CH1.4

We parked at the monorail station that would take us into the tower, where we would climb to the first floor. Luna helped me into a bulletproof vest. She slammed a Kevlar helmet on my head and made sure I packed enough ammunition.

I didn’t have any convenient inventories or spatial bags. Those ran into the millions for a bag that dropped weight to a tenth of normal, with a nine-by-nine-by-nine meter space inside. It was measured in the metric system because enchanters were crazy about it.

Luna armed herself with throwing needles, flying knives, and a red-tier rapier. A tier up was a massive leap; guns were slower than what Luna could do with her enchanted equipment. With a thought, she could send a needle moving at supersonic speeds. Most were hollow inside and filled with various poisons.

I stared at one of my shiny bullets as I counted them. They were too small to handle more than one enchantment. Enchanting bullets one by one was too expensive, so most ascenders learned enough to do it themselves.

The more I stared at my Nox .45 and thought about the snail monster, the more I wished I had a sawed-off shotgun. This was the first climb I needed to be brave.

Luna must have noticed my nerves. “Did you know that bullets used to be propelled by an explosive powder?”

“That would leave residue.” Tracking was an important part of combat. Luna could sniff out someone using chemical explosions from a mile away. I could see ascenders dying because a monster didn’t go down in one shot and caught their scent.

“What’s wrong? This is what you wanted? Don’t you want to impress Sable?” I closed my eyes and got myself under control. I wasn’t a coward.

“I’m good,” I said.

The monorail was too long and not long enough. I had time to think as we passed through the interior of the tower, but not enough time to harden myself.

“You can relax; we’re going to a part of the tower that isn’t frequented often. The monsters there don’t give much essence for killing them. They have been multiplying, and they’ve become a problem for other climbers.”

The monorail stopped letting passengers off at different parts of the first floor. When we stopped, we were the only remaining passengers. I walked past advertisements for some upcoming movies I’d been looking forward to.

A fenced-in area separated us from a group of mud huts. Roofs were thatched, and a monster stepped out of one. Its massive snout rose as it caught our scent. It turned in our direction and looked around, searching for us. The enchantments on the fence would keep us invisible to its sight until we crossed the threshold.

From inside the fence, the monster looked like a bad-resolution image. Some monsters harmed the minds of those who saw them. So fences around the monorail removed some details. I checked my Nox .45 to make sure it was loaded, and the safety was off.

Fur like pitch bunched up and curled across its body like wool. Asymmetric eyes dotted its head. A few were blind while others pointed in our direction. It had the head of a mule, the body of an ape, and the legs of a deer. Its hands were long and skeletal with too many joints. Each one extended, looping around the club in the monster's hand. There were no joints in its arms, but it could swing its back fast enough to crack its torso like a whip. It skipped toward us, opening its maw to show a needle-filled cavern that formed a circle like some deep-sea creature used to feeding on blue whales placed on land for us to deal with.

“Let me introduce you to the least popular monster in this dungeon Negros Chupacabra,” Luna said.

I had hunted deer before. A part of me felt bad every time I pulled the trigger. Taking a life was never easy. I felt it was a heavy responsibility.

I think it came down to practice. See target, draw, and fire was my mantra. Before I had taken more than a step, my gun was locked on target, and my finger was under the guard. Trigger discipline had been hammered into me. I could only get a climber permit with guns as my weapon of choice by showing I had good trigger discipline. I placed my finger on the trigger and squeezed.

The goat sucker tried jumping to the side and dodging my shot. I waited for it to move and fired. The monster’s head shot back. It howled as I controlled the recoil and fired a second time, hitting the monster’s chest. My second shot went wide, maybe grazing a lung. The monster took another step slow enough for me to get my gun back under control, aim, and fire. The monster’s head kicked back a second time, and it died.

I killed my first monster. With three shots left in the chamber, I looked around. I had tunnel vision. Then essence entered me, and my eyes widened as my core drank it greedily. It was a drop compared to what I needed for the next tier. Essence potions could help, but I needed money for them.

My lack of a combat ability made killing enough monsters to ascend a single tier a daunting task. But if I needed to step on a mountain of corpses to be with the woman I loved, I would.

Luna patted my back as five monsters fell to her needles. I looked around, stunned. I hadn’t seen her move. Mom always claimed Luna was too loud with her energy. She claimed even a newly awakened black tier could sense her. It was a complete lie. I saw the needles hovering with my eyes and didn’t feel a thing with my third eye. Maybe I was untalented or perhaps Mom was exaggerating.

“Is it safe to use my ability?” I asked.

I looked around as a dark shape came into view. I aimed, but the monster stayed out of range and shrieked. It was calling more monsters. I turned, and Luna wasn’t doing anything to stop it. More shrieks joined the call.

I manually pulled the spent shells out and reloaded. If I opened the cylinder, my gun would auto-eject all the casings and full rounds.

Despite hours of practice, I fumbled loading. I dropped a round on the ground and squatted to grab it.

“Never let yourself get close to the ground in a dungeon. It tickles a monster’s predator instincts.” I grabbed the round and loaded my revolver. I pushed my black core into the weapon, but the enchantment would only fire the rounds a little faster. The gun’s durability and heat-sink enchantments made it a little tougher to overheat.

Black tier enchantments could only do so much, and a revolver wasn’t a big weapon. It was also rounded to use less material and make it lighter. That made it harder to add enchantments. I was rethinking that decision. With double my strength after awakening, a little more material for an enchantment wasn’t a bad trade-off.

“Do they scare you?” Luna asked.

“It doesn’t matter; I will kill them. I’m not going to run.” I said.

Luna snorted. “If I tell you to run, you will.” The nearest monster crossed into the distance where I could reliably hit him. Luna placed a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t let yourself get killed to look brave.”

These monsters could regenerate. Their hearts should be in the center left of their chests. None of them wore armor. I fired.

It was the luckiest shot of my life. The monsters shifted into a run. They grouped, and I fired my sixth shot. I began to run and gun. My stamina felt endless. All those drills were finally paying off. I let my hands move reloading before I fired off six shots. I never took my eyes off them. When one reached out to finally get its hands on me, a needle ran it through, or a knife punched a hole in its skull.

Every kill fed my core. I could tell Luna was letting me have the lion’s share of it. For her, it was probably useless. When I fired my last shot, Luna made her move. The flying knives cut the rest of the monsters down. Like grass before a mower, they were uniformly diced to bits.

I holstered my pistol and placed a hand on one of the monsters. I felt my essence move from my core into the monster. It burst apart, leaving a pill bottle behind. It was orange with a white top.

Focus Pills

Tier: Black

Rarity: Common

Type: Consumable

Effect: Grants increased +15% concentration for the next six hours.

Stack Limit: 5