“I’ll just mix the words so the ones I’ll have to write are much shorter than doing the same word repeatedly.”


    [Yes]


    “Though it would be bad, like a very unsightly Morse Code… eh… fuck it. It will make my life so much easier and it’s a waste of time to plan them. Hahaha!”


    ***


    Callan opened his eyes and immediately curved his lips up. He sighed and sighed, again and again.


    “I hate having a lot of stamina, it just makes me into a better slave.”


    [Welcome]


    “Yeah, I’m awake now.” Callan sighed one last time and tried to stand up with his hands. He failed miserably, fueled by his laziness, and fell on his face.


    “Ow.” His nose hit a sharp crack on the tiles. It didn’t bleed, but it did hurt. “Resistance my ass, it should be called skin level. Actually, never mind, it’s right.”


    Callan stood up, scaling one of his rocks. “Well, it’s finished. You can tell me like… umm, what the fourth floor is. Because my head was ripped at the third and the fourth, I’ll definitely lose all my body.”


    Looking at the walls of stone, Mirai started. While Callan hurried to get a small stone to write the translated word.


    [Climb The Tower] [Welcome]


    Callan looked around his board of words. “S”.


    [Start The Floor] [Bye]


    “N”


    [Bye] [Bye]


    “O. Hmm, Sno… Snow?” Callan asked.


    [Yes]


    “Oh God, I will die. I will freeze to death, I knew it. The pattern prevails.” Callan dropped his small piece of stone and went to his campfire.


    “Well, now that those hours of work are done, I have to actually train now.”


    [Yes]


    “Did you know I lost on the third floor simply because the enemy was too fast? If I had any fast reactions and good intuition, I could handle it… but… I don’t. So that’s what I’ll do!” Callan threw a piece of wood in the air and closed his eyes.


    It dropped to the ground.


    “Uh… well, I was supposed to dodge it.” Callan covered his mouth and inhaled.


    “You… saw… nothing Mirai.”


    [Yes]


    Callan threw another piece of wood and he closed his eyes. It landed directly on his head and bounced to the ground. “I… felt… nothing. Well, just means I don’t have any sort of perception. Again!”


    It sounded stupid, but Callan tried again. For the next try, he focused on the sound of the wood, it was actually perfect because the entire void had nothing in it, making it a very deafening place.


    Once again, it dropped on Callan’s head without him noticing. He failed, again. That was just the third of many. “Definitely the fire’s fault.” What an excuse.


    On the fourth try, he stayed with the sound. It fell to the side. The fifth, it fell to the side again. The sixth fell on his head. The seventh, it fell to the side. The eight…


    One whole hour later, Callan was able to detect the wood. But it fell on him faster than he could react. “I did it! Well, I didn’t do it, but I got it, so… I kinda did it. Oh wait, now that I think about it, I didn’t write numbers for Mirai…” His mind glossed the thought of writing on the stone once again, then his body gave up along with his mind before he could even start. “I don’t care, I don’t need numbers anyway. Mwehehehe.”


    Callan took a deep breath and he threw the wood directly up in the air again. By simply listening to the disruption in the air, it felt like every part of the world was his body. Then he thought of it, it would be easy to just dodge the wood.


    When the piece of wood was almost close, he walked to the side and raised his hand. It landed on his hand perfectly and he clutched on it. “Easy, bitch.” He smiled with a smirk.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    [Start The Floor] [Bye]


    [Bye] [Bye]


    [Yes] [Welcome]


    [Climb The Tower] [Yes]


    [Yes] [Welcome]


    [Bye] [Bye]


    “Chill! Mirai that was too fast. What did you say?” Callan enlarged his forehead trying to remember what Mirai just said. He stared at the walls of text. “Okay… I definitely heard two O’s there, one in the end too.”


    He clicked his tongue and stared more. “Start The Floor, Bye. I definitely heard that. Okay, so N. Like, No. Then, Yes, Welcome. Okay, that is the letter W. So that definitely spells ‘Now’, wow, you are already doing two words. The next one has a W and O too. Oh… ‘Now two’. Shit, I think I need to memorize this soon cause that took so long just to decipher two words hahahaha!”


