Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 127

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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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Chapter 127. The Tower — City of the Lizardmen (3)

I decided to abandon further Footwork Technique practice and head directly to Tansa, the city of the Lizardmen.
According to the Mini Map’s distance calculations, roughly seventy-five kilometers remained.
If I’d been walking about forty kilometers a day until now, this time I planned to use my Lightness Skill to cross it all at once—carrying one person on my back and cradling another in both arms.
As Diana clung to my back and I lifted Lee Su-young into my arms like a princess, both of them grew apprehensive.
“Is this really okay?”
“Can you really run fast while carrying us like this?”
I laughed lightly at their concerns.
Was carrying both of them pushing it?
Well, even if each person weighed forty kilograms, combined they’d be a single sack of rice—but looking at them, neither seemed to weigh that little.
Diana especially, being so tall, was definitely heavier than that.
Still, if I burn enough Magical Power, it should work somehow.
I activated the Weightless Lightness Method I’d developed.
The moment I did, I felt the crushing weight of gravity binding my entire body ease away.
“Ooh! This is a martial art too?!”
“You can do things like this if you study the Lightness Skill?!”
To their questions, I took a deep breath and leaped high into the air.
When I used the Weightless Lightness Method alone, my Internal Energy consumption was nearly zero—but with two additional people, it spiked exponentially.
Was it because I had to lighten their bodies as well?
When I’d tested it on the flying bike, the Internal Energy drain hadn’t been this severe.
Ah, that’s because the flying bike itself possessed the strength to lift itself into the air.
The flying bike was inanimate and didn’t resist the Internal Energy I poured into it, but these two were living beings who naturally resisted—that’s why the consumption was so high.
This wasn’t their fault; any living creature would be the same.
To willingly accept my Internal Energy, they would need at least proper training in receiving another person’s Qi—and neither had ever undergone such training.
That’s why the Qi Injection and Pressure Point Pursuit techniques were so dangerous and difficult.
I gritted my teeth and clenched my breathing as I bounded from tree to tree, my feet barely touching their crowns.
“Wow! Isn’t this what they call the Traveling Immortal’s Step?!”
“I’m concentrating right now, so it’s probably better if you don’t keep talking.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Yes, thanks for understanding.
I sprinted at full power for thirty minutes.
With each stride covering dozens of meters, the distance I covered in those thirty minutes came to nearly fifty kilometers.
“Gasp—gasp—this is exhausting as hell.”
After burning through every last drop of my Internal Energy in those thirty minutes, I breathed heavily and used Qi Circulation and Breathing with the two of them as anchors, refilling my depleted Dantian.
Once my Dantian was full again, I slung both of them across my front and back and bounded along the treetops once more.
After another fifteen minutes of running like that, we arrived near the city of the Lizardmen and used magic to mask our scent before finding a place to rest nearby.
“Wow, at that speed, you wouldn’t even need to ride a horse. Isn’t this practically like driving a car on a highway?”
“Even so, I’m this exhausted—I think riding would’ve been easier.”
I lay sprawled in a nearby cave, breathing heavily as I spoke.
“Phew! Unless something’s truly urgent, I’m not doing that again.”
It was the first time my entire body had felt wrung out like this.
Even when training with my rebirth clone’s body, doing a three-part split routine, I’d never pushed myself this hard.
Still, we’d managed to arrive near Tansa quickly.
After resting a bit, I activated my Mage’s Eye and sent my gaze in all directions.
Once I’d confirmed the size of the ancient ruin city and the scale of the Lizardman Tribe, I identified the location that appeared to be the King’s residence, the major facilities of the Lizardmen, and the Prison Camp where captives were being held as sacrifices.
The Lizardman warrior I’d captured was stupid and disorganized, so aside from the numbers of the King, the Great Warrior, and the Shamans, all the information was riddled with errors.
Distinguishing between warriors and soldiers wasn’t difficult.
The warriors wore elaborate feathered ornaments on their heads, while the soldiers carried weapons.
The common tribespeople appeared to use their own claws or tails as weapons.
“Tsk, there are about fifty more warriors than he reported, and the tribe’s much larger too.”
The total number in the city appeared to be roughly thirty-five hundred.
But considering the soldiers the King had sent out on tribal hunts, there could easily be five hundred to a thousand more.
So roughly two hundred warriors, and a tribe size of at least four to five thousand total.
I used a staff inscribed with magic that allowed me to draw with light in the air, sketching the city in rough outline as I spoke.
“Well, the situation isn’t bad, though. From here on, I’ll explain the operation.”

