Chapter 9

Chapter 9. Tower - Residential Tier 10th Floor (4)

I found the old librarian’s words absurd, but I could not be rude to someone who had helped me, so I swallowed my true feelings.

“Well, you are still young, so it must feel burdensome. Think of it simply as advice from a senior who walked the path of magic before you.”

“Understood. Next, what I’m curious about is....”

“Is there anything else you are curious about?”

At the old librarian’s question, I asked one thing I had been wondering about.

“When I saw Credits being sold in the shop, it looked like the structure allowed Climbers to earn money easily, but the prices here are abnormal.”

“Ah, yes, they are certainly abnormal. The Tower’s economic system follows capitalism on the microscopic level, but on the macroscopic level, it is closer to communism.”

If it was communism, did he mean a distribution economy?

No, distribution was one thing, but he was probably talking about a strongly controlled economy.

“The problem with communism is that it does not factor human greed into its calculations. The desire to become wealthier than others, and the base greed of those in power who wish to enjoy wealth and glory even while devouring their people. The Tower’s current system is the result of resolving those two things.”

“Resolving them? Is something like that possible?”

“First, those in power. There are no rulers in the Tower. Since no rulers exist, the base greed of rulers cannot exist either.”

“Wasn’t the Tower something like a nation? Can rulers really not exist?”

At my question, the old librarian smiled.

“If you climb to the upper floors of the Tower and are lucky, you will come to learn this, but since there is no information restriction on it, I will answer. The Tower is like a nation, but it is not a nation.”

At the old librarian’s words, I felt like I understood something.

“And the desire to become wealthy begins with ‘knowing.’ To give an example from your place of origin... it is like Great Master Wonhyo’s skull water.”

“You mean because they do not know a wealthier life, they do not develop a desire for wealth.”

Certainly, as I walked around the city and roughly observed its lifestyle, some public facilities were as good as those in modern cities, but the overall era felt like it had not escaped the Renaissance.

The only ways to hear news from outside the city were probably letters or newspapers, and the environments of other cities would likely not be much different from this city.

“What Climbers verbally say about their worlds probably doesn’t mean much. Information that people cannot encounter in physical form is inevitably distorted by the one receiving it.”

The restaurant owner had also found airplanes fascinating, but the airplane inside his head was surely not the same as the airplane I knew.

So the fact that all my electronic devices, including my smartphone, had stopped working after I entered the Tower’s 10th floor had also been the Tower’s intention.

It was trying to prevent people from making the outside world feel real through videos or photos.

“The Tower’s native residents do not have a large gap between rich and poor, and sturdy welfare that supports their lives is laid out in ways they may or may not notice.”

“It sounds like a utopia.”

“But utopia and dystopia are two sides of the same coin. A little information can turn a utopia into a dystopia. Water inside a skull may be life-saving holy water that preserves one’s life, but the skull holding that water feels dreadful once you know what it is.”

“So the Tower is basically a giant cage once you know the truth.”

The native residents were not aware at all that they were being oppressed, but in truth, they were under stronger oppression than anyone else.

“Is it completely The Truman Show? No, Animal Farm?”

Or maybe it was 1984.

At my assessment, the old librarian smiled bitterly.

“Between an Animal Farm where everyone is equal and a wilderness where wealth gaps and discrimination are extreme, I do not know which is better. To be honest, it would be more accurate to say I do not care. Why? Because it is not my affair.”

It is not my affair.

Those words might be one of the essential parts of human nature.

Were most people not uninterested in misfortunes that happened outside their perception?

And even if they were not, would it be right for me to teach those people, who were living peacefully, about misfortune they could not perceive and make them unhappy?

If my irresponsible words stirred up waves in their lives, could their lives really move in a better direction?

Would it not simply amount to dismantling and displaying their misfortune without any way to resolve it?

Thinking about it, there had once been statistics saying that poor countries in the past had the highest happiness index in the world.

But that was a miracle that happened because they were so poor that communication media such as the internet could not enter, and they did not know lives better than their own.

As the price of communication media became cheaper, the internet entered poor countries as well, and the happiness index of poor countries that came into contact with the outside world through the internet dropped sharply.

“Well, do not feel pity for their lives. The ones who entered the Tower’s fence did so of their own will, or more precisely, by the will of their ancestors.”

“You mean, would a lion born in a zoo truly be happy if it returned to the wild? But is it all right for you to tell me all this?”

I instinctively realized that the old librarian had been answering with meanings that contained answers to the questions I had asked earlier.

At my question, he shrugged as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

“I merely answered because you asked questions that could be answered.”

“I understand. But why are Credits sold so cheaply in the Tower Shop compared to what you explained?”

Even if prices were controlled by the Tower, there was no reason for Climbers to become wealthy.

Of course, it was not something I, who would benefit from it, should say.

“The Tower wishes Climbers to climb the Tower. If they were worn down by daily life and unable to climb upward, what meaning would there be in the Tower inviting Climbers?”

“But wouldn’t giving out so much make them settle down instead?”

“If someone would settle down over only that much, then they were someone who would have settled down for one reason or another anyway.”

Well, that was true.

“Why does the Tower want Climbers to climb the Tower?”

“Because that is the purpose of the Tower’s existence.”

As if he could not explain in more detail, the old librarian urged me to ask another question.

I had obtained rough hints about the questions that had been piling up until now.

