One step into the tower felt like entering an entirely new world.
Lily immediately turned around—the other challengers who had been behind her were gone, and the noise from outside had vanished in an instant.
From the outside, the Magic Tower hadn’t looked very large. But once inside, she was met with an endless, boundless expanse of empty space.
Lily quickly explored in all directions for a while, even running back a few steps, but found no end or exit.
Even stranger—when she tried to sense the elements, she couldn’t detect any elemental spirits at all! Not even the four basic elements!
Lily’s elemental affinity wasn’t high, but this was the first time she’d encountered a situation where she couldn’t sense anything!
Lily wasn’t particularly panicked. She didn’t believe the tower would set up a dead end from the very start—that wouldn’t fit the nature of a “trial.” She was more stunned: was this the effect of space magic? Or… was this not a real world at all?
Just then, a voice suddenly sounded in Lily’s ear.
[Welcome to the Magic Discourse Tower, Lily! I am the tower spirit.]
[If you need to exit the challenge immediately, or have any other needs, you may call on me at any time. Next, I will explain the rules for the first ten floors.]
[This area is the Same-Tier Discourse Zone. Your identity is the Pursued. On each floor, a Faceless One will attempt to hunt you down in various forms.]
[You may not actively attack the Faceless One. You may only cast spells of the same tier or weaker than theirs when the Faceless One uses magic. You have been detected as a beginner mage, so the Faceless One hunting you will only cast beginner-level spells.]
[You don’t have to use real magic—you can complete casting through mental visualization or verbal description. Magic that works in reality will work in the tower. Magic that cannot exist in reality cannot exist in the tower either.]
[In this zone, your mental energy is equal to the Faceless One’s. The one whose mental energy runs out first loses. The one who takes fatal damage first also loses.]
As the voice finished, a green bar appeared in the upper right corner of Lily’s field of vision. That was the total amount of mental energy she could use on the first floor of the tower.
In Lily’s modern terms, this was a game—one of those legendary full-dive VR games!
But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. About a hundred meters ahead, a Faceless One materialized out of thin air, with an equally long green bar in its upper right corner.
Without hesitation, it began chanting: “Spirits of fire, annihilate my enemy in flames…”
Flames rapidly closed in around Lily, trying to trap her in a ring of fire.
If she couldn’t break out and got her movement restricted, one or two more offensive spells would be enough to take her down!
Lily immediately constructed an expanded version of Light Breeze in her mind—more precisely, a Carbon Dioxide spell.
The green bar in the upper right suddenly shortened by a small segment.
The Carbon Dioxide spell took effect, and the flames were extinguished.
For now, Lily had consumed slightly less mental energy than the Faceless One.
But that wasn’t the important part. What mattered was that after this exchange, Lily had gained a much clearer understanding of the rules!
In a normal magical duel, you could simply crush your opponent with superior power. But that approach wouldn’t work in the tower.
Especially since her identity was [the Pursued]—she could only play defense. The script where “Lily suddenly awakens and learns a mid-to-high-tier spell to one-shot her opponent” wasn’t happening here.
To beat the Faceless One, the simplest method was:
Target the spell the Faceless One used and counter it with a spell that opposed it. This would effectively neutralize the attack and conserve mental energy. The more targeted the counter, the more mental energy you saved.
If the Faceless One’s mental energy ran out before hers, she’d automatically win and advance to the next floor.
Aaron was right—the tower’s core was indeed discourse!
What did “discourse” mean? It meant you had to perceive the essence of magic—at the very least, understand which spells could counter which!
If Lily hadn’t used Carbon Dioxide just now, water magic would’ve also been a decent choice.
While thinking, Lily quickly darted left and right to avoid becoming a stationary target for the Faceless One.
Then, the ground beneath her feet suddenly gave way.
The Faceless One had cast an Earth Mound spell—piling the soil off to the side, leaving a deep pit where she’d been standing.
It was a silent cast, and Lily took a small hit, tumbling to the ground.
This was where the tower’s mechanics got insidious:
At first, the Faceless One chanted openly, making it easy to form a fixed impression—that this was a set routine. In reality, the rules didn’t require chanting, and the Faceless One had full freedom of choice!
Just when you thought this was the simplest first floor, just when you thought it was meant to help you get used to the tower’s rhythm—you had to be careful!
One slip-up, and even the so-called “geniuses” could be eliminated on the very first floor.
Lily became extremely alert. She’d actually noticed that the Faceless One’s mental energy bar had suddenly shortened again—a more accurate indicator of casting than chanting. Unfortunately, she’d still been half a beat too slow.
The Faceless One threw another Earth Mound spell at her, trying to bury her on the spot. Even if that failed, the flying sand and gravel could obscure her vision and affect her next move.
Covered in dust, Lily scrambled and rolled, barely escaping the Faceless One’s casting range.
She hadn’t effectively countered the attack and had fallen behind for now.
But it didn’t matter—this wasn’t her first time making a hasty retreat. She’d get used to it after running enough. Neither of those hits was fatal, so she’d take them on the chin for now!
Lily was waiting for an opportunity—a chance to verify the rules!
Just then, the Faceless One began chanting again: “Boundless water spirits, heed my call in the form of ultimate ice crystals—Ice Arrow, come forth!”
Don’t think the Faceless One was easy to deal with just because it was a beginner mage like Lily—it was the most troublesome kind: an omni-elemental mage.
