[Level Up]
"Yeahhh!"
Just as Kane expected, since he was the only person in the room, all of the XP fell into his hands despite him not damaging the wolves at all.
'Now, let's wake up the sleeping beauty wannabe at the top of this Tower.'
The wolves tried to pounce at Kane over and over again. He dodged all of them with his incredible movement speed. After 10 minutes of entering floor 2, Kane managed to clear it with ease.
[Level Up]
Upon clearing the Floor, Kane immediately stood up in front of the exit. Using the same method, Kane managed to put the familiar in the same place as he did on the 1st Floor using the goblin scroll.
However, Kane was worried as he only has a few scrolls. Still, he turned around and pushed the familiar to Floor 3 with his Ice and Dash combo. Before leaving, he hoarded the room for minerals and other resources.
Upon reaching the 3rd Floor, Kane did the same thing. But this time, he found a cheaper way to gather the Familiars at the edge of the room without the use of goblins. He ran straight at the other end of the room, where the exit would spawn, and stayed there. All of the mobs swarmed at him, which prompted the other Familiars to follow.
After two hours, Kane finally reached the 5th Floor. Kane now had possessed two giant level 50 familiars at his side. Clearing the rooms became much faster. However, correctly facing them to the exit and pushing them to the next Floor took time.
After another hour, Kane finally reached the 10th Floor. This time, he got 3 familiars on his side. But this was a Boss room. Kane remembered how Vulcan one-shotted his Boss.
For this room, Kane used many goblin scrolls and Dash and Ice scrolls to push the familiars to the center of the room. He placed the three of them encircling the Boss. After preparing, Kane finally stepped on the pedestal.
[Bozumin, the River Monster LVL 30]
HP: [?/?]
SMACK!
[You have slain Bozumin, the River Monster LVL 30]
[Level Up]
But immediately after it appeared, the three familiars squashed him by smashing their 3 gigantic hammers. Kane couldn't help but feel proud that he also defeated Bozumin in just seconds, just like Vulcan.
"Did you see that Vulcan?! Huehuehue! You're not that special! I can also do that!"
However, looking through his scrolls, Kane realized that he couldn't reach the Tower in this run. This forced him to leave the Tower and log out.
Kane slept for exactly 48 minutes until Miss Sun Mi saw him and kicked him in the face. Because of the lack of sleep, Kane took a break on that day. The next day, after his shift, Kane immediately went back to Arcadia. He spawned back at Axel Tower Floor 10's waiting room. But it was only him that was teleported to the waiting room and not the familiars.
"So, I really had to do this in one run."
Kane went back to the town square and finally bought a set of equipment using the materials he mined from the 2nd Floor up to the 10th Floor. This time, he bought a lot of Dash, Ice, and Lesser Goblin Scrolls than his first attempt. But a player noticed him.
"Hey, I saw you yesterday too. What are you doing with those scrolls?"
Kane looked at the well-equipped player that asked him.
"I'm using it to level up."
"Leveling up? With scrolls?"
"Yup."
"What level are you?"
"19."
The player slowly backed away and never faced Kane again.
Kane had to be wary about whatever he was gonna say. If people find him suspicious, then other people might also do what he was doing. But in all honesty, the exploit that he saw was not that hard to figure out. The only problem why no one did that is that no one is actually interested in Axel Tower.
Before, it was being swarmed by players as they thought it had a top. But someone actually managed to climb it up to 100 or even up to 200 floors. But it was still not the top. The monsters were repeated every 25 levels, and the loot was getting lesser and lesser as they climb up.
After doing the same method in and out of the Tower, Kane could now climb up to the 20th Floor in just a span of a few hours. Eventually, Kane easily defeated the Half-Human Half-Bird Boss, the Harpy, with his 5 Familiars' help.
He repeated that process for the next few days until he finally reached the 100th Floor. Following the rule of Axel Tower, the Boss of the 100th Floor was the same Harpy that Kane faced on the 25th Floor. Except that this time the Harpy's stats were amplified. However, no matter how much enhanced the monsters were, they were no match against five Familiars.
Because Kane needed to go back and forth to sell materials and buy scrolls, he eventually became famous in Miranda's Town Square. He was called as the idiot who tried to climb the Axel Tower.
"Oh, look, he's here again!"
"Hey, bro! What Floor are you on?"
"Hey, dumbass! Just keep on climbing!"
"Someone already climbed that shit, and he reached level 300 and found something!"
What the man was saying suddenly piqued Kane's and other people's interest. Seeing that they all started staring at him, the man retracted his statement.
"Hahaha! Nah, it was a joke. Hahaha!"
Some players got annoyed that they started leaving, including Kane.
'Hehehe, look at these other players believing that idiot. Only idiots would get fooled by that.'
Kane continued his adventures inside Axel Tower regardless of what that man said. However, for some reason, his expression became grin upon reaching the 301st Floor and found nothing.
