Chapter 33 - Chapter 19: The First Stone Oath

The Guild that stayed. The ones who chose the Tower over Earth.

📍 Tower Floor 12 — [Basilica of Echoes]

Status: CLEARED

Civic Tier: Livable Zone

Player Activity: Ongoing

Guild Flag: [None – Pending Registration]

The echo from Wang Ling's silence still hummed in the marble veins of Floor 12.

Three hours after his departure, a new group of players arrived.

But the Tower had already shifted.

[📢 SYSTEM UPDATE: FLOOR REPLICATION INITIATED]

🎯 Reason: Floor Cleared – World System Stability Enabled

🧿 Cleared Floors now split into dual-state:

1. Civic Layer — permanent, livable zone

• 🟢 Accessible to:

o Earth civilians

o Non-combatants

o Settlers, merchants, scholars

o Returning players during cooldown

• ❌ No combat trials

• 🛡️ No monsters or active threats

2. Challenge Layer — instanced replica of original trial

• 🔴 Accessible only to new players

• 🩸 Full danger preserved

• ☠ Death and elimination apply normally

• 🕳 Independent of civilization layer

⚠ Non-climbers living inside cleared floors will never be exposed to replication combat threats

The Basilica became two worlds.

On the surface:

Markets bloomed. Scholars mapped the glyph-veined ceilings.

Earth engineers debated building an embassy beside a temple once guarded by memory traps.

And deep beneath, invisible to civilians—

A whisper chamber spawned for a team of ten new climbers.

They would never meet the merchants above them.

Their screams would never reach the street cafés rising beside the blackwater fountains.

Two Towers.

Same floor.

Different fates.

Meanwhile, Earth broadcasted a new emergency council:

"The Basilica of Echoes has accepted its first permanent residents."

"Tower Settlements confirmed on Floors 5, 6, 9, and now 12."

"New migration systems proposed. Tower citizenship under review."

And among the reports, one detail kept returning:

"Wang Ling has not returned to Earth in over 11 floors."

"His silence is becoming louder than any guild."

But someone stayed behind this time.

📍 Basilica – Western Spine Settlement

A girl with a fractured sword sat before the stone altar where Wang Ling had refused to speak.

She didn't follow him.

She didn't try to match him.

She did something else.

She built.

[📢 GUILD REGISTRATION: APPROVED]

Guild Name: Stone Oath

Founder: Yu Mira (Tutorial Survivor – Rank 493)

Location: Floor 12 (Civic Layer)

Classification: First Tower-Resident Guild

Status: Earth Return Declined

✳ Motto Registered:

"If he won't return, we'll build the road that leads to him."

Mira looked out over the rising towers.

She didn't know why Wang Ling walked without looking back.

But she knew someone had to light the floors behind him.

So others could follow.

✅ SYSTEM STABILITY – RECYCLABLE FLOOR STRUCTURE NOW ACTIVE (Permanent)

Feature Description

Cleared Floors Permanently split into 2 layers: Civic & Challenge

Civic Layer 🟢 Safe, livable, open to civilians and settlers

Challenge Layer 🔴 Danger intact, used for new player trials only

Access Restrictions Non-climbers can't see or be affected by Challenge Layer

Civilian Life Entirely stable — cities, guilds, businesses flourish inside cleared zones

Earth Players Can revisit cleared floors to manage guilds, recruit, rest

Wang Ling Continues forward, untouched by social systems