Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Chapter 36: Overcompensation (1)

Novel: Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Author: AlexD Updated: Jun 08, 2026

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Now reading: Chapter 36: Overcompensation (1) from Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability, a Adventure novel by AlexD.

The scenery shifted, and I was transported to the Reward Room.

‘…Magnificent Clear?’

That was even a thing?

Still slightly dazed, I looked around.

It had said the reward tier would be adjusted upward, but…

“…Huh?”

When I saw the Skill Stone, I couldn’t help but be shocked.

Because the Skill Stone wasn’t green, aning it wasn’t Rare or Rare grade.

It was a Skill Stone radiating a violet glow, like athyst.

I’d never seen that color before.

In other words, this was a Skill Stone of an entirely new grade.

I picked it up.

[Skill Stone: Destruction Ray (Epic )]

Upon use, you may acquire ‘Skill: Destruction Ray (Epic )’.

“Oh…?”

Epic grade… seriously?

And not just Epic, but Epic ?

Until now, no skill of a grade higher than Rare had ever appeared in the world, so what ca after Rare had remained unknown.

It seed that the grade above Rare had finally made its debut.

And it had skipped straight past Epic to Epic , at that.

A reward that leapt a full two tiers above anything I’d received before.

“Ha, well, damn…”

It was impossible not to feel a little giddy.

Destruction Ray? From the na alone, I couldn’t tell whether it was Physical Type or Magic Type.

Before reading the skill description, I offered a brief prayer.

Please be Magic Type.

[Skill: Destruction Ray (Epic )]

Concentrates destructive force and fires it in a straight line. Casting requires 30 to 300 seconds of ntal Concentration. Skill power increases with longer ntal Concentration ti.

Classification: Magic Type

Willpower cost: 1,000

Cooldown: 3 min

“…Yes!”

Magic Type it was!

I read through the skill description.

“Concentrates destructive force and fires it in a straight line…”

Hmm… ah, I see.

So it was like a destruction beam? A laser attack?

The first thing that caught my eye was that the ntal Concentration ti wasn’t fixed.

Thirty seconds to three hundred seconds.

And the longer the concentration, the stronger the skill beca.

‘Feels like a charging skill.’

The other thing that jumped out was the absolutely absurd Willpower cost.

A full thousand. Ten tis that of Fla Strike.

And the cooldown was three minutes, which was pretty long too.

Was this just the norm for an Epic-grade spell?

Since I didn’t need to worry about skill costs, it only made more excited.

How powerful did a spell have to be to eat up that much Willpower?

‘No way it’s stronger than that cannon, though… right?’

The cannon’s Willpower cost had been 600.

Since this skill consud even more than that, the thought crossed my mind naturally, but…

Then again, even if Epic was a tier above Rare, it couldn’t be that strong. That would be balance-breaking.

The cannon had been a special stage-exclusive item, which was why it had been so overpowered.

If you compared by Willpower cost alone, the cannon, which had packed at least a thousand tis the power of Fla Strike, had only consud six tis the Willpower.

Still, this Destruction Ray would surely be far stronger than Fla Strike or Blade Storm, so I was looking forward to it.

[‘Skill: Destruction Ray (Epic ) has been acquired.]

After acquiring the skill, I thought about testing it right away, but…

‘Probably not the best idea in here.’

What if it was so powerful it collapsed the Reward Room?

Nah, no way.

I was getting ahead of myself again.

Better not get my hopes too high. What if it turned out weaker than expected?

I decided to test Destruction Ray later during a Repeat Clearing run.

I checked the other reward.

[Item: Celestial Music Box]

A lost holy relic of the Paeli Order. When used, it emits a lody that soothes the mind and body. Can be activated at a cost of 1 Willpower per second.

“…Hmm.”

I’d had a feeling one of the holy relics might co as a reward, but…

This was actually what I got?

♫ ♩♪

When I activated the music box, the sa clear lody I’d heard earlier began to flow out.

There was definitely sothing calming about it.

Nice, that was nice and all… but what was I supposed to use this for?

I would’ve preferred the relic that deployed a barrier.

But since I’d gotten an Epic skill, I could afford to be generous about this one.

Well, at least it was soothing to listen to~.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: 4F]

[Level: 45]

[Willpower: 1,250]

[Skills: Destruction Ray (Epic ), Teleportation (Rare ), Sixth Sense (Rare ), Rapid Regeneration (Rare ), Fla Strike (Rare)( 2), Blade Storm (Rare), Exaltation (Rare), Fairy Light Bullet (Normal )( 1), Minor Poison Resistance (Normal ), Leap (Normal)( 1), Swing (Normal), Thrust (Normal)]

My level had jumped another five, bringing close to 50 before I knew it.

My body had grown far too strong by now.

If I ran even a little hard, my shoes would fall apart, so ever since clearing the second floor, I’d been going barefoot every ti I entered the Tower…

Was I going to have to give up on footwear forever?

I wished so kind of sturdy shoe-type item would drop.

I fiddled with Plligas’s Necklace hanging around my neck.

‘Speaking of which, this one too…’

Wasn’t it about ti to try binding Plligas as a Familiar before tackling the fourth floor?

If possible, it was obviously better to attempt it before floor four. It could be a huge asset for the clear.

I’d test my new skill’s power first and then decide.

“Alright, very nice.”

This third-floor hidden stage had been an absolute windfall.

Magnificent Clear. Who would’ve thought sothing like that existed?

But under normal circumstances, it would never have been possible.

The condition for a Magnificent Clear on the third-floor hidden stage had essentially been the total annihilation of the undead army.

