The transition from the Zenith Prime Realm to the Tower's threshold was not a physical walk; it was a conceptual shift. One moment, Austin was surrounded by the suffocating, weeping affection of the Zenith Elders; the next, he was standing in the Tower of Ascension's staging area—the "Plaza of Newcomers."
Compared to the Absolute Realities, the air here felt thin, recycled, and primitive. Around him, hundreds of fledgling cultivators from various lower and middle worlds were checking their gear, sharpening mundane steel, and praying to their respective local deities.
Austin stood out like a wolf in a sheepfold. He was Level 1, his cultivation was Stage 0 of Qi Refinement, and he carried no visible weapons. To the "geniuses" from the middle worlds, he looked like a pampered noble who had wandered into a slaughterhouse by mistake.
[FLOOR 1: THE EMERALD GLADES]
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT THE HORNED ALPHA WOLF.]
[REWARD: 100 XP, 10 SPIRIT STONES.]
Austin stepped through the shimmering portal.
He was instantly transported to a dense, overgrown forest where the trees reached hundreds of feet into a perpetually twilight sky. The ground was thick with bioluminescent moss, and the air hummed with the growls of predators.
Suddenly, the bushes to his left exploded. A Horned Glade Wolf—a monster three times the size of an Earth wolf with a crystalline horn protruding from its forehead—leaped at him, its jaws dripping with corrosive saliva.
Austin didn't move. He activated his passive.
[PASSIVE SKILL TRIGGERED: OMNISCIENCE (FRAGMENT)]
The world slowed to a crawl. The wolf's body became translucent, revealing its "Source Code." Austin didn't see a monster; he saw a series of pathetic, flickering variables.
[ENTITY: HORNED GLADE WOLF (FLOOR 1 MINION)]
LEVEL: 5
HP: 450 / 450
CORE WEAKNESS: Left Cervical Vertebra (Conceptual Fragility: 98%).
THREAT LEVEL: NORMALLY LOW / TO HOST: NON-EXISTENT.
Austin watched the wolf's trajectory. It was moving at what the System considered "high speed," but to Austin's Primordial senses, it was moving through molasses.
He didn't draw a sword. He didn't even use a skill. He simply raised his index finger and tapped the wolf's snout as it was inches from his face.
[ACTIVE SKILL TRIGGERED: REALITY FLIP]
"Density... becomes Fragility," Austin whispered.
The wolf's high-density muscle and bone—the very things that made it a threat to Level 1 cultivators—instantly flipped into the properties of dry glass. The kinetic energy of its own lunge became its executioner. Upon touching Austin's finger, the wolf didn't just die; it shattered into ten thousand crystalline shards that evaporated before they hit the ground.
[NOTIFICATION: YOU HAVE DEFEATED AN ENTITY 4 LEVELS HIGHER THAN YOU.]
[XP MULTIPLIER (PRIMORDIAL HEIR): 500%]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
A pillar of violet light erupted from Austin's body, shaking the very trees of the First Floor. He could feel the Manual of the Eternal Beginning in his dantian begin to spin, greedily devouring the raw energy of the Tower to fuel his cultivation.
"Not enough," Austin said, his eyes glowing with a cold, predatory light. "I need more."
He didn't wait for the next monster to find him. He sprinted into the heart of the Glades. To the Tower's automated monitoring system, Austin was a blur of violet destruction. He wasn't "hunting"; he was harvesting.
Groups of Glade Wolves, which usually required a five-man party to defeat, were erased before they could even howl. Austin simply walked through them, flipping the laws of physics in his wake. In one clearing, he flipped "Gravity" into "Repulsion" for a ten-meter radius. Every monster in the vicinity was instantly slammed into the sky, their bodies disintegrating under the sudden atmospheric pressure change.
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
As he reached the center of the forest, the Horned Alpha Wolf emerged. It was a behemoth, ten meters tall, with a horn that pulsed with concentrated lightning. It let out a roar that sent a shockwave through the trees, a Level 15 Boss designed to test the limits of new climbers.
Austin stopped. He checked his status.
[CURRENT STATUS]
NAME: Austin Zenith
LEVEL: 14 (78.00% XP)
CULTIVATION: Qi Refinement (Stage 3/9)
PRIMORDIAL ESSENCE: 4,800 / 5,000
"Level 14 in ten minutes," Austin mused. "But the XP curve is already starting to flatten. I need a massive injection of Source Code."
The Alpha Wolf charged, its horn gathering a massive sphere of electrical energy. It was a "Sure-Hit" skill, a mechanic designed to force Level 1 players to use defensive maneuvers.
Austin didn't defend. He raised his hand, pointing directly at the Alpha's heart.
"Manual of the Eternal Beginning... First Art: Energy Devourer."
Instead of dodging the lightning, Austin's dantian became a localized vacuum. The massive ball of electrical energy hit his palm and, instead of exploding, it was forcibly condensed into a marble-sized bead and sucked into his skin.
The Alpha Wolf skidded to a halt, its eyes widening in a very human-like expression of terror. It had just fired its ultimate attack, and the "Blank" Level 1 had eaten it.
"My turn," Austin said.
He stepped forward, the Unyielding Dominion aura flaring out. The Alpha Wolf, a Level 15 Boss, was instantly forced to its knees. Its legs buckled, the bone snapping under the weight of Austin's "Existence Value."
Austin reached out and touched the Alpha's forehead.
"Judgment of the Founder."
There was no explosion. No blood. The Alpha Wolf simply ceased to be. It didn't die; its data was deleted from the Tower's memory. Because the kill was "Conceptual," the XP reward was multiplied by the System's own confusion.
[CRITICAL SUCCESS: CONCEPTUAL DELETION OF A FLOOR BOSS.]
[CALCULATING XP REWARD...]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[...LEVEL UP!]
Austin stood in the center of the clearing as a torrential rain of violet light poured over him. His Level counter was spinning so fast it was a blur.
[NOTIFICATION: YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 30.]
[NOTIFICATION: CULTIVATION BREAKTHROUGH! QI REFINEMENT STAGE 6/9.]
"Thirty," Austin whispered, clenching his fist. The air around his knuckles distorted, unable to handle his raw Strength stat. "Twenty more levels to the Milestone. Fifty more floors to the first Skill Reveal."
A shimmering staircase of light appeared in the center of the glade, leading to the Second Floor. Usually, a climber would take days to recover before ascending.
Austin didn't even pause to breathe. He stepped onto the stairs.
"Next Floor. And make it harder. I'm starting to get bored."