As I prepared to make my way to the fifth layer of the tower, there was no avoiding a frustrating truth. While climbing the massive stairs throughout the tower was easy and the fighting was simple, I had run into a problem regardless. It wasn’t going to stop my progress, if anything it would push me even harder, but it was still annoying. Worst, it wasn’t like there had been much I could do to avoid it, either.

  I sighed and started jumping up the long staircase to the fifth floor. The energy a small hop would have required before the System was now able to launch me twenty feet in the air. With my attributes all over fifty now, even a building designed for magical creatures was no struggle for me. Traversal wasn’t my issue at all.

  It also wasn’t like the fights to reach this point were a problem. The first floor after the entrance foyer had set the style of the building, just a singular massive room without much variance between the first, second, third or fourth floors. Massive columns were spaced at football field lengths from each other, the supports for the ceilings easily thirty metres wide each themselves. The beautiful carvings continued all over them and I was careful not to do any more damage than necessary while fighting, which slowed me down a little.

  Within the odd number floors I faced “just” an extraordinary amount of elementals. Naturally, most of those were the same types I had faced outside, elementals of ice, snow, frost or the like. They were fodder, and little more than good practice for my new fighting style.

  Against physical enemies, I knew I wouldn’t rely on Catalyst much, but it was anathema to the elementals. Once I absorbed some of their mana, it became simple to alter my own Mana Barrier to use the assaulting energy and defence became trivial. I was unsurprised to find that the elementals were resistant to this energy but that meant just using my own more potent mana to flood the air with Magic Missiles as needed. It was on the even floors that things got a little more interesting by adding a mini-boss.

  Unlike the elementals outside, these were clearly created within the tower itself. The first had been a wind elemental, and the second was a water elemental. They fought a lot differently to the icy versions I had been facing. Each had been Grade One, though only level thirty one and thirty three. Regardless, they met the same fate at the end of the Jingu Bang and some Magic Missiles. As my first victory over the guardians of the tower had shown, they might be dangerous but they weren’t durable.

  No, my problems weren’t with the combat or the building itself.

  My issue was my soul. Rather, the energy now needed to level up had increased massively. My achievements, Prodigious Talent specifically, had all added “weight” to my soul. I was still figuring out quite what that meant for me. One benefit I had noticed was the slowly improving regeneration of Spirit inside the well, which was itself larger and could hold more than before. That same benefit was linked to my growing needs as it was the size of my soul, or Spirit Well, which informed the amount of experience needed to level.

  It made a kind of sense if you viewed experience as fuel for the process of levelling specifically. Not just a number, levelling up had a physical effect on my body, healing wounds and recovering both mana and Spirit. It stood to reason that as my health and mana pools grew, as the amount of attributes I received per level and the shape of my soul became more complex, the cost of the action would rise.

  I just hadn’t expected to be fighting Grade One creatures without anything to show for it. “Well, that’s not fair,” I chastised myself, opening up the Inventory screen. The fights might be sort of dull but the rewards were fine. I just couldn’t use most of them without heading back to Ascentown.

  I had recovered my expenses from the upgrading of Ascentown and then some thanks to the spoils from the elementals. The Sorehammer, Spurs of the Flurry and Endless Inkwell had remained in Ascentown where they could do more good than with me. There were reasons why I might use the hammer, but they were few and far between with the powerful staff at my disposal. I had given it to Kruegar in case he found a use for it. Speedo the Gnoll had asked for it, but as he couldn’t lift the thing, I decided to go for the more sensible choice and had Merownis hand over the Fan of Knives. No way that could backfire on me later.

  As for the new stuff, I had been inundated with elemental cores.

  Item - Elemental Core (Ice) (Uncommon)

  Like an Aspect, elementals are formed when mana of a certain type is prevalent in an area. Unlike Aspects, an elemental does not require a certain level of quality for the mana. When the birth of Aspect fails, an elemental rises.

  The elemental core is the broken soul of an elemental. It contains vestiges of the energy it had while alive, with many applications in crafting.

  There was no difference between the cores in description or rarity. While I was excited to see what I could do with them, picturing creating a fantastical icy armour, they weren’t doing much more than taking up space at this point. I did find that if I held a core, I could draw the energy from inside by using Catalyst. Without a destination for that power, all I did was destroy the core in question but they could technically work as a kind of mana battery. Instead of absorbing the mana from an attack aimed my way, I could take from the cores. The issue was the mana inside the core felt “dead” and was much weaker than the fresh mana used in an attack.

