[Welcome to the Fifth Floor of the Celestial Tower.]

  Nimirea hears the words and raises an eyebrow.

  This means there must be particular requirements to be fulfilled in order to go to the next floor.

  [In order to open the portal for the sixth floor, you must release the five pillars in this room.]

  [To release a pillar, you must gather the stones from the Elite Armored Insectoid Archers of each wave. One of the Archers has the stone. You have ten minutes to clear a wave. If you don’t have the stone by the time the wave is cleared, you must try again with the next wave. The waves will not stop until the floor has been vacated. If you don’t kill all the monsters from one wave, they won’t disappear and they will instead be joined by the next wave’s monsters.]

  This is going to be a problem, Nimirea thinks. She can immediately pinpoint why since she’s been watching Jacob fight all this time.

  He’s not a Breaker. Not a normal one, at least. Breakers like the Highblood might have had an easy time here. Anyone who specializes in dealing large amounts of damage in a short amount of time is built for this very floor. There can only be so many monster at once, so as long as you’re quick in killing them, you can easily deal with the fifth floor.

  She looks at Jacob, who’s frowning since he probably understood the problem here.

  He’s an Affliction Specialist. His specialty is in dealing large amounts of damage, possibly even larger than a normal Breaker, but he needs to set up the debuffs for that damage to kick in.

  And that, Nimirea knows, means that Jacob is done.

  I will finally have to intervene. He talks a big game. He talks about me joining him—about the fact that he will convince me to join, and… she feels her ears burning up. About the fact that he likes me? Well, he can’t do anything here and—

  As soon as the monsters spawn, Jacob simply looks around and goes for the first archer he sees.

  Well, there’s not really any other strategy than going randomly he can apply. In the end…

  Nimirea sees Jacob taking almost a full minute to kill the Elite Armored Demonic Insectoid Archer even with his debuffs but then…

  A stone drops from the monster and Jacob brings it to a pillar, letting it dissolve into nothing.

  “What?”

  She can’t believe what she’s seeing, how is it possible that Jacob is doing that considering that he is just an Affliction Specialist. He is not supposed to have such an easy life.

  Well, she reasons, it’s probably because Jacob is just lucky. She sees him struggle with the rest of the wave and not even a third of it is cleared by the time the second appears.

  He’s done for, what does he think—

  Nimirea bats away one monster that attacked her, disappearing it into a spray of gore, which immediately scares every other monster in the wave to focus on Jacob.

  The moment she got distracted, she sees Jacob bringing the second key to a pillar.

  How?!

  Then, it dawns on her.

  The Grimoire!

  “Jacob, are you using the Grimoire to see which one has the key?” Nimirea asks, walking forward through the wave of monsters, releasing spikes of water that impale every single monster on the floor.

  “Yeah,” Jacob says, cracking his neck. “Oh, and thank you for that.”

  Nimirea looks at the corpses of the monsters and sighs.

  “If you can clear this on your own, it doesn’t make any sense to waste time here.”

  The next three waves, Nimirea slaughters the monsters without even batting an eye and lets Jacob retrieve the stones and open the portal to the sixth floor.

  * * *

  “This is unacceptable!” Vyrrak slams his fist on the desk of the Headmaster, who just raises an eyebrow at the Dragonkin.

  “Headmaster,” Asterion says, trying to pull Vyrrak back, “I agree with Vyrrak. You let this woman infiltrate the Academy on purpose and now she’s with Jacob inside a Dungeon. We ask that you send someone to save him.”

  “And to kill her,” Iskara hisses.

  “Jacob Cloud is not going to die,” the Headmaster replies slowly, getting up from his chair and circling the desk to face Vyrrak. “It is, however, surprising that he guessed it already. And you all followed him? Every single one of you went through with Jacob Cloud’s plan to trap that girl?”

  “What does that have anything to do with—“ Vyrrak is shouting but then he sees Zibrek walking past him, standing then right in front of the Headmaster despite the great difference in height.

  Zibrek taps her side and a metal contraption unfolds from her legs, carrying her higher until her eyes at the level of the Headmaster’s.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Headmaster, are you sure Jacob’s not going to die? Why wouldn’t the woman not kill him now that she understands just how dangerous he is to these people? He’s not physically strong, but look at what he just did. Unless he has a Rainbow Skill that lets him see the future, I can’t even fathom how he deducted her real identity.”

  “He doesn’t have any future sight,” the Headmaster says, tilting his head at the Goblin girl. “But he… he definitely has something completely different from anybody else. This wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

  “What does that even mean, old man?!” Vyrrak roars, struggling against Asterion.

  “That Jacob Cloud is impossible to predict, apparently. But I can tell you this, he is not in danger with this woman. In fact, I can guarantee you that she made the worst possible move. Trapping herself inside the Dungeon, shutting down the entrance… she’s creating an extremely strong Karmic tie to him. The more she tries to claw something out of him, the more she tries to hurt him, the stronger this Karmic tie.”

  “What does that mean?” Kaelric asks. “What does Karma have anything to do with this?”

