13th Floor

Winston looked around in every direction, slowly turning.

Then, looking in a particular direction, the bells beneath the coat chimed. That was all the directions he needed. With a slight effort of his legs, he dashed out of the castle at full speeds. His teammates yelled something behind him, yet he paid them no mind.

Dashing right out of the castle and right out of the vegetation that followed after, he reached the end of the island.

Endless blue was what he saw at the horizons and the water glistened through the air, reflecting the scintillating sun up above.

And there, approximately one kilometer away in the water was a small canoe, atop which was seated a white haired behemoth.

Winston narrowed his eyes at him. With his improved eyesight, he could clearly see through the large distance.

The man who was silently rowing the boat suddenly looked over at him and waved with a compassionate smile.

The corner of Winston's lips almost twitched. Almost.

Then, shaking his head, he headed back to the castle.

The way the man disappeared was enigmatic for sure, even to the point of almost escaping his own senses and his crytologist observation power, however, in the end, Winston had always remained aware of the strange abilities shinsu could help manifest.

There were certain things he was sure of, such as the image not being an illusion and no amount of teleportation being involved. That itself narrowed the scope of what could have happen down, and he could simply reverse engineer from there. Besides, there was no merit in chasing a strange man through the sea just because there was a failed attempt at ruining his new suit.

Winston sighed and decided not to worry about the strange encounter. There were bound to be plenty down the line anyways.

~~~

The rest of the test went without any hiccups. Shibisu's team was able to secure another large island which made them sit comfortably in the top 3 teams.

And before long, they had already passed the test and earned the right to get to the 13th floor.

Winston walked out of the transport zone of the floors. The transition between all the floors required the permission of the specific administrator that reigned over that floor, ensuring that they had indeed earned the right to ascend. Naturally, it only included the regulars that were ascending for the first time. For the regulars that had already been to a specific floor, not much permission was needed and they could freely come and go, although they were limited in what they could do on a lower floor.

Winston's eyes met the beautiful scenery of numerous stone sculptures that floated atop large islands in the sea. What he stood atop of, was a large marvel of mechanical engineering, a gigantic ship that floated in the air by itself.

Through Winston's spirit vision, the mechanics behind the floating ship were revealed quite effortlessly. With the crytologist, astrologer and magician potions, his spirit vision had transcended beyond any sequence 7. He even suspected it had reached the potential of a sequence 5 of the hermit pathway.

"What do you say? Should we take a little time off?" Shibisu's voice came from behind him.

He turned his head slightly, looking at him from the corner of his eye. Then, he smiled.

"Is that your own question, or someone else's?" Winston chuckled.

Shibisu scratched his head and walked forth, leaning onto the railing that Winston was leaning at.

"It was the two princesses that wanted the break. Though I can see everyone wants a short one as well. The previous months have been quite hectic for them." Said Shibisu who still wore a track suit, albeit of a different colour scheme. He laughed dryly. "The princesses weren't too comfortable with asking you..." He shook his head.

Winston also mimicked his laugh, feeling a bit awkward. Within this short time, Winston had been tacitly elected as the co-leader of the group, right along with Shibisu. And so, the decisions of their group were left to the two of them, with the rest of the members conveying their respective wishes to them.

And for some reason, the two Princesses had taken it upon themselves to appear more... worthy..? Of the princess title in front of him. For that reason, they followed through with all of his commands in tests and even trained and sparred alongside him.

As of the current moment, only Winston was capable of somewhat controlling the two tanks on their team.

He did not know the exact reason, but it was possibly because of him saving the two princesses on the floor of tests. Not to mention the obvious strength gap between them, now that he had ascended to a mid sequence.

Even at sequence 8, he was particularly stronger than any other regular, the princesses included. Now? Let's just say he was a little bit stronger. Let's just say that.

"Anaak specifically told me to not mention them and approach the topic as my own recommendation."

Winston laughed a bit.

"She still seems to not keep you in her eye huh?"

Shibisu harrumphed. "She cares about everyone in the team. It's just that she seems to respect you a lot more."

Winston stayed quiet for a moment, silently watching the scenery below.

Then, after a moment, he spoke.

"Perhaps we can a take a little break."

"Yes!" Shibisu pumped his fist in the air, seemingly happy.

"You seem awfully happy." Winston chuckled.

~~~

Zarhan stabbed ahead with his spear, the tip of his weapon moving like a phantom through the wind. His spear spun around in the air, making enchanting circular arcs with speeds that left after images in it's wake; making it difficult to predict the next movements.

He took a step and attacked from the flank with his leg, tearing through the air and stabbed ahead again, a motion that created a whistling sound, akin to a sonic boom.

With that, he slammed the handle of his spear into the ground and wiped the sweat that had appeared on his head with a smile.

Suddenly, a sound came from the side.

