Jin started hopping in place, shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to both focus her mind and get her body amped up for another run at the Guardian. After a bit of debate, they agreed to have her go ahead with a single egg and hope Karam's presence nearby would be enough to keep it from attacking. She wanted to be ready to dodge and disengage as fast as possible, though, because this sucker was fast.

"You're not nervous, are you? Because you seem a little nervous. I remember a note in your contract about being an athlete. Is the hopping like a ritual or good luck, or are you just super nervous, like it seems?" Clover whispered in her ear while clinging to her shoulder, trying not to get dislodged.

"I'm not nervous," Jin lied. "I'm just preparing. I don't know if you remember me getting slapped across the swamp and taking a bog bath, but that sucked. I swear I'm still finding algae in places I do not want."

"Well, you got this. I'm just gonna go make sure Kar's good too… You know, give him a little extra morale support."

Jin paused her movement and narrowed her eyes at the little dragon. "Are you saying you're going to go hide in the back 'cause you don't actually believe I won't get slapped?"

"Nooooo," Clover replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You'll be fiiiine. Now, quit stalling and go give the giant tree an egg snack." With a flap of her wings, she launched from Jin and glided over to Karam's shoulder instead, excitedly chatting at him, but Jin couldn't make out what was being said.

Jin tried to put the Familiar out of her mind, though, trying to refocus on not taking another swamp swim. She considered trying to just sprint and drop the egg off, but she decided to make that plan B, in case walking slowly to confirm it didn't attack first failed. So, with a deep breath, which she instantly regretted due to the stank of the bog, she took that single step forward onto the muddy ground of the island.

Nothing happened that time, the tree still slowly swaying, and Jin let out a sigh of relief and continued walking forward at a cautious pace.

Karam had mentioned it earlier when they all felt the surge of the Guardian's Aura, but when she focused on it now, she really could tell the difference from what she had felt before. When she had initially approached—on edge, looking for potential enemies, and ready to fight whatever might have been waiting within the base for them, like the monster that had murdered Celia—the Aura she had sensed coming off it felt like a warning. Like seeing an angry Doberman barking on the other side of a chain-link fence. The message had been fairly clear: "I'm going to hurt you when I can."

Now, it still felt like a Doberman, but the one you raised from a pup yourself, who was happy to see you come home… so she had heard. Jin still didn't care for dogs, but she had seen others gush about them often enough.

Jin paused when she reached the edge of the draping vines full of dark, emerald green leaves, and she hesitated when those vines, which could likely strangle her, parted to let her pass through instead. She wasn't sure if this was some kind of trap. It felt almost too easy after some of the bullshit they had run into on the first floor.

The cabin that was revealed beyond the canopy of leaves looked fairly simple, like their last one, just the stone base and tree encasing it seemed to be the biggest differences at first glance. As she slowly approached the front steps, she realized that it only seemed to be a single story tall instead of the two they had on the first floor. She wondered if that was because it was simply larger around, or if they expected the teams to be smaller by this point. Probably the latter.

As she reached the front door, a pang of grief washed over her unexpectedly, and it felt like her breath left her all at once. The image of a happy smile and blonde hair opening the door to tell her to come eat instead of training in the yard flashed through her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will the mental picture away. It still wasn't time for that shit.

Jin forced herself to reach out with her free hand and turn the latch before pushing it open, immediately moving out of the way of it, just in case another monster lay in wait. She waited a few heartbeats before waving her hand in front of it to see if it triggered an attack. When nothing happened, she carefully peeked her head around the frame and observed the inside of their new home. She was met with a long hallway that was completely barren, but with five doors leading to different rooms.

Nothing really seemed out of place, but she didn't trust shit at the moment. For all she knew, as soon as that door shut behind her, the floor would become the Guardian's teeth and she'd get eaten before she could stab it. With that in mind, she conjured her [Silent Spear] in her free hand and reached inside the hall with that first. She didn't care if the people watching on the Network thought she was being a paranoid idiot; at least she'd be a living one.

That pang of grief struck again, a tangent thought whispering through her mind that she should have been this paranoid earlier when entering the area of the first-floor boss's lair.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Stop it, Jin," she whispered to herself. When nothing attacked her spear, she kept moving forward slowly, testing one foot on the wooden floor first, then the second. Still nothing, and it just started making her more freaked out about tripping some kind of hidden trap.

Everything kept seeming perfectly fine, though.

