The Systemic Lands

Chapter 388: Day 806 (2) – Poking A Monolith

Chapter 388: Day 806 (2) – Poking A Monolith

After some consideration I decided to circle the tower first checking the other sides. Out of each door came ten golems and I wiped out each group or unit once my energy was recovered from the previous group.

Again, I was taking this slow and cautiously. I wanted to get a sense of these towers. They were clearly important structures and the fact that the Astrologer believed one could get a meta-point at the top of one was highly enticing.

It would allow me to level the battlefield against the Divine Empress by a huge margin. Both the Divine Empress and the Astrologer had not climbed the towers. Well the Astrologer had but he got stuck due to the calamity right before the top.

Perhaps he wanted me to bring him the meta-point at the top of his tower to free him? Honestly, it was hard to say exactly what his plan was. But getting a meta-point before hand would be quite useful. I wasn’t going to climb any tower until all four of my skills had full upgrades in case there was a level 6 monster at the top, but I was just too curious to not poke one.

After clearing out the spherical golems I circled the tower once on each step. It was slow, tedious, and probably over cautious, but I was taking no chances. Even if I felt annoyed, I would rather try to draw anything else out of the tower in small batches before getting to the top step.

After the tenth step and circuit around the tower, I went up to the base of the tower. All four doors on each side had remained open. The doors had opened outwards. This would imply the point of them had been to stop stuff from getting inside.

There were no markings or mechanisms on the gray doors. I cautiously approached, taking clear note of the arc that the doors could swing shut. I wasn’t going to get caught and swept inside if the doors quickly closed.

Looking inside one set of doors, there was a large chamber and then three dark tunnels leading away into the tower. It wasn’t an open floor plan. This was actually quite important to figure out ahead of time, since I would clearly need a light source.

My Sense stat was working over time as well and the energy in the tower was as thick as a level 4 zone. That was good to know. Since it would make it very hard observing any energy fluctuations at a distance or even mid-range.

I checked the other entrances, each had an antechamber the golems were clearly waiting in and then three tunnels leading inside the tower. There were no lights. All tunnels were square shaped instead of arched. Everything about the tower was square, from the doors, the base, the stairs, to the tower itself.

Looking closely at the doors they were like the boss doors in the dungeons. The hinges went all up and down along the side. Time to test something out. Acid Shot. I targeted one of the hinges. Once my skill wore off, there was only light surface damage. Acid Shot.

I kept using the skill over and over again. I wanted to see if it was possible to melt through a doorway or remove a door. If I could then I could leave a cart in place to force it to stay open hopefully. Even after 20 Acid Shots the damage was incredibly light.

In fact it was hard to say if there was damage at all. I didn’t get too close in case the doors rapidly swung shut. Yeah, the damage was superficial and it didn’t do anything. I looked at the ground where my Acid Shots had fallen and there was no damage there either.

Whatever these towers were made out of, a fully upgraded level 4 skill wasn’t going to break them. That meant no tunneling out or knocking one down. I had the crazy thought of melting out most of the base and trying to get one to fall on the Divine Empress.

This also brought up an interesting point of why the pillars weren’t strong like the tower? I knew that the general city ground got stronger towards the plaza, but the pillars were relatively easy to damage and destroy.

The Protector had brought up that destroying the city pillars had killed the leadership of the UCS, I was hesitant to engage in tower felling, but I had wanted to know if it was possible. It wasn’t.

That meant the only option would be to enter and climb the tower. I had the headlamp Clarissa had given me. So I could light my way through, but I would probably want another one. Also supplies would need to be purchased in large quantities.

The one question that was bugging me, was why someone on the outside couldn’t open up the tower if another group went inside? This hadn’t been explained and the Protector didn’t send people into this tower to find out.

The Astrologer wasn’t talking and the Divine Empress would rather yeet me to the top with her fist than discussing the intricacies of how the tower worked. I really didn’t want to get trapped. That was a huge concern I had.

The two options I could see, was that the tower was a separate spatial zone or sealed the entrance until a person reached the next floor. Each entrance looked exactly alike. I tossed an apple into one of the entrances. There was no reaction. I then circled around checking the other entrances.

There was no apple, but when I got back to the entrance I had thrown the apple in, it was gone. That was very concerning. Where did it go? Even things left unattended didn’t disappear that fast. I threw another apple into the tower and waited.

