Chapter 588
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 588
'It worked successfully.'
Plan A settings devised by the Red Administrator.
The Tower of Martial Gods needed to be at least 20 floors high for this to work properly.
And while various conditions could be set for the tower to expand,
The number of 'challengers' was important for now.
'Conveniently, I had suitable challengers in my inventory.'
The 500 people who were troublesome to deal with after declaring life imprisonment.
They too were given the qualification to challenge the early Tower of Martial Gods.
"Hmm... Sanchez, was it? Did any other messages appear for you earlier?"
"Um..."
At Seong Jihan's question,
The defeated Sanchez read out the message that appeared before his eyes.
[Your level will decrease as a penalty for defeat.]
[Your current level is 2. Penalty execution is not possible.]
[The defeat penalty will be substituted.]
[The player will be forcibly bound to the Tower of Martial Gods as a 'ghost'.]
Hearing this, Seong Jihan nodded with satisfaction.
"It's been handled well."
Tower ghost.
This was the term for players bound to the Tower of Martial Gods.
Originally, binding a player to content like the Tower of Martial Gods required considerable cost, but after the Red Administrator tweaked various settings,
The current Tower of Martial Gods could secure 'ghosts' with minimal expenditure.
By strengthening the punishment for those who couldn't execute the level down penalty, turning them into ghosts.
And then,
Swooosh...
As Sanchez's body became transparent, changing into a ghost-like form,
[You can now deploy the ghost 'Sanchez'.]
[The currently available floor for deployment is the 1st floor.]
A message appeared saying Sanchez could be deployed in the tower.
'The top floor must be where I, the Martial God, am. So it's only the 1st floor for now.'
Thinking this, Seong Jihan deployed Sanchez on the 1st floor.
Then,
[Ghost 'Sanchez' is assigned to the 1st floor.]
Swooosh...
"Oh... My body!"
Sanchez's transparent body became half-materialized.
"Now I'm going to have the life prisoners enter the tower, so you fight them and lose appropriately."
"Do... Do I have to lose?"
"Yes. You can't win."
At those words, Sanchez's face fell.
Somehow, this didn't seem good for the first person in.
And as he expected,
"I-I don't want to go back into the inventory...!"
"Die!"
Sanchez felt like crying as he faced the life prisoners charging at him with murderous intent in their eyes.
Thwack! Thwack!
If only they would burst his head in one hit like Seong Jihan.
But a fierce hand-to-hand battle ensued since they were all about the same skill level.
"Huff... Huff... Am I... dead?"
Sanchez, who had already fallen for the tenth time.
As the woman who defeated him went up to the next floor,
Swish swish swish...
Sanchez's body returned to normal once again.
"No... At least let me use a weapon so I can die quickly..."
As he lamented with a grimace,
[You have met the conditions for expanding the Tower of Martial Gods.]
[The Tower of Martial Gods will be expanded.]
[The 1st floor has been expanded, allowing more ghosts to be deployed.]
Rumble rumble...!
The tower shook greatly and began to grow another level.
The 1st floor especially expanded so much that,
'I can't handle this alone...'
Sanchez couldn't even think of blocking it.
At that moment, beside him,
Swish swish...
The people who had defeated him and gone up earlier started appearing individually.
"Um..."
"Ah, I'm sorry about earlier."
Perhaps remembering how they had fought desperately earlier,
People greeted Sanchez with awkward faces.
"You fight from now on. I've already died 10 times."
As Sanchez was about to leave the 1st floor battles to his juniors,
Flash! Flash...!
Unlike before, multiple life prisoners began entering the Tower of Martial Gods at once.
Perhaps because the tower expanded, it could now accept multiple challengers.
And then,
[Ghosts will be assigned 1:1 to challengers.]
The ghosts matched with challengers were moved to isolated battle spaces on the 1st floor.
Of course, this included
Sanchez, who had been trying to let the junior ghosts fight.
'No. They really don't give any breaks...'
And so, the people in the inventory quickly became ghosts in the Tower of Martial Gods,
After the tower went through multiple expansions and upgrades,
[The Tower of Martial Gods will be expanded.]
[The tower rises to 10 floors.]
