"Your doom or your fortune depends on your choice," Elber said, his face flat.

"Dylan, they challenged us."

"Fucking bastards want to kill us?"

Shortly, Sofia, Stacy, Rock, and Jamil vanished, entering a life-and-death duel against the people of Cradle.

Dylan narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Elber waved his hand, conjuring a contract. "What I mean is that you should sign this contract and become a member of Cradle, or you can die."

"Why?" Dylan frowned.

"Because you qualify."

"Are you planning to kill my companions in the duels?" Dylan asked.

"Not everyone. We'll keep that blond-haired alive since she also qualifies to join. But the other three…you can forget about them."

Right as Elber finished speaking, two people returned from the duel space.

One was the person from Cradle who was a twin-pony black-haired girl, and the other was…Rock's body pieces.

"Tsk, he wasn't as challenging as I thought."

Dylan froze. He wanted to turn his head and see Rock, but he couldn't feel his breathing. All he could perceive was a smell.

A smell of blood.

"Choose."

…

[ Congratulations, you have successfully awakened a skill, Wind Manipulation, at A-rank. ]

Ainen's eyes opened as the system's notification rang, announcing his gains.

'Wind!' Ainen's eyes shone.

'Congrats. You finally got another one.'

Ainen grinned.

"Now that I am done powering up, it's time to continue. How long was I out for?"

'Twenty-five minutes.'

"The others must have gone up already. Alright, lemme cook a feast real quick. We'll eat and then continue ascending."

Five minutes later, Ainen was done cooking a thousand kilograms of food, and Ainen exited the cafe.

Hammer was sparring with Ron and Syl, training them while Saffa and Clovelle were missing, though he could sense them a few kilometers away.

Fraisea was resting on a tree's branch.

Sensing Ainen's presence, Fraisea perked up and looked at Ainen.

'Master, you are very strong now. Stronger than us sisters.'

Ainen chuckled. 'Come on down. We are going to have a feast.'

Fraisea's eyes shone.

Ainen also called back Saffa and Clovelle using the connection of their bonds. 'I wonder how far I can maintain contact with them?'

'It depends on the power of both parties. Since you and the foxes are Adept-rank, I reckon you can maintain contact with each other even if they are roughly a hundred kilometers away,' Lord Black said.

'Damn, that's awesome.'

"Alright, kids. It's time to eat. Hammer, where did Diana and Naresh go?"

"They went out to find the hidden rewards ten minutes ago. Wait, I'll call them." Hammer took out the comm crystal and contacted them.

"I really need to buy that crystal as well," Ainen said upon seeing Hammer's comm crystal.

Hammer laughed. "Sacred Aurelian Magic Tower must have comm crystals of far superior quality, enough to contact people thousands of kilometers away. You can get one from them."

Soon, everyone gathered.

Diana and Naresh didn't get any hidden rewards, but they didn't two hoot about them. The real reward was Ainen's food, which was increasing their stats and allowing them to swiftly catch up to those peak Adept-rank Adventurers on this floor.

Once everyone finished eating, Diana and Naresh finally got their stats at 200, the peak of Adept rank.

Their Magic Cores were of upper Rare quality, so the boost they got from them was 40%, giving an extra 80 in all stats.

Naturally, after having this feast, they also got buffs. The stat buffs that boosted all of their stats by an extra 30% of 200 (60) and elemental buffs of both attribute boost and attribute resistance.

On the other hand, Ainen almost hit 200 in all of his stats. To fill the remaining gap, he spent 12 points and brought all of his stats to 200, officially reaching the peak of Adept-rank.

Feeling Ainen's aura, Naresh, Diana, and Hammer could feel clear oppression.

It wasn't just his stats that oppressed them. His stats were higher than theirs, sure.

But it was the magic his presence anchored that put invisible pressure on them. If they fought, the world would be against them because the Mana in the atmosphere would be more leaning towards Ainen than them. If they ran out of Mana and tried to refill it from the atmosphere using their Mana Cultivation Method, it literally wouldn't work because Ainen had more influence over Mana in the surrounding area, and they could feel it.

"Well, you are officially the strongest in this Labyrinth." Hammer wryly smiled. "No one can stop you."

"Humu. Now I feel safe and strong." Ainen laughed. "Alright, since we are done, let's go."

"Kids, time to enter the kitchen."

"Yes, I am sleepy."

"Me too. Good night, brother Ain and uncle Hammer."

Ron and Syl have been training in the kitchen ever since Ainen entered the Labyrinth, and they also sparred and trained outside whenever Ainen camped, so they were finally tired, and after eating the food, drowsiness was hitting them hard.

The duo had already reached the peak of Mortal-rank in terms of stats, even though they hadn't even leveled up once or formed their magic core.

After Ron and Syl entered the cafe to sleep on the Ainen created using Limitless Tools, Ainen packed up everything, and the group departed.

"I'll go first," Ainen said as he jumped on the first step.

Once Ainen entered the combat with a generated opponent, Diana went up.

And just as Naresh went up after that, Ainen was done as he simply one-shotted the mister with a Blazing Laser from his finger.

One by one, everyone climbed up, including Saffa, Clovelle, and Fraisea, since they could finally kill monsters higher level than them and level up, though their stats had also reached 200 in all after eating Ainen's Tier-3 food dishes.

As everyone was slowly making their way towards the layer 2 island, where people of all four islands from layer 1 converged, they didn't know that all those who arrived there were being hunted by people of the Cradle organization.

…

While Ainen and others started climbing the steps, dueling monsters on each step, Lilian and Yelvina saw more names vanishing from the Leaderboard.

Aside from the twenty names belonging to the Cradle organization, and not counting Adventurers like Henil, Sirika, and others who were Awakened-rank and just broke through to Adept-rank thanks to Ainen's food, the remaining top Adventurers were all gone except for Viena, Dylan, and Sofia.

In short, both Magic Towers lost all people except for those three.

"Looks like things are about to wrap up fast inside," The bald man said.

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