YOU HAVE ENTERED THE WHITEMOSS FOREST BIOME

  I stood on the slopes of a mountain range looking down into a huge valley filled with mostly pines, some oaks and birches. I saw some ponds, a large lake, hills and what looked like some ruins scattered throughout the valley. There was a waterfall coming out of the mountains across from me, crashing down into a river that flowed into the lake. Patches of snow were gathered under the boughs of the trees, piles of it here and there where the cold wind blew it.

  The biome appeared to be a high mountain valley in fall or beginning of winter, and had the temperature to prove it. The wind was cold and sharp, but my Resistance Essence helped me handle it.

  Glancing behind me, I saw a pretty solid rock wall heading up into the sky and disappearing in the clouds of the blue sky. I was happy to see blue sky again. It looked like the mountains contained the entire biome, which was one giant forest. The whole thing looked like it could take days to get across.

  I really hadn’t expected it to be this big. And this was just the first floor. How big could higher floors be?

  The ground was covered in moss and roots. Most of the moss was green, but here and there were patches of white, probably what gave the biome its name.

  I walked over to one patch, since I had a quest to gather it. The moss looked like moss, the same as the green, just white. I reached out to touch it and cursed as a jolt of pain shot through my fingers. I glanced at the Notification.

  YOU HAVE BEEN AFFLICTED WITH FROSTBURN BY WHITEMOSS

  Interesting. Had to be pretty harsh an Affliction for it to get past my Resistances.

  But then I was Level 103, which was technically only Level 3 in the Infinite Tower. My Resistances had probably at the beginning as well.

  What a weird feeling to be at the lower power end again.

  I didn’t know how to harvest the Whitemoss. Would have to figure that out back in Crossroads. But it wasn’t like I had a major time limit. I did have a time limit but could spare a couple hours to figure out the best way to harvest the moss.

  The time limit wasn’t set by the System or Infinite Tower, not exactly. The time limit was set by what we called the Level Disparity Tax. Basically the Celestial Challenge System wanted us to continuously challenge ourselves. Which was obvious as it was right in the name. It didn’t like when we were overpowered for a Dungeon or zone. So it kind of taxed us. Because we needed to Level our Path and all our Essences to get past the thresholds, it meant we needed to constantly run Dungeons and such to get those Essences. The tax came in the drop rate. If the Dungeon was equal Level, the drop rate would be something like 1 out of 50 or so kills might yield an Essence. If the Pather were higher Level, even something like only five Levels, the drop rate could be something like 1 out of 250 kills or even worse. If the Pather was ten Levels higher, it would be 1 out of 500 kills. The fun part, which worked out for someone overpowered like me, was that if the Pather was below the Dungeon Level the drop rate increased. I’d seen it as low as 1 in 10.

  The Challenge System incentivizing the Pathers and Adventurers to push themselves.

  What this meant for the Tower, with some of the Floors connected to the Leveling thresholds, was that the Adventurer could reach a point where their Path outleveled the Floor they were on but they had to keep running that floor to get the Essences they needed to break the Threshold and because they were now higher Leveled than the Floor the drop rates would plummet. By the time they broke the Threshold and then could get to the next Floor, they would immediately find themselves outleveling the next Floor, which would just compound their Leveling problem. It would get worse and worse until they could no longer Level from the Tower, ending their Advancement Journey and the opportunity to earn Multiversal Points.

  The Level Disparity Tax was why I hadn’t used all the Leveling Crystals I had in my storage. I was going to have to be strategic about how I used them and when.

  I walked away from the Whitemoss. The FROSTBURN debuff faded and the small bit of Health it had taken was rapidly regenerated. The System didn’t give us Health of Stamina bars, even though the things did exist. It was dealt with just like pre-System in the old Earth. Our bodies could only take so much damage. If an axe chopped off an arm, I’d be armless for the rest of my life. There were some ways to regenerate it, but that would be expensive and take a very long time.

  Something like the FROSTBURN was like getting shocked by electrical wires. A mild shock I could shrug off, a major shock and I’d be on the floor doing the worm. Shaking my hand, getting rid of the lingering tingling, I moved up the slope and took another look around, trying to think about where to go. I was high enough that I could see the entire valley. Nothing really stood out for a direction. Some stuff like the Pondtails were obvious, most of the other stuff I’d find wandering the woods.

  With no clear direction, I just started walking into the forest.

  ***

  My fist glowed a bright green, slamming into the head of the Ursaspine. It was knocked back, sliding across the ground, one of the gray trunked trees stopping its movement. The tree shook from the impact. The Ursaspine was massive. Not as big as the Elite Kodiak I’d killed earlier in the day, but still at least one and a half times the size of a normal bear.

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  It was a tan brown with streaks of gray. The rear legs were shorter than the front, giving the thing an odd look but that made sense considering what really made it different from normal bears.A two foot tall leathery spiked ridge ran down the monster’s back, starting from it’s head, between the eyes and ending at its hindquarters. The ridge rose sharply past the neck and then angled down, giving the two foot high point a wicked looking curved spike. A smaller ridge ran behind its front legs, another reason for the longer legs. The ridges were a darker brown color.

