[POV - Albert]
I hadn’t expected much from this human. I had only thrown him a random Mana Stone hoping for the best, maybe aiming to hit a minor jackpot.
But... I had actually struck gold.
He was the single best challenger I had seen in years, and he was pulling it off on [Hell] difficulty. The way he moved, the way he slaughtered every creature without even being able to see them in the dark, it was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. He was moving as if he were a seasoned veteran challenger.
Even across all the other towers I had monitored over the decades, no one came anywhere close.
[GrandMasterBlood has issued a challenge.]
[GrandMasterBlood: "Increase the difficulty of Floor 0. It’s too easy for him."]
[You will be rewarded with 5,000 Points if you accept. If the challenger survives, he will receive a bonus reward directly from GrandMasterBlood.]
I swallowed hard.
5,000 points on a brand-new player? Just who is this big shot? I’ve never heard of him before.
I hesitated. I didn’t want this challenger to die; the higher he climbed into the tower, the more points and viewers we would attract. I needed to handle him with extreme care. Maintaining a good relationship with him was paramount if he truly possessed the raw potential I thought he did.
Still... maybe he can actually handle it?
[POV - Caliste Henry]
"This is a breeze."
I had already allocated one point into Perception, pushing it to 5. That gave me a visual radius of five meters in the pitch-black cave, making it child’s play to react to incoming ambushes. As for the earlier stab wound, my passive Vitality regeneration had already patched it right up.
Scanning my dark surroundings, I was fairly confident I had wiped out every remaining creature in the area. There was only one task left on Floor 0: face the Boss.
I knew everything about it: its attack patterns, its precise hitboxes, its elemental weaknesses, and the fastest way to kill it. After all, I was the one who had written the definitive player guide for it in my past life.
A few minutes later, I arrived before two towering stone doors marking the entrance to the boss room. Before pushing them open, I needed to optimize my stats one last time.
Clearing out the cavern’s goblins had sent my level skyrocketing all the way to Level 12, leaving me with 11 unallocated stat points.
I debated dumping another 10 points into Mana Power. On paper, raw MP wouldn’t directly help against the specific attack patterns of the boss I was expecting to face. Besides, I didn’t even have any offensive spells that consumed mana yet. Those skill scrolls only started dropping on Floor 1.
Could I beat it with my physical baseline as it is?
Greed won out.
Sitting on 20 Mana Power before even setting foot on the first floor was completely unheard of. The moment I picked up my first spell scroll, those stats would turn me into an absolute monster.
"Fuck it."
I dumped every single unallocated point into Mana Power, bringing it to a total of 20.05.
[Hidden Threshold Achieved! Mana Power has reached 20.00.]
[As a result, all primary attributes have gained +3 points.]
This is insane. To think I’m holding stats like this on Floor 0. If those Easy-mode fuckers could see this, they’d lose their damn minds.
[ Status Window ]
Name: Caliste Henry
Title: None
Difficulty: [Hell]
Level: 12
[ Primary Attributes ]
Strength (STR): 6
Agility (AGI): 6
Vitality (VIT): 6
Perception (PER): 7 (+1 from Dirty Golden Ring)
Mana Power (MP): 20.05
Unallocated Stat Points: 0
"This is more than enough for that little bastard in there," I muttered.
Without wasting another second, I heaved open the double doors of the boss chamber.
The moment my eyes landed on the creature waiting inside, I froze in my tracks.
This wasn’t the weak tutorial boss that was supposed to be here.
[Boss Monster: ???]
Rank: Elite
Grade: Veteran
Boss monsters were categorized differently from standard creatures; they weren’t measured by level. Instead, they were split into Rank (Common, Elite, Field Boss, Raid Boss) and Grade (Trainee, Beginner, Novice, Apprentice, Veteran, Expert, Master, Grandmaster, Hero).
An Elite Veteran boss was exponentially stronger than anything a challenger should encounter on Floor 0. It was an entity that shouldn’t appear until at least the fifth floor.
In the fraction of a second I had, I quickly skimmed back through my unread system logs, filtering past the level-up notifications until I found the culprit notice.
"What the fuck..."
The words left my mouth in a cold whisper.
Over 1,000 entities were watching my stream. It was those high-tier bastards in the upper spheres; they had paid the Dokkaebi to forcefully crank up my floor difficulty.
"Those sons of bitches..." I growled under my breath, my knuckles turning white around the grip of my [Dull Stone Sword]. "Interfering on Floor 0 already..."
Before I could strategize any further, two glowing crimson eyes locked onto me from the shadows of the arena.
It was time to show those arrogant spectators what real potential looked like. Annoying as this unexpected raid boss was, if played right, it was also a massive opportunity to farm high-rank rewards early.
[POV - Earth / Outside World]
While thousands of chosen challengers fought for their lives inside the towers, the world outside was plunging into total chaos.
Global governments, completely clueless about the true nature of the spires, had placed armed blockades around all seven tower sites, preventing any new civilians from entering except for state-sponsored military units and select personnel.
However, it was only a matter of time before the first wave of [Easy] difficulty challengers returned using their [Return Tickets].
Because unlike what Caliste had anticipated, the [Easy] mode players were clearing content far faster than in his previous timeline.
They were already standing at the doors of the Floor 1 Boss Room.
And the sole reason for their record-breaking speed was a single challenger, one Caliste knew all too well.
The player the public would soon crown as the Ice Queen.
A total bitch.
At least, that was the only way Caliste would ever describe her.