Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 133

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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 133. The Tower — Trial of Gold (2)

I’d rented an inn room late at night and collapsed into sleep.
My body felt wrecked, so even though by my standards—having just come down from the 22nd Floor—it should have been early evening, I fell asleep easily without feeling hungry.
I woke in the morning ravenous, and it was already past ten in the morning.
I checked the cooldown on my clone, then immediately created a new one to bring myself back to peak condition.
“Making a new clone kills the hunger. Interesting.”
After creating the clone and checking my status window, I was startled.

[Name: Han Ji-woo (1 Slot Avatar) / Age: 21]
[Strength: 15 / Agility: 20 / Vitality: 16 / Intellect: 43 / Mana: 30+]
[Status: Normal, Dual Mana System (30/30)]
[Abilities: Multidimensional Avatar Lv 29, Martial Arts Lv 42, Magic Lv 33, Regeneration Lv 26, Spirit Arts Lv 1]

“Wow, even with zero Tower talent, my physical stats still went up after taking down a monster that powerful.”
Strength, Agility, Vitality, and Mana each rose by one.
I wasn’t sure whether to despair over my pathetic talent for climbing—only one point per stat after defeating a creature from the 50s—or be grateful it was getting stronger at all.
“Damn it! No, seriously, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it gets! If they’re gonna raise stats, they should at least boost everything by twenty across the board! The gap in power levels was enormous!”
No matter how hard I tried to convince myself, the cursing just wouldn’t stop.
Are they encouraging me to climb this Tower or discouraging me?!
Intellect had climbed to 43, adapting gradually as time passed.
My abilities also leveled up faster than my clone as I grew more skilled with Sword Energy.
My body was far weaker, yet my grasp of martial arts alone had deepened.
At least my Inner Power was supporting me, letting me internalize martial techniques and gain enlightenment—without it, there’d be no way this broken body could manage any of it.
The most striking thing was that Regeneration had leveled up more than twice as fast as before.
It seemed that to raise Regeneration’s level, I’d need to keep getting hurt and regenerating repeatedly.
I wasn’t a masochist and had no interest in self-harm, but climbing the Tower naturally ensured I’d get plenty of chances to hurt myself and level it up.
“The 22nd Floor was pure profit.”
The Shop Points from the wholesale slaughter of Lizardmen, plus the gold I’d collected—if I carried it out of the Tower, I’d never have to worry about money again for the rest of my life.
I’d never looked up gold prices, so I wasn’t sure, but with this much, I could quit any job and spend the rest of my days on hobbies.
Money really is the best. Always thrilling.
“Right, I should get these Ability Stones appraised too.”
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t appraised the Ability Stone from the Gung-gi subspecies I’d hunted on the Back Mountain yet.
I bought an Appraisal Document (F) and went through them one by one.

[Fire Breath: Spits fire.]

[Blind Sight: Renders the target unseen.]

[Hardening: Becomes harder.]

The Gung-gi’s stone held Fire Breath, the Lizardman Shaman’s held Blind Sight, and the Warrior’s held Hardening.
“None of these are bad.”
For a mage like me, Fire Breath held little appeal, but fire-handling abilities in any form were popular on the market.
Popular meant expensive.
Blinding an opponent was powerful too, but magic could replicate it just as well.
Hardening was similar to Diana’s ability.
Diana’s version was probably a higher-tier ability or worked through a different mechanism using holy power, but for someone who fought in close quarters as often as I did, it wasn’t a bad ability at all.
But since I could already substitute it with my barrier and the Pseudo-Heavenly Silkworm Combat Suit, its appeal was somewhat limited.
“Still, the real advantage is that it can grow.”
I absorbed the Hardening Ability Stone.
Hardening appeared as a new ability in my abilities list.
Someday I might not need to buy a new combat suit.
For now, though, I’d need to get myself a fresh one to replace the tattered wreck I had.
“And now, finally—the ability I’ve been waiting for and dreaming about!”

[Pressure: Exerts pressure.]

“…Huh?”
Pressure? That’s the entire explanation?
If Pressure means suppression through authority or force, I didn’t feel anything like that when I fought the Lizardman King.
Could it be a type of mental attack?
Or charisma, perhaps?
“Vague.”
I’d hoped for a monster worthy of the 50s, but maybe I expected too much from a reptile.
Hardening looks more promising.
Though that might be because the Appraisal Document was only F-grade.
A higher-grade appraisal would provide more detailed ability descriptions, and I could judge its value from that.
The problem was that appraisal costs jumped tenfold with each grade increase.
F-grade was 100 Points, E-grade was 1,000 Points, and C-grade required a full 10,000 Points.
E-grade didn’t seem significantly different from F-grade.
The only one I could reasonably consider buying now was a D-grade Appraisal Document.
But what if even D-grade didn’t yield a proper explanation?
I’d just be throwing Points away.
Setting aside the future, 1,000 Points was an astronomical sum for me right now.
That was equivalent to 1 million Credits, or 100 million won—impossible to spend without hesitation.
If I could just buy Shop Points with Credits, I wouldn’t have to agonize like this.
But while I could exchange Points for Credits, the reverse wasn’t possible.
So anything I could afford with Credits had to be handled in Credits.
If an urgent situation arose where I needed Shop Points and came up short, I’d regret it bitterly.
Though admittedly, I’d never actually faced that problem yet.
“All right. I’ll put it off.”
When I was capable of better appraisals, I’d decide then whether to learn it or not.
While I was mulling it over, the appointed time arrived. I stuffed the Ability Stone into my inventory and got to my feet.

