Aaron paused out of sight and checked the surrounding forest for any sign of life. But besides tracks from various animals he did not find anything of note. He set his backpack down and unpacked the top layer. Then he very carefully deposited the contents into the bag of holding. He made sure to keep Wind Steps activated to coat his arm in Qi while he did so. The bag was magical because it removed any weight at all and looked, felt and acted like it was entirely empty. Until you stuck your arm in there. Then it was just a large inflated bag forever stable in some other dimension.

It was a bit creepy, but more than interesting enough for Aaron to experiment a bit with it. Things inside of it did not react to any gravity at all. He put his opened waterskin in there and it did not spill at all when he turned the bag upside down. Nor did anything spill out of the bag. But when Aaron removed the waterskin the water started to flow out of the bag, but only as much as was in the compartment of the waterskin that was outside of the bag. Aaron stared upwards into the bag he held above his head and into the waterskin where water was perfectly suspended in mid air. When he pulled the waterskin a bit more out, the water spluttered into his face.

Aaron snorted and stopped screwing around. He put a couple of potions in there for emergency, the suit, because it made for nice padding on the bottom and then he put as much in as orderly fashion in there as he could. Mostly heavy things like a pot, a stove, all in neat little jute bags they had come in. Last but not least he stashed his second set of clothes in there for padding. A treated watertight bag he laid on top that was used for glowstones and then he put a single apple on top. He wanted to see if the apple would ripen or age or if anything would happen to it while in the bag. Carefully Aaron closed the bag, tightened the strap around it and hung it off his belt. His rucksack was suddenly much lighter, which did not matter much to Aaron, but it was also far less bulky which did matter for maneuverability in combat. He got some rope out of the bag and tied the rucksack into a more streamlined shape, making sure not to squish anything sensitive.

Last but not least he changed clothes into the black turtleneck and pants, all included with shoes, which fit him perfectly and a sturdy leather belt. Aaron rearmed himself after he had changed, put a few potions on his belt, his enchanted dagger and his purse as well as the bag of holding followed. That done he shouldered the backpack and tightened it, so that it would not hinder him much in combat.

Aaron was not really in a hurry, but then again he should hurry, if he wanted to make good on his promise to Modestus. Training was his primary objective though. Aaron went down to the forest floor and started to walk in a controlled manner with Wind Steps enabled. He tried his best to keep his strides even and quickly found out that this was a bad idea on a forest floor that was littered with fallen trees, branches, bushes, animal trails, rocks, mushrooms and moss. The ground was never even, roots sprang out of the ground everywhere and the new green of the late spring had turned the forest into a temperate jungle of sorts. So keeping his stride completely even made him stumble and fall almost so many times, until Aaron clicked his tongue and tried his best to measure his stride to the environment instead.

He jumped forward, diving 1 meter off the ground over a small tree, landing mid step and dove forward past a rock and over a bundle of roots. Every single stride demanded constant correction and Aaron was, as it turned out, terrible at it. He stumbled constantly and cursed with every bump of his shoes against an offending object. Up in the trees this was all so much easier. He had time to adjust his position up there. He had learned how to aim for tree tops, or branches, but he was using a far leap to do that. He did not have time to adjust his leap itself while he was walk-leaping because the distance he leapt between each step was so small. When Aaron almost fell on his face misjudging a step, he cursed and made a huge jump over a front of bushes he would have had to jump around otherwise. The far leap was so much easier. When he was mid air he adjusted his position and landed exactly where he wanted to.

But when he had to precisely measure the jump within half a second, he was sloppy and bad at it. Granted he did get it done most of the time. He had used Wind Steps for so long it was part of him. But moving like this was meant to really integrate it into his every movement. His goal should be to always have it active, to always move precisely like this.

