[Old World Tower]
"If you keep staring at the horizon like that, kid, you'll go blind before the Stars even notice you're here."
Hakon didn't look up from the gargantuan piece of dragon-ox marrow he was roasting over a fire made of blue-tinted driftwood.
He was a massive wall of a man, his white hair braided in the traditional style of a world that had likely been swallowed by the Tower centuries ago.
His beard was a thick, frosted thicket, and his eyes perpetually narrowed as if laughing at a joke only he could hear gave him the look of a friendly predator.
Kang Min didn't respond imdiately.
He sat on a jagged rock, his posture slouched, his hands wrapped in grimy bandages.
He looked tired...the kind that settled into the marrow.
"I was just wondering if the air is this thin on every floor."
Kang Min said, his voice dry.
"Or if it's just this one trying to suffocate ."
"The Tower doesn't try to suffocate you, Kang Min."
Hakon chuckled, his narrow eyes crinkling further as he offered a hunk of the steaming marrow.
"It just forgets you need to breathe.
There's a difference."
Min took the food but didn't eat.
He looked at the vast, vertical expanse of the 69th floor.
"Why can't we just go back? We've cleared enough.
We've seen enough...
Why is the exit always guarded by a door that only opens upward?"
Hakon leaned back, his massive barbarian fra casting a shadow that seed to swallow the campfire.
"Because of the Admin, kid.
Or the Tower Overseers, if you want the fancy title.
They're the ones who keep the cage locked.
They see everything, and more importantly, they make sure anyone who resides within these walls keeps their mouths shut."
"So the top is the only way out?"
"The top?"
Hakon let out a soft, lodic hum.
"People talk about the 'Top' like it's a destination.
But the Tower is filled with trickery.
You might reach a ceiling, you might even see your world 'freed,' but it's usually an illusion...a guise of freedom.
The Tower changes every ti a new world is harvested or a star burns out.
But..."
Hakon paused, his smile sharpening.
"There was one man.
He reached the top, was betrayed by the very Stars he sought to join, and was cast down to a different world within the Tower.
He didn't quit.
He climbed back up, tore through the firmant, and beca a Star himself.
He didn't just leave but rather he gained his world's rights."
「Scene II: The Ruins of a Silent Kingdom (Floor 83)」
The two of them were picking through the rubble of a city that had been frozen in ti.
The sky here was a bruised purple, and the silence was so heavy it felt physical.
Kang Min was scavenging for mana-crystals, his movents sharp and wary.
"Why is this floor dead?"
Kang Min asked, kicking a piece of stone that used to be a throne.
"There's no trial here.
No monsters...
Just... nothing."
"Because the story ended."
Hakon said, his narrow eyes scanning the horizon.
"This world ran out of Narrative Energy.
You ask why so trials can't be challenged?
It's because you don't have the weight to enter them.
Narrative Energy is gotten from stories, Kang Min.
And what is a story? It's you...and .
Everything has a story...
...the way you hold that knife... the way I rember my dead sons.
When a world's story is finished, it becos a ruin.
If you want to challenge greater beings, your own story has to be heavier than theirs."
Scene III: The Crossing of the Salt Sea (Floor 82)
They were on a raft, the water beneath them glowing with a bioluminescent hunger.
Kang Min was rowing, his muscles screaming.
Hakon sat at the prow, looking perfectly at peace.
"Hakon."
Kang Min started, not looking up.
"The Stars.. they aren't just watchers, are they?"
"They're the audience and the critics."
Hakon replied, his voice drifting over the glowing waves.
"They feed on the fables we create.
The more trials you take on, the more your story grows.
When you complete a trial, you aren't just getting 'stats.'
You're gaining Narrative Energy.
That's the real currency.
If your story grows powerful enough, you can take on 'Greater Stories' such as the ones that define the existence of the Tower itself.
But be careful.
If you beco a tragedy, the Stars will cheer the loudest."
Scene IV: The Hunting Grounds (Floor 112)
They were tracking a beast that lived between heartbeats.
Kang Min was tense, his senses dialed to the maximum.
Hakon was whistling a low tune, seemingly indifferent to the danger.
"You're a Wanderer."
"You've seen hundreds of worlds.
Don't you get tired of the mystery?
Don't you want a straight answer?"
Hakon stopped whistling and turned, his narrow eyes glinting.
"The mystery is the only thing the Admin can't take from you.
Information in this Tower is a weapon.
So Wanderers use it to break free...others use it to play the Stars against each other.
I? I just like to see how the stories end.
Every world that enters the Stars brings a new Fable.
If you know the Fable, you know the weakness of the God who owns it."
Scene V: (Floor 150)
Kang Min reached out, but his hand was repelled by an invisible force.
"I can't touch them."
Kang Min grunted, frustrated.
"Of course not."
Hakon said, leaning against a charred pillar.
"Your Narrative isn't synchronized with these fables yet.
To take on a story, you must be at its level.
It's like a conversation.
If a King speaks and you're just a beggar, the air won't even carry his voice to you.
You need to complete more 'Hidden Trials.'
Those are the footnotes that make a story a masterpiece.
The more hidden paths you take, the more complex your Narrative becos."
Scene VI: The Peak of the Iron Mountain (Floor 210)
The wind was howling, threatening to throw them into the abyss below.
