“It’s funny,” I said, as Mewi and I mopped up yet another swarm of monsters. The creatures on the 7th Floor were mostly beasts and giant insects, and occasionally large carnivorous birds. This was pretty much the case regardless of where you were in the Floor—most enemies in deeper areas were similar, yet stronger than the ones near the shore where challengers arrived. Some of the stronger monsters were practically actual palette-swaps of the weaker ones.

“What is?” said Mewi.

“We’ve gotten so used to this grind that I’m starting to think to myself, this actually kind of resembles a peaceful life.”

“I know what you mean,” said Mewi, “I’m a little worried that we won’t even get a mission rating above 3.0 for the Class Evolver, since we haven’t been challenging ourselves.”

“Everyone’s been strengthening themselves a lot through the liberation missions, though. I reckon we’re at least above average as a team at this point, even compared to other challengers who take on Extreme Floor missions.”

“I guess...but I’m surprised you’re so okay with how we’ve let our guard down.”

“I don’t think we’ve let our guard down. We’ve just gotten used to being on guard for monster attacks and ambushes and such all the time. We’re getting a little hardened, is what it is.”

Mewi shrugged. “I hope so. I need a 3.8 to finally upgrade your Class Evolver to Silver, and it’d be really lame if we didn’t get it.”

“We’re aiming for a 4.0, and we’re on track to get the 10 million in time to get it.”

Since it was farmed so much by Area 1s Factions, the 7th Floor was also the Floor that the most complete information about it was known. This included information about how to improve one’s Mission Rating. For the most part there were two factors: wasting/destroying resources, and how long you took to fully pay off the mission “debt.” In the former case, the more it happened, the more your mission rating would go down regardless of how fast your team was otherwise. Most of the training for the Floor we’d done was geared toward not letting this happen.

As for how much of the year you took, Shumba in particular had at least fairly reliable data on Extreme difficulty ratings. Take over ten months, and you were basically guaranteed to get less than 2.0. Finishing in less than 6 months would give you a 3.0, and for a 4.0, your team had to gain all ten million in less than three months.

We were about a month and a half into the Floor, and we had enough value that we were pushing toward 6 million. Monster parts, in some cases meat, venom, and spider monster silk made up the greatest volume of what we took, but we gained equal or greater value from harvesting minerals and metals with unusual or enhanced properties.

We didn’t really bother with growing fruits or vegetables like most of the Leeches did. Anything that could be grown within a year in the 7th Floor would be incredibly delicious, and indeed there were quite a few varieties that could be grown in even less, but none of it would be valuable enough that it would be a better use of our time rather than exploring and hunting.

It was possible to find the sort of fruits that were usually rare Floor reward items, ones that had special effects related to the Tower, if a team got extremely lucky, but they couldn’t be grown in a year. In fact, most took over a hundred years to grow in Area 1, with a couple of exceptions taking 30 or 50 years, all requiring special conditions in order to successfully grow as well. And of course, if you found one of those, you would be a complete fool to put it toward your mission rather than keep it for yourself, even if it would give you over a million in one go.

One thing we DID do was split up into pairs again to gather salable resources from a wider area. Having everyone or even some of us go solo was regarded as too dangerous, and I wasn’t about to turn down more alone time with Mewi. Since we weren’t dealing with Floor Denizens this time, we took comlink devices into the Floor with us—special ones that could connect only to each other, but without the use of anything like a cell service tower.

After what was soon to happen, I wasn’t sure if the fact we were split up had been a blessing or a curse.

Mewi and I had just gotten done depleting an area of Bloodstone, a crystalline mineral that could be used in a variety of different crafting profession recipes, but truly shined as one of many ingredients in a Grade 3 potion that temporarily increased the drinker’s speed and strength both. We had just finished putting the last of it into spatial storage when I heard a low, soft growl.

In almost the same moment, the growl became a voice—the translation indicating they weren’t a monster, but another challenger. “I’ve finally found you, Lheticus.”

Mewi and I immediately took up combat-ready stances and positions, and in the next moment we spotted the voice’s owner. They were on the very edge of the Bloodstone quarry, so at least it was unlikely that they had been secretly observing us for hours or anything like that. They were a wolfman, with extremely powerful looking arms and lithe, agile legs. That was a rare Tower race, one that mostly thrived in Area 1 in all respects save for population growth due to having the ability to develop physical stats a fair amount higher than the minimum without the use of AP, though they usually did start with minimum stats at birth.

I found out about all that quite a bit after the fact, though. At the moment, the only thing I really thought was Oh crap, what the heck is this guy?!

I looked at them warily, and managed to keep my voice level. “Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

“I am no one of consequence. As for what I want with you…”

He reached out his left arm toward me, pointing at me with a clawed finger. Lightning fast, a blue beam shot out from a ring he wore on that finger and struck me in the chest. I felt nothing, but a moment later, a brightly glowing magic array formed beneath the wolf man’s feet and expanded toward me. It passed under me harmlessly, but when it reached Mewi, its bounds continually pushed him away.

Now the wolf man took up a fighting stance himself. “Defend yourself.”