CH477

He was taken to the back where he’d been expecting to find maybe ten or twenty people, just a few parties who’d challenged the tower and lived to tell the tale, but he’d been too pessimistic in his estimate, instead finding over fifty in the back room where he’d been lead, all of them waiting thanks to the reward he’d been willing to put up to draw them in.

His request had been simple, offering a small fortune just to talk with anyone who’d gotten to at least the second floor, with anyone who’d completed the top getting triple. It was a draw none could deny, even if it felt a little strange to all of them.

Anyone who took on the tower knew they wouldn’t be able to talk about it, the covenant on then suppressing information from getting out, but then, most people didn’t worry about their memories being read. They all thought they were there to give little bits of general advice that could get through, maybe say the levels they’d been at when they attempted it and how far they’d gotten, as well as party size and composition. None of them had been expecting the person who’d hired them to just take a quick walk around the room, reaching into their minds to take what he needed before holding out his card to offer payment.

“Alright, thank you all for swinging by, you’ve each been a big help. Except you five at the back,” He yelled out, pointing at one group in particular. “Don’t think I don’t know you came here thinking you could lie your way into getting the reward without ever setting foot in the tower. Scram before I complain to the guild.”

It wasn’t surprising that anyone might try and cheat given the money that was on the line but they hadn’t expected to be called out immediately when everyone there should have been kept from revealing anything that would keep their lack of knowledge from giving them away.

Ben’s frosty look did the trick though, freaking out one of them enough that they did what he said, with the rest following suit shortly after, not having it in them to defend themselves when one of them had already folded.

Of course, Ben was still going to tell the guild about them. Going through their minds had given him their names, ranks, addresses and more. It didn’t matter how rich he was, he wasn’t going to look fondly on someone trying to steal from him.

Everyone else just watched in confusion at the quick exchange, none of them knowing what had happened or how he’d known that, with many of them concluding that it didn’t really matter. They were each getting paid for something that had ended up taking a lot less time than they’d expected, if he was willing to part with his money like that then it was enough for them.

<So this was your idea.> Myriad sighed in his head. <At this point I’m not even mad, just disappointed. I’ve said it before, but you do understand that the point of a trial is to be challenged, right? To overcome something big enough to be worthy of rewarding?>

Excuse you, I’ve been thoroughly challenged each time I’ve done one of these stupid things. I don’t think I’ve been through one where I haven’t almost died by the end of it. They freaking suck.

<And yet you’re going in again?>

It’s the best option I can think of for helping Thera. And you know what? Besides that, I want a win.

<What do you mean you want a win? You’ve beaten every trial you’ve done. Infinite hells, you’ve beaten one the rest of the world viewed as impossible. How could you possibly get more of a win than that?>

Winning is more than just coming out the other end with whatever rewards you guys are giving away. He shot back. I want a good, clean victory. Something where I’ll come out the other side without taking a beating on the way to it. I want one of my plans to go off without a hitch to grab me a perfect victory.

And the request he’d put in had been a big step in getting that. Of everyone he’d just read the memories of, twelve groups had reached the second or third floor before quitting while two had gotten to the top. Add in what he’d seen in Jake’s memories of it back when he was trying to cheat for the life tower and he had a broad idea of the many floors it could contain; if he was lucky, all of them even. He doubted the gods would have gone to the effort of making sure that there were just as many options for the second half of the tower as there were for the first when so few would be making it to the end. He wanted to believe that the three different options he’d seen could be all he’d need.

Of course, I have a few more ideas that I could put to work too, but we’ll worry about that later. For now, Myriad, what are the odds you could score me a quick meeting with Anailia?

<She’s likely busy, but I’m sure if you wait a bit then I could get her to squeeze you in.>

Sounds good. In that case, I’ll finish some other stuff up and just tell me when she’s free.

With the bit of extra time, he went to find the mages guild, handing over the letter Killi had given him when he did and answered a few more questions on top of it to gain a new mark on his card.

It seemed that it almost met in the middle of both the adventurers and crafting guilds. While the first had seven ranks to it that its members could fall into and the second had none, with all of them being mostly equal in terms of available resources, the mages guild divided people into one of three different categories. Holders of first-tier, second-tier, and third-tier magics, meaning he’d been registered as a second-tier mage.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It sounded like there were a few benefits to it, but nothing he particularly cared about. Any part of him that was magic-related was there because it was a part of his identity as a craftsman and given that the library at the magic tower had a completely different system that he was already at the top of, he didn’t really need anything they could provide short of their ability to publish anything he wanted to put out. It was a nice benefit to earn a bit more money, but nothing he expected to put too much use after all of the magic books he was going to give Killi were put out.

Of course, it’s going to be a lot. Let’s see, While it makes sense for me to put out the volume for soul magic, there really haven’t been enough people who’ve reached the third tier in the other branches for me to make volumes for them instead of letting people read the earlier records with it, meaning for affinitied magics there’s going to be twenty-one books total, but I’ll cover the common non-affinity ones too to make maybe a couple dozen more beyond that.

…Ah, what the hell, why not? I’ll also write up books for both material user and destruction since it wouldn’t hurt any future holders of the skills if there was a bit more literature on it and I’ll put one together going over everything I know about material manipulation too, just in case anyone ever gets it or an equivalent skill again. I mean, I might need to update it in the future if I ever figure out more uses for it but just to be safe it wouldn’t hurt to make more now. Maybe some for enchanting too? I’ve already made some for the craftsman’s guild but I don’t actually know if the mages guild was made aware of them. Maybe something to talk to Killi about. Oh, and since I’m so far along I should make one for mana modifiers. The more info on them that’s out there, the better chance for others to possibly make their own discoveries that could help me with this.