The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

My dream tonight is not cohesive like the others have been. It's a chaotic mashup of what feels like half the lives I lived. There's only one thing in common between all the scenes: I am dying.

I see my second life, dying surrounded by crying family descendants. My third life watching the sunset as my apprentice tells me of his latest medical discovery. My fourth, seeing the horrified faces of my comrades as my decapitated head flies across the battlefield.

The scenes speed up. I see another battlefield death. A death where an assassin stabs my throat. Surrounded by family again, but this time my parents and elder siblings. A few of these, from when I was catatonic. I try not to look at their faces.

Then it's a death on the battlefield again. A death alone in a cold room, my body too weak and frail to even get a fire going. A death with an apprentice watching coldly over my last moments. A death with an apprentice in tears. Another death alone.

The deaths start changing. Becoming less varied. There are fewer people. Most of them become lonely deaths. I die in an icy cave in the mountains. I fall asleep on a hillside and don't wake up. I fall off a cliff. I get assassinated.

A few deaths have people nearby, but they are only in the rare lives that I did not survive to adulthood, or ones where I was murdered. The rest, I am alone. Intentionally so.

As they flash past faster and faster, and I witness all my lonely deaths, I try to wake up. I don't want to watch this. It's not the first time I've experienced something like this, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant. My efforts are in vain though, and I'm forced to watch through countless deaths until finally, I reach my most recent life. I expect it to end after this, but instead, it slows down.

I'm in my body–my current body–standing beneath a sky full of stars. It feels different though, and it's not just the oddness of being in a dream. My body feels simultaneously weightless, and heavier than a mountain. Flexible, yet rigid. Soft as silk, but strong enough that I could crush the Earth into a black hole. I'm standing at the very top of a tower. No, the Tower.

"What do you desire?" says a voice. It's the same voice that I heard when I entered.

"That this death will be my last," come the words from my mouth.

"It is done."

Immediately, my own oum attacks my heart, crushing it, and I fall backward onto the ground. As my mind goes dark, I stare up at the stars. Finally, it's over. I smile. The smile vanishes. A tear rolls down my cheek. I breathe my last and my eyes close.

I wake up to find myself staring into Trinity's eyes. She's laying down on my chest, staring at me.

"Mrrr?" she says when she notices me awake.

I glance over at the window. There's faint orange light streaming through. It's just before sunrise. A bit early, but too late to go back to bed.

I lift Trinity off my chest and set her aside, then sit up. As soon as I'm seated, Trinity jumps right back on top of me, then settles in my lap, where I pet her absentmindedly as I think about my dream. It's not the first time I've dreamt of my deaths. It is the first time I've dreamt of my final death like that though. It felt so real… and yet so hollow.

Is that really how I want it to end?

I glance down at Trinity, whose cheek is squished against my leg, forcing one of her eyes shut. What's going to happen to her when I die? Does the bond tie her life to mine? If I die, will she die too? Will she be able to find someone else to bond with?

"Trinity."

She glances up at me, purring.

"I-" I start.

I hope you die before I do so I don't have to worry about what will happen to you when I'm gone.

"I'm a terrible person."

I bend down and hug her, which she doesn't seem to appreciate. She squirms around, pushing against me with her paws and trying to get off her back. Eventually, she manages to right herself, and she sits up straight in my lap and starts rubbing her cheek on mine.

"I'm sorry you got stuck with someone like me," I whisper in her ear.

"Mraw," she says, licking my cheek.

It tickles. I let out a light, involuntary spasm, which soon turns into a laugh as I flop backward onto my pillow. Trinity jumps on me as I fall, landing on my chest and looking very confused.

What's wrong with me? Am I really going to let a random dream put me in such a foul mood? I have things to do. Teammates to train. Enemies to find. A Tower to Climb. I can't be wallowing in misery and self-pity just because of some ridiculous dream.

I push aside any objectionable thoughts and then roll out of bed. My eyes feel a bit puffy. My throat is dry. My neck is sore. All things a glass of water and a hot spring waterfall session can fix.

I head to the kitchen and down two glasses of water, then order Henry to clean the sheets and dry the dampness from the pillow while I get the bathroom ready. A few hours later, I step back out feeling refreshed and with all thoughts about the dream and what came after successfully buried.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It's too late for any real cultivation, but I squeeze in a half hour with Trinity before stretching and heading downstairs for breakfast. Our whole group eats more than usual, probably still recovering from the exercise from yesterday. Al and June join us, though both seem a bit aloof. June less so, since she seems to have bonded with Vanessa a bit at some point. Everyone still looks a bit uncomfortable around Al, but he's conscientious enough to recognize this and doesn't try to force himself in.

Ganyu lectures further on some famous groups who were successful in Climbing the Tower, and what kind of skillsets their members had. Most of them are significantly more diverse than anything that we can accomplish as we are now, of course. They weren't forced to have their whole party use spears because none of them had training in any other weapons. Still, there are some parallels to ours, and I notice that my group members seem to be taking notes on the ones most similar to their own styles and roles.

After the lecture portion, we all leave again to head for the sparring hall. This time, we jump straight into conditioning. I help them recover a bit when they need it, but we still exercise for almost five straight hours before it's time to switch over to sparring. Kat complains a few times, saying she wants to get to the "fun stuff," but I'd much rather they be able to run a few miles further than fight a little better. Three days isn't enough to make up for decades of slacking, but with the help of oum circulation to recover, they can still make a lot of progress in just a few hours.

