In the white void, Mirai had been alone, waiting for Callan for more than five years. She had become worried, really worried and that worry soon settled in permanently… it was the reason every single one of his talented clients fell into… the precautions of the tower.


    [Anomaly Detected]


    [Increasing The Tower Difficulty By One Level]


    Mirai hardened her emotions and just believed… it had happened early before too… but… it was hard… to survive.


    The tower was a sentient being just like Mirai, well that is just a guess. But the tower, just like the timer of challenging the next floor, was something the tower controlled, not Mirai. She doesn’t know where the tower is, or who is controlling it, but there was really no point in guessing.


    That deadline, or countdown, or the limited time one needed to defeat a floor was made for the clients to have a breather, take in what they learned, and grow stronger. But, the intervention in the white void wasn’t the only opportunity to train in… floors… like the forest was a place you could train in too.


    Floors with conditions needing to be met just to fight the designated monsters can just be called training grounds. However, the tower isn’t so stupid to allow infinite time for someone to improve… so if that person will improve… the tower will too.


    Mirai regretted not telling Callan to hold his training for a little bit longer, but in reality, it was always inevitable. Even if she did stop him, observing Callan she knew he would never listen, that kid had determination, a weird determination enveloped by laziness. All Mirai could do now… was hope that Callan pass it.


    Everyone had gone and done the same thing, just different floors.


    ***


    Callan walked up the mountain slowly, spinning his spear like a toy. He walked backward, looking down at the ice and the ocean. “I’m finally doing it. Goodbye Ocean, though I could go back here, I don’t even think there is a poin-t to go back here.”


    Callan hummed as he walked for hours up the mountain. He could have reached the top anytime, but he was feeling something like performing jitters. Based on the amount of training he had done, and the amount of strength he had gained, he was really confident about the fourth floor, but even then, he really could not be truly confident.


    He reached the clouds for one of the many times he had, he dug through some of the built-up snow looking for his cubby. After whipping the mountain like a car window, he found his cubby and walked right in. His legs first went in, then his body that won’t really fit. “Oh… did I get muscular?” He looked back to his chest and arms.


    “Huh… I never even noticed.” Callan wasn’t as buff as a man on steroids, but he did have visible muscles that even oversized clothes could not hide. His legs dangled down outside the hole and his back was crouched down as his arms faced forward like he was overly sarcastic at his claps.


    “It’s time… it really is. I don’t know how long I’ve spent in this place… but you know… I’m glad… I’m satisfied. This place made me grow, though it may only be physically and some control over magic, it was still worth it.” Callan looked at his spear, longer than his current position. He held it straight like he was a broken mannequin.


    “I may not have mastered you, ‘cause I’m not the most talented in the world, but I did my best.” The mountain, despite its size and some hypothetical origins, had no other minerals in it other than stone. Callan’s spear was the same as when he came, it was the only thing that didn’t change.


    Callan now had a shirt, shorts, and a perfectly muscular body, yet the spear stayed as a wooden handle with a pointy rock attached to it. It’s funny, in a humble beginnings type way. “I’m glad you never broke hahahaha!”


    Callan bent his right hand and grabbed above him. He pulled his entire body out and carried his entire body with a handstand. He pierced his toes back to the mountain and turned his entire body up again.


    Looking at the ocean, Callan walked backward until his eyes began to be blinded by the blurry clouds, the see-through censors of life. It was like going through a giant fur dog as a baby, his entire body felt hugged, loved, and comfortable beyond belief. But as he moved further beyond the clouds, it proved nothing good ever lasts… now he has to face his death… the death he so wished he never would see.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    “I’m here.” Just a few steps away from the smooth bald cap of the mountain. “I’ve never been here… and I never would have guessed… that out of this snowy mountain and the frozen ocean… that at the top… you were fucking bald as fuck.”


    Callan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was time… said it so many times it hurts to listen to. The ground was not made of stone, unlike the entire mountain which really didn’t make the most sense, it was dirt.


    The bald cap which was about the size of a normal living room, was shed down revealing its brown stature. Callan scoffed at the sight of dirt, it was dirt, but he hadn’t seen one in so long that it felt funny.


    When he was at the edge of the top, in the very middle, a sight of a little red flower came into view. It was a small rose standing lustrous above the clouds. “Hello little guy… is the reason why dirt exists here all for you? Wonder how it feels to be so special… well… I guess I know… I’m such a narcissist I believe I was special. Though that thought was something I’ve believed I removed already, being here just brought it back… and I know… that… it will be gone soon.”


    [Kill All The Monsters]


    [5…]


    “Here it is… I’m above here so it will probably be birds… which now that I think about it… hah… I’ll have to rely on my magic a lot…” Which is a sentence, that really isn’t true.


    [3…]


    Callan stood still, enveloping his entire body with thick magic and encasing himself in a blob of magic with a radius of 2 meters.


    [2…]


    [1…]


    Multiple giant bluebirds the size of two combined humans appeared around Callan. Twenty to be exact, it was a graveyard, that was an understatement. Callan still didn’t know what appeared other than the chirpings, he stayed focused waiting for an attack. Then, every single corner of his barrier was poked and passed through.


    Callan wasn’t prepared, he hurried went into stance, and performed his first spear art.


    |Exploding Spear Art: First Movement - Upward Stab|


    He opened his eyes and ran forward, the impact wasn’t that big and his arms felt sore immediately, he never practiced for an instant way to attack, but that wasn’t the time to think about how no matter how much you prepare, you would never be perfect.


    The bluebirds had red eyes and sharp furs, they were more like mutant birds than those cute bluebirds that they should be. Callan rolled down the mountain with the birds following just as fast. Fuck! What the fuck! I didn’t count it but that was way too many fucking birds! I’m gonna die! Fuck! Relax! Callan slapped his face hard. You’re not gonna die. You’re not gonna die. You’re not gonna die. You can do this! It’s not hard! Callan quickly threw his spear into his inventory.


    Despite being stressed he released multiple threads randomly around his body, trying his best to pierce the birds with his magic. He had no idea of their clear location nor was focusing easy, when his entire body was spinning 10 times a second. Callan was stupid and forgot he could just jump, and so he did.


    He turned around facing the birds as he fell much faster than rolling down. He immediately analyzed everything he could about the bird. They are big, huge I might say, but they seem to be really slow flyers, I could use that, I need to take some out while in the middle of the air, as in the ground, I’ll really die… well… I’ll kill of them in the air… no, I should.


    The mountain was huge. It took hours just to climb to the top of it, and dropping it would take around an hour. If Callan could pick off every bird as he fell, that would be perfect, but they were already starting to get further away as they were far too slow to even catch up.


    Callan took a magic thread and formed a giant ball at the end of it. He began swinging it like a laso and fired. This probably won’t do much, as I count, there are twenty of them, and none even seems injured… my magic… it won’t be fucking enough. He stretched his left arm forward, releasing multiple strands of magic.


    Callan grabbed the feet of the bluebirds and tried to drag all of them in the middle of his magic ball- for the first time ever, his magic was cut, and it felt like a ball full of spikes just exploded in his head.


    The magic ball he fired hit the legs of one of the bluebirds, causing an explosion big enough to drag 3 others with it. After the smoke disappeared, Callan held his head from the constant ringing and pain, there was nothing but a scratch on the bluebirds. “Fuck!”