The tower that started from the 1st floor had now become 10 floors.
And then,
[You can materialize the Tower of Martial Gods.]
When the message to materialize the tower appeared,
Seong Jihan on the 10th floor smiled.
'Phase 1 is complete.'
Now he just needed to install the tower in the real world.
As Seong Jihan thought about where to install it,
'Right. Let's go to the devastated Namsan area.'
He recalled the Namsan area where the Alliance's Colonial Government had been.
Namsan, which had been devastated by the Green Administrator's battle.
Since the World Tree had also been there, people considered the place ominous and didn't go near it.
So installing the Tower of Martial Gods there shouldn't be a problem at all.
Whoosh!
Seong Jihan opened a portal, moved to Namsan,
And approached the empty lot where the Colonial Government had been.
Then he touched the Tower of Martial Gods in his system window.
[Do you want to materialize the Tower of Martial Gods here?]
A message asking if he wanted to install the tower right away appeared.
"Ah. Wait. Let me make an announcement first."
It would be better to inform people before installing the tower.
Seong Jihan turned on BattleTube.
* * *
"Hello everyone. I turned on BattleTube today because I have an announcement to make."
Woo!
As Seong Jihan greeted lightly and mentioned the announcement,
-Oh, you're broadcasting often these days
-An announcement?
-Ah. You said you'd tell us about the disposition of the life prisoners, is it that?
-Execution as expected?
-Well, carrying 500 people in your inventory doesn't seem right either.
-They disobeyed even after such warnings, despite living thanks to Seong Jihan...
People were guessing it was about the disposition of the life prisoners he had mentioned before.
"The disposition of the life prisoners... That's included too."
Step. Step.
Seong Jihan walked slowly and pointed to where the Colonial Government had been.
Then,
Ziiing...!
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
On the empty field where there had been nothing,
A huge blue tower began to form.
-Oh... What's that tower?
-Isn't that Namsan?
-Yeah, where the Colonial Government was
-I heard hikers don't go near Namsan because elf ghosts appear...
-Now people will go there to see that tower
People were just amazed at first seeing the tower materialize, but,
-??? Hey guys. Something weird appeared in my system window, is it just me?
-Uh... I got something called Tower of Martial Gods too.
-Seong Jihan is the Martial God, so that tower must be related...
-I'm just level 1 and didn't even get a gift, but it appeared... What is this?
When the Tower of Martial Gods content appeared in their system windows,
They started to become confused beyond just amazement.
And then Seong Jihan,
"Everyone. Humanity will soon be assigned to the Gold League of the Space League."
He dropped this bombshell amidst the confusion.
-What?
-Gold?
-No way... We barely managed in Silver...
-But wasn't that because the World Tree Alliance interfered back then?
-We lost badly to non-Alliance races too... Not just anyone can be last place.
-For real, we were a trash-tier race that couldn't do anything without Yoon Seah's ban...
-But isn't it okay now that we have Seong Jihan?
-No, Seong Jihan can't participate as an administrator, it was like that in Bronze too.
Humanity, who became a colony after finishing last in Silver.
How could they possibly go to Gold?
As people recalled the dark history from Silver and were convinced they'd be even worse off in Gold,
"The situation is worse than in Silver. Many rankers gave up their existing abilities to become male half-elves. Even the Sword King did that, didn't he?"
Seong Jihan added fuel to the fire.
-Oh right... ??;
-All the rankers quit to become male half-elves, damn. lol
-We didn't know. We didn't know we'd be liberated...
-Wow, there are way more female high rankers now. lol
When Yggdrasil distributed the cross-species affinity gift at the end,
Many rankers gave up their existing positions to convert to male half-elves.
Fortunately, this attempt wasn't 100% successful, so a fair number of men remained human,
But many skilled rankers had their levels reset.
Considering this, humanity's situation was even worse than when they finished last in the Silver league.
"So, I've prepared a solution."
Swish.
Seong Jihan pointed to the Tower of Martial Gods.
"The Tower of Martial Gods will assist in leveling up lagging humanity."
-Oh. The Tower of Martial Gods will help level up...?
-As expected of Seong Jihan...! You even prepared such a measure for humanity ??
