Chapter 417: 15th Floor – It Gets Even Harder

Chapter 417: 15th Floor – It Gets Even Harder

Acid Shot. Acid Shot. I took out another level 4 cubic golem. These things were everywhere. If I wasn’t taking them out, I honestly thought they would begin forming walls to block me in. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about disabling monsters earlier. While it wouldn’t stick for too long, it was more than enough time to get the golden key rod to open up the boss room.

I also noticed the monsters crossing blade traps without activating them. That was annoying. They didn’t avoid blade traps like the monster cats avoided the pit traps. It was a veritable nightmare of fighting and activating the traps ahead of time so I didn’t die.

After getting the golden key rod and unlocking the boss door, I had to sit down to breathe for a long moment. While it had only taken a short time to retrieve the golden key rod and reach the boss room. It had been exhausting both mentally and physically.

One misstep and I would be turned into mincemeat. Still, I was making progress. I rubbed my aching gut. That wasn’t helping matters either. At least having to regenerate my energy forced me to take breaks. Otherwise I would have just kept rushing through the fights as quickly as I could to ascend the tower.

The third version of this floor had been worse, and I didn’t even want to imagine the higher floors. The Astrologer had to be incredibly skilled with a lot of stats to make it so high. It was honestly impressive that he had made it up to the forty ninth floor. While he probably had his Valkyries and help, this place was way too hard.

Even the Divine Empress would have struggled in parts. Well maybe not with her Body stat. She would have just smashed everything in her way. I mean she did handle the pincer attack outside the tower in the level 4 zone. Well once I got the meta-point and maybe freed the Astrologer, we would finish her off no problem.

She was incredibly dangerous, but this constant fighting had been honing my edge for combat. Thank the Almighty System there were no more puzzles. If there were more puzzles, I might have died. Trying to understand System logic was impossible for me. I was never good with people and trying to figure out something inhuman was never going to happen.

I would rather punch, fight, and melt my way to an answer. Perhaps Clarissa could find a psychologist and we could begin putting together a profile about the Almighty System. Try to rule some possibilities out and to work out how it handled various situations.

Probably not that useful, but it would be a good way to pass some time and try to exploit any advantage or knowledge we could get. Whatever the Almighty System was, it wasn’t simple and the reasoning behind this place and this tower was something I had been thinking about a lot in my spare time.

“Any answers?” I asked out loud and there was no response. Well, that was unfortunate but not unexpected. That was the hard part of the tower climb, there was no one to talk to. Just constantly endless fights. I wouldn’t have even minded the Avatar if only to insult her to her face.

I looked at the burnt stump that used to be my left hand. It hurt, a lot. But it was something I just had to endure. My energy was almost back and I forced myself to get to my feet. This tower was exhausting, but I was going to conquer it no matter what.

Better to stick with my stop and go strategy since it was working quite well and gave me a bit of a safety buffer. I got up and stretched to help get my blood moving for the next round of running and gunning. That was what I thought of the tower.

I put on my packs and left the room, racing out into the sixteenth floor. I already knew which way I needed to go as monsters and traps impeded my progress. I managed to activated a saw trap with some spider golems in it.

It was hilarious to watch them get shredded, which also confirmed that the traps were instant death. If they could easily shred a level 4 monster that meant they could easily shred me as well. I raced through the floor, getting the golden key rod.

The pit traps around it were new, but not unexpected. Another reason to keep a full energy tank for situations like this. I raced to the boss room, noting how the null skill areas had been growing. I winced at that. The forty fourth floor, or seventh iteration, would not be fun, that much was for sure. Reaching the boss room, I put in the golden key rod and noted the golems chasing me turn off.

If that changed, it would make things even worse. I needed to focus on conserving energy as much as possible while moving through a floor. That would be a challenge, but if the monsters didn’t shut down or deactivate once the boss door was opened, I would have to immediately go into the boss fight without regenerating my energy.

Something I would need to plan for, just in case. I couldn’t half ass my alpha strikes. That meant I needed to go into the boss fight with at least six to seven thousand energy at the very least. Otherwise the risk would be too great, that I couldn’t kill the boss in a single attack.

That was just too critical for climbing up the floors to not do. I needed that much energy no matter what before I entered the boss room. Time to do a little exploring. I looked for a loop I could exploit near the boss room. Unfortunately, there was no loop.

Even when I backtracked quite a ways, the only loop was with the golden key rod room and the null skill room to the North of it. I made a note of the loop in case it was needed. I couldn’t afford to be caught in a dead end and waste more energy. Golden key rod, loop, and boss room.

I smiled at myself. All my thinking might actually be paying off for once. What else could the tower throw at me to give me a headache? That was the main thing unless it changed the boss room too much where I couldn’t use skills. But that seemed like too much. I don’t know what I would even do in such a fight. Punch a monster to death?

I chuckled at the thought as I made my way back to the boss room. I was not the Divine Empress, or a muscle headed idiot. Punching monsters seemed incredibly stupid, or took a lot more courage than I wanted to dredge up. I was not a melee fighter and I was missing a hand.

Trying to punch a level 5 monster would be a struggle. Especially since the one time I had tried to physically do anything to a level 4 monster, I wasn’t able to. No, physical attacks could be left to other crazy people. I would stick with my skills and skill combinations.