The Ninth Floor (First Update)

Although he knew this was a dream, the tower's magnificence still far exceeded Abner's imagination! Its height alone dwarfed any human-made wonder. Even the skyscrapers of his previous life, which often stood hundreds of meters tall, seemed tiny and insignificant before this tower.

"It's really tall!" After getting closer, Xio, who was only five feet tall, strained to crane her neck but could not even see the base of the tower. She could only make out the black mist winding around its middle... As for the top of the tower, it was right before their eyes, since the tower stood upside down.

Yet even the relatively slender top of the tower was probably over a dozen miles in diameter. Looking into the distance, he could vaguely see other entrances, but each entrance area was isolated from the others by some mysterious force.

"Each Dream Door leads to its corresponding entrance, so we won't encounter Beyonders who entered through other doors within the labyrinth secret realm. At least, that's true for the first three floors." Mr. Gaston stood before the entrance and explained.

So perhaps the later floors had player-versus-player instances? Abner became increasingly convinced that this Dream Labyrinth Tower had been created by Emperor Roselle.

After entering the doorway and confirming that the three of them were in a team, Abner's vision blurred, and he found himself inside a house.

He looked around and discovered that it was a large apartment with four bedrooms, a living room, two washrooms, a kitchen, and a storage room. Don't ask how he knew so much detail—the floor plan was hanging on the wall. The furniture inside looked somewhat old-fashioned and had a distinctly Intisian style.

At that moment, a line of Hermes Script seemed to drift before his eyes: "Open the combination lock and leave the house through the front door."

At the same time, the fireplaces in every corner of the house suddenly ignited, with flickers of fire faintly visible within them.

"This is probably a scenario where we need to find clues to certain numbers in the house, deduce the password, and unlock the door before we can leave. These fireplaces should be the increased difficulty from forming a team. As time passes, the temperature will rise, and we'll gradually become dehydrated." Having cleared the ninth floor several times, Mr. Gaston quickly identified the key issue.

So the secret realm drawn for this floor was a timed escape room... Abner also understood their current predicament. Frowning, he asked, "Can we just destroy the lock and leave?" That would not be difficult for a Beyonder.

"If you were a lockpicking expert, perhaps you could... But brute force won't work. The first three floors of this tower heavily suppress Beyonder Abilities, and the ninth floor almost completely seals all Beyonder Abilities. Beyonder items are no exception!" Mr. Gaston answered helplessly. If Beyonder items had been useful, why would he have spent money hiring a Detective? Even if it was a Detective he trusted.

Xio also frowned. Having been half an Arbiter from birth, she was unaccustomed to being without Beyonder Abilities. Still, she crossed the room in a few steps and examined the door lock, which was made of countless gears and bearings. Then she shook her head at Abner. "It's an extremely complicated mechanical combination lock. If I still had an Arbiter's powers, I might be able to try dismantling it by force, but not now." She had already felt the weakness in her body and did not make a pointless attempt.

"All right, now let's see the Detective perform!" Mr. Gaston looked at Abner as though waiting to see whether his money had been well spent.

Abner did not answer. Instead, he activated the Pure White Eye and stared directly at the lock. After further digesting the Detective Potion, his control over the Pure White Eye had improved somewhat. At the very least, he could force it to analyze a specific target. Otherwise, he would never have dared open his eye in a Dream Labyrinth with such a high degree of mystery. Who knew what it might analyze?

About three seconds later, Abner completed the Analysis. He closed his eyes and said to Xio beside him, "Try these numbers." Then he gave her a string of fifteen digits.

"It seems the Pure White Eye stands at a higher level than this Dream Labyrinth Tower. The tower's power can't seal it at all!"

While Abner was still considering the matter of his cheat, Mr. Gaston, who had been waiting for him to investigate, froze in place, completely unable to understand what had just happened.

Xio, however, had deep experience with Abner suddenly knowing things. She did not doubt him at all and immediately began entering the password.

Then, accompanied by the click, click of the mechanical lock turning, the front door slowly opened.

Mr. Gaston stared at the sight in stunned silence for a long while. Only after Abner began urging him on did he ask in disbelief, "How did you do that?"

Abner adjusted his glasses and let his thoughts wander. What would Mr. Fool—or rather, Sherlock—do if he faced this locked room? He would definitely make an excuse to go to the washroom, walk backward four steps to ascend the Gray Fog, and use Divination to determine the lock's password. Then, when opening the door, he would say, "This is deduction."

