Chapter 69: Save?! That's a Bug, Right?

Apparently, no one knew much about pets, especially one as special as the godly Rat. It was quite surprising how fast Josh had reached a point where the Rankers were already unable to give him reliable information. It had already happened on Floor 11 while the others were on Floor~45.

What did this all mean? For Josh, it simply meant to keep accomplishing as many Feats as possible. How amazing would the rewards be later on?! Probably proportional to the difficulty.

Now, Floor 12 was supposed to have lots of "white sticky stuff everywhere." Umm, phrasing? At the Tower entrance, there were a few youngsters assembled, it looked like some sort of event. They were shouting something about the Tower being too dangerous again, most of them being ignored.

Josh couldn't help but scoff while looking at his remaining lifespan: 35 days. For him, the Tower was all he had, his hopes toward the future and his only chance.

In fact, a young man even tried to stop him: "Brother, don't go in the Tower, it's been acting weird recently! The missions aren't what they used to be! There hasn't been much damage yet but it's bound to happen! Can you imagine all the Tower guides becoming useless suddenly?!"

Oh? So this time it wasn't just a hypocritical ideological group? Well, Josh hadn't expected this to happen so soon but it made sense. After all, he had seen firsthand the Alter Tower Protocol learn at lightning speed.

Josh had a theory, Tower Protocols were probably designed to make things challenging for the Climbers. In the Alter Tower, he had been the only Climber. Since he had crushed everything extremely quickly its master had redesigned every challenge.

But what about the entire world? There were bound to be many idiots out there. They would die stupidly in there and trick the Tower into believing its challenges were perfectly fine. The difficulty itself was probably changing but specifically, the Tower Protocol was slowly learning and getting rid of the easy to exploit loopholes.

"Thanks for telling me." Josh smiled as he kept walking toward the Tower.

"Wait, if you heard me why are you still heading in there?!" The young had been ignored by the others that thought he was crazy, for once he had someone actually conversing with him. "I'm serious! I have data to prove it!"

Josh turned toward him. "Oh, I believe you. In fact, let me tell you something. The Tower is constantly evolving. What you are alarmed about is only the beginning, just the very tip of the iceberg. Soon there will be traps after traps hidden in the missions."

"H-how do you know?" The man couldn't believe his ears. Many around were throwing weird glances at Josh for this one statement, but the young man could feel that it was completely true.

"I just know. It's quite simple, no matter how much the Tower improves all one needs to do is evolve even faster. Easy, am I right?" On that note, Josh teleported inside leaving a baffled youngster behind.

What Josh didn't realize was that this one sentence of his resonated very profoundly with the man. He trusted Josh on that one. Why? He himself didn't know. Perhaps because of how confident Josh had been? That is when he heard a passerby.

"That one guy was a nut-job, wasn't he? What kind of conspiracy theory is that? The Tower evolving? What a joke!"

What? Did it really sound like such a thing? But then the young man observed his surroundings. He looked at the few people that had assembled for him, all close friends. They wanted to warn people about the Tower, they wanted to make a difference in the world. If their warnings could save a few they would be satisfied.

But said friends were getting ignored, scoffed at, ridiculed even. That's when he finally understood. It wasn't that they themselves didn't make sense it was that the people feared it being true. They preferred to ignore their warnings and condemn them as ridiculous fools.

The young man gestured to his friends. "Alright, everyone. We're leaving."

"B-but!"

"Every second we spend here is a second we aren't Climbing. If people don't want to listen then it's their business. We tried to warn them." He said with a steady voice filled with resolve.

He could see the disappointed expression of his friends. Meanwhile, there were voices calling them kids and telling them to go back home to suck on their mothers' tits.

Suck on their mothers' tits, was it? That single very simple moment would be the impetus to the rise of quite possibly one of the most powerful and ridiculous factions of them all.

Thus, another cynic appeared in this trashy world.

****

Josh couldn't help but think about that youth he had met. He had a good heart for sure. How would he end up? Would he soon despair from seeing how dark society could be? Would he give up?

