Ren got to work hard when they finally delivered all the ingredients and reagents. Another 65 potions. And another 65 potions times 2.5 silver each were created.

  And at no cost.

  Was it awesome? Yes.

  Was he happy? Yes.

  “La la la!”

  But more importantly, this created a nice relationship between him, the guild, and the backers behind the guild.

  As long as they cleared it, they’d always remember the person who helped them.

  It didn’t mean they owed him any favors.

  They had already paid in full.

  In fact, the crate of Blue Cheese Lite had already arrived at the dormitory.

  The box wasn’t even cold yet before someone had cracked it open, peeling back the branded sticker like it was a treasure chest in a dungeon. The moment the smell hit, half the room flinched—then leaned in for a second whiff.

  “Holy crap, it’s real cheese,” Choi said, wide-eyed.

  “Imported, too,” Reed muttered, reverently holding a wedge like it was forged by dairy gods.

  Just because they lived in a crammed, dingy 10-man dormitory didn’t mean they didn’t like fancy cheeses. It just meant they couldn’t afford it. Not unless it was marked down, dented, or labeled “cheese-like substance.”

  But now? Now they had Blue Cheese Lite. Real product. Real packaging. Real-world advertising deal… with their alchemist.

  Ren stood at the center of it, arms crossed and smug as hell, trying not to laugh at how everyone was treating cheese like a mana elixir.

  “This,” he said, with great ceremony, “is the beginning of everything we’ve worked for.”

  Monetarily, yeah—it wasn’t close to covering the cost of the two helmets. And it sure didn’t match the brutal hours they’d started investing in-game.

  But that didn’t matter.

  Because it was a physical, tangible, cheese-filled reward.

  Something that made everyone in the dorm sit up, notice, and—most importantly—believe.

  It wasn’t just hope anymore.

  It was blue cheese-flavored hope.

  And damn, it was tasty.

  POV : ASHEN BLOOM

  The raid party of the Ashen Bloom guild stood at the entrance of Lanternlight Dungeon, armor gleaming, spells pre-loaded, and every member practically vibrating with anticipation.

  They’d just watched Silverlight Division walk away from the dungeon battered, grumpy, and potionless.

  “Look at them,” muttered Kael, the Ashen Bloom tank, cracking his knuckles. “All that hype, all that funding—and they still couldn’t pull it off.”

  “Maybe they should’ve invested in talent instead of taglines,” Veyra quipped, twirling her staff.

  The group chuckled, tension breaking for a moment. But the energy crackled in the air again almost instantly. This was their moment. They hadn’t come all this way just to be someone else’s second act.

  Unlike Prosperous and Silverlight, Ashen Bloom wasn’t a legacy guild. They were hungry, scrappy, and backed by a lean, aggressive esports sponsor that wanted one thing: headlines.

  And a first clear was exactly that.

  Their own ad was already locked and loaded:

  “Ashen Bloom: Burn Brighter.”

  No discount coupons. No blue cheese. Just raw fire, ambition, and the burning need to climb the leaderboard.

  They checked their buffs, drank their fire resistance potions—courtesy of Ren, who was now very much on their “must protect at all costs” list—and stepped forward in perfect sync.

  No stalling. No second-guessing.

  They were going to stomp the dungeon—and grind Silverlight Division’s smug legacy under their boots while they were at it.

  Ashen Bloom had been pumped.

  They weren’t walking into Lanternlight Dungeon blind. No, they’d done their homework. Paid off a few Silverlight defectors, got just enough intel on the traps and boss phases to give them a serious edge. Kael Ironhand, their frontliner, had spent the whole night memorizing dodge patterns while Veyra Zinth, their Eclipsed Thaumaturge, mapped out every possible buff and debuff cycle from the reports they’d stolen.

  They entered the dungeon like a war machine.

  First floor? Cleared in under ten minutes.

  The infamous Lava Serpent ambush on floor two? Flawless execution. Tanks rotated in. Healers staggered their cooldowns. Mages unloaded fire-resistant bursts and mana-efficient stuns.

