Chapter 423: 45th Floor – The Road Upwards

Chapter 423: 45th Floor – The Road Upwards

I woke up in pain and groggy. I got out a flask of water and drank some and rinsed out my mouth. With only so many more floors to go, hanging onto supplies was not a big a deal anymore. Better to use them up and have less weight to carry.

My left foot hurt, my left stub hurt, and my gut was killing me. All that combined to a headache that was throbbing. I could manage, before, but now it was literally hell. “I refuse to give up,” I muttered.

Getting my packs on and stretching a bit helped slightly but not much. I stood up and hopped on my right foot. Alright, time to clear as many floors as possible before I took a long nap again. Hopefully at least three.

I kicked off the ground with my right foot, sailing through the one way barrier. There was a null skill zone on the outer edge of the floor, but it wasn’t a big deal. I turned South and made my way to the first room even as the level 4 monsters began to spawn.

From my experience on the earlier floors, the golden key rod could be in any of the three small rooms on this floor surrounded by monster spawners. The key to was to just check them all out in order. Even with the pillar layout, I wasn’t worried about getting lost. This floor wasn’t a maze.

I stayed in the South East corner of the floor for a minute to draw the monsters towards me and then I raced past them where there was no null skill floor to get to the room. A pit trap, Air Burst. Air Burst. I recovered and activated the crush trap before rushing into the small, enclosed room.

It seemed that this floor was favoring me today since I found the golden key rod right away instead of having to check the other two small rooms. With the first step completed, I rushed North and slightly East to get to the boss room, making sure to check for traps along the way.

I ran across two pit traps and a crush trap. The pit traps were a new variation on this floor, but thankfully the gaps were only one tunnel unit wide. That meant I could leap over them without having to spend energy.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Reaching the boss door, I didn’t hesitate and put the golden key rod in. Blade traps around the edge, then a pit trap, then a null skill area, with only the very middle area of the boss room possibly solid. I activated the blade trap before rushing in.

There was no good way to get by it like the saw trap. The blades extended too far outwards and getting caught meant a death sentence. The Power Prism boss spawned as I confirmed there were no pit traps in the center of the room and that the null skill area was actually solid flooring.

After the last floor, there would be no rushing bosses like I had done previously. With my checks of the flooring done, it was a simple boss battle. I had fought this boss before, and a good annihilation attack up close wiped it out. Honestly it was a bit anti-climatic, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Finding the way to the boss room wasn’t that hard either. Another illusion wall into the passage outside of it and I found the door. I chose to wait before I put the golden key rod in. If there was a monster passage for the level 4 monsters, into the boss room, then I wanted to wipe them out first.

While it would only give me a couple minutes or so, I would take it. I hadn’t wasted energy on the traps, so I had some hope of attempting an alpha strike or something close enough to such an attack that I didn’t want to let go of the possibility.

The floating prisms came and I activated the blade trap, slicing them apart. Honestly the monsters were so stupid sometimes and this would make a great place to grind up points. Just sit here all day and night, activate the trap, collect points. While there was a bit of dodging involved as the monsters got close, it honestly wasn’t that much.

Pick a trap closer to the spawners and the grind would be incredible. I would be looking at 20 level 4 monsters per quarter of minute, or close enough. That meant 80 level 4 monsters per minute, or 4,800 monsters per hour. Since each point crystal was worth 3,600 points, that was a total of 17,280,000 points per hour. In 16 hours a person could grind up over a quarter of a billion points.

It was honestly an insane amount, but the problem was getting it all out of the tower. As I learned from the heist, after a certain point, it was the sheer volume of point crystals that became an issue. One would need carts and carts. Even then one would have to enter the boss rooms with said carts to bring the point crystals out.

By the time a person got strong enough to just one shot the bosses and have an entourage pulling carts, it just wasn’t worthwhile. If I had a way to cash in points anywhere, then it would be an insane grind. Get a team of four people, and then dodge and activate the trap on this floor, over and over. Cash in the points on the spot and become insanely rich.

I hadn’t found any limit on the spawners, but I hadn’t really tested them. I would just move on rather than fighting the monsters pointlessly or disable them. Still, it was a possible way to grind up the points at an insane rate of speed if I had a way to carry or cash in all the points.

While my stats were good, they weren’t good enough in my mind. I needed more to easily be able to clear these towers. Once I cleared this one, I would clear the others and rake in the meta-points. Even if they were limited in some way, I didn’t mind. Once I got the first one, I would be quite happy.

With the monsters dead from the trap, I put the golden key rod into the doorway for the boss room. It swung open and I noted the four spawners, the energy traps around the outside, and the null skill flooring in the middle portions. I maneuvered quickly through the energy trap by the doorway and by the time I cleared it, the Super Cat had spawned along with four lesser cat monsters.

Air Burst. I used the skill to quickly move in on the monster and it leapt back onto the large area of null skill flooring. Annoying, but not unexpected. The monsters didn’t use skills while on this type of floor either, so I could close the distance without worrying about getting burned up.

The Super Cat dodged to the center of the room launched fire at me, I dodged out of the way and pursued it. The problem was I couldn’t get close to the boss and use my skills at the same time. This was going to be another hard fight.