Aaron spend two hours for a stretch of forest that would have taken him 15 minutes if he had skipped past it with huge jumps in the forest canopy. It was so bad he wanted to die of embarrassment over his own inability with a technique he had thought he had mastered already. As it turned out he had barely scratched the surface. Irritated by his own inability, Aaron took exactly three steps up the stairs to the second floor at a time. And then he kept at it. Three steps, every stride. No stumbling, perfect accuracy like a damned metronome.

It was agony after 5 minutes or so. To keep his stride, his jumps, always the same was even harder than changing the strides to the environment for some reason and Aaron fell on his face twice before he took a deep breath, buried his fury and did it again while concentrating as hard as he could.

Aaron's mind slowed down as he just focused on the task of climbing the stairs. The ever same rhythm of his strides was like a mantra, or a Zen like activity. Once he had focused and honed in on the exact movement and ingrained it into his mind, he started to repeat it. Over and over again. Keeping everything the same, eliminating the small inaccuracies he found in his leap. After a while he did not even see the staircase in front of him anymore. All he felt and saw was his own body, his muscles doing the same thing over and over again, each movement exactly as before, a cycle of muscle contraction without any deviation at all. When Aaron cleared the last few steps of the staircase he blinked confused and paused mid step. He stumbled over his own feet and fell face first towards the ground.

He blinked into the harsh desert sunlight after catching himself with his hands and standing back up. He felt oddly refreshed after the meditative training. His body had mostly relaxed while he repeated the same steps. Focus was the key of actual repetitive perfection he noted to himself. He turned towards the desert and began to repeat the same stride. It did not really work well. He was not jumping up anymore, but straight forward. Aaron adjusted, his mind quickly slipping back into his meditative trance. The sand under his feet was a challenge, his feet sinking in never entirely the same. But it was close enough to the stairs that he found back into the same repetitive groove.

Within 5 minutes he had figured it out. Most of the stride was the same, just the way he set his feet required input from his senses. His toes accelerated him forward with every jump and they sunk into the sand. But his shoes kept the amount in a tolerable range so that he could concentrate on actually making progress in keeping Wind Steps as even as possible. Because the more he focused on the technique the more he realized that his physical body was the key driver of the technique. Yes, the Qi surrounding his body was key to making Wind Steps work, but his body, how he moved changed the way he used the technique. Walking or Leaping in Qi was fundamentally different and whenever Aaron touched a surface, like Sand in this case, he needed to adjust his body to actually drive the technique forward exactly how he intended to.

When a scorpion burst out of the sand close to Aaron, he was more annoyed by its appearance than threatened. His loose hands formed into palms as time slowed to a crawl and he guided the stinger away from his body in what felt slow motion. In his meditative internally focused mind he could see how the Qi in his body twisted as it reacted through the Unceasing Palm kata. He did not pause or stop his stride, he adjusted and dove past the scorpion. He changed course and dove backwards, almost instinctively choosing a stance of the rejuvenating Fist as he punched the slow scorpion's brains out of its body.

Aaron was a lot stronger than he had been when he had first fought on this floor and his physical prowess was enough to kill the scorpions with one strike without even sullying his clothes. His senses told him the thing was dead before his strike had even finished and Aaron transitioned into another even leap forward again.

His consciousness surfaced when he realized how smooth and even this transition had been and he changed direction towards what he knew would be the center of the desert part of the second floor.

Diving back into his meditative state of internal review of his movements he kept up his pace, diving up dunes, down dunes, over rocks, past scorpions he dispatched with not more than three moves. The Unceasing Palm kata was his best friend doing this, because the increase in reaction speed combined with his senses was like everything attacking him was moving in slow motion while he could move in normal speed.

A bubble of joy burst forth in his stomach, making him grin ear to ear as he dove over two scorpions, killing them while he flipped mid air and punched both in a fraction of a second before returning to his never changing strides. It felt incredibly good to move, to fight this way. Like he was meant to fight like this. He was aware that he was far beyond the second floor in combat prowess now and that his perfected Qi veins, his higher cultivation rank and his deepening understanding of his techniques all worked in perfect harmony together.

