With the auction cancelled for the time being, Ray and the others had some extra time to prepare for the next dungeon.

  He had heard from Sridayne that the other teams still in the tournament, the ones who had prioritized winning the lower-Tier dungeons, were all pissed. They had hoped to use the second auction to earn themselves enough to at least stay in some contention for the Immortalizer Tournament.

  It had left Ray curious just where the other teams stood compared to his team. But he had more pressing things to pay attention to.

  Such as contacting the Marauder again.

  Ray called on the Tower Node of the Marauder. The crystal floated before him, looking rather plain compared to the other Tower Nodes he had seen on his journeys. Deceptively plain.

  It was almost funny. The first power he’d had from a Tower Node was the ability to summon the monsters he had killed in his very first tutorial dungeon. He definitely couldn’t use that here. Unfortunately, powerful though the Tower Nodes were, they couldn’t break space-time to call in creatures via portals or whatever.

  Nevertheless, Ray focused on channelling its power. On using the skills that it also provided him with.

  Ray closed his eyes to focus. When he opened them again, the Paragon was before him.

  “Well, hello there,” said the formless figure of the Marauder, made of thousands upon thousands of ever-changing little blocks. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Ray nodded. “It has. Like you almost forgot about me.”

  “Oh, please. I could hardly forget the man who made a habit of collecting Tower Nodes and pissing off Paragons. But like you, I also have my own little hobbies to attend to. Regardless, what brings you here, Raymond?”

  It felt a little too convenient and easy that he could get in touch with the Marauder so quickly. How many others had a Paragon in their back pocket? It helped ground Ray’s mind and not take anything for granted. But then again, contacting him was only the starting point.

  “The Sylvans have been aligned with the Fleshcrafter, that’s pretty clear,” Ray said. “I’m just curious how that connection is going to play out on the Third Floor. What do they have planned? It can’t be the same thing as the Second Floor, because they’d then piss off the… intergalactic community or federation or whatever it is they’ve got going on.”

  With everything Ray had seen, with the other races present through the Omniverse that the System supposedly had access to, he was pretty sure of one thing. The Sylvans couldn’t be the only ones in power in the wider scope of space that the System was present in.

  They had broadcasts that expanded out into the wider cosmos, audience members from all over, people who were financially invested in this whole tournament schtick that the Tower Lord had set up. There were powers that the Tower Lord was beholden too, just as Sridayne had stated.

  But even then, it was pretty evident the Sylvans wanted to stick with the Fleshcrafter. The main leaders, at least, if not certain rebels like Lyvanse.

  So, Ray was left questioning how the Tower Lord intended to maintain the balance between those two pulls. How was he going to fulfil his goals regarding the Paragon he had sided with while also ensuring the Immortalizer Tournament was a successful venture that satisfied everyone involved with it?

  And the only hint Ray had discovered was the existence of the treasures the dungeons possessed.

  “Do you think I am some sort of mind reader who can predict what your enemies have planned?” the Marauder asked with a raised, constantly changing eyebrow.

  “Even if you don’t know the specifics, I assume you had some idea,” Ray said, undeterred. “You’re a Paragon, after all. The scope of your knowledge and insight is a lot wider than min.”

  “That may be true… but unfortunately, my insight doesn’t extend much farther beyond your own in this matter. The Sylvans hold their cards close to their heart, and the Fleshcrafter himself has… receded from view.”

  Ray didn’t like the sound of that. He really had been hoping that he could learn from the only source that went above and beyond anything else he could dig into. But then—

  “I do have one thing, though…” the Marauder said.

  Ray’s expression soured. “You’re just keeping me in suspense for your own amusement, aren’t you?”

  The Paragon’s smile changed from a rather humanlike to one that sported many fangs. “Think of it in terms of the structure of the Tower, the dungeons it sports, the things that make it up and allow it to function.”

  Ray frowned, pondering that for a few seconds. “You mean like Tower Nodes?”

  “Well, that is the start. But go beyond that. I believe you are already aware of the connection. You simply need to actualize it.”

  “The connection… oh. Like how the dungeons have treasures in them. And the Tower Lord is clearly targeting those treasures… so, their plans are dependent on us completing the dungeons for them. But they can’t have us give up the dungeon treasures, not unless they make it a game. A tournament. An auction.”

  “Yes, precisely. You see how they are manipulating the very process the System uses to populate Floors, yes?”

  Ray slowly nodded. The overall picture was still a little vague, but he was starting to get a good idea. But it sounded like they were dependent on the System populating the Tower Floors with exactly what they needed.

  “Can they influence what exactly the System uses to create the Tower?” Ray asked.

  The Marauder shook his head. “Not at all. However, there are ways of finding out what the Tower will be made of. And that knowledge can inform them whether they ought to invest their time and effort into the Tower or not.”

