Floor 30.

Ein's group are returning from their small trip. The crowd throws curious glance at them. It's rare for someone to be escorted to the Royal Castle like that. Judging from the clothes, the crowd deduces that these three teenages are criminal.

After the entire afternoon, they could only reach Floor 32 with their modern clothes turned into rags. Of course they wore a full set of Magical equipment on the outside, but it couldn't help much due to their inexperience in fighting.

"What time is it now?" Zwei tiredly asks.

Pulling out his phone, Ein replies. "7 o'clock in the evening." Of the three, only Ein decides to bring his phone to the field training.

Glancing over, Drei suddenly exclaims. "Your phone is charging!"

Curiously, Zwei also turns to look. Ein looks around his phone and into the charging socket, but there is nothing strange about it. However, on the screen, the Charging icon is flashing.

"I didn't happen this morning. Where is this power come from?" Ein mumbles.

"Power?" Suddenly the Captain who was walking in front of them turns back. "I couldn't sense any strange power."

"I'm not talking about that kind of power." Ein says the lifts his phone and shows it to the Captain. "Something is recharging… I mean powering up my phone."

"Oh, this artifact?" The captain tries to take a closer look to it but Ein pulls it back and checks the settings. "I believe Crystal Energy can power anything in this world."

Floor 8. Crystal Fortress.

"What is this Artifact you have here?" The aunty tries to grab my phone but I manage to avoid her. "I'm not going to steal it from you."

"Hou, as expected from someone who came from Floor 30. A magical Artifact, you just used it to calculate, right?" The leader-like man says.

I nod at him while keeping an eyes on the shady looking man. "Y..yeah, it's a calculator…"

Suddenly, my phone receives a call and starts ringing, startling the group of six people.

"What is that?" The leader immediately grab the sword beside him and stands up, looking around. However, soon he realizes that it was my phone.

"Sorry. Excuse me." I apologize to them then stand up and walk away to answer the phone. "Dad, You called when I was in front of other people." I look back and forth, noticing the group is staring at me with curious eyes.

["Oh sorry. I'm just worry about you. It's night time already. Where are you?"]

"I'm on Floor 8…"

He suddenly interrupts me. ["That's better than I expect. But who are the other people? I thought you were traveling alone."]

"I saw this group when I came here."

["Huh? What kind of floor are you at?"]

"I don't know. They only said that it's a rare floor. The symbols are Crystal, Fortress and Golem."

["Oh, Crystal Fortress."] He immediately exclaims after listening to the three symbols. So it's just a Challenge Floor. I was worried that you stumbled upon a Lair."]

"Challenge? Lair?"

["I will tell you about them later."]

"Dad! You keep saying that but never told me much. I always lack a lot of knowledge!"

["I'm just too busy… Anyway, are you going to finish the Challenge?"]

"They plan to do it tomorrow. Dad, I want to sleep out tonight…"

He hesitates a bit before answering. ["Alright. However, you must use your Super Power at the first sight of danger, you heard me?"]

Now that he mentions it, I suddenly remember that I have a very weird cheat. "But I… Okay I will." I wanted to say that I didn't like it, but that would only make him worry.

After exchanging a few more words, he hangs up.

"You're back, boy." The aunty greets me as I walk back to them.

"I'm sorry, it's just a little issue." I look around then point at where the shady looking man was. "Where is…?" Now that I think about it, I don't know any of their names.

"I just sent Jack to scout ahead." The leader-like man says as he points at the structure nearby. The yard spreads out to the "horizon". The only structure is a cyclical tower sprout out from the smooth crystal floor. Everywhere is plated in glowing crystal, and the tower is no exception.

"That's the fortress?"

"The entire fortress is sunken in crystal. That's the only entrance."

I simply nod at his explanation. We haven't introduced ourselves yet, and I also need to learn their name, so I start it. "By the way, I am Rex. I just started adventuring today. I hope I could learn a few things from you." I slightly bow. Although I don't know this world's custom, I see people bowing to each other all the time here.

After a round of introduction, I finally get their names. Since they didn't introduce their surname, I did the same thing.

Just as we are chatting about various minor things, the ground suddenly shakes. All of them turns to look at the crystal tower so I follow suit.

The tower clad in blue crystal doesn't show anything strange for a moment, but soon, it shatters like glass and is replaced by a larger tower… or more exactly, a giant arm. Jack could be seen jumping off from the arm then run toward us while screaming apologize.

"Sorry sorry!"

"You tried to sneak pass the guardian again, didn't you?" The leader who introduced himself as Ryan says.

The smooth floor starts cracking. The cracks run like lightning and spreading all over the place. Soon, a body emerge from the ground, shattering the crystal floor.

I frantically pull my wooden sword out as the party does the same. I wonder how people of this world expect to fight something huge like that with a wooden sword.

"This is your first time fighting something like this, right?" The aunty who introduced herself as Vale gets close to me. She is wielding a long white spear with feathery decoration.

"Can we really fight this thing?"

"You never know until you try!" She says then dashes forward, along with the rest of Ryan's party. The shady man named Jack makes a sharp turn then throw some knives at the golem. Instead of metal-to-rock sound, it's just some dull sound of wood hitting rock.

"Everything are made of wood!" I audibly exclaim as the rest of the party swing their weapon, aimlessly hit the golem's body like practicing with a training dummy. My imagination of a Fantasy boss fight is shattered.

The large golem, whose lower body is still underground, slowly raises its hand and crashes down. The speed is so slow that I could avoid it by just casually walking away.

"Hey kid! If you want a share of the reward, come hitting it with me!"

Dejectedly, I walk toward the golem's torso, swinging my wooden sword at it like I am mining rock. "How long should we keep on doing this?"

"The last time we fought a golem, it took us 4 hours of relentless hitting."

I suddenly stop my hand at the mention of 4 hours. Seriously? "Can we just go pass it and get the Cryst?"

This time the man named Jack laughs and explains to me. "The Cryst and also the Gate is blocked by a seal. I tried to crack it but the Guardian awoke."

"So, the seal will open if we defeat this thing?" I casually walk away from the smashing down hand while asking.

"The key to open the seal is inside the Guardian." He says and point at the golem. Following his finger, I turn to look at the golem's chest. Because it was made of crystal, I could see a faint figure of something inside its chest.

To have a clearer look at it, I walk closer to the large torso. That thing looks familiar. If only I could shatter its chest and get that thing out… I can do that with Step of Apocalypse, but…

The moment my foot touch the ground, the golem whose body occupy my entire line of sight shatters like glass. An invisible shockwave is sent out with me as the center. The continuous dull sounds of wood hitting rock suddenly disappear, replaced by the clattering sound of the golem's fragment falling onto the ground. The cracked ground that was shining with crystal now becomes dull rocks. My entire field of vision is soon filled with a red-shaded barren rocky land after the golem's fragments fully hit the ground. The blackness of the night sky is replaced by a deep shade of orange.

I accidentally activated it… somehow…