Chapter 3
Seventh floor.
The inside of a frog's stomach is surprisingly warm.
[Defeat the Giant Frog.]
I wondered what it would feel like to be swallowed by some huge monster, so when its tongue shot out, I deliberately let it wrap around me and drag me in. It slowly swallowed me whole in one gulp.
The inside was all fleshy walls, and it was surprisingly warm and made me drowsy, so I thought I might just fall asleep like this...
'It's cramped.'
-Boom!!!
Feeling stifled, I set myself on fire and blew the monster up from the inside with a bang, then came out.
Now that I think about it, it was hard to breathe properly, so I should stop letting frogs eat me. More than anything, the sticky secretions are annoying.
[You have acquired the skill 'Explosion'!]
[Explosion: A fire and explosion skill. Causes a powerful fire-based explosion. Be careful, as the caster may get caught in it and take damage!]
Did that come out as a skill when I blew up the frog earlier? Whatever.
I should move up to the next floor. I heard anything stuck to me disappears when I go up a floor.
Upon reaching the eighth floor, I found a plain covered in short grass this time.
Before my eyes stood a huge cow, scraping its front hoof against the ground as if ready to charge at any moment.
[Defeat the Mad Rhino.]
So it's just a mad cow. I wonder if I can eat beef.
...No, forget it. What would I know about butchering?
[Moooooooo!!!]
The huge cow bellowed and charged, then drove a pair of large, sharp horns into my stomach. It felt kind of hot.
Up close, it's drooling. Does it have mad cow disease? Can't eat it like this.
"If it has mad cow disease, I guess I'll have to burn it, even if that's a waste."
They say most viruses die if you blast them with something really hot.
While I was hanging in the air, impaled on the horns, I stuck two knives made of fire into the back of the mad cow's neck. It was engulfed in flames and burned to a crisp along with me.
Of course, I survived. Just me.
[You have acquired the skill 'Mana Manipulation'!]
[Mana Manipulation: You can consume mana to strengthen your body or precisely control specific skills. Try out various methods.]
"Next."
Ninth floor. Is this a forest?
[Defeat five Big Spiders.]
And then I saw them.
Spiders that looked bigger than the insects in Australia, surrounding me and slowly closing in...
"Explosion."
-KABOOM!!!
I poured 800 mana into it at once, powering up Explosion, and set it off. It immediately blasted the spiders to pieces along with the surrounding forest.
Sorry, nature...
But human-sized spiders are a bit much.
[You have acquired the skill 'Gravity Resistance'!]
[Gravity Resistance: The gravity of the stars can no longer bind you.]
What kind of joke is that? Does the Tower read online forums too?
"Let's go to the tenth floor..."
I think I'd heard the difficulty jumps sharply from the tenth floor onward, but who cares.
That's what I thought, too, once.
"Huh? What?!"
I wondered what was going on when I suddenly felt myself float and fall. There was no ground.
No, that's not it. I was just in the air.
I hurriedly spread my wings and hovered in the air. A creature that looked like a dragon, but had its forelegs fused with its wings and was much smaller than a dragon, was flying toward me.
-Kieeeek!!
[Defeat the Wyvern.]
"Wow, is this for real?"
As I moved, something like a fireball whizzed right past me. It can use Fireball, too.
Maybe because of Gravity Resistance, I felt no air pressure when I dodged to the side.
On a whim, I flapped my wings a little harder, and my altitude shot up as the wyvern fell farther away.
Maybe the fireballs blocked its view, because the wyvern couldn't find me right away.
Then I went straight into a dive. I built up speed and rammed into it, and the wyvern's body bent as it began to fall with me.
-Kraaaagh!!
Boom! Boom!! Startled to find me, the wyvern fired one fireball after another at me.
If I weren't a physical-type Awakened, I would've died ages ago at this point, but unfortunately...
"I can't die in the ordinary way anymore."
I shoved my arm straight into its mouth, and whether by instinct or not, it immediately bit it clean off. But did the wyvern realize...
that what it had bitten off and swallowed was a bomb?
"Explosion."
-Booooom!!!
When I activated the skill, the wyvern's head and body separated in an explosion, its head swelling up from the neck.
Since it didn't explode into pieces like the frog, I guess a wyvern's body is tough enough to withstand this much?
Hovering in the air with my wings, I opened and closed my regenerated arm, watching the wyvern's corpse fall beyond the clouds, its neck and body parting ways.
[You have been granted 10 additional stat points.]
[You have acquired the skill 'Fire Immunity'.]
[You have acquired the skill 'Pain Transfer'.]