-Then should we go to Namsan right away?
-No, it seems we can enter just by touching this.
-Oh interesting... Is it okay to press it now?
People didn't question the Tower of Martial Gods that would assist in leveling up humanity at all.
Seong Jihan's words were already absolute to humanity, so they weren't interested in how this would work, only thinking about following his words.
'I guess there's no need to explain exactly how the Tower of Martial Gods works.'
[Right. These people don't need much persuasion. You've built up credibility. Besides, it's true, isn't it? The leveling assistance.]
Seong Jihan nodded at the Red Administrator's words.
The Tower of Martial Gods was originally created for Seong Jihan's own leveling, but
In the process of figuring out how to operate it well, a method that would benefit humanity was also derived.
[Special benefits are given as the Tower of Martial Gods has expanded to 10 floors.]
After the tower expanded to 10 floors, there was a benefit to choose from.
Among numerous options, the Red Administrator recommended one.
[Penalty mitigation limited to a specific race.]
Here, humanity was chosen as the specific race.
The penalty of losing levels upon defeat in the Tower of Martial Gods
Was reduced to just losing some experience points for humans.
"Those level 2 and above can enter from now. The life prisoners on the first floor will guide you well about the tower."
At Seong Jihan's words that they could enter the tower,
-Oh... Then I should go right away. lol
-Level 1s can't go in?
-Touching it seems like I can enter, but I'll hold back since he said not to.
-For real, don't want to end up like those half-elves by not listening. lol
People started entering in an instant.
Those at level 1 were disappointed, but having seen cases of people becoming life prisoners for not following Seong Jihan's words, they didn't act rashly.
As humanity was excited about the Tower of Martial Gods content,
-Is this benefit only for humans... Nice to have administrator backing.
-Can't we do it?
-I'm willing to participate if you give us Earth's coordinates.
-Me too, me too.
-But wasn't the Tower of Martial Gods a different kind of content...? I thought it was about fighting for the Martial God position.
-Need to look up some records.
Alien viewers watching Seong Jihan's channel showed interest, asking if they could participate too.
"Alien friends, please wait a little. When the tower expands further, like this."
Tap.
As Seong Jihan lightly flicked his finger,
The tower's image appeared above the BattleTube screen.
"You'll be able to enter through BattleTube as well."
-Ooh... That's cool.
-The Tower of Martial Gods has all sorts of functions.
-The blue tower is gray on the BattleTube screen... Maybe the function isn't activated yet.
-Guess we have to wait for the tower to grow quickly.
As alien viewers were marveling at the tower image on the BattleTube screen,
Flash...
A message flashing green appeared large in the chat window.
[Hmm. I don't like waiting... Can I go a bit faster?]
A message flashing alone like a donation message.
This was a message that only administrator-level beings could send.
And the current Green Administrator was Urd.
[I'll activate the function for a moment~]
After that message appeared,
Fwoosh...
A blue light briefly enveloped the gray Tower of Martial Gods on BattleTube.
And then,
[Challenger 'Urd' has entered the Tower of Martial Gods.]
No sooner had that message appeared than,
['Urd' has broken through the 9th floor.]
Urd swiftly climbed from the 1st to the 9th floor in an instant.
"...I'll go greet the challenger for now."
This woman.
She really could do anything.
Seong Jihan frowned and went to the 10th floor of the tower.
Then,
"The Tower of Martial Gods... As expected of ancient content, it has many hidden functions. The past really was more free."
Urd was already there, leisurely examining the tower as if she were its owner.
"Well then... Shall I take the title first?"
She said while smiling ominously at Seong Jihan.
As a clock of light was about to appear before her with a flash,
[Player 'Urd' challenges Martial God 'Seong Jihan'.]
[The Martial God's abilities are significantly weaker than the challenger's...]
[Both players' abilities will be 100% adjusted based on the weaker one.]
A system message appeared before their eyes.
"Huh?"
The Tower of Martial Gods system that adjusts based on Seong Jihan because the challenger's abilities are too strong.
As Urd blinked seeing this,
Fwoosh...
The clock of light disappeared midway through forming.
"..."
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]