In the last safe room, Rafe had a lot of decisions to make.

First he had to go through his rewards and gains from the previous trial.

'Ding' Your skill Aeon's Swordmastery has grown to level 767.

Your Skill Puppeteer's Rubber Body has grown to level 55.

Your skill Skyholm's fighting proficiency has grown to level 38.

Your skill Heavy blow has grown to level 252.

Your skill Dash has grown to level 30.

Your skill Dodge has grown to level 18.

Your skill Ambidextrous has grown to level 122.

Quite a few of his skills had been pushed during his many battles. Especially his Puppeteer's Rubber Body when he had to rest and recover in between fights.

Having completed ten side quests, plus the initial side quest to top the leader board, Rafe was mentally rubbing his hands together in preparation for the hawl. And it did not disappoint.

'Ding' You have completed side quest

Objective: Displace the top ranker.

…

You have completed side quest one against three.

….

You have completed side quest one against legions.

You have completed a floor objective.

Objective: Climb the tower.

Calculating appropriate rewards.

Rewards: 10,000 quest points, 10,000 credits, Thirty health potions, thirty stamina potions, ten star spirit fruit, jade spirit relaxant pill, Untouchable phantom steps technique manual, Moon God Sword technique manual, Immutable bulwark technique manual, Translation skill scroll, Ten free stat points, Twenty freely distributable specification points, Warlock's battle robes.

Rafe read through the rewards. He smiled bigger and bigger with every new reward he saw. All the health and stamina potions he'd wasted on the floor and more. A whole bunch of spec and stat points. A new skill he wasn't sure what he'd be needing for at the moment, but maybe there was something to it.

Translation - You will understand every language. You will be understood by everyone you speak to in the multiverse.

It was something he'd need once he left Earth. And perhaps on Earth too. He had to remember there were like hundreds of languages on Earth, and he was no linguist. He only knew English and a bit of Japanese from popular media he'd consumed, if that.

He wondered how the system handled integrating people as diverse as were on his planet at once. Surely there were problems inherent in such a scheme, and surely the system had run into them thousands of times. After all, at least everyone on Earth were humans, as opposed to planets with different races inhabiting them.

Anyway there was no reason not to learn the skill right there and then.

'Ding' You have learned the basic skill Translation. You will understand the myriad tongues of the multiverse, and you will be understood by the many races of the multiverse.

He didn't look at the stat points and spec points he had gained. He had already planned to be at his best when he went to tackle the last room. He would need to spend some time getting accustomed to being stronger than he had ever been before getting in, so he would also get enough time to learn about the new technique manuals he had received.

First he had a new armour set to examine.

Name: Warlock's battle robes (rare, growth)

Type: Full set Cloth armour

Description: The Enchantress' witch robes were made from the indestructible silk of a Vermillion spider. So too these battle robes. They have been enchanted with state of the art defenses.

Specs: Defense: +100, Offense: +20, Agility: +10.

Enchantments: Aura Augmentation (incorporates user's aura skill to provide light shielding), Bulwark (a strong wall of pure mana to shield against attacks from a single direction), Crystal lattice (An all encompassing mage's crystal lattice shield whose capabilities depend on the user's mana density), self repair (strong), self clean.

All enchantments can self charge using ambient mana. Or can be charged by the user but only twice in an hour per enchantment.

He looked at the robes, somehow unsure what to think of them. Was it the Enchantress' doing that he'd received them? Some kind of bribe like she'd given Devila. Well, not that it mattered.

They looked much nicer than his white, almost priestly robes. These were real martial artist wear. He supposed the offensive spec increase came from the more than impressive boots. Light cloth boots, soft and comfortable, and with a heavy sole made of some kind of metal.

"Are these to help with my footwork? They are more likely to help with tap dancing, but oh well."

It hadn't been a big deal until then, but Rafe hadn't been putting on any footwear. He hadn't really noticed or even cared. He'd put on these robes simply for the boots, as the whole ensemble was a full armour set.

The robes were gray, as well as his pants. Loose fitting except at the waist and ankles. And there were runes drawn on them everywhere. They might have looked like decorations, but Rafe was sure they were there to disguise the true runes he'd be using a lot. He did not have many mana abilities yet, so using them was some kind of cheat in its own right. He looked at the smug fit once he was fully dressed. He liked the design a lot. It wouldn't be as weird as the chain mail would have looked back on Earth, or even his almost priestly attire.

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He smiled as he absorbed his newest set of clothes into his amulet. Then he reproduced them. He had only one pair of boots for now, but he was sure that would change in no time. Being in the tower was like being at a shopping centre, and even though he was a very sickeningly masculine man, he would have to do a bit of cloth shopping too.

The next thing he looked at were the other unknowns among his rewards.

Name:Ten star spirit fruit (legendary, f grade)

Type: Soul nurturing Natural treasure

Description:The F grade version of a natural treasure so precious it has been assigned legendary rarity status.

Effects: Increases the malleability of the spirit, especially if a certain skill is targeted for upgrade. Also reinforces the spirit, increasing its strength and ability to withstand Essence and mana.

