18. Camp

Sun set in the distance. Rowan watched it fall, one hand on a tree. “Crazy how they fit a whole star inside the Tower.”

“The Tower is mysterious, and no one fully understands how it functions. However, the best guess of our scholars is that the Tower is, in fact, a linked set of interdimensional gates, and each of the Tower’s floors is its own plane of existence,” Kaidu replied.

Rowan rolled his eyes. “I know. Everyone knows that. It was a joke, Kaidu. I’m not stupid.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Kaidu said, not quietly.

Rowan shot him a look.

Bent over the small fire he’d built, Kaidu ignored him. He fed it a few more twigs. The tiny flame winked in and out, there one moment, red-hot ashes the next.

“We don’t have anything to eat?” Rowan repeated. He picked his way over the ground and sat beside him, lifting his sore bare soles off the ground. They’d gone numb after a few hours, but sitting down made all the pain come back at once. What little food he’d brought, the bread, fruit snacks, and bananas, had already vanished during the day. Watering Can provided them with plenty of water, but his food stocks were depleted.

Silently, Kaidu offered him a piece of jerky.

Rowan took it. “Damn. We’re gonna die.”

“There’s plenty to eat, if you can hunt it,” Kaidu replied.

“We almost died to bugs today. What’s the chance we could hunt something?”

Silence. The fire winked out. Kaidu fed it a few dried leaves, but only a thread of white smoke emerged, no flames. He sighed and sat back. “There’s always… one last option.”

“Foraging for nuts and berries?” Rowan asked. Idly, he opened up his menu and gave Plant Identification a look. What level of identification do I have to hit before I can recognize edible plants?

“I was thinking… steal from other climbers.”

Rowan shot him a look. “Are you insane?”

Kaidu sat back. For the thousandth time, he wiped off the front of his white jacket and failed to remove the brown dirt stains all over it. “Combat classes aren’t unbeatable. You saw that yourself, in the square.”

“Right, but these combat classes are going to be on guard, ready for an attack.”

“Not necessarily. Low-level combat classes are cocky. They’ve just gained a surge in strength and think they’re invincible. Like fools, they rely on skills and the System, and neglect technique and the fundamentals. I can take them on in a fight, no question. Especially…”

Kaidu looked up at the sky. Rowan followed his gaze. A darkening sky revealed a golden moon, cresting slowly over the trees. In the distance, a pillar of white smoke curled to the heavens.

“…especially if they’re asleep, and they never see me coming.”

“So your plan is, we murder them in their sleep? Murder’s still illegal on floor one,” Rowan argued.

“Murder’s illegal if they catch you,” Kaidu returned. He shrugged. “I can knock them out, as well.”

The smoke billowed in the distance, streaming away on a high crosswind. Rowan shook his head. “No, no, I take it back, this is insane from the get-go. We don’t want to go anywhere near combat classes. Especially if we don’t murder them afterwards. It’ll be the fire ants all over again, but a whole pack of bloodthirsty, superpowered people instead. I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Then you’d rather kill them?” Kaidu asked.

Putting his hands up, Rowan backed away. “Whoa, whoa, I never said that. I’d rather we just… don’t. I’ll learn the next level of Plant Identification, we’ll eat some nuts and berries, and we’ll carry on like this, sneak our way to the exit, and leave.”

“No.”

“No?” Rowan asked, exasperated.

Kaidu stood. “How are we going to climb the Tower if we run away from every encounter? We need EXP. We have the power to kill mobs, in the right situation, if we’re careful. Today we had no option, but we can’t keep running away. If we eat nuts and berries and sneak out the exit, what did we enter the Tower for? Conquering the first floor without gaining meaningful EXP sets us up for failure on the higher floors. And a hacker like you, more than anyone, should understand that support classes need several times the EXP of combat classes if we want to succeed in a battle.”

Rowan opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. Kaidu’s right. I can’t run away. Even if I can’t level up the normal way, combat experience will be invaluable to defeating the Tower.

And… is it impossible for me to add to my EXP? Brows furrowed, Rowan opened his System interface.

“We should consider this our personal training grounds and not leave until we hit a high enough level to take on floor two. Twenty, at least. If that takes years, so be it, but I believe we both have the potential to take on this floor. We just need to go about it thoughtfully. And get you some shoes. Which…” Kaidu shrugged. “They don’t grow on trees.”

Rowan glanced down at his feet, then back up at Kaidu, the man’s face greenish through the System’s menus. He frowned and focused on the System interface instead.

Though EXP still grew past the end of his EXP bar, it no longer reached past the edge of the interface window. Reaching level nine had diminished it significantly. He drew out his notebook and jotted down the number remaining: 2,347.

That’s not a nice, round, divisible-by-ten number. I’m not sure how much EXP each level takes, but I think I’ve been getting EXP from my battles. From the frogs, even from the fire ants… the bar fills, but I don’t level up. I ‘gather’ EXP, but I don’t ‘gain’ it, by which I mean, it stays locked in the bar, and doesn’t apply to my level. In which case, I still need EXP to fill the bar, and that part functions as normal. It’s just the actual levelling up that’s locked.

Hope grew in his chest. His pen moved faster, zooming across the paper. The System didn’t gimp me as hard as I thought it did. If my hypothesis is correct, I only need to figure out the conditions under which the EXP is applied in order to gain levels properly.

His pen paused. A dot grew under the tip, blotting into the paper. Is it that simple? Can it really be that simple to slip past the System?

“So?” Kaidu prompted.

Putting away the notebook, Rowan nodded. “Right. Count me in. If this is a suicide run, we’ll die together.”

“Or we won’t die at all,” Kaidu replied.

Rowan grinned. Hopping to his aching feet, he wiggled his toes in the leaf mold. “Shoes or bust!”