, Kane was transported to another dark place with a bridge right in front of him. He crossed the bridge with torches around him being ignited as he walked forward.
Kane could peek at the edge of the bridge. He could see the massive ocean underneath like he was transferred to another dimension instead of reaching the top of the Tower. The bridge brought him to a large floating island in the middle. He stepped away from the bridge and saw a royal chair with a man in black armor, sitting on it.
"Is it you? The man who climbed this Tower with only 1 kills? Are you mocking me?"
Kane took out his sword in response, which made the man in a black armor chuckle. He stood up from his chair and walked forward.
"Fine. A challenger is a challenger."
[Spirit of King Wallace Mavencrown LVL 10]
HP: [20,000/20,000]
Kane was confused upon seeing the stats of the final Boss.
'Level 10? Is this a bug? But... what's with that ridiculous health? 20,000?'
Just like Xvin said, Wallace slammed his sword on the ground like Epicus.
BAM!
Wallace dashed toward Kane, which prompted Kane to dodge to the left, just like what he did with Epicus' attacks. But the smile on Kane's face immediately faded away upon seeing that the blade was directly going at his face despite dodging.
The only reason why Kane managed to dodge all of Epicus' attacks was because of his incredible movement speed. Not because his timing was right.
Unfortunately, King Wallace was known for copying all of his opponents' levels and stats if they were larger than his own. Xvin failed to mention it because Kane was too underleveled for Wallace to copy Kane's stats. It was mostly correct. All of Wallace's stats were all higher than Kane's except for one. Kane's movement speed.
Equipped with the same ridiculous speed, Kane didn't realize that Wallace already sliced through him. In just a few seconds after entering, Kane's torch outside of the door was immediately extinguished.
Xvin and Ryore saw it but didn't say anything. They already knew it would happen. But they hoped that Kane would somehow find a way to win this battle.
Another torch was extinguished, and another person came out. It happened again and again until Pixie also came out. A few more hours, the last torch was extinguished with the last person coming out.
Another set of hours later, the others already went back to their guild while Ryore and Xvin continued waiting. A few moments later, Ryore finally tapped Xvin's shoulder before leaving. One hour after that, Xvin eventually left.
Out of the 128 Paragons that entered the WALLACE TOWER 20 days ago, 127 of them came from the GM15 guild.
Out of 128 people, only 18 remained after their battle against a Red Gate that they entered on the 2nd Floor.
Out of the 18 people who survived the Red Gate, all 18 made it to the top.
Out of the 18 people that made it to the top, 16 people took the Class Quest and faced Wallace.
Out of the 18 people that reached the top, 17 of them came out of the Tower, with 15 of them receiving their newly Upgraded Classes. The identity and status of the remaining person were never known.
[You died]
[Quest failed]
[Your level dropped by 2 levels]
[You are now level 8]