10 – M-field troubles

Julian pushed himself up from the ground with the help of his sword, stumbling away from the corpse of the creature. He looked at Cal, who was slumped against the rock of the wall, and shook his head with his mouth still open.

“This,” his eyes were bloodshot, “was fucking insane.”

“Yeah,” Cal said gasping, “we need to level up more.”

Julian threw his hands up. “Level up more? Dude, you realize how much effort and risk went into gaining some measly 800 runes?”

“Still less risk than killing people, though.”

“But also less reward.” Julian shot back.

“I’m not killing anyone, Julian. If you want to do it, do it. But I won’t help you.” Cal said.

“No, no, you’re right. This was like a third of a level after all.” Julian conceded.

“Yeah. If we are more careful and learn the patterns better, we can farm these with ease. Your parry ability is very strong, for instance.”

He was right, Julian knew. Parry the beast twice and he could crit it, couple that with the barrage of artillery coming from Cal’s spells and they could farm these weird overweight spiders with absolute ease. Killing people was inherently more dangerous for a slew of reasons, and definitely unethical. Not that he cared about that, but others did and he knew that would bring trouble.

“Hopefully we don’t waste too much time exploring before we find another monster.” Julian teased.

“Why?” Cal asked, “Exploring is fun and you can find items.”

“Like dried meat?” Julian laughed.

“We haven’t explored shit yet.” Cal replied.

“True, but it still feels like wasted time. People have already begun to overtake us.” Julian said, deciding to express his concerns regarding the tower.

Cal made an unconcerned face. “So what? Yes, the ladder system rewards the first 100 people who make it out of the tower with pretty hefty bonuses, but are you sure you would be able to access them?”

Julian shook his head. “Not the ladder, nope. Are there other benefits?”

Cal tapped his head. “You get noticed by recruiters and guilds and sects and whatnot.”

“You don’t seem very excited about that prospect.”

“I’m not. Fuck the sects, fuck all that nonsense politics.” Cal’s breath grew short. “Why don’t we take our time to explore the floors? The system puts all kinds of useful stuff hidden around but most people just walk past it! Then they end up in a sect, or recruited in this or that army, and they die. They die not even knowing what the heck they were fighting for. If we take our time to explore the tower, by the time we leave we are going to be powerful enough and equipped well enough that nobody will be able to order us around or take advantage of us.”

Julian seemed sold. “At this point I don’t see an argument for rushing to the top, I guess. Is there any downside to staying in the tower too long? Apart from what you already said.”

“No. On the contrary. I have seen that this tower is very scarcely populated, which means that even if we take it slow we're going to find many items.” Cal said.

“Are all towers the same?”

“No: some are bigger while others are smaller.” Cal looked at the far away distance with unfocused eyes for a moment. “This one is one of the small ones, but usually the smaller ones are better for farming because there are a lot of items while there's just a small amount of people.”

“Alright.” Julian resumed walking and approached the slain monster, “you seem to know your stuff. The first thing I need is a storage ring.”

“Cool, you know about storage rings. You can purchase them in the system shop, although I recommend buying them at an outpost shop from a trading guild.”

“Need I remind you that I don't have the system shop?” Julian said jokingly.

“Oh.” Cal’s face darkened in the gloom of the tunnel. “Want me to buy it for you?”

“Yes please.” Julian said.

“Alright,” he nodded. “Next time we reach an outpost… if you manage to not slaughter everyone first, I'll try to buy you a ring.”

“Two rings.” Julian interrupted him.

“Why?” He asked.

Julian shrugged. “Safety precautions.”

“Ok got it. On a side note, how do we get past this huge monster that's occupying the whole tunnel?”

“Uh,” Julian studied the creature for a moment. “Wait,” he exclaimed. “I just remembered! I can use a skill on it, let me try.”

He approached the slain monster and looked at his skill list. He read the description for Crystal Cores. Ok, he thought, plunge my hand into a slain monster. Easy.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he activated the skill. His hand almost moved on its own, making a fist and plunging deep into the still warm flesh of the monster. That's when the help of the skill ended though, and he had to do the rest. He began to rummage through the insides of the creature, searching for anything that could be a crystal. He found a small something, hard and cold, and grabbed it then pulled out his hand and examined what he got.

Meanwhile the monster vanished without a trace.

“That was easy”, Cal said.

Julian nodded. “Even got this,” he said holding the crystal up. He stared at it, concentrating on it, and his muscles tensed as he struggled to make something happen without success. “But I can’t seem to be able to use it. Maybe I need to do it at a fire?”

“That’s a cultivation crystal,” Cal said. He was impressed, and curious. He had only seen such things from afar and didn’t know exactly how they were supposed to be used. His brothers used them when they meditated, he told Julian, explaining what he knew. “You should be able to increase your attributes with them. Try to meditate at a fire next time you light one up.”

“Yeah sure. Let’s go.”

They kept exploring the tunnel. After a while they run into a section that was completely dark, and had to look for the light switches again. Yet again they found a set of three light switches and Julian, like last time, switched them all on. He had no idea what happened with the first two switches that didn't work, for it was always the third one that lit the half broken and flickering lights on, and he was curious.

After a few minutes of walking they began to hear a worrying sound coming from somewhere off to the side, inside the walls beyond the rock. As they kept going, the sound became stronger and stronger, making the whole floor and walls vibrate.

Julian approached the wall, which was shaking visibly and losing pieces of rock and dust that fell to the ground in small heaps. He pressed his ear to the wall, confirming his suspicion that the sound was coming from somewhere deep inside the mountain. It was when he came upon a reinforced steel door that he had the confirmation that there was something, maybe some sort of machine behind the door, and that the machine or whatever it was was responsible for the noise and the vibrations.

He tried to open the door but it was closed shut. He asked Cal if he had any spells he could use to force the door open, but the response was negative. Cal explained that he only had air type spells, useless in this situation. There was no lock on the door nor was there a handle or anything that could suggest that the door would open from the outside, so they decided to ignore it for now and keep going.

The vibration grew fainter and the tunnel was once again stable. There was a little worry in the back of Julian’s mind that the tunnel might collapse behind them, but he did his best to ignore it. After a few more minutes of walking they came across a large room, half hidden in the dark where the light from the corridor didn’t reach. They could see a metal winding staircase in the middle, and glass panes on the far end reflected the light of the neon tubes outside. There was a wooden table to one side of the staircase and metal machines on the other, beneath three flags. They were folded, but even hidden as they were they didn’t seem like any flag from Earth.

Once again there were three switches inside a small metal box, and three sets of cables ran out of it and up the concrete wall. Julian immediately flicked the third switch, and the lights came on. He didn’t touch the other two this time, instead choosing to follow the cables up the wall with his gaze. The one coming from the light switch reached the neon lights, as he expected, extending down where the hanging lights lit the conference table.

The other two disappeared into the two side walls. While Julian was examining the electrical equipment, Cal toured the room. He briefly touched the machines, then went to the table where he noticed several stacks of paper lying in front of the different office chairs all around it. Every stack had different stuff printed on it, going from lengthy paragraphs of seemingly gibberish to complex diagrams and designs. There was one that caught his attention.

“M-field reversal?” he read out loud.

Julian turned around with a sudden motion. His face was that of someone who had seen a ghost, white and with eyes so wide they looked like they were about to fly out of their socket.

“What did you say?” he asked with panicked concern, the words coming fast between the shaking breath.