Twenty-five years ago, the first Towers appeared in cities all across the world.
At the same time, the Awakened appeared as well—the people who had since come to be known as Hunters.
Renowned scientists from around the world investigated the Towers, but none of them could determine what they truly were.
The only things they managed to discover were that only the Awakened could enter them and that the environments inside the Towers belonged to entirely different worlds, completely unlike Earth.
As one of the first Awakened, I still vividly remembered what happened back then.
The appearance of the Towers had plunged the entire world into chaos, and at the time, even the Awakened did not recklessly venture inside them.
Naturally so.
No one even knew what kind of places the Towers were. Who would risk their life entering one for no reason?
While the entire world remained caught in that uncertainty, the Tower in London, England, suddenly collapsed one day.
There had been no warning whatsoever.
London vanished from the map in an instant, and as though it had merely been waiting for the opportunity, an otherworldly encroachment began spreading throughout the surrounding region.
Monsters poured out from the corrupted land, and humanity was forced to begin a war for survival.
The Hunters who had climbed the Towers were the ones who fought on the front lines.
Through climbing the Towers, they had already acquired physical abilities and skills that surpassed the limits of ordinary humans. They distinguished themselves greatly on the battlefield, and the world began paying attention to Hunters.
When a Tower collapsed, an invasion from another world began.
And the most effective force against such invasions was a powerful Hunter.
From that point onward, Hunters began climbing the Towers.
They did so to protect humanity from invasions originating beyond this world.
And yet, something unexpected happened.
Once Hunters began climbing the Towers in order to grow stronger, the Tower collapses stopped.
By then, everyone in the world naturally understood.
The Towers had to be climbed.
They had to be climbed both to prevent them from collapsing and to prepare for the possibility that one eventually would.
And……
Time passed.
Various facts and accepted principles concerning the Towers were established, eventually giving rise to the Hunter system that existed today.
In the modern era, Hunters who entered Towers could largely be divided into two categories.
Challengers continuously climbed higher floors, preventing Tower collapses and preparing humanity for the future.
Scavengers repeatedly cleared floors they had already conquered, collecting rewards and supplying Tower materials to the outside world.
Until now, I had belonged to the latter group.
Scavengers were not regarded particularly well by society.
People said that while Challengers risked their lives climbing the Towers for humanity, Scavengers cared only about their own safety and profits.
But that was over now.
From this point onward, I intended to live not as a Scavenger, but as a Challenger.
‘Before that, though.’
I felt the need to take another careful look at the changes that had occurred within me.
The first thing I needed to examine was naturally the ability to sell experience points.
Until now, the very concept of experience points had been unknown in relation to climbing the Tower.
I had not even known such a thing existed.
And yet I could sell those experience points and obtain stats in return?
‘It definitely said I fulfilled the conditions. Does that mean other people can’t sell their experience points like this?’
Just in case, I immediately searched a Hunter community for anything related to experience points.
[Search: Experience Points]
[No search results found.]
I could not tell whether the information was simply inaccessible to me because I was still officially an F-rank Hunter, or whether I truly was the only person capable of selling experience points.
Either way, there were only two possibilities.
Either only high-ranking Hunters could sell their experience points, or the ability had been granted exclusively to me.
Whichever it was, neither possibility was bad for me.
‘Whatever the truth is, one thing is certain. This is enormous.’
I checked my current experience points.
[Current Experience: 4,168,785]
I had gained approximately six hundred thousand experience points from clearing the sixth floor.
Considering that I had previously spent 2.97 billion experience points to raise all four of my stats from 5 to 79, I could estimate that increasing a single stat by 1 required roughly ten million experience points.
A Hunter’s stats increased in proportion to the number of Tower floors they had climbed.
Simply put, clearing one additional floor increased every stat by 1.
Naturally, that meant every single stat point held tremendous significance to a Hunter.
‘Looking at it this way, it’s almost unbelievable that I managed to accumulate 2.97 billion experience points.’
A Hunter could enter the Tower only once every twenty-four hours.
Using the sixth floor as a standard, I would have to clear it continuously for approximately seventeen days just to earn enough experience points to increase a single stat by 1.
And yet I had accumulated 2.97 billion experience points.
Only now did I fully understand what it meant that I had entered the Tower faithfully, without missing a single day, for twenty-five years.
‘Those years weren’t meaningless.’
My ex-wife had always said otherwise.
She had constantly told me there was no point in clearing the same floors every day and that I should climb higher like everyone else.
「How long are you going to stay F-rank? Do you have any idea how humiliating it is whenever I go to gatherings? That bitch Mi-young actually told me I must have such a hard life supporting an F-rank husband!」
She had nagged me endlessly because she had supposedly been humiliated at some gathering……
Even thinking about it now made my blood boil.
In any case, there had been times when even I wondered whether all the years I had spent doing the same thing truly had been meaningless.
But they had not.
Even among Hunters, very few entered the Tower consistently without missing a single day.
Once someone entered a Tower, abandoning the challenge midway was impossible unless they cleared the floor, and even the smallest mistake could result in death.
Challengers climbing the higher floors, in particular, often spent several days preparing for a single attempt under extensive support. In extreme cases, preparations could take months.
That meant I could confidently say there were very few people in the entire world who had entered the Tower consistently for such a long period of time and survived.
‘Maybe I’m the only one.’
So I decided to have confidence in myself.
I had already used my Tower entry for today, which meant I could not enter again until tomorrow.
‘Tomorrow, I challenge the seventh floor.’
