Chapter 514

 

The first floor was just about getting the kills, only twenty of them. Climbers could take as long as they wanted, but because doing so was rather easy, most passed the first floor in days once they had learnt how to conjure the equivalent of a ranged attack – or utilized whatever ranged attack they had purchased. The second floor increased the difficulty by forcing the Climbers to journey away from their starting point, to hunt and fight the flying monsters. Mixed in were a series of land-based hazards, smaller reptiles that struck from ambush while lurking on the cavern walls or leapt from low-hanging bushes to tear at legs. It was harder, and a few of the Climbers – mostly those who chose to go alone – fell during this point.

For Arthur and his team, it was but a walk in a park, with the group acquiring and bringing the stones and tails to the exit point with ease. There, an occasional final test might appear or not – a much larger version of the ambush reptile; a creature which looked like a salamander. Unlike the smaller brethren though, the boss of the second floor had an added attack method, a caustic spit.

To Arthur, the second floor boss and it’s tendency to retreat if chased and the way it forced Climbers to contend with the ranged attacks was actually a blessing. Especially when one took into account that the third floor was entirely about such monsters and contending with them, with the ranged flyers now taking on a a harassing role. A half-dozen such creatures had to be found, killed and gutted for their stones and venom sack in their mouths before one could pass to the fourth floor.

Here, those who utilized guns found their problems compounded a little, especially the shotgun users. The big blasts and the hydrostatic shock of the shells impacting the body could destroy the fragile venom sacks, forcing the Climbers to hunt for more than necessary numbers.

Not that Arthur – or any of his friends – were content to end a round with minimal numbers, though they also rarely spent too much more time. While they did their best to improve whatever techniques they could, the truth was that the low-end Beginner beast stones were not particularly valuable to the team. Their intent was to spend most of their time on the sixth floor, though the ease of hunting did lead them to spend more time than necessary in the beginning.

Fourth and fifth floors were ever increasing variations, ranged creatures that fired spikes, or that required high-accuracy to destroy obstacles so that they could move ahead – the exploding spike-trap plant obstacle course that blew up while one was close was particularly annoying. To pass it, one had to shoot a plant, run through the surroundings, exploding them in sequence and with good timing so that the poisoned spikes did not injure oneself. All while hunting for the bouncing rabbit-like predators that also launched their own attacks, often at the oval spike trap plants or the Climbers.

At least, that was the way most were meant to deal with that floor. The experienced Climbers had their own methods. Uswah slunk through the shadows like a ghost, never once triggering a single of the traps, able to stalk and kill the rabbit-like monsters with her shadow arms. Jan utilized her flame aura, pouring it to the maximum and burning down the surroundings and the plants, such that they were unable to regenerate and leaving the monsters exposed to her javelin throws.

Meanwhile, Mel and Arthur’s just wandered through the fields, utilizing Steel Skin or their equivalent, ignoring the attacks that arrived and hunting down the monsters. The scratches the thorn left behind failed to deliver sufficient poison into their bodies that it mattered, especially not for Arthur. He even tested a few by piercing his arm at a safe distance, breaking it down with Accelerated Healing to see if he might improve his skill further, only to be left severely disappointed.

If not for the fact that being stabbed by the thorns was highly unpleasant, he would not even have bothered with his Steel Skin. He ended up deciding to use it as training, anyway; and kept moving on through the floor.

The sixth floor was a combination of all the messes, from traps and obstacles to flying hazards and a boss monster. It was, as Rick gloated, a target rich environment – and one that each of the Climbers had to handle by themselves.

No more outside help, since they were all placed on individualized floating platforms.

Or should have been left by themselves, except the Malaysian hunters all had their own methods of traversing ground, from Rick’s gunslinger slide to Arthur’s more versatile Cloud Steps. Everyone took to bouncing from platform to platform, racking up boss kills and finding their friends much to the consternation of the Bhutanese Climbers.

Of course, their complaints fell on deaf ears. Beyond tone and some curse words that Arthur was fast learning, the Bhutanese Climbers knew better than to complain. After all, the more experienced Climbers could just as easily kill them as any others.

Nor were there any attempts on Arthur’s life, a fact that was grateful for. Rick, on the other hand, managed to annoy another Climber enough that he had been attacked mid-slide between platforms in the air. The subsequent example he made of the other, by shooting him in both thighs and then leaving him to be eaten by the crawling vine that hoisted him up and slowly dissolved his body was disgusting, but effective.

After spending three days doing their very best to clear as many of the platforms of the bosses as they could and collect the larger than normal sized beast stones, Arthur finally left the Tower. If he had speedrun the thing, he probably could have completed everything within a day. Perhaps even faster – the fastest speedrunners, often from other countries, registered in the five to six hour range. Then again, those Climbers were often close to ranking up to an Intermediate Tower stage but had chosen to stay at the lower levels for now, refusing to progress in fear of their lives.

For such individuals, it was better to be a big fish in a small pond. Arthur had once thought he might be like that himself, really, eventually. Someone who ran only Beginner Towers until his eventual death, perhaps extending himself to try an Intermediate Tower if he thought it possible.

Now, though…

Well.

Now he was planning for an Intermediate Tower within the year, even if he had only mentioned it briefly to his team. The needs of the Clan were wide and varied, but they could not – would not – be safe till they had at least one Intermediate Climber in their midst.

Even then, the values of safety here were very wide, with it mostly meaning that the Clan would survive without him and the general riff-raff and government would have to stop trying to cause mundane problems. They would, in the end, basically graduate to Climber-specific political problems.

Which was a lovely thought… not.