  I made my way to the fifth floor without issue, where I faced another huge room full of enemies. I already knew the drill at this point and I had been feeding the Jingu Bang all of my spare mana regeneration since entering the tower. Judicious use of its lengthening ability as well as its impressive capabilities when it came to channelling mana allowed me to make short work of the elementals which appeared. Like my footstep onto their floor was the greatest of insults, dozens of the things rose at once and attacked together.

  There were more water and wind elementals on this floor, which added some complexity. The water elementals worked as a kind of support for the more aggressive cold-based ones. By throwing large balls of water onto the backs of snow or ice elementals, the water elemental repaired damage or increased their destructive capabilities.

  The wind elementals had a focus on speed. Their glittering gems were able to avoid my Magic Missiles unless I focused on and overwhelmed them, so they were left to the end. Capable of using the debris from the battle, they were also strongest at the denouement but that was the sacrifice I made. Neither of the new types made the battle last much longer, but I came away with a few extra injuries for my trouble.

  As I had before, I simply moved to the stairwell and climbed a little. In the rooms themselves, the winds from outside snuck through openings in the walls and elementals could continue to form. For whatever reason, they didn’t do so on the stairs despite them being just as cold.

  Reaching the sixth floor, I was confused for a moment. This room was certainly different, with a massive open window-

  Nope, that was the damage from the Jingu Bang where I had fought back against the tower initially. Destroying one of the pillars also, my attack had done a number on the wall and ceiling of this floor. I whistled at the destruction I had caused, no longer surprised I had defeated the floor guardian in one attack. Cracks ran through the entire room and to one side lay a gleaming crystal. Wasting no time, I looted the mini-boss and received the expected loot with no surprises.

  Item - Elemental Core (Storm) (Rare)

  Aha, I nodded. There had been a storm elemental on this floor, unsurprisingly. I also wasn’t shocked to learn that this elemental had been a level above the others I had faced in some way if the rarity of its core was anything to go on. I half expected to find or receive a bow or something but no such luck. The elemental must have been shooting the storm arrows with its own mana. I didn’t need a ranged weapon, but the more loot the better.

  Seeing no reason to hang around, I was moving to the next staircase as I had an epiphany. Looking at the damage I had done, I wondered for a moment the sight it was bothering me. Then, it clicked. With new, wide eyes, I looked at the carvings which had been ruined by my massive attack. “Do these carvings… create the elementals?” I asked, knowing my other self was listening.

  From the fury which bubbled up from within the Mind Palace, not only was Tag upset that I had figured out something magical before he did, the obvious truth of the statement was almost insulting. Some of Tag’s emotion leaked over and I was soon annoyed enough that a part of me wanted to leave and bring the whole tower down, final claimant be damned. It would have to fight me if I broke its house, right?

  I took a breath and decided that was an idea for later. The elementals weren’t inherently evil and I could imagine hundreds of uses for them in the workforce of Ascentown. Destroying the tower, which I was beginning to suspect was the source of elementals in the area, was not the right choice just because Tag was upset.

  It might feel good, though.

  The seventh floor met me after another set of stairs and it fell just as quickly. Although I didn’t really get tired in the same way as I used to, my muscles were still burning a little with the pace I made climbing the tower. Floor eight followed the pattern. Once again, rows of columns were looming over me and in the far distance, the mini-boss awaited. Number three of four. “Only one left after you,” I whispered, sizing up the latest enemy.

  Mini-boss - Tower Guardian, Lightning Elemental - Level 37

  My hair stood on end from looking at the thing, let alone from the static energy in the room. It was the most humanoid of the elementals I had seen so far, though it was easily three times my height. A glowing blue body, golden bands in places where joints would be on a human and a massive halberd were the main features of its appearance which caught my eye. Two “eyes” bounced where its face would be and I saw that they seemed to lock onto me.

  An instant later, the energy in the room changed all at once. A standard mixture of ambient mana contained many types existing in tandem. In the forest area, the air seemed to be filled with every kind of nature mana possible. The desert contained solid earth energies as well as plenty of heat-based mana, too. Even the icy tundra had different forms of similar energies such as cold, frost, sleet and more. So, when everything but the lightning affinity mana was expunged in an instant, my breath caught. It was like the elemental had used Infusion, but at a level far beyond what I was capable of.

  My panicked thoughts were interrupted as all twenty feet of the elemental and its halberd were in front of me, swinging at my neck.