Chapter 461

It said something about the Kuching Tower that it had a little bit of a storyline, of what happened. On the first floor, the Climbers bothered the orang utan humanoids, tearing away their shrines and altars. They would then take them back and utilize them in the Town center after returning the items to the administrators as part of the Floor Quest.

Use of the altars – three of them per party – would transport them into the next floor.

That was where the consequences of their actions played out. The first of the ghosts – the hantu – that had given the Tower its nickname came into play. There, they would have to do battle, fighting the creatures away, making sure they could finish them before they drained an individual of all their energy.

The basic hantu were ghostly images of the orang utan to start, flickering blobs that sometimes – if they managed to drain the Climbers sufficiently – growing into physical form. For Arthur and his team, they were no more difficult to deal with than the floor below – if anything, they were simpler to kill.

The danger was in their numbers and the drain on their Energy that both killing and ignoring them resulted in. Funnily enough, Arthur changed his mind about the kind of residence he would form on the next floors, altering it slightly from the usual ‘residence’ option to that of a rentable dormitory and inn.

After all, with the Guardian aspect in play, the Clan building was perfectly safe from the creatures – unlike nearly every other location except another Clan building. This meant that Climbers were willing to pay for a good night’s sleep, as switching out watches and fighting off floating blobs of ghostly light could be exhausting.

For Arthur, all that was secondary really. The biggest quest for this floor was the acquisition of the creature's drops - not monster shards, but a special dust. It was intensely annoying, since if you ever had to pick up dust with your barehands, it was not the simplest thing in the world. Especially in the middle of a forest. Even if the grey-sparkling dust fell to the ground in a heap, it still required quite a bit of sweeping and later on; filtering via specially purchased sieves to just have the dust.

Necessary, of course, for the next portion of the Floor Quest and the ultimate Tower Test at the top, where you had to bring - or buy - a bunch of dust for the ritual above.

Rather than pay exorbitant fees from those above, most people just ground out the fights here; not just getting enough dust for the transfer to the next floor but the level above.

Most people. Not Arthur.

At their insistence, he was stuck in the Tower itself, not just dealing with people who came in to rest; not just verifying the Thorned Lotus member who he was intending to make the floor boss; but also to increase his levels and work on the next Tower technique he had purchased.

The team had pooled whatever resources they had after clearing the first floor to make sure he got first dibs on a new technique, pointing out that he needed to survive above all others. And, being in a Tower that wasn't as popular due to its nature; it also meant that there were techniques on offer that were not generally known or utilized.

A bonus, as far as Arthur was concerned.

There were a few types of techniques that were different here, the first being those that focused on their current problems - the ghosts. They were a number of attacks and defense techniques that worked on a different level of reality it seemed, such that they were particularly powerful against the ghosts or semi-solid creatures; but not as effective against humans. On the other hand, these techniques - whose form were just as common as other techniques like Energy Darts, whips, imbuing items or strikes, etc. - also could bypass physical armour to some extent.

So there was a definite trade-off, and a couple of the team - and a few of their new recruits - were leaning heavily in that region. Surprisingly - or perhaps not - Rick had picked up a technique on the first floor by throwing money at the problem until others had given them sufficient contribution points. Now, he was out rampaging with his ghostly bullets and having the time of his very frightened life.

It had certainly been tempting for Arthur to purchase such a technique himself, and he personally felt that the Clan should purchase such a technique and distribute the instructions to those below, thus saving the entire Clan a lot of money. Of course, the usual problem of recording such information in a manner that transferred the information properly was in-play; but given enough time, it should be possible.

That was on the list of 'things to do' and the new recruits had already, to some extent, started on the project, combining their own notes together to start the basics of the technique manual.

For all that, it was not high on Arthur's own list of things to acquire. Not when the other specialty of the Tower was sitting right there. It was based on the animistic beliefs of the people of Sabah, but twisted significantly. As he understood it, most Climbers accepted it for what it was - a weird, warped view on a belief system - rather than take offense; though there were, as was the human condition, a few particularly aggravated individuals.

Much like the One Godders or True Faithers in the West, who targeted anyone utilizing any of the techniques that made one seem like an angel or another pagan 'god'; or the Islamic variants in the Middle East. Thankfully, Malaysia had few enough of those individuals, and even fewer such techniques showing up in the KL Tower itself; so it was less of a concern.

On the other hand, the techniques in the Kuching Tower ranged quite far, drawing from the spirit of everyday objects and animals to give the individual a significant boost. While a lot of it was just local flavor to the same technique - like this Tower's variant of Energy Dart, 'Brilliant Swallow Strike' that shaped the dart into a swallow; but still had the same basic formation utilizing Refined Energy. Slightly more complex in its creation from what Arthur understood but able to shift in flight a little even at the basic, unmodified level.

Not particularly useful, if interesting in the academic way.

No, Arthur was more interested in the way the systems interacted with his Great Sage series of boosts. While the Heavenly Sage itself had multiple variations, imbuing his body to increase his strength on a short-term basis; the techniques here had a variation that allowed you to permanently increase a body by flowing the 'spirit' into the cultivator. It did not require further upkeep, being a flat boost instead.

While physical strength was one option, there were more esoteric bonuses involved too. Something that most cultivation techniques did not provide much help with. As much as the idea of a cultivation technique to give a user a ‘Parallel Mind’ or ‘Split Focus’ or ‘Eidetic Memory’, none of those were actually available – or, when found or practiced – never lived up to their hype.

This was more the area of traits, but even then; they were not solutions. His own multi-tasking trait allowed him to split his focus a little better while fighting, such that he could consider one aspect of work dispassionately while conducting a semi-routine action in the other. Like a sewer who could talk while sewing, or a driver who had no problem listening to an audiobook while driving. Multi-tasking just helped make one particular action smoother.

It made studying a little easier, he had found; but surprisingly not as much as he had hoped. He’d heard from others and read up on the forum that things like Eidetic Memory were the same – they improved the memory; but it was not full perfect recall.

Not at least at the lower levels of Mind.

Techniques that supplemented such traits were generally rare, and were meant to boost things for a short period. Slowing down – or speeding up – the mind so that you could fight better, be calmer. In this case, the spirit based techniques in Kuching side-stepped that, giving a permanent boost.

No surprise then, that Arthur had chosen to study one such technique. He just wished it had a better name.

 

Book Spirit of Diligent Study

Boosts the Mind’s natural ability to comprehend and retain information, when provided to it in a manual, book or scroll format. Base understanding of the technique sees an increase of 1 Mind attribute points, to a maximum of 5 as communion with the spirit and understanding of the technique is increased.

Cost: Special – user must sacrifice a minimum of eight hours of study time to the spirt every week.