"Tenno, climb faster, for the love of--"

"I am, you're too loud!"

They spanned the ladder with complete adeptness--showing the wonders of adrenaline accompanied by the glooming fear of death beneath them. Forget slipping off the ladder, if they took too long to climb, they wouldn't get to see the light of day anymore. Neither of them even dared to look beneath them; the increasingly shaking ladder was already enough of an indication.

As they were nearing the open archway, the wind also started to blow stronger. If they didn't remain strongly gripped into the ladder, their bodies would end up getting caught by the strong wind, and that was what happened to Tenno when his hand and feet slipped at the wrong time.

He fell by five steps and almost to his death when Koiya put Tenno's foot on the step above him and Tenno gripped the ladder frame as hard as he could.

Tenno's body was now facing the sky after barely recovering from his fall. With a dreadful look on his face, the height of the Tower only started to register within him. Beneath them, small sections of the gutter below the ladder were retracting into the wall at a quick pace. That short moment of fear made him unable to move.

"Tenno! I'm going to pull you off this ladder if you don't start moving!" Koiya shouted, and his loud voice was enough to render him back to reality. Tenno started to climb back up, this time at a much slower yet more careful pace as the ladder began to shake even more. Luckily, the Floor 2 was only a dozen steps away.

After Tenno finally reached the open archway, he peeked down to see how far Koiya was.

A few steps away from the ledge, the ladder began to shake more violently than before, causing the silver hair to stop moving. Unlike the gutter, the ladder didn't retract in small sections. The braces that held the ladder came off, and the ladder collapsed.

Koiya failed to process the situation as his fists were still gripped by the falling ladder. Tenno reacted quickly and reached for Koiya's wrist, grabbing it to keep him from falling. As for the black-haired boy, his torso was out of the ledge, with only his legs and his other hand supporting him from what seemed to be their fall.

Tenno witnessed the ladders falling, and Koiya only barely managed to survive death.

"TENNO! P-PULL ME UP, PLEASE!" begged Koiya.

"I'm trying...!" Tenno struggled to even speak. "Try to prop yourself up!" He could only keep Koiya from falling with one hand because if his other hand let go of the floor, he would lose his balance and slip off the ledge.

Koiya desperately tried to pull himself up, but with the walls having no other ledge or gap to support himself, he could only dangle helplessly.

"Shit, I can't--!" Tenno's grasp was firm and tight, but he couldn't pull Koiya up. Still, he refused to let go. His hand began to slip from the ledge, as were his legs. They looked at each other's dreaded eyes as if to indicate that they had no other choice anymore. Then, Tenno let go of the ledge and they both fell to their deaths.

Or so Tenno predicted.

"I got you!"

Tenno felt a pair of hands grab his feet from the ledge, and whoever did so effortlessly pulled them up to the Second Floor.

Tenno and Koiya landed harshly on the floor, arms spread, gasping for air as the two collectively thought, *"How did we survive that...?*

He stared at the domed ceiling above them. The glass dome was decorated with stained glass art, telling the story of what seemed to be seven small and colored creatures and a giant shadowed figure with an elongated trunk. Tenno focused on it for a moment before Mari's face peeked from above, looking at him with a raised brow.

"What were you two idiots doing?" Mari asked as she put her arms on her hips. "Here I thought you weren't going to pass the first test,"

"Just barely--thanks for saving us back there," Tenno said as he stood up.

"It was you I saw from a distance, I didn't expect I'd also save the Prince of Shit over 'ere... What a blunder."

"How utterly shameful, to be saved by the likes of your kind..." remarked Koiya, who was currently facing away from them while biting his nail out of pure spite.

Mari proudly smirked, "Heh! I guess you'd have to give me a Favor now, won't you?"

"I'd have to kill myself first before I give you a Favor," Koiya turned around, his face fully red and flustered. "Why are you not asking Tenno?!"

"Because he's my friend! And you're a bitch, so--" Mari shouted before her words got cut off by the same robotic voice from before.

