Merlin was the last of his team to be spat out by the swirling portal serving as the entrance to the Tower they were assigned.

  They were transported to a landscape anyone in their right senses would prefer to avoid. Spread out in all directions was pure desolation, nothing but quartz sand sparkling indistinctly in the golden rays that fell from a ball of energy above. Not the sun, Merlin supposed, due to how it was far closer than the sun should be, and produced barely any heat. In fact, the weather was rather lukewarm, and he wasn’t certain if he loved that or not.

  Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere and not a single one of them had an idea where they were. Merlin could read it on their faces. He, on the other hand, felt disappointed.

  Despite knowing that Towers had not existed in Singularity Mage, Merlin had still been hoping somewhere in his heart that the Tower he and his team would be assigned would be one that he was familiar with. How that would have happened, he had no idea, but he had hoped nonetheless. However, reality hit him like a truck. And, so, like the rest of them, he stood speechless.

  Truth be told, his reason differed somewhat. Words characterized by a blue hue were shimmering before his eyes after all. That was an expectation that had not disappointed him.

  [Alert!: You have walked into a Tower]

  [Tower Name: The Tower of Xéros]

  [Red Quest received: Clear the 1st Dungeon before the time limit runs out]

  [Clear Conditions: ???]

  [Time Limit: 336.59.45]

  [Reward: Loot Box]

  [Penalty for failure: ???]

  Hmmm… Merlin hummed internally as his eyes perused the words before him. There was no Tower category, and that surprised him for a moment, until he recalled that during his research on Towers, he had never for once come across any category specification for them. He had glazed over it, because he was more concerned on taking in as much knowledge as he could on them before the expedition, and, as a result, the question of why Towers had no specifications were left unanswered. Worse, he had not come across this Tower of Xéros.

  Also, the clear conditions, for the first time, were cryptic. Dungeons told him what he had to do to clear them, which was basically just defeating the boss monster, but it was more than obvious that Towers were more complicated than that.

  Merlin exhaled and pushed the words away. Staring at them only made him feel more pissed that both his research and his cheats would be providing him little help regarding the information about the Tower.

  “All right, guys,” said Senior Hyunwoo as he turned around to face the rest of the team. “Quick recap. As you all may know, this expedition, test, even, is used in grading we second years, and determining our graduation. As a result, it’s very important to me and Sun-Hee.” he gestured at the cold silver haired lady, and she responded by digging the tip of her boot into the sand beneath her feet before cocking her head. He cleared his throat, embarrassed that he had been ignored, and carried on, “Please, I ask that we try our best to be coordinated. Each Cohort was split into four teams because it makes it easier to pass across information and stay together. Let’s not allow the goodwill of our instructors to go to waste.”

  “May I ask a question?” Park Yuri began as soon as Senior Hyunwoo stopped to catch his breath. He nodded. “How exactly do we clear the Tower?”

  Merlin raised a brow. He was not against one being a good and diligent student—like Hakyun—but Park Yuri was the granddaughter of the Guildmaster of the Silver Dragon Guild. A simple call to her grandfather, or even her father, who was one of the S-Class Mages renowned for participating in clearing the Primordial’s Tower, would present to her every information she needed to know about clearing a Tower.

  Had she really not done that?

  Senior Hyunwoo smiled. “Well, if anyone knew that, clearing a Tower wouldn’t seem so scary, right?” he joked—at least, Merlin hoped he was—but Park Yuri didn’t look impressed. Once again, he cleared his throat. Despite how handsome he looked, it seemed he was bad with the ladies. “Every Tower has a different clearing condition,” he explained, deciding to be serious. “What we first have to know is the history of the Tower.”

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  “Like Professor Jung said we should?” Daniel Müller asked.

  Senior Hyunwoo nodded. “Yes, that. Every Tower can be chalked up to a city, and its floors are simply the villages and cities that make it up.” That much was obvious to anyone who took the time to study, but Merlin didn’t interrupt. “The first floor is always equivalent to a hamlet or a small village.” He gestured around. “Hence, the desolate scenery and the lack of any living being even a mile away.”

