Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Cheat-Using Administrator’s Mythical Tower Climbing (33)
One day was all it took to rest and restock.
Wash muttered to himself as he watched Moo Saeng, already grinning and brimming with energy, prepare to head for the tower.
“Going to pack that bag again? Stuffing it full?”
From where he stood, most of what went in there never got used.
Heavy, bulky—nothing but dead weight.
Without that bag, he could clear the time-limited quest floors far faster.
But Moo Saeng answered with unwavering resolve.
“Didn’t I say it? I need to be able to grab what I need without even looking.”
Even someone like Moo Saeng, who’d received the rank-A artifact Whatever Pocket as a gift (?) from the One Way Group, wouldn’t rely on it alone.
It certainly reduced bulk and made Tower Climbing easier for Awakeners.
But that was all it did.
‘It’s not like a game inventory, snapping open at a keystroke……’
The moment you need to conjure a Torch.
When the ground beneath your feet crumbles and you need Carabiners, Pitons, and Rope.
When your arm gets severed in an instant and you have to down a Recovery Potion.
What then—flip the Whatever Pocket inside out and shake it to find what you need……?
In a desperate moment, that was impossible.
As a Dungeon Sherpa, he knew that split-second judgment and being one second faster could mean the difference between life and death—so maintaining a well-organized pack he could grab by instinct was simply necessary.
“Hmm……”
Wash made a noncommittal sound through his beak.
Yet there was a rather satisfied smile playing across his features.
‘This one really was…… Kekekeke. Lucky. Lucky that my broadcast code reached him. Though his personality’s a bit off-putting.’
The way he approached the tower, dungeons, and other Awakeners.
Above all, the knowledge and experience to see those principles through.
Not just rational judgment either.
“Right, the goggles. Heh, can’t forget those.”
He understood instinctively what needed doing.
In that fleeting moment at the 55 Dungeon, he’d have had no room to think of anything but which Guardian to choose.
Yet he’d managed to grab Mage’s Goggles and prove their worth all the same.
Moo Saeng finished checking his pack meticulously before heading out.
“So, shall we go, Wash?”
He stepped toward the hotel door.
“Let’s blast through the trivial floors fast. That method that beast mentioned—I want to see it.”
“Getting through the 7th to 10th floors ‘fast’ isn’t easy though…… as you know—”
“Quit the chatter. I’m here, so stop spouting nonsense. Let’s go.”
Wash adjusted his black-framed spectacles and drifted off in lazy circles.
Moo Saeng let out a soft laugh.
Even though he couldn’t use Administrator Authority inside the tower, where did that confidence come from?
‘Ridiculous creature.’
And yet, somehow, that carefree attitude and tone put him at ease.
“Yes, yes, let’s head out. Going.”
Moo Saeng made for the tower.
Twenty-seven minutes by car from the Geumseong-provided hotel to the tower.
From the Tower’s Public Lobby, entry to the 7th Floor.
[007th Floor]
[The Forest Where Bad Children Are Eaten]
[Defeat the Little Trolls.]
[Little Trolls Defeated: 0/10]
[Time Remaining: 01:00:00]
Normally they roamed in groups of ten, and their regeneration was fierce enough to give rookie Awakeners a hard time—but……
“Grrrowl?”
“Yap.”
“Screeeech—”
“Yap.”
“Squee, squeeee……”
“Yap.”
Before Moo Saeng, whose specs were overwhelmingly superior for someone tackling the 7th Floor, the Little Trolls simply burst apart.
And since they were grouped together, there wasn’t even time needed to hunt them down……
[Little Trolls Defeated: 10/10]
[Time Remaining: 00:51:47]
[Congratulations!]
[You have achieved the clear condition.]
[Ability Point +6]
[Additional Condition achieved.]
[Defeat Little Troll within 10 minutes]
[You receive additional rewards.]
[Ability Points by Category +4]
[Bleeding Resistance (E) acquired]
He cleared the floor while meeting the additional conditions, and the whole thing took barely eight minutes.
“…… The travel time was longer than the fight.”
[Kekekekek! I told you, didn’t I? It’s nothing.]
“Huh? You didn’t do anything this time, so what are you boasting about? You shouldn’t be puffing yourself up—I’m the one who’s strong—”
[Fool! How could you possibly get stronger!?]
Moo Saeng watched Wash throw a fit, crackling and making a commotion, and said nothing.