He did not know or care how long it took for him to cross the desert. His entire mind, his entire being was focused on just the next step. There were no calculations, no plans, no thought. Only the singular task to perfectly adjust his body to create the perfect step, leading to the next perfect step. Fighting against scorpions was trivial. Just another variable in the ever changing challenges of just walking correctly with the same stride using Wind Steps. His fists smashed apart scorpion after scorpion, his palms pushed away stingers, pincers, they pushed and pulled as the Heavenly Katas flowed into his meditative state. Just another variable of how his body could move, should move when reacting to an outside stimulus using movements he had repeated so many times they were part of his every movement. Aaron was so focused on his internal workings, he barely consciously noted the enemies he dispatched. Every sensory input lead to an output, every situation had an answer preordained. And for a time that was all that existed in Aaron's world.

For the first time since he had learned the techniques the great master had chosen for him, he could see the vision. Could feel it in his very being as his body sung and his Qi flowed smooth like water. But sadly all things must come to an end and Aaron's perfect trance like state halted slowly as his ears picked up the sound of fighting in the distance.

Aaron paused, finding himself in the shadow of the giant rock that hid the arena of the desert's boss. He was thirsty as the curse of the second floor was starting to take effect and Aaron drank a few gulps of water from his waterskin as he came to himself.

What the fuck had just happened to him?

It felt like his body had moved without his input, like he had become one with the movements, one with his techniques as they worked together in perfect harmony. Harmony. That was it. Somehow the great master had known how well these techniques could work together, somehow he had given him everything so that he could get into a state like that. It felt like trance, like the zone, it felt like the short moments he had gotten when he had been under fire and calm had taken over his body. He remembered in his past life when during a deployment in his time in the military, time had seemed to slow down. He remembered with closed eyes how he had moved, how he had aimed his rifle and killed one of the men shooting at his fire team. Back then he had a similar experience. Perfect focus leading to calm precision. But this had been that magnified in intensity by ten, no a thousand.

Aaron had felt like every step he had taken was preordained, like he had already taken it and all he had to do was follow what had already happened. Without his sensory input and focus coming from intense concentration on moving perfectly, he could not have possibly kept his movements up. Without Wind Steps he would not have been able to move like this, move smooth as water, every step a continuation of the last leading into the next one. The Unceasing Palm kata had given him the reaction time to react to sudden attacks and the Rejuvenating Fist had given him the offensive power to crush his enemies. He had no idea how many scorpions he had killed, but it must have been a dozen at least.

Desperately he tried to remember the feeling of being in the zone, of the absolute concentration and yet it was fleeting. Other things vied for his attention. The sounds of fighting inside of the Arena to be specific. Aaron tried to get back into his meditative state, but it was impossible as his senses got distracted and his conscious mind was racing. He cursed and then sighed. Maybe after he had dealt with this hurdle he would be able to get back to the trance like state he had fallen into.

With a single leap Aaron dove upwards, before he propelled himself up the rock again and again, his toes the only thing touching the rock. It was easy, so easy to do this. All he had to do was change direction of his leap to shape itself to bounce back towards the rock's surface. He did not even have to really think about it. Leaping like this was like a second nature by this point. But it did not feel the same like using Wind Steps had before during his trance.

Aaron shot out over the top of the giant rock and slowly drifted down until he landed on top of the rock. He looked down into the Arena and saw a team fighting against the scorpion. His senses took in everything, still keyed up and alert beyond belief. The group was small, only 7 people and they were lead by a mage. A standard climbing group. Their strength was less than Roger's group by a fair margin from what he was seeing and yet they were doing well against the scorpion. It was rare to meet other climbers in the Tower because each floor was so damn massive. But bosses and shared objectives focused the people so that it felt inevitable to meet sometimes.

