Status Recovery

Rest over, he stood up and paced around the room, carefully inspecting every wall surface that had been struck.

Through comparison, he finally discovered a section of the stone wall that had been struck by the giant hammer and was cracked more severely than the others.

That was right; it was a tiny probability within the pattern he had contemplated while distracted—an observational semi-violent technique floor.

In this type of World Tower floor, there was no "door" mechanism. It required the climber to pay attention to the degree of damage on the wall while maneuvering around the monster, then guide the monster's attacks to land on that specific spot until the wall was smashed through. That opening would lead to the second floor.

This level of difficulty could almost be called a newbie killer.

One in ten thousand.

Only those with extremely poor luck would ever encounter it.

Could it be that Reincarnation drained all my luck?

Wang Wen was speechless.

But then, he thought about it and felt relieved.

To experience something as heaven-defying as coming back from the dead, how much fortune must one have stumbled upon?

He feared that all the luck from his past several lifetimes had been drained away in this one trip!

Being unlucky was only normal!

He nodded silently and stopped dwelling on it.

He turned back and found the still-intact hammer handle in the pile of mechanical monster debris.

Without the hammerhead, it looked a bit like a staff.

He weighed it in his hand, then tapped the wall to gauge its thickness.

He rolled up his sleeves, sighing inwardly.

Come on, if you make a mistake, you have to own up to it; in the end, you still have to fight!

Time slipped away.

Three hours skipped by in a flash.

When Wang Wen crawled out of the "wall hole" and landed on the floor of the second level, his fragile body was too exhausted to move.

He had lost so much blood and spent so long digging through the wall.

Even a physical powerhouse from the neighboring department couldn't handle this, let alone his own thin arms and legs, especially after his battle against the Tiansheng Mirror last night.

However, Wang Wen did not panic.

The hammer handle in his hand was not a rare item, yet it had managed to pound the wall for so long without breaking; its durability was unexpectedly high.

It seemed that for the road ahead, he would at least have a sturdy stick to use, which counted as good news.

He leaned against the wall with the stick, resting to recover his stamina while observing the environment of the second floor.

There were no monsters on this floor, only rows of menacing traps.

At a rough glance, most of them seemed to be "old friends."

In the art of mechanisms, the strongest person in his team in his previous life was Cheng Queyi.

But that didn't mean Wang Wen didn't know anything about it.

On the contrary, just as Shen Rushuang believed, he was still a master of mechanism arts.

It was just that Cheng Queyi specialized in certain areas, while he was an all-rounder.

A few minutes later, having finished his rest, Wang Wen began to dismantle the traps.

He walked through from start to finish; even the few he didn't recognize were just variations of some "old friend," and he solved them by drawing inferences from what he already knew.

When he used the hammer handle to poke through the base of the final trap and removed the murderous short arrow, the door to the third floor opened.

Wang Wen straightened up, pounded his aching lower back, glanced at the various trap parts scattered across the second floor, kept only the final short arrow, and walked toward the third floor leaning on the hammer handle.

Having adjusted his mindset and become serious, Wang Wen finally displayed the true standard of the number one person in the World Tower.

Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

He passed through the levels without any further delay.

At one point, where there was a source of clean water, he even took a bath.

Then, with lightning-fast hand speed, he caught a pile of fish and shrimp attracted by the scent of blood.

He collected some dry reeds, picked up two pebbles to start a fire, and used the sharp arrow to gut and clean the fish and shrimp in the water.

He enjoyed a meal of salt-free, additive-free, pure natural, ecological barbecue cooked over fruitwood-scented firewood.

A wash and a meal.

His stamina had recovered significantly.

His spirits were much better as well.

For a master of poisons, this wilderness environment was as comfortable as a vacation.

After neutralizing the largest venomous trap, the remaining environmental science puzzles were not worth mentioning.

If it weren't for the fact that this floor of the World Tower experienced two extremes of temperature at every 12 o'clock, Wang Wen would have even considered resting here for a few days.

It was the same old recipe, the same old flavor.

He had regained his rhythm and found that familiar sensation of climbing the tower from his previous life.

Finally, he reached the tenth floor.

In the World Tower, every integer floor had an unavoidable phase: brute-force clearance.

So-called brute-force clearance mostly referred to head-on combat.

One had to defeat or break through certain obstacles to enter the next floor.

This was also a test of a climber's comprehensive strength, preventing those with lopsided skills from muddling through to higher levels by relying on special talents.

Integer floors were major levels that required multiple people to proceed.

Wang Wen had not formed a team, so he was stopped by a micro-scanning drone at the entrance of the tenth floor.

Mechanical voice: [Please form a full team of five to enter the next floor, or be randomly assigned to an understaffed team in this area.]

Since the next part was the brute-force phase, no matter how much of a world-class expert he was, he couldn't ignore his current weak physique. Wang Wen twirled the hammer handle with one hand to get a feel for the weight and casually said, "Random assignment."

[Searching for understaffed teams in this area... Assignment complete. Entrance opening. Mr. Jia, please enter. Wishing you safety.]

Wang Wen stepped into the tenth floor, and a scene resembling a private garage appeared before him.

Three men and one woman were sitting on tires scattered about, chatting.

Setting aside the three men for a moment, the moment Wang Wen saw the only woman present, he felt a wave of dizziness.

He didn't know her.

But having lived two lifetimes, he considered himself well-traveled; he never imagined he would one day be stunned by such a monster.

That girl, who was clearly around his own age, possessed a figure that seemed fully ripened. "Golden ratio" wasn't enough to describe it, because she was absolutely "off the charts."

On top of being "off the charts," her long, straight legs remained completely free of any excess fat.

What was even more outrageous was that she had a face full of innocence!?

As if to prove her politeness, she would widen her eyes and tilt her head to listen when others spoke, causing the ponytail behind her head to sway. If one didn't look below the neck, one would definitely think she was a youthful, sweet girl next door.

Noticing an outsider entering the garage, the girl shifted her gaze toward him. Wang Wen subconsciously gripped the hammer handle tighter, nearly shouting, "Monster, take this!"

From another angle, one could see just how monstrous the girl really was.

It was obvious that the three men's attention was entirely on her; none of them had noticed an outsider had entered the garage.

One of them, a man with a very short buzz cut and a sturdy build, wearing a sleeveless denim vest, sat very close to the girl, almost touching her legs. At this moment, he was saying triumphantly, "Just rest assured and follow me from now on. Within the first fifty floors, I'll carry you through everything, you hear? Everything!"

The two younger boys nearby, one fat and one thin, also seemed eager to get close to the girl, but their hardware couldn't compare to the buzz-cut man.

In the World Tower, especially on integer brute-force floors, a greasy fat guy and a fair-skinned, thin scholar certainly couldn't compete with a sturdy, muscular man in terms of core competitiveness.

The fat guy was better off; perhaps he was broad-minded, so even if he couldn't get a word in, he could happily play the supporting role.

The thin scholar was different. His fair and handsome appearance usually made him a popular center of attention, but encountering such a breathtaking, monstrous-level beauty, every time he tried to strike up a conversation, he was blocked by the buzz-cut man.

After a few times, he couldn't take it anymore. Afraid to provoke the "fierce-looking" buzz-cut man, he could only stand up irritably, wanting to take his frustration out on the micro-drone.

As he stood up, he immediately saw Wang Wen, whose figure had been hidden by the buzz-cut man's tall frame. Surprised and venting his anger, he asked loudly, "How did you sneak in like a ghost without making a sound?"

Wang Wen raised his left eyebrow: "You all seemed so engrossed in your conversation, I didn't want to interrupt."