TBATE Volume 8 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 295: How to Survive

“I can tell by your wandering gaze that you’re new here. Well, you’re in luck! We have—”

“Not interested,” I interrupted, waving away a thin man with shiny, slick-backed hair.

It only took four steps to be stopped by another resident of the first floor. A petite girl wearing a short battle-skirt—way too short to provide any sort of coverage in a fight—brushed her arm against mine and glanced up at me.

“Would you like to join my team? There are only us girls, and we’d really like a strong, cool man like you around,” she said, batting her eyes.

I had arrived on the first floor less than ten minutes ago and this was already the seventh time I’d been stopped. Even after all of Alaric’s warnings, I hadn’t expected things to be this bad.

Losing my patience, I exerted a light pulse of aetheric pressure.

A ripple ran through the surrounding crowd as they stiffened and shied away from the source of the pressure. The girl’s eyes went wide and she stepped back, staring at me as though I were a demon.

‘Begone, foul wench!’ Regis declared theatrically in my head as the girl scurried away.

Aside from the constant movement of workers and the ever-present hucksters, there wasn’t much to look at on the first floor. The air was stuffy and it smelled of sweat, dirt, and excrement.

The first floor stretched out for miles on either side of me, and I couldn’t even see the ceiling above us…if there even was one. From what I could tell, there was no ambient light. The wide pathways were lit by a combination of torches and cranes holding up a web of light orbs high above our heads.

Most of the space I could see from the main path was dominated by huge quarries and even larger fenced fields of tall orange grass, where cattle-like beasts roamed mindlessly.

The entire area was a cacophony of grinding metal, breaking rock, distant bestial crooning, and a lot of loud conversations fighting each other for supremacy. Meanwhile, ascenders filed toward the teleportation gate leading to the second floor in droves.

As I got closer to the gate, the crowd of ascenders funnelled into yet another single-file line. A pair of imposing guards—their rune-scored backs proudly displayed by their armored uniforms—were checking each person for their ascender’s badge before letting them through.

When it was my turn, the guard stuck out an armored hand, looking me up and down. “Badge?”

I gave him my badge. After a quick scan, he let out a scoff and handed it back to me. “Good luck on your prelim, wogart.”

Though irritated by the obvious pejorative, I ignored the comment and stepped cautiously through the glass-like portal leading to the second floor.

I was tired, annoyed, and hot from the half hour I had been on the first floor, but all of those negative feelings were completely washed away as I took in the sight in front of me.

‘Damn…’ Regis let out a whistle.

The second floor was nothing like

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