[You have acquired the skill 'Mana Absorption'.]
[You have acquired the unique item 'Phoenix Ring'.]
[You have acquired the unique item 'Phoenix Necklace'.]
"Oh... I got all kinds of stuff."
On top of the five points I normally got as a floor-clear reward, I got another 10 points, and three skills were added. Equipment-looking items had somehow appeared on my body.
[Fire Immunity: Grants very high resistance to fire-type attacks. It does not block them completely.]
[Mana Absorption: Absorbs nearby mana and makes it your own. It is not limited to mana in the atmosphere.]
[Pain Transfer: You can transfer the pain caused by the damage you've suffered so far to another being. Pain surprisingly lingers for a long time.]
[Phoenix Necklace]
Grade: Unique
Bound equipment.
A gift for a young member of your kind.
All stats +10
Mana +20
Intelligence +10
[Phoenix Ring]
Grade: Unique
Bound equipment.
A gift for a young member of your kind.
All stats +10
Mana +20
Intelligence +10
'What is this?'
I can accept Fire Immunity since I'm a phoenix, but what are Mana Absorption and Pain Transfer?
The tenth-floor rewards were so generous, I wondered if this was really okay.
It was a little unsettling that Mana Absorption could absorb more than just the mana in the atmosphere, and did Pain Transfer mean I could pass the pain from all the damage I'd taken so far to someone else? A mental attack?
'More than anything, the necklace and ring.'
I didn't know for sure, but I had a feeling they'd fetch a high price if I put them up for sale.
But they were bound equipment, so I couldn't sell them, and I liked the line about them being gifts for a young member of my kind. Could the original Phoenix exist in the Seoul Tower?
If so, I was kind of curious. What would the original Phoenix inside the Tower look like?
"Exit."
With those words, my body floated, and I returned to the Tower entrance.
Along with my pouch of magic stones and the monster drops.
They were a wild boar's tusk, a Giant Frog's hind leg, the Mad Rhino's broken horn, a clump of Big Spider webbing, and the wyvern's scales and fangs.
What's a frog's hind leg for? Does anyone eat that?
Thinking I should stop by the exchange counter, I spread my wings and took off into the sky.
Maybe thanks to Gravity Resistance, even though I was flying fast, the wind didn't press down on my body.
I stopped by the exchange counter at the Management Bureau, and the result was...
"1.5 million won?"
Wondering what was going on, I chose to have it deposited into my account. I got a new card, too. That was more than enough to pay my hospital bill.
Still, over a million won? Could it have been the wyvern's magic stone and drops? I remembered that it had been unusually large compared to the other magic stones.
First, I went to the hospital and paid my bill.
The reason there was only a hospital bill was that all my injuries had completely disappeared when I Awakened, apparently.
That didn't mean hospitals had nothing to do, though. Apparently, ordinary Awakened people climbing the lowest floors sometimes came to the hospital.
"Yaaawn~"
I saw a girl with a pair of large horns sitting on a bench and yawning.
The scales on her face made her look like she had a special class. Who was she? I felt like I'd seen her on TV.
Well... It wasn't my concern.
...
I had nothing else to do, so maybe I should climb.
"A tenth-floor climber?"
"Yes. According to the information registered with the Management Bureau, they seem to be a special-class Awakened, but we don't know the details of their abilities yet..."
"I see... Yaaawn~"
The black-haired, horned woman talking with a man in equipment yawned and smacked her dry lips.
The man seemed displeased by her languid attitude, and called to her again.
"Chairwoman. This isn't the time to be taking it easy."
"Why are you making such a fuss? It's not like they're a terrorist."
"But you know that among Awakened people with special classes, some of them cause major incidents in society-"
"I know. I know. You think they're dangerous again, don't you?"
"That's..."
"Besides, there's no need to worry. The special-class Awakened in Korea are just a bunch of weirdos. There haven't been any scandals or anything, right?"
Just as she said, unlike special-class Awakened in other countries, the ones in Korea hadn't caused any major incidents.
Some just liked socializing and acted like social butterflies, while others barely climbed because they had to help out at their mom and dad's store despite being Awakened. Others just stirred up trouble online.
Or they were simply laid-back and slacking off.
"If you're that worried, I'll meet them myself and check. That work?"
"If you would..."
[Defeat the Flame Ent.]
A tree monster that clearly seemed resistant to fire appeared.
But...
"Explosion."
-Boom!!!
Looks like it doesn't have any resistance to explosions.
[You have acquired the skill 'Explosion Resistance'.]
What the hell. If you were going to give it to me as a reward, you should've given it to that tree monster from the start.