Eric hit the ground with a light thud, the portal dropping him only a few centimeters off the ground. Dust was raised as he hit the floor, reaching his nose. He tried to lift his hands toward his face, but they refused to move at all. He was about to question what was wrong, but he quickly recognized the familiar feeling.

  “It’s the weakness you feel after a long and stressful session of exercise,” he told himself.

  With his heightened senses, he was more aware than ever before of how strained his muscles were. The strain wasn’t the only problem, as it also came accompanied by the feeling of emptiness. More specifically, it was a lack of strength that he was feeling. Any time he tried to flex his muscles he would fail to do so, leaving him feeling empty.

  He turned to lay on his back, looking directly upwards. What he found was not a ceiling, but a starry night sky. In the corners of his vision, he saw what appeared to be high walls from all sides. With a nod, he dismissed the sight and closed his eyes, ready to rest.

  With a sudden burst of energy that ignored how strained his muscles felt, he sat up. Quickly realizing that four walls meant he was within those four walls, probably trapped inside.

  His gaze quickly landed on one of the walls. It was made out of different sized bricks, some the size of his fists, while others were as big as a car’s windshield. Their arrangement also made little sense. The biggest ones should go near the bottom, but they didn’t, they went wherever they seemed to fit the best.

  Turning to face the other walls, illuminated by the moon high in the sky that appeared to shine only on him, he saw two unique walls. They had openings carved into them and they appeared to resemble some sort of building.

  “This seems familiar,” Eric muttered, tracing the outlines. “A curved building with a… bulbous... top?” He shook his head, trying to force his mind to wake and give him an answer. “I should… probably… sleep…” His words faded as he slowly collapsed to the ground and fell into a deep slumber.

  Congratulations on completing the second floor of the Tower of Revelation.

  You have entered the third floor: Trial of Reflex.

  Quest: Quick Steps

  Objective: Reach the other side.

  Rewards: Access to next floor, +3 Reward Points.

  ----------

  Black scales glistened as the moonlight fell upon them. Kralva was making his way toward the end of the third trial, leaving nothing but destroyed remnants wherever he set foot.

  Behind him were nothing but smoldering ashes of various constructs as well as half melted walls and artifacts that served as little more than annoyances for his leisurely walk.

  You have encountered the secret objective of the Trial of Reflex.

  Quest: Untouchable

  Objective: Reach the end of the course without ever being touched.

  Rewards: Access to next floor, +5 Reward Points.

  Quest complete!

  Quest complete!

  Stepping on the final platform, he turned to face his trail of destruction and let out a bored sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him so quickly,” he said, remembering Eric. “He was the most interesting thing I have encountered in a while.” Taking in a deep breath, the ash and smoke traveling rapidly toward his flaring nostrils. “Maybe there will be more like him.”

  He turned and walked into the portal that had opened up beside him, going directly to the fourth floor.

  ----------

  Just like Kralva, Neris had no issue navigating the third-floor trial and reaching the end unharmed. However, unlike Kralva, she instead left behind a perfectly pristine passage, worthy of a museum.

  Constructs were incased as they fired their projectiles, others while they were emerging from the ground, walls and ceiling. Even various flames were frozen in place, creating a marvelous work of art.

  Neris turned to the portal, with a small frozen flame in her hand. “I’ve always admired how wild you can be,” she said, her gaze focused on the frozen flame. “You can be quite pretty when properly contained,” she added with a smirk.

  Then, with a swift motion she closed her hand, crushing the flame. In an instant, as if a wave had been unleashed, everything that had been frozen crumbled into nothing but small ice shards. Some were large and fell to the ground, crumbing further, but in the end, they all glittered in the moonlight.

  Quest complete!

  Quest complete!

  ----------

  Wu Ling appeared at the final platform, annoyed as she cleaned a small cut from her arm. “I hate traps. Reminds me of all the training I’ve had to do,” she said, spitting on the ground.

  If it had been daytime and she had a little rest, she might have been able to reach the other side of the trial with ease. The problem was that she, like everyone else, knew nothing about the trials that they would encounter and there might be differences that made the trial worse in the daytime.

  So, not wanting to linger and risk further complications, she went as far as she could, only reaching the midpoint. She had reacted fast enough to dodge most of what attacked her as soon as she appeared, but she was still grazed by a small projectile.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything more to do here,” she said, looking around the small space she was in. “Might as well just go.” With one step, she crossed the portal, onto the next trial.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Quest complete!

  ----------

  Mercer, with his training, easily made it through the trial as it was intended, by dodging everything that was launched his way.

  “This is nothing when compared to the constant rain of bullets you have to dodge when robbing someone,” he said with a smug smile. “Didn’t even have to use my poisons.”

  Quest complete!

  Quest complete!

  ----------

  A giant beast was huffing and puffing through flared nostrils. Their body was riddled with arrows, spears, needles and many more different types of projectiles. His fur was singed, torn and cut in various places. But behind him was an even greater devastation.

  All the traps, constructs and even the ground itself had been torn asunder. Nothing about the trials’ original appearance remained as nothing but destruction was left behind.

  With a final puff, Harkus strapped his giant double-sided axe onto his back and crossed the portal.

  Quest complete!

  Like that and many other ways, all the tower participants made their way through the trial. They, like Wu Ling, didn’t want to risk the trial getting harder as time progressed. Many, like Mercer, had experience or training for something like this. And while it wasn’t easy, many had their own ways of making it through.

  One such example was Harkus, who tore his way through. Another was the devout believer, that while engulfed in blue flame, made it unscathed toward the end of the trial.