  Ashen Bloom looked like the guild that was going to take the clear.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The dungeon itself seethed around them—molten walls, rising heat, floor panels that hissed with steam when stepped on out of sequence. They triggered half the traps on purpose just to prove they could tank them.

  Then they reached it.

  The final room.

  The Ash-Forged Warden.

  A giant elemental knight, burning with eternal flame, wielding a molten greatsword that left trails of lava on the ground with every swing. The Warden didn’t taunt. It didn’t pause. It simply attacked, every slash accompanied by bursts of heat so intense that even fire resistance potions didn’t guarantee survival.

  Kael called for the split-aggro tactic.

  Veyra dropped shadow anchors to reduce movement.

  Their backline pumped heals and buffs like a machine.

  The Warden dropped to 40%.

  Then 30%.

  Then 18%.

  And then—

  SWWOOSH!

  Lava flooded the entire chamber in a surprise enrage phase that hadn’t triggered for Silverlight.

  “WHAT THE—?!” someone screamed as the floor melted under their boots.

  Ashen Bloom scattered, trying to get onto the remaining solid platforms, but two of their mages dropped instantly. The aggro snapped wild. Kael couldn’t hold it. Veyra’s final spell fizzled before casting.

  THWAAAAM!

  The Warden slammed its blade down in a fiery arc that turned their last hope into a pile of glowing ash.

  Ashen Bloom wiped.

  So close. So, so close.

  The silence that followed in the post-wipe loading lobby was thick with disbelief and disappointment.

  “…It had another phase,” Kael finally muttered.

  Veyra exhaled. “No way Silverlight even saw it.”

  They hadn’t failed because they weren’t good enough.

  They’d failed because Towerbound, in its beautiful cruelty, always held one more trick.

  In Towerbound, wiping in a dungeon wasn’t just frustrating—it was brutal. If your whole party died, there was no running back as a ghost, no quick reset, no magical do-over.

  You were done.

  Your bodies would lie where they fell, and you’d respawn outside the dungeon with all the penalties: equipment damage, EXP loss, and worst of all—a full 24-hour lockout from re-entering that same dungeon.

  So yeah, the smart players? They bailed early. If the boss looked too tough, if half the party was down, or if they saw a new phase trigger they hadn’t prepared for, the best call was to back out while they still could. Save the gear. Save the EXP. Live to try again.

  But when a first clear was on the line?

  Backing out wasn’t an option.

  Those banners didn’t go to the cautious. They went to the bold, the reckless, the ones who risked it all for glory. And at Level 8, there were no resurrection spells, no second chances, no backup plans. You either cleared it together—or got cooked together.

  Ashen Bloom had chosen to push.

  And Towerbound had reminded them exactly why that was dangerous.

  ***

  POV : SILVERLIGHT DIVISION GUILD

  The Silverlight Division guild watched Ashen Bloom’s wipeout with barely concealed grins.

  “Guess it’s our turn again,” their raid leader said, stretching his fingers and cracking his neck. Spirits were high. Cocky, even. They knew the layout now. Knew the traps. Knew the boss’s timing. This was going to be the one. The run.

  Their second attempt.

  “We’ve got this,” someone muttered, slamming back a potion.

  Unfortunately… they didn’t.

  Just like the first time, the Lanternlight Dungeon’s final boss welcomed them with fire, death, and the same brutal precision as before. One mistimed dodge, one downed healer, and the whole team folded like damp laundry.

  Another full wipe.

  Another 24-hour lockout.

  “Thanks for watching!” someone muttered sarcastically in the team chat as they respawned, gear cracked and egos bruised.

  ***

  The string of three consecutive failures—two by Silverlight Division and one by Ashen Bloom—should have served as a warning. It should have made every other guild in Towerbound step back, regroup, and level up before taking their shot.

  But no.

  It had the opposite effect.

  If anything, it lit a fire under them.

  Guilds across the board were now scrambling to assemble level 8 raid teams. After all, if Silverlight was willing to try twice, it meant they thought the dungeon was clearable. The second failure only deepened the impression. Most assumed Silverlight’s second wipe came because they hadn’t taken time to grind—just dove right back in without leveling past eight. Had they pushed to nine? Maybe they would’ve gotten that clear.