As I thought for a moment about whether there was anything else to ask, I remembered what I had originally meant to ask the librarian.

“It seems each ability has a rarity, but is that decided simply by how rare it is? When I looked at the shelves, there was only the rarity 1 section, and nothing from rarity 2 onward.”

At my question, the old librarian answered as if it was no great matter.

“From rarity 2 onward, climb to the 20th floor and visit the library there. The knowledge permitted on the 10th floor is limited.”

“I see.”

When I accepted that, the old librarian smiled and began adding more.

“And rarity, was it? Rarity is not decided simply by how rare an ability is. It is determined with the ability’s growth speed and the difficulty of learning and mastering it included.”

The old librarian created a small lump of light at his fingertip.

“Is that a mass of Mana?”

I instinctively knew that the lump of light had been made with the same power I had felt inside my body.

The old librarian nodded in satisfaction.

“That is correct. Try copying it once.”

I lifted my finger and tried to imitate the flow of Mana in the old librarian’s hand.

Since I had only just felt something called Mana for the first time a moment ago, it was rather awkward and difficult.

“Ah, I did it.”

But after struggling with it for a few minutes, I succeeded in creating a small sphere like the old librarian.

“Check your Status Window.”

At the old librarian’s words, I checked my ability window.

“Huh?!”

Next to my abilities, ‘Magic Bullet Lv 1’ was written.

“It is Magic Bullet, the most basic of basic magic. The Status Window merely tells you your status. Abilities can be learned and trained even without ability stones. Magic Bullet is a simple spell that even those who are not mages can learn and practice, as long as their talent for magic is not catastrophically poor.”

The old librarian fired a Magic Bullet toward an empty wall, and I tried firing a Magic Bullet after him.

The old librarian’s Magic Bullet disappeared when it touched the wall, but my Magic Bullet flew only about 1 meter before vanishing in the air.

“A rarity 1 ability is ultimately about this level.”

The old librarian drew a line in the air and made a graph.

“Let us call the vertical axis the degree of strength, or level.”

He added that level was a value that roughly indicated around which floor it would be effective.

“The horizontal axis is the time required to train the ability. A rarity 1 ability usually looks like this.”

The graph rose steeply at first like a logarithmic function, then became gentle from a certain point onward, and soon the growth rate turned into a straight horizontal line.

“It is easy to learn and grow in the beginning, but the limits become clear as time goes on. On the other hand, rarity 5 and rarity 9 draw growth curves like this.”

A rarity 5 ability drew a straight diagonal line like a linear function, and a rarity 9 ability, just as people commonly said ‘exponential,’ had low growth at first like a quadratic function graph, then grew steeper the further it went.

“Are there abilities with low rarity among the abilities gained from the Tower too?”

At my question, the old librarian chuckled.

“Of course there are. No, there are quite many. Most people would have received rarity 1 abilities. Nine out of ten people likely received rarity 1 abilities.”

“Then do people who received low-rarity abilities have clear limits?”

The old librarian shook his head.

“No, the Tower is fair. When you reached the 10th floor, did the Tower not grant you a new ability or strengthen your existing one? If it was a summoning-type ability, one summoning slot would have increased. If it was a martial-arts-type ability, a new martial art that complements the existing one, such as a cultivation method or footwork method, would have been given.”

It was exactly as he said. My ‘Multidimensional Avatar’ had also gained one slot.

“Then conversely, aren’t people who receive high-rarity abilities at a disadvantage? If the early growth looks like this, I think most of them would drop out before reaching a certain point.”

“That is why ability stones exist in the Tower. Aside from that, there are places inside the Tower where you can learn magic or martial arts. There, you can learn low-rarity abilities, just as you learned Magic Bullet a moment ago.”

After saying that, the old librarian told me about the Mage Tower branch in this city.

The Mage Tower branch was not even in the guidebook. Was it hidden information?

“In the beginning, climb the Tower with easy, low-rarity abilities. Later, climb the Tower with high-rarity abilities. Take this.”

The old librarian tossed me a red magic stone.

“It is an ability stone. You may eat it, or simply think of absorbing it.”

“Is it all right for you to just give me something like this?”

“Think of it as your reward for discovering me. You may not realize it yourself, but discovering me is worth that much.”

“Then I will gratefully accept it.”

As the old man who gave freely told me, I absorbed the ability stone. Then, next to ‘Magic Bullet Lv 1,’ ‘Spirit Arts Lv 1’ appeared.

When I pressed Spirit Arts, there was one slot like with Multidimensional Avatar.

When I summoned a Fire Spirit, a Fire Spirit about the size of a finger joint was summoned, and the slot was filled.

[Spirit Arts]

[Slot 1: Fire Spirit Lv 1]

“Most summoning-type abilities are rarity 5 or higher, but Spirit Arts is a rarity 7 ability. It is an ability that depends heavily on talent, but thinking of the distant future, it is quite a good ability, so try raising your spirit diligently.”

“Thank you.”

The old librarian said that abilities gained through ability stones were only supplementary, so even if they grew, the Tower would not prepare anything for them.

“Then it seems you have nothing more to ask, so let us part here.”

The old librarian slowly wrapped his body as if pulling space around himself.

I asked him one last thing.

“What is your name?”

At my final question, the old librarian smiled and answered,

“Come to the higher floors and try to find me once. I will tell you my name then.”

With those words, the old librarian disappeared completely.