* * *

After meeting up with Lee Su-young and Diana, I took them straight to a nearby restaurant for lunch.
Lee Su-young wanted to drag me to some fancy place she’d had her eye on as a celebration of our earnings, but I suggested we go there after we’d split the loot and led them to a modest establishment instead.
I still remembered a single meal in the 10th Floor District running 8,000 Credits—nearly a million won.
After eating, we decided to rent a meeting room at the Library.
The Library charged 1,000 Credits per person for entry and 1 Credit per minute for the meeting room, but nowhere else let us pull out items so freely without worrying about prying eyes.
The Climbers’ Guild had reception areas and a common lounge, but they didn’t lease meeting spaces like this.
Even their reception rooms weren’t particularly secure.
Diana was taken aback by the Library’s interior size.
“Come to think of it, this is my first time in the Library since entering the Tower.”
Of course it was—I’d climbed to the 18th Floor on my first day and reached the 20th the next, so she hadn’t had the chance.
The day after that, I’d spent the entire time hunting for magic stones outside the City, and the day after that, I’d already climbed to the 21st Floor.
When I thought about it, no one was chasing me, yet I’d lived rather frantically.
“Once we’re done with the meeting, we can browse the books at our leisure. From the time you pay, you get free re-entry for 24 hours.”
The entry fee was 1,000 Credits—I couldn’t pay that every time.
And for the record, the Library didn’t charge extra if you remained inside past 24 hours.
As long as you paid the initial entry fee and didn’t leave the building, you could stay indefinitely.
Though I doubted many lunatics would actually try it—but the Library did have restrooms and a restaurant, so living here was technically feasible.
The world had no shortage of lunatics, so I couldn’t rule out the possibility of one choosing to camp out in the Library.
“You’ve all worked hard these past days. Let’s take it easy today.”
At my suggestion, Lee Su-young let out a cheer.
“That’s a great idea!”
Between the 21st and 22nd Floors, I’d slogged for eight days straight—a day of rest sounded excellent.
Though in lower-level terms, only two or three days had actually passed.
Once we were in the meeting room, we immediately began unpacking what we’d gathered from the 22nd Floor.
Lee Su-young pulled out a heavy bag of Magic Stones—it held thousands upon thousands of them.
Each stone weighed around two grams, and the total bag exceeded four kilograms, suggesting we’d killed at least two thousand creatures.
“Since the chaos was so chaotic in the melee, it’s hard to know who killed how many. What do you say we do an equal split of the Magic Stones?”
Diana and I nodded in agreement at Lee Su-young’s proposal.
Somehow Lee Su-young had procured a scale and proceeded to weigh out and distribute the Magic Stones equally.
If anyone needed Shop Points, they could sell them at the Tower Shop right away, or stash them in their inventory or the Bank.
I then produced the Bronze Weapons I’d collected, the scales from the Lizardman Warrior, and a Gold Necklace, laying out one of each.
“I’ve collected so much that I can’t haul everything out at once. I’ll just pull out one representative item from each category.”
There were 1,380 Bronze Weapons, 250 Iron Weapons, and 1 Mithril Alloy Weapon that the king had used.
For the Lizardman corpses, I only took the king, the warlord, and the shaman.
The gold wasn’t exact, but it looked to be around 110 tons.
Naturally, since it was meant as an offering to a god, it all appeared to be 24 Karat.
Subjugation Magic carried enough risk that if you tried to cut corners, you could pay dearly at a crucial moment—so if your life mattered, there was no way they would have mixed impurities into the gold.
Could they have mixed it in and that’s why the ancient civilization collapsed?
No, they said it was destroyed by something like another demon, so they wouldn’t have been stupid enough to pull tricks like that.
I’d planned to sell most of the spoils to the Climbers’ Association or the Blacksmith and distribute the Credits.
“Oh, if you want to use any of it as materials, just say so. I can give it to you directly right now, or we can transfer it through the Bank.”
At my words, Lee Su-young and Diana spoke up.
“Me! I want to make Armor from the warlord’s byproducts!”
“I’d like to either replace my Mace with something new or upgrade it.”
Whether it was because the warlord’s scales were so hard, or because Diana’s enhanced strength had overwhelmed it, the Mace’s handle was slightly bent and covered with cracks.
“Both are excellent ideas.”
I’d obtained a good sword on the 18th Floor and had no intention of switching.
If I were to craft something, it would have to be a substitute Pseudo-Heavenly Silkworm Combat Suit for defense.
After discussing the distribution, we decided to sell all the weapons except the Mithril Spear and divide the Credits.
“The spear the king used—you handled him alone from start to finish, so you should keep it.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’m not one to turn down what someone gives me.”
By the same logic, I decided to keep the king’s byproducts.
The warlord’s and shaman’s byproducts were all slated to become materials for the two of them—their armor and weapons.
I’d defeated roughly half of them myself, but since I was taking the king’s corpse, I cleanly stepped aside.
Besides, the fact that I could fight the king one-on-one was only possible because these two had cleared out everything around us.
Especially at the end—I literally came back from the brink of death thanks to Diana.
Once the distribution was roughly settled, what remained was an enormous amount of gold.
Just as I was about to speak on the matter of dividing the gold, Lee Su-young spoke first.
“Diana and I talked about how to split the gold.”
Ah, they’d shared the same room yesterday too.
More than just because a double room was cheaper than a single, having used the same tent in the jungle had made them noticeably closer, it seemed.
Being a different gender, I felt a slight pang of exclusion in moments like these.
“What did you two discuss?”
At my question, the two exchanged glances and spoke.

(To be continued in the next part)

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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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