Arthur barely paused while climbing, but he could spare two seconds to glance around.
Arthur barely paused while climbing, but he could spare two seconds to look around.
The third summit was now within view. No one was ahead of him, and the stairs behind him were empty save for two challengers struggling on the first few steps.
"...Nothing to worry about. Just need to wake up," he reminded himself once again, taking the remaining steps in rapid succession.
Stepping onto the third summit, Arthur didn't need to look around much—there were only five challengers on this floor. Curious, he glanced up toward the fourth summit.
Seeing no one on the staircase or the floor above, he returned his attention to his current surroundings.
No one paid him any mind; they were all more interested in their own business, either looking through the tower's notifications or sitting with their eyes closed to recover.
"Anyway... I need a little rest while I check what I'm gonna get this time." His mental tone was anything but serious, playfully scoffing at the ridiculous idea of gaining actual rewards inside a dream.
[Congratulations, challenger, on reaching the Third Summit.]
[The tower will awaken the affinity of your Path.]
"Affinity?.... it seems my mind is reflecting my hours of editing fantasy novels?" Arthur skimmed through the text, ignoring the greeting line now that he recognized the pattern established on the first two summits.
Unlike the second summit, this time Arthur noticed an actual difference. Quickly closing his eyes, he felt around using his newfound senses to feel for the change happening within him.
The sight was breathtaking.
Etched directly onto his core, mysterious symbols he couldn't make any sense of were slowly filling its surface.
These symbols were drenched in azure light that seemed to keep etching themselves continuously around his pea-sized aura core nonstop.
The feeling he got from sensing those symbols was nothing he'd seen before, especially when he attempted to dive deeper into the symbols.
Entering into a world flowing with bizarre symbols he knew nothing about was probably supposed to be a point for reference the tower should have elaborated upon, but...
The moment his senses dove within the symbols, he lost sight of everything and began feeling like a speck within the grand manifestation; Arthur felt like the wind itself.
Gentle breezes, howling hurricanes, crushing wind pressure, atmospheric vacuums... the knowledge expanded endlessly as the symbols grew increasingly complex.
It's almost like they're spea—
"Aaagh!!!!"
Unfortunately, the grand trip wasn't meant to last. A blinding headache struck, shaking his senses right out of that mysterious world and back to the tower, leaving his breathing completely out of sync.
[The Challenger has gained the Wind Bound Aura]
Taking a couple of seconds to calm down after spewing a load of curses in his heart, he stood up angrily, determined to get this climbing over with as soon as possible.
"Uh.. Hey?" Henry spoke quickly as soon as he saw that Arthur was going to walk past him.
Arthur, who was still in a foul mood from the sudden pain he had to endure, was still hunched, rubbing his head while walking failed to notice he was being addressed.
"Think he didn't hear me?"
Henry was only going to warn Arthur that the climb was gonna get far more difficult from the fourth summit upward.
"Maybe not.... He looked pissed." Myu responded, having caught the storm of annoyance on Arthur's face as he headed toward the fourth summit.
The chapter is published by its author on NovelPhoenix.com, yet this copy was made without approval; reading it there helps them.
"So what... that doesn't give him the right to ignore a member of the Flameheart Family." Henry was pissed, but he wasn't bothered to concern himself with lashing out at a stranger.
"What? Is your family Royalty or something?" Lucas jabbed at the easily flamed Henry Flameheart the moment he saw the opportunity.
"What do you mean?" Henry lowered his voice, dropping his usual fiery demeanor, which was out of character.
"... we're almost Royalty as a prominent Transcendent family."
"Then what do you call the actual royalty among us? Don't tell me you're looking down on the significance of a real royal bloodline." Lucas glanced through the side of his vision without making it obvious, hoping to bait a reaction from the motionless duo sitting nearby with their eyes closed.
Unfortunately, his primary target ignored him, but his secondary goal succeeded—Henry fell silent, unable to talk back for the first time during the entire awakening.
"Don't you think he looks like a Cross?" Myu asked, drawing the attention of Arthur, who was already on his tenth step, moving steadily.
"A Cross?" Lucas squinted to grasp all the features he had ignored. "He does look a bit like... but if there were a Cross among the challengers this time, I think I'd know."
"Heh... because it's your job to know everything?" Henry, still harboring thoughts of getting one over Lucas, commented with confidence.
"Actually, it's one of my family's main businesses.... So-" Lucas replied with a grin across his face, infuriating the already furious Henry.
"I hope I don't find you after awakening..." Henry gritted his teeth in annoyance as he spoke before turning away; he couldn't stand the sight of that grin.
Lucas didn't back down even at this point, shaking his head sadly. "...like I said before. It's all you brutes know how to do..."
"Feels like you just keep handing me these lines... Or do you just love it when I tease you?" He adopted an enlightened expression, completely ignoring Henry's glare as he added.
"I can probably see how you'd grow to love it. I just didn't imagine that you'd be into that sort of stuff."
Henry was left utterly speechless. Right before the banter could devolve any further, Myu cut in.
"He's just crossed the fiftieth step."
Immediately, all eyes turned upwards, watching the flamed challenger moving step after step without pause.
This time, even the silent Royalties became interested as they watched Arthur closely. Lucas, on the other hand, was interested in something entirely different.
"Myu... were you counting his every step? I can barely look past the first fifteen steps from this summit without losing count."
Arthur, as usual, was blind to the entire scene, instead cursing under his breath as he kept climbing step after step.
"I better wake up from this nonsense.... I have a mountain of work to finish." The moment he had this thought, the sight of his work desk, packed with files he had barely opened all day, flashed through his mind for a second.
"I swear if this wasn't a dream, I'd rather stay here than wake up to all that paperwork." He almost paused to catch a break, but after the sight of his desk flashed through his mind one more time, he picked up the pace.
"I can't catch a break either way... so what's the point?"
The question was rhetorical. Being the sole challenger currently approaching the fourth summit meant he could think out loud without worrying about looking crazy—just like every other time he had scaled this tower alone.