The giant scorpion raged, its pincers, snapping against the shields of two warriors in heavy armor who blocked and defended the group with Vessel improved handling of their shields. A pair of rangers were peppering the scorpion's face, making it rage whenever one of the arrows managed to get a hit. A rogue was behind the creature, slicing into the scorpion's back legs and scoring deep hits every now and then. A man with a greatsword waited next to their mage who sent fire balls at the creature's head with passable but not good accuracy. Most of the balls of fire missed and Aaron heard the greatsword warrior sigh before he stepped forward and cut through one of the scorpion's pincers at the joints, using a skill, Aaron guessed, as his massive blade was way too fast as it sliced downwards and tore through keratin and flesh.

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The fight was fairly quickly over after that. The mage managed to fry the creatures head and the rogue finally brought down one of the hind legs. The scorpion died after that. The group cheered with only the greatsword warrior staying stoic. He must be higher leveled Aaron guessed, his equipment was better and his blade had a tinge of an enchantment that Aaron could sense with his mana sense. Not a strong enchantment then, but enchanted nonetheless.

Aaron did not interfere or show himself. There was literally no point to it. He could just wait and take the mark from the scorpion after the group had left. The group picked up their packs, checked over each other for injures and then took the glowing scorpion mark from the nearby wall. Then the group left chattering among each other. Aaron waited until they had gone out of earshot of the arena and then dove downwards. Aaron fell towards the floor of the arena with deadly speed and then halted his momentum when he was just a few meters above ground. He landed with graceful ease and tapped the rock with the white scorpion. The tattoo like mark shimmered to life on his hand and Aaron leapt back up into the sky just a moment later. He used the walls of the arena to propel himself up and beyond the rock itself as he soared towards the jungle part of the floor.

Aaron flew, the wind whispering past his ears and the hot desert winds made his clothes flutter. All around him he could see the dunes stretch out to the horizon dotted with small black spots from the scorpions. He tilted until he flew upside down and then dove forward letting himself get buffered by the winds as they dragged him upwards a bit again. He just let the wind resistance push him up into the sky, before wind steps broke the laws of physics again and he floated downwards almost casually. It was a surreal experience. It felt like paragliding just without a parachute. Aaron really loved Wind Steps for this feeling. This feeling of freedom, of falling without any fear, of feeling like nothing could hold him when he flew through the air. Aaron landed with a soft puff of sand as he bled of some remaining kinetic energy and basked in the memory of flying for a long moment, while the heat of the desert sun baked him from all sides. He felt sand under his feet again he sighed disappointed that it was over.

For a moment he wanted to take off his shoes and feel the scorching hot desert sand in between his toes, but then he remembered why he was here. He was here to train, to rush to the third floor, so he tried his best to focus again on making Wind Steps nice and even.

It took him far longer to get back into his even strides, but the trance like state would not come to him again even when he did. The more he tried to recreate the sensation the more fleeting it became. His strides were imperfect and Aaron could simply not bring himself to focus hard enough to correct them every time. Aaron stopped, standing still in the desert again, cursing himself silently.

Scorpions broke out of the sand but Aaron had no mind for them and tensed before he leapt into the air again. He soared over the next few dunes and skipped most of the hostile fauna chasing after him. He was disgusted with himself for being unable to focus as hard, but there was nothing he could do for the moment. He was just too distracted and so he decided to take a break and reset his mindset. He stopped focusing on doing Wind Steps perfectly and just let himself go. He jumped, soared through the air and landed again, over and over in huge bounding leaps that skipped past any monsters trying to ambush him. Fighting the scorpions would just cost time for no benefit and he really did not care for them right now.

Aaron arrived at the jungle biome before he knew it. His huge leaping bounds had carried him far in a short time. For now he decided to focus on getting to the third floor. Maybe after a break he could get back to training properly. He had a reason to rush, because he did have an errand to run for Modestus after all.

