Chapter 39 - Earth Is Changing Fast (4)

My plan to hoard an endless supply of elixirs had failed... but that was fine.

The elixir hadn't disappeared. I could give it to a top-ranked Player later to get on their good side.

Failing that, I could always give it to Choi Jiwon.

I hadn't actually lost anything. My pill was intact, and my Strength stat had increased by a whopping 10 points.

Once you started treating a smaller profit as a loss, there was no end to it.

“Hmm... Next on the list of experiments...”

My initial plan had failed, but I had a Plan B ready: taking advantage of Floor 1's amenities.

Floor 1 could literally become anything and provide anything.

The downside was that anything created here wouldn't last outside Floor 1... but what about something I didn't need to take outside?

“Shaolin Temple's Great Restoration Pill.”

I pictured Shaolin Temple's Great Restoration Pill, the greatest elixir in the martial world, said to increase your internal energy just by swallowing it.

“...”

But no matter how hard I imagined it, nothing appeared in my palm.

I hadn't tried it because I actually expected it to work... but it was still a little disappointing.

Then what about a book instead of an elixir?

“... A secret manual of the Heavenly Demon's Divine Art.”

I imagined the most powerful martial arts manual I knew. The Heavenly Demon always seemed to be the strongest in martial arts novels.

“Oh?!”

An old book appeared in my hand.

This was it... The ultimate martial art, one that would put the world at my feet if I mastered it. A supreme art that could smash the tower and everything else to pieces!

“... What the hell is this?”

But when I actually read it, its contents were good for nothing but kindling.

There was nothing about martial arts, just a whole bunch of supposedly profound insights. Reading it more closely, I realized it was a crude patchwork of passages from web novels I'd read.

“... Does he not do martial arts novels because he's the Christian God?”

This time, I imagined a legendary swordsmanship manual that only direct descendants of the imperial family could study. But like the Heavenly Demon's Divine Art, it was nothing more than a jumble of text.

Right. So there was no freeloading my way to power like this.

“Hmm... This time, put the swordsmanship Choi Jiwon taught me into a book.”

When I imagined Choi Jiwon's swordsmanship, which I knew in relatively fine detail, a proper book appeared this time.

Everything she'd taught me was neatly organized inside. It was so well put together that I thought even a complete novice could learn the basics of the sword from it.

It seemed that when I created things like secret manuals, their contents were based on what I already knew.

Of course, since I already knew it all, I had no need to read the manual. And since I couldn't show it to anyone else, I figured it was completely useless.

“Huh?”

Wait. If that was how it worked, could I...?

“... Berserker's Pill.”

I imagined the pill in my right hand becoming two.

A second Berserker's Pill appeared in my left hand.

“... Aha.”

The restriction against consuming duplicate Unique items was probably a precaution against Floor 1's creation function.

After all, it could create not just things from the real world, but tower items too.

Come to think of it, putting restrictions in place to keep regressors in check didn't make sense. There couldn't possibly be another regressor besides me.

“There are two main possibilities...”

First: I could create any item I'd personally seen at least once.

Second: I could create items I possessed.

“Berserker's Axe.”

But the axe the angel had shown me didn't appear... so it seemed I could probably only copy items I owned.

I'd have to experiment more to figure out the details... but this alone was a significant discovery.

Once I obtained some kind of performance-enhancing drug that granted buffs, I could enter every floor fully buffed.

“Well, that's enough about items...”

My surroundings, which had been modeled on my apartment, began to ripple and gradually transformed into something resembling a white laboratory.

This was the training area I'd imagined.

Since Floor 1 could produce pretty much anything I thought modern technology could manage, I'd designed the space to allow all sorts of practical combat training.

What I needed to do here was simple: practice cutting well, dodging well, and staying cautious at all times.

At first, I'd considered asking outside experts for help, but I soon concluded there was no point.

Since even a graze would make me regress, my fighting style had to be different from everyone else's.

My goal had to be defeating my opponent without taking a single hit.

