The next couple of months passed by uneventfully for the settlement. Laurence, Yun and Louisa stayed while the town was being built so the crew of Rosie would not have to worry about being indebted to anyone before their new home was built. Yun had said it was the least they could do for letting Laurence recuperate.

Laurence agreed to stay but for reasons entirely of his own. The day after he woke up he shut himself in his room for two more days. He declared he was working on a couple of things, but no one, not even Yun, knew what. On the fourth day after Laurence woke up from his coma he revealed himself with a host of drawings on paper and a small white ring. He gathered the crew together and said to them, “For the last few days I have been thinking about something, a way to protect you guys from harm. Last night I had two ideas for some giant arrays, but I will need everyone's help to get it made.” Placing the stack of paper in the middle of the crowd he said “I need you all to take a sheet of paper and bring that sheet to the point of the town where it turns red. When the paper turns red, put it down immediately and come back here to pick up another one. Once all one hundred of them are in place, I can begin.”

He waited as the fourteen people moved off with the paper. Some dawdled, some ran and some walked slowly, but within the hour all the sheets were in place. Laurence stood in the centre of the town with the crew waiting and watching expectantly when they heard a rumbling. Only Yun and Laurence could see the tendrils of mana in the surroundings spiralled to all hundred spots, but everyone could hear the sound of shifting rock that had begun all around them. When Xuchi was sent to look at the where the sounds were coming from he discovered the sheets had melted into the rock and begun transforming into beautiful gemstones.

The gems vibrated as the mana came into contact with them, purifying and empowering them until they shone with an electric blue light. There was a period of silence that persisted for five minutes before, one after the other, the gems lit up and shot beams into the sky. As the final gem ignited, the streams began to coalesce into a blue orb, high in the sky. There was a flash and a crack. Laurence held the white ring into the sky, and the crowd watched in fear as a bolt of lightning that was very reminiscent of the maelstrom snake crashed into the boy.

Lightning arced all around him before writhing and squirming towards the ring. As more lightning filled it, it began to thrum and vibrate with power until finally there was no more lightning for it to eat. Once the lightning had dissipated, the glow from the ring dimmed until Laurence was left with an electric blue signet ring in the shape of a snake. He smiled bitterly. This ring signified his time with the crew of rosie was over, but he was loath to leave. He had come to be friends with the entirety of the crew, and had even stayed to watch the exile of Yannis and the other surviving mutineer.

He had felt nothing as the exile took place. Even with the lack of an arm and now a missing eye, Yannis got everything he deserved. In Laurence’s eyes he made a bet and the punishment he had received was fitting enough. The situation with Yannis was what caused Laurence to make the ring and the lightning array as he did. He would not have made anything more for the town but he felt that the best option for Sleepy to become a person of real strength was to give her a place where she could train safely, so he made the array and connected artifact to protect Maelstrom, and by proxy his friend.

He took the ring to Jonas, who was sat in the middle of the shell of what was to become the town hall. It was a large wooden building, but at this point only had a slate roof and a thin outer shell. The insides were still dirt floored and dim but for the lighting array that Sleepy had put up throughout the town, but that theme persisted throughout the town, and would only change with time.

Handing the ring to the captain and now leader of the town of Maelstrom, Laurence told him that it was a simple lightning array that could kill anything that the maelstrom snake could have. Originally constructed of only parts of the snake itself, the tools were designed to harness the natural magnetic field of the area and produce a bolt of lightning that could be controlled by the owner of the ring. It was Laurence’s greatest creation, a combination of the array-work he had learned over the last few months and the continued practice he had done. When used this artifact could likely kill a Saint, and was perfect for protecting the town after Laurence had left.

Within an hour of giving the ring to Jonas, they were on their way. The stele was not far, but the journey was the first that Rosie had taken since they had fought with the snake. By ship, the stele was a short distance from the town, barely fifteen minutes. It would have still taken days for them to walk there, but the ship travelled far quicker than even a Saint could. Laurence said farewell to the crew who had taken him and moved off to the testing floor with his friends.

