Chapter 505 - Three ways to clear this floor

We stop for a short break after a few more clashes. At this point, we have killed plenty of lurkers, so we have a lot of attention on us. As before, the lurkers are attracted to people who have killed a lot of them. Even so, the floor is huge, so it always takes a few minutes until we crash into another group.

Could we move without killing that many of them? Quite possibly, but even if we crash into a lurker like Whitey, I don't think it would cause us much trouble.

Surrounded by a circle of trees, we stand there, eating and drinking a bit, multiple defensive arrays and webs deployed. That's when Luna moves closer and sniffs my hand, her nose touching the back of it.

She opens her mouth, and the sound comes from it. "That mark, that scent became stronger, human."

"It's possible."

"Why didn't you bring who marked you here?"

"He is currently pretending to sleep. And I'm not sure if he could come to the Beyond."

"Why would he..." Luna shakes her head and growls when Leticia pulls her tail and joins us.

"Don't be rude, Luna."

Luna decides it's not worth answering and just closes her mouth and sits down.

"Why doesn't Biscuit talk?" Lily asks curiously. "I mean, he does, but not as much as Luna."

I shrug. "You can ask him if you want. I won't be telling it without him agreeing."

"So you know?!"

"Obviously."

It's fun to see Lily's expression. I wonder what she was thinking.

"If you excuse me, I will go and talk with Soph. She did some really fancy modifications to her web, and it made me curious!" Leticia excuses herself, and Luna moves with her in a very protective manner—something she does every time Leticia approaches Sophie.

Instead of her, Tess comes closer after some conversation with Jean. "A half a day at this tempo and we will reach the safe zone."

"Did you learn anything more from them?" I ask her.

"A little. The first floor is shaped like a massive circle—emphasis on massive. Thousands, very likely many more, of tutorials run simultaneously, and it's believed there are tens of thousands of Beyond attendees at any given time—maybe even hundreds of thousands. If anyone knows the exact numbers, they’re not sharing."

"Isn't that... too much?" Lily glances between me and Tess in surprise.

"Well, if we consider that all tutorials are connected to this single Beyond, I wouldn't say so. Isn't that amazing?" Tess smiles. "Thousands and thousands of beyonders. There can be 100 people at most from each tutorial, and that means thousands of tutorials at once. Each tutorial taking only 5 years and then there is many more included that already ended."

"That likely means... a lot of planets already in the system," I reply.

Tess nods and asks with a smile, "The system is enormous and very old. Doesn't that humble you, Nat?"

"Why would it?"

"There being so many people much stronger than you."

"Why would I care about that? Just give it a bit of time."

"Boring," Tess complains and turns to Lily. "And what do you think?"

Lily glances at me and then back at Tess. "With my skills, I will probably outlive most of them, so I just need to learn how to help others to do the same."

"You can be so cute sometimes, Lily," Tess puts her into a hug and then asks quietly, "Remind me, how old are you?"

Lily once again glances at me and then back to Tess. "Eighteen, not that far off nineteen!"

That almost makes me roll my eyes, and Tess notices it very well, I'm sure.

"And I'm just a bit over twenty," she notes.

"It's still hard to believe that Sophie is older than you by two years no matter how often I hear it."

"That's rude, Lily. Look at Nat, for example. He is three years older than me, but from our behavior who would you say is older?"

To that, our healer decides to smartly stay quiet, much to Tess's amusement.

"Min-Jae will turn eighteen sometime after the second tournament, so don’t forget to start thinking about the right gift," she reminds me again before hurrying over to Sophie, who gestures to her about something triggering our detection arrays.

A minute later we are on our way again.

***

The 1st floor is enormous, as Tess said. You move for days at our enhanced speed and yet only reach the first safe zone. After that, you head even deeper towards another safe zone. That one is closer, but the danger is bigger; the lurkers are fewer but they are stronger, and for the first time, you meet with the monsters of this floor.

According to the information, they are mostly millennia-old reanimated skeletons of the monsters that lived here when people first entered the 1st floor before they ended up reanimated in a similar way the lurkers did.

Something, or someone, makes it all happen, and even if someone knows, the censoring works even here and is unable to share more.

So the question is how to progress to the second floor?

It's quite simple.

You reach the first safe zone. You then go for the second safe zone. When you are there then there are three ways to clear this floor and enter the second one.

First, you look for a reanimated lurker or monster who extremely rarely has a special crystal formed inside their bodies. These crystals are akin to coordinates and, with some additional work and items, can create a temporary entrance to the second floor. They can also be bought, are single use, and sell for a lot of shards.

Second, you find one of the permanent entrances to the second floor. All of them are hidden well and often guarded by something akin to a raid boss—a monster even stronger than a lurker and often requiring hundreds of attendees to kill it or distract it for long enough to enter the second floor.

Third, head towards the center of the 1st floor where something awaits, likely a being that causes the reanimation of lurkers and monsters. That being likely reanimates as well, and there is a rumor it hasn't been killed in hundreds of years and used to clear the floor. That's the reason why people from lower floors of Beyond sometimes return to the first one to kill it in hopes of better rewards, and often they die trying to do so.

The sheer size of this floor makes each of these options take some time, but with some luck, this floor can also be cleared in days only.

I'm not going to lie, but there is one option I'm really fond of. It feels like a mystery and challenge combined, and how could I resist that? I'm sure at some point I will attempt to do it, even if it isn't this time, but sometime in the future. Just the fact that 4th and 5th year attendees can die while trying to reach the center of the first floor.