  The bear’s hide was pretty tough. Slashing weapons would have a hard time cutting through it, while the large pair was trying to bat the Adventurer’s head off. Lucky for me, I didn’t do any slashing.

  Turning away from the tree, the bear shook its head, growling at me. I didn’t give it a chance to recover, running right at it, using some Arcanum to use some stored kinetic energy to push my speed up. With more kinetic energy pushing down through my feet, I jumped up, fists still glowing green.

  A paw swung up at me but it was too slow thanks to my Essence Abilities. My fist descended, catching the bear in the side of the head. My blow pushed its head down, followed by my second punch as I landed. I had felt the skull cracking under the enforced blow.

  Landing hard, the bear tried to growl which turned into a wracking cough. The body shook and the bear breathed its last.

  I stepped back, looking around to see if there were any more of the creatures. They were strong, but I was a bad match for them. I was too fast. This had been my fifth.

  The Ursaspine tended to wander by themselves. Solo, which made it harder to track them down, but so far they were fairly common in the Whitemoss Forest.

  It was clear, nothing charging at me to try and eat me. Walking back over to the Ursaspine, I reach out to touch it. The creature disappeared, the Arcanum that created the creature returning to the Biome’s Core, where it would be recycled and returned as a monster. Maybe it would be another Ursaspine. In the place of the large bear was a small pile of loot.

  The end goal of all Adventurers. Loot, glorious loot.

  Touching the pile, I transferred it all into my Spatial Storage.

  YOU HAVE GAINED +1 URSASPINE HIDE, +3 URSASPINE CLAWS, +1 URSASPINE SPIKE, +2 URSASPINE BONES, +1 STRENGTH ESSENCE

  So far except for the five Ursaspine kills, I hadn’t made any more advancement in completing the Biome Quests. Along with the Strength Essence, I’d gotten a Darkness Essence. Two Essences in five kills, and out of a Dungeon, was a good drop rate. I didn’t think it would last. Probably the Infinite Tower teasing me. No way would the drop rate continue like that.

  Tracy would be happy. I had a feeling that the Essences from the Tower might be a little stronger than those on Earth. Maybe instead of a +1, they were +2? I didn’t know for sure, but just got a feeling of more power from them than the ones I’d gotten on Earth.

  Each Ursaspine also netted me +5 Tower Points and +5 Multiversal Points. It was going to take a lot of killing to hit that 200,000 Tower Points to clear the Tower’s First Floor. Clearing a Dungeon had to give more points and completing quests probably got a reward too.

  Flexing my fingers, cracking my knuckles, I glanced up at the sun. It had moved across the sky, letting me know that time was passing in the Biome. I figured there was some kind of time dilation but wasn’t sure. Wonder what the night was like in the forest?

  Picking a direction, I started walking. Time to kill some more creatures.

  ***

  My first wolf.

  The Whitemoss Wolf was about the size of a normal wolf from Earth. I was starting to wonder if all creatures were going to be similar to what was found on Earth. How universal, multiversal, were the creatures created by the Tower?

  It was an odd blue-white color, with some streaks of brighter blue. The eyes were a very piercing sharp blue, that still showed some of the rage the animal felt toward me. Wonder what I’d done to anger it so much. Oh yeah, I existed. I could feel the cold radiating off the wolf.

  It growled as it padded closer, each paw forming frost as it touched the ground.

  I was starting to sense a theme built around the Whitemoss.

  “Hey doggo,” I said, shifting my feet and feeding stored kinetic energy into my resistance.

  This was going to be a cold fight.

  The wolf came closer, picking up speed. I pushed the stored energy into my fists. With a growl, the wolf leaped. I twisted to the side but the thing was fast. I felt the front claws slashing across my back, the leather armor stopping them.

  Cold seeped into my body, I could feel it wanting to slow down my movements, but my resistance was high enough that I pushed the debuff away. It sucked that I couldn’t absorb the cold for kinetic energy, but at least I got some from the wolf’s momentum.

  It landed behind me, turning, still growling. I twisted back around, facing the thing.

  The wolf was faster than I was, which was a surprise, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The cold wouldn’t affect me. I just had to land a couple blows, my fists augmented with the Force Essence and kinetic energy.

  Funny thing about wolves in the System, they didn’t fight like wolves. Sure there was the charging and biting, which was a wolf’s main attack, but in the System they did more slashing with their claws as well. It had really bothered some zoologists that I had met.

  I shifted my feet again, waiting to take its next charge and leap. But it didn’t. Instead it used a special attack.

  With a howl, the temperature in the area dropped considerably. Enough that I even felt it through my Resistances. Frost spread along the ground, making it slippery. Interesting. The wolf charged, each step increasing the frost on the ground. The icy surface didn’t bother the monster.

  The wolf probably thought the icy ground would bother me. Couldn’t wait to surprise it.