  Quest complete!

  Quest complete!

  ----------

  Eric awoke as the sunlight began to hit him directly in the face. There was nothing special about it, it wasn’t particularly strong or anything, it was just annoying and woke him up.

  Instinctively stretching as he rose, Eric grunted as he felt his whole body stretch satisfactorily. “Ughh!”

  The previous trial had made him aware of all sorts of muscles and interactions between them that only made his stretching all the better. Once he was fully on two feet, he stretched some more. He heard some cracking and popping, which caused him to smile.

  Feeling that he had done all that he realistically could, he inspected his surroundings once more, this time with the help of daylight.

  Through a simple visual inspection, Eric determined that he was in a small room. “Three by three at most,” he said with one eye closed, gauging the distance. “Each wall is about… five meters?” He eyed the walls once more. “Yeah, about five.”

  Turning to face the walls with the openings, he quickly arrived at the answer that he was too tired to give himself the previous night. “Indian, Taj mahal,” he said, pointing at the bulbous top. “Yeah… that’s all I got."

  Peering through each opening, he didn’t really see anything. On both sides of where he was, the ground eventually extended far enough that it blocked him from seeing anything. “I think that means I’m at a certain elevation,” he said, each of his words filled with doubt.

  Dismissing his desire to see something, anything, he looked at the back wall. After a short inspection, he confirmed that there was nothing special about it, at least not anything that he could make out. “The only strange thing about it is that the bricks are arranged oddly.”

  With that done, he turned toward the only opening in the room. It was an opening about two meters wide and two meters tall. It led to a passageway that had a clear ending in the distance. “No fucking clue how much that is,” Eric said, trying to gauge the distance, with little luck.

  Eric had actually passed out as the System gave its announcement, that meant he didn’t actually now what he needed to do. “But it’s incredibly obvious what I have to do here,” he said, turning to the walls and floor of the passageway. “Those are obviously traps and the secret might be getting to other side uninjured.”

  Jumping in place to pump himself up, Eric felt a certain sense of dissociation from what he was doing, as if it were unnecessary. “Guess that means I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, making his way toward the passageway entrance.

  Without thinking about it too much, he leaped right in. Three large strides later and a small arrow flew directly toward him.

  Already expecting something like this to happen, Eric already had his senses heightened as much as he could. He saw the small arrow approaching but by the time his hand reached the same height as the arrow, it had already pierced his shoulder.

  “Shit!”

  Imagining what would follow soon after, he hurriedly jumped back and rolled backward and to the side. While he was still rolling, a barrage of arrows flew from the tunnel and pierced the back wall.

  Quickly rising to his feet, Eric yanked the arrow out of his shoulder and visibly saw his wound close. “Neat.”

  He once more made his way to the passage entrance and prepared himself as his wound fully closed. “Okay. First is an arrow from the front.”

  One large stride in and an arrow flew from the side. This time he was faster but the distance the arrow traveled was shorter. As Eric rolled back to the initial room, another barrage hit the back wall.

  Rising once more to his feet, Eric found himself with the tip of his nose missing. It was already recovering but that didn’t help alleviate the panic that was rising from within. Though, it did feel different, somehow.

  “That means that it’s not a pattern. That’s something at least,” he said with zero optimism. “Since I doubt this is a trial about getting injured…” He paused, considering what he just said. “Wait, is it? Maybe to build character against adversity or something?”

  After a moment of hesitation, he came to a resolution. “Well, it’s not like I’m going to stop. So, might as well use this for training even it that’s not what it is meant for,” he told himself, feeling a small amount of pride.

  With that simple determination, he once more made his way to the entrance of the passageway and prepared himself to make an attempt.

  Time passed at a normal pace. Eric found himself neither entertained nor bored by what he was doing. He was engaged just enough to be able to notice the steady progress of his efforts and not feel like he was wasting time without results.

  As the sun set for the first time, Eric stood, his clothes tattered and full of blood, but with a smile on his face. In between his fingers was a small arrow, the same size as the one that had pierced him the first time, but unlike that one, this one was clean.

  “An entire day, and I only managed to catch a single arrow,” Eric said without a single hint of disappointment.

  Eric had realized it earlier in the day, this growth went beyond stats or skills, it was simply what his body was already capable of.

  “Even the previous floor was like this,” he said to himself, remembering the previous floor. “I never felt the tug of the System. My stats never increased, nor did I develop any skills. This was completely the efforts of my new body, my senses, me.”

  He paused, considering what he had gone through up to this point. “I could probably force my skills to work, like I sort of did on the first floor and I don’t even think it would be a bad thing.” The moment that he felt something help him when he was creating his mana channels came to mind. “Maybe it was the tower?”

  He shook his head lightly, a small smile appearing on his face. “But no, this feels like the correct way of doing things. Like these trials are for our bodies. What did the first-floor announcement say?”

  Making a small effort, trying not to even think about Mental Focus, Eric remembered what was at the end of the System announcement. “You who has reached a new level in your cultivation, discover the limits of your new form,” he said, each word exactly as the System had said them. “Discover the limits of your new form,” he repeated, a smile fully formed.

  Eric could tell that he was falling behind the others who had entered the tower with him, but he was always going to be behind them. Now was the time to set a firm foundation. Something that couldn’t be shaken and could be reliable further into the future.

  While everyone else had been training for possibly years and even had unique constitutions like the lizardman and cold woman, he was living a normal human life. While his friends were training and getting stronger, he was unconscious.

  “This is where I start to build a path for myself.” He walked toward the entrance of the passageway. “One step at a time.”