In Nivava's dungeon pillar, the Nine heroes were having another Gathering, this time it was one to Celebrate Nick's accomplishments.

His negotiations went so well that their quota was cut by 1/3 and they even got a 20% discound in anything they wanted to buy.

Let me explain what the discount was all about, lets consider they wanted to buy something from the dwarven bank, before they had to pay 100% of the price but now only 80%, the 20% was payed by the Nivava country.

It might sound nothing special, but let's consider if for example they wanted to buy a slave or a Powerful weapon or a slime soldier, before they wouldn't even think about it since their price was too high for them, but now with Anna's income and Alexxa's newfound fortune it was a huge advantage for them.

Of course the Celebration couldn't be complete without cakes and drinks.

Every one of them brought their own Advisors and friends, people whom they trusted.

Half the royal family was there, Chris only brought his beloved Amaliana for the others to meet.

Christo brough his four partners and a strange black armor, that made him look like a knight although he was a mage, there was a story behind this but that would be for another time.

John came with Erica, whom had become much more amiable for unknown to him reasons, although she still would not let him touch her.

Alexander came accompanied by his six partners, leaving his descendants back home for the maids to take care, he might not have been good with the hunting stuff, but he found out that he could easily make a few additional coins with Leia's help(ex-princess).

Nick brough with him Verilio and Vivian, although they didn't seem very talkative, they were more like plants, when he was asked he said that the queen had turned them into common farmers, which gave them a rather great shock.

Angelo and Mina came alone, they didn't have any royal members under their wings and most people in their villages were just temporary colleagues for them until they reached the next level and are given a town like Anna, after all there were no talents among their villagers.

Alexxa was happy to be accompanied by Ludicar, while Anna for some reason turned her face away from her as they had a little dispute amongst friends.

Anna was there with Joseph and Kilkis, Kilkis Grey-haired young wolfman was her escort, while Joseph was only there so that he could talk with his brother.

In general it was rather fun and all, but every one of them had problems that needed to be solved.

Chris had made up with Amaliana, but his hunting pace had begun to fall, he had some problems with procuring enough slime cores to meet the approaching quota.

Christo had a large rebellion awaiting back at his own village and would have been happy if anyone could help.

The black armor he donned was of course an accesory for battle mages, but the reason he wore it was because of people trying to assassinate him on their way there.

John had a rather serious problem with not being able to find any monsters around his village, having seemingly slaughtered them all.

Alexander, well his whole existance as a hero was problematic, he was a leaf with the wind, a log floating with the river, a surf board following the waves, he would not change just because people say that he's wrong.

Angelo's problem was rather controventional, mostly concerning management issues.

Mina needed some help with gathering enough slime cores but was a little shy to speak.

As for Alexxa and Anna their problem was that they had a fight. Their problem of course had nothing to do with the money, it was a more private matter.

Alexxa had told Anna about her little tet-a-tet with Tris, where she was sort of raped in order to make the orb fill faster.

The problem was however Anna's response, she called her a whore and a slut and told her that she should have shouted taken her clothes and come to meet her, they would simply make things out, of course they would lose 22millions, but they lived for a name.

You can understand why the two had a fight now, but what you don't know yet was that Alexxa surprisingly enjoyed it and asked Anna if she wanted to try it out with her, that was the drop that spilled the cup and also the main reason why Anna brought Kilkis with her.

There was a short silence before Nick announced his second part of their plan.

"As you know the first part was successful, but there are three more to go, next step is to win favor with the other countries and the nobility, If we can gain the Rogue hero's support we will be able to accomplish our second step"

Nick said, but he secretly passed a note to every hero there.

"The first step, failed, the negotiations were a trap, the next step is what the queen wants us to do"

The note of course shocked them, but what shocked them even more was that Nick still continued speaking about the plan to win over the rogue hero.

The plan was simple, they would promise to help him leave the world of Axis with them, it was a phrase that didn't really make sense.

'Won't we all return once we defeat the Demon king of the 100th floor?'

They all thought.

"I have decided that the moment we all hit level 100, we should begin ascending the tower, we will begin new negotiations with the queen with the purpose to allow us to level up, of course you all know that the demon king of the 10th floor is no longer our problem, what they want from us is to clean up the floors as we descend"

Nick said, making them all understand that his plan was going to Ecclesis by themselves and asking to be trasported back to their home world.

"But won't that reduce the others' fighting power when they reach the Demon king at the 100th floor?"

Mina asked rather anxiously.

"Don't say nonsense the others are probably planning the same as us, It's most likely that we might meet them as we ascend rather than descending"

Nick said, making everyone somewhat confused.