The fact there are thousands or tens of thousands of Beyond attendees—the best from their planets—yet they have trouble with it is just irresistible.

But I have gotten my lesson not that long ago. There is too much to be excited for just to... I stop there. Trying to gaslight myself into such thinking never worked.

***

Tacita appears once in a while, and often a few minutes later a big group of lurkers follows behind. At this point, I don't even want to know how many she killed, most of them left on our way to loot—she seems like a mama cat leaving some food for her kittens.

I don't know if I should consider it an act of kindness or she just doesn't have use for them and leaves them where they are.

Or maybe it's just a payment for bigger groups of lurkers she can't deal with and pulls at us.

But one thing has been confirmed for me: Tacita, her build at extremely high Dexterity and that field are very terrifying, much more so than during the tournament. Even though her skillset isn't that good against huge or flying monsters, she is very effective against anyone around her size.

Sometimes I move a bit ahead to finish lurkers running away or preparing a big attack, and in such cases, I can see her fighting. Even lurkers over level 300 sometimes do not even notice her before their heads fly off. The weapon she holds is extremely sharp, with multiple daggers across her body, each seemingly having very different effects. She often swaps between them.

After one of these fights, I finish off two lurkers preparing a large-scale attack. She's done with hers and moves a bit closer, sitting on the branch of a nearby tree, watching as I cut a giant race lurker apart.

The man did have some weird-feeling way to move mana through his body, so I'm checking if it's not similar to my Mana Circuits or something else I could use as inspiration.

A small stone hits the back of my head, and I look towards her.

She waves shamelessly, and a bit of mana glows at the tip of her finger. She moves her hand with incredible speed, drawing an emoji into the air.

ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ)

"I'm learning stuff."

(￢_￢)

"Sure, and why the hell are you even here? Did you spy on the Beyond Community and join at the same time?"

|･ω･)

"So very sneaky, I'm sure it was extremely difficult to spy on us while we chatted in the open."

Another small stone hits the top of my head.

(ಠ o ಠ)¤=[]:::::>

"You can try anytime."

An interest flashes in her eyes, and she leans closer. Muscles on her body twitching as she is eager to move, to attack.

Mana and kinetic energy inside my body do the same, my eyes activating, a clear challenge to her.

The challenge I hope she will accept.

(╯°益°)╯彡┻━┻

Tacita disappears.

My body moves, and the Resonance Flow field surrounds me, slowing anything that moves within it by absorbing its kinetic energy.

Within it, Tacita's movements slow down, but with that wild animal instinct rather than skill knowledge, the field adapts and her movement returns to that incredible speed.

I boost my movement more, rather than relying on my eyes tracking the disruptions of the air around me.

The dagger playfully moves toward my neck as I absorb my inertia, shifting in place, absorbing it again, and moving once more. I repeat this multiple times in half a second—something that would tear a normal body apart. Humans aren't meant to move like that.

As the dagger passes by me, my hand shoots toward her, kinetic energy flowing through my body and my feet sending a burst toward the ground to move me to the side.

I miss, and so does her neck attack.

She pulls back, and I boost myself ahead in a surge of quick movement to follow her.

I duck under the swing and then use Wraith Dance to bring me back as the dagger passes three times in the air where I just stood.

Tacita appears in front of me in a movement similar to Wraith Dance. Her eyes shine under messy brown hair, and her mouth is curled into a smile. Her dagger crashes against mine woven out of mana, and I change its shape to coil and grab her dagger. My body boosts, and I pull back, trying to pull her out of balance.

But she lets go of her dagger before I can do it. Her figure blurs and disappears, but I follow her movement and...

I release a burst of kinetic energy pushing myself back, then again to the side, and then Wraith Step to move further away.

Another spike of danger raises the hair on the back of my neck, I duck and kick behind, weaving mana around my forearm. Blocking the dagger that slashes through, drawing blood and poisoning me.

Thermal energy concentrates there, and I let it burn the flesh, the golden flames surrounding my forearm for a while and taking a bit of it.

Tacita appears again, the way she was confusing my kinetic movement senses dropping as well. She smiles even more and happily waves the dagger with my blood on the blade.

Wow.

So that's how it is?

I let my heart beat without trying to calm it down. The armor covers my left forearm, and the dagger forms in my right hand.

A lower version of Burden Enhancement Inscriptions dissolves, and the kinetic energy immediately moves so much easier through my body.

This time I allow much more of it to flood me, nearly emptying my Vortex Core, and I take a stance, deactivating my Mana Wavelength Iris and using kinetic and thermal energy senses only—to not track her, but watch the slightest changes in the air.

ʕ •̀ o •́ ʔ

Tacita grabs daggers into each of her hands. One of them with a transparent blade made of crystal and the other one from black metal with blue veins going through it. She lowers her body, more reminiscent of the stance a wild beast would take than a human.

I know she's getting more serious too, holding herself back less.

Before any of us can attack, a powerful shockwave washes over the area where we are, followed by three more in quick succession.

(Nat, we might need help here.) Sophie sends a quick message.

(Oh, come on.)

Tacita notices my hesitation, and her daggers disappear back into her clothes.

She rolls up her sleeve and flexes her biceps, showing a small peak of the muscle victoriously.

"That's not it," I try to defend myself, but she is gone already.

For a few seconds, I stand there, motionless.

With no other options, I move toward the source of the explosions.

***

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