“Tch. Eighth Floor challenge.”
It wasn’t wrong, after all.
* * *
[008th Floor]
[Part of the Grand Labyrinth (1), Maze]
[Escape the labyrinth.]
[Time Remaining: 120:00:00]
One hundred twenty hours—a full five days—to clear the Eighth Floor Quest.
The death rate wasn’t particularly high, but among Awakeners, the Eighth Floor was the one layer up to the Tenth that most dreaded.
There were no monsters.
But you had to walk through a pitch-black labyrinth continuously.
Once you began to lose your way, there was no end to the wandering, so you couldn’t afford to let your guard slip.
Average clear time: approximately one hundred hours.
Even Moo Saeng’s personal record—achieved by cutting sleep to the absolute minimum—was eighty-nine hours, making it a place that tested the limits of both mind and body……
“Wash, is this really okay to do?”
[What?]
Whirrrrrrrrrr—————!
Moo Saeng’s vision changed.
More precisely, what he saw through the goggles transformed.
No longer the dim, damp, foul-smelling stone labyrinth he’d been navigating.
His entire field of view flooded with brilliant blue.
“I can see through things……?”
In that vision, information beyond the walls, piercing through stone itself, laid bare before him all at once!
The joy of being able to traverse the maze in a single breath paled in comparison.
[…… Indeed, that mage bastard. Looks like she knew how to tinker with the system after all.]
“The system? Is it alright? You said if I used Administrator Authority like this, I’d get caught and there’d be trouble, so that’s not happening here, right?”
Wash couldn’t execute anything using Administrator Authority within the Tower.
If he did, he’d be discovered by ‘those guys’ at the top of the Tower.
Then what was this sight before his eyes? This was nothing short of extraordinary.
[Hmph. If I’d triggered X-Ray Vision through my own authority, it wouldn’t have ended there. And if it weren’t safe, you’d already be finished.]
Yet Wash said it as though he found nothing amusing about it.
There was even an undertone suggesting he resented being compared to mage Maia’s technical skill, leaving Moo Saeng unable to even begin to gauge the true extent of Wash’s abilities.
“Right, Mama was already using it before we brought it……. If there was a problem with it, Mama couldn’t have stayed in the Tower in the first place.”
The mage of the 55th Dungeon, Maia, had some irregularities, but she was still the same as the mage of the 55th Floor. In other words, the odds that this goggles existed on the 55th Floor too were high.
If that were the case, something would have already gone wrong there.
“But I’m suddenly curious—what happens if we end up getting wiped out? Do you just pop out like that?”
And the moment he set off into the maze with a considerably lightened heart—
Moo Saeng understood once more.
[Stop yapping. If you can see through things, you see those stairs over there, right? Go that way.]
What kind of being a Tower administrator truly was.
X-Ray Vision? Merely the ability to see?
“…… Huh? Stairs?”
[You can see through things now, so you should see it. That’s a shortcut. Press the bricks in front of the stairs in the right pattern and it opens.]
It couldn’t possibly be on that level.
Compared to mage Maia’s goggles, it was only natural that Wash would be in a foul mood!
“This is absurd…….”
Beyond the wall of an endlessly horizontal space.
Moo Saeng could see a vertical structure that had appeared without warning.
Standing before the point where the staircase came into view, Wash drifted lazily, pointing out various spots on the wall.
As Moo Saeng pressed each one in turn—click, click—sections of the wall depressed like buttons.
Rumble-rumble-rumble…….
The wall shifted, revealing the staircase.
As he climbed the steps, Moo Saeng could not hide his doubt—was this really right?
[You have conquered the Maze.]
[Congratulations!]
[Clear Condition achieved.]
[Ability Point +8]
“Ha, well, huh.”
And when the actual clear message appeared, he couldn’t help but laugh at himself.
[Additional Condition achieved.]
[Maze conquered within 60 hours]
[Additional reward granted.]
[All Ability Points +3]
[Fear Resistance (E) acquired]
[You are the 32nd to clear the Additional Condition.]
More surprising than the +3 to all stats was Fear Resistance.
From the 30th floor onward, it was one of the Status Abnormalities that had tremendous impact in one-on-one duels against boss monsters.
And he’d acquired resistance to it as early as the 8th floor?
Moreover, this was merely an additional reward.
A true reward from a Hidden Condition.
[Hidden Condition achieved.]
