Chapter 29 The 2nd Floor

2nd Floor of the Tower.

The 2nd Floor of the Tower was vastly different from the 1st Floor of the Tower. Gone were the verdant planes, vibrant forests and lush caves, the blue sky, and vast oceans of the 1st Floor. The average continent has the enviroment of forests, rivers, mountain ranges, and everything else.

Then the 2nd Floor was literal hell.

Though much bigger than the 1st Floor, the entire Floor was an enormous wasteland that served as an eternal battlefield for the Ruler's Quest. For countless years, tens of thousands of people would battle to death in the endless cycle of slaughter.

One this continued over and over, and over and over, till the eternity, as it was the decision of the Asura Tribe, which decided the location of their Slaughter Trial to be on the 2nd Floor. It continued for countless Eras and would continue for countless Eras to come.

On some remote part of the supercontinent battlefield, both Samiel and Yvraine appeared as they were teleported here by the Tower System. Due to the seal that both of them had, they appeared together at the same location. He had to admit that it was a nifty thing to have with them.

The place where they were teleported to were some ruins, and both of them could recognize those ruins, or rather they could recognize the origin of those ruins. The skyscrapers, destroyed buildings, or remains of something that looked like a car meant it was a city's ruins from a relatively developed technological civilization.

Instantly, after they were teleported to the 2nd Floor, both of them received the Quest from the Floor Ruler. Regarding the Quest from the Floor Rulers, they could decide who can take the Quest, such as in this case, where everyone who entered the 2nd Floor, whether it be from the 1st Floor or entered from higher Floors, would receive the Quest.

Meanwhile, Samiel also received the Advancement Quest from Akashic Records. At the same time, Yvraine didn't get Quest from her Goddess this time. Gods were apparently like this; if they don't want, then they won't give out Quest to their followers.

Then the said follower had to search for any other way to climb to higher Floors, but Yvraine told him that there is always a way to climb to the higher floors. However, some are more challenging than others.

Fortunately, the Ruler's Quest wasn't exactly that hard.

[Ruler Quest: Battle Royale

Description: Collect 100 Tokens by killing other participants.

Rewards: Advancement to the 3rd Floor.]

[Advancement Quest: Battle Royale

Description: Collect 10,000 Tokens by killing other participants.

Rewards: Hidden Mission Reveal, Advancement to the 3rd Floor, x1 Fragment of Trishula.]

Samiel looked over the Quests, and when he saw that for Quest from the Tower System, he needed to kill 10,000 other participants, his heart nearly stopped. 10,000 was a huge number of people, not that he got any remorse about killing such a high number of people; for him, be it one, ten, hundred, thousand, or million didn't really matter.

In the great scheme of things, even if trillions were killed by someone, it was inconsequential. In the great game, the only thing that mattered was a single thing, one single thing.

Power.

Either you have it or don't.

Those who have power can do anything they wish, and those who don't will just shout about morality to heal their own worthless and powerless egos, about how those with power are heartless monsters.

Really an amusing circle.

Samiel saw it many times on Earth, where the civilization was developed relatively well, though that depended on the point of view. And powerful countries or corporations could do anything they wished, and social justice warriors could just scream... probably from the jealousy that they don't have that kind of power.

When he thought about the rewards from the Quests, they were equally appealing, not to mention this Floor had another Hidden Mission, and he got a fragment of Trishula.

From what he remembered from Earth, Trishula was a divine weapon belonging to Shiva, God of Destruction, so the completion of this Quest was too appealing to him at this moment. In the myths he knew of, Shiva was one of the strongest Gods of the Hindu Pantheon, if not strongest and was God of Destruction.

If he obtained a fragment of such a weapon from a Quest, it meant that he could get more Quest with such rewards in the future.

And most importantly, it meant that Akashic Records had stored them, so the original owner must engineer it for them to be set as a reward for the Quests. Though, that left Samiel with a disturbing question, how did Trishula get fragmented, and how did it end in the custody of the Akashic Records.

