Chapter 2

Chapter 2. Tower - Tutorial (1)

“The ability’s name is Multidimensional Avatar, huh.”

I focused on my ability.

Then, like the Status Window, a translucent window appeared.

[Multidimensional Avatar]

[Avatar Points: 10]

[Avatar Slot 1]

It was a simple ability window, just like the Status Window.

Strangely enough, however, I could vaguely understand how I was supposed to use this ability inside my head.

When I pressed the Avatar Slot, another translucent window appeared.

[Searching dimensions….]

[Search complete.]

[Dimensions available for avatar creation: 1. Earth / 2. Tower’s 2nd floor]

Once the search complete message appeared, it told me the dimensions where I could create an avatar.

There were only two dimensions, but I could understand roughly how it worked.

“A dimension, huh... If I choose Earth, does that mean a clone of me will appear in Korea?”

If my senses were right, this was an ability that let my mind, or perhaps my soul, enter a clone and move around as if it were my own body.

But it would appear in Korea, right?

It would be troublesome if, for no reason at all, my clone appeared in some random foreign country or in the middle of the vast ocean.

“And the Tower’s 2nd floor is one of the selectable dimensions. So the stories about each floor having different worlds and different flows of time were true?”

Tower Returnees testified that although they had spent years inside the Tower, when they returned, only a few days at the shortest and a few months at the longest had passed.

Among the stories Tower Returnees testified to, there were many that lacked credibility or were hard to believe, and it was common knowledge that after the establishment of the WPTO, there was various censorship regarding the Tower.

Because of that, the only information released to the public was either information from 10 years ago, when Tower Returnees first appeared, or information up to the 10th floor that the government released for the safety of citizens.

Since I had never particularly wanted to enter the Tower, I only had basic information.

“What are Avatar Points?”

For now, it did not seem like creating an avatar cost points, but I could not immediately grasp where they were used.

I did not have any points right now, so there was no need to worry about it immediately.

“It’s a shame it isn’t an intuitive and powerful superpower, but it seems pretty good if I’m playing it safe.”

Even if my clone died, I would not die.

On top of that, even if my clone died, I could keep making more.

That was an enormous merit.

If I, the main body, stayed safely on the 1st floor, then inside the Tower, this was practically the same as an immortality ability.

I opened the Tower Shop and bought a one-handed sword and a shield with points.

The one-handed sword seemed to have an 80-centimeter blade, a 20-centimeter handle, and a blade width of about 5 centimeters, while the shield was a wooden round shield about 3 centimeters thick and roughly 60 centimeters in diameter, with an iron rim around the edge.

“The shield is heavy.”

Throwing it around like a superhuman from a movie seemed impossible.

Still, a shield needed this much weight to feel reliable.

My 10 points had become 8 points, but there was no problem.

As far as I knew, killing monsters gave Shop Points.

I had heard that everything below the 10th floor was tutorial-level, so if even an ordinary person held a weapon and had mastered their superpower on the 1st floor, they could pass without much difficulty.

I put down the bag I had bought at a military supply store when I was a private and tightly tied the laces of my combat boots.

I had already taken my spare combat uniforms and such home during my terminal leave, so the bag was almost empty, but that made it feel even more cumbersome.

“Create avatar, Tower’s 2nd floor.”

The first slot filled with the Tower’s 2nd floor, and my vision changed.

---

From the pure-white space where there had been nothing, I appeared in a room made of bricks like some kind of historic ruin, along with the crystal I had seen on the 1st floor.

Two options appeared from the crystal.

[Proceed to the Tower’s 3rd floor? - Conditions not met. Hunt 1 Horned Rabbit.]

[Leave the Tower? You cannot enter the Tower again, and Common Abilities will be reclaimed.]

I skimmed over the text on the crystal and checked my body.

“So this is my clone?”

It was my body exactly as it had been, without the slightest sense of discomfort.

It did not feel like a clone at all.

“Wait, where are my sword and shield?”

Because I panicked for a moment, I was late to react to the white ball of fur charging at me.

If I had at least swung my fist then, there would have been no problem, but in my panic, I could not even respond like that and was rammed head-on.

