One year later.
On the first floor of the Tower of Infinite Enlightenment stood a lone man beneath an empty sky.
Ash-gray clouds drifted overhead like torn shrouds, their edges smudged by a dying sun. The world here had no wind, no sound — only silence, stretched thin as if time itself had grown weary of moving.
Wang Chen exhaled slowly, lowering his head. The long breath left his chest like smoke escaping a cracked urn. Though his face remained as calm as ever, exhaustion carved faint shadows beneath his eyes — the kind born not of fatigue, but of endless struggle.
"Just how fast time passes…" he murmured.
His voice barely stirred the air. He still remembered that first day vividly — standing in this same desolate wasteland, casting his first Fireball at a wailing resentment ghost. Back then, he'd thought it was just another challenge. Now he knew better.
The memory of a young boy flickered in his mind — dark eyes filled with fragile hope.
Lin Huang.
A rare softness crossed Wang Chen's expression. I wonder how my first disciple is doing…
For Lin Huang, perhaps only a few breaths had passed since he began meditating beneath the Bodhi tree. But for Wang Chen — who had spent an entire year in this tower's false world — that brief moment had stretched into a blood-soaked eternity.
He had fought without rest, day after day, night after night, facing endless waves of howling spirits whose screams still haunted the back of his mind. Even a Foundation Establishment expert would have gone mad in such a place. But Wang Chen endured — and finally, after one year of unbroken slaughter, he had done the impossible.
He had cleared the first floor completely.
A faint smile touched his lips, though it carried no warmth. "A year of hell… for six months saved."
It was true. He had shattered his old record — a feat that, to anyone else, would sound impressive. But the tower was not a game. There were no shortcuts, no mercy. The moment he'd considered exploiting it by resetting his time, a warning had appeared. A simple one.
[Warning: Any attempt to deceive the Tower will result in irreversible consequences.]
Wang Chen had seen enough eldritch forces in his lives to know what that meant. Even if the tower called him "Master," he understood where he truly stood in that hierarchy.
He sighed and turned his gaze toward the horizon. The world before him — once a vast battlefield of shattered plains and molten rivers — was now devoured by a creeping gray fog. It moved like a living thing, swallowing what little remained of the land.
This was no ordinary mist. Wang Chen had named it long ago: The Fog of Inevitability.
Everything that touched it died — not swiftly, but slowly, eaten away bone by bone, soul by soul. It was the tower's mechanism of closure, the silent broom that erased a conquered floor.
And it was closing in.
He stood still as it crept toward him, whispering against the ground like soft weeping. Then, finally, the moment he'd been waiting for arrived.
Dozens of blue windows bloomed before his eyes — silent, cold, radiant.
---
[Class: Mage (Rare)]
[Level: 65]
[Strength: 245]
[Agility: 233]
[Perception: 234]
[Physique: 210]
[Mana: 310]
Class Skills:
Fireball [Rare] — Max
Lightning Armor [Epic] — Max
Apocalypse Nova [Ultimate] — Summon collapsing star; cosmic fire consumes all.
Oblivion Ray [Legendary] — Beam of void energy that drains enemy mana.
Frozen Eternity [Ultimate] — Time-freeze field; suspend all motion in ice.
Runic Overcharge [Epic] — Detonate explosive runes.
Reality Script [???] — Rewrite magical laws for 10 seconds.
Soul Harvest [Ultimate] — Convert enemy souls to mana.
Doomclock [Rare] — Mark target with death timer.
---
Each name shimmered faintly before his eyes — every one a memory of pain. Fireball. Lightning Armor. Apocalypse Nova. Reality Script.
'I wonder how the strenght of this avatar would compare against cultivators..'
He couldn't help but chuckle, though the sound was bitter.
"If these belonged to my real body," he muttered, "I'd flatten sects before breakfast."
But they didn't.
They belonged to this avatar — a hollow reflection of himself, created solely for the tower's trials.
It was because of these very skills that he had survived the year-long war. Without them, he would've been nothing but another forgotten echo in this purgatory. He glanced at his reflection faintly visible in one of the glowing screens — tired eyes, a thin smile, hands that trembled just slightly.
He closed the status window and sighed. "Time for the reward."
New text materialized.
---
[The Tower of Infinite Enlightenment acknowledges your triumph.]
[All resentment entities annihilated. Record shattered: 1 Year → 6 Months saved.]
[Please choose your reward, Master.]
---
Wang Chen barely reacted. He had seen too many "acknowledgments" from gods and devils alike. His eyes simply moved to the next screen.
---
[Please choose one reward from below:]
A random skill from your current status window.
Cultivation progress equivalent to one year in a low-tier sect.
A random item of high value from this world.
A random gift bestowed by the Tower.
---
He frowned slightly. The choice was obvious.
"One random skill," he said. "The rest are bait."
A flicker of light confirmed his selection.
---
[Choice confirmed.]
[Randomly selecting skill. Please wait…]
---
A golden wheel appeared — radiant and cruel, its edges engraved with glowing runes. The names of his skills rotated along the rim, each one gleaming like a divine temptation.
Wang Chen's pulse quickened as the wheel began to spin.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
His eyes locked on the faint glow of Reality Script.
"That's the one," he whispered. "Come on… just once."
The wheel slowed. His heart pounded louder with every click. The arrow passed Soul Harvest, then Runic Overcharge, then hovered over Reality Script—
And stopped.
For half a second, his chest filled with hope.
Then it slipped.
One inch further.
---
[Reward acquired: Doomclock (Rare) learned.]
---
The silence that followed was absolute.
Wang Chen stared at the glowing words for several long seconds, then barked out a laugh — hollow, dry, almost feral.
"Doomclock. Of course. Out of everything… you give me a curse timer."
He tilted his head back, laughter fading into something quieter. His reflection in the flickering light looked older somehow.
A gentle hum filled the air as the tower's voice spoke again, its tone flat and godlike.
[Cycle complete. Returning master to origin point.]
Before he could even sigh, his body began to unravel into motes of golden dust. The fog swallowed the world around him. The battlefield, the corpses, even the blood-stained air dissolved like smoke in sunlight.
---
When he opened his eyes, silence greeted him once again — the silence of the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo.
Soft sunlight filtered through the paper walls. The faint rustle of Bodhi leaves whispered in the courtyard.
Lin Huang still sat cross-legged beneath the tree, eyes closed, utterly still — unaware that his master had just returned from a year of carnage and death.
To him, only a few breaths had passed.
Wang Chen lifted his hand. It trembled faintly — a ghost of exhaustion still lingering in his soul. He smiled to himself, small and weary.
"Reality Script… next time."
The Bodhi leaves swayed gently, their shadows shifting like watchful eyes.
For a fleeting moment, Wang Chen could've sworn the tower was listening.
---
Meanwhile, somewhere deep within the Tower…
In the empty expanse where Wang Chen had once stood, a faint spark of darkness lingered — formless, flickering, alive.
It watched the fading light with something that might've been curiosity… or envy.
"So," it whispered, voice like smoke, "..It wasn't an illusion.. someone could actually come and leave this godforsaken prison on there own."
The spark pulsed once, and in its depths gleamed a strange, human emotion.
"Interesting. Perhaps there's still hope for me after all."
Then, as silently as it had appeared, the spark dimmed — swallowed by the eternal fog.