Nothing happened to the apple. I began to go further and further before returning. The moment I looked into the entryway of another doorway and then returned to the apple doorway, the apple was gone. I repeated the experiment again with the same result.

Either there was a hidden monster, or the tower had a very high reset period. I thought about that for a moment and then I realized the implications. I felt a bit stupid that it took me a minute to think through both of them.

The first was that the tower itself would be very hard to tunnel through even if it was possible. The tower was constantly resetting at a very high rate. So, if people weren’t looking at a hole for a period of time, it would quickly repair itself.

Then there was the much more insidious nature of the quick reset. If there were traps, then they would quickly become active again once a person got past them. There would be no quick or easy retreat. Even if a trap was disarmed, it would quickly reset.

I tossed another apple into the tower and raced to another doorway. The apple was gone. I really wanted to confirm if there was some space time portal nonsense going on, but the resets were too quick. I would need to purchase a cart and push it inside the tower.

Regardless, if I went in, then I should assume I would not be able to get out or go back down floors. It made me wonder how the Astrologer’s proxy got out in the first place? If he got to the top floor and there was a meta-point why didn’t he take it? Unless there was a monster he couldn’t beat?

That would make sense. You get to the top, the monster spawns and then you need to beat it. I still wasn’t sure exactly why an airship couldn’t be used, but I could imagine the tower spawning multiple monsters, weapons, or traps if someone tried to cheese it.

The other bad part about not being able to damage the tower was the lack of ability to make handholds. Since I had checked everything out about the entrances, I decided to see if one of my more crazier ideas was possible.

First, I went to the corner of the tower. The edge wasn’t sharp, but it was a detailed edge. I grabbed it with one hand and tried to rip or distort the tower with my Body stat. It didn’t budge in the slightest. I had been able to put my hands into a lot of things like pushing through jelly or butter. But this tower was completely unyielding to my current stats.

Next I backed up and ran at the tower and then attempted to wall climb up it. The first attempt I pushed off too hard diagonally and couldn’t stay close to the tower to kick off again. It was completely vertical, there was no angle.

I tried a couple more times and managed to get two steps up the tower, before letting myself land back on the ground. It might be possible to vertically climb the tower this way. There were zero handholds, and it would be very tiring. Also, the fall didn’t look fun either.

Still, the possibility was there. I didn’t know if that would be considered cheesing the tower and there would be a response. I wasn’t that interested in finding out either. The tower clearly had an intended route. One needed to enter from the base and climb up it.

I went back to one of the entrances and looked at the tunnels. They were about the size that a single truck would need to drive through. So quite tall and wide, since the height of the tunnels was the same as the width. The wall between each tunnel was thick as well. A couple of feet or about a meter.

There would be no hacking or melting through the walls to get to another path. Once you went in, you had to commit. I slowly walked around the base of the tower looking at the scenery and occasionally glancing inside and trying to think if there were any other tests I could run.

Another reason I was doing the pacing around the tower was to get a sense of its size. I suspected there might be some kind of portal shenanigans going on, with how each entrance passed the initial doorway looked exactly the same.

I paused, there was one thing I could do. I left the base of the tower and went into the frostlands of the level 3 zone. I quickly began to kill the large brown flies and collecting their crystals. Once that was done I summoned a large brown fly monster and made my way back to the base of the tower.

No reaction. I sent the summon through one of the doorways. No reaction. I set it to the middle of the three square tunnels on the other side of the entrance chamber. BOOM! The doors in front of me swiftly closed and the tether was cut. I had to admit I jumped a bit at that.

The doors didn’t open back up. I went around the tower and each set of doors had closed as well. The tower had sealed itself. That was also good to know. If you go past the initial chamber, you will get locked in.

I was glad I had decided to test it with a summon first. I might have screwed up by poking past the initial entry chamber once the doors didn’t close. It was getting dark, so I retreated a bit into the nearby mistlands to set up camp and wait until morning. I would check the tower again at that time to see if it had reset.

I would need to think on this. The initial chamber was big enough to hold ten carts. That would probably be overkill. I would bring one cart, one pack. Then advance slowly if I entered. Lots of summons to test the way as well.

Perhaps getting someone with a summon skill to check the route first would be the best option. I didn’t like the tower in the slightest with the traps that could be involved. Just one mistake and I would be smushed, there were no obvious mechanical or energy mechanisms controlling the doorway. That was what had me really concerned.