Thinking didn't stop Josh from analyzing his surroundings. He seemed to be in some very dark forest. There was no wind, there was no sound, there was no life to be found, and yet…

[Mission: Save 5 Captives]

Josh had to save people. How laughable was that? So far it had been kill, steal, kidnap and also collect monsters' body parts (aka kill). Now the Tower wanted him to actually do some good? Had the gods turned a new leaf and developed a conscience? Perhaps it was the Tower Protocol glitching.

Some part of Josh couldn't help but laugh thinking about the forums that had been dissing him and how their "amazing" clear strategies would soon turn useless. Ah, but wouldn't that mean that his own Navi would become worthless too?! Nice waste of 20k Credits…or was it?

He quickly summoned it. "Say, Navi, where do you get your information from exactly?"

<This model uses the latest Ouroboros Network. It scours every guide available online and filters it to provide accurate information>

"Can you somehow get the information that was filtered out for me?"

<No, but it is possible to change the network. Would you like this model to henceforth connect to a new network?>

"Not for now. Also, can you analyze what happens in real-time in the Tower and later determine the difference between my clear strategies and the ones widely accepted?"

<Yes, would you like this model to begin the recording process now?>

"Sure."

Now, this opened a world of possibilities. It would be possible to compile information with a private network with potentially more accuracy than the Ouroboros network itself. How? Josh had no clue but he had an inkling it would be possible.

The difference between his own experiences and what was found on the network would allow Josh to know the information he could potentially sell. Once he was done with a Floor, he didn't have much of a reason to come back to it anyway.

If Josh could get Credits from the scraps, why not? All this would probably be hard to accomplish and he'd need the help of an expert for sure, but still.

"Alright, from now on I want you to flag every information gotten from Ouroboros as questionable. Instead, record what is happening here as valid information, can you do that?"

<This model shall comply.>

This may be a bit drastic as a measure, but Josh wanted to easily be able to differentiate between both. After all, most of the current information on it would soon be trash.

He kept progressing. It reminded him of the Floor with the vines, there was no enemy whatsoever to be seen. But then Josh stopped abruptly. He had seen something that gave him goosebumps.

About a centimeter away from his face, there was a transparent wall that Josh had almost run into. Even then he could barely faintly distinguish it. It was a huge cobweb!

Only now did he understand what Hegel had meant. Josh grabbed a stick and stuck it inside the deadly trap. He could see it vibrate as he did so. He remained on extremely high alert, carefully observing his surroundings.

All until. *Bash!* A big creature soon fell from Heaven but was slapped away by Josh's stick. It had sneakily approached him trying to devour his head.

The monster was about two meters large, so damn hairy, kept moving its 8 long legs in anger, and its chelicerae ("jaws") clearly hungering for human flesh. It was noticeably wounded and had landed in its web, painting it blue with its dripping blood.

<Hairy Spider Lv12>

It eyed Josh carefully and thus began a staring contest between man and monster. Spiders were hunters that would prey on the defenseless, their specialty being to ambush with their webs. It seems that specific one was no exception. After a dozen minutes, Josh finally got bored and turned around to leave.

That is when he felt the creature's anger as it silently leaped at him. It had waited for him to lower his guard to attack like lightning!

*LEAP!*

*BASH*

Josh didn't even bother facing it as he flicked his stick over his shoulder. This time he had been ready. The spider was instantly reduced to bloody pulp that stuck to the forest ground. Josh couldn't help but scoff, it was still just a dumb monster. The Tower still had lots of evolving to do if it wanted to potentially trip him.

Josh then came near the giant web once more. He spotted the stick he had thrown at it and tried dislodging it by pulling. But, it proved to be extremely troublesome. That is when the previously easygoing Josh turned serious.

This could be extremely problematic. How was he to fight amongst webs so sticky and sturdy?! He couldn't help but shiver as he imagined himself getting stuck to one.

Also, what if a spider threw a web directly at him?! Josh gravely headed deeper…