About two hours later, an astoundingly short time given he had next to no calligraphy experience and the artistic skill of a rabid dog, as per a harsh teacher’s vocabulary, he completed the six runes required on the proper stone gem. If this thing could even be called a gemstone… What would be the proper terminology even?

Joey shook his head as another accidental bout of focus almost began once more, he better reined things in now.

“Test two done, I better get something good. Fucking hell am I hungry too…” He spoke to himself, a usual thing by now, while ascending the flights of stairs to see another barrier of light. His stone gem sank into the wall of light and he saw it flash red, blue, and green in sequence once more.

Finally, he saw the stone exit and the barrier dropped, to think he completed two tests so easily. And here he thought it’d be something stupid with each floor taking months on end to complete…

Actually, the third test would require that much time.

It no longer tested the ability to create a ‘test’ object, but a real matter of confirming his knowledge. In other words, he had to just write out a complex engraving example which achieved an uber-specific purpose.

Oh, and that engraving had to be done on an object no larger than a postage stamp.

That being barely a couple centimetres in length and width, and his cursory look through the runes made it clear that this required at least 50 of them to make this thing.

With more skill it might be reduced to a fraction of that. Or maybe his guess was wrong and it required several times the amount…

The first two tests simply showed that he would bother to learn and put effort in, but at least he earned some good rewards this time.

On the next floor, above the store of materials and simply alchemy equipment, was a library. As large as a library in the tower could be, at least. The walls contained bookshelves from floor to ceiling, with some books having names on their spines, but the farm majority simply blank and simply dyed. On the other hand, he noted that the top shelves were actually compartments used to store hundreds of parchment scrolls similar to what the Reader used in that village, the one he still didn’t even know the name of.

“Nice to know I’m still an insensitive idiot. I can ask later. Now, those should be the rewards,” he berated himself momentarily, but his eyes remained affixed to the prize.

On the opposite side of this floor’s entrance, he saw a wooden desk and padded chair used to write on, the slanted face of the former along with vice-like devices clearly made it easy to hold scrolls open while using the ink-well and quill available. Interestingly, the inkwell was no cliché glass jar, but instead a metal canister made of brass, at least, that’s what the cube confirmed the metal as…

But why did it call the ink within ‘Meteoric engravement fluid’?

Well, the name itself was something anyone not a fool could read, but why would that sort of thing be in this mini-library and used for writing? He already knew that a final step to engraving gemstones is to then fill the cavity with special inks which then conducted The Arcane’s power.

Besides that inkwell and quill though, the slanted desk contained another yellowed note on it. On the side was also a straight attachment to the table, likely to hold simple apparatus that may be used whilst writing or drawing shapes, but for now it held four items, to his surprise. Excitement ran through him.

Had he acquired all the rewards for this test?

Another potion in a green-glass vial, a pair of leather gloves, a metal syringe with glass vail within, and a small red gemstone in the shape of a human heart…

They started off so normal as well.

Sighing, he grabbed the note and read through it quickly, skimming a lot of the information in favour of grasping what each item did.

A potion of precision, different from dexterity as it specifically amplified his ability to remain steady for long periods. Almost necessary for higher-level gemstone engravings.

Gloves of freezing came next, he hadn’t flipped them over at first, but the blue gemstones close to lazurite on the back of each hand encouraged such a name. He wondered if the ring could be used on top of these gloves.

The metal syringe seemed to be the sort where a capsule of fluid was loaded into it, and then injected the contents, rather than having disposable needles as was common on Earth. He would need to clean it diligently, somehow, but on further inspection he found the fluid within to be a strange vivid green like some paints or something ‘glow in the dark’. The note called it Juggernaut solution, enhancing physical and regenerative abilities to insane levels for 15 minutes or so.

It claimed to allow him to tear a mountainbeak in half even without training or previous potion consumption.

He could probably charge into the Forger’s workshop and smash all the golems with this too.

Lastly, the heart-shaped gemstone. For some reason, it was so polished that one could see the various chambers and valves within the heart too, supposedly this heart crystal is a naturally formed construct in places with ridiculously rich vitality…

Eaten directly, it improved one’s body in almost all physical aspects, independent to potions and such. Five of such crystals may be consumed by a person, and the boost of each one is rather considerable.

Joey only missed out on a single reward for this test, requiring him to complete the whole thing in less than 3 hours… It offered some sort of necklace that worked as a storage artifact. In effect, it was a weaker version of his cube.

He lost nothing this time round.

However, whilst skimming the note, something of interest stood out to him. The fact that it requested him to find a book in the small selection and read it… A book called ‘Great curses & Grand desolations’, ominous from title alone.

The foreword, rather short to his thankful eyes, was only worse.

‘I have spent many years travelling the world to collate this book of knowledge, and one day was able to find those capable of printing it, safely, for the sake of future generations. In my journey I came across many lands and their people, as well as many towns and villages of those consumed by the world… Beyond my ability to save them. The mountain cities of legend, as well as the magical forests which glisten in beauty, the endless plains of red, white, and gold from grains which grow upon them. The world is amazing, but so is it cursed to its very roots. Those who learn our path and ways, I beseech that we work together to keep this world safe.’

Right… Not ominous… At all.