But when Lily heard it use Ice Arrow, her eyes lit up: Found my verification opportunity!
Without hesitation, she constructed a Water Arrow spell in her mind.
The water arrow acted like a shell, wrapping completely around the ice arrow.
Using water against ice? Are you stupid? —If outsiders had seen Lily’s response, they’d probably think she’d panicked and started throwing out random counters.
Either melt the ice with fire, block it with an earth wall, ride the wind to escape, or even crash ice arrow into ice arrow… But Lily had chosen the most nonsensical move of all!
What could water possibly do against ice?
However, the ice arrow hurtling toward Lily mysteriously slowed down. Because—its tip was melting!
The melted tip was no longer ice crystals, no longer driven by the Faceless One’s ice magic. It became water, flowing in the opposite direction as power for Lily’s own water magic.
How could water magic melt an ice arrow so quickly? Because Lily was using a Steam Arrow spell—or more precisely, a Boiling Water Arrow spell.
She’d incorporated the concept of water’s three states of matter into the Water Arrow!
The ice arrow wilted, melting faster and faster, until only a few ice shards remained—carried along by the water arrow as it flew toward the Faceless One!
Lily couldn’t actively attack the Faceless One, but turning defense into offense was her own skill.
The Faceless One turned and ran!
A look of obvious delight spread across Lily’s face.
What made her happy wasn’t just pulling off water magic’s three-state transformation, nor was it just counterattacking the Faceless One. What truly pleased her was that her guesses about the rules had been confirmed!
Yes, from the very beginning, Lily had noticed the second-to-last rule: [You don’t have to use real magic… Magic that works in reality will work in the tower…]
Lily had some hunches about this rule, but wasn’t entirely certain.
In reality, she could only use spells she actually knew. Everyone was like that.
But the Magic Tower seemed different. This wasn’t actual spellcasting, and nowhere did it say “you may only use spells you have mastered.”
As long as you understood the essence of the corresponding magic, and as long as that magic could exist in reality, it could be successfully cast.
In Lily’s understanding, this was like a virtual space, where magic was essentially a [computed result] after [inputting an idea].
And Lily had a lot of ideas!
In reality, turning those ideas into magic required practice, adjustment, and adaptation. She’d spent considerable time just practicing an expanded version of Light Breeze. But here, it was as if the tower was doing the computation for her.
Thinking of it that way, wasn’t the Magic Tower essentially a supercomputer? This was even more impressive than the large question banks and intelligent AI battles she’d originally imagined!
And just now, the smooth adjustment of her water magic’s temperature had confirmed Lily’s hypothesis.
She also understood why Aaron hadn’t told her to master new spells as quickly as possible. There was no need! The Discourse Tower was the best “testing ground” there was.
No wonder Aaron had said this place suited her perfectly!
It also became obvious why Aaron had made her cram through The Complete Compendium of General Magic: the Faceless One was an omni-elemental mage and could cast silently at any time. If Lily couldn’t even recognize what spell it was using, how could she respond? How could she counter it?
She didn’t need to master them—only to understand them!
With her most glaring weakness patched up considerably, Lily now had much more room to maneuver.
Lily gained unprecedented confidence in this tower challenge!
She planned to seize this opportunity to test out some of her theories and see which scientific approaches could successfully translate into magic.
Of course, even if she succeeded in here, it didn’t guarantee she could replicate it outside. The tower essentially removed all interfering factors for her, but out in the real world, she might still be constrained by various obstacles that prevented successful casting.
Still, those were minor issues—she’d try now and deal with any problems later!
Meanwhile, the fleeing Faceless One instantly threw up an Ice Shield spell—only for Lily’s Boiling Water Arrow to melt a hole right through it, continuing toward the Faceless One.
The Faceless One frantically tried to switch to an Earth Shield, but it was too late! The water arrow pierced its heart, and its form dissipated into the air.
A set of stairs leading to the second floor materialized on its own.
Outside the Magic Tower.
After Lily and the others entered the tower, the names of all the challengers lit up on the first floor of the Magic Tower.
The tower wasn’t an arena—unless a legendary mage projected the scenes from inside, outsiders couldn’t see the challengers’ specific performance. But everyone could tell which floor someone was on by watching the name indicators on each level.
Two minutes later, Lily’s name on the first floor suddenly went out.
“Tsk. I knew she’d be the first eliminated. Still, she lasted a few exchanges—didn’t break the record for earliest elimination ever.”
“Aaron is done for! He just bet all his research data against the instructors from United and Holy!”
“Everyone, move aside—give him some space. Lady Emma’s already heard the news; she’s definitely coming over to tear him a new one!”
But just then—on the second floor—Lily’s name suddenly lit up.
The noise came to an abrupt halt. A few seconds later, it exploded again.
Anyone who’d been through the tower knew that on the first ten floors, the challenger’s identity was the Pursued. With the rules restricting them to a more passive defensive role, the simplest way to win was to drain the Faceless One’s mental energy.
Depending on the spells used and the challenger’s defensive tactics, draining the Faceless One’s mental energy could be fast or slow—but most cleared the first floor in about five minutes. The first floor’s time was the easiest to predict.
The higher the floor, the more the patterns changed and the more variables came into play.
Lily’s speed in clearing the first floor was abnormally fast.
Many onlookers didn’t know the tower’s specific rules, but everyone could tell fast from slow: the so-called “weakest challenger” Lily hadn’t been eliminated first—she’d been the first to reach the second floor!
What was going on?!