Min was clinging to the rock, his fingers bleeding.
Hakon was standing upright, his barbarian cloak flapping like a dragon's wing.
"How do I know if my story is 'heavy' enough?"
Kang Min shouted over the gale.
"You'll feel the gravity!"
Hakon shouted back, his narrow eyes wide for the first ti.
"When the System stops giving you tips and starts giving you warnings...you'll know.
When the environnt itself starts to react to your presence...
...when the sand moves out of your way or the fire refuses to burn you...
..that is Narrative Energy manifesting.
It's calculated by the fables you've rewritten.
If a world's story says everyone dies, and you make them live... then surely you've stolen that world's weight for yourself."
Scene VII: The Underworld of Glass (Floor 219)
Everything here was transparent.
You could see the layers beneath your feet.
It was a dizzying, terrifying sight.
Kang Min was walking carefully, afraid the floor would shatter.
"Is the Tower alive, Hakon?"
"It's a machine that eats life to produce aning."
Hakon said, his voice unusually soft.
"The Admin is the operator...
The Constellations are the shareholders.
And we? We're the raw material.
But a piece of raw material that refuses to be processed... that's what a 'Player' is supposed to be.
Soone who changes the outco.
Soone who refuses to be just another fable in the Stars' collection."
Scene VIII: The Garden of Rebirth (Floor 263)
The flowers here blood and died in seconds.
It was a beautiful, haunting cycle of life and death.
Kang Min sat among the petals, looking at his own reflection in a pool of silver water.
"You know Hakon...I feel like I'm becoming sothing else..."
"I don't recognize the man who entered the first floor."
Hakon sat beside him, patting his shoulder with a hand the size of a dinner plate.
"That's your story growing...
And the higher you go, the more the Tower will try to force you into a role you don't want.
Resist it...and write your own dialogue."
Scene IX: The Edge of the Void (Floor 283)
The world was ending at the horizon.
The floor simply stopped, falling into a white nothingness.
Kang Min stood at the edge, looking into the gap.
"We're so close to 300."
Kang Min said, his voice devoid of emotion.
"What happens then?"
"The Stars will offer you a deal."
Hakon said, his narrow-eyed smile gone, replaced by a look of grim respect.
"They'll offer you a seat.
They'll offer you a world to rule.
But rember the man who climbed twice.
He didn't take the deal and instead took the rights.
There is a difference between being a Star and owning the Narrative."
Scene X: The Night Before the 293rd (Old World)
The campfire was low.
Hakon was sharpening his massive axe.
Min was staring into the embers, his face a mask of tired resolve.
"Hakon..."
"...If I don't make it... don't let them turn into a sad story."
Hakon looked up, his narrow eyes crinkling in a friendly, sad smile.
"Kid, with the Narrative Energy you've built?
I highly doubt it...
I envy you Kang Min...unlike who ran when my world was destroyed...you're still consistently climbing...
Why is it that you do so?
---
Present Day: Floor 5
The howling wind of the desert brought Kang Min back to the present.
The mories of Hakon...the old barbarian wanderer who had taught him the weight of a soul flickered and died like an old film reel.
Kang Min sat on the massive, severed head of the Great Pale Wraith, the white scales cold and slick with blue ichor.
He had just ended the stream.
"Narrative Energy."
He looked at his shaking hands.
He understood now.
The reason he couldn't take on the item fable in the subspace after using his exclusive skill [Floor 600 All Master] wasn't just a lack of mana...or coins.
It was because the 'current' Kang Min was a story with no wecoins
Trying to wield a Greater Fable was like a footnote trying to command the entire book.
It was impossible.
'Only when one's narrative energy is at the sa level or more powerful than a greater fable can one take on its story.'
He thought, recalling Hakon's words.
How did he know his weight? It was calculated by the trials he'd subverted.
By taking on the fable of the White Snakes and changing the outco...killing the "unkillable" hunters of the sand he had added a significant paragraph to his new existence.
'That's what I have to do.'
Kang Min thought, his eyes hardening.
'I need to take on more trials and challenges like I never did in the old world.
Hidden trials...Hidden items...
I have to raise myself as a Story until I am heavy enough to crush the Stars expectations.'
He had been complacent.
But the drama outside didn't matter.
『SYSTEM SSAGE: HIDDEN ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED!』
『THE "SNAKE-EATER OF THE BLEACHED SEA."』
『NARRATIVE ENERGY HAS INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY.』
『UNSEALING PROGRESS: 20% OF ORIGINAL SEALED POWER HAS BEEN RECLAID.』
『ALERT: THE "MAX CAP" ON BASE STATS HAS BEEN REMOVED.』
『BASE STAT LIMIT: 30 -> 40. (STAT POINTS CAN NOW BE ALLOCATED TO THE NEW LIMIT).』
『YOU HAVE EARNED THE TITLE: SERPENT SLAYER!』
Kang Min stood up, stretching his sore muscles.
A surge of cold, dense power rippled through him.
20% of his old self was back, and this ti, it was anchored by a story that was already diverging from the past.
He wouldn't be leaving the tower because of the drama.
He would be staying because the tower was the only place he could beco a god.
"Ti to get that item."
Kang Min said, his voice sounding like a bell in the desert silence.
[Exclusive Skill - Floor 600 All Master is in use!]
User Comments
0 comments from readers