Chapter 3 The Tower At Last (I)

The Tower, 1st Floor.

When Samiel opened his eyes, he didn't see the modern city, high-rise buildings, and smog in the sky, but lush green lands, filled with high grass and trees. Nowhere were the lights of the megacities that illuminated dark sky night, even from kilometers away, or endless armies of cars and other transportation devices.

The enviroment on the Earth was pretty fucked up, destroyed in other waves of industrialization and the greed of wealthy elites. As technology developed at a faster rate, the one who suffered most was the nature of the planet.

Only a few places on the Earth were untouched by human hands, and those were usually extremely dangerous or reserved for those with power.

Even then, Samiel managed to visit a few of those places to escape from the enormous megacities and metropolises. It was like comparing two different worlds that were next to each other.

[Welcome to the Tower.]

The first thing he saw or heard upon awakening in the new world was the voice of the Akashic Records when he opened his eyes.

[Scanning the participant.]

[Scanning in progress.]

[Mortal Samiel Zentaur has been identified to have established a connection with the Akashic Records.]

[Tower System is connecting Mortal Samiel Zentaur directly to the System Core.]

[Mortal Samiel Zentaur has obtained the right to choose the Climbing Method of the Tower.]

Samiel read several messages from the Akashic Records as he read them. Now that he got into the Tower, as a being connected to the Akashic Records, he was immediately connected to the Tower's System.

In the Tower, there were several methods on how to advance to the Higher Floors; each one came with some pros and cons, and benefits or generally bad things.

The 1st one was to complete Quest directly given by the Tower itself. However, that was possible only when someone had achieved Legendary Tier and entered the Tower as Legendary, thus being connected to the Akashic Records from the start.

This method was the best one, as one completed the mission directly given by the Akashic Records, and rewards usually obtained were precious for further Class Advancement or Level Advancement. Sometimes for more challenging Quests, one could obtain even Artifacts, Treasures, or any other Valuable Items. Of course, this method had plenty of restrictions, as even this wasn't just benefits.

The 2nd one was to complete Quests assigned to Tower Guardians; this method was usually tricky, as Tower Guardians were powerful and reclusive Transcendents who showed only in dire circumstances or when something big happened. This method also bore second-best rewards after Quest has provided directly by the Tower.

The 3rd one was to obtain Quest from one of the Transcendent Factions and complete it. This method was utilized by mortal factions backed by their Transcendent backers. Like Pantheons gave Quests to their mortal servants in the mortal part of the Tower. Rewards may be some or none, mainly depending on the faction that issued the Quest and many other circumstances. Of course, if the Transcendent is mean and cheap, then you got shit and just advance to another floor.

The 4th method was the emergency Quest from the Tower or Tower Guardians. This apparently happened only in critical situations, like when some enemy invaded the Tower Floor, or another similar situation occurred. These cases were very rare, and have happened only a few times since the existence of the Tower.

And finally, the 5th method, which was used by the majority of people who climbed the Tower, was the Quest issued by the Floor Ruler; these Quests were shit, didn't give any rewards aside from opening the path to a higher floor and were very difficult. Though there was a hidden secret to this, and that was the Ruler could also issue an individual Quest with a generous reward.

This was a common method utilized by the strongest Factions in the Tower under the Transcendent Level. Not surprisingly, strong factions would use this to strengthen themselves even more, especially those with Transcendent backing.

Also, if the Floor didn't have a Ruler, then Quest would be automatically generated by the Tower with the same standard as the previous Ruler did. Not all Floors had Rulers, as Legendary Tier experts heavily wanted the position of a Floor Ruler, so they fought for every single one or assassinated one another.

Alas, most of the people who entered the Tower didn't really have the direct backing of Transcendents or didn't catch the eye of Guardians. Most importantly, Legendaries who entered from the outside were scarce.

Even if some entered from another world, they were usually too old at the end of their lifespans and would die sooner or later. Obviously, this was not absolute, and certain exceptions existed even to this rule. However, those were applicable only to those people originating from very strong worlds in the Cosmos.

That was because the enviroment for Professionals was much better in the Tower compared to the rest of the Cosmos. Thus everybody who had that opportunity would enter the Tower without a second thought to pursue higher levels of strength and power.

And there was the last but also the most commonly used method in many cases, and that was to find natural pathways between the Floors and use them to ascend the Tower. In the Tower, all floors were interconnected and had so-called natural pathways between them, connecting them each.

This method was also pretty common, but also not, as finding natural pathways between the floors were exceptionally rare, and most importantly, the paths are constantly changing and usually appear in danger zones on the floors.

The method of ascending through the natural paths between the floors was usually utilized by strong people who could enter those danger zones and not be killed immediately after they entered the place. That required power, not something Samiel had at the moment.