On the other side of the stele was a long line going towards a desk. There were two spaces for people that led to the desk, but only one had anyone standing in it. The line had tens of thousands of people in it, stretching far beyond Laurence’s eyes could see. They were full of men and women of all ages, tall and small, many of whom were muttering about their long waiting time. In front of the group was a small sign that said ‘To the left if you are a challenger, to the right if you are a saint’ in a flowing cursive script.

All three of them looked at the line and then immediately walked down the clear path towards the desk. Several times there were grunts of dissatisfaction, and at one point a man tried to break away from the queue and journey down the path that Laurence and his friends were traversing, but the man could not even take one step before falling down to the ground in extreme agony. Several of the other challengers laughed as he struggled. They knew he should have known better, but instead he saw children walking somewhere he should not have and was paying the price.

They reached the desk and stood in front of it, beside a man who appeared to have been waiting for a while. He looked at them and snorted with derision. Three youths walking up to the adjudicator so brazenly surprised him, but he had seen people cutting in line before and it never went well. The adjudicator did not look up, but instead kept writing, scratching away at the forms in front of him. Every so often he would chew the end of his pen before continuing to fill out boxes on the sheet. Finally the form was complete and the man looked up. He stared at the scornful man who had been waiting for far longer than the trio, then at Laurence, Yun and Louisa before pulling a new form out of a draw below him.

“So you three are saints, then?” He said, completely ignoring the scornful man. “If you arrived in good time, you have a choice. You can continue exploring the in relative safety, or you can jump to the tenth floor of the tower and continue there. Each floor past the tenth will be a much greater struggle for you, because being a saint becomes a norm on floor eleven. The mana in the air is much thicker the further up Babel you go, so you won’t actually gain anything beneficial until you reach the first of the saint floors.”

“Why even let us climb the first five floors then?” Replied Laurence. This was something he had been thinking about for a while. He thoroughly outstripped the general public that he met, and so could not understand how this could be considered any form of crucible, like he had been told.

“You are allowed to climb because golden children need the mana of the first five floors to properly stabilise their foundations as Saints. Generally speaking the pocket dimensions you are all brought up in have next to no mana, to allow for that early upgrade that they seem to love.” The scornful man had become irritated that the children had been prioritised over him, and was going to protest until he heard that they were Saints. The colour drained from his face, and he thanked himself for not speaking when he could have, because he might not had survived. “So, floor six, or floor ten?” Continued the adjudicator.

Laurence turned to his two friends. It might have been beneficial for them to travel up the tower slowly, but he wanted to see the harder floors far more than he could bear. “Let’s go to the tenth floor.”

“Alright then. Hand me your pointer stones and I will check your time on the previous floor, then upgrade them to the stage where they would be on the tenth floor.” He took the stones, then took out a ring. A stream of symbols passed from the ring onto each stone, morphing them into a similar shape. He also pulled out three bags of shards and placed them in front of the children. “Okay, so inside these bags are eleven silver and ninety copper shards for you. You should be able to live comfortably for a week or so before running out of money on the tenth floor. As for your pointer stones, well they do everything they did before, but amongst other things the shield in them is now more powerful. There’s a small storage space which I will put the medkits, poison kits and talismans that you should get, as well as a communication function between people you’ve met before. If you have experienced their aura then you can connect to their Babelian ring. Within the rest of the tower, this ring will work like the tattoo on your arms, and will fuse with that to bind itself to you. No blood necessary, which is nice.”

He looked them over once more. “If that will be all, then have a nice day.” He looked at the man who had been waiting and said, “Next.”

The three moved off towards the stairwell that the adjudicator pointed them to, slightly surprised by his efficiency. There was no test and no difficulties that they had to have gone through, so it was a rather anomalous experience to them. However, having gone through the process so quickly, they had no reason to complain. Climbing the stairs, they mulled over the time that had passed. This floor was the one they had spent the longest on by far, and with it there were many memories and friends they would be leaving behind. They knew that this would continue to happen as they climbed further and further up the tower, but it still left a bittersweet taste in their mouths.

The climb itself took just under a day of solid walking, but eventually they exited the stairwell and came out to view the tenth floor. All around them there were thatch and stone buildings, the floor was cobble and concrete, and the air was lined with the faint scent of tar. For the first time in Laurence’s life he was in a city.