Broken Tower Saga: The First Swordsman

          "I did it."

        Tanya did not have the time to celebrate when the screeches of the huge ghoul rose again. She continued doing her breathing exercise as the spell formed before her. Making the spell was far more difficult and as she could not control her mental state well, and through the way she fuelled the spells with mana, it could even burst into bits before attacking at the infectors.

        Yet none of that happened. It had only been a few seconds and Tanya had yet to notice it. Coupled with her fright of battle, killing the monsters with her hyperactive mind, she could not notice it. She motioned her arm and her ice spells moved to assist Wrik and Anton.

        The others had mostly done with their moves and the number of the infectors had lessened by a few times. Davin moved to help the others, and Kevin remained while Jacob motioned his bow and aimed at the huge ghoul.

        Tanya focused on her spell and waited for an opportunity.

        Meanwhile, Anton and Wrik got far more thrashing than they had intended getting. Fortunately, their armours were far better than the ones they had before when they were in the trial against the half-ghoul. And they did not just get thrashed, but all the hack and cut they pulled on the huge things rendered useless against its healing.

        But all their efforts were not useless either. They could clearly see the ghoul was taking almost double the time in healing and became far more violent. It appeared it was getting into the edge, and they wished to finish it before it could get onto the edge.

        Michelle helped keep it in a manageable distance so that it could not move wanton and have free rein against them, and after Davin joined their situation became far lighter.

        With an exchange of glances, the three of them moved, brandishing their blade. Anton was clearly the fastest, moved and attacked its left knees. He did not deal the blow when Wrik appeared behind the back of the ghoul, with a violent swing against the back of the neck.

        The ghoul moved its arms violently towards the back, and then the swing of Anton clicked. Wrik made a faint and moved, running the sword onto its back. Davin appeared by then, and he pulled his sword and give it all his strength. The ghoul was wide opened, and the sword pierced its chest.

        Davin did not have the time to withdraw when the atmosphere in the cave turned chiller. Ice started to condense on the ground and within a blink of an eye, it condensed enough to freeze the ghoul in one place. Even Davin seemed to have frozen there, though the ghoul had frozen first.

        Anton was nearby, and with a swift pull of his leg, he appeared in the air just before the frozen ghoul. It could not even struggle to break the ice when Anton swung his blade as a sharp black aura forced out from it and severed the neck of the ghoul. Dark blood with the awful stench oozed out from the cut and the ghoul finally rest in peace.

        "Foo, it's over," Anton said, releasing a deep breath.

        Wrik was about to sigh in relief when he saw Tanya. Something about her told him, she was not right, and it was quite evident even without the [Eye of Insights]. Her face had turned all white and pale, while her hair had a white glow as well, though it still held onto its dark colour.

        Mist drifted off around her and swirled uncomfortably before all cleared and her face returned to normal as well.

        "Tanya," Wrik called, but she seemed to have not heard him.

        Her eyes drifted off all around and saw the dead corpses of things. Blood everywhere and the awful stench that could make any normal human throw up all in their stomach. She forgot to breathe, and the screeches of the dead infector still played in her head.

        Tanya struggled for breath briskly, bringing her arm to her palm to her head. She was sweating, and it's a lot. The thing she had for breakfast food its way down her throat, and with the attempt of breath she coughed out everything. She kneeled on the floor and coughed again.

        By now everyone noticed it, and Byul, who was close to her, was about to catch her arm, but Wrik beat her to it.

        "What's wrong?" Wrik asked and put his arm on her shoulder. She seemed to shiver out by the touch. "take a deep breath, slowly. Inhale."

        Tanya finally made out who was with her and she followed by breathing slowly. After a couple of seconds, her mind numbed a little, and she used her [Mist of Change] to mask all the uncomfortable feelings with the fear.

        She looked around and found everyone was looking at her with a worried gaze. Byul had hugged her back and Michelle was late to come in. Even Davin, who had not broken the ice from his legs, was before her.

        She saw Wrik who was looking at her and his gaze came down from the worry first though it held a little sadness into it. He seemed to have noticed the change in her eyes and understood what was going on.

        "I'm alright," she said, and stood up. She felt comfortable with everyone's presence and thought her little try was not all wrong. As a first step, she had gone quite far, and maybe after a dozen more times, she would get used to it, though the thought of trying again made her shudder.

        "The test finished," she said with a smile. "You should look for what we got from this."

        The others nodded, though did not leave her side. They finally had the time to check the notifications. The first notification congratulates them and then, as a reward, distributes 1000 omega points according to their contribution. None had overwhelmingly outperformed anyone though the three of them, Wrik and Anton had the highest share, followed by Michelle, Jacob, Davin, Byul, and Kevin.

        "The rewards did not appear to be that good," Davin said. 1000 was quite a number, but after distributing among eight individuals it became quite cheap.

        "Maybe because it was not the only reward from her," Anton said and showed his palm. In it held two gem-like stones. One small as the tip of a finger. It was entirely black, while the other was fist size and white, reflecting the slight light in the cave.

        "Is this what I think it is?" Davin asked first.

        "If you are thinking, infector origin core and a class advancement stone, then you are right," Anton said with a laugh.

        The finger size origin core had the worth of about ten million omega points—though it was quite hard to get one with that price. While for the Class—it all depends on the type and if it held an attribute or ability, then its price would rise by a few multipliers. 

        "I hope it is not useless stuff," Jacob added.

        Among their group, only Wrik, Anton had classes. Anton got the opportunity to take a special class [Shadow Stalker], while Wrik advance to a designer class for learning purposes. The others had the opportunity to buy one for themselves as well, but for miscellaneous reasons, they did not. Usually, all the normal class was barely better than not having a class. While Tanya had the reason not to advance, the others clearly did not want to take such classes.

        Wrik once thought about getting a class for Byul, but whatever he had found with Ryat did not resonate with her or have an astounding price. On that note, Ryat had said to wait for it. Usually, the classes were rewarded in many quests and it would be a thousand times easy to get it that way.

        "What's the name of the class?" he asked. "Are there any special attributes to it?"

        "You all will be surprised to know," Anton said and picked up the crystal gem. "This one right here is called, 'Steel Enforcer' and it appeared to have some relation to the inquisitors. As for the attribute, it's metal mostly."

        As the words were spoken, everyone looked towards Davin.

        "Congratulations, Davin," Wrik started, and the others joined in. One by one, everyone congratulated Davin, who still had an eccentric look on his face.

        "Stop it, how can I—"

        "What do you not want?" Anton said. "Among us you are the only one with earth attributes and this class highly matches your expertise, but if you do not want it. . ."

        "We can only sell it," Wrik completed with a laugh. He moved towards Davin and gave a chop on his shoulder. "Take it, man. You deserve it. I can say everyone here will agree with me."

"You said that right," Jacob said. "If we get an archer class next time, I'll have dibs on it." 

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