  “Yeah, that would explain a lot.”

  Ray didn’t need much time to digest the information. A lot of that was what he already suspected or had already experienced one way or another. It was just a matter of actualizing it all in his head so that they stuck.

  “I hope you haven’t brought me here only to collect information,” the Marauder said. “But to also remind yourself of your real purpose.”

  “My real purpose, huh…” Ray mused.

  Honestly, he had been experiencing the same thoughts already. His focus needed to shift away from simply completing his Objectives and on countering what the Sylvans were trying to do. After all, the Objectives had been set by the Sylvans in the first place.

  Getting too invested in them would be playing into their hands. He couldn’t have that.

  “I’m just wondering how it’ll all come to a head,” Ray said. “What happens at the end of this tournament…”

  The Marauder shrugged his ever-changing shoulders. “You will simply need to wait. Wait, and prepare. Interestingly, your current circumstance allows you to prepare in many ways. Do not ignore them.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Their little meeting started fading. Ray would have liked to hear more about those “many ways” that the Paragon was suggesting, but he actually had an inkling of what the Marauder meant. He just had to act on it now.

  “One last thing before you go, Marauder,” Ray said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Can a Paragon truly never interfere in person in… proceedings? And no lies or half-truths, please.”

  The Marauder took a little time to consider. “You have already encountered it, in a sense. Paragons can never manifest themselves in such low-level Towers. However, the Spirespine you encountered on the last Floor was the compressed Essence of a Paragon come to life. A creature born from the influence of none other than the Fleshcrafter.”

  “Low level? I thought the Tower of Forging was one of the stronger ones.”

  “You have seen nothing of true strength,” the Paragon said with a short laugh.

  Ray raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing you Paragons count as true strength?”

  The Marauder didn’t answer. Only smiled as he departed, his form slowly but surely fading to nothing. Seconds later, Ray himself was

  Ray had been seeking some peace of mind with the Marauder meeting. That didn’t happen. Nothing the Paragon had said allowed his thoughts to cease their restless churning. It sucked. He wanted to focus on using his training crystals and get some more levels in preparation for the next dungeon.

  Instead, all he was left doing was wondering what the tournament administration up to. Information was scarce after the announcement.

  He still would have bulldozed his way through the training crystals anyway. But there was another distraction he had to deal with. His hotel was being mobbed and the proprietor had worriedly called him down to help defend against the impromptu siege.

  Apparently, the other teams participating in the tournament were all mad at him specifically.

  “What the hell do you want me to do?” Ray asked when he met them at the entrance to the hotel.

  They were a motley crew, comprised of basically every race Ray had encountered so far and then some. It wasn’t every single member of every single team still competing in the Immortalizer Tournament. But the small crowd was sizable enough to worry the hotel manager.

  A part of Ray wanted to call out to the scant few humans here and there from other Towers, but that felt weird. Especially since they looked just as mad as their various alien teammates.

  One of the angry competitors, a Ryous with deep blue skin, stepped forward. “I knew that would be your answer. But answer me this first. Are you willing to assist us and make things fair?”

  “Depends,” Ray said. “I’m guessing you have some kind of plan?”

  “It is simple. Refuse to participate. If we all come together and refuse to cooperate with this fraud of a tournament, then we can grind it to a halt. They will be forced to meet our demands.”

  Ray wanted to say that it was easy for them to call everything to stop when they had little to no chance of winning. But that was a bit uncharitable. They wanted a chance to win. The only reason they had come here was because the administration had called off the auction.

  After they had already technically favoured Ray’s team by having the Tower Lord buy everything off him at ridiculously high prices.

  “Wouldn’t it be to your detriment if the next auction went ahead?” Ray asked. “Like I already have a second set of treasures from my last dungeon run, and that was a Tier 35 dungeon. The rewards I got will sell like hotcakes. It’ll put an even bigger gap between us.”

  “That’s what you think,” someone, a Holdstar, said from the back.

  “Oh yeah? You got some other plan then?”

  “That’s besides the point. You in or not?”

  Ray was in a bit of a bind. He felt for them. If he had been in their position, he would be looking to get things back on track too. But at the same time, he wanted to continue competing in the tournament. “I can’t just say yes off the top of my head. You guys clearly had time to think about it. My turn now. Give me some time and I’ll have an answer for you.”

  “What do you have to think about?” It was the Holdstar asking the question again. “It is a rather clear-cut case any way you look at it. You either want things to be as fair as possible, or you are in it in for your benefit and everything else comes second.”

  Ray really wanted to switch their circumstances and see what the Holdstar’s response would have been. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree to any plan you suggest right off the bat. You think you want to make this whole tournament fairer, but you’re missing the big picture. Did you ever stop to think for a second what the tournament admin want?”

  “What has that got to do with any of us?”

