The silence of Floor 2 was deceptive.
Unlike the buzz and flux of Floor 1's Safe Zone, where trade had begun to hum and factions slowly planted their flags, the threshold to Floor 2 was raw, breathing wilderness. No merchants. No hearths. No system-assigned quests blinking at the edge of one's vision. Only the cold algorithm of danger.
SeTa stepped through the portal and into mist.
His boots sank slightly into loam-soft ground. Trees rose high and thin around him like ancient needles, their leaves whispering secrets in languages no tongue had ever known. The Tower's biome had shifted. There was no welcoming committee—just a faint growl in the distance and the unmistakable chill of being watched.
The system prompt that greeted him was brief:
> [Floor 2 Objective: Defeat the Hidden Apex Predator. Time Limit: None. Failure: Death. AP Reward: Variable. Bonus: Unknown.]
He drew a breath.
It had been a month since the end of the tutorial. A month spent in dungeons hidden within Floor 1's boundaries, earning AP, gathering knowledge, mapping the subtle laws that governed the Tower. Unlike most Climbers who still clung together, too frightened to move on, he had walked alone. Silently. And yet every solo clear, every boss slain without backup, had spoken louder than words.
That silence had earned him two titles: "Soloist" and "Silent Climber."
Now, it was time to prove they weren't ornamental.
--
He moved through the forest like a ghost. No beast stirred at his passing. Not because he masked his presence, but because Inception EX was active in a passive thread—bending the idea of perception just enough to make him unimportant to the biome.
It wouldn't last long.
He paused at a rise where the forest thinned and brought out the [Aether Map: Floor 2] he'd bought for 300 AP back in Floor 1. It was little more than a rough, flickering layout of zones marked "Corrupted Lake," "Bleeding Glade," and finally, at the bottom: "Hollow Throat."
Where the Apex was.
He studied it. Three viable approaches. One safe but long. One fast but through unknown mana storms. The last: directly through the center of the Bleeding Glade, where mutated flora reportedly hunted flesh.
He folded the map.
He picked the center path.
--
Two days passed. He didn't sleep much.
Null Gravity was the first trick. He used Inception EX to override localized physics and make himself briefly weightless, gliding silently through canopy and swamp. When predators lunged from the treetops, he activated Mirror Pulse—a skill that reflected kinetic damage as sonic force—turning claws into backfired blows.
Speed Denial came next. Not by slowing time, but by erasing the concept of acceleration for a given target. The pack of blink hounds he encountered never understood why they couldn't reach him. They were trapped in a sprint without traction, like chasing wind through molasses.
He didn't waste moves.
Each fight was brief, precise. For every encounter, AP gained. His tally ticked upward: 10,600... 10,790... 11,050...
By the time he stood at the mouth of Hollow Throat, the biome around him seemed to acknowledge his presence.
Or his inevitability.
--
> [Boss Battle Initiated: Apex Predator "Nexu-Sire"]
The beast was beautiful and broken. A panther-like form clad in bone plates, eyes like split galaxies. Its roar was not sound, but a concept of hunger. It charged.
SeTa didn't move.
Not until the final second, when Inception EX fractured the ground beneath the Nexu's feet, altering the concept of momentum. The beast stumbled mid-lunge. SeTa slid beneath it, blade slicing up in a crescent that caught under its ribs.
It countered with a pulse of death mana. He countered with Gravity Sever — turning the mana's trajectory upside down, ripping it into the sky instead.
They danced. A predator of flesh and bone versus a boy who wielded abstract logic as a weapon.
When the Nexu finally fell, it did not roar.
It sighed.
And SeTa stood alone again.
> [Floor 2 Cleared. AP +500. Title Earned: "Predator of Logic"] [Skill Evolution Opportunity Detected.]
He exhaled.
Time to return to Floor 1.
--
The return was quiet. He passed Climbers who had just begun to brave the woods, their eyes wide at the smallest movement. They looked at him with awe or fear. Perhaps both.
But SeTa said nothing.
Only when he returned to the Safe Zone and walked into the now-expanded plaza—with its growing taverns, info booths, and even a small arena—did he pause.
New faces had arrived.
Some from Floor 2. Some... not.
A girl with silvery skin and a horned crown. A man with a cloak that flickered between realms. Names not on the Floor 1 board. Upper Floor Climbers, scouting or descending for recruitment or influence.
And they noticed him.
He did not engage. He simply walked past, toward the Tower Store to process rewards.
--
> [Announcement: Floor 2 Cleared by Solo Climber: SeTa. Time Elapsed: 3 Days. New Record Set. Bonus AP +100.]
The sky lit briefly. The plaza murmured. Whispers spread like fire.
The Silent Climber had moved.
And the Tower, once more, shifted in response.