Finally. Three days of staring at a progress bar like my life depended on it. Which, technically, it did.
And then...
[HUNDRED-FLOOR TOWER HAS BEEN CONSTRUCTED.]
Everything… stopped.
Not dramatically. Not explosively. Just, paused. Like the entire world collectively decided to breathe at the same time.
I tilted my head up, squinting at the tower. Still couldn't see the top. Of course not. Because why would anything in my life be reasonably sized? No, it had to be a sky-piercing, existential-crisis-inducing monument that screamed, your problems are not over.
But…
The air felt different.
Calmer.
The violent pressure that used to cling to my skin, that constant suffocating weight of overflowing mana, it was gone. What remained was thinner. Gentler. Controlled. Like Zethara finally stopped hyperventilating after almost dying.
And everyone felt it.
No one said it out loud, but it was there. That quiet understanding.
This is it.
We're not getting stronger here anymore.
