As soon as Adrian gains a measure of understanding about his situation, he quickly follows by jumping off of Matthew’s grip, rolling once to get his grip on the solid ground, the maneuver coming much more easily than it would have a few days ago.

  Stat points are great.

  Next he activates his Avatar, the experience of doing it while running is oddly awkward and uncomfortable, but not a hindrance to his running figure in any way. Soon a figure juts out of him, and then another and two more who run beside him. Adrian spends 40 mana points on this, glad that his last level up had given him 50 more points.

  Adrian orders each of them to split up, confusing the splinter cow, as it stands there looking at every version of Adrian and wondering which one to go after.

  Sadly, his avatars do not copy his blade, otherwise this fight could’ve been a lot easier.

  How high level is this cow for it to have a higher Mind stat than me?

  Adrian is starting to wonder if maybe they might have fucked up just a little bit, and are now in a delicate situation. Not dangerous, just delicate.

  As his avatars taunt and harass the splintercow, who keeps running at each of them but not catching either, Leah buffs him and Matthew, while de-buffing the speed and strength of the cow.

  She looks at Adrian, and then both share a nod, and then in front of him he witnesses Leah change.

  Her short hair grows longer, her skin goes pale, while the original grey eyes gain a bit more radiance. They are still grey, but now they shine with the greyness. Her forehead splits apart and the place for something small opens up.

  And in place of the calm smile of Leah, what now replaces it is nothing if not manic.

  She laughs shrilly, the leader-like demeanour around her changing into something more chaotic. She puts her hand in one of the pouches she keeps by her side, brings out a red coloured gem and simply throws it in her mouth.

  Adrian would’ve stayed to watch more of her transformation, but they are running out of time. He nudges at Matthew, and they run at the splintercow who’s busy impaling one of his avatars. The sight of it sends a chill down Adrian’s back, but there is no blood, so it's better.

  They reach by his side in an instant, Matthew quicker than him, as the splitercow turns away from its rapidly disintegrating foe and charges at him, accelerating in the process.

  One second, it is a few yards away, the next, it is slamming itself against Matthew’s shield. Matthew flies from the impact, his shield dents, but he has brought them the time they needed.

  Adrian commands his other avatars to hold the cow in place while he impales it, and all of this would have still gone to shit if not for the rapidly descending figure of a demon Leah, a huge javelin made of the same red gem in her hand.

  She drives the javelin right through its back and out the other side, while Adrian thrusts his blade through its one eye. There is no technique to the thrust, just leveraging pure Body enhancement.

  The cow is still not dead, as it continues to thrash while being pinned to the floor. Sadly for it, it isn’t any harder to defeat it from here on.

  Three Adrians pummel it with their fists, barely making much dent at its tough hide, while the last Adrian continues to lacerate it and draw more and more blood. Demon Leah is the worst for the poor cow though, as she creates two more javelins and is poking at it both at the same time, and doing more damage than he could.

  Even though most of her stat points from Body are transferred to Mystic she still has more than the puny 2 of Adrian.

  At least 3. Adrian thinks.

  After a few seconds, the struggling of the cow comes to a stop, and the Tower is here to announce the results.

  You have killed a Splintercow (lvl 5)

  You have levelled up! Manifold Warden lvl 3

  Even though he does not gain the main contributor this time, he still gets a level up. The subtle surge of strength adding to his body fills him, and relishes the feeling for a moment.

  Levels ups are usually pretty easy in the beginning, and defeating a higher levelled magical creature, especially one at level 5 while being a bunch of 1s and 2 is the perfect recipe for a quick growth.

  Off to the side, Matthew is busy handling Leah who reluctantly returns back to her human form. Buren also walks out of the clearing.

  “You guys did not even let the fight last 5 minutes! I got practically nothing!” Buren complains.

  “I levelled up!” Matthew says.

  “I levelled twice,” Leah says, more sluggish than Matthew as she looks drained from the transformation. They look at Adrian in anticipation.

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  He nods his head and says, “I’m lvl 3 now.”

  “I’m the only one without a level,” Buren mutters to himself, but Adrian hears it anyway through his enhanced senses.

  “I’m sure you’ll get more of a contributor if you actually scout the target next time. Also don’t you have high Kinesthetics? Why not use it a bit to get a few hits here and there?” Adrian suggests.

  The man in turns nods weekly, looks at him and says with a sneer, “Look at you, already suggesting ways to improve now that you’re level 3,”

  Adrian turns around and lets the other two deal with this fool.

  Adrian looks at the thin streams of blood which escapes the Splintercow and is rushing into their Blood Pouches. The process is gonna take much longer than the splintercat as it is much bigger with a much higher vitality.

  While the creature is being drained of its blood, Adrian asks two of his Avatars to guard the perimeter, while the last one butchers the cow for some valuable parts and its core. The avatars are not gone yet, and he couldn’t feel any strain on his mana reserves to remove them just yet.

