By the time I stepped out of the alchemy shop, several hours had passed since I logged in.

I raised my left wrist to check the time.

2050-03-18 15:06:45

The weapon shop was on the opposite side of the city, which meant passing the Tower of Babel again.

Finding it was not difficult. No matter where I stood, the tower remained visible above the rooftops, its upper levels disappearing into the clouds.

From a distance, it had looked like a landmark. Up close, the scale became difficult to process.

The base alone consisted of three enormous tiers of white-stone arches, each one large enough to frame an entire building. Everything around it—the shops, houses, carriages, and crowds—looked miniature by comparison.

Strangely, the streets surrounding the tower felt less like the entrance to the most important dungeon in the game and more like a tourist district.

NPC merchants called from open storefronts. Horse-drawn carriages moved slowly between groups of players. Vendors had already set up stalls near the entrance, selling food, souvenirs, rope, torches, and whatever else they believed aspiring adventurers might forget.

The warm stone streets, crowded cafés, and sunlight reflecting from old buildings reminded me of Florence during summer vacation, except considerably more people were carrying swords.

For a moment, I almost forgot I was inside a game.

There were no guards blocking the tower entrance, and no ticket booth.

Naturally, I walked inside.

The nearest arch opened into a broad stone passage. Torches burned along the walls, although they were unnecessary with daylight pouring through the far end.

The passage widened as I followed it inward, eventually opening into the center of the structure.

The passage opened into an enormous Roman colosseum. Rows of stone seating circled a central arena, with broad arches surrounding the outer ring and nothing but open sky above. Despite the tower’s impossible height from outside, there was no enclosed structure rising over the arena. Sunlight fell directly across the stone.

 

Nobody spent long admiring the architecture.

Every player in the arena was staring at the gate.

Two monumental stone pillars rose from the central platform. Each one rested across the shoulders of a kneeling man carved from the same pale stone, their backs bent beneath the weight as though they had supported it for centuries.

Between them stood a doorway nearly seven meters tall.

Its frame was covered in royal-gold ornamentation, with patterns cut so finely that they looked less like decoration and more like writing in an unfamiliar language. The surface inside should have reflected the arena behind me, but instead it contained a slowly turning abyss.

Darkness folded through itself like black liquid beneath glass.

That had to be the entrance to the first dungeon.

Several parties were already walking through it. Some carried newly purchased swords, shields, and simple leather armor. Others had overloaded themselves with packs, bedrolls, cooking pots, and enough supplies to establish a small settlement.

A group of six stopped beside the gate while their leader inspected everyone’s equipment.

“Sword?”

“Got it.”

“Shield?”

“Yep.”

“Food?”

Nobody answered.

The leader looked slowly around the group.

“Food?”

Another long silence followed.

“FOOD?”

A better-equipped party passed them, laughing.

“Noobs.”

Then they stepped into the darkness and disappeared.

I remained near the edge of the arena, watching the gate swallow one group after another.

I wanted to follow them.

The first dungeon was right there. Beyond that doorway waited the reason most people had logged in today.

Then I looked down at my white T-shirt, black sweatpants, and sports shoes.

My hands were empty.

Entering like this would not count as exploration. It would be a donation to the first creature capable of hitting harder than a slime.

The gate was not going anywhere.

Weapon shop first.

It turned out to be only a few blocks farther along the same main street. The moment I entered, however, I realized it probably was not the shop I needed.

Every wall was covered in weapons one would expect from a fantasy game: swords, axes, spears, maces, and daggers. There were katanas, curved blades, oversized two-handed swords, and several designs I could not identify.

Anyone hoping to roleplay as a medieval knight, wandering samurai, or black-clad dual-wielder could probably find what they wanted here.

A display area near the back allowed customers to pose with the largest weapons for screenshots.

The problem was the price.

Nothing on the walls looked remotely beginner-friendly, and every weapon was designed for close combat.

Thinking back, almost everything I had seen other players carrying had been some form of melee weapon.

There had been one exception.

The player with the wrist crossbow.

Perhaps it had come from a hidden quest or a rare drop. Either way, I wanted something with range before entering an unknown area alone.