Instead of fighting through the jungle he chose to leap above it like a bird, barely hitting the crown layer of the jungle as he danced upon the ocean of leaves. His nose started to run as the curse of the jungle biome took affect, but he ignored it. He would be saved from the curse soon enough. He kept up his heading in relation to the walls in the far distance and soon spotted a hole in the sea of green. A white bony tree stretched into the sky and Aaron headed there with great speed.

With a last jump he was floating far above the jungle boss arena and spotted the giant serpent coiled around the tree immediately. Nobody had killed the boss yet, or was close enough to get here before he could kill it. Which meant he could be done with it shortly.

Aaron stopped floating in mid air, slowly losing altitude and then dove head first downwards, letting gravity give him speed. He quickly passed the top of the dead tree, pushed himself off a branch with enough force to make the whole tree tremble. The snake hissed and looked out into the jungle with its giant head, but it did not look up. Why would it? There were no flying predators in this jungle and he doubted many mages would be flying to kill a boss on the second floor, if any. He might be the first one to approach the boss from straight above. Aaron felt his body and his Qi as he reinforced his right shoulder, his entire right arm from the tip of his little finger to his shoulder blades. Automatically he got into a stance of the Rejuvenating Fist kata to punch from above as he used Wind Steps to give himself even more speed.

The snake reared its head in anticipation of an attack when Aaron collided with the top of its head like a jackhammer of a vengeful deity. The snake's head was tough, its scales durable, its bones hard and the kinetic energy of Aaron's reinforced punch was more than enough to kill it even with that. Aaron bounced off as his punch dented the snakes head in. He heard bones crunch and his whole arm hurt as he got pushed back into the air by the kinetic recoil. The snake's head crashed into the ground with a sound of a boulder hitting rocks, bounced back into the air, spraying blood into the air, before it fell to the ground again. Its brain had been liquefied, its skull broken and blood leaked out of eyes, mouth and ears of the giant snake as it crashed to the ground spilling blood everywhere. Aaron floated down using Wind steps passively and shook his arm with a wince.

"Well, okay. That was overkill." he admitted to himself studying his work. He had literally caved the bosses skull in and he was glad he had reinforced his arm or the pain from the impact would have been horrible. It just stung like this and he chuckled to himself. It looked like using an accelerated punch with Wind steps was still better suited for under water. This could actually be dangerous for his own body on land. But good to know that it did work as expected.

Aaron took the snake tattoo from the tree and then jumped back up into the trees until he was back above the treetops and could continue on to the third floor.

All in all the second floor had not taken him more than an hour to pass, which was quite an achievement, considering he had been training for the first half an hour, Aaron considered, while he floated down to one of the double doors barring entrance to the third floor.

The door opened when Aaron pressed the corresponding tattoos to the doors and then he sprinted up the stairs. Jumping up three stairs at a time felt natural now and he quickly found back the rhythm he had gotten into going up to the second floor. But his mind was too occupied with planning and thinking about the logistics of his climb to fall into a trance and he was honestly not trying to either at the moment.

Aaron arrived in Oceanview without attracting much attention and he quickly went and stored his backpack at one of the lockers designed for exactly this purpose. He had to shift some of the things he had put into the bag of holding to make space for a basketball sized rock, but it was mostly just pots and a stove he put in the locker to make space. Then he went and bought himself a wet-suit, because he did not really want to ruin his new clothes with a prolonged bath and fight in salt water. Aaron went through his mental checklist of what to do next and decided his next stop was one of the restaurant selling magical seaweed dishes. It was a nice juicy fish steamed in seaweed that was nice and soft and seasoned well. It was delicious as he devoured it on the move. Aaron checked over his equipment and waited on land until the magical bubble formed around his mouth.

Aaron dove into the Ocean, the water felt comfortably cool, but not cold as he dove deeper into its depths. His eyes acclimated quickly and he orientated himself with the mountain of Oceanview behind him. He did not know exactly where the volcanic rock was with the rare monster in it and so he did his best to retrace the steps he had taken with the district group.