? Too many questions to which he didn't have an answer, but at the same time, he was too weak to even contemplate about it.

In the end, he returned to reality and started formulating his next steps.

Additionally, with his Undead Army, it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Given some time and some scheming, collecting such a number could be done realistically speaking. Especially if they were both of them working on it. As it proved on the 1st Floor, they worked together very well.

After he explained the situation to Yvraine, she frowned as 10,000 was a huge number indeed, but after some planning, it should be doable; she knew of people who killed even more on this Trial, far more.

"Why is this floor so bloody?"

Questioned Samiel as they found a safe place to hide in the underground space of one of the ruined buildings. Because the entire 2nd Floor was basically a Slaughter Trial, there were fights and battles everywhere on every step, so the entire place was very dangerous. Especially for those who just entered from the 1st Floor or other places, because these people are often preyed on.

"The 2nd Floor is under the Rule of Asura Tribe, a very mighty species. Asuras are bloodthirsty species and battle race from birth; since they came to rule this Floor, Asura King created Trials where other participants slaughtered each other. This continued for a very long time, and even the entirety of the Second Floor has the reputation of being a Slaughter Trial."

She explained before making a slight pause.

"Many scholars are speculating that they have some hidden purpose from doing so, as practically untold millions were killed here and all of their blood, corpses, Energy, and Souls have been collected by Asuras..."

The first thought Samiel had when he heard that was that they were trying to resurrect someone or something. Samiel as an active worshipper of the Outer Gods, despite his low level, was aware of a few methods of resurrection through something similar, as this was one of the favorite methods of Devils, Daemons, and other unscrupulous individuals.

If not, they wouldn't be harvesting all of this for countless Eras, and by amount and length, they were probably trying to resurrect some very powerful Transcendent, or they are doing some forbidden things to increase their strength.

But because the Asura Tribe was very powerful on the mortal plane, not to mention they had powerful Transcendental Backing, nobody really cared about what they were doing. So alas, as the ancient wise saying goes, those with power could do as they pleased.

"For now, we should remain here and reach Steel-Tier. You should have enough Mana Crystals or whatever for that, right?"

Asked Samiel, as Yvraine nodded. In truth, she had countless of them because she took them from her home. Some people would find their staches empty because, unaware to anyone, Yvraine stole a lot of things from her father about the comments about how tomboyish she was.

For now, reaching the Steel-Tier was most important, as he could obtain more power and, more importantly, increase his Undead Army by leaps and bounds.

In truth, he has already started thinking about other methods how to increase his Mental Strength.

Usually, when Necromancer hit the limit of Undeads, he could control with his Mental Strength, which was increased only by Leveling Up naturally; there was a method of creating Liches and controlling the Liches who would be controlling Lesser Undead. This was a pretty common method, though sometimes dangerous because there were some cases when even Lich broke from the Necromancer's control and killed the Necromancer.

After that, both of them went to absorb Mana from the Mana Crystals, which was one of the basic methods of Leveling Up. Yvraine was already Level 10 of the Iron-Tier, so for her, the next step would be Mana Steelification, where she would purify her Mana and increase its quality and density, so it would resemble liquid Steel when used.

Samiel also took out several Steel-Tier Mana Crystals and started draining Mana from them at an alarming rate, so much that soon he used more than half of his Mana Crystals to reach Level 10 of the Iron-Tier, as he heard the notification from the Akashic Records.

[Your Level has been Increased.]

[Your Level has been Increased.]

[You have reached Level 10 of Iron-Tier.]

[To reach Steel-Tier, you need to purify your Mana.]

Now that he reached this point, Samiel continued to drain Mana from the Mana Crystals, as he took all of them out, including the Bronze-Tier Mana Crystals, and started the process where he would purify his Mana to reach the standard of the Steel Mana, as his Mana gained enough color of the Steel soon and was denser than before.

[Your Level has been Increased.]

[You have reached Steel-Tier.]