"Let me explain it in a different way, lets take Ecclesia for Example, you think that they will decide to descend the tower, of course not Ecclesis is their protector god, they probably got the easiest way out of this mess, Runia's emperor is from our world, you think he will be stupid enough as to not tell them about the thing with ascending the floors instead of descending, The elves and dwarves are rather tricky to know but they are immortal races, for example those that joined those races will live much longer than us, meaning that they can climb or descend whenever they like, As for Orks, beastmen and the other brute races their livespawn is around the same as ours, meaning that they will most likely gather strength and then ascend as well, since descending will take too long for a human's lifespawn"

Nick's words made them all shocked once more, they had no idea how long it would take to reach their final goal, but after hearing from Nick whom knew stuff because of the books he had been reading they felt somewhat bad, they felt as if they were betraying their classmates.

"Don't feel bad, in truth the 100th floor Demon kind hasn't been defeat by any hero throughout the ages, most of them would simply give up and go upstairs, the reason being of course that even if we do reach the floor everyone else would have already left us behind and left, it has happened numerous times before"

Nick's words were rather ambigous, they couldn't tell if this was the queen's trap or his own words, the once happy celebration had become into an awkward gathering that was probably going to divide them further.

For example amongst them there were those whom wanted to stay in Axis, thus to them defeating the 100th floor demon king was not a good thing since if that happens they will be expelled from this world.

Another example are those whom want to try their luck with the demon king, either because they don't believe in Nick anymore or because they are simply too Macho to take the easy road.

Lastly there were those of them whom were glad for the existence of a shorter road back, even if it would be simply by themselves.

"I know that most of you think that leaving is bad and that what I'm saying might be the queen's trap, but once everyone reaches level 100 lets all go talk to teacher, If I'm telling lies to you then you will know when he will explain to you everything, some of you have might not even believe him at that time, but if we cannot trust one another whom can we trust?"

Nick said, his words could be felt like a warm breeze into their hearts.

Of course unknown to them the Real Nick was still in the city being educated by the Bat-woman to be a smart and obedient boy.

Christopher and his companions were still travelling, their destination being that same City, of course they would be unable to find Nick whom was locked in the Queen's royal estate.

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Runia's Jonny had also a rather harsh time, he was a heroic rogue and his skill was a rather pathetic Chameleon skin, he could only make his skin change colors according to the environment.

Of course in battle that had zero effect even more he sucked at sneaking, although he already had a sneak at level 8.

He wanted to be like Theo crushing things down and killing monsters as if they were nothing, even worse his title which at first he thought would be useful was a complete disaster when encountering monsters.

He had the constellation title of Tiger, it gave him an intimidating aura that made him a target for monsters, they could simply feel him nearby and since he wasn't strong enough they saw him as an easy pick.

Of course the title wasn't completely useless, the villagers of his village didn't dare to look at him in the eyes out of fear, a feeling that he rather enjoyed.

His weapon of choice was rather original, a blowpipe. He shot darts at his opponents, of course this was something that he was very good at, he did so every day at school, of course using a pensil's plastic casing and a sticky piece of paper and rather large bamboo cannot be called the same, but his accuracy was rather good, non the less.

Today he had reached level 28, his attacks were mostly to support others, thus he never gained the full experience from killing monsters.

In truth he was rather satisfied with himself, he might not have been the strongest hero, but he sure was a creative one, he had created water balloons with different poisons and drugs, straws for drinking potions from a bottle and other strange stuff that would be completely useless and a waste of money and resources.

In his village however his creations were called ingenious and fascinating, but in reality they could only curse inside for all those wasted resources, especialy the usage of poison, you have to understand that if you poison a rabbit or a wolf, their meat becomes inedible, unless you want to die of the same poison it died.

As from where the poisons came, that's because he took up the skills, a rogue whom can create poisons for himself is not a bad thing, of course all of his creations are of poor quality and wouldn't even kill a rabbit without someone giving it a finishing blow, all his poisons ever do is making the meat poisonous, but they wouldn't dare say that to his face.

The only good for them thing is that there is no danger even if he misses and hits one of them, since the poison will only do minor damage which anyone whom knows the "cure spell/skill" can easily cure.

Today Jonny was as always laying in bed, he had no wish to go hunting, in his opinion Theo was already the winner of the succesion race, thus he didn't care much about leveling up, all he cared was staying alive, as long as he stayed alive and kicking he would be able to return home.

The first day he returned with titz he had discovered that her physique was so high that he couldn't even fuck her. Of course he wasn't an idiot to put all of his stats into physique, just to fuck a woman, he begun raising his mentality, which was a rogue's main stat, it would help him with both his skills and his power, because unknown to others the stronger his mentality got, the better the effect would be.