First he dove down deeper and deeper until he found the cave entrance leading into the depths of the floor. He sped through the tunnels accelerating continuously until most creatures could not keep up with him, or even register his passing by more than the shock waves of water he left in his wake. None of the eels or moraines lurking in the narrow caves adjacent to the tunnels were fast enough to challenge him and Aaron had no problem navigating even at this speed. It was difficult to stop though, since the inertia of the water he displaced hit him in the back like a wave whenever he had to pause to change direction.

But before long Aaron arrived in the jellyfish cave, which he promptly ignored as well. He dove through it, jolting and jostling the jellyfish aside that had already repopulated the cave to an incredible degree. Some of the jellyfish were in his way and he dove past or through them.

Not 20 minutes since he had jumped into the ocean Aaron had arrived at the deep ocean where darkness reigned and he was beneath the currents feeding the magical maelstrom. Aaron paused in the open water, his eyes closed as his mana senses gave him an accurate reading of the direction he had to go. He remembered more or less where the volcanic rock was and after he had reconfirmed his location he dove into the light-less depths.

None of the giant krakens he had encountered last time registered to his senses, only smaller octopuses he ignored. This was most likely the intended challenge of the deep dark ocean. The giant cephalopods were just a few meters long, not dozens and Aaron thought it would be a difficult challenge for a normal team of climbers, but not impossible. Especially not compared to the gigantic specimen he had killed down here before. But Aaron did not see any point in fighting them this time. He just sped past them and the smaller specimen stopped chasing after him rather quickly.

Aaron had to pause and check his position plenty of times while he felt with his senses for the sound of underwater volcanoes. But it still took him two or three hours of searching more or less the right area until Aaron finally found it again. He dove down to the volcanic rock and found the narrow cave entrance almost instantly, but he did not enter the cave until he was mentally prepared.

The guardian, the strange corrupted siren with its sonic attacks was a really difficult opponent for him. If he did not kill or stun it before it could attack his oversensitive senses, he would be in a world of trouble. But Aaron had a ranged option now, which he was eager to use. First he picked up a long jagged piece of rock as a backup and then he checked over the armband that could conjure lightning bolts. He did not activate it under water, that would have been stupid and he was not sure if he was insulated from any potential electrical discharge in his wet-suit. It wasn't exactly rubber he was wearing after all. But he would still try to stun or kill it with the lightning bolt first and then send the rock second to silence it, before diving back down.

His plan set he pushed himself through the narrow claustrophobic winding cave that dug into the volcanic rock. The temperature here rose with every meter and yet Aaron was sweating more from nerves than the heat. As silently as he could he entered the last stretch of the tunnel and the cave where they had found the mushroom. He used all his senses while he silently drifted into the cave. He detected the horribly corrupted and disfigured creature quickly and got himself into position under water, clutching the armband tightly. He took a deep breath and rose out of the water slowly, aimed and activated the enchantment on the armband.

There was a crackle and hiss when the lightning bolt formed and shot forward, but Aaron did not wait for it to hit, he dove back into the water and pushed himself back out of the cave. A shock-wave of sound shook him to his bones as he hit the back of the cave, but then there was silence rather quickly. Aaron's hand clenched around the rock tightly, he dove into the cave with a Wind Steps empowered push, burst out of the water once he had the space to do so and pulled back his arm to throw. He was mid air when got a good look at the creature. The Siren was dead, a big searing hole had been burned through its chest. But Aaron did not take chances and threw his rock at the things head, smashing it apart, before he landed.

Sighing a breath of relief, he checked the creature over for any life signs, but the lightning bolt had killed it instantly. Good to know and a big relief. If he had to fight this thing not out of ambush there would have been a chance he could have died here. Aaron knew that intellectually, but it did not register properly in his mind. Sound attacks were still some of the worst things anyone could do to him and he really wished he could dampen his senses like he had been promised he would be able to in the end. But yeah Foundation Realm first.

