Earthen warrior

I advance using the method told to me by the blacksmith and it is able to shrink to 1% of it's original size the best talent level for a cultivation technique of what the person has told me is true, I get the alert on both the white rat and the orders to find an assassin with tainted energy and decide it would be for the best.

I know finding a capable assassin that hasn't signed with one species or another will be tricky but I am determined to do so and head out to see if anyone on the first floor can be that person.

I have plenty of information on things so as long as they are at the peak of beginning cultivation it should be fine.

Looking through the city for even a single person with a tainted mana talent as they are both rare and often persecuted within the tower, I use the back alleys and black markets to try and find someone that I think has potential when I come across a slave trader.

Slaves although extremely rare do exist but their is different types of them and the look of it the child with the collar on probably bit off more then they could chew with money or their parents sold them.

I intend to walk by as although restricting being a slave who owes money is far safer then one who committed a crime harsh enough for the tower to demote their status, but I hear the man shouting and freeze "This child is a tainted one and has been enslaved due to causing a mana imbalance, you can use and abuse all you like to this tainted one."

Mana is difficult and many loose control of it if they try and do a to powerful attack or even if they are fighting and loose concentration while casting spells, I believe this should have happened to the child but to be arrested for it meant her potential must be incredible enough to disrupt a entire region within the first floor a feat few if any could even hope to succeed with.

Well looks like I found my companion, I walk up and ask for her price but apparently I am not the only one interested as few prices higher then the 400,000 he said was thrown and although I have some money I can't compete with them, then I remember this is for a quest and send for help to get the child.

I walk away with a nearly empty wallet, a child behind me, and owing the person nearly 300,000 coins for this, but no matter how I see it I did the right thing.

I bring the girl to the inn I am staying at and when they see the collar they don't bother asking questions and simply let me go, entering the room the child seems nervous and is shaking most likely assuming I am some sick pervert who wants to play with her but instead I ask he what level her cultivation is at.

"I am nearly a core formation person." I have no doubt it is true as the collar forces truth and obedience.

"Good then I will get a means of forming the core from a friend and you will use it to advance in exchange you will act as my combat companion even after the sentence is deemed complete by the tower." I knew once a sentence if over the slave is released but I want her to myself after spending so much and calling in favors for her, and she must know that as well as she agrees without hesitation.

For her this is the best possible outcome for a purchase, I have the cultivation means in my hands by the end of the hour and she looks reverent as she reads it.

I sigh at her actions but can't begrudge her as tainted mana users rarely can get high grade cultivation means due to most people hating them and even if they sign servitude contracts get a short end of the deal, I look at the girl now freshly bathed and no longer in the rags but a normal set of combat clothes.

Her hair is an eerie black while her eyes are a more olive black color, her face is decent but nothing over the top like many of the beauties here in the tower, with pale skin without a blemish she looks pretty by pre tower standards but only middle of the pack here within the tower.

The clothes are a set of black pants and shirt with basic leather armor for her defense, the two daggers are strapped to her thighs for ease of access and her hair tied in a ponytail that barely reaches her shoulders.

She was already close to advancing on her own and with the method to advance in front of her she does it smoothly and in under a day that took me a few days proving my belief in her talent, we are ready to advance to the next floor and after paying my tab at the end I am now officially broke.

I look at the two coins left in my account with a pain in my heart but know their is only so much I can do about it, exiting the inn I look to her and tell her we are going to the second floor.

Slaves even if they haven't completed the quest will follow their masters in the floors making it so many die as cannon fodder due to not being powerful enough to survive on the floor, though for those owing debt they can remain behind as long as they pay tribute every month to pay off their debt.

We appear in a small town in a forest with a barricade around it and the sounds of fighting coming in all directions, it seems my entry will not be a clean one.

I rush to one side and see goblins flooding the area and a few more powerful goblins attacking the higher grade people who are probably the guards of the village, I tell the girl to help where she can while also going out to kill as many of the things as I could to help lighten the load on the guards.

I kill nearly 20 goblins before the fighting finally ends making me 2 coins a good amount for having just arrived on a floor, I look around and see a lot of people injured but the biggest shock comes from a tower alert telling me my slave earned 4 coins.

Crime slaves aren't allowed money of their own so it is sent to the owner, I just made 6 coins in this one fight when making even one coin a day is impressive on the first floor.

Looking at the bodies and seeing a few goblins that are more evolved then the others along with the damage they caused it is clear why the person helping me said one should only rise to this floor after advancing cause if I fought those while not having advanced it would be a death sentence.

We return into the town for the night and set out at dawn to hunt down the white rat for the person, it takes two days of trekking before we find signs of a area it could be in.

It took a week of searching to find it burrow and kill it due to it's clone ability making me have to avoid a few attacks causing it to slip my grasp but ultimately the girl is the one to finally kill it and we send it off to the person, and what I am given is meant for the girl.

I hand a pair of eerie black boots to her that have what looks like rabbit feet design on them, then I am told to have her name them and realize just what type of item it is.

She names it and as her owner I can see the features of the shoes.

-Lepus-

-This pair of shoes are made using both the body and mind of creature but has been purified before completion, this pair of shoes are bound to Selie

-Durability 200/200

-speed 10

-strength 5

-mana enhancement 10

-mana type tainted

-weight 3 pounds

-evolution level 0

-Ability: Speed enhancement, confusion

This pair of boots is even better then my knife though my knife weighs more which is probably where the extra bits are lost to due to the metal used, still she gained these boots and it is clear she understands the worth of such shoes better then most as she is a tower resident turned climber.

Tower residents are those who's home worlds are destroyed for one reason or another and can only find solace in the tower to survive, they can enter other worlds from the tower if those worlds agree but few do unless the person is powerful.

Most worlds are already over populated they can't handle more people added to their world.

I hope by the time I am done here in the tower the girl is powerful enough that my world is willing to let her join us as I would not feel comfortable leaving a person I had spent so long and much on behind.

Shaking my head to get rid of the intrusive thoughts I begin to head for the nearest city which is a weeks trip over a mountain as the town we appeared in is very far off from the main area of this floor, the information given by the person says that for this floor it is all about defending from mass goblin attacks and even the task we received from the tower is participate in ten goblin defense events.

I already have one but getting them will be tricky as the goblins only attack when in larger numbers then the place being attacked, meaning for large cities the goblins are a kingdom grade amount.

I will stop and hunt stray goblins near the city for now and once I am far enough along in my cultivation then and only then will I join with more of the goblin hunting parties, I need more practice and training on my martial arts and I need to get one for the girl as well though I wonder if the person won't be willing to give me one as a present when succeeding in a task from them.

I will ask tonight and if yes hope we get a task soon, arriving in the city of smog and black gunk it is clear this is not a stable city meaning it is on the verge of being over run any day.

We will not rest here but continue on as the chance of a high scale goblin siege here is to much.

Leaving the day we arrive may not be nice but I do not intend to remain even one day longer in the filth that is this city, we leave and I feel much better in the forest which could be filled with monsters then inside that city.

We kill a few more goblins who are clearly gathering in the path of the city and my first evolved goblin dies extremely easily though it is the mage type so all it did is throw one attack and then try and hide poorly, I kill it with a single swing of the sword and we continue on our way but the evolved goblins are worth 1 coin like a normal goblin in the tutorial is.

I figure it will be like the tutorial where once I go up the worth will drop and the amount of coins made will decrease, I need to hunt them as much as possible while I can then I don't want to repeat the mistake with the tutorial.