Well with his pitiful 0.3 that he had before of course only his skin would change color, but now with a solid 20 in mentality he gained 20% camouflage, well half of his body and clothes would change color to fit the environment.

Of course that wouldn't help much without using the sneak skill, which evolved into the skill sneak attack, it's passive uses were similar to the regular sneak, but he could activate it in order to delay the damage on his attack's target, it was a rather magical effect, especialy for ranged attacks.

His only problem was that the range of his blowpipe was rather short, or maybe his breath wasn't strong enough to propel the dart further.

Jonny's first thing when he stood up was of course to go wash his face, it was mysterious why, but he felt rather tired, even though most of his time he spent it loitering around or resting.

In general the villagers were happy because he didn't go hunting, poisoning all the food, but he was getting bored.

All he had to do was wait for the others to become stronger, thus he had a brilliant Idea, why not move the tower and the village, the theory behind it was simple, stronger monsters mean more experience, thus by travelling further away from the Outpost he could fight against stronger monsters, thus leveling up faster with less hunting time.

The villagers of course didn't see his genious in that idea, well he was only around level 30 at the time, so even the regular monsters were enough to give him trouble.

They lost half the village as they travelled further away from the Pillar outpost.

The other half they lost when they arrived to the new area.

The monsters in this area were Feral wolves, they could easily rip apart common classes and even worst there were even werewolves appearing from time to time.

Jonny was hidden in his tower shaking in fear, he only had food stored for a few more days, he had gained another four levels during their short immigration, but that didn't help much when facing wolves.

At first he had the crazy plan of sneaking back to the Outpost, but the damned wolves wolves were seemingly everywhere.

In truth he didn't even know which way the outpost was, since everything was dark and he couldn't even see the Dungeon pillar from this distance.

"Master, I will stay behind so that you can run away"

Titz said, she was the quarter beastwoman slave he had selected to take with him, of course the reason she offered to die was because she didn't want to die of hunger later on.

"No need, we shall have the skeletons act as bait, while you kill the wolves"

He said with a happy smile, he knew that Titz was a common huntress with a physique of 100, in general she could probably kill them with ease, her problem was that she had no magical or mental resistances, thus she would be hard pressed to survive against certain types of monsters.

The next day Jonny had one of the skeleton looking slaves go outside with Titz on standby and the other slaves holding some water baloons filled with poison.

A small group of five feral wolves approached the steleton of a slave, whose terrified eye had a hint of terror and despair, he tried to run away from the wolves while balloons begun falling from the invisible windom.

The wolves easily evaded them, but still didn't close on him, they were more afraid of the tower than they were of attacks, it was a fear imbued upon them throught experience, unknown to Jonny they tower had another ability, it would electrocute, engulf in flames and blast with magic any hostile being, meaning that anyone inside was perfectly safe in the first few floors.

The slave didn't dare to walk too far from the tower's wall, they were tower slaved trained for that work, they knew about the tower's fuctions more than even the masters themselves.

A pity they wouldn't give advice due to fear and submission.

In other worlds although Jonny's plan was ruined, he discovered that the creatures would not dare approach the tower, comming with an even finer idea, moving the tower for a few steps each time.

The plan was brilliant, only problem was he had no idea which way he had to move the Tower.

Two days later they were running out of supplies, Jonny was desperate and in his desperation he begun to ask the slaves for ideas.

"We could use the tower's lightning core to burn a wolf or two"

A slave said, the same slave he had used as bait before.

"What's this lightning core?"

Jonny asked with renewed hope.

"The lightning core is what holds the lightning field around the tower and fuels the lights and other electric appliances in the tower"

The slave explained, making jonny surprised as he looked at the source of light, he could easily tell that it was a light bulb, from our modern world.

"Wait there is electricity?"

Jonny said to himself, he couldn't understand how on earth there was an electric lamp in the tower a thing he had never considered before, after all he had never went to the kitchen or other rooms that were of no importance to him, there was even water flauchets and a toilet in the tower, which of course he hadn't found strange at the time he first explored the tower.

"Master My idea is using the fire core to destroy the wolves"

Another slave said.

"Wait what's the fire core?"

Jonny asked, there was more than electricity.

"It's what powers the flame field around the tower, but it can be used to burst a wave of fire all around the tower, being able to anhilate an area of 10meters around the tower"

The slave explained.

Well it sounded like an area attack to him, although 10meters wasn't much, it was still a good option.

"I say we use the magic core to ask for help"

Another slave said, making Jonny lose his cool.