“Ghk!”

When something sharp and pointed pierced my chest, I could not breathe.

The white ball of fur thrashed, kicked my stomach, and pulled out the long horn on its forehead.

The horned rabbit, now drenched in my blood, looked down at me and laughed.

“Squeak.”

This goddamn rabbit bastard...!

With that thought as my last, I returned to my original body.

---

Back in the pure-white space where there was nothing except me and the crystal, I clutched my chest in pain and breathed roughly.

“Hah! Hah!”

It did not hurt.

But it hurt.

At the vivid sensation that made it impossible to think of it as only a clone, I trembled faintly at the memory of my heart being pierced, like phantom pain.

My main body’s arms were holding the shield and sword I had bought.

“Damn it, you make my clothes appear, but not my sword and shield?!”

I gritted my teeth.

Relief that I had not died, the dull phantom pain, and my rage and shame toward the Horned Rabbit that had laughed at me dominated my head.

To think I died to a mere Horned Rabbit!

I, Han Ji-woo, had been the kind of person who could not live after being wronged ever since I was young.

I did not know about anything else, but I was definitely going to kill that rabbit bastard before I left the Tower.

First, let us calm down.

The bald man’s heart is burning.

No, I should act with a cool head and a hot heart.

I analyzed the current situation.

“What’s the standard for how the clone is created? Why weren’t the weapon and shield created?”

I had not noticed because I was too flustered, but the clone had been wearing the bag I had put down on the floor.

In other words, the standard for the clone was based on the moment I first obtained the ability.

When I obtained the ability, the Common Abilities had definitely appeared first, then the Personal Ability had appeared afterward.

Then could my clone also have the Tower Common Abilities?

I did not know. I had to confirm it with the clone.

When I brought up the ability window, I could see that part of the slot had changed.

[Multidimensional Avatar]

[Avatar Points: 10]

[Avatar Slot 1: Tower’s 2nd floor / Time 00:00:08 - Status: Dead]

[Points required to recreate avatar: 1]

So that was what Avatar Points were. They were needed for revival?

A time that had not been visible before was displayed beside it.

And that time was not flowing.

“Don’t tell me time stops in other dimensions?”

I needed to confirm that too.

I created a clone on the Tower’s 2nd floor again.

---

My body was lying down.

Judging from the lukewarm, sticky smell of blood coming from behind my back, it seemed my clone had been regenerated in the same place where I had died.

The hole pierced through my chest was gone too.

The Horned Rabbit, not even knowing I had come back to life, was triumphantly wiping my blood from its face with its tiny, adorable forelegs.

Without moving, I immediately checked whether the shop window would open.

Then I bought a one-handed sword from the shop right away, and the moment I raised my body, I swung it at the Horned Rabbit with all my might, as if to smash it apart.

“Squeee!”

The damned Horned Rabbit sensed me suddenly getting up and dodged, but perhaps because my blood had blurred its vision, it failed to evade completely and died after being cut down by the sword.

“That was revenge for my Clone No. 1, you damn Bugs Bunny!”

Yahoo! I won!

I raised the sword high and struck a victory pose.

Now that I had won, the blood smeared all over my back felt unpleasant.

“...I can’t wash this off, can I?”

There was no blood on my pants, but my top and bag were thickly smeared with my blood.

The wound Clone No. 1 had suffered had not been large, but because the heart had been pierced, there had been a lot of bleeding.

I wanted to wash myself and change clothes right away, but I could not do that until the 10th floor.

I knew that once I reached the 10th floor, a town would appear, called a common space.

They said you could not return to floors you had cleared, but you could return to common residential floors.

The text floating above the crystal had changed too.

[Proceed to the Tower’s 3rd floor? - You cannot return to the Tower’s 2nd floor.]

Before going to the 3rd floor, I removed a small magic stone the size of a pinky nail from the Horned Rabbit’s corpse.

Magic stones were a new substance that had drawn attention as a new energy source after the Tower and Gates appeared.

As I picked up the magic stone, I saw one more green magic stone beside the blue one.

“Were there two magic stones?”

I felt something from the green magic stone.