  Every single Champion awaits the answer of the Headmaster, sharing the same curiosity that Kaelrik just expressed.

  “It means that this is not going in whatever way she thinks it will. But,” the Headmaster says, adjusting his golden frames, then, bothered, taking them off and with a little cloth, starting to clean them. “I’ll make sure that Jacob Cloud is retrieved after he leaves the Dungeon… You will go back there, too. I fear that he might need someone to support him.”

  “Why?” Kai Valemont, Jacob’s brother, asks.

  “If he wants to truly achieve the power he’s after… his Karma is not going to be kind to him.”

  * * *

  Sixth, seventh, and eighth.

  Jacob Cloud made it through every single floor thanks to the Grimoire.

  Now, he’s resting on the eighth, looking at Nimirea, who’s staring daggers back at him.

  “You just cheated the whole way through.”

  “I did,” Jacob nods.

  “You’re a lucky bastard.”

  “I am.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you, that you didn’t deserve this power?”

  “What do you mean?” Jacob raises an eyebrow.

  “What did you do in order to obtain this power? What price did you pay?”

  “I think you’re inverting the order,” Jacob says. “It’s not about the price you pay before, it’s about the one you pay after. It’s about what you do with the power.”

  Nimirea narrows her eyes because she wants to see if Jacob truly believes what he’s saying, if there’s a crack in him.

  “So you think that the price waits for you on the other side of power?” she says. “You think it won’t kill you while attempting to pay the price to obtain it?”

  “It might kill you—as pretty much everything might. But that just a possible outcome, a consequence,” Jacob says. “The real price comes after the power, with the responsibility that comes with it. The price you speak of is generally based on effort, sure, but also as much, it not much more luck.”

  “That sounds like an awful lot of arrogance. What are you even trying to say, that you’re willing to take luck and as many shortcuts as you can? What about their price?”

  “If I am handed a shortcut, then I take it, and if there’s a price later to pay, I’ll pay it. If the bill is higher than I expected, I’ll pay that too.”

  “What if the price of your arrogance is me taking your life and your Skill?”

  “If that’s the price, that’s the price. If you win, you take my life and my Skill, but you can’t change the order. I already have the power, and I have already used it. Later, the responsibility might lead me to my death as what you see as the payment. If it comes through you, then… it comes through you.”

  “You’re… confusing,” Nimirea frowns. “I don’t get it.”

  “Ok,” Jacob says, “how about this, then. You are thinking that people must deserve this or that. That you have to sacrifice yourself, to bleed, or whatever. Right?”

  “That’s how it is.”

  “Sure. So, is that a correct representation of what you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alright, then, how about we put it this way—you don’t really have to earn nothing.”

  “That’s—what do you even mean?”

  “I mean that the world doesn’t wait for your effort,” Jacob says. “It moves on its own, and it drops power wherever it wants, and it crushes whoever stands under the wrong stone. You can sweat for a century and die with nothing, and you can fall into a hole and walk out with a Rainbow Skill. So if you’re asking for fairness, you’re asking for a world that doesn’t exist.”

  “So, does one just surrender if they’re not as lucky as you?”

  “No,” Jacob says. “It’s the opposite. Surrender is when you demand justice before you act. Acceptance is when you act anyway, and you face the punishment when it comes.”

  “And you don’t think that’s cowardice, just wielding power you never earned?”

  “It’s cowardice to wait for permission,” Jacob replies. “It’s cowardice to wait for the world to acknowledge your suffering so it can hand you a prize. I’m not waiting. I already have more power than I ever imagined, and I used it, and I’ll keep using it. The bill just keeps following and growing alongside my power. The bill is what you must do with the power.”

  Nimirea stops for a moment.

  “And you think you can pay it when it comes?”

  “I don’t get to know,” Jacob shrugs. “The bill of the responsibility I assume comes when it comes, and I take it because it’s mine. That’s the whole point. And it’s no different for you just because you ‘earned’ your power. The world is not fair. Karma’s not fair either. That’s why I asked you to join.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At least we’d be fighting together until the bill comes.”

  “I already have my people,” Nimirea averts her gaze.

  “And they’re welcome too,” Jacob says with a smile.

  “Just… cross the portal, Jacob. There’s a Boss on the other side. And then, your Secret Room. You already lost Baalrek, you’re about to show how weak you are against the Boss. And then, later on, I’ll show you the difference between someone who lucked into power and someone who paid a steep price for it.”

  “The difference between us, Nimirea,” Jacob smiles, “is that I’m pretty sure I’ll keep being lucky.”

  “I locked you in a Dungeon where you just lost your master to the Mad God’s Curse, where you are showing me, the leader of the Dark Champions, every single trick and Skill you have. You even told me which Skills you’re using. Do you realize I’m your enemy, that I will kill you without batting an eye?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you keep considering yourself lucky?”

  “I know what I said,” Jacob smiles and enters the portal to the ninth and last floor of the Celestial Tower.

  Nimirea would have dismissed him as a fool if he hadn’t caught her. However, the fact that he’s the one who revealed her identity makes her pause and wonder if she’s falling into another trap.