Checking the first two rooms to the right side of the hall revealed two bedrooms that had bunk beds in them. The first door on the left was a small kitchen, while the second door was, fortunately, a full-sized bathroom. The last door at the end of the hall, opposite the entrance, was just a large empty room, except for a white marble pedestal in the very center of it.

Jin circled the pedestal a few times, analyzing it for traps or clues, but it appeared to be similar to the one that had been waiting at the end of the Trial of Aspects. Still, she tried placing the golden Divine Tower Egg on top of it first, wondering if the "tribute" was required as the trick.

She let out a huff of annoyance when nothing happened again and placed her bracelet atop it instead. A ripple of power and golden light seemed to pulse through the pedestal and down into the floorboards before spreading out to suffuse the entire cabin and beyond. A moment later, an illusory display appeared above it, displaying a new message.

Congratulations! You've claimed your new base for the Service Sect! Beware: this base is hungry! Feed it and build its power or risk losing it! Rabbit's blessing upon you, Champion!

Jin glared at the note for wishing her Rabbit's blessing when she explicitly told that particular deity to go fuck itself. Perhaps, she shouldn't have cursed the god of luck before entering this particular tower. Right now, though, she needed to figure out how to feed this damn tree.

Closing her eyes and rubbing at her temple in frustration, she ended up asking, "Does this thing come with a user manual? You didn't exactly explain how to feed it."

That was when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

She spun around in an instant, spear at the ready, and a spike of adrenaline pumping through her to stab the trap she had known she was going to spring. However, instead of a monster, a leafy vine awaited her, hanging from the ceiling, but the tip of it pointed at her face instead of the floor, making it very apparent that something was controlling it, more like an arm.

With a narrowed gaze and another huff of annoyance, she asked, "You're the Cultivating Guardian Home?" The vine moved its tip like it was nodding, which simply gave Jin the creeps. "Got an actual name?" The vine shook negatively. "Well, I'll have the team vote later. Any idea how to feed you this thing?" she asked, holding up the large golden egg as if the vine actually had eyes and could see it.

Apparently, it could see her somehow because it nodded again and slithered through the air past her to point at the side of the round pillar. There was a rune there now that hadn't been there before, and she snorted a laugh when her translation ability read it as "tribute."

"I guess I asked a little too soon," she replied, and tapped her bracelet to the rune.

Similarly to the Trial one, a drawer seemed to slide out with the top open, but instead of an Aspect waiting inside it, the thing was completely empty. So, she set the egg carefully inside it and tapped the rune again to shut the drawer. Once it closed, the rune glowed a bright green for a few moments before a new display appeared above the pedestal.

Congratulations! You have fed your base one small tribute. The [Stunted Growth] Bane has been cleansed. Your base progress is now 1/1000 tribute points until Ascension. Beware: Daily upkeep requires one tribute point, and going below zero will result in detrimental effects.

"Well, shit," Jin replied. "Looks like there's no option of just hiding in the base on this floor."

"Sky Girl?" Hadia's voice called from the hall behind her.

"It's fine!" she called back, waving down the hall to signal the clear. "I think we're all good now, but I found out what the biome challenge is."

As the others all entered, looking around curiously through the doors that Jin had just left open in her wake, Jin quickly gave everyone a rundown of what had happened.

Alim was the first to respond. "So we've got three days so far, which gives us a little room to work with, but we need to find a lot more of these Divine Tower items to feed it simply to keep up with the daily cost. I have to believe these won't be too hard to find, though, if every group is meant to get at least a thousand of them."

"Should we try to go hunting for more now, since the light is brighter and could potentially help us spot them better?" Jin asked.

Hadia interjected with a slice of her hand through the air before signing, "No. We've got a little time, and we all need to rest first. Let's settle in here first, use those Spirit Gems you got, have a proper burial for Basima, and then we can go hunt with refreshed bodies, minds, and more powers in our toolbelts."

"Oh! Spirit Gems! Yes!" Clover exclaimed, perking up on Karam's shoulder. "I'll go get the shinies!" The Familiar vanished for a moment, then reappeared a few yards away from the corner of the room.

"So, explain to me again how the Spirit Gems work to give us new abilities," Jin asked the group.

As Clover flew back with the pair of Spirit Gems in her tiny claws, she happily said, "It's all about the spirit within the gem that blends with your Class and very soul to determine the direction you want your powers to go in, as well as what you actually need the most at the moment. You can't completely control it, just like your last ones, but you can help shape your destiny by choosing wisely."

Jin scoffed and muttered, "Well, beggars can't be choosers, so we get to walk the fool's path and pray that our destiny is to live."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.