The shop owner suggested checking a blacksmith in the lower district near the outer wall.

That sounded more promising.

The workshop was far from the polished storefronts and crowded cafés of the central streets. The buildings were smaller there, the roads narrower, and several alleys looked like places where a sensible person would keep a close eye on their pockets.

Apparently, even fantasy cities had undesirable real estate.

Unlike the stores on the main street, the blacksmith was not marked on my map. It took nearly twenty minutes of asking directions and doubling back through similar-looking lanes before I found a small stone building wedged between two larger structures.

There were no display windows or decorative weapons hanging outside.

Only the steady sound of metal striking metal.

Heat met me as soon as I opened the door. Burning coal filled the room with a dry, heavy smell, and tools covered almost every available section of wall. Unfinished blades, bent sheets of metal, and half-completed pieces of armor rested across crowded worktables.

An older man with a thick gray beard stood beside the forge, hammering a glowing piece of metal against an anvil.

He glanced at me for half a second, then returned to his work.

“Welcome!”

A considerably more enthusiastic voice came from the side.

Finally, customer service.

I turned and found another player dressed in simple linen clothes, the kind most people had chosen as casual starter wear. A thick leather apron covered most of them, heavy gloves protected his hands, and soot darkened both forearms.

The rest of him looked completely unsuited to manual labor.

He was tall and lean, with pale skin, a sharp jaw, and black hair arranged in the sort of carefully messy style that had probably taken twenty minutes to create. The longer strands had since been tied back with a strip of leather, while the rest clung to his forehead with sweat.

Dirt marked one cheek, and a spark had burned a small hole through the sleeve of his white starter shirt.

His avatar suggested mysterious overpowered swordsman.

The apron suggested unpaid apprentice.

“You’re a player too?” I asked.

“You bet.”

He pulled off one glove and offered me his hand.

“Kevin. I’m apprenticing here to work on my Blacksmithing skill.”

I shook it.

“You always dress like this when meeting customers?”

Kevin glanced down at the apron. “What? This is professional.”

“I meant the face.”

He grinned.

“Bro, I spent an hour making this avatar. I’m getting value out of it.”

“For combat?”

“For networking.”

He paused.

“And maybe girls.”

“At the forge?”

“You have to start somewhere.”

I looked around the workshop. “You started blacksmithing already?”

“Yeah. I craft in almost every game I play. Everyone else was rushing combat, so I figured I’d try something different.”

Someone eventually had to make the equipment those combat players planned to use.

Before I could ask how the apprenticeship worked, another player entered the shop.

He glanced around for several seconds without attempting to hide his disappointment.

“Which weapon here has the highest DPS?”

Kevin hesitated. “Honestly, man, I have no idea. I just started.”

The player frowned. “Seriously?”

He examined the unfinished blades and cluttered worktables again.

“This place sucks. I’ll go back to the shop on the main street.”

Then he walked out.

Kevin and I looked at each other.

We both laughed.

“You probably need more experience before you can judge the weapons properly,” I said.

“That’s the plan. Right now, I mostly carry things, clean tools, and try not to ruin expensive metal.”

“Was the Blacksmithing skill difficult to unlock?”

“Not really. The old man made me sort tools and work the bellows first. Then he showed me how to flatten a piece of scrap metal.” Kevin held up one gloved hand. “The skill appeared after I finished without ruining it.”

“So it only unlocked once you actually worked the metal.”

“Looks that way.”

That matched everything I had learned so far. Babel did not unlock skills because you selected them from a menu. The system recognized what you had genuinely begun learning.

Crafting looked interesting, but I already had enough systems to investigate.

“Do you make crossbows here?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have many. Someone bought the last one earlier.”

Of course they had.

Probably the player I had seen leaving the tutorial grounds.

“You’ll have to check again tomorrow,” Kevin added.

The old blacksmith looked up when he heard us discussing the crossbow. For a moment, I thought he might finally contribute to the conversation.

Then he returned to hammering.

I tried addressing him directly.

“Do you know when you’ll have another one available?”

He did not respond.

I looked back at Kevin.

“Don’t take it personally. He does that to almost everyone.”

“Then how did you convince him to let you work here?”