  “Are you saying if we explore, we’ll find something that is…alive?” Hwang Man-Shik asked.

  Merlin hadn’t spoken a word to the boy ever since their teaming up during the setting and disarming traps class in the last term, but now was not the time for him to be bothered by such things.

  “Hopefully,” Hyunwoo replied. “Not every Tower has life, after all. This might very well be one of them.” The expressions of the party members became downcasted. Senior Hyunwoo seemed to notice this, because he quickly added, “But we won’t be sure about that yet until we, well, explore.”

  “So let’s do that already,” Senior Sun-Hee cut in, her expression even colder than usual. “I’m tired of standing here and chatting. Just because we have two weeks to waste doesn’t mean we get to waste our time talking about pointless things.”

  The rest of Senior Hyunwoo’s voice caught in his throat.

  Merlin was certain Senior Sun-Hee didn’t mean to be rude, she was just wired that way. Her words were blunt, harsh, and stinging. She couldn’t control her tongue, and her being generally unfriendly made matters even worse.

  Thankfully, Senior Hyunwoo seemed to be easygoing. Because only such people could cope with her.

  He chuckled and nodded. “You’re right. Then, where do we start? We can’t divide the party since we have such a low number, so we won’t be able to cover large grounds. How do we proceed?”

  Senior Sun-Hee sighed in exasperation, like she hated that duties had been piled onto her shoulders, which was really the reason. It was the same thing she did whenever Merlin came to her on the days assigned for their classes to hold.

  However, she was dependable. Merlin knew that.

  “First,” she started, “we’ll need shelter, food, and water.” She turned around to face the rest of the party members, her eyes staring at all of them at once, but still missing them completely somehow. “Did any of you bring any meals?” They all nodded, Merlin included. “Okay. We’ll have to focus on finding shelter then. Which brings us to two options, a pre-existing place, or one we make ourselves.”

  Everyone blinked.

  “One we make ourselves?” Sofia asked, just as incredulous as everyone else.

  “Yes,” replied Senior Sun-Hee. “All that stretches on for miles is just this quartz sand,” she kicked the sand, “so there’s a good chance civilization is lost on this floor. However, materials should still exist. Like he said,” she gestured at Hyunwoo, “a Tower is the equivalent of a country. And even if a country is wiped out, buildings or its materials should still exist. If we can’t find the former, we’ll take the latter and craft our own place to sleep. It’s either that or we sleep out in the open, and we don’t have any idea what the weather in this place is like, or what might come out at night.”

  Fluent, smart, and sharp. Senior Sun-Hee was really a great leader to have on his team. If only she could cut back on how icy she came across.

  “All right, then. Where do we begin?” Hyunwoo asked.

  Sun-Hee shrugged. “No idea. But let’s just pick a path and proceed for now. The rest will sort itself out, and it’s better than standing here.”

  Everyone agreed with that, and nothing more was said as they all rounded themselves up and took their first steps forward. Blue popped out of Merlin’s bag and crawled up to his shoulder then, and that action feared Merlin. After all, when the dragon was awake, it was only a matter of time before he got hungry. And Merlin was not exactly in the right position to be feeding a dragon a piece of the frozen meat he had packed. Which also brought him to another trouble. How was he to get frozen meat to feed Blue in the following days? There was definitely no fridge in the Tower.

  Maybe he should have left Blue back at the dorm, but then he would have come back a week later, in real time, to see his room frozen completely.

  He was in a mess. And his soured mood was made even worse when a few hours later, he and the rest of his team’s expedition through the sandy plains brought them before what could be classified as a crater in the center of the plains, bearing a forest that stood out like a sore thumb in its midst, flanking a stream.

  Merlin winced. It seemed they were going to be crafting their homes after all.