Imagining that scene, Abner could not help wanting to joke as well. He smiled at Mr. Gaston and said, "This is deduction!"

"Deduction?" Mr. Gaston felt as though he suddenly no longer recognized that word.

Xio could not help pursing her lips in a smile. Abner is seriously fooling people again.

After that little interlude, the three of them left the room together. As the surroundings shifted, they entered an enormous library whose boundaries could not be seen at a glance. Rows upon rows of bookshelves filled the hall in perfect order, and the air was thick with the aura of knowledge.

"This is the Reward Room. The books on the shelves are all protected by some inexplicable force, so we can't take them down. We can only obtain the rewards." As Gaston spoke, his solemn expression became complicated for the first time, alternating between fanaticism and regret.

"How do we collect the rewards?" After briefly looking around, Abner asked.

"Once you sit in one of those seats, the reward will automatically appear in your hand." Mr. Gaston pointed to the tables and chairs not far away. They looked like ordinary library seating prepared for readers.

Abner nodded and walked over to sit down first. Then an old, thread-bound book suddenly appeared in his hand. He subconsciously looked at the title on the cover—"Gwen's Cave Adventures."

"What is this? A novel? Even if Mr. Gaston said the ninth-floor rewards were usually mediocre, they can't be this bad, can they?" With that puzzled thought, Abner flipped through the book. After skimming it, he found that it told the story of the protagonist, Miss Gwen, exploring a strange cave, encountering many Monsters within, and ultimately escaping from the jaws of a Dragon-Eyed Giant Python before returning to the Sword and Fire bar.

"Dragon-Eyed Giant Python?" Abner narrowed his eyes at those words. A Dragon-Eyed Giant Python's eyeball was one of the main ingredients for the Keeper of Knowledge Potion. The fact that this novel happened to record such a thing was clearly not meaningless.

"So this reward provides information on main Potion ingredients... Mr. Gaston said before that if one clears the floors too frequently, the rewards will only be knowledge one already knows and worthless information... In other words, since this is my first time here, it will instead provide knowledge I want to learn or highly valuable intelligence?"

After thinking for a moment, Abner suppressed the excitement in his heart and asked Mr. Gaston, who had already finished the book in his hand, "Do you know the Sword and Fire bar?"

"Looks like you received an important clue!" Mr. Gaston first gave him a surprised look before replying, "Of course I know it. I'm the hidden owner of that bar, and I regularly hold Beyonder gatherings there for the people on the island."

You're also fond of hosting Beyonder gatherings? No wonder you're friends with Teacher... After making that inward jab, Abner asked again, "Then that bar hasn't been around for very long?"

"That's right. I only discovered the door beneath the school three years ago. After that, while working hard to clear the labyrinth, I organized Beyonder gatherings and sold some of the knowledge I obtained here." Mr. Gaston nodded.

That meant the information in the novel was not outdated... Although this Dream Labyrinth Tower had existed for at least a century, it seemed capable of continuously acquiring new information and knowledge.

After silently analyzing the matter for a while, Abner turned to Xio and asked, "Xio, what valuable information did you get?"

Xio raised her head in confusion at his question, pursed her lips, and said, "It's just a romance novel. I read it several times, but I couldn't find anything useful."

"What was the novel about?" Since only the recipient could see their reward book, Abner could only ask.

"It was about a beautiful girl named Shermane and a nobleman falling in love. And the worst part is that it wasn't finished. The story stopped after Shermane became that nobleman's mistress... I always feel that her future ending won't be good." Xio briefly described the plot and looked expectantly at Abner. She always felt that he surely knew something again.

Abner did indeed know what was going on, but it involved too many Archangels and the King of Angel. How could he dare speak carelessly now? He could only ask, "What was that nobleman's name?" At the same time, he sighed inwardly. Xio's most desired information really was a clue to her father's wrongful case.

"Strangely, there wasn't one. It was written in the first person, and Miss Shermane always called the nobleman 'dear.'" Xio had also found that detail rather strange.

That was because if the nobleman's name had been given, the value of that information would probably have exceeded the limit allowed for ninth-floor rewards...

Abner did not say it outright, merely using somewhat vague wording. "Maybe you'll meet Miss Shermane someday. Then you'll understand what happened."

Xio nodded helplessly and stopped dwelling on the matter.

Afterward, the three rested briefly before arriving at the other side of the Reward Room, where there was a passage leading to the next floor.

As for what knowledge Mr. Gaston had received, he did not say, and Abner did not ask.

As the scenery around them changed, Abner and the other two appeared out of thin air before a mountain villa.