I appeared in a grassy plain again, with rolling hills that continued on forever. This time, I was standing alone on my own hill.

Gathered on various hills around me, I could see my opponents.

There were five elves on the hill to my left. It was my first time seeing elves in real life. They looked very similar to humans, but taller, skinnier, with long hair, angular features, and of course pointy ears. They seemed well-equipped, a fully kitted-out party.

To my right, I could see a party of dwarves. They were all probably between four and five feet tall, with thick, muscular torsos and muscular arms that made them look like body builders.

Ahead of me, I could see a group of fey. They were also short like the dwarves, around four feet tall, but several were flying in place with pixie-like wings, about ten feet up in the air.

Behind me, I could see what Samantha said were Metans. Three werewolves, and two vampires.

The last group that I noticed was the one that shocked me the most.

Humans, also closing in on me. One of the humans looked to be in his teens, with a fiery passion in his eyes.

The oldest was a woman who looked to be about fifty, wearing the robes of a sorcerer and holding an even older-looking tome in her hand.

Samantha said.

In all, there were twenty-five opponents, all F-rank. They were clearly targeting me but broken up into five different groups. After battling D-rank Region Lords and Zone Lords, these people would be a walk through the park.

I placed my large bundle of equipment and loot down on the hill, and rushed towards the elves first, following Samantha’s outline.

Several arrows and spells tried to reach me, but none could.

The moment I reached the elves, I made sure my Luck was boosted, and I followed Samantha’s combat shadow, slaughtering them easily.

Something about the whole situation felt wrong. The experience was so immersive, and the surprise and pain in their faces looked so real, that I felt sick to my stomach. It’s all an illusion, I told myself.

It didn’t help that it was so easy.

It was over quickly. For better or for worse, these people were willing to fight to the death, and nobody tried to run away.

My trembling hands collected the loot off the corpses and unconscious bodies. I wrapped up as much as I could in the cloaks, my opponents had worn.

There was something sickening about this premise.

In most of my other battles over the last two weeks, I had felt like I was fighting for my life, or defending people from being attacked.

But now, this felt even more like a game.

It was almost like I was supposed to enjoy this, to treat this as a game, as a reward, for my success.

It pointed to how messed up, and how truly sick, the Schema was. As Samantha had explained when I first discovered the Aether vent, the Schema thrives off of death and violence. When people kill each other, it steals a portion of the Aether that the deceased used to have.

To a system like that, death would be something that should be reveled in, and enjoyed.

As I thought these things, I followed Samantha’s combat outline as she showed me how to tied various cloaks together, to form one big, massive bag that would hold as many of the weapons and equipment as possible.

I had a few Interdimensional Pouches, now, but they were all 1 cubic foot, which was basically useless to me.

To my surprise, many of the corpses had carried mana beads with them. This was one of the biggest hauls for me. I had several Interdimensional Pouches full of various Mana Beads, which meant I could finally use my Mana Cannon.

It seemed this third layer didn’t have any truly special surprises or hidden bosses for me, though.

Once I had my massive Santa Claus-style sack slung over my back, I killed the remaining unconscious opponents, and I was transferred into the fourth layer of this Infinite Tower.

I almost wanted to scream when I saw that I was once again in a large, grassy area with numerous hills, surrounded by what was most likely 100 elves, dwarves, fey, humans, and metans.

I dropped the sack on my shoulders, and began the slaughter.

Samantha said, as I once again collected the most valuable weapons and equipment from the corpses around me.

Glancing around at the carnage before me—the decapitated bodies and limbs strewn around the grass, I felt anything but high hopes.

I felt tired already. Is this really what Dawnbreaker went through, in order to gain her unisuit?

I was acutely aware that there was blood dripping from my arms, legs, and torso, but it wasn’t my own.

I glanced down at the unconscious elf at my feet, and I slit the last elf’s throat easily.

The world shimmered around me, and I found myself in a forest at night. There was a pale blue moon in the sky, slightly larger than the moon I was familiar with on Earth.

With my heightened perception, I was able to see in the dark pretty much as though it were daytime. The trees around me looked vaguely like fir trees, and I could see some ferns and ivy growing on the ground around me.

Mana Sensing revealed that there was a surprising lack of wildlife around me.

In fact, the most vibrant source of life came from the ivy that was growing at a rapid pace towards my feet…

Samantha’s combat shadow was already moving, and I quickly followed suit.

I slashed at the vines that were almost at my feet with the serrated spider’s leg that I had claimed as my main weapon, jumping backwards at the same time.

But even though I chopped off a good portion of ivy, the same vine immediately grew back, continuing to press towards me, along with a dozen other vines.

Glancing around, I quickly realized that every nearby tree was also covered in ivy. And Mana Sensing showed that these trees were not very healthy.

I could also see numerous piles of desiccated bones nearby.

Blood Ivy (Level 36)

I felt a breath of relief. It was almost as though the Schema had listened to my mental complaints, sending me a plant to kill instead of a person.

I left my Santa Claus sack of weapons on the ground, and I rushed directly over the ivy that was growing around me, towards the location that Samantha had picked—a dense area of Mana that was most likely the nucleus of the Blood Ivy.

I moved fast enough that very few of the blood ivy vines were able to wrap around me.

Even for the ones that could, I just snapped them off before they could damage me at all.

It was a feeling I could somewhat relish, the absolute power that let me completely trump something like this Blood Ivy.

I rushed for just a few minutes through dense vines that tried to catch my ankles and trip me.

I could tell that the reddish vines wanted to stab directly into my skin and drink my blood.

But with my Physical Defense, that certainly wasn’t going to happen.

Before long, I found myself at the core of the Blood Ivy. It was growing most densely around a tree that had fallen—an E-ranked tree, likely the only E-ranked tree in the whole forest.

Samantha said.

To my surprise, as I searched the forest, after stabbing the Blood Ivy’s food source, I found several other dense pockets of mana—Mana Beads.

There were dozens of them, with various different attributes, and some with no attributes.

Why wouldn’t the Blood Ivy drain the Mana Beads too?

Samantha responded.

I now had well over a hundred Mana Beads stored in various Interdimensional Pouches.

I had the distinct feeling that Samantha and I were going to milk this Tower for every penny it was worth.