* * *

The Lizardman King, his body bent with age, made his way toward the Altar located at the center of the City.
The Altar lay beneath a massive pit, and atop it lay heaps of gold.
But that was not all.
Beneath the enormous Altar as well, gold lay piled deep, buried under vast mounds of earth.
Looking at it from every angle, the great pit was filled with nothing but gold—how much treasure must it contain?
The cavity below held so much gold that it would be fair to call it a gold mine rather than an Altar.
“When will I be rid of these tiresome rocks?”
Gold that would have made any human’s jaw drop was to the Lizardman nothing more than useless stone.
At the King’s question, the young Shaman bowed his head and answered.
“We are mobilizing slaves, Your Majesty. I estimate we can clear the target amount within a week, at the latest.”
By slaves, the Shaman meant the sacrifices—prisoners captured by the tribe’s warriors and soldiers.
“Drive them harder if you must. Accelerate the pace. I am eager to shed this wearisome flesh.”
For the Lizardman King, what mattered was not the gold itself, but the Altar buried beneath it.
The gold in this place was merely what the City’s former human inhabitants had poured out to worship a being that coveted treasure—it had no connection to the presence that communed with the Lizardman King.
The being that craved gold had long since ceased its interest in this land, so that gold held neither mystery nor miracle.
But the Altar left behind by the humans who had abandoned the City long ago still contained countless mysteries.
Because they were mysteries carved into stone by human hands, not left by some other entity, they could only survive here, buried beneath the gold and untouched by wind and rain.
At first, even the King had not realized this was a pit.
For two hundred years, he had thought it merely a rocky, uneven, yellow-spotted terrain.
When the Lizardman King had desperately prayed to the being that had granted him mystery and miracle to restore his youth, that presence had casually pointed him toward this place where the Altar lay, nothing more.
If only he could obtain that mystery, the Lizardman King would be able to regain his youth.
Of this, the King was certain.
“Cannot those tiresome yellow rocks be moved farther away? They mar the view.”
At the King’s words, the Shaman bowed and replied.
“It is possible, Your Majesty, though I must humbly note it would require additional time.”
“Tsk. See that it is removed far from the City eventually.”
“It shall be done.”
After the Shaman’s reply, the King gazed down into the pit once more, then turned and made his way back to his quarters.
Unaware of the shadow gathering over the City.

* * *

My plan was straightforward.
First, we raid the Armory of the Lizardman tribe.
Then we distribute the weapons we’ve taken to the prisoners and destroy the Prison Camp.
The captured Lizardmen will scatter in all directions, raising chaos and breaking free either to survive or seek revenge.
The Lizardman warriors and soldiers will be occupied recapturing the prisoners, and we’ll hunt them in the chaos, seize the gold, and return to the 20th Floor District.
All The Tower truly asks of us is to give the people of this world the chance to discover and clear out this Lizardman nest themselves.
By simply reducing the number of Lizardmen here, we’ll have done more than enough to minimize the casualties when those people come to attack this City.
Lee Su-young and Diana nodded at my simple plan and studied the rough map I had sketched.
In truth, anyone could have devised such a plan.
The crucial part was charting a route that would keep us undetected.
Since Lizardmen had keen noses, I cast magic on the Cloak to prevent our scent from leaking out, and applied both Aura Concealment and Invisibility Magic.
The Invisibility Magic couldn’t be sustained indefinitely—it was possible for only roughly ten minutes at a time, in brief bursts.
The area available for inscribing magic was limited, and the Cloak didn’t have enough Magical Power left to manage anything more.
“Wow, so it’s become a magical artifact?” Lee Su-young asked.
I shook my head.
“No. It’s temporary, so the effect will last only through today at most. I borrowed Magical Power from the cooling and dehumidification magic, so tomorrow it’ll just be a regular Cloak.”
Today marked our fifth day in this hot, humid Jungle.
Normally the magic would have lasted a week, but I’d accelerated its lifespan to add the extra effects—there was no helping it.
“Couldn’t we just cast more magic on it again?” Diana asked.
I shook my head again.
“There’s nowhere left to inscribe magic, and casting spells this way temporarily disrupts the existing Magical Power, making it difficult to layer new enchantments. And making permanent enchantments would require far too much material and labor.”
Over time the Magical Power would dissipate, or I could strip it clean, but the process would damage the durability significantly.
If it were metal or something similarly durable, it might be acceptable, but fabric like this degraded quickly.
Unless we had special materials like Gung-gi’s leather—ideal for enchanting—it was better to cast magic cheap and quick on cheaper fabrics, use them, and discard them.
“So, you’ve all memorized your routes, yes?” I asked.
Both of them nodded.
Moving together in a mob wouldn’t have been efficient or safe.
If we moved as a group, no matter how much we suppressed our presence with magic, the Invisibility Magic wouldn’t last long enough to keep us from being spotted.
Besides, no one among us truly needed special protection.
Diana was a reliable vanguard as anyone could ask for, and even Lee Su-young, who struggled in close combat, had the Defense Slime at her side.
“Then, let’s move at once.”
We activated the Mini Map to keep track of each other’s positions and headed toward the City.
We didn’t forget to activate the Signal Device in an inconspicuous crevice among the rocks near the City.
The Crystal that would let us reach the next floor appeared on the Mini Map at a location slightly removed from where the Signal Device was activated.
The Crystal’s location now showed on the Mini Map. We could have returned directly to the 20th Floor District, but we decided to slip into the City instead.
“If anything happens, contact us immediately through the Community Chat. Don’t try to handle everything on your own. Both of you need to remember that we’ve already completed our tasks. We need to be ready to run at the first sign of trouble.”
A man who, in the name of safety, would regard gold as mere stone and flee without so much as a backward glance whenever necessary.
That was me.
The two of them nodded at my words and scattered, each heading toward their own objective.
My first destination was the Armory. Of all of us, only I had the inventory capacity to move large quantities of equipment, which meant only I could raid the Armory and distribute the weapons.

(Continued in the next episode)

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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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