"The fuck? So, there's really nothing here?!"
At this point, everything was bad. The XP that he was getting from the floors dropped down to 1. The rewards that he received were not that abundant anymore, unlike the first time he entered the Tower.
In just an hour, Kane managed to reach the 25th Floor.
In another hour, Kane managed to reach the 50th Floor.
Another hour has passed, Kane managed to reach the 100th Floor.
Because of his speed, a notification appeared on his screen.
[New Title Achieved: Speedrunner]
'What do we have here?'
[Speedrunner]
[Effects: Your stats will increase for an hour every time you cleared a dungeon room. The stat increase depends on how fast it was cleared. Can be stacked. Timer resets per room upon clearing.]
"Hmph! I thought it was some kind of clue that would help me how to escape this climbing maze."
Little by little, Kane was slowly losing his mind. He was thinking that he might've been wasting time all along, and the top never really existed. However, he already climbed high enough to give up.
After an hour, Kane managed to reach the 500th Floor, but his inventory is becoming scarce. During his raid on the 500th Floor, he already managed to get all 101 familiars on his sides. But it also required 101 dash scrolls to push them to the next Floor.
Knowing that he'll run out of supplies at some point, Kane sacrificed some of his familiars by leaving them behind.
Two hours later, Kane eventually reached the 800th Floor with only 40 familiars on his side. He was both exhausted physically and mentally. He sat down on the Floor, thinking about what will he do. Should he give up or not?
He thought that if the top Floor really doesn't exist and the Tower was really infinite, then Kane was just obviously wasting his time. But if he quit now, then all the time that he spent climbing will be wasted.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!! FUCCCKKKKKKKKK!!"
Kane removed his VR goggles and took a nap. He left his laptop and VR set plugged in while he working at Chickenfighter. After his shift, he went back to the 800th Floor, and since he never logged out, the Familiars were still beside him.
After 5 hours, Kane finally reached floor 1000.
"This is it! THIS! IS! IT! WAHAHAHAHA!!"
The hopeful Kane entered the room, as he could feel it! He could finally feel it! The top was just right in front of him! He entered the portal, and a white light shimmered at his face.
But he just faced the Harpy Boss once again.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!! Just kill that bitchhhhhh!"
The attack damage of the Harpy was amplified enough that it could one-hit Kane. However, Kane has already memorized its moves after dealing with it for more than a hundred times. Together with his familiars, Kane defeated the Harpy once again.
Defeat killing it, he still felt defeated. He dropped to the ground and looked at the ceiling.
"What the fuck am I doing? All this for nothing?"
Suddenly, the ground started to shake. Kane quickly stood up and looked around restlessly.
"THIS IS IT! THIS! IS! ITTTTT!"
The portal to the next Floor opened.
"Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! This is itttt!!"
Kane pushed his last 16 familiars to the next room. He stood up in front of the gate and took a deep breath.
"Now, I had enough of you, Axel. You fucking stressed me this much! I'm coming for you!"
Kane stepped forward and entered the portal.
[You cleared Axel Tower Floor 1000]
[You entered a new area – Axel Tower Floor 1001]
"Aaaahhhh! Shit!"
Kane couldn't help but to just scream as he spotted the same set of wolves way back in the First Floor. After clearing the room, Kane sat on the Floor on contemplated his life.
"Why am I doing this again? Ahh... for Joshua's motherfucking non-existent Moonwrath armor that no one fucking knows!!!!"
Kane became silent. He was too tired to speak. He closed his eyes to rest.
"I'm gonna log out now."
But another stupid portal opened. Kane just stared at it for a few seconds, thinking that it could be another fake portal.
"Ugh! Another bullshit portal."
Kane took a small rock on the Floor and dented one side of it.
"If it was the dented side, then I'll log out. If it was the shinier side, then I'm going to that portal."
Kane hurled the stone upward like a coin in a coin toss. It fell down, and the dented part came on the top. Kane smiled.
"Finally. It's time to end this bullshit. Log out!"
But he didn't log out. He stood up, pushed the familiars once again, and entered the portal.
"Maybe this is it!! This is it!!"
But upon entering, he faced the same type of monsters as he faced on the 2nd Floor.
"AAAAAHHHH!!! FUCK IT!! DAMN YOU DEVS!! WHOEVER MADE THIS GAME IS SHIT!! YOU ASSFUCKING CEOS!! DID YOU HAVE FUN TOYING WITH ME?! HUH!?! FUCK YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WHOEVER FOUNDED THIS GAME!!"
Still, Kane cleared the room. He was totally unsure of what to do now. But then he just decided on something.
"Ugh! Let's just die then. Let's just die until I lose all of these scrolls and my HP."
Kane wasn't even interested anymore in climbing the Tower and just wanted to give up. He, along with his Familiars, entered the next room with a gloomy face.
[You cleared Axel Tower Floor 1002]
[You entered a new area – Axel Tower Throne Room]