BOOM!
The massive golem-like monster collapsed into a pile of shattered rubble.
Dust and fragments of stone filled the air as the creature’s body broke apart beneath the overwhelming force of the attack. For several seconds, the only sound was the settling of debris.
Then the dust gradually cleared.
Kael stood in the middle of the destruction.
His gaze swept across the scattered remains of the monster before settling on the faint glow coming from somewhere beneath the rubble.
"This should be the last one."
He walked over and casually pushed aside several chunks of broken stone before reaching down and picking up a shimmering crystal.
The crystal pulsed faintly within his palm, radiating a strange magical energy.
Kael examined it for a moment.
"This should be the final ingredient."
He added the crystal to his inventory.
With that, the difficult part of the trial was essentially over.
All three ingredients had been gathered.
Now he simply needed to return to the village.
Kael looked toward the direction he had come from before checking the trial’s timer.
"So it shouldn’t have been more than ten minutes, right?"
He checked.
His expression relaxed slightly.
Only around eight minutes had passed.
"Good."
The trial’s rules were simple. One villager would die every ten minutes, meaning that if Kael returned before the first ten-minute mark and completed the trial, there was a good chance that none of the villagers would die.
If that happened, he might even be able to obtain a perfect score.
The monsters themselves had never been the problem.
They were simply too weak.
The real difficulty of the trial was the distance.
The three ingredient locations were ridiculously far apart.
Kael had traveled between them at his maximum speed, yet it had still taken him roughly eight minutes to gather everything.
He looked toward the distant forest.
"No wonder this is a Hell Difficulty trial."
For an ordinary Hunter, simply traveling between the three locations would consume a significant amount of time. Then they would have to deal with the monsters guarding each ingredient, gather the required materials, and somehow make it back before thirty villagers die.
Even if they were strong enough to handle the monsters, they would be lucky to barely pass the trial.
Getting a perfect score would be another matter entirely.
Kael didn’t waste any more time thinking about it.
He had everything he needed.
It was time to return.
BOOM!
His figure shot forward.
The forest blurred around him as Kael accelerated to his maximum speed, trees becoming streaks of green as he tore through the terrain.
He didn’t bother slowing down.
The village was already within sight.
The moment he arrived, he saw a figure waiting for him.
It was an NPC, an old man whose aged body looked completely wrinkled and dried up.
The old man immediately stepped forward.
"Welcome back, Adventurer."
Kael didn’t waste time responding.
He opened his inventory and handed over the three ingredients.
The first was the magic orb he had obtained from the golem.
The second was the honeysuckle nectar.
The third was the heartbeat crystal.
The old man carefully accepted all three items, his expression filled with relief.
"Thank you for saving our village, Adventurer."
Kael barely heard him.
His attention was already fixed on the notification screen that had appeared before his eyes.
[FLOOR 12 COMPLETE — HELL DIFFICULTY]
[Rating: SSS]
[EXP Gained: 38,000]
[Tower Coins Gained: 14,000]
[Infinite Reward Multiplier — Activated!]
[Multiplier: x70]
[Reward Adjusted:]
[EXP Gained: 2,660,000]
[Tower Coins Gained: 980,000]
Kael stared at the numbers.
Then he sighed.
"Well, this is quite disappointing."
A seventy-times multiplier wasn’t exactly what he had hoped to see after receiving a perfect score in the trial, especially after some of the ridiculous multipliers he had obtained in the past.
Still, it wasn’t bad.
Two million six hundred and sixty thousand EXP was still two million six hundred and sixty thousand EXP.
And nearly one million Tower Coins was certainly useful.
Kael dismissed the notification.
The next moment, the world around him disappeared.
He returned to the start room.
He didn’t waste any time.
After briefly checking his condition, Kael immediately proceeded to the next trial.
Floor Thirteen passed quickly.
Floor Fourteen followed.
Then Floor Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
One after another, Kael cleared the trials.
The difficulties varied, as did the objectives, but none of them presented anything remotely capable of stopping him. With his current strength, most of the enemies within those floors simply couldn’t force him to take the trials seriously.
By the time Kael completed Floor Nineteen, he finally stopped.
Kael didn’t immediately proceed.
The next floor was Floor Twenty.
The boss floor.
He wasn’t reckless.
The Tower’s boss floors weren’t ordinary trials. The strength of the boss would synchronize with the challenger, ensuring that the battle remained difficult regardless of the challenger’s current power.
That alone wasn’t necessarily a problem.
The real issue was everything else.
The bosses possessed unique attributes, special abilities, and mechanics that couldn’t simply be overcome through raw statistics.
Kael could probably attempt it.
But there was no reason to.
His armor was still being upgraded, and once that process was complete, his combat ability would increase considerably.
There was no point gambling his life simply to clear one floor earlier than necessary.
"I’ll deal with it after the armor is finished."
With that decision made, Kael ended his Tower run for the day.
However, he didn’t immediately leave.
There were still his rewards to process.
Kael began going through everything he had obtained throughout the run.
Aside from the Shepherd’s Burden, the highest multiplier he had received from the other trials had been around five hundred.
It wasn’t particularly outrageous by his standards, but the sheer number of trials he had completed still caused the rewards to accumulate into something substantial.
He had leveled up another five times.
His Tower Coin balance had increased by roughly one hundred million.
Several items had also entered his inventory.
Most of them were mediocre.
Useful in certain situations, perhaps, but nothing that particularly caught Kael’s attention.
Then he found one item that was actually worth keeping.
A pair of boots.
They possessed an ability that increased the wearer’s running speed while also generating a powerful shockwave whenever the wearer accelerated.
The resulting shockwave could deafen and stun nearby opponents.
Kael examined them for a moment before nodding.
"Lyra would like these."
He stored the boots separately.
Once everything had been sorted, Kael finally decided that there was nothing else he needed to do inside the Tower.
He collected the nine additional reward boxes he had accumulated during his run before turning toward Aiona’s little home.
"Aiona, I’m leaving."
The tiny fairy emerged from her birdhouse-sized home and waved toward him.
"Goodbye, Kael."
"See you later."
Kael gave her a final nod.
Then he willed himself out of the Tower.
The starting room vanished.
The next moment, Kael was back inside his bedroom.
He glanced toward the window.
The sky was already beginning to brighten.
The sun was rising.
Kael had spent the entire night inside the Tower.
He removed his combat suit and headed straight for the bathroom. After taking a quick bath and washing away the exhaustion from his body, he changed into normal clothes before returning to his bed.
For a few seconds, Kael simply sat there.
Then his attention shifted toward his phone.
There was something else he needed to deal with.
The information Jonas had sent him.