  “Don’t worry about guarding the perimeter, I have already created enough channels that should anyone come near, I’ll know instantly,” Buren gloats.

  Adrian nods and tells his avatars to be extra careful.

  A few minutes later they are finally on their way, moving back the way they came from, following Buren’s directions. He says that he has found a few more of these, so it should be a pretty easy hunt, all things considered.

  Only the trek is worse than the actual hunt.

  “Goddammit Buren, why do we have to go through so much grass?” Matthew complains.

  “What can I do about it!? How is this literally my fault that there is grass here!” Buren retorts.

  Adrian looks at Leah and she looks at him, and then they both sigh together. Just to be stuck with two man-children.

  Adrian moves through the knee reaching bushes, cutting some with his blade, annoyed and a bit winded already before they can even reach the target. Why is there grass on a perfect day!? What is this Tower bullshit?

  Adrian wonders that he ought to imprison all the grass in the world. He stops almost instinctively.

  Imprison the grass?

  Isn’t his current biggest problem that he can’t create prisons anywhere he wants without straining himself too much into thinking of the air as evil?

  What if I replace it with timed prisons at where the target is about to step, trip them? What if I create a bunch of big prisons imprisoning grass and place them at perfect positions to completely kill the momentum of the cows? Why have I been only thinking about imprisoning air till now!?

  There are also bigger plans in his head, but those require an amount of mana points which he just does not have right now.

  But it is nice to know that something like this is possible.

  Then he remembers that he’s doing the manual work himself for some reason, and quickly delegates it to the avatars.

  Adrian nods to himself, asks Leah, “Do you think I can take this next one all by myself?”

  She looks at sharply, and others follow, having overheard the conversation. They look at him with judgement in their eyes, a trace of wonder or maybe foolishness.

  “Do you have something in mind?” Leah asks finally.

  “I do. I wanna try it. I think I can do it by myself,” Adrian asks curtly, no matter how much uncertainty he may feel at his own plan.

  “Hmm,” Leah turns to Matthew and asks, “What do you think?”

  Matthew says, “Learning to deal with these things is a critical skill for sure. And he’s already level 3, so he shouldn’t have too much problem, especially with his array of skills.

  “Hmm, I think let him do it. But,” Matthew looks at him with much more serious eyes than his usual and says, “I’d be mirroring your main body. If I judge the situation to be going out of control from your hands, I’ll jump in at the next moment. Agreed?”

  “Sure.” Adrian agrees. He has nothing to lose from a bit of protection in case he fucks up.

  Buren in his trademark Buren fashion complains a bit, but this time it’s mostly under his breath, kept to himself. Maybe even he has a bit of sense and decides not to infect Adrian with his negativity.

  A few minutes later, they finally reach the clearing where the cow is rest-

  Adrian turns and looks at Buren sharply. The others follow him, their own glares mirroring his.

  They immediately leave the area, walking away before they can talk. Matthew holds Buren from his collar as he drags him away.

  “What the hell, Buren!? That’s not a fucking splintercow! That’s a Fire Bovine!” Leah scolds.

  “Yes. Those are like almost floor boss level creatures! How do you mess this up!?” Matthew berates.

  Adrian just stands there looking at him like he’s the biggest idiot he has ever laid his eyes upon.

  “Oh c’mon! They look so similar! And my channels aren’t exactly… high definition, you know. It is a small mistake! C’mon we can still walk away, there’s nothing wrong in admitting defeat when we can’t win,” Buren said.

  “Argh, what do you wanna do, Ad? You wanna dip on this one?” Leah asks.

  Adrian doesn’t know it himself. A splintercow, he can still take that, but this is going to be at least level 7 to 8, not to mention having strong flames as well. Against something like it, Adrian wouldn’t have a 100% confidence even when facing it with everyone, and alone would be only more difficult.

  Should I give up?

  The words ring in his mind, leaving a sour taste. Give up. The first blockade in his journey, and he is already thinking of giving up. He knows that such thinking could be suicidal, but… this is not a complete suicide. There’s still a chance he can win, lots of new climbers do it.

  And much more than them die too.

  The logical part of his mind speaks, but how far will he really be able to go if he simply kept to his logic and only chose battles that he could win? Which high level climber doesn’t have stories about putting their lives on the line and coming out of it better in many ways?

  Also for some reason the words of the Tower rings in his mind at this moment.

  What kind of climber do you want to be?

  What kind of climber is he gonna be? Someone who can take the easy path, reach a high level floor, and live happily ever after, away from his family?

  All those dreams of breaking the Tower, they seem so distant at this moment. Having seen the strength of the Tower by himself, he can appreciate how long of a journey this dream is gonna be. And he does not know what kind of climber he will become during this journey.

  But he will only know if he tries it himself.

  #

  you help it.