Guild Wars

Author's Note: Sorry about the lack of chapters yesterday, I got hit by a terrible spell of food poisoning and almost thought I got Covid. Luckily, after taking some medicine and resting, I'm mostly back to normal now, so chapters will resume as regular!

After returning, the various groups disbanded and went on to continue their various choice activities.

Essence went back to the Rank 7 Guild Hall's Training Hall to improve his skills, with his mind refreshed and his body cleansed.

Tunder used a random teleport scroll to appear in an unknown part of the wild and immediately started to explore it, mapping out the region and interacting with natives there whenever he wasn't fighting back monsters.

Armonia was going to research Tradeskills, but Draco pushed him to head to the Training Hall and Class Up. However, since Intellectual Monkey had yet to reach the level ceiling for Rank 1, Boyd and Uno had been assigned to power level him first.

When Rambunctious arrived in his own personal mansion, he was surprised to discover that all the big booty slaves Eva had purchased for Draco back in the day had been gifted to him. He promptly freed the ladies from their status as slaves and hired them to be his muse in his paintings and songs.

In a matter of days, he succeeded in charming them via his pure respect for their most notable asset and his kindness. Legend would have it, that a few in-game months later the "Gentleman Clan" was founded, which would become (in)famous for all their members striving to surpass their founder on his pursuit for a certain Dao...

Fitter came back to see Slim Fatty training hard in her favorite dojo, and he watched on with his arms folded, a gentle smile on his face. Although he would be lying if he claimed that the girls he had seen over the past week were not pleasing to the eye, his own girl truly was the most beautiful in the world.

As promised, Chris was granted citizenship of Vita, an act that shocked all outsiders, but was not much of a problem for those already in the core section. Rather, they were curious about the new guy who had managed to win the favor of the King/Supreme Ancestor/Clan Founder.

However, when they saw it was a cute 16-year-old boy who was quite shy and gentle, many of the older Gypsies, Goddess Descendants, and Nshaw Tribe members who were female and single quickly captured him.

His fate is currently unknown.

Similarly, Hera also started to make a conscious effort to become more outgoing. The problem with her was that she had been too anti-social and focused on work, so she had failed to notice any attempts made towards her.

With Sublime's help of opening up, she found that there were actually many guys she found interesting and many things she also wanted to try. To the surprise of everyone, the one she chose to interact with most commonly turned out to be none other than Dreary Traveler!

No one understood what the serious and workaholic Hera saw in that weird, sadistic, and cruel fellow, but no one wanted to be the one to say anything.

Keira was also moved by what she had heard when she spent time with the girls and thought to make a try once more. Her type of guy were men like Kiran, Cobra, Draco, and Armonia.

Basically, average height pretty boys whose every smile could set flame in the hearts of all women. Cobra was gay, Kiran and Draco were both taken by women nobody would dare to cross, so Keira could only pursue Armonia.

This left Eva speechless, for Keira was chasing a real bigshot. Could this be a real-life CEO story? Armonia didn't seem to shun her pursuing though, showing a mild amount of interest in her.

Lucia returned to the arms of Silent Walker who had taken a break from filming to spend time with her in-game. Since the fellow was soft-spoken and always wearing a slight smile on his face, she was utterly infatuated.

Rina, Jada, and Jade strangely were nowhere to be found. This would make anyone in the know extremely suspicious, but there was nothing that could be done but wait for whatever evil Eva had cooked up.

Draco and Eva met up in the Aether Castle. After spending some good time playing around, they were both suitable refreshed and ready to tackle this so-called Tower of Babylon.

｢Babylon Tower Token - Unique Item

Rank: Legendary

Effect: Activates the Tower of Babylon quest｣

After letting Eva enter the Inner Universe, Draco activated the token and was immediately whisked away from the main plane to a special realm that would allow him to access this famous tower.

He appeared right in a large city that had an ancient design. He looked around and saw that there was no one else here, yet the buildings were not dilapidated or dirty. It looked like the people who should be living here had just disappeared literally right before he teleported in.

Draco then looked in front to see a huge set of iron double doors that would lead him into the brownish-black tower before him. He craned his neck and saw that the tower extended all the way up into the clouds.

When he focused his Eyes of Caelo to pierce through and discover what was on the other side, he saw that the tower had no top, and instead was connected to a stairway that led to heaven.

Beyond the glowing white stairway, Draco could not see anything. However, it was enough for him to guess that the person who cleared 99 floors of this tower would likely ascend these stairs and become a True God right away.

Draco then checked the prompt that appeared before him.

Description: The Tower of Babylon has returned to the world. Rise through all 99 floors of unique challenges to acquire Divinity!

