Wake Up Call

His flesh was torn as the bite marks had reached all the way to his bones and almost tore off his hand. 

Raze grimaced, looking at his hand. 

He had already applied the single minor healing potion that he had and was currently watching his hand heal at a visible rate. 

While yes, it still hurts a lot, the burning pain from earlier was slowly getting reduced.

Given some time, it should be healed. 

It really sucked that the healing of the potion wasn't faster or wasn't as intense as he had wanted. 

Maybe this was just because of the low grade of the potion he used or that the wound was deeper than he expected; whatever it was, it forced him to bear through the pain of an almost ripped-off hand continuously. 

Each second served to remind him of the risk he had taken and how badly it had blown up in his face. 

The whole fight against the hound barely lasted a few seconds, even less than a minute, and yet just in that small frame of time, he had lost his arm and became a cripple, just like before. 

Horror gripped his heart as he imagined a reality where he was a few moments late in activating his gate and had lost his hand, effectively turning into a cripple, just like in his past life. 

Just the mere thought was enough to freeze his whole body in terror; he couldn't even imagine what it would have actually felt like if it had happened. 

It was only now that he truly came to realise just how deadly the tower and all the abominations residing inside it truly were. 

In less than two days, he had almost become crippled. 

So far, he has just been sniping from afar without exposing himself to the monsters or danger. 

'So this is what everyone else who needs to fight close range constantly feels?' 

He shuddered just imagining it. By this point, it should have been no surprise to anyone that Raze was a coward who preferred dealing with issues before they could become a threat and in the most efficient way possible. 

He was not someone used to pain or physical strain, and he also loved life too much to effectively fight in close range, so for someone like him to have a long-range class was great and suited him perfectly. 

Even in the future, he was determined to dispose of threats from a distance in as advantageous a position as possible. 

And yet he couldn't get rid of the single question that plagued his mind. 

'What happens when I can't? '

When the tower forces me into a close-range fight, the enemy is too strong to be killed with arrows, or maybe it attacks me by surprise. 

There were countless different possible scenarios in the future that would force Raze out of his comfort zone. 

'So when one of those scenarios inevitably unfolds, do I just give up and accept death?'

"No, never!" he almost yelled, but remembered to stay quiet to not alert nearby monsters. 

He was currently resting on a relatively faraway and tall tree, but one could never be too careful, so he ensured to stay quiet. 

Anyway, moving back to what he was thinking about earlier,. 

Since he couldn't always rely on his bow and would eventually need to get up close with his opponent, what choice did he have? 

Was he supposed to somehow continue using his spear to fight with monsters despite the injury he just suffered? 

His hand was almost lost just because he wanted to take a risk and gain experience.

But then again, this only happened because he lacked experience. 

So what was he supposed to make of the situation? 

He needed to fight to gain experience, and he needed experience in fights to not die. 

Currently, he was stuck in a confusing dilemma that he couldn't quite figure a way out of. 

Ultimately, the only choice he had was to take risks and fight, even if it meant dying in the process. 

Of course, there was the possibility of just grinding out stats long range for now and only going close range once he was significantly stronger than his foes. 

But even he could acknowledge that such an approach was highly detrimental to his growth and made him get used to always fighting someone weaker than him. 

Something that almost never happened in the tower.

Learning in such a way was hardly any better than not knowing how to fight close range in the first place. 

The thing that he desperately needed was experience, and to gain that experience, he needed to constantly risk his life. 

"How did I go from desperately wanting to live just a day ago to being suicidal today?" he wanted to cry out. 

Of course, the question was only rhetorical, as he already knew the answer. 

It was obvious, even. 

To survive in the dreadful and extreme situations that the tower constantly throws its challengers into. 

Being flexible was perhaps even more important than simply having a lot of strength. 

And as a novel reader, there was hardly anyone out there, at least right now, who knew this fact better than him. 

He already knew this fact even before coming to the second floor, and yet he tried not to think about it. 

The ease and convenience his long-range battle style offered further helped in forgetting about this. 

Ultimately, it took almost losing his hand for Raze to be reminded of the deadly reality of the tower. 

Out of the current thousand participants who had accepted the tower proposal to join alongside him, less than half were going to survive the tutorial.

While he hadn't really even considered the possibility before, the chance of him being one of the many dead climbers whose hopes and dreams were crushed by the tower was astronomically higher than the chance of him clearing the tower. 

The last battle had really served as a forceful wake-up call for him. 

Leaving him no choice but to adapt like the tower wanted or get crushed under its indifference. 

"Allocate all beast shards to endurance."

His hand was already healed as he climbed down the tree. 

"Let's start off with the weaker monsters."