The tower 2

Xiao Fan, having taken the light pillar to what he knew was named the first trial, found himself in a room that was black, completely black, yet there was also light inside this room, and there was enough of it to let him see perfectly fine, or so he thought.

So he had thought, as after being inside this place for some time he realised that although his eyes seemed to tell him that he could see into the far distance, the reality wasn't so, for he could hear something close to him, too close when taking account how far he should be seeing.

Realising that something was off, did he draw out his sword, and to his luck, the light that had been fooling him so far now hitting the Rising Ruler's yellowish blade showed him something different. The yellow rays reflecting from the blade showed him that he could only see some ten meters around him; furthermore, some of those rays came to a stop when they hit a figure.

Focussing on this creature that was only tall as his legs, Xiao Fan was very confused, as while the creature looked human it looked like it had gone through hundreds of rounds of incestual breeding from which all the features of this being were a horror to be looked at.

Yet when the ugly creature noticed its presence shown to the target did it hiss and then initiated a determined rush towards Xiao Fan, its hands holding onto a small stone dagger which it swung around when approaching.

¨Speak creature!¨ Xiao Fan demanded the creature that seemed to be a mortal. He was taking a more diplomatic approach, for now, wanting to see if he could get something out of this monster's mouth, however, all his attempts of communicating he was attempting while retreating were met with no response.

Still, as the creature was only a mortal, an inconsequential existence to him, he didn't whack it away with one stroke; instead, he decided to take hold of this dwarf or something, he had no specification for something that looked like this. Nevertheless, Xiao Fan took a step forward, and though it was nothing for him the creature was caught off guard and so was soon disarmed and feeling how a big hand had gotten a hold of its neck.

¨Speak!¨ He demanded again, yet like every try before this, he got no response, only hissing that he felt not to be tries of it communicating replied.

¨Speak or I'll cut your hand!¨ Xiao Fan then not giving it much more time to hiss cut off the right arm of the creature, slicing it brought him no trouble.

Of course, that wasn't the case for the target of the blade, who for a moment screamed in agony, yet soon the voices stopped, but it wasn't due to it dying in shock, no, not at all, the creature after a moment looked completely fine, even continuing its hissing.

The person trying to gather information also saw this and looked for things that would explain this, for example, the hand, however, he noticed when looking for the arm that there was no such thing left inside this room he was in.

Disappeared? He thought and next following that he looked at the cut that should be in the arm of this creature, yet again, he was dumbfounded this time because the wound that in the first place didn't let out any blood was now fine, it looked as if this creature had lost the arm decades ago, the skin on it scarred, nothing else.

¨Seems like you are of no use for me¨ Xiao Fan came to the conclusion that this was some type of trickery being played upon him and so to end this he pushed the sword through the back of this creature, aiming for the spot where the heart should be. Though that seemed unnecessary since when the blade still going inside this creature, it vanished into dust right in front of him, even the grip he had had on the creature suddenly gone as his hand went into a fist.

¨Have to love trickery¨ Xiao Fan humoured himself by calling these powers at play trickery, something someone who didn't understand what was going on would say. Well, neither did he have any idea what was going on, but he was interested in finding out, plus soon two light pillars shot up in the room he was in, making all his anxious thoughts gone.

For it seemed that he had been correct with these light pillars.

¨One should go up, one should go down, however, which is which?¨ He thought aloud when stepping towards these pillars that also answered his question by having convenient letters hovering inside the pillar.

¨Up¨

¨Back¨

Were the two words that each of these pillars had one inside, making Xiao Fan's question be answered as he took the one that had the word ¨Back¨ on it. He might have gone up a level, yet he had said to Wang Geming that he would be coming back straight away, and he couldn't let his golden goose wait, could he?

¨Everything is as I thought¨ He spoke during the transmission, his idea being that doing this would tell him at what point was his voice transferred to the other side.

¨As I thought, what?¨ Wang Geming, waiting on the other side, asked the person now coming back from a different light pillar he had used moments ago.

¨Everything is as I thought¨ He repeated his words, and took note of the timing of everything.

¨So this tower is a trial?¨

¨Indeed it is¨

¨What kind of a trial? Tell me everything!¨ Wang Geming using a tone almost demanding spoke that he wanted to hear what Xiao Fan had experienced up there.

¨I'll tell, I'll tell. After the....¨ Xiao Fan told every detail of his journey using that light pillar.