I give them an hour-long break after the conditioning so they can grab food and meditate a bit, and while they go off and do whatever they're doing, I grab a few meat skewers at the nearest market outside the sparring hall, then sit back down in our rented room and pull out the informational booklet on the Starter Quest. I've looked through it a couple times now, and while the information about the Quest is largely identical to what Ganyu told us, the real benefit of having the booklet is the list of rewards.

The way it works is that rather than having a specific prize for first place and second place and third and so on, they simply have an enormous pool of prizes to choose from, and those who place higher get first pick. Each person on each team in the top 5 gets to pick two items, while everyone else is stuck with just one. Most of the booklet is simply an extensive list of these items.

The list is separated into categories, ranking the items into tiers, which it says were determined by the Floor Lord. The highest tier, tier 5, has a total of 10 different items in it, though there are multiple of each one. I spend most of my time poring over these items, since I see no reason that our group won't get first place. Even not including me, my teammates are probably some of the best among those from Earth. It's hard to tell how they stack up compared to Nadia's Russian dude since that guy has a sponsor and a master, but I doubt Jacob and Kat are very much inferior to him, if they're inferior at all.

Still, I think that even without me, they would place among the top five, if not first. With me, first place is almost a given. Unless, of course, someone tries to sabotage us. I fully expect that, actually. I also fully expect us to be able to handle it if we're smart, but it will add a layer of difficulty.

Anyway, among the Tier 5 rewards, there are two in particular that catch my eye. The first is a 10000 Year Ginseng. On Earth, this was only a theoretical plant because the oum vanished before one could come into existence, but apparently here in the Tower, not only do they exist, but according to Ganyu, they're not even useful to 5 star cultivators. Well, he didn't say that, but he did say some of the prizes would be useful all the way through 4 Star, meaning that the usefulness of a 10000 Year Ginseng probably falls short once you get higher than that.

The second is the Seven Color Starfruit. I have never heard of this before, and the description says it's "an elixir of gradually increasing strength," which isn't helpful at all. Thankfully, Vanessa is quite diligent, and went to ask Ganyu about many of the items on the list she was confused about including this one.

The Seven Color Star Fruit is objectively a bit weaker than the 10000 Year Ginseng, but for me in my current state, it would be significantly more useful. It is a citrus-like fruit with 7 segments, each in a different color, running the gamut of the rainbow. Starting with red, each subsequent segment is stronger than the last, finishing with the violet at the strength of about triple a Thousand Year Ginseng.

The reason that this is more useful than a 10000 Year Ginseng is that I would not be able to actually consume such a ginseng in my current state. I would likely need to be at least 3 Star before I would be able to get its full effects. Meanwhile, with the Seven Color Star Fruit, I would be able to eat the red right now, then progress through alongside my cultivation. When we win this competition, I think I will grab one of each, and use the star fruit to reach 3 star, and then use the ginseng once I get there.

The other prizes include a two pills that are probably not quite as effective as the raw ginseng and star fruit, but are easier to handle, and then some equipment. There's a sword, a spear, a set of gauntlets, a pair of boots, and a cloak. All of them sound quite good, but if I can get to 3 Star, I expect I'll be able to find similar quality gear on the higher Floors.

One thing that's interesting about the prizes is that while they are all incredibly valuable, they all are also potentially poisonous to a talented Climber. If, say, Vanessa, got her hands on the star fruit and used it to push to 3 star, she might become much more powerful, but if that was all she did, her foundation would be incredibly unstable, and she would probably have to spend decades or longer recovering from the side effects of such rapid progression. Similarly, if Jacob got the spear, it would allow him to be lazier about his technique and skills, since the weapon would be able to pick up some of the slack, and he might fall behind his peers when it comes to skill.

Still, as long as you don't lose yourself in the power of the rewards, they are all excellent prizes, and frankly, they seem a bit too generous for 1st Floor Climbers. My best guess is that the Tower is trying to give us an opportunity to create a few powerhouses early on so that we can establish some kind of foothold here in the Tower and not be as easily bullied by the existing factions. There are likely other things going on to try to achieve this same goal, because otherwise, any of the Ascendant factions could probably take over all of Earth and there would be nothing we could do about it. I guess we'll see more in the future though. For now, we just have to focus on the Starter Quest.

When the others get back, I set the main six to sparring against each other again while I work more with Timmy on martial arts. I was also smart enough to bring a flowerpot today, and in between exercises, I let him practice growing it out, which does wonders for his work ethic. After we leave, I eat a big dinner, then spend the rest of the night cultivating in my room with Trinity.

The next day passes largely the same, and that night, I spend nearly six hours straight cultivating with Trinity, but unfortunately, I still can't quite break that barrier between us. Disappointed, I go to bed, and when I wake up, even from my room, I can feel the tension in the air. Not just Phoenix Hall, but the entire Floor feels like it's humming in anticipation. Even though the natives will be restricted from the Outlands for the duration of the grand Starter Quest, I already know they'll be watching as closely as they can for the results.

I stretch and yawn, and Trinity does the same beside me. I pull her into my lap and start scratching behind her ears.

"It's going to be a busy two weeks."