Kevin shrugged. “I didn’t. I showed up a few hours ago, asked whether he needed help, and somehow he decided I had a ‘gift’ for blacksmithing.”

“A gift?”

“His words, not mine.”

That sounded like a hidden condition, although Kevin clearly had no idea what he had done to satisfy it.

I thanked him and headed for the exit.

“By the way, the name’s Kevin!” he called after me. “Nice meeting you!”

“You already told me.”

“Making sure you remember!”

I raised one hand without turning around.

“See you around, Kevin.”

Project Babel was proving harder to understand than I had expected. The game offered almost no direct guidance, and asking NPCs only worked when they felt like answering.

I needed somewhere players could obtain reliable information.

The library seemed like the obvious place to start.

Finding it was considerably easier than locating the blacksmith. The Grand Library occupied a massive stone building near the central district, with broad steps leading to several arched entrances. Players moved constantly through its doors, and some emerged carrying stacks of books.

Apparently, I was not the only person who had reached the same conclusion.

A receptionist greeted me when I entered.

“Welcome to the Grand Library. Here you can find almost anything you need.”

“I’m looking for information on monster biology.”

“Second floor. The biology collection is along the eastern wall.”

She pointed toward a wide staircase.

“Thanks.”

A towering white-marble statue stood in the center of the entrance hall. It depicted a giant man kneeling with one hand pressed against the ground while the other reached forward.

A tiny flame rested in his open palm.

Compared with the size of the statue, the flame looked strangely insignificant, but the figure held it as carefully as though it were the most valuable thing in the world.

I studied it briefly before heading upstairs.

The second floor was busier than I expected. One section had attracted so many players that moving between the shelves required turning sideways. Some searched through titles while others sat around long wooden tables, reading with the concentration of students preparing for final exams.

The game had been live for only six hours, and people were already studying.

Honestly, it was impressive.

There were probably hundreds of history and lore books in the building, but I needed practical information first. If I planned to study monsters, I had to understand enough biology to know what I was looking at.

I studied the crowd first.

Some players wandered between shelves without any clear direction, while others repeatedly returned to the same section carrying books filled with anatomical diagrams. A few had gathered around one particular row, comparing titles and pointing out illustrations to one another.

[Assessment XP +10]

Following their attention narrowed the search considerably.

I moved toward the crowded shelves and began comparing titles, summaries, and diagrams visible through open books.

One beginner text carried a faint diamond-shaped outline around its spine.

The Assessment skill had marked it as relevant.

There.

I squeezed through the crowd and pulled it free.

A Beginner’s Guide to Monster Anatomy

It was an ordinary textbook, with no instant-read prompt or convenient transfer of knowledge.

I found an open space at one of the tables and started reading.

The first chapter introduced the basic structures shared by most creatures: skeletal support, muscle groups, organs, joints, and circulatory systems. The examples were less familiar. One diagram showed how a slime protected its core, while another compared the skeletal structures, joint placement, and protected organs of several unfamiliar creatures.

The next chapter focused on examining unfamiliar creatures. It explained how to record visible traits, identify likely weak points, and collect samples without damaging whatever made the specimen unusual.

About half an hour later, a notification appeared.

[Biology XP +1]

Nothing new entered my head. The system was simply recognizing that I understood enough of the subject to begin applying it.

That made considerably more sense than touching a book and instantly becoming a biologist.

I kept one finger between the pages and looked across the crowded floor.

“Now I just need somewhere to examine a specimen.”

“There’s a free laboratory downstairs.”

The voice came from behind me.

I turned.

A young woman stood beside the table holding a stack of books against her chest. The pile leaned far enough to one side that several looked ready to fall.

Light-brown hair rested across her shoulders, and green eyes watched me over the top of the books. She wore a simple white shirt beneath a green cardigan and a long skirt, making her look more prepared for a university lecture than a dungeon.

For a moment, I wondered whether she worked at the library.

Then I focused on her.

A green name tag appeared.

Ambrosia.

A player.

“Oh. Thanks.”

She adjusted the books before the top one could slide free.

“Ambrosia,” I said.

“That’s me.”

She smiled.

“You said you needed a laboratory?”