  “The Sylvans running this show aren’t our friends. What do you think they’ll do when all the competitors they graciously invited into the Tournament decided they want to bring this whole thing to a halt?”

  “That’s the point. If they don’t run the tournament properly, they don’t deserve to be running the tournament in the first place.”

  “I mean, sure, but running the tournament isn’t what they want.” Ray tried not to sound like he was explaining things to kids condescendingly. He would have hated that if he was in their position. “They want what you want. The treasures we gain at the end of the dungeons. The fancy little items and materials and whatever else we recover. That’s what they really want.”

  The Holdstar looked like he wanted to ask why that even mattered to them, but thankfully, there were smarter heads in the group.

  “You think you know what they intend to do with these treasures?” a Ryous asked.

  “I have some suspicions…” And before any of them could argue against them, Ray gave them a timely reminder. “I’ve been on this Tower for a while now. I’ve got more experience than I’d like on what the Sylvans like to get up to. So trust me when I tell you, we should all be a little more alert about what this tournament’s end goal is. The Sylvans aren’t on our side.”

  Ray’s words got through. They didn’t argue further, distracted by the potential of what the Sylvans were up to.

  Some of them were clearly unwilling to give him any grace, but his request was ultimately fair. They couldn’t argue against it. So for now, they decided to leave and give him time to think about it.

  That was good, because Ray already had a different idea to pursue.

  “I do not have time for this,” Lent said. “Nor for any of your silly ideas. How did you even find where I resided?”

  “At least hear me out, will you?” Ray said. “I went to all this effort to find you in this lonely corner of Auction Island. That deserves some time from you, right?”

  Ray had Sridayne to thank for digging up the information. She had reviewed some interviews that Team Albatross had appeared in, eventually finding a piece of intel where their former Sylvan team member had revealed their residence. It was surprisingly far from the Auction Hall.

  Lent didn’t look like he wanted to give Ray any time. Although, it wasn’t like Ray could actually decipher any expression on that boulderlike face. All he got was that the alien standing before him really was starving for time.

  It was common knowledge that Lent had been thoroughly investigated. Not only had his Sylvan teammate died in the dungeon, but Pierce had apparently gone missing afterwards as well.

  Ray had been a little surprised to learn that too. He would have thought that Pierce was disappeared by the tournament administration, but that didn’t seem to be the case. They were continuing to interrogate and investigate, going so far as to interview even the competitors who hadn’t been on the Tier 35 dungeon island to begin with.

  Of course, a part of Ray wondered if the Sylvans had taken Pierce into custody and were still conducting their dramatic investigation anyway. After all, Sridayne had suggested the public investigation was the rather poor substitute for the actual tournament. Maybe they thought they had to keep up the fa?ade.

  “Fine,” Lent said, his voice grinding out like two heavy rocks rubbing against each other. “What is so important that you must take up my limited time?”

  Ray tried not to take offence at the arrogance. Lent was definitely making it hard. Ray supposed his appearance was a surprise. Plus, the boulderlike alien was stronger than Ray himself, so he naturally held Ray in a much lower estimation. Not that that was good.

  “I’m guessing you either don’t know where Pierce is,” Ray said. “Or you have no inclination of telling me even if you do. Which is fair. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion Pierce can’t escape from the situation either. Not easily.”

  “Your point?” Lent asked.

  “What if I told you I could get rid of the Sylvans?”

  Even though Ray couldn’t truly decipher Lent’s emotions when he remained unspeaking, he still got the impression he had gotten the alien’s attention.

  “I will take care of the Sylvans coming after Pierce,” Ray continued when Lent didn’t answer. “In return, I want one small thing. When the time comes, Pierce needs to pick a side. And he better remember which side is the one that helped him.”

  From a certain perspective, Ray had no reason to seemingly help Pierce. The guy had literally tried to kill him for possessing Tower Nodes. Ray wouldn’t have minded if it had turned into a fatal fight because they both wanted to win the dungeon treasures for their respective teams. No. Pierce had made it personal.

  But Ray wasn’t doing this just to help Pierce. Assisting his almost-killer was far from his main goal. It wasn’t like he was going out of his way to fight off the Sylvans for him. His upcoming actions just stood to benefit Pierce—who had survived, somehow, through his own efforts—and so, Ray had an opportunity to take advantage of.

  Which was why he was here, standing before Lent. Before another competitor who had to be annoyingly stronger than him.

  “Your words are duly noted,” Lent said.

  And that was all Ray got before the boulderlike alien turned away.

  Ray sighed. He had said his piece. That would have to be enough. And now—

  Gritty: Wingman! Where are you????

  Ray’s heartbeat picked up its pace.

  Ray: What’s wrong? Did something happen?

  Gritty: It’s the Sylvans. They’re here, and they’re looking for you.