Opening my eyes, I found myself staring at the ceiling.
I wasn't confused or anything like that; on the contrary, I was surprised to find myself looking at it.
I thought for sure I would wake up near the tower after returning. Yet here I am, inside a room, surrounded by... hmm.
Surprisingly, a clean room, except for the ceiling, which exposes the roof itself.
This place looks better than my dorm back then.
I remember my past life as a college student, earning minimum wage that barely covered my school fees and rent.
I hardly had enough money to buy actual food. My breakfast was just water, and lunch consisted of whatever I could buy with the leftover coins I had after paying for my fare.
Dinner was a simple order of rice and hot soup, and if I was lucky, I could also have some meat with my meal.
With that said, I need to find a way to earn some money.
Typically, in a tower-type series, the main character wakes up and rushes toward the tower, beginning their journey to get stronger.
However, I don't plan to do that.
Entering the tower without any training is like being food for the monsters on the first floor, so my current strategy is to find a sponsor.
Not to aid me with my training, but to help me visit other countries.
I was already the strongest back in my past life, so I know how to clear the floors without any trouble, even if my stats are at '1.'
After all, I reached floor 600+ all alone and achieved a level of power that those so-called heroes would never attain.
Speaking of heroes, I wonder what happened after I died back then.
They did an amazing job of blaming me for the deaths of billions. If I weren't me, I might believe them too.
It's unfortunate for them; they killed all those people only to receive nothing from their gods—dead gods now.
Well, back to the tower topic.
Who says I need to enter the tower as soon as I come back?
I plan to enjoy at least a year and a half traveling around the globe and sightseeing in places I've never been before.
Right now, I'm still in a "normal" situation, so I can still feel the hype on those rides in pairs.
Let's see the countries I plan to visit: Japan, Korea, Switzerland, China, Mexico, Egypt, and wherever Mount Everest is.
After I visit all of these, I'll start climbing the tower again. But until then I'm taking everything easy.
***
A day has passed since then, and in those moments, I went and gathered more information about my situation.
Who am I? Where am I? What year is it? And what is my name?
Here are my findings, I'm an academy student attending a school that teaches young adults how to clear the first 100 floors of the tower with ease.
This is bullshit in my knowledge, there's no such thing as an easy clearing in the tower.
Each floor can only be cleared by yourself and yourself; it doesn't matter what kind of approach you take, in the end, you'll clear it.
You just need to continue on what you think is the best and act on it.
---
Where am I?
It looks like I'm still a Filipino... I thought for sure I was Korean since my skin was a little white.
Turns out the owner of this body is one of those where he can be white or brown depending on which temperature he is in.
You might be thinking, Why did I want to be a Korean? That's mostly caused this world I'm living in, is a Korean universe type one.
This very universe center is Korea, meaning the main character of this universe would be a Korean too, and the reason why I wanted to be a Korean in this life is to hope that I become that main character.
Which I'm not, since I'm still a Filipino in this life.
In my first life, I was somewhat of a lucky bastard who became the very first person to be chosen by the tower to awaken power.
Thanks to my first title effects, I was able to keep moving forward without staying on one floor for too long.
But who cares about luck when you're the main character of the universe...
---
What year is it today?
The tower appeared in the year 2095, two years after the monsters appeared.
I spent over thirteen years climbing the tower before coming back on Earth, making my death in the year 2108.
After my death, twenty-eight years have passed making today the year 2136.
---
And finally my name.
It's Lean, for some reason it's that, I'm currently 17 years old, living somewhere in Mindanao, and this room of mine right now is provided by the Academy itself...
It seems like even after all these years, orphans are still a thing.
Back then, I was already dying, so I didn't bother to know how many people were alive.
But having the internet now, I learn that there are only 2.7 billion people living today, even after over three decades, humanity is still at this number.
At first, I felt horrible knowing this. After a night of rest, I manage to pull myself back.
Still... To think those bastards killed so much that we're barely on 3 billion is disgusting.
Killing their Gods back then was not enough.
I should have fought them back then and killed them with me, if only I had known this.
Yet there's nothing I can do about it now.
***
It's been a week since I came back.
In this time, I learn a lot.
One of learning is that my past identity is being taught in the history book for betraying humanity and is condemned as one of the horrible figures in history.
Nothing I can do about that. At first, when I found this is how the rest of the world saw my motherland and its citizens.
My worries quickly disappeared after seeing one of my people become a symbol that not everyone in my country would turn out like me.
Making the world see them as equals and not like me, avoiding discrimination and war against the rest of the world.
I don't know what I'll do if I learned that my homeland is considered an enemy of the world because of me.
Next, the body I'm currently having is a so-so body.
It's not amazing, yet it's not bad, either.
Even without the tower system, I can say this body's overall stats are around 3-7 at best.
Which seems nothing at first, but the actual average person stats are 1-4.
The weakest person in the world would have a stats of '1' only, which is technically a newborn baby to a one-year-old.
While a low average one would have 2-3, an average man would be around 3-5, and those who are athletic would have 4-7.
...
Do I plan on getting revenge on those heroes?
My answer is no, those guys are practically useless now.
With their gods dead, they have no one else to obtain power from except by clearing the floors of the tower.
Revenge is also meaningless to me, since I don't really care about me being killed back then, beside not like i started climbing the tower for fame and honor.
I did it simply to help humanity to come back on its feet and to make no one get 'that'.
The reason why I didn't stop climbing even if my existence was at risk of being erased completely is to make sure no one gets hold of it; I need to make sure I'm the one who earns and holds all of them.
Not the main character, not the Hero, not the Savior, not the nicest person in the world, definitely not an evil person, and not even Gods themselves, it needs to be me.
Finally, the most important thing in my existence, "Memory," some of my memories have been erased by the universe itself.
This is bad if I had to say so, my memories, which contain my experience of climbing the tower, are now useless in some parts.
The most important of all is my knowledge in Swordsmanship and Aura.
It's thanks to these two that I manage to reach the level of mine on my own as a solo.
Now the experience, knowledge, and time I have spent refining them are gone.
I still remember what level and number these two were back then when I reached the floor 100.
My Swordsmanship skills were already at level 25, and I even gained the title [Sword Master].
My Aura has reached a fifth Mastery and already reached 10,000 points in total.
Now both of them are gone completely, not just by their level and points but in knowledge and experience.