Note: Certain impositions have been placed on the execution of this quest;

1. All challenges can only be attempted once.

2. True Death constitutes failure.

3. Only the challenger with the token will be regarded as a trial taker, however, a trial taker can use any method to pass the challenges.

4. Time limit: 3 years.

Rewards: Treasure C.h.e.s.t (Grade and amount based on final completion), Gold (amount based on final completion)｣

Draco smiled at this. For the first time, he would be able to use his title's social effects and reputation in a Unique Quest, which might be helpful in some challenges. As for the True Death bit, he was used to it.

In fact, for a normal player, it would read 'death' constitutes failure. With the Seal of Camelot making him practically an undying bastard, this clause became necessary.

Well, this made Draco far more confident than before. With the help of Eva, Zaine, Roma, and Hikari, there was no challenge that this tower could present that could stump them totally.

Thinking this, Draco held out the token and touched the double doors. Immediately, the golden token in his hand glowed with a resplendent light and zipped into Draco's c.h.e.s.t. After that, the door shook and opened slowly, allowing Draco to enter.

Once in, Draco was surprised to see that it was a large city area no different from outside, but far more modern and advanced. What was even more shocking was that there were actually people here!

It was a bustling city with many young people moving up and down, and there was even a bazaar-like market where people sold things to each other. Draco stood there with a confused expression, until he saw a small glowing orb similar to Steven and Sofia that was a green and orange color.

"Welcome to the Tower of Babylon Challenger! My name is the Tower Assistant Device for Assisting, Informing, Managing, and Accommodation. You may call me Tadaima for short. I will now inform you on the special rules and important things to note about your challenge of this tower."

"First, a short history! Every hundred years, the tower will send out a total of a thousand tokens to random places in the world, reaching even side realms or external small worlds. Those who acquire these tokens will be admitted to the tower upon activation, where they can enter the ground floor to settle in!"

"This is the ground floor! It is the only safe zone in the entire tower where any form of violence is forbidden! This is the home base of every challenger, where you will be able to return at any time during your challenges - assuming you are not in battle - and stay to recuperate."

"The ground floor allocates living areas to all challengers depending on their score when clearing the first floor. The top 3 live in specially manned castles near the center of the safe zone, 4th to 10th get luxurious villas and so on, until those at the bottom must squeeze into apartments to live."

"I get this question often, so yes, you can directly change your living conditions depending on your performance on the later floors. The rankings are always updated in real-time, and the higher you are, the more priority you are given and the more benefits you will be able to obtain."

"The safe zone has a hospital for serious injuries where one can be treated for free. However, if you do end up coming back frequently, they will start charging you, so try not to get hurt too often!"

"The trial takers bazaar is what you see before you, an area for trial takers to sell off the unique rewards they acquired from their challenges for money or to barter them for other items, though the latter is much rarer."

"Now, to explain the challenge system. The challenges presented on each floor are the same regardless of the trial taker, and they require a mixture of wisdom, skill, and experience to conquer."

"Many floors also come with special conditions that prevent you from using your items, limit the skills you can use, or reset your stats among others. In those cases, the rewards you receive upon completion are usually higher and the score points for completion much more valuable."

"Score points are not just to show off your rank for leaderboard purposes, but can also be used to exchange for the tower's unique rewards or to have some additional benefits during the trials. For this, I will leave it to you to explore on your own after the first trial."

"Finally, once you complete a floor, you will be given a list of applicable rewards to choose from depending on your score rating. These are given for completing the floor and do not come out of your score points, so choose wisely!"

"That is all there is for the quick introduction to the Tower of Babylon! If you will follow me, I can take you to begin the first challenge." The floating orb stated as it began bobbing away.

Draco shrugged and followed it. He did not see a need to dawdle, so he was willing to try the first floor and see what it was about. He followed the floating orb through the city, noticing that he was the only one still being led around.

Many of the others also gazed at him with interests or mocking expressions, like seniors disdaining the ignorant freshman. Their behavior did not irritate Draco, rather it made him realize that he seemed to be rather late in coming.

"Tadaima, how long does each session last?" Draco asked with a frown.

"Exactly 100 years from the date the tokens are sent out to the next date in which the next batch of tokens will be sent out. Previous trial takers will be sent back to the place they entered from with the token." The glowing orb replied immediately as they neared a large square near the center of the area.

"And how long is left until this current session ends?" Draco asked solemnly.

"Exactly 3 years and 1 day."

This answer made his face darken, as he came to understand something important from this. Apart from acquiring the token late through the Divine Auction, he had also spent a year or so farting about in other quests.

It even made him slightly regret clowning around in this past week, as he might have needed the extra time, though that didn't matter as much now. However, it naturally made him wonder about many things.

