Climbing the Ranks (Climbing the Ranks #2)

Arthur finished binding his wounds, his backpack splayed out beside him. Movement hurt, everything from the damaged disc in his lower back to the numerous and significant cuts all across his body making him wince. That he was doing a mostly slipshod job of wrapping his wounds did not escape the Tower climber, mostly because his healing technique would eventually clot up the wounds and bring him to full health.

If the Tower gave him enough time. As it was, it did not seem to mind his delay in the liminal space between Tower floors. About the only thing it seemed particularly upset with Arthur about was how he continued to ignore the pressure on his mind coming from the notifications it wanted to push to him.

Of course, he had a good reason for that.

“Can’t be reading, if I’m bleeding...” Arthur said, automatically attempting to rhyme. It was a silly little thing that he did, a mental tic that kept his mind from worrying about things he could not control, like how the rest of his team had done. For that matter, he kind of liked the challenge. On long days outside the Tower, running errands and working odd jobs, filling his head with silly patter kept him sane when going over forms or when information from Tower wikis no longer kept his interest.

Now he was in the Tower, after years of preparation. He had even reached the second floor, though it had taken him longer than he’d have liked. Still, there was no timetable that he had to hit for the outside world. There might be a few people he might wish to visit—the batch of fellow students under his master that had gone ahead of him—but that was it.

Another breath, and Arthur pushed himself to pack his backpack again. Movements were slow, the weird omni-directional light of the liminal space throwing his spatial judgment off a little. If not for the fact that the walls and ceiling were just a tad differently coloured, he might have been truly disoriented.

End of the day though, all that hesitating and stalling had to end.

“Time to look at the kind of book? Rook? Mook?” Arthur trailed off, shaking his head. He was not doing well with the rhyming right now. He knew the loss of blood was part of it. Energy was being drained constantly from his core as his body tried to heal him.

Best get this over with now, then start cultivating and healing.
Just then, golden lines of text appeared in his mind’s eye.

First floor final test completed.
Results are being graded.
Please wait...
Tests have been graded.
Would you like to review your results now?

Arthur blinked, then grinned. Yes, he definitely would want to see his results.

First Floor Final Test
Type: Gauntlet
Time Taken: 00:07:09
Number of Enemies Defeated: 17
Bonus: Alpha Jenglot Defeated
Overall Grade: B+

“B! B!” Arthur leapt to his feet, then collapsed back, clutching his chest with a wince. “I’m never living that down.”

Never mind what his sifu would think if the man ever learned about the horrible grade. If someone like Jan or Mel—or worse, the Chin family—heard he’d done so badly, he would have no mien at all. How could he dare show his face, with a grade like this.

Of course, a small portion of him—the one that had grown up watching Western television—knew that such expectations were a little warped. Not everyone could get an A, especially if they were grading on a curve. Someone, somewhere, had to get a B. Or a C or D. Probably not a fail. In the Tower, after all, a fail likely meant death and there was no point in grading that.

In fact, that thought actually cheered Arthur up. If this entire grading system was just grading survivors, then the grade was actually better than it looked. After all, he was being graded against survivors and not the entire Tower population that had tried the first floor.

Grim and a little morbid, but he would take it.

Release Date: 1. November 2024

Pages: 770

Genre: Cultivation Fantasy

eBook ISBN: 9781778551727

Language: English

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