"Back to training already? We've only arrived onto this floor." The voice said.

Zarhan turned his head, finding Amon who was heading towards him with a smile. He wore a dark black hoodie with purple embossement and dark black pants.

Zarhan scoffed.

"I was getting myself used to the greater shinsu density. Ye ought to do the same." He commented with a mocking voice. "Care for a spar?"

"I certainly wouldn't mind." Amon smirked, and then, he pulled out a short sword from under his hoodie and adopted a combat stance.

"Where did you keep that?" Zarhan raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Less talking more fighting." Amon scoffed.

With that, Zarhan took on a ferocious disposition and readied himself for a clash.

The hall they were in was a fully metallic one, somewhere between 200 to 300 meters large, both lengthwise and widthwise.

There was also a second floor railing on the side walls, which housed a view to the outside through windows.

There was no one in the training hall at the moment, leaving the hall to the two regulars.

They stood in stillness for a moment, gazing silently at each other.

And then, Zarhan moved.

With a powerful step, his body instantly covered a distance of several dozens of meters and stabbed ahead. The spear broke through the air without a shred of resistance.

Amon side stepped to dodge, however, the stabbing moving turned into a sweeping one, prompting him to hold up his short sword and block.

Clang!

Amon was thrown backwards into the air with a sonorous clash of metal. His feet skidded along a distance of 10 meters, and then, Zarhan was atop him again!

Shaaa!

Clang! Shing! Shuuun!

Various sounds of metallic impacts rang out in the hall as both Zarhan and Amon moved about with speeds hardly visible to the naked eye. Their motions were a monotonous blur of repeated clashes with each other.

Clang!

Zarhan stepped onto the ground and jumped up into the air, narrowly dodging a slash from Amon. Then, taking a stance mid air, the weapon red of battle in his hand was thrown with a single swing of his arm!

Whooosh!

Boom!

The spear embedded into the ground below, making spider web shaped cracks spread out from the metallic ground. Amon had already retreated backwards when the spear was thrown, avoiding the attack entirely.

Zarhan landed onto the ground, however, before he could retrieve his spear, Amon was already atop him.

Amon swung his short sword in erratic movements, appearing incredibly disoriented, however, a trained eye would be able to tell that it was anything but.

Zarhan moved his body and blocked with his hands, intercepting Amon's hands before he could make a full swing, then, he kneed him in the abdomen!

Bam!

However, Amon remained unfazed and even smiled.

Then with a tremendous effort of his muscles, Amon picked up Zarhan and threw him right into the air, a full 50 meters away from him!

A boisterous laugh couldn't help but escape his mouth. "You've come a long way from simply getting beat up by us!" He exclaimed. "Concentrating you shinsu at your abdomen just before the impact. You mastered that trick earlier than expected."

Amon's smile widened just a tiny bit, a change that wasn't easily visible.

Then, he again took a combat stance and prepared to burst out in speed.

A faint hue began to escape his skin, covering his body in a layer of illusory blue mist.

Ashul Edwardu's research papers: Of the Tower's Weapons was one of the things that revolutionized the way shinsu was perceived in the tower. It offered an explanation of widely seen phenomenon and commonly used attack strategies and was widely available to the common populace. At the rich ones, since it was quite expensive.

Of course, it wasn't possible go get it before the 20th floor, as the wider tower only opened up at that point for the regulars.

However, after their team passed out from the 2nd floor, Khun, the blue haired fox gave them a very peculiar gift. It was a copy of the book in it's entirety, something that was also taken from Khun Eduan's treasury! It was something Winston actively made everyone study and utilized it widely in his own research papers: Tales from the Lake.

Ashul's research did not include the various applications of shinsu as a weapon, only covering how it behaved in a variety of situations and how it influenced the weapons widely utilized in the tower; which was expected as it was, above all, a research paper.

However, Winston had found new ways to utilize shinsu. One of which, was the 'Diffusion Boundary!'

Zarhan's eyes widened a bit in amazement as he overlooked Amon's body which was quickly covered by a faint blue mist. He broke out with a toothy grin and a rambunctious laughter, getting increasingly pleased with his friend's progress.

"You even learned the Diffusion Boundary!"

Amon didn't say anything, only taking a single step forward. And so-

Boom!

Whoosh!

Shaaaa!

His figure rapidly vanished from it's place, dashing all the way across the hall over to Zarhan! In the eyes of any normal regular, he would have only appeared as a momentary blur appearing in the wind, with his speed reaching almost 70 meters per second!

"Hahahaha!" Zarhan laughed as they clashed in the air, his hands tightly holding onto the arms of Amon, preventing him from getting out a full swing.

His eyes glowed for a moment, and then, even his own skin began to get covered by a faint illusory layer of blue mist!

~~~

A/N: Throw some stones~~~

Cheers~~