    Callan took two pieces and threw them both in the air. This one’s hard now. The two felt like just one item. They were two close, or that they made the same change in the air that it felt the same.


    In reality, air doesn’t even make a sound cause an object can’t bounce off the air. Callan was just able to hear the piece because he threw it so high. The wood both dropped on his head and he just stared at the ground. “Okay… I need a new tactic. Magic.”


    Magic, though it can’t just be magic. More like any supernatural power. There were two ways Callan could think of a way to sense an object in the air.


    The first was to control the wind itself and feel every single change in it. The second was simply sensing the energy of the wood.


    The former was from an elemental point of view and the latter was from a mana pov. To put it short, one relies on the outside and the other relies on the inside. Both were something that only existed in fantasy.


    “Fuck! But I am in fantasy! I have magic! But I don’t know how to use it! Ahhh!!!”


    Like a child with 8th Grade Syndrome, he picked up a piece of wood and stared at it… for minutes. He imagined circulating energy inside his body and wiring it through his arm, then pushed out to the wood.


    It flew. The piece of wood bounced off his hand. “Ah… what? Um… oh. Ah… Ya… Hell yeah!” Callan fisted both his hands and shook. A huge smile was on his face, lips bit in.


    “But I didn’t feel anything though! It just flew!” Imagination, that was what Callan decided to think of it as of now.


    He thought of the energy moving out of his hand again, but this time it wasn’t a blow but just a string. He formed an image in his head that a string-like energy was moving to a piece of wood. Once it reached the wood, he wrapped it around it… then he lifted it.


    “Yes!” He yelled, and the wood immediately dropped back down. “I have magic! Okay! Okay! What if I do it fast!”


    He stretched the imaginary energy out of his hand in just a second and struck it into the wood. It bounced a little. “Huh?” Callan looked closer and there was a very small dot that went through the wood. “Ohh…” Callan’s mouth was left in an oval shape for a whole minute.


    “Hm… so magic is basically… well, magic. It has no element though. Oh! Is that why it’s invisible? ‘Cause it’s baseless with no element, making it formless and imaginary. Though, does feel a little weird to imagine it that way. Ughh! Imagine… imaginary… I hate it. I feel like I''ve been sounding stupid since earlier. Not my fault!”


    Callan threw a single piece of wood in the sky and placed a line of ‘magic’ above him. He closed his eyes and focused on the line. Weirdly enough, closing his eyes made a white light appear. However, it could just be because everything is so bright in the literally white void. But there was a glowing one like it was vibrating.


    Then the line bent down like a trampoline. In a split second, it was cut. “Oh wait!” Callan opened his eyes and saw the piece of wood landed in the same area where the point of the curve was. “I know that was going to happen… I was just too engrossed by the glowing line that I couldn’t think of it. Tsk. Hah… well… it seems I got my perception… though… it’s kind of cheating.”


    Callan walked to the campfire and cleaned up the floor. He placed all his trash into his inventory and left the area completely clean. He took exactly ten pieces of wood out and laid them in a horizontal order.


    One by one he raised each piece of wood with his magic, testing the limits of his focus and concentration. The first one was easy, he already did it. The second didn’t feel much of a change, though keeping it still was kind of hurting his head for some reason.


    The third piece of wood made the rest bobbed, almost dropping all of them. Callan was starting to imagine more and more lines of magic just out of pure playfulness. This wasn’t on purpose though. Relax, stop playing around mind.


    He approached the fourth one slowly, making sure that the first three still existed while taking the fourth. It was no easy matter, but he did it.


    Now, for the fifth one he did the same, they were all placed in his peripheral vision so there was no problem of them disappearing from his sight. His thin line started to wrap around the wood. Then, he lifted it, instantly dropping the first. He instantly grabbed it back up but he lost focus and dropped everything else.


    “Guess four is my limit. This… is amazing Mirai. Thank you.”


    [No]


    “Thank you… for bringing me into this world.” Callan smiled. Though… a little tear dropped remembering what one man said that he never wanted to hear. But, he smiled, not breaking through his facade. Magic was his dream… he was happy to be here. Forever here.