"If you want to play, let's play. I was already quite frustrated after what happened outside."
"Strength!"
"Speed!'
"Body of Light!"
Gabriel started casting spells one after another to boost his physical abilities.
At the start, he didn't want to use his Element of Darkness. He wanted to save it for higher floors. For now, he wanted to see just how far he could reach just with his Element of Light.
Fortunately, he wasn't empty handed either. He had a mid-tier Staff of Light to boost his spell strength, but he didn't use that. Instead, he decided to use a new toy.
He created some distance between him and the knights, jumping back to make sure all the Knights were in one place instead of all around him. It was better to deal with them.
"Come to me!" He reached out his right hand toward the left, using his connection with his spatial realm to call out something.
He had stolen a lot of Numens, and there was one that particularly intrigued him. He wanted to try that a lot. And what better situation than this, where he could test all the stolen Numens without anyone finding out about it?
"Sword of Ulien!"
He called out one of the Numens that he had stolen. The Sword of Ulien, which was said to be a sword that belonged to Demigod Ulien. Ulien was known to be a Demigod who was famous for his anger. It was said that even the slightest thing could anger him.
Moreover, when he was angry, he didn't listen to anyone. He didn't hesitate for even a second before raising his sword and killing the one who angered him. It didn't matter if there was a human before him or a Demigod.
It was this Sword that Ulien always carried with him, and he treated it like his family member. Unfortunately, this anger also became the reason for Ulien's demise as he attacked a person he never should've.
According to the legends, there was a time when Karyk was passing through Ulien's City. At the same time, Ulien was also riding on his horse inside the city streets, coming back from a hunt. On his way back, he noticed Karyk standing in the middle of the road, seemingly distracted by something.
Karyk was looking at the sky blankly. Despite repeated warnings from Ulien, Karyk didn't move and remained in a daze. Ulien thought that Karyk was ignoring him. Ulien didn't know Karyk at that time.
He had heard about Karyk, but he never saw him. For him, the guy before him was just an ordinary traveler since he couldn't feel anything special from him.
Enraged at being ignored, Ulien came down from his horse and attacked Karyk with his sword. Feeling a sense of danger, Karyk finally came out of his daze and looked ahead.
It was said that it was the day when Ulien died, and the legend of the angry King ended.
Karyk left the sword there and continued on his journey. The Sword became a Numen and went from hand to hand before ultimately ending up in the Academy of Element, only to be stolen by Gabriel. And thus, the Sword had completed an entire circle, reaching where it started.
A blood-red Sword appeared in Gabriel's hands, which felt as light as a feather, especially now that Gabriel had boosted his strength.
As soon as the sword ended in Gabriel's hands, it started resisting him fiercely as if the sword didn't want to work for the one responsible for its master's death. Still, the resistance only lasted for a few seconds before the Blood Red Sword gave up, thanks to the Ring of Necromancy.
Not only did the sword stop resisting, but it also provided complete support to Gabriel.
Gabriel held the sword firmly.
"Let me see! Show me the strength of a Numen!" Roaring, Gabriel slashed horizontally with the blood-red Sword that was blazing with a mystical energy.
A blood-red arc of light left the sharp blades of left, flying straight to the knights. The more distance this dark red arc of light traveled, the bigger it became.
Before long, the arc of dark red light hit the knights. Neither the metallic Armor of the Knights nor their Stone bodies and their weapons were able to stop the attack. The attack passed through the bodies of all Knight Statues, slicing their bodies in half.
Both halves of the statues dropped to the ground along with their weapons, turning to dust.
Gabriel knew that the sword was supposed to be strong since it was a Numen, but even he hadn't expected it to be this strong. With the help of this sword and his spells which increased his speed and strength, Gabriel believed he had found a nice combination.
Just as he was looking at the sword in slight amazement, he heard the sound of stone sliding.
He looked to his left, seeing a door shaped opening there which wasn't there before.
"The entrance to the Second Floor? So that's what it was. To even see the entrance to the next floor, we need to clear the current floor first."
Gabriel had cleared the first floor and quite easily at that. He didn't even feel tired as he hadn't used much strength. He didn't need any time for rest. He went to the next Floor right away.
****
Back on the Ground Floor, the old man was sitting in his chair, quite curious. It had been over half an hour, and Gabriel still wasn't back yet. He was sure that Gabriel should've given up by now. Then why wasn't he back?
"Don't tell me he is already dead? That would be a pity.'
At around the same time, Garrick also entered the Tower of Challenges. After dealing with all the mess with the teachers and the students, he decided to test how much he had grown. He came here to see if he could increase his rank and how much.
The old man happily gave Garrick a stone, inscribing the name and the element. He didn't even need to ask for such things since there was rarely anyone who didn't know Garrick at this point.
Garrick took the stone and went to the first floor while the old man again returned to worrying about Gabriel.
Garrick had taken the challenge of the tower, and not long after Gabriel, creating a race between the two unknowingly.
More and more students kept arriving as well, but only Garrick was worth interest to the old man.
****
Two hours passed. Gabriel still wasn't back. The old man was completely sure that Gabriel was dead by now. There was no other explanation as to why he wasn't back. The old man didn't even consider the possibility that he was still climbing.
Not many people realized it yet, but a new name appeared on the rankings of the tower outside.
[12000 Gabriel Light 12]
Gabriel had managed to bring his name in the rankings, which only showed the top twelve thousand in history. And he wasn't done yet. The name only continued rising. Fortunately, the year wasn't mentioned in the ranking, or it would've caused a commotion already.
Three more hours passed, and the name continued climbing.
[6009 Gabriel Light 25]
Within five hours of entering the tower, Gabriel had managed to reach the twenty-fifth floor, just a little shy of the top six thousandth rank.
Inside the tower, Gabriel was breathing heavily, sitting on his knees. He was really getting an idea as to why these floors were hard.
Over two thousand fierce beasts came before him, and it was left the twenty-fifth Floor. His blood-red Sword was covered in the blood of the beast as Gabriel sat, surrounded by thousands of dead bodies.
After taking some time to gather his breath, he stood up and walked to the door of the next floor.
"At this pace, I think I might need to use my Element of Necromancy soon. We'll see... I will continue as long as I can...'
He passed through the door, stepping onto the twenty-sixth floor.
As he stepped onto the next floor, his ranking rose once again.
[5574 Gabriel Light 26]
It was now that a few people finally started noticing his name, but they didn't pay much attention to it even now. It was a good rank but not shocking. The Fourth Year Mages of Light thought that it must be a third-year mage of Light.
On the other hand, the third-year mages of Light thought that it must be a Fourth Year Mage of Light. In their confusion, no one checked or found a new name odd.
Gabriel took his first step on the 26th floor, expecting more beasts to face, but things were different this time.
There were no beasts. Moreover, he wasn't on the battlefield either. Instead, he was in a small room that was only three meters long and two meters wide. There were no beasts. There were no statues of anything similar either. Something was very wrong here…
