“That’s it?” Eric asked, his tone calmer than he expected it to be.

  “Yes,” the flamebearer answered. “You have been put on a path by one of those who ravages. The Monarch of Whales.”

  “Fuck. Do you know their name?”

  “To know the name of a monarch is a privilege. Even for those of us who walk a warmer, more enlightened path. So, no, I do not know their name, all I do know is that you were seeing walking with them and that they personally said that you had the infinite essence,” the flamebearer said, expanding on his answer.

  Yup, that confirms it, Eric thought. There is no one else who fits that description, it has to be Ondal. But… Monarch of Whales? Hmm, maybe I’m missing something—Who am I kidding? I’m missing a bunch of somethings.

  “Well, I guess that solves that question,” Eric said, putting his hands on his hips and his expression indifferent. “Gossip spreads fast and more if it’s about a treasure. Though, that does make me question why you would tell me about this and not attack me, trying to take said treasure for yourself.”

  “The flame burns everything away, including unholy desires,” the flamebearer said, his face obscured by the hood he had raised after the sun began to rise. “And your treasure pales in comparison to the miracles that our Holy Flame can perform.”

  “I really want to ask what you mean,” Eric said, turning to look behind him. “But I doubt that they will allow me to continue speaking with you as I have until now.”

  “They lack patience,” the flamebearer commented.

  “Apparently,” Eric agreed. “Though I do have one question. Why are you still on this floor? I got stuck for months in the first ten floors. So why are you here? Shouldn’t you be on a higher floor or something? I thought flamebearers were supposed to be this incredible force. I just don’t see how you could get stuck.”

  “Flamebearer?!” the person in front of Eric exclaimed in surprise, their androgenous tone turning a bit feminine. “I am not a Flamebearer. Why would you think that?”

  “Aren’t that what you people are called? At least that’s what On—the Monarch called you.”

  “No, we—I am not a Flamebearer, and please say their name with the proper respect. They are not your friends, they are your betters—better than anyone else,” the pale person said, performing a small ritual as they laid their hand on their chest. “I am but a devout believer. To be a Flamebearer is to be exalted—is to be greater than, to have a purpose so great that your very presence illuminats the path of those that follow.”

  Shit, it’s worse than I thought. This guy is full blown psychotic follower. “Then what do I call you?” Eric asked.

  “I am but a devout believer of the Holy Flame,” the believer began.

  “But what—”

  “Everything that I once was, that I once possessed, was burned away by the purifying flame that now illuminates my path,” they said with a smile. “This is my pilgrimage. When I am finished, my path will be clearer than it was yesterday and will become something new, something more, I will be—” their tone was steadily rising, not quite a sermon, at least not for Eric. It was clearly more for themselves. “—I’m sorry,” they suddenly said, having realized what they were doing. “I tend to lose myself at times.”

  “No problem,” Eric said. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re still here on this floor. Again, I have no problems, I’m just curious.”

  “Oh, the reason is simple,” the believer said. “I do not wish to climb higher.”

  A silence took over the conversation. It wasn’t awkward, but it also didn’t fit with the slightly fanatical mood that the believer displayed only moments ago. There was this calm acceptance of their reality and their own wishes that Eric could sense from their expression, that made it impossible to ignore how sure they were of their own words.

  “That simple?” Eric asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then how are you going to leave the tower?” Eric asked, seeing the perfect opportunity to ask a question that had been plaguing him.

  “I’ll just wait until the seven days run out and I’m forcefully ejected from the tower. How else would I leave?” the believer asked, their question genuine.

  Seven days? Eric asked himself internally. What seven days? Wait—this reminds me, wasn’t there a counter when I finished the introductory floors of the tower? Something like one hundred hours.

  His skill, Mental Focus, easily brought the memory to the surface.

  Time left in the Tower of Revelation: 101:17:51

  That’s a bit more than four days. There is no way I haven’t spent that time already, especially with all the weeks I’ve spent here. Wait, this was so goddamn obvious, I don’t know why or how I didn’t think about this before. At this point, I hate relying on novels and the like, but they did get some things right, and this is clearly one of those things.

  Again, Mental Focus proved its utility by bringing the relevant memories to the surface. The words of story after story began to rush through his mind, each of them recounting a variation of the same story element, time distortion. It wasn’t necessarily an obvious thing, but it tended to be used for the same reason each time, to keep the “outer world” in a similar place while the main character had an adventure all on their own.

  And these adventures tend to happen in a tower, or a dungeon, or another world, which now that I think about it, the tower could easily be considered another world or various other worlds, Eric reasoned. It also wouldn’t surprise me that different floors have different times. If you think about it, it would be the only way to somehow balance them out.

  Eric, completely forgetting about the fact that he was talking to someone and that there were people behind him actively waiting for him to finish his conversation, began to think about the tower floors and how they were balanced.

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  This was one of his greatest failings, reading the room, and it was only worse now that he didn’t even feel the false pressure he mimicked in certain social interactions.

  Floors that are simple fetch quests like the one I’m currently on could be completed in a matter of minutes. But how about quests that require certain things to happen in order to achieve them? The closest one to something like that that I’ve gotten was the tenth floor, where I both depended on the princess’s distance for the normal quest and people with the necessary information for the hidden quest.

  What would have happened if the princess was on another continent? What if no clues were left behind? How long would I have spent on that floor? Days? Months? Maybe even years.

  Suddenly, through a small conversation, all the questions that Eric had—well, that Eric should have had, were answered. And the answer was so simple.

  While Eric didn’t necessarily know what the Tower of Revelation was, it was simple to piece together based on his previous knowledge and what he himself was experiencing. And it was thanks to this knowledge that he knew that there had to be some sort of limitation. Especially when you considered that there really wasn’t a time limit to the quests themselves.

