A Sect Headquarters

He then showed me out where I met with a guard that led me away from the Palace walking all the way back to near the wall of the city. When the guard stopped, he gestured at a large rectangular building which seemed to be made out of the same green stone as the wall.

In the middle of the building was a tower that soared up out of the building higher than the city walls. Seeing that I was finished admiring the premise that I apparently now owned, the guard said,

"This building was first built by a sect that had taken residence in this city and typically ownership of it is passed down to the strongest sect in this area. But up until now, no sect has stayed around long enough to truly claim it as their own. Maybe yours will be different."

Now understanding why I had been given this particular building, I had to wonder why so many sects had failed to take root here unlike in the rest of the mainland. Not too worried about it, either way, I decided to check out the inside of the building.

When I went inside the first room was what looked like an upper-class restaurant with a large bar along the back wall. On either side were doors which lead to sets of identical quest rooms where it was apparently planned for most of the sect to live.

Behind the bar was another door which led to a room with carpet so thick it felt like a mattress and a table surrounded by four expensive couches placed in the corner. What dominated the room was a huge pillar and on its sides was painted a beautiful natural mountainous landscape. It was so realistic it was almost as if you could hear the sounds of nature in the room.

At the base of the mountain in the center was an ornate door gilded with an intricate pattern of gold with no visible handle to open the door. Looking at the guard, he seemingly understood my unvoiced question,

"If you place your palm on the door and you are recognized as its master, it should open for you. As for what makes you be recognized as its master, I'm not sure anyone really knows. It's one of the many mysteries surrounding this tower."

Shaking my head that the building I now owned might lock me out in over half of the area for some unknown reason, I crossed my fingers and laid my palm on the door. As soon as I did, the gold on the door started seemingly through some kind of supernatural occurrence visibly disappeared until we were left with just a plain wooden door that opened with a light touch.

Revealing a narrow set of circular stairs, lucky for me it seemed I had at least found my way to the first floor of the tower. Climbing the steps, we quickly ran into two shut doors. One blocked off the way up further in the tower and the other most likely opened up to the first floor of the tower.

Taking the door that I assumed lead to the first floor of the tower, I opened the door revealing bookcase after bookcase filled with leather bound books. Arranged by all the bookcases were leather chairs and lamps that burned with unearthly blue light with some method I had never encountered.

All the blue light created a calming atmosphere that filled the room making me relax without my actual awareness. Further inspection of the room revealed an office that had a desk surrounded by scrolls, some blank and others filled with writing. In the back of the office was another door that led to a small bedroom with a locked chest and an extremely basic bed.

My curiosity getting the best of me, I attempted to break the lock on the chest but no matter how much strength I used the bolt didn't even budge. Defeated, I turned to the guard dismissing him so I could check out what kinds of books were being kept in the library. I opened one book to see what was written. I opened it and read the title, "Manual of Arms for Sword Part 1, The Basics".

Excited because if I could find one there on spears it would help immensely since I had no idea on even the basics of how to use a spear, I had only been getting by due to my physical abilities being able to overcome my enemies' technique.

I quickly skimmed all the other books finding the ones that could be useful to me right now. There were three books on spears, three on general fighting and three on movement in combat. The final book was very different to all the others and was called, "An Introduction to the Tower."

Scanning it made it evident that the tower it was referring to was the one I was currently in. Reading through it quickly, I interpreted as much as I could in a short time because it was written in an extremely flowery manner as if it was purposely written to be hard to understand.

What I managed to decipher out of the confusing prose was a couple of things. First was a list of floors and their names although in many cases the name of the level did not help at all in identifying what might be on that particular floor.

The names of the levels went as follows; the first was called the martial, second was the elemental, the third was the equipment, the fourth was the rune, the fifth was the lab, and the sixth was the master floor. Also, within the book was a brief overview of what was supposedly on this floor.

The only problem was that no matter how hard I searched I could find no other rooms on this floor even though more rooms were clearly described in the books. The one other thing I could understand from the book was that somehow the doors measured your core strength and would only open to you once you reached a certain level of strength.

The confusing part was it also seemed to somehow factor in talent, but it wasn't entirely clear how it worked. But one thing was sure, the stronger I got, the more likely it was for the doors to open for me. Since I was now considered the master of the tower, the doors would only open for me.

Setting aside the book for more studying later, I decided to start researching all three of the basics books.

I quickly realized how many things I had been doing wrong and small corrections to things I had been doing right. As I slowly read and practiced the concepts in the books, time flew by until I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be meeting the Prince in the morning.

I stored the books in my ring before I quickly rushed downstairs having no idea what time it was since I had been isolated in my tower. Reaching downstairs, I saw light streaming through the windows of the first floor. I also noticed a guard standing by the entrance undoubtedly sent by the Prince to come to get me. Upon seeing my presence, the guard straightened up and bowed saying,

"The Prince has ordered me to show you the way to the Runemaster as he is currently engaged and can't spare the time to show you himself. He also told me to give this to give to the Runemaster."

After saying this, the guard pulled out a letter and handed it to me before marching away expecting me to follow him. As we walked, we continued to go deeper into the worse parts of the city becoming surrounded by rundown houses barely fit for human habitation with garbage and filth washing over the road and covering every inch of it.

Finally, the guard stopped next to a small hut that was at least still standing and appearing quite a bit more useful than the buildings surrounding it. Looking at the guard questioningly, he nodded and gestured towards the hut.

Wondering if this was all some practical joke, I entered the hut shaking my head. I entered the hut although and my doubts about this being some kind of joke disappeared because as soon as I crossed the threshold instead of seeing a dingy hut like I expected, there was a large room filled with multiple tables on top of which were stacks of paper with a rune drawn on each of them. As soon as I entered, a young girl ran out and said,

"Welcome, please wait here while the master finishes what he is working on. He should be with you shortly."

She then turned to leave, but before she could, I grabbed her shoulder pulling out the letter I was given saying,

"Please give this to your master. The Prince gave it to me to deliver to your master."