Explaining to the dinner party about the Tower of Trials led to starting work on it the very same evening, shifting to an Elemental form and calling for as many Earth-type Golems as he and the two Lesser Watchers could manage.
A section of the valley was cleared of growth, making a circle a quarter of a kilometer in diameter. At first, Cain thought that might be a little excessive, but the more he thought of it, the better it seemed. If the spell can expand the area a thousand times, this would be a two hundred and fifty kilometer area trial area. That would let the spell give them multiple targets and room to move.
How could he call it a proper trial tower if you just walked in and the target was right in front of you? That would be incredibly lame and it would favor the melee combatants too much. At this size, the targets could hide, ambush, and attack from range as much as they wanted.
Each floor was only fifteen meters tall, but once expanded inside the tower it would be more than enough room for even Laura to fly around.
The final design called for no fewer than fifty floors, making the tower a monstrosity of construction, very nearly a mountain in its own right. There would be no mistaking that something magnificent and unusual had been created here.
Once the structure was up, and the [Separate Space] enchantments were finished, work began on empowering all the defensive runes to protect the building and the people inside it. Nobody could be killed inside the tower. Instead, they would be protected by a Mythic Barrier and cleared of all negative status effects before being sent back to the ground floor if they got to 5 HP.
Once everything in the sheet Cain found was finished he looked over the work and decided that it still needed a little something to make it more fun. The tower was designed to just train students, so that's all it was, an enormous training dummy. But in this world, it was a work of art far beyond anyone else's capability.
"It needs rewards. Should we set up something?" Cyrene asked, circling around Cain's waist so that she was in front of him instead of watching from over his shoulder.
"That's it. I will set a quest. The tower is finished now and goes up in difficulty on every level. The bottom floor is a gathering floor, but the next will start at the user's level, then go up by two levels every floor until the monsters are a hundred levels above your current strength, up to level 400, which is as strong as I could make them.
I think I will set a quest in the Guild's name to conquer the tower with a reward for every level finished. Even a few gold coins would be enough I think, and then the system should give them some experience."
Cain felt a wave of pleasure and amusement that clearly wasn't his own pass through his mind as he spoke those words and he wondered if it was too late to take them back.
'Forget it, the tower won't let them die. Even if the tower trolls them to insanity, they won't die inside.' Cain thought, then opened the Guild interface to set the quest for the tower.
"What are the levels? Are there fun ones?" Kone asked, looking up at the artificial mountain made of black and white stone.
The structure itself was solid black stone, engraved with layers of runes and spells, but the statues decorating it all up its height were made of white marble and solid gold for contrast. Simplicity is overrated, if Cain was making a Mythic tower, he wanted people to write Myths about it.
"There is a quest to conquer it out now. The levels are randomized by the quest, but each one will be two levels stronger than the last. The further up you go the better the reward." Cain explained, proud of his creation.
"Can I be the first to try to prove my worth?" Larkin asked. He was clearly speaking to Cain, but he was still giving a worshipping look to Kone.
Clearly, the boy was fully house-trained at this point. She was the only thing he thought about all day long. If Misha was here, Cain suspected that the look he was giving Kone wouldn't bother him so much, but as things stood, jealousy was getting the better of him.
"Go, try hard, and make your lover proud," Cain told him with a wink and Larkin scurried off towards the open gates that marked the only entrance to the building.
As soon as Larkin activated the quest, the tower revealed a spell interaction that Cain hadn't expected. One set of statues eyes on the second floor lit up with a pale purple light, a reflection of the Arcane element magic that protected those inside the tower. Defensive spells often have visual effects, but Cain had thought they wouldn't be able to see the ones from the tower since they were engraved on the inside.
A few minutes later, the lights shifted to the third floor, then the fourth. They slowly made it all the way to the tenth floor before there was a pop of magic, familiar to Cain as the noise made as a portal opened, and Larkin was unceremoniously deposited on the floor by the entrance.
The Crusader was battered, bruised and his sword was nearly broken, showing cracks all down the length, and he looked up at Kone with tears in his eyes.
"That spell is evil, pure evil. You beat me so badly." He whined.
"Come again?" Kone asked, not understanding what he meant.
"On the tenth floor, there was only one enemy. You. The copy of you beat me within an inch of my life then ordered Su to bite my head off." Larkin complained, finally recovering enough mana to cast a healing spell on himself and repair the worst of the damage.
He had a point, there were teeth marks on his neck, and the clone of Su clearly intended to bite his head off, even though the real one was giving a disgusted look at the thought. She much preferred a vegetarian diet. Unwashed Larkin was no great delicacy in her eyes.
"I should probably add a healing totem spell to the main floor to go with the mana collection and recovery enchantments." Cain mused as the transfers who came to watch the first test of the tower stared at Larkin in a mixture of amusement and shock.
"It seems to be a great training device though. How much experience did you get Larkin?" Kone asked with a smirk.
"4 percent of a level." He answered with a sigh. It was indeed a good amount of experience, but that only meant that he was likely going to have to go in there again and relive the trauma of having a dragon bite his head off again.
"How many can it hold?" Someone in the crowd asked eagerly, looking at the now dim eyes of the statue that previously showed Larkin's level.
"If I counted correctly, we should be able to have one hundred contestants at a time inside the tower. It will stop letting people access the Separate Spaces once the spell is at capacity." Cain shrugged and the crowd surged towards the gate, wanting to experience this tower for themselves.
"You're sure they won't die, right?" Cyrene whispered in Cain's ear.
"Not even if they want to." He confirmed, giving the Lamia a vague sense of unease. What would happen if someone got a Dark Elf level or something similar and got captured? Would they simply be stuck in the tower until someone released them?