**"The second test is about to begin. Please settle down. The Test Supervisor will begin explaining the rules shortly."**

The entire room went into silence, staring at the raised stage at the center expecting someone to appear. It was only then that Tenno got a proper observation of the domed room. Aside from the stained glass art that provided natural light to the dome, four large and intricately crafted stone pillars held Floor 2, and between each pillar was an open archway that seemingly led to the ground.

Floor 2 was just as spacious as the waiting room on the previous Floor, but something felt off. Tenno knew there were different entrances to the Tower from Floor 1, but if this room was the whole Floor 2, it seemed too *small*. The vast size of the World Tree couldn't compare to the size of this room. Not to mention, there were more people right now than on Floor 1.

"Too small..." Tenno muttered, and Minyu's voice suddenly erupted throughout the room.

"Great observation, but rather obvious, don't you think?!" Minyu said in response to Tenno. He appeared from a poof of cloud at the raised podium at the center of the domed room.

"The Tower of Yggdrasil does not obey all known laws of nature. Here, time runs extremely slow. You could look your current age in the next three years and no one would notice any change. A single floor could range from a small bedroom to a whole continent!"

Murmurs spread across the crowd, and Minyu quickly pointed at some random person from across the room, "That's right, miss!" He smiled devilishly. "An unaging life. Nigh immortality. Simply living in this Tower will grant you those things--a desire that captivated most of you Floor 1 Dwellers to take on the Entry Test, and if you succeed, that too shall be yours!"

"However," Minyu continued speaking, turning around to look at Tenno's direction--or was he looking at him directly? "Only the worthy ones will be granted such a blessing." The purple-hatted man glanced from them afterward.

"I have overstayed my prolonged introduction, I will now introduce you to Valgala. She is one of the Test Officials, and she will explain to you the rules of the Second Test and some important things to know about." Then he leaned forward, as if to say something in a whisper, "Don't tell her I told you this, but Valgala's type of man is one who's taller than her, sweet, cuddly, and most importantly, l--"

A thin strand of light was fired towards Minyu, and he immediately disappeared into another cloud. This time, not even the hat was left in the air as a strong shockwave followed, shaking the interior of the entire Floor. Following the shockwave is an explosion outside one of the open archways, causing everyone to impulsively duck, with some even falling to the floor from the sheer force of the explosion.

On one of the open archways stands a short, silver-haired girl with a blue-raven hairpin. Even from a distance, Tenno could see her furious expression directed at the stage. "Someday, I'm going to kill him and laugh over his dead body," the crazed maniac muttered.

Valgala walked towards the stage and the crowd parted to give her space towards the podium. Not out of respect, but out of fear that they'll end up being on the receiving side of that explosion.

As she stepped foot at the center of the podium, she introduced herself, her voice being projected loud and clear, "I am Valgala, one of the Test Officials. The second Entry Test is called the Test of Hunt, and I shall be explaining it to you before starting."

"This Test will be set on Floor 2's Advanced Environment Replicator. Your goal is to have three Status Bands strapped to your wrist and find any of the seven exits. Failing to do so within the time limit will warrant a disqualification and ineligibility to take the Entry Test in the future."

When Tenno looked at his Status Band, there was a hollow white circle that contrasted the already grey band. He touched it for three seconds, then the band loosened before a small section disappeared into faint light. Without removing it from his wrist for another three seconds, that same section reappeared and secured itself onto his wrist again.

"This test will require you to fight not just other Testers, but monsters lurking in the area as well," she warned. "The Tower itself is riddled with monsters astronomically stronger than the ones you'll face on this Test, but you won't face them with your only sole strength."

Valgala waved her arm to the side, and a cylindrical assemblage of panels lit up from above her, inscribed in a language he couldn't read.

"These panels are produced by the Y-System, and it is Yggdrasil's way of granting you blessings. Being inside the Tower even as Testers, you also have the power to call her blessing." Valgala smiled slightly before ending her explanation, "To begin, you may utter the words, 'Status, Open!''