Besides, my Strength had gone up by a full 10 points.

I couldn't afford to injure myself before anything even happened because I couldn't control my own strength.

“... Whew.”

Time to get started.

After training until I was satisfied, I opened the guidebook for the first time in a while.

I'd only read the beginning and hadn't touched the later sections.

For the past two months, my life had consisted of watching YouTube, playing games, and watching the news while eating fried chicken, pizza, and black bean noodles. I hadn't paid much attention to the tower's rules.

But now I had to climb to Floor 2. It was only sensible to give the rules a thorough read.

I opened the guidebook and flipped through to the section I wanted, “The Tower's Basic Rules.”

3. I Want to Know the Tower's Basic Rules!

The tower is a miracle created through the combined efforts of several archangels! All of us angels believe in humanity's potential. We sincerely hope that you climbers will prove humanity's worth and earn God's approval. From this point onward, you will be challenging the limits of humanity. Sometimes it may be easy, and sometimes it may be difficult. You may even find yourselves having doubts. You might think, ‘Is this really a proper way to judge humanity?’ For those of you with such questions, I will now lay bare the tower's design intentions in detail! And with precision! I'll tell you absolutely everything! First...

“This is seriously long.”

This was easily the longest section in the guidebook. Even skimming through it, the pages seemed endless.

Cutting out the pointless rambling and summarizing the important parts...

1. A different archangel is in charge of every five floors. Accordingly, the atmosphere and stage themes vary somewhat. The angel in charge changes between Floors 1–5, Floors 6–10, and so on.

2. Clearing a floor returns you to Floor 1. However, if multiple floors are connected, you must clear them all before you can return.

3. Some floors, like Floor 1, can be entered at any time.

4. It literally varies from floor to floor, so figure it out and adapt.

That was the gist.

That really was all the essential information. Everything else was just excuses dressed up to sound reasonable. Apparently, whoever had written the guidebook also thought this tower was ridiculously arbitrary.

God had to be incredibly lazy. He wanted to wipe humanity out, but he'd dumped the work of building the thing on the angels.

“... Hmm.”

I pressed the spot between my eyebrows, then read through the guidebook's contents again.

The point worth noting here was that clearing each floor would return me to Floor 1.

Why? Because my regression checkpoint was the moment I entered each floor.

Even if I cleared Floor 2 and returned to Floor 1, regressing would send me back to the beginning of Floor 2.

That meant I had to manage my timeline carefully. It also meant that when I entered Floor 2, I needed to have my entire course of action planned out through the moment I entered Floor 3.

“All right, then...”

My preparations were more or less complete.

It was time to enter Floor 2.

CRUNCH.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek.

Overcoming my aversion to it had been pretty difficult... but after doing it repeatedly, it had become manageable.

Someday, I would need to regress in an emergency. This was the trump card I'd prepared for that moment.

[You have taken damage.]

[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 1.]

* * *

“There we go...”

Right before entering Floor 2, I withdrew every last bit of money in my bank account except what I needed for basic living expenses and put it into crypto. With a whopping tenfold leverage.

The coin I'd invested my entire fortune in was called Mighty Coin. Its price would skyrocket in two months, for a simple reason.

The president of the American Player Association was nicknamed Mighty Michael. The coin would shoot up like crazy simply because it shared that word with his nickname.

It was a truly fucking stupid reason, but apparently that was just how crypto worked, so I decided to accept it.

What mattered was that I could grow my money in the real world.

I didn't urgently need cash right now... but there was no guarantee that would remain true.

When you knew the future, not taking advantage of it would be a crime.

“Physically... I'm fine. Mentally, I'm fine too. And I haven't wasted much time.”

I'd bought the crypto so quickly that barely any time had passed since my regression. This was practically the same as going straight in.

After checking my condition, I imagined a portal to Floor 2.

HUM.

A portal immediately appeared in midair.

“... Shall we?”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the portal.

They said the survival rate was so high... Let's see for myself.

A Word from the Author (Author's Note)

Floor 2...!

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