Of course. It wasn’t much of a walk up the spiral staircase, but the incessant notifications didn’t make it much easier. And now there’s a whole battle with a million skeletons who use the exact same magic she does.

  This was going to be really annoying, she set up herself to last a long while against people capable of much more damage than she ever was, and now fighting hundreds of just clones of her is just annoying.

  An endless slugfest, she heals herself, they heal themselves. It’s just annoying, and there appears to be no end. And despite constantly levelling up, her magic got stronger the same amount the skeletons did.

  Which is a bit of a problem, looks like her original strategy wasn’t ever going to work here. She finally decides to give up and use her magic in unique ways, since the skeletons only had her very well defined skills, the ones that were weak, and easier to break through using her less easily defined ones.

  The ones with actual uses she had to come up with. The usual uses were still available for the skeletons, but after one singular test with her fire creating spell, instead of lighting the skeleton on fire, she rather lit the area around it, to purge the oxygen surrounding the skeleton, then with an air spell she was able to remove even the smoke due to it’s lighter qualities.

  This made a vacuum, which with a well timed punch created a massive burst in damage, both to the skeleton and partially to herself as well. But nothing her healing spell couldn’t fix instantly.

  The skeleton took a lot more damage than she did anyways. And it was dead. And that is thankfully when she learnt these skeletons did not copy her skills she used on others. Everything that could have herself as the target, these things had, and used.

  Their teamwork was shoddy, launching attacks whenever they physically could, no thought behind them, and with the constant level ups resetting her MP, and presumably their infinite source of it, they were both able to infinitely heal.

  Only creative one hits were able to purge these skeletons, but she still had to be careful. Just because the level ups were growing more scarce didn’t mean a damned thing to these monsters. These beasts.

  But she had plenty of tricks up her sleeves, plenty of Aces she thought she’d never have to use, and they were all not in the rules as written. These skeletons were unable to abuse the system, as they were just slaves to it.

  “Hm, maybe this floor was more of a lesson in the System.”

  Clara had spoken to herself before throwing out skill combos that cost next to nothing, with the constant level ups. These things were moving exactly as she was before this floor. Before she even saw these skeletons. They really are just a past version of her that she has to defeat over and over and over and over.

  Entities to be purged, and with them, the ability to move beyond just one’s ‘stats’. Beyond just ones level. For these skeletons all granted exactly a fourth the EXP needed to level up. And she knew this for her current level because she always kept mental track of that.

  Even with the incessant level up notifications, she could always keep track of it. But she never kept a conscious thought of it, because she was mid battle. She made a string of frost, and brought in a skeleton, and then blasted it with pure fire, superheating the frost and causing a minor explosion localized entirely within the skeleton’s torso thanks to air magic.

  And another one was gone. They were dropping like flies now that she was using her magic in new and creative ways, superheating and freezing skeletons quickly to kill them. The benefit to fighting inhuman beasts was that they were only capable of following the rules as written, but the downside was she couldn’t just suffocate them, or kill them with just one creatively placed skill.

  She had to combine them, ending them in creative methods as though she was fighting someone far stronger than her, because otherwise they’d just heal away the damage she did as she did theirs. Their damage was meaningless, but she also knew that her base was just as well.

  She continued combining skills, sometimes launching them upwards with an earth spell, then encasing them in a wind prison. With that wind prison, she grabbed as many as she could, then compressed it like compacting the earth on a grave.

  The stone of the floor seemed to go down endlessly, with no end to the bricks. It was at least built like a thick wall, with each layer not perfectly in line with the layer in front. But that also meant more ammunition to stive off the skeletons ever so slightly while she focused on one or two at a time.

  Her skill [Earth Pellet] came in really handy at times like this, as it launched little segments of earth directly where she wanted it to be launched. Great for intercepting the skeletons’ own attacks, or really anything.