  The limitation is the time you have inside the tower total, Eric thought, summing things up. Even if I spend my entire life clearing one floor thanks to some time distortion, I will still only have the points awarded to me on that floor. Which are nothing when looking at the point cost for the various rewards.

  So, in the end, the tower is about how high you can make it. And considering what the three brothers said about the special rewards that only appeared on your first entry, then it’s obvious that your first attempt should be the best.

  With the final sentence that Eric formed, something more became clear to him.

  That should also explain why these tower challengers are so persistent in pursuing me, Eric realized. If what the believer said is true, then that means that many tower challengers, new and old, are coming after me. The key is the old ones. They already blew their first shot, and from what I can gather, the infinite essence is expensive. This is probably the only real opportunity that they have in order to obtain it.

  “Yes,” Eric said, nodding. “Many things make sense now. But I have a question, can I see how much time I have—”

  When Eric stopped his internal pondering, he only had one question remaining, and that was to know if it was possible to see the time that you still had left. To his surprise, when he returned his attention to the believer, he realized that they were no longer there. A quick scan from side to side confirmed that he was long gone. But to Eric’s surprise, because he still didn’t know how the System worked, his question was answered.

  Time left in the Tower of Revelation: 41:55:47

  Eric had less than two days of “real” time remaining. He didn’t care enough to do the time conversion calculations because he was missing far too much information.

  For starters, he would have had to know how much time he had left when he first entered the floor, and even then, that would only work for this floor. For the other floors he would’ve had to do a similar thing, take his time of entry and after spending some time on that floor, compare the rate of advancement.

  In other words, knowing how much time he had left was useless to him at this moment. He would have to let at least a day pass in order to make an informed decision, but he was unwilling to do that. Not only because seeing the timer had suddenly lit a fire under him, but also because he wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t forget about considering the time on the next floor.

  Just like how I forgot about the timer to begin with. With determination solidifying within himself, Eric came to a decision. Today, I leave.

  ----------

  The rest of the day had gone on like normal. There were some attacks here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be handled by the expert patrollers that Eric was with. The more he saw them display the mastery of their techniques, the more questions he had.

  Simple questions like whether they had access to the System or not were obvious. And from what he gathered from their various conversations, or by unintentionally eavesdropping, nothing suggested that they did.

  Which is only made weirder by the fact that I do. What makes it so that the System ignores the people of this land, but not foreigners like me?

  But questions like that soon died out as soon as he stole the last pill from the last merchant.

  Eric had used the commotion that occurred from identifying a tower challenger that tried to steal someone’s pouch and took the pill without issue. It was also great that the tower challengers were slightly above average, demanding the attention of all three of his fellow patrollers.

  To his surprise, he didn’t actually see the portal appear anywhere near him, or at all for that matter. He made a note to look for it and continued on with his day.

  When the day was ending and they had made their way back to the barracks, Lu Feng was already waiting for him and only him. Word had gotten to him that he spent a prolonged amount of time speaking with someone in order to gain answers.

  That explains why no one asked me anything during the day, Eric thought. They wanted to leave it to their boss.

  ----------

  “Someone that you know started the rumor that you possessed a treasure, and this treasure is so valuable that they are willing to risk their very lives to retrieve it… From a simple rumor…” Lu Feng said, his words carrying a hint of doubt.

  “Apparently,” Eric answered.

  Lu Feng narrowed his eyes, trying to grasp at something—anything that Eric might let slip. But no matter how much he observed, there wasn’t anything to grasp. And the more he looked, the more unnatural it felt, like he was observing something that wasn’t human.

  Normally, even during normal conversations, there are always little movements or tells that don’t mean anything, but they’re there. Even when a conversation is between equals, these tells and movements, no matter how small, are there. Lu Feng even took it a step further thanks to his connection with air. He tended to notice slight temperature drops across the body of whoever he was observing. But Eric gave him nothing. He didn’t react like a normal person at all.

  “I guess that means that you’ll be leaving now?” Lu Feng asked, hiding the strange feeling of alienation he felt from Eric.

  “How did you know?” Eric asked.

  “The way you spoke, it was like your words carried a hint of finality in them,” Lu Feng said, his composure back almost immediately. “Your conversation with that pale person revealed something to you, didn’t it? And because of that revelation, you will now disappear like everyone else.”

  “I guess I will,” Eric confirmed.

  “Then, let us not say goodbye, for the future is yet to be written,” Lu Feng said, outstretching his hand.

  Eric looked at Lu Feng’s hand, considering his words. Do the floors change upon reentry? Are they the same for everyone? Eh, who cares?

  “What you said,” Eric said, grasping Lu Feng’s outstretched hand.

  Quest complete!

  Eric tried to retrieve his hand, set on going to his room and plan his search for the portal gate, but unlike what he expected, he had difficulty doing so. Instead, he was met by an hour long talk about the nature of the energy of the world, its flow and how the universe ultimately is intimately connected with everything and everyone.

  “Remember this,” Lu Feng said. “I tell you this because in your short time here, we failed to master or even give birth to your mastery of air. So, remember my teachings and you’ll surely find a way to dominate not only air, but any element that you wish.”

  With those parting words, and a visibly exhausted face, that Eric was pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to get anymore, at least not from things like talking, Eric made his way back to his room.

  When he was only a few steps away from his small room, through the bottom of the wooden door, he saw a shining light, a light that he recognized and knew was impossible to mistake. With zero hesitation, he opened the door, careful not to touch the portal, gathered his clothes and without so much as a moment to consider all the time he spent on the thirteenth floor, he left.

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