NOVPUB"Hello! Dear climber! ... I mean, traveler ... no, no, climber." The leader was visibly nervous, it seemed like he was the first person who came to talk to him. "I am Thomas Edson and the leader of the Night Wolves guild. We are an unregistered guild, but please listen to what we have to say!" Thomas spat out those last words in a single breath.
Kayden understood that he probably wasn’t the first person to come see them, but everyone refused after learning that they didn’t have registration. Registering a guild required that there be at least one wizard of the fifth realm and a participant who had surpassed floor number 40. These were practically two simultaneous requirements, as it was impossible to surpass floor 39 without a demigod, for the simple fact that the final boss of that floor be a monster at that level, but Kayden didn’t know that.
"He can talk." Kayden would first understand what he was getting into and only then mention Thoth’s name.
All the teenagers in front of him introduced themselves and explained their strengths. Kayden was impressed, they weren’t weak. The one with red hair was called Shiva, the one with blue, Aqua. The little one was called Gnar and the biggest one was called Malphite. The five were known from their planet and came to the tower to show that they were capable of great things. This was a ritual on their home planet, at least with the large families. Kayden was surprised to find out that they all had gods in their family.
This was quite strange to him, as Kayden came from a solar system where there was only a single god controlling everything on dozens of planets. The five in front of him were only approximately fifty years old, so Kayden thought they were flowers.
"Are you direct descendants?" Kayden’s question interrupted the group’s flow of words. Neither of them responded immediately, but in the end, Thomas stood up and responded.
"No, but that doesn’t matter in here." Kayden had already assumed that.
"I came for Thoth." With Kayden’s speech, the group’s expression changed instantly.
"Do you know the four arms ?" Speeches like this came from the four in the group, it seemed like they were well-known to each other.
"He’s an old acquaintance." Kayden didn’t quite know how to describe his relationship with Thoth.
"He helped us climb 30 floors in just six months. It would have taken us years if we hadn’t found him." Kayden thought he had been quick, but this line proved him wrong.
"The one eye was incredibly strong and had a lot of knowledge," Aqua commented in a thinner voice than usual. The others also gave positive praise to the four arms.
"What is the purpose of this guild?" Kayden sent another question and this time Thomas answered easily.
"We want to climb the next floors of the tower. We have the inside scoop on each floor and where its treasures are. From floor thirty onwards, everything can be removed and taken outside." Kayden didn’t know this information, but he didn’t let on.
"I would like to join the guild together with my companion." Kayden took Felix off his shoulder and shook the cat, this made everyone notice that the animal in Kayden’s hands was a beast from the fourth realm.
"How cute." Aqua was about to approach when Kayden stopped her with some mana. This proved to be the right move when Felix woke up in a bad mood and started scratching everything around him.
"He gets irritated when he’s woken up like this, but it’s quicker." Felix recovered when he saw that he was in an environment with more people and lay down on Kayden’s shoulder again.
"Hello, I’m a sentient beast and I thought you were really cute too," Felix said and made Aqua blush. Everyone assumed it was a mindless animal next to Kayden, it wasn’t something rare.
"How many lightning bolts do each of you two have and what are your capabilities and abilities?" Thomas asked as soon as he saw the two willing to join the guild.
"Seven rays, and Felix has six rays. I am a combat mage specializing in killing anything that breathes. Felix is a combat mage and at the same time a runemaster of the fourth realm." The cat only had five rays, but Kayden could easily embellish his record.
"Perfect, we all have seven rays too." Kayden expected nothing less from people with gods in their families. "Just take an oath not to intentionally cause harm to the guild and we can consider you a member."
Kayden and Felix swore the oath to the guild, and Thomas received both pledges of mana. The group was visibly happy to get another member. It seemed like they had been trying to recruit people for some time without success.
"Every day thousands of people come up from the 29th floor. There are many kingdoms in that place. You’re our first member in two weeks," Aqua commented as Kayden waited beside them.
"Why don’t you go after the climbers?" Kayden found their approach very peaceful.
"We can not. Only when we are registered guilds do we have the right to make approaches. This sucks, but there’s not much you can do about it." Gnar’s speech made the discrepancy clear to Kayden.
They stayed for another hour or two, but all the climbers who heard the "no record" line made excuses or didn’t even hear the rest of Thomas’s lines. It was a big difference.
After everyone was chosen, Kayden went with the group to their headquarters. The first step was to descend below the clouds and see an immense city that grew around a mountain. The higher up the mountain, the more luxurious and spacious the houses were.
They continued flying for a few dozen kilometers until the planet’s vegetation began to appear. It was a mixture of yellow grass and yellow trees approximately 10 meters tall.
They flew to a small mountain barely a kilometer high. In the middle of it, there was a very large house made of yellow wood and black stone. The contrast of colors made it look like a luxury home.
The house had a reverse U shape, with the space in the middle being a living space mixed with a kitchen. On the sides, there were only rooms. Each room was a few tens of meters, and the social environment was almost a hundred meters.
"I’m a carpenter in my spare time," Malphite commented to Kayden with a tone of pride.
"It looks nice," Kayden had to admit. It was a very unique look for the house. Thomas introduced him a little to the environment and told Kayden to choose a room and wait a few days.
They needed two or three more members to be able to balance the team and climb the next floors. Kayden also received a small book explaining the next floors in brief.
Over the next few days, the guild’s core members continued going to the town square and returning without any additional members. Meanwhile, Kayden just cultivated and thought about how to progress.
Floor number 30 was just a resting point without any challenge. To go to the next floor, you just needed to go to the city center and go through a huge red portal open to everyone.
The problem was that the next floors were much more difficult than all the others combined. Floor number 31 was an apocalyptic world dominated by mana-tainted humanoid monsters. Any living being that entered and was killed became part of this horde of beings.
The floor was only at night all the time, with a moon cycle acting as daylight with low lighting. It had abandoned cities and dungeons full of treasures and opportunities.
In terms of treasures, it was a perfect place, but the amount of undead was colossal. They were all at least in the third realm and had strength corresponding to the amount of lightning they had in life.
They weren’t the best in terms of intelligence, but their instincts made them great hand-to-hand fighters and some rare mages with a little more intelligence. Everyone fought similarly, using their bodies and ridiculous natural regeneration.
Some undead were able to overcome the natural barrier and become Liches. These were the minority of the minority. The benefits of this race were immense: first, immortality and bizarrely good mana manipulation.
Liches only had a single defect: they had a small bone in their body carrying their entire existence. If it were broken, they would die instantly. This made them solitary and suspicious creatures. Some reached the fifth kingdom, but they were few and you could count the number of demigods on that floor on two hands.
These were powerful, as they managed to escape the decades-long persecution of several wizards from different kingdoms. Even some mages in the sixth or seventh realm have passed this floor, and even then, some remained alive.
