Bunker.
People always enjoy coming to the foot of the giant stele to observe the changes on the Bunker’s Celestial Ladder List.
The Gemini of the Slaughter Tower and Desire Tower are currently Xun Hui and Wenren Mirror.
Both of them are hovering around the seventy-fifth floor.
Originally, it was thought that the first person on the Deceit Tower’s Ladder List was still some distance away from them, but with Wen Xishu’s various outrageous maneuvers...
The number one on the Three Towers’ Ladder List was almost on the same level.
The current rankings on the Deceit Tower’s Ladder List are as follows.
The top hundred have almost all surpassed ten floors.
Most people, nearly tens of thousands, are hovering below ten floors.
Rank 66, Golden Flash, thirteen floors. Xiaojin is still progressing rapidly.
Rank 12, Jiang Xue, seventeen floors. She is a girl of few words but great ferocity at the Deceit Tower Academy.
Rank 5, Yin Ze, twenty-two floors. A teacher at Deceit Tower Academy, surpassing even Wen Xishu in climbing frequency. Started from a very low point, but progressing rapidly.
Rank 3, Zheng Zai, twenty-eight floors.
Zheng Zai has also been diligently climbing the tower recently. After achieving a good ending together with Ah Miao that time, he climbed the tower once more, finally reaching the twenty-eighth floor.
Rank 2, Xu Manjin, thirty-seven floors.
Before Wen Xishu, when the Ladder List wasn’t even open, Xu Jin was long the number one at the Deceit Tower.
His pace of climbing the Deceit Tower is slow, only going up whenever he’s rested enough, enjoyed enough, feels the Bunker is too dull, and craves stimulation.
Xu Manjin took six years to climb over twenty levels.
In the past, there weren’t even ten thousand people climbing the Deceit Tower, there was no Ladder List, and no one knew about Xu Manjin.
After all, for a long time, the Deceit Tower was the choice of madmen, death row inmates, and the utterly helpless and desperate.
Xu Manjin entered the public’s view only after the Ladder List appeared.
Due to the Deceit Tower’s extremely high mortality rate, people like Xu Manjin were very rare.
Back then, the third place was only around ten floors, but Xu Manjin was already over twenty floors.
One could say that the appearance of the Ladder List provided Xu Manjin with many additional resources.
After the rise of the Xishu Divine Teaching, Xu Manjin became an honorary elder of the Xishu Divine Teaching.
Following the tower climbing reforms, Xu Manjin became a VIP of William Hawker.
After the Bunker’s reorganization, Xu Manjin even became a consultant for the Deceit Tower division of the Bunker Security Bureau.
Before the Ladder List, all of Xu Manjin’s resources were earned with his life.
After the Ladder List, Xu Manjin’s wealth skyrocketed. Not only was he free from material worries, but he also made significant leaps in social status.
However, he always refused the invitation to teach at the Deceit Tower Academy.
"Compared to Dean Wen, becoming his student is enough for me. Teaching his students? I’m not worthy."
"I’ve climbed the Deceit Tower for many years, and it doesn’t compare to his achievements in just one month."
This is a heartfelt confession.
On the Deceit Tower’s Ladder List, people pay more attention to Wen Xishu.
After all, that’s the locked-in number one.
Xu Manjin knows that the sky-high traffic comes from Dean Wen. His own level is just average.
According to the speed of those who came after, he will soon be surpassed.
But oddly enough, after all this time, he is still second.
Even with such freaks as Yin Ze and Zheng Zai, it seems there’s still some distance.
That distance is the distance of talent.
Xu Manjin feels he might be able to speed up a bit. So he raised his maximum clearance level by a few floors.
Although he is far from keeping up with Wen Xishu, he always seems to remain several floors ahead of the third place.
He is actually quite adept at climbing the Deceit Tower; his slow pace is just because he also loves the life of the Bunker.
Xu Manjin’s biggest trait is contemplation.
He seems to have a natural ability to see through people.
It seems suitable for climbing the Desire Tower, but this ability is actually very important in the Deceit Tower as well.
Most of the challenges Xu Manjin faces are related to the bargaining with human nature.
For example—several people sitting together playing those strategic intelligence-based games in the style of game theory.
His slow style often makes opponents anxious to watch, but he easily defeats them leisurely.
In the Bunker, people originally did mathematical deductions and came up with a talent coefficient for climbing the Deceit Tower.
Wen Xishu’s coefficient is seven.
The second, Yin Ze, has a coefficient of 1.6.
Most people have only a fraction.
Many believed that when Xu Manjin reached the thirty-fifth floor, he would be caught up by Zheng Zai...
In the end, an impulsive thought made Xu Manjin decide to mingle in the Deceit Tower again, and he overturned that mathematical deduction.
His coefficient, at its peak, can reach over four.
At this time, people in the Bunker Security Bureau realized Xu Manjin might be a tower-climbing genius, only without Dean Wen’s crazy frequency.
They began to encourage Xu Manjin, thinking he could replicate Dean Wen’s feats.
Xu Manjin just smiled and said:
"Some people, once they speed up, get faster and faster. While others, only when they slow down, become fast."
"I’m not in the same style or level as Dean Wen."
"Comparing myself to him is like comparing a firefly to the sun. Oh, have you seen a firefly? You find those in the Three Towers only."
"You can’t imagine Dean Wen’s speed. Don’t be fooled by him being only twenty floors ahead of me now, maybe... in a few days, it’ll be over thirty or forty floors. Your coefficient can’t measure a true genius."
"Also, don’t push me, don’t deify me. My climbing frequency this year is already a bit hazardous."
"Just let me watch the great silhouette quietly."