Aaron looked around the cave and studied the place where they had found the mushroom. When he looked carefully he could already see some sprouts of new mushrooms growing out of the rock. He nodded to himself satisfied and pulled out the pickax from the bag of holding. Carefully he began to outline a section of the volcanic rock he wanted to take with him. Once he had a circle of dented in rock he started to widen and deepen it. The pickax dug into the rock, morphing it until Aaron had dug out a more than head sized chunk of volcanic rock. There were even some small mushrooms sprouting out of it and half way through he had noticed he was fusing closed the mycellia of the mushroom. Modestus had been right, the real mushroom had dug itself into the volcanic rock. It did take ages to get the rock out, but it was just tedious not actually difficult. Aaron put the more than basketball sized rock carefully into the bag of holding and even managed to fit the pickax in there as well.

That done Aaron went back under water and caught his breath, before he exited the hidden cave with its dead guardian. Now all Aaron had to do was deliver the rock to Modestus. Of course he could just try to swim back and walk down to the first floor. But that would be a waste of time when there was a much easier and faster way.

Aaron looked up to the distant surface and started to accelerate, pushed himself with wind steps until he became a rocket moving through the water and the only thing allowing him to do this was Wind Steps negating the pressure of the water in front of him. He felt the underwater current feeding the great maelstrom when he passed it. With his speed he barely drifted further than a few hundred meters while he passed through the rapid current. He ignored any creatures he encountered, just sped past them while the ocean became brighter and brighter. With a splash he burst through the ocean surface and was suddenly in the air. Aaron looked around, blinking away seawater and looked for the closest wall of the floor.

When he found it he sped towards it by jumping off the waves. He was literally jumping over water while he moved quickly away from the maelstrom looming above him. Walking on water was a novel and interesting challenge. Aaron could not walk on the surface tension of the ocean's surface because he was moving way too fast. But he could sink in up to his ankles and then speed up with a wind step empowered push against the ocean, flying off into the sky. Jumping like this he only had to dive into the water a few times to take a breath. With the bubble around his mouth he could not breathe the air after all.

Aaron was surprised to find out how big the ocean actually was, because it was far bigger than he had expected it to be. It was also rather diverse. He spotted some islands in the distance, which was curious, but he did not really investigate. He kept his heading and ran straight to the wall of the third floor. After a few hours where night had fallen he reached the edge of the ocean. To his pleasant surprise the water did not simply lap against the enchanted walls, but there were rocks and outcroppings at the edge of the ocean here.

He stepped on dry land as the waves of the ocean burst against the rocks and climbed up to the top until he stood right in front of the wall. It loomed above him impossibly high, and Aaron felt his stomach fall when he looked up. It conjured the strange illusion of looking down a mountain or abyss and getting that fear of falling in your stomach, although this was up not down. Aaron ignored that feeling and put a hand on thew wall. He closed his eyes and sensed for Qi in the wall. When he did not find any he kept moving along the wall, searching for even a trickle until he found it.

It did not take long until he was standing in front of a small current of Qi inside of the wall and he pushed some of his own Qi into the enchanted stones. With a small crack the wall swung away and revealed an opening into the bowels of the Tower. The elevator shafts were in every floor as far as he knew, so they were the best short cuts to get to the bottom of the tower. But Aaron had to wait until the bubble around his mouth vanished. So he sat down on the rocks, dove into the water every few minutes to take a breath and waited. In his boredom he started to meditate and cultivate.

After a few hours of this rather boring process Aaron finally felt the bubble around his mouth pop. With a sigh he entered the small tunnel and walked into the darkness. He fished out a glowstone from the bag of holding, closed the secret door behind him and walked down the small tunnel. When he reached the elevator shaft he looked up and down, shining a light with the glowstone, before he dove down into the black abyss. Time to collect his rewards from Modestus.

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