Name: Jade Spirit relaxant pill (Ancient, f grade)

Type: Refined natural treasure

Description: The F grade version of an ancient rarity refined natural treasure useful in a spirit expert's bag

Effects: Anaesthetic for spirit pain, especially during important procedures like creating new classes or skills.

And that was the last sign he needed to confirm the system was paying very careful attention to whatever was happening here. His and Sam's plan was also a part of the system's calculations. It wasn't a problem. He had benefitted from the attention, after all. He now had a few more means to ensure the operation did not fail.

He studied the technique manuals next. First the Untouchable phantom steps technique, which was modeled after ghosts. What an imaginative name it had. It was an evasive type fighting technique, which was very similar to what Rafe had been practicing on the floor before.

He opened the manual and saw a few depictions of a master. He was walking in a crowd, but no one seemed to notice him. They talked over his head, and when they bumped into him just frowned and looked through him like he was not there.

"You can disappear within a crowd?" Rafe asked. "This should be possible using an aura skill very precisely, right?"

He was wondering if maybe this technique was a dud, but he saw a few depictions of martial artists training with footwork techniques and even of a duel where two warriors charged each other but one flickered out of existence only to return a second later.

It was intriguing, but he put it aside for the time being. He opened the immutable bulwark next.

While it was a defensive technique, it required him to build up a lot of muscle as he'd use his own body as a shield. It was like a fighting technique for a tank. Again, at its mastery level, he saw a man solidifying the air in front of him like he was using the Bulwark skill. Only, Rafe was sure the man was using aura.

"And come to think of it, Gaoshom…"

An old master he'd once dueled on Aeon had used his battle intent in a very similar way. But in conjunction with his concept abilities. Using aura, truth and techniques together. That was another ingredient for mastery.

Rafe decided he'd give the immutable bulwark a chance, but not at that exact moment. Just then he was going to face off against a strong enemy, and he needed to prioritize immediate power ups.

He was about to give up when he saw that the technique was actually made for a warrior fighting with more than one primary weapon, but defensively. How to use spears defensively, daggers, even kicks, meaning his new boots.

"Ahhhh," Rafe almost laughed out loud at the image of him swinging his sword with his hands and then using his boots to shield himself.

The Moon God Sword technique. He was game to learn any sword technique, but this one was defensive in nature, or rather counter based. It was perfect. He did not have any defensive sword techniques.

He watched a master standing in a stance with their sword raised. A beam of lightning struck toward them, obviously sent by a mage. With one small inhale the master took a step forward, and suddenly the whole area around them lit up under some kind of sphere of perception. The lightning entered the sphere, yet with a small movement of her sword it was sent tumbling into a mountain, not touching the master at all.

"But…I already have a sphere of perception racial ability, and mana sight to boot. I'm the worst match up to most mages my level. Is the technique useless then, or is it perfect for me?"

He figured with his sphere of perception ability, and with how strong his aura senses were as well, this technique would probably be easy to learn. It meant he had time to barely reach the beginner stage of both the other two techniques, or at least the intermediate stage of one of them if he chose to focus instead of spread himself thin.

He was already advanced in the Enchantress' footwork technique anyway, and it would take him years to reach the peak of that stage so practicing that in a time crunch seemed irresponsible.

Still, he'd already thought of saving the immutable bulwark for later as he had to work on specific muscle groups for some of the moves. Which meant he was going to have to only work on the untouchable phantom steps technique, and then the new sword technique.

First though, he had twenty spec points and more than thirty stat points now to distribute. All his twenty spec points would go into his veil, he decided first.

He threw fifteen into defense and five into offense. It was time to address his imbalance. Besides, he would be reaching level ten soon, and hopefully a class evolution. He needed to lean more into a defensive build in order to get a tank class or whatever.

He had eight physical stat points from his main class, and four mental stat points from his pseudo-class skill. Then there were four free stat points from his race, plus five he'd received from the quest system before, plus the ten he'd received after the last room.

He distributed the eight physical points into strength and endurance. He needed more strength to not become irrelevant in combat. His endurance was for his stamina. For that matter he threw all his mental stats into wisdom, increasing his mana as well.

And at last he was left with only his free stats. First off he added one to strength, just to round off numbers. He didn't need vitality, at least for the time being, as he had his resurrection to rely on. Intelligence was not something he saw the benefit of just yet. He'd need to work on them after the trial though.

With only eighteen stat points left, he distributed nine into agility and nine into coordination. Then he stared at his status screen one last time before the final fight.

Name: Rafael Kingsley Wilde

Race: Human (lvl. 7)

Class: Warrior (lvl. 7)

Health: 240

Stamina: 350

Stats

Strength: 35

Agility: 70

Coordination: 58

Vitality: 24

Intelligence: 24

Endurance: 35

Wisdom: 29

Paranormal: Luck: 21

Mana: 290

Class specifications.

Offense: 15. Defense: 20.

Control: 2. Density: 8. Regen: 2.

Quest points: 31171

Credits: 1 D-grade, 1022 E-grade, 310.

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