Recovery

After resting, he got up and walked around the room, carefully examining every dented section of wall.

By comparing them, he finally found one that had cracked more severely than the others, despite being hit by the giant hammer in the same way.

That was it. It was the extremely unlikely possibility he'd thought of while distracted earlier: an observation-based, semi-violent level.

There was no "open the door" mechanism on this kind of level. Tower Climbers had to keep an eye on the damage as they dodged the monsters, then try to lure their attacks onto the weakest spot until they smashed straight through the wall. That wall led to the second level.

The difficulty was practically designed to kill newcomers.

One in ten thousand.

Only the unluckiest people could possibly end up here.

"Could Reincarnation have drained all my luck?"

Wang Wen was speechless.

But then he thought about it and felt better.

How much luck would it take to encounter something as heaven-defying as coming back from the dead?

He'd probably used up the luck of several lifetimes in one go!

Bad luck was only normal!

He nodded to himself and stopped dwelling on it.

Turning back, he found an intact hammer handle among the mechanical monster's remains.

Without its head, it looked a little like the Sea-Stabilizing Needle.

He picked it up and hefted it, then tapped the wall to get a feel for how solid it was.

Rolling up his sleeves, he sighed to himself.

All right, when you mess up, you have to own it. Sooner or later, you've got to fight your way through!

Time slipped by.

Three hours raced past.

When Wang Wen crawled out of the "hole in the wall" and landed on the second level, his frail body was so exhausted he didn't want to move.

He'd lost so much blood, then spent ages digging through the wall.

Even the fitness freaks from the neighboring department wouldn't have been able to take it, let alone someone with his scrawny arms and legs. And he'd fought a Mirror from Tiansheng just last night, too.

But Wang Wen didn't panic.

The hammer handle wasn't a rare item, but it had survived hours of pounding against the wall. Its durability was surprising.

At least he'd have a sturdy stick for the road ahead. That was good news.

Leaning on the stick, he stood against the wall. As he rested and recovered his strength, he surveyed the second level.

There were no monsters here, only a series of vicious-looking mechanisms.

At a glance, most of them seemed like "old friends."

Mechanism Art had been Cheng Queyi's strongest discipline in their previous life's team.

But that didn't mean Wang Wen knew nothing about it.

On the contrary, just as Shen Rushuang had believed, he was a master of Mechanism Art.

Cheng Queyi had specialized in it; he was an all-rounder.

A few minutes later, after resting, Wang Wen began dismantling the mechanisms.

He went through them from start to finish. A few unfamiliar ones were variations on an "old friend's" design, and he figured them out by applying what he already knew.

When he used the hammer handle to pierce the base of the last mechanism and removed the deadly short arrow, the door to the third level opened.

Wang Wen straightened up, pounded his aching lower back, and glanced at the scattered mechanisms covering the second level. He kept only the last short arrow, then leaned on the hammer handle and headed up to the third level.

Once Wang Wen adjusted his mindset and got serious, he finally showed the true skill of the World Tower's number one.

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

He cleared level after level without a hitch.

At one level with a clean water source, he even took a bath.

Then he swiftly caught a big pile of fish and shrimp drawn by the smell of his blood.

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

He ate a meal of additive-free, unsalted, all-natural barbecue over fragrant fruitwood.

A bath, a meal.

His strength returned in large part.

So did his spirits.

For a master poison-maker, this kind of wilderness setting felt like a vacation.

After he dealt with the largest poisonous-insect mechanism, the remaining ordinary environmental puzzles were nothing worth mentioning.

If the temperature on this type of level didn't swing between two extremes at noon and midnight, Wang Wen might have wanted to rest here for a few days.

Same old recipe, same old taste.

He'd regained his form, and with it the familiar feeling of climbing the tower in his previous life.

At last, he reached the tenth level.

Every numbered level in the World Tower had an unavoidable challenge: brute force.

Most of the time, "brute force" meant a direct fight.

Tower Climbers had to defeat or destroy whatever stood in their way before they could enter the next level.

It was also a test of their overall ability, to stop specialists from coasting to the upper levels by relying on their particular talents.

Numbered levels were major levels and required multiple people to enter.

Wang Wen hadn't formed a team, so a miniature scanning drone stopped him at the entrance to the tenth level.

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

The next level was a brute-force challenge. No matter how famous he was, Wang Wen couldn't ignore his current weakling's physique. He raised the hammer handle in one hand and practiced a few quick, flowing stick moves to get a feel for it, then said casually, "Random assignment."

[Searching for understaffed teams in this area... Assignment complete. The entrance is open. Mr. A, please enter. We wish you a safe journey.]

Wang Wen stepped onto the tenth level. Before him appeared a scene resembling a private garage.

Three men and a woman sat on tires scattered across the floor, chatting.

He'd leave the three men aside for the moment.

As soon as Wang Wen saw the only woman there, he felt dizzy.

He didn't know her.

But after living two lifetimes and seeing his fair share of things, he'd never imagined he'd one day be stunned by such a beauty.

The woman clearly looked about his age, yet had a figure that seemed ripe to perfection. "Perfect proportions" didn't even begin to describe it. She was far beyond the limits.

And on top of that, her long, straight legs had no excess fat whatsoever.

Even more outrageous, she had a face full of innocent sweetness!

As if to prove her good manners, she listened with wide eyes, tilting her head toward whoever was speaking. Her ponytail swished behind her. If you ignored everything below her neck, you'd think she was a sweet, youthful girl next door.

When she noticed an outsider had entered the garage, the woman turned to look at him. Wang Wen instinctively gripped the hammer handle, barely stopping himself from shouting, "Monster, take this!"

From another angle, you could see just how extraordinary she was.

It was obvious that all three men were focused on her. None of them had noticed an outsider had entered the garage.

One of them had a very short buzzcut. He was powerfully built and wore a sleeveless denim vest. Sitting very close to the woman, practically pressed against her leg, he was boasting smugly, "From now on, just stick with me. I'll carry you through the first fifty levels. You got that? Carry you!"

The two younger men beside him, one fat and one thin, also looked eager to get close to the woman. Unfortunately, they couldn't compete with the buzzcut man physically.

In the World Tower, especially on the numbered brute-force levels, a greasy fatso or a pale, bookish scholar simply couldn't compete with a strong, burly man.

The fat one was doing better; he might have been easygoing, since he cheerfully played along even when he couldn't get a word in.

The Thin Scholar was different. With his fair, handsome looks, he was clearly used to being popular and at the center of attention. But now, faced with a stunning beauty, he kept trying to strike up a conversation, only for the buzzcut man to block him.

After a few tries, he couldn't take it anymore. Not daring to provoke the "fierce-looking" buzzcut man, he could only get up in frustration and take it out on the miniature drone.

As soon as he stood, he saw Wang Wen, who had been hidden behind the buzzcut man's tall frame. Somewhat surprised and apparently looking for someone to vent at, he called out, "Why'd you sneak in like a ghost without making a sound?"

Wang Wen raised his left eyebrow. "You seemed to be having such a lively chat. I didn't want to interrupt."