¨You should go and do it yourself, for there is no reason not to¨ At the end of his story, he encouraged the Prince to take the trial and experience everything himself. What was there to fear? That the mortal creature up there would kill Wang Geming?

¨Yes, I shall do that, at the same time I'll also explore the floor above it¨ Wang Geming manned up, though his promise to bravely explore the floor above was a little bit of a joke to Xiao Fan. But then again he needed to please this Prince and so...

¨Taking the lead huh? I can't be the person on top of the leaderboard?¨ Xiao Fan made some friendly banter by saying so and pointing towards a list where he was the only one, thus also taking the number one spot.

¨You'll need to earn it¨ The Prince laughed and then in his mind bravely stepped into the light pillar, leaving Xiao Fan to be the only person on the lobby. A thing Xiao Fan didn't actually mind at all, as he now looking at the result board realised something.

It was his dam name that was up there.

A thing which was a complete no go, and so he ran towards the result board to read out the texts surrounding it, wanting to find something that could be used to hide his name on the board.

Why did Xiao Fan want to hide his name? He was using the same name, so there was no need to hide that? However, for some weird reason that Xiao Fan couldn't explain was how besides it there was a nickname. His nickname? The Inventor!

A huge target sign for everyone nailed to his back was that. A target that was given to him by this place he realised from the fact that Wang Geming got the nickname of ¨Second Prince¨ A name he had been using a few times during their time together inside this world, and so had Wang Geming used the name ¨Inventor¨ on him a couple of times.

Murmuring how bad this was Xiao Fan didn't care much how Wang Geming was running through a few trials making himself be the top-dog on the list. About this, he didn't care one bit, he much more cared how could he hide his name, and the Gods be praised there was something that allowed him to become a barcode.

A function which when found was immediately activated by Xiao Fan, who wanted nothing more than to do this. Then after activating this feature, he looked up to see how his point numbers had been dwarfed by Wang Geming.

¨Hope he doesn't run too far¨ He thought, as while the Prince might currently be one-shotting every level could there suddenly be one that made the Prince be doomed, and if he died up there? Who would be blamed? However, to his luck, Wang Geming seemed to lose interest in running through the trials as he came back to the lobby, his return making a flash that Xiao Fan hadn't seen when he had used the light pillars himself.

¨Well, in what way do the trials progress?¨ Coming towards him, he clapped his hands a few times.

¨No need to applaud for what I did¨

'You definitely wanted to hear them...' Xiao Fan quickly noted to himself how the Prince actually liked this before speaking aloud ¨No, no a small feat is still a feat¨

¨Thank you¨ The Prince who was more effortless to please than Meng Chin replied...

Still, after that, Wang Geming got back on track and replied to Xiao Fan's first question ¨The increase in difficulty is very, very minor. It took me one more trial even to face a cultivator and after that, it for a moment kept increasing the number of them before another Grade was added into their power level¨

¨No spikes in difficulty?¨

¨Hmm, no. I take that you mean if there a chance to find oneself in a sticky situation, and to that, I would say no, no there is not¨

¨Would still keep my guard up. The tower still seems to be a tricky thing, for example, something was fooling my vision, and there you can see how the tower also knows that you are the Second Prince¨

¨What happened to your name? Why is it like that?¨ Was the question Wang Geming first asked after seeing that.

¨I'll show you why¨ Xiao Fan then moved to the place wherefrom he could activate and deactivate the barcode filling over his name ¨This is why¨ He spoke when he pressed the button to deactivate his privacy.

¨Oh that is a reasonable decision on your part¨ Wang Geming couldn't disagree with the decision Xiao Fan had made. Anyone in his stead wanted to do so.

¨Well, I'll keep it so for a long time, and anyway I'll be shortly falling off that list¨ Xiao Fan knew that his name wouldn't stay long up there, for although the list was long, having a hundred spots for names was that still not nearly enough spot that he could stay there.

¨True¨

¨Next on the list is we should see what we can get with all those points you had gathered from those trials you passed¨ Xiao Fan quickly moved to the next topic, he really didn't like how much his cultivation had stagnated. It had been Second Grade of the Body Activation Realm for so long, in his time; nevertheless, he wanted to change that and quickly.

Sure they might be inside this place in which they hadn't yet found a single herb, but those didn't need to be found since they could also be brought into here. There just needed to be a good incentive for the conglomerates to come here, and reasons for them to get in here were evident, at least for Xiao Fan.