“Ah, don’t tell me this is that ability stone?”

Unlike Natural Ability Awakeners, Tower Returnees possessed more than one ability.

There was the ability they gained when they entered the Tower, and then there were abilities gained through these ability stones.

I heard ability stones were extremely rare, but to think I would obtain one like this.

The problem was that there was no way to know what ability it held before acquiring it.

I had heard that as you climbed the Tower, you could obtain something called an ‘Appraisal Scroll,’ which appraised unknown items.

For now, I did not see any Appraisal Scroll in the Tower Shop.

“Hmm. I guess I’ll just try learning it once.”

Ability stones, along with High-Grade Healing Potions, were items called lottery prizes, but ability mattered more than money after all!

But how was I supposed to absorb it? Did I have to eat it?

While I was worrying over that, the ability stone reacted to my will and disappeared, as if sublimating from a solid into a gas.

And a sword art I had never seen before was engraved into my mind.

When I checked the Status Window, an ability called [Bluewood Sword Lv 1] had been written next to Multidimensional Avatar.

I swung the sword the way it had been engraved into my mind.

Unlike the sword art in my head, it felt as if my body could not quite follow it properly, but it was clearly different from when I had swung the sword against the Horned Rabbit just moments ago.

Even though I had never learned swordsmanship even once, it was a strange and fascinating experience.

“Bluewood Sword doesn’t open an ability window like Multidimensional Avatar. Is Avatar special because it’s an ability I gained from the Tower? Or is it different for each ability?”

Tower Returnees did not explain their abilities in detail, since those abilities were practically their foundation, so I could not know whether my ability was special or not.

I opened the Inventory to put away the bloodstained magic stone.

Inside the Inventory was the discharge cap I had put in with my main body.

“Huh! Don’t tell me the Common Abilities are linked between my clone and my main body?”

Then my main body would not need to waste expensive Shop Points buying food.

I was about to put the magic stone into the Inventory when I remembered the matter of time between dimensions, lightly tossed it into the air, and returned my consciousness to my main body.

After counting a generous 20 seconds in my main body and returning to the clone, I saw the magic stone I had thrown falling.

“So time really stops when the dimension is different.”

I picked up the magic stone, put it in the Inventory, and brought up the ability window with the clone’s body.

[Multidimensional Avatar]

[Absorb]

[Main Body: Tower’s 1st floor / Time 00:02:48]

On the clone, the location and time of the main body were displayed instead of the avatar.

And where it had originally said Avatar Points, something called Absorb was written.

When I pressed Absorb, an explanation appeared.

[You can absorb the avatar’s abilities into the main body.]

There was no detailed explanation, but I roughly understood what kind of ability it was.

It was an ability that sent the abilities the clone had obtained and the stats it had grown to the main body.

The clone that had sent its abilities to the main body would disappear, but since clones could be made as many times as needed, saying it disappeared was not quite correct.

“I see. So this is the structure for making me grow.”

I pressed Absorb. Then my consciousness returned from the clone to the main body.

---

[Name: Han Ji-woo / Age: 21]

[Strength: 8 / Agility: 11 / Stamina: 9 / Intelligence: 15 / Mana: 1]

[Status: Normal, Empty Stomach]

[Ability: Multidimensional Avatar Lv 1, Bluewood Sword Lv 1]

When I returned to my main body and checked the Status Window, one more ability, ‘Bluewood Sword,’ which had only existed in the clone, had appeared.

Then the ability window appeared as if giving a notification.

[You have acquired 10 Avatar Points through avatar absorption.]

[Multidimensional Avatar has leveled up. It is now Lv 2.]

[You have acquired 100 Avatar Points through Multidimensional Avatar’s level-up.]

“Are Avatar Points gained through absorption or level-ups?”

The ability’s level and points were probably determined by how much I had developed the clone.

Thankfully, it did not seem like simply absorbing and recreating a clone consumed Avatar Points.

Well, if it had, then absorption itself would have been limited.

I moved my consciousness back to the clone, placed my hand on the 2nd-floor crystal, and headed to the Tower’s 3rd floor.

The sword would not disappear again, would it?