With that decided, I turned my attention toward studying the seventh-floor strategy.
No matter how overwhelming my stats had become, preparation was still essential.
***
The next day arrived.
After spending the entire day thoroughly familiarizing myself with the seventh-floor strategy, I took a deep breath and immediately entered the Tower.
[Would you like to enter <Tower 7th Floor>?]
“Yes.”
[Entering <Tower 7th Floor>.]
My surroundings changed, revealing a forest similar to the one I had seen on the sixth floor.
“Hoo……”
The general environment and types of monsters within the Tower tended to remain similar in blocks of five floors.
According to the strategy guides I had studied, there was relatively little difference between the sixth and seventh floors.
Considering how overwhelmingly I had cleared the sixth floor, I believed I would have little difficulty clearing the seventh as well.
[7th Floor Mission Overview]
-Eliminate 8 Kobolds.
-Completion Condition: Eliminate all Kobolds
-Failure Condition: Death
There were three more Kobolds than there had been on the sixth floor.
As if to prove that fact, the moment I stepped into the forest, I sensed Kobolds in every direction.
Their presence was far clearer to me than before.
‘Four in front, two behind, and another two waiting for an opening.’
I had no intention of playing some childish game of tag with the Kobolds.
There was only one thing I needed to do.
Destroy them with overwhelming force.
“Hup.”
I assumed my stance and drove a powerful straight punch forward.
BOOOOOOM──!!!
A tremendous blast of air erupted from an attack that was not even a proper skill, sweeping across the surrounding area.
The battle ended with that single blow.
[You have defeated a Kobold Warrior!]
[You have defeated a Kobold Rogue!]
[You have defeated a Kobold Assault Captain!]
[Experience points acquired.]
.
.
.
[You have cleared <Tower 7th Floor>.]
[All stats are ‘7’ or higher. Additional experience points will be awarded instead of stat increases.]
[You have achieved SSS-rank.]
[A special reward for achieving this rank will be granted.]
[You have broken the clear record for <Tower 7th Floor>.]
[Leaving the Tower.]
***
The White Tiger Guild.
One of the four great guilds of Korea was unable to conceal its tension today.
A Hunter could enter the Tower once every twenty-four hours, and it was approaching the time when the Hunter who had broken the sixth-floor record yesterday would be able to enter again.
If the person who had broken the sixth-floor record truly possessed the talent everyone suspected, there was a high possibility that the seventh-floor record would also be broken today.
If that did not happen, then yesterday’s result had either been sheer luck or the product of some ability burdened by unusual restrictions.
Naturally, interest in the mysterious rookie would then quickly fade.
Many promising newcomers had emerged among newly awakened Hunters attempting to climb the Tower.
Most, however, ultimately failed to distinguish themselves and disappeared into obscurity.
In that sense, whether yesterday’s sixth-floor record breaker could consecutively break the seventh-floor record today was extremely important.
“It appeared!”
Someone shouted.
At almost the same moment, the other guild members apparently confirmed the same thing, and their eyes widened.
“It’s SSS again!”
The seventh-floor record had been broken immediately after yesterday’s sixth-floor record, and a strange excitement spread throughout the White Tiger Guild.
“Is this even possible?”
“I think I barely managed a D-rank when I cleared the sixth floor for the first time… How does someone even receive an SSS-rank?”
“Those Kobolds couldn’t have been easy.”
“Just who is Strongest?”
Baek Dae-hwan, the guild master of the White Tiger Guild and an A-rank Hunter known as the Flame Tiger, was also extremely interested.
“Have you found anything about Strongest? He isn’t already affiliated with another guild, is he?”
Kim Beom-gu, the White Tiger Guild’s human resources manager, answered Baek Dae-hwan’s question.
“Fortunately, that does not appear to be the case. We have confirmed that the other three major guilds are also still searching for Strongest’s identity.”
“I see……”
Calling them the four great guilds also meant that four guilds were engaged in a fierce struggle for supremacy.
Naturally, government support and various benefits were divided among the four, and the White Tiger Guild and its rivals had been locked in a competition resembling outright warfare, each desperate to pull ahead of the others.
And now, in the midst of that struggle, an extraordinary rookie had appeared who had surpassed even Jeff’s record.
More importantly, he had established the first SSS-rank record in history.
Considering that no matter how extraordinary a rookie had been in Korea until now, not a single one had ever achieved even an S-rank record, let alone SSS-rank, this was anything but ordinary.
It might even be enough to bring the long and fierce competition among the four great guilds to an end.
“Find him before any of the other guilds do, no matter what it takes. And keep a close eye on the Management Agency as well. It would still be preferable for him to join the Agency rather than one of our rivals, but naturally, the best outcome would be for us to recruit him ourselves.”
“Of course. We will do everything possible to locate him.”
“Good. Once you find him, accept whatever conditions he demands and offer him the best treatment possible. Understood?”
“Yes. Understood.”
Kim Beom-gu bowed and left the guild master’s office.
Left alone, Baek Dae-hwan looked out the window.
“A rookie with an SSS-rank record……”
If they could recruit him, the White Tiger Guild could decisively pull ahead of those infuriating rival guilds.
On the other hand, if another guild took him first, all their efforts until now could become meaningless, leaving them trapped in second place forever.
“We have to find him. No matter what it takes……”
At the same time, Baek Dae-hwan was already considering how to deal with the worst possible outcome.
What if Strongest fell into the hands of another guild?
“Then no one will have him.”
Baek Dae-hwan lowered his gaze toward the city beyond the window as though looking down upon it with cold contempt.