Though, hearing vaguely of those places, he wondered how far out he’d have to travel to one day see them. And would he be able to do it soon, or require amazingly powerful magic that killed things like a mountainbeak and that sasquatch in single hits? Either way, the prospect excited him just as much as the book invoked dread.

Then he read on, beginning at the description for Great curses.

They were… Actually not the worst thing in the world. Well, he said that in reference to the sky of stars which wanted him dead, so it meant very little.

Great curses could be considered illnesses on the world itself, very similar to the summoned monsters from the stars but also wildly different. These curses did not create monsters, but rather could mutate anything natural into far more dangerous and varied forms, the mutations aligned with the specific curse.

But this shouldn’t be an issue in most cases as the curses are kept sealed by massive wizard towers across the world. Just like the one he stood in right now, and most were built to supress the curse at least 1000 years after the owner’s death.

This ensured that even if no capable successors came about in the near future, a curse which suddenly destroyed any hope for those nearby never awakened.

However, then there were Grand desolations, and Joey’s thoughts on that were a lot more direct.

“What the fuck? Pollution is actually that bad?” He only commented occasionally whilst reading, but got a gist of what the difference between the two were.

Great curses are natural phenomena which result in a plight across large areas, while Grand desolations are man-made effects caused by releases of magical waste into the surroundings. The former are far more dangerous, but only because no wizard had ever released enough waste to create a worse desolation.

In theory, there was no limit to the mutative and dangerous aspects of a desolation. They could even mutate Great curses into stronger forms, and so, many stronger wizards actually bothered to properly destroy waste where possible. But at lower tiers, there was no need to bother as the random accumulation of elements is pretty much no higher from just using a few basic nature rituals.

Ah, but it should be known that only magic which draws on The Arcane has this side effect. Many figured out it was due to the ‘unnatural’ nature of their path to change the world.

Change is not always for the best, and when allowed to run rampant… Well, the effects are clear.

The book’s author theorised that Great curses are actually a manifestation of places where The Arcane has naturally seeped into the world, but he could not prove it. Whether that changed since this book was printed was another matter entirely. Joey chose to believe that he’d be able to find the answer and a method to resolve it one day.

With the cube he believed that no magic nor technology was truly out of his grasp.

The book then went onto describe the various curses and desolations that were known of, and then a section at the end allowed a tower master to write up notes on what their tower’s curse restricted. With over twenty types of curses, he didn’t bother to remember them all, and only the local one mattered.

Great curse – Dominion.

The curse created sudden ‘death zones’ within its area of influence that had no clear origination and could not be stopped easily without clearing the zone’s requirements. Fortunately, unlike worse curses, it did not instantly kill anything, but did lock at least two beings within a death zone and forced them to fight to the death. The final survivor was allowed to go free, but if after three minutes there were any more left alive, the death zone killed everyone within.

Dominion came in three known variants, the standard one was above. However, the one this tower staved off was known as ‘display’. In a sadistic twist, the death zone not only implemented its basic rule, but then required any spectators to pick whose actions of the remaining three were most enjoyable.

This ‘spectator zone’ around the death zone, was required to provide an answer while ignoring any bias to the participants, how the curse intelligently recognised this was a mystery no one could answer. But any spectators gave an answer simply to save a friend, then it would be their head on the chopping block too. It was a brutal thing which required one to judge each other and condemn others to death after they fought a tough battle to the death.

Of course, this spectator zone only arose if more than five beings were within the death zone.

Specific rulings, but easily learnt by the author of this book.

Fortunately, his current tower hadn’t been left untouched for more than a hundred years, and chances are the previous owner knew of a way to keep that Great curse’s seal in prime condition, even if slightly ruined he surely had a couple centuries.

With that in mind, he truly believed that nothing bad could happen, this tower resided within the low magic safety zone with weaker monsters, so what could possible attack this place?

For now he could just focus on magic and recipes, the more protection he gathered, the better.

“First thing’s first, the crystal,” he put down the book and spoke whilst grabbing the heart shaped crystal still on the side desk. In a single go, he shattered it in his mouth and felt the originally rock hard shards melt into a gooey substance. Without much effort, he swallowed the whole batch and felt a warmth spread through his body.

Very much like the warmth of accidentally pissing yourself.

But that passed soon enough, and while he felt the same physically, just moving revealed a considerable boost to his speed. Every muscle felt more controlled as well, more receptive and targeted as though he intuitively knew how to move everything perfectly.

Although, in practice his bodily control wasn’t perfect. But the overarching physical boost revealed itself immediately.

Strength, dexterity, control, precision, agility, whatever other terms you’d want to call it. Even breathing and toughness increased a fair bit, and he was sure that even hard sprinting barely tired him out now.

A few more of these stones and he might not have to even hold his breath whilst attacking!

And then there was the other potion here too… This was a very lucrative floor, not to mention all the knowledge in here. He had a lot to read up on and share with the village to see if reverse engineering the tablet was possible. But before that, another book caught his eye, one of the few with a name along its spine.

‘Astral beings, tools of the malignant force’

It was one of three books that went over ‘Astral’ concepts… But this one specifically talked about those stars he worried about so much. Joey picked it out and began reading on the spot, fearful that they noticed every word he read.