[Follow your heart]
[straight and true]
[Maze conquered within 5 hours]
[Additional reward granted.]
[All Ability Points +3]
[Luck +5]
[Skill 〈Structure Comprehension〉 acquired]
There was no way to conquer this maze within five hours.
In other words, one could only clear it this way by finding that staircase.
“Insane. What the hell is this?”
All stats +3, Luck +5 increase.
[Structure Comprehension (Passive)]
I see it, I see it. Lines are visible.
You intuitively sense the weak points of structures.
Destructive power against terrain and fixtures +400%
(Applies to skill holder’s Summons, Taming, and creations)
And a skill acquisition.
Natural or artificial—whether on the ground or above it—this quintupled destructive power against anything?
‘The ultimate digger……. Right, me.’
His surprise at the absurd reward was short-lived.
[You are the 4th to clear the Hidden Condition.]
“Wait, there are three other people who found this?”
Ha, what else but a hollow laugh.
That wall pattern was not something one could press by accident.
Even if one possessed X-Ray Vision-related skills, one wouldn’t have been able to open the wall, would they?
Moo Saeng tilted his head in disbelief.
But Wash merely muttered as if it were nothing special.
[……Well, there’s bound to be some barbarian savage who’d just destroy the whole wall. If that beast got lucky, they probably found it.]
“Ah.”
Someone capable of destroying the maze walls.
Someone with good fortune.
In the end, the reward for a Hidden Condition must be connected to the method of achieving that Hidden Condition itself.
‘That makes sense. The Thunder Tiger (SSR)……. If that creature’s ability combined with some luck……’
He couldn’t know for certain whether Geum Byung Cheol had used this method.
But someone of his caliber would be perfectly capable of it.
By the time he reaches the 8th Floor, he won’t have the sheer power to obliterate the entire labyrinth.
Yet with some degree of widespread destruction, he’s one of those lucky bastards who manages to find the stairs anyway.
“Plenty of monsters. Plenty.”
[8th Floor Cleared]
[Climbing Record Registered]
Secrets he never knew existed back when he lived as a Dungeon Sherpa.
No—secrets that ordinary Awakeners who climb through conventional means still know nothing of.
Moo Saeng was experiencing them now, one by one, with his own body.
The 9th and 10th Floors proved no different.
* * *
The Tower’s Public Lobby was crowded as always.
Everyone there displayed their own emotions—steeling their resolve, suppressing their fear, or unable to hide their excitement—and yet…….
“Huff, huff, huff.”
One man was making no effort to conceal anything at all.
Park Hyun Gu.
“Ugh, I’m about to cough up a lung. Why are you so nervous when you’ve already climbed the Tower to the 10th Floor? You’ve been to Dungeon 11 several times, hyung.”
Moo Saeng clicked his tongue at Park Hyun Gu.
Park Hyun Gu himself began to protest.
“But still, man, it’s the Tower—the Tower! And besides that…….”
“What? You’re anxious because you’re going with me?”
“It’s not like that’s the only reason, but… you know how it is.”
A challenge to the Tower’s 11th Floor. And with Kim Moo Saeng, of all people.
Park Hyun Gu knows the skill of the ace Dungeon Sherpa better than anyone.
But the Tower doesn’t allow retreat.
One in a thousand, one in ten thousand—if they fail even once, it’s over. Death.
And what is it Moo Saeng expects of him?
“So I really just… stay put? I don’t do anything?”
He’s being told not to use his Awakened abilities and to remain still.
Even though he climbed no further than the 10th Floor, he’s a man with combat ability in his own right—yet Moo Saeng wants to use him like a useless sack of grain. How could he not be anxious?
And that’s coming from someone with no Awakened ability at all.
“Yes. Kim Moo Saeng, Park Hyun Gu. We wish to enter the Tower.”
“Hey, wait—just a minute! At least shouldn’t we have a basic strategy—”
[Verifying climbing record for applicant.]
[Climbing Record: 10th Floor]
[Will you challenge the 11th Floor?]
[Number of challengers: 2 (Kim Moo Saeng, Park Hyun Gu)]
[Withdrawal mid-attempt is not permitted.]
“Strategy, my ass. Just keep your mouth shut, hyung. Better yet, don’t even breathe. Just don’t.”
Light flashed.
Moo Saeng and Park Hyun Gu had already set foot on the Tower’s 11th Floor.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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