"How do we do that?"

He asked as he held the skeleton looking woman in his hands.

"Master you can only do all that from your laboratory"

She said ready to cry and plead for her own life.

The laboratory was the only place that non of the "Heroes" cared to go, after all what sort of experiments would they even do in the first place, they weren't even mages to begin with, although all four of them were forced to learn the magic arts skill in order to be able to operate their magic tower.

Only now however did Jonny understand how important the magi arts skill was, the magic laboratory had an alchemy bench, a forge and even empty cages.

The three diferent cores were in truth not exactly what he thought of them to be.

The lightning core was a strange power generator with a strange yellow rat inside, the creature was known to eat lightning, thus it was fine inside the strage cage of its own.

The fire core/generator had a strage dog inside, they said that it was a hellhound whose breath could produce fire, demons had no need to eat thus they were perfect for producing heat.

The magic core was the most disturbing one, it was made of sewed human(most likely) skin and there was no way to look what was inside, but neither did he want to know.

"Through the magic core you can communicate with the emperor or even travel amongst towers, but only if the tower's master allows you to come by, of course the core will need time to reload on magic after being used once and all devices working on magic will be deactivated for an amount of time"

One slave explained.

"So what will happen if I used the Electric core?"

jonny asked.

"Well it depends on how you will use it and how much power master will use, for example it might lead to a short blackout, the worst might be the death of the Raik that powers the core"

The slave explained.

"The fire core?"

Jonny asked not really wanting to kill the living creature inside.

"Well the main work of the fire core is heating, at worst the demon will escape and we will have to subdue it"

The slave whom had suggested explained using it explained.

"And the magic core?"

Jonny had no wish to fight with a demon and although it didn't seem too threatening from outside the core, who knew how strong a demon might be.

It was of course his own lack of knowledge that he could not recognize that a hellhound was an E rank monster, making it weaker than the D rank feral wolves outside.

For example a rabbit is an F rank monster and it's equivelent to a commoner at high levels, but since it's at the bottom of the rankings it doesn't get much of a chance to gain levels, funny fact is that it's equivelent in rank to the skeleton, the imp, the wild dog and even the tree leeches.

A wolf is rank E, surprisingly they are not much stronger than the rabbits, but they can easily content with a commoner, a Slime, a hellhound, a feral goblin are some of the cratures in that category.

D rank monsters are dangerous, zombies are one of the monsters in this category, another is the wild goblins, and amongst them is the feral wolf.

Their main however advantage was that they had a hint of intelligence, unlike an E rank monster whom mostly act on instinct, a D rank monster will remember things, although it will still mostly act according to its desires.

C rank monsters are dangerous creatures with low intelligence, but they are intelligent non the less.

B rank are around as intelligent as a stupid human, but their starting stats are already enough to kill a level 100 commoner.

A rank monsters are simply unbeatable by a single person, you will need at least an large party to content with them and they are as intelligent as a human.

S rank monsters are special, their power varries and they might be as strong as a dragon or as weak as a rabbit, but they have something that makes them special.

For example The vampire was an S rank monster, it could create the E rank monster ghoul and turn people into thralls, having a multitude of skills.

Of course S rank monsters were rare and liked to hide until they grew strong enough to leave the shadows.

Jonny was even more confused when he heard that the worst thing that would happen if he messed with the magic core was the whole magic tower falling down in ruins, he was however consumed by fear and thought of what if the worst happened.

The slaves pointlessly tried to convince him otherwise, they tried to convince him with food shortage, with promises, they even threatened that they would commit suicide.

The first day of hunger however was more than enough to convince the somewhat cowardly youth to use the lightning core once, the little flash of lightning of course was only a probe, he quickly found out that the drainage was rather small, the lights didn't even go out for more than a few seconds.

The same day he went outside and made the tower shrink as he carried it around, there was no monster nearby, the loud thunder was enough to cause wild beasts to run away thus ending nothing for a few hundreds of meters.

He could finaly see the pillar from his location, thus he begun to travel towards it, the few remaning ratios were given to him by the slaves since he was the one carrying the tower that held them safe.

Funny thing was that on his path he singlehandedly killed a rabbit.

For him it was a great victory, only the corpse was poisoned, making it taste like shit, but non of the slaves cared and neither he cared, as he set his tower down, he was only happy that he was back to the start, in the safe zone close to the Outpost.

Some of you might find this story pointless but it had a great influence on the Hero called Jonny, whom from that day forth begun to learn how to throw daggers, spears and axes, while he stopped using poisons and drugs, unless of course in emergencies.

Thus rebuilding his village from scrap.