William stood before his tower core, eyes fixed on the ground, his face twisted as if someone had just told him that his thing is small, and he knew they were right.
After twenty minutes lost in shock of his troops, William started thinking about his own life. He had never depended on anyone's support; that world had been cruel to him, too. But through hard work and stubborn determination, he'd done better than most.
He looked up, pointing a finger at the sky, and shouted, "So what if I have a weak troop? So what if they're just tiny fairies? Size doesn't matter...! I'll make them the strongest race this universe has ever seen. I'll make this tower so damn tough that even the universe itself will fail trying to conquer it. Anyone who stands against my tower, I will make them tremble in fear!"
His unbreakable will backed every word he spoke. His voice echoed across the empty floor; no one was there to hear him, but somehow his words reached a place where one of the greatest sacrifices had been made. There, a boon awaited a tower lord with a will strong enough to claim it among billions.
"I should check the rest of the tower's status carefully. Whatever it is, I've got to make use of it now," he muttered.
He opened the tower's status screen again, scrolling through it slowly. "Okay, so it starts with three floors. The recruitment limit for Beginner Tower (Low) is 20. I hope it'll go up in the future. Even if my troops are tiny, if you stack them enough, they'll even beat a titan," he said while smirking.
Then his eyes landed on the traits section. "What the actual hell are these? Two traits like potions from a medieval fantasy world, and one of them literally gives seeds to farm minions."
Then he checked the upgrade conditions. They looked almost exactly like the ones he'd seen in those Global Lords novels—resources, energy, stronger troops. The problem was, he had no damn clue where to get resources, and this Tower Point thing was a total mystery. "Should I just chop this tree down for wood?" he said, eyeing the tree suspiciously.
Not wanting to fry his brain with all this new stuff, he decided to just ask the system directly. "Hey! System, you there? Can you tell me what T.P. means in Tower Status? And what about resources—do I have to go out and collect them myself?"
The same instant, the system panel appeared;
[Tower Lords are forbidden from leaving their towers until the Trial of Towers ends.]
[Tower Points (T.P.) are the official currency used within every tower.]
[Using T.P., Lords can purchase anything they need from Tower Merchants assigned to their region.]
[Lords can also buy and sell using T.P. with other Lords in their region. For these transactions, they can check the Regional Chat.]
[Regional Chat and Tower Merchant functions can be found in Lord Status.]
[For now, Lords can only obtain T.P. from the Ascension Test.]
[Each Lord has been given an initial 100 T.P.]
A flood of messages flashed before his eyes, each one as dry and lifeless as a corpse. But as William scrolled through, things finally started to make sense. "Well, crap, can't leave the tower? That's harsh. Still, if I've got all I need here, maybe I can get used to this artificial sky."
His mind drifted to the Tower Merchant. Thinking maybe they have something useful to help him survive this first damn test. "I'll check them out after my so-called 'talent' is assigned. After getting 'Fairies,' my hopes are already in the gutter. But I want all my cards on the table before I spend any T.P."
"And don't even get me started on Regional Chat. It's probably just couples searching for each other in chat and crying as now they cannot fuck each other, or some smug bastard bragging about his main troop. Last thing I need right now is to get rage-baited by those idiots."
After a few minutes, the system panel appeared again.
[Dear Lords, in 60 seconds your 'Talents' will be drawn]
[Warning: Lords may experience pain depending on the rank of their talent, as their bodies are forcibly altered to suit their new gifts.]
Reading the message, William's face had no hint of a smile. He'd already given up hope for a good talent, but the bit about pain made him snort. "Right now, I could handle the pain of popping out triplets if it means getting a decent talent."
"But maybe I should prep a little. If I do get a good talent, the pain's probably going to be a real bitch." He wandered over to the flower bed circling the tree. Red, blue, and green flowers grew together, all looking similar to the 'Hellebores' he remembered from Earth.
From what he'd read in Tower Traits, the green flowers boosted health regeneration, which can come in handy. The blue ones were for mana, though he wasn't sure if they would be useful. He plucked three of each of the green and blue, figuring maybe the effects would stack. The red flowers are meant for attack, so no point in grabbing them.
After picking the flowers, he didn't eat them right away. Instead, he went back to the tree and sat with his back against the trunk in waiting. When the timer hit five seconds, he shoved all six flowers into his mouth at once. "Huh. No taste at all."
Outside, in the Tower Expanse, billions of towers stood scattered across the endless landscape. As the timer hit zero, beams of light erupted from every tower, in multiple colors. Some beams blazed with fierce intensity, shooting hundreds of meters into the air, while others were dull, barely clearing the tops of their towers.
But one was unlike the rest, a blinding white beam exploded from a single tower, its light so intense that anyone who dared approach would be roasted alive in seconds. It pierced straight through the sky of the Expanse, vanishing beyond sight, as if it was trying to stab a hole in reality itself.
That was William's tower. Inside, the entire floor echoed with hoarse, tortured screams.
When the timer hit zero, nothing happened for a split second. Then "Bdum!", a deep, echoing thump filled the silence. William scoffed, "Huh, another dramatic sound effect."
But almost instantly, it came again, faster and louder: "Bdum!... Bdum!... Bdum!"
The sound was pounding from his own heart. Suddenly, a pillar of white light shot up from the tower's core, and agony ripped through him. The pain started in his chest, then spread like wildfire through every vein and muscle. It felt like he was burning alive, inside and out. William screamed, raw and helpless, unable to endure the pain.
But it didn't stop there. His body raised upward, now hanging four feet above the ground. The pain intensified tenfold. First, his skin ignited, turning to blackened char. Then his muscles and veins ripped apart from his bones, followed by the sickening crackle of breaking bone.
It was as if his body was being demolished, yet not a single drop of blood spilled. William's voice was gone, shredded by his own screams. Still conscious, he endured every moment, now skinless, tears streaming from eyeless sockets, only to be vaporized instantly.
For a whole minute, he suffered the tearing, burning, and breaking. Then "Crackle...Crackle...Crackle". The sound came from his bones, but this time they weren't breaking; they were rebuilding, repositioning.
Then came the sound of stretching "Twaaaaang!", as muscles and veins reattached, followed by skin reforming from his chest outward. He was being remade, piece by agonizing piece.
The rebuilding took a minute. Then, as the white pillar finally faded, William drifted gently back to the ground, landing softly beside the tree. The instant his body touched the ground, he collapsed, unconscious from the hellish experience.
Then, through the haze, came a sound—not robotic or scripted, but a cheerful girl's voice. A white system panel shimmered into view, its text glowing gold.
[Absolute Gacha System: Activation in progress...]
[Linking with Tower System...]
[Connection Progress: 0%... 43%... 78%... 99%...]
[Absolute Gacha System online and ready to roll!]
[Congratulations, Host! You have awakened the Ex-Rank: Absolute Tower Gacha talent.]