Soon, they arrived in a square with a huge glowing gateway that was like a portal and a mirror at the same time. Many people came from it and entered it, though those who came out were either badly beaten or frowning heavily, while those entering were mustering confidence and wore fierce expressions.

'Hm, the challenges must not be easy then.' Draco thought.

After all, some of these fellows were Rank 5 and above, while he was just Rank 3. However, he assumed that the tower would scale each challenge down to the level of the trial taker, otherwise it would be quite pointless.

Even if it didn't, Draco didn't mind. He did not believe that now that he was Rank 3, and with the help of Eva as well as her three OP sister wives, he could not obliterate anything that came their way.

Tadaima came before a strange console and summoned Draco over. It was an interactive type console, so he directly registered using his token and saw his ranking and points.

1000th - Draco: 1st Floor, 0 Points.

He was left speechless. Okay, since he was new, it was natural to not have anything, but coming in at dead last was just too sad. Were there seriously no other failures out there who couldn't pass the first level so that he could at least start at a higher ranking?

He then checked the top 10 so he could gauge the progress they had made after almost a century of work.

1st - Gavin Guy: 71st Floor, 102,000 Points.

2nd - Dorothy Keel: 71st Floor, 101,500 Points.

3rd - James L.u.s.ter: 71st Floor, 100,000 Points.

4th - Mandingo: 70th Floor, 96,000 Points.

5th - God's Son: 70th Floor, 94,700 Points.

6th - Dark Lord: 69th Floor, 92,300 Points.

7th - King's Return: 69th Floor, 91,010 Points.

8th - Helia Nuer: 69th Floor, 90,200 Points.

9th - Makinsser: 69th Floor, 88,230 Points.

10th - Hugo Mori: 69th Floor, 86,090 Points.

Draco was naturally amused. It seemed despite having a huge head start on him, most of them were still stuck at the upper levels. The fact that the first 3 were capped on the same floor with such similar points showed that their strengths should not be too far apart from each other, and that it was something about the challenge on that floor that must have prevented them from crossing over.

Naturally, he couldn't see the time they had come, so he could only assume they came at least more than a decade ago. With only three years left, he had to say, they were really behind.

Of course, he should reserve his judgments for when he himself tried. This was Draco's first time competing with others in such a fashion since he had reincarnated. After all, he was too far ahead of the players and most NPCs were cowed by his titles and potential.

Here, no one knew who the f.u.c.k he was since he had only entered Boundless around 2 years ago. In fact, it was likely that none of them knew what an Immortal Adventurer was at this point in time, which was a trump card he could keep hidden.

With that in mind, Draco also checked the leaderboard for the 1st floor, which decided one's living quarters, only so he could have a point of comparison later.

1st - Gavin Guy: 400 Points.

2nd - Dorothy Keel: 390 Points.

3rd - James L.u.s.ter: 385 Points.

4th - Mandingo: 350 Points.

5th - God's Son: 320 Points.

6th - Dark Lord: 300 Points.

7th - King's Return: 289 Points.

8th - Helia Nuer: 277 Points.

9th - Makinsser: 230 Points.

10th - Hugo Mori: 210 Points.

Hmm, seemed like 400 points was the highest so far. Since that was the case, Draco set the tentative and humble goal of getting 2,000 points on the first floor in order to motivate those fellows who were higher up on the rankings.

No, no, it wasn't that he wanted to crush their pride and make them feel despair! He just wanted to… encourage them by letting them see what true skill looked like!

With an arrogant smile, Draco chose to initiate his first trial and walked through the door of light, many eyes on his person that he noticed but chose to ignore.

.........…

In the three castles at the center of the safe zone, Gavin Guy, Dorothy Keel, and James L.u.s.ter were receiving reports from their underlings.

They all reacted differently when they heard that the final contestant had entered, yet none of them were worried. After all, with just three years left, what kind of trouble could that guy cause, or what kind of achievement could he make?

Even they took over 20 years to get to the 50th floor, so even if they were overestimating this new fellow, he should at beats be able to reach the 10th floor before this session ended.

However, as was a tradition in the safe zone, they sent some people to watch the 1st-floor rankings to see what his results would be like. If they were impressive, they could recruit him under their banner as they had done for these underlings who had low strength and couldn't climb far.

If they were average like most of those who came before him, they would leave him for those lower on the rankings to snap up under their control. As the top 3, they didn't need trash in their ranks and only took those in the top 100 at the least.

While the top 3 were thinking this, the others in the top 10 were also thinking something similar. Those at the top had long gotten used to this system, so they also sent someone to check out this newbie.

For this period of time, all eyes were on Draco, waiting to see his performance!

Of course, this was foolish of the trial takers, as they were about to suffer damage for comparing themselves to this monster and his clan.