Are you kidding ? How was anyone supposed to pull that off?

Even at level 100, you’d collapse from exhaustion trying to kill them all.

This kind of cheat-level clear was probably a one-ti thing.

Unless another broken, tailor-made item like that cannon happened to show up.

[Would you like to exit the Tower?]

Having finished sorting through my rewards, I exited the Tower.

The mont I returned to my room, the door flew open, making flinch.

“Oppa, I need help with my assign… what are you so startled about?”

“…I told you to knock before coming in.”

“Yeah, okay. Look at my report for .”

She strode right in and thrust a scrap of paper at like she was dropping off laundry at a service counter.

How the hell had she scarfed down twenty years of life and still not changed one bit?

I skimd through my sister’s pathetic excuse for an assignnt report. What was this disaster of a paper?

“Didn’t I tell you to differentiate the subheadings from the numbers when you write your table of contents?”

“Hm? Oh, right.”

“And stop ending your sentences with casual speech. You’re mixing formal and informal all over the place. And what is this flow in your introduction?” [TL: Korean academic writing requires consistent formal sentence endings; mixing casual and formal endings is a common student mistake.]

“What? What about it?”

“How do you jump straight from this into the main body? Don’t you think sothing else needs to go here? Can you try thinking about it for a second?”

“Ugh, co on, just tell .”

My sister scrunched up her face and grudgingly absorbed every piece of constructive criticism. Then she snatched the report back and turned to leave.

Annoyed that she hadn’t even bothered to say thank you, I reached over and mussed up her hair.

“You psycho! Stop it!”

“Blehh~ get out.”

I shooed her out of my room.

I could hear her tattling to our mom from outside, but as if Mom was going to take her side.

She got scolded once more for mouthing off to her older brother, then I heard her grumbling as she shut her own door.

“Nngh…”

I stretched once and headed out of my room too.

I grabbed so water from the fridge and was drinking it when Mom asked.

“Did you go into the Tower?”

“…Yes.”

“Alright. Don’t push yourself too hard, take it easy. I always say this, but be careful, okay?”

“I will. Don’t worry.”

I went back to my room.

I’d gotten my parents’ permission, but entering the Tower still felt like sothing I had to be careful about.

Even though they knew, rationally, that a re Easy 1F Repeat Clearing wasn’t dangerous at all, they still couldn’t help worrying.

‘Aren’t there any Goblins in the real world?’

If there were, I could show them firsthand that a flick to the forehead was enough to pop a Goblin’s head… was that a bit too unfilial?

After returning to my room, I rested for just a bit before entering the Tower again.

I had to at least test out the new skill’s performance.

[You have entered Nightmare difficulty Floor 3.]

Grooooan…

Undead started swarming in.

I grabbed the mace and kicked off the ground hard.

Without using any magic, I began fighting the undead with nothing but my body.

Crash! Crack! Crunch!

I darted around smashing undead skulls.

At level 30, I’d still needed magic to fight comfortably, but now I could fly around just like this.

As ti passed, the undead grew more nurous, and suicide undead and beast undead started appearing too.

I picked off the bomb undead with Fairy Light Bullets and kept fighting without magic otherwise.

The Exaltation effect had kicked in too, and it was still manageable. I plowed through, grinding undead to pieces as I advanced.

Should I let a suicide undead hit and test the Rapid Regeneration skill while I was at it? The thought flickered through my mind, but…

If I died doing sothing that stupid, there’d be no more idiotic death, so I dropped the idea.

I fought for ten minutes, deliberately waiting for the sun to set.

Once it did, the undead army ca marching in, packed thick across the horizon.

Only then did I move to the underground passage.

After gathering all the gems and activating the sun emblem, I returned to the surface.

I watched for a while as the undead lted under the sun.

Before long, the countless undead began converging toward a single point, rging together.

“Alright… co on out.”

The fully powered Amalgamation boss that had given so much hell.

I’d deliberately waited for all the undead to erge just to make this thing appear.

After all, having hit level 45 and gotten an insanely powerful high-tier skill, of course I had to have a rematch.

The thing that had put up a good fight against Plligas, recomnded level 50 and above.

That made this boss at least level-50 tier as well.

I still wasn’t sure I could win, but if it looked hopeless, I could just leave.

Grooooooo…

A low-frequency wail that rattled the eardrums.

I tapped my ears a couple of tis and waited for the Amalgamation to co rolling in.

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!

Right on cue, it ca barreling toward at trendous speed.

This ti, I dodged to the side without using Leap.

Hmm, it was actually manageable to dodge now.

When it changed direction and rolled at in succession, or leapt into the air and ca crashing down like a teor, I evaded every single one.

Of course, being able to dodge was one thing; that monstrous size ant I still wasn’t at the level where I could fight it head-on with my body.

‘That’s enough warming up.’

Having finished the physical ability test, I decided to sample the main course.

[Skill: Destruction Ray (Epic )]

Concentrates destructive force and fires it in a straight line. Casting requires 30 to 300 seconds of ntal Concentration. Skill power increases with longer ntal Concentration ti.

Classification: Magic Type

Willpower cost: 1,000

Cooldown: 3 min

The Amalgamation was gearing up to roll toward again.

I stopped ti and began ntal Concentration.

Naturally, I charged the full 300 seconds.

Just how powerful would it be?

At Epic grade, it should at least deal aningful damage.

After completing the 300 seconds of ntal Concentration.

I released ti and cast the fully charged Destruction Ray at the Amalgamation.

In that instant, a pitch-black sphere, like a black hole, shimred in midair with an eerie sound.

And then, the very next mont.