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  The skeletons weren’t very brutish, but neither was she, which only solidified her theory of this floor, or maybe just a singular challenge, to give them real growth. It both increased their capabilities on the system side, since there were obviously more than four in this room, having already killed 20 or so, but since they are capable, and do the same exact things you do, you have to be better than yourself to progress.

  A splendid idea really, for the tower to come up with. And decently easy for her party to catch on to it. It’s a difficult challenge, with truly not too much risk of death since those who are glass cannons are already long since dead.

  But the fact that she even has to work through this, similar to a math problem, is of great fun. The reward of this isn’t just the party getting to a closer level to Shammus, but also her own skill between certain abilities, which are just vague enough.

  The system isn’t kind enough to mix them together for her, but that’s alright!

  Sornid continued jumping up between the spirals. He doesn’t really care too much for the stairs, they are too lowly for him. But maybe he could at least use them to elevate himself to the heights he needs to be at.

  His continuous leaps left him something he wanted more. The reason they were there. But he never got any answer, at least an audible one as he hopped from stair to stair, not even climbing like a normal person.

  The spiral allowed him to skip over half the steps just by jumping across the room, although this method was far more risky. It’s perfect, at the top the secrets of why the hell magic is around could be right ahead, and the only way to know was beyond these silly Level Up notifications.

  This tower itself had to be made with a purpose, a history beyond just people, just as with everything else in this world. Even if he was of an upper echelon of people, there was always something above him, whether it was a King, an Emperor, or even if he were to reach those positions, it’d be something separate.

  General concepts would keep him in check, his own power limited by itself. A weak blade, tempered by the experiences before leaving it fragile and even though sharper than any other, still breaks under the pressure of an actual swing. He refuses to be the weak blade, never to be chosen.

  Which is why as soon as the spiral was gone, replaced by an endless field of skeletons, not necessarily below, but he was capable of walking on them. When he saw one use [Firestorm] with the exact same changes he personally added to it did he realize the reality of this situation.

  These beasts were inhuman, unable to become exhausted, but he was human. And these beasts had the exact same tools, just not any of the weaknesses of the exhaustion factor. Which meant he had a time limit, while the enemy held the same goal with no time limit.

  And the enemy was far greater in power. The only benefit Sornid had over these- things, was that he was leveling up constantly, acquiring their inability to become exhausted and having the intelligence he always did.

  But now was no time to gloat about his intelligence. Usually attack skills such as [Spike Ball] and [Purge] were used for attacks. But Sornid realized that those both have a lower cost when used on inanimate things, or other spells. Since the only thing that is required to completely negate a spell is just a slight deformation in the spell circle, something his more powerful spells rely on, he’s able to use [Purge] to prevent magic entirely.

  And these skeletons sure did love to use the greatest firepower spells he held. They stayed away from spells that can’t target himself for buffs, which he’s really grateful for. All his party has great buffs, and his are weak, but the buffs he can’t apply to himself puts a version of him with massive firepower and those buffs into an entirely separate class.

  But Sornid realizes another benefit to the violence going all around. His own unique skill he wrote, [Betrayal] with its really limited uses outside of a situation like this. Due to its limited availability, its cost is actually low. He opens the description just to ensure it’s accurate.

  [Betrayal]

  [COST: 1000 MP a Second]

  [All enemies around react to accidental attacks as though they were attacked by an enemy themselves! New priority is the newest attacker.]

  And of course, activating that allowed him to also activate for just a split second, [Diffusion]. The cost was almost all his MP previously, but now it was just the tip of the iceberg. It allowed him to negate attacks by launching them at closest enemies, which he specified that it didn’t count as his own.

  This meant he didn’t get as much EXP, yet it also meant it started a riot. His really high damage abilities and AOE took care of the skeletons with each other. He laughed as he activated [Wings of Freedom], a buff that only gave him wings that were truly connected, to fly into the sky and watch them from the sky.

  The very beasts that tried to slaughter him were slaughtering himself, and he profited greatly. It mattered very little with how they were fighting with his own abilities. He didn’t care if they used his likeness. He was stronger than them, and this only locked that belief in place.