  That was Ashen Bloom’s exact thinking.

  Which made Ren’s fire-resistant potion bundles even more desirable.

  Only this time, Ren wasn’t handing out preference deals.

  He’d learned something.

  After three wipes, it became clear—feeding potions exclusively to two guilds was just giving them more chances to spike ahead. And that meant if they did clear it, they’d lock down the leaderboard early. In his previous life, Ren had seen it happen. The Lantern light Dungeon wasn’t just hard—it was a hidden wall. Towerbound’s first real gate. It wasn’t meant to be cleared at level 8. It punished overconfidence with level loss, lockouts, and brutal stat penalties.

  But desperate players didn’t care.

  They wanted glory. They wanted the world announcement.

  So Ren pivoted.

  He began auctioning off his 65-potion bundles to whoever was next in line. No favorites. No promises.

  And with twisted satisfaction, he sold one of those sets to Prosperous Guild.

  Not because he liked them.

  Oh no.

  He wanted to see them fail.

  Their raid team was all level 8, just like Silverlight and Ashen Bloom had been. And just like those two, Prosperous Guild was walking in cocky, underpowered, and overly confident. They thought money could solve it all.

  Ren knew better.

  Meanwhile, Silverlight and Ashen Bloom had both privately messaged him, reserving sets for when their raiders hit level 9. Ren had agreed. First come, first serve. He didn’t play favorites anymore—but he did keep receipts.

  ***

  POV : PROSPEROUS GUILD

  Victor and the rest of the Prosperous Guild stood at the foot of the Lanternlight Dungeon like they were about to walk the red carpet.

  This was their moment.

  Their shot.

  Everyone knew the other two big guilds—Silverlight Division and Ashen Bloom—had already failed. And now, Prosperous Guild had the stage.

  Victor, ever the showman, stepped forward and threw out his arms.

  “Those two pussies failed because they didn’t have the intelligence, the guts, or the glory!” he shouted, loud enough to echo off the obsidian-streaked cliffs. “They were weighed, measured… and found wanting!”

  Laughter and cheers rippled through his raid team. The Prosperous Guild was kitted out in the best gear credits could buy. Their morale was high. Their egos higher. And Victor? He was already dreaming of his name in golden letters across the Towerbound server.

  They entered.

  And almost immediately, things started falling apart.

  Victor barked contradictory commands. People weren’t syncing up properly. The timing for interrupts was sloppy. Half the team barely understood the mechanics.

  One overzealous DPS triggered a floor trap that roasted the backline.

  A mistimed pull dragged three extra fire golems into the mix.

  Then came the molten spider ambush—something Silverlight had left out of their dungeon report. By the time they recovered, half the raid was toast. Literally.

  As the flaming dust settled, only three players remained standing in front of the final boss’s ornate doorway: Victor, Adhir (his ever-loyal girlfriend), and one bruised, exhausted off-tank.

  The off-tank, panting and half-charred, looked toward the door. “So… do we go in? Or call it?”

  Victor’s eyes twitched toward his EXP bar. Level 8. Fifty percent of the way to level 9.

  Too much to lose.

  He stiffened and said with sudden clarity, “Prudence says we don’t go in.”

  Adhir nodded, immediately supportive. “You’re so smart, baby.”

  And so, with barely a whimper and no final boss attempt, Prosperous Guild slunk out of the dungeon entrance.

  To the crowd of spectators waiting outside—members from dozens of other guilds—they strutted like victors.

  “Almost had it!” Victor announced, arms raised. “We were right there. You know how Prosperous Guild rolls—precision first!”

  But the people outside weren’t stupid.

  They could count.

  Three survivors out of ten meant no boss fight had happened.

  The mocking began almost instantly.

  Ashen Bloom Scout: “Guess ‘precision’ means precision retreat!”

  Random Alchemist: “More like Preposterous Guild!”

  Someone from Silverlight: “Tell your dad thanks for the fireworks, Vic!”

  Victor’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t respond. Not out loud.

  Inside, though, he was already calculating when they could try again… and whether that smug little potion vendor would still have stock left.