The first ten floors were straightforward combat trials.
Floor One: A pack of stone golems. Owen tore through them with [Dragon's Breath] and [Piercing Dive].
Floor Two: Shadow wraiths that phased through physical attacks. Owen learned to infuse his claws with mana, making them tangible enough to strike spiritual entities.
Floor Three: A massive troll with regeneration. Owen used [Shockwave] to keep it off balance, then incinerated it completely, giving it no chance to heal.
Floors Four through Ten escalated in difficulty, stronger monsters, more complex battle scenarios, environmental hazards. But Owen adapted quickly. His combat instincts sharpened. His skills became more refined.
Ding!
[Level Up!]
[Level: 19/20]
[Exp: 45%]
By Floor Fifteen, the trials shifted.
Instead of just combat, the tower began testing his mind.
Floor Fifteen presented him with a massive puzzle, a room filled with floating platforms, each one inscribed with runes. He had to activate them in a specific sequence to proceed. It took him three hours of trial and error, using [Dragon's Eyes] to analyze the mana patterns, before he finally solved it.
Floor Twenty was a maze that shifted every few minutes. Owen had to rely on [Mana Sense] to detect the correct path forward, navigating by feel rather than sight.
Floor Twenty-Five forced him to endure a trial of willpower, a chamber filled with illusions of his worst fears. He saw Yuki's corpse. He saw himself failing, being cast out of Drak'thar, hunted down and killed. He saw Emma's hospital room, empty, with a death certificate on the bed.
But Owen pushed through, reminding himself: These aren't real. They're just tests. Keep moving.
By Floor Thirty, he'd grown stronger. Faster. Sharper.
[Sovereignty of Space-Time] mastery
increased to 30% through constant use.
And then, on Floor Thirty-One, something changed.
Owen stepped onto the thirty-first floor and found himself in a vast library.
Shelves stretched endlessly in every direction, filled with books, scrolls, and tablets. The air smelled of ancient parchment and magic.
The voice spoke again.
[You have proven your strength. You have proven your mind. Now, you will learn the truth of what you are]
A book floated down from one of the shelves, landing open before Owen.
The pages were blank at first. Then, slowly, words began to appear, written in draconic script that Owen somehow instinctively understood.
[In the beginning, there was the World. Not the gods. Not the demons. The World itself, the living essence of reality.]
[Above the World, the Divine Beings, gods, angels, celestial entities, sought to impose their order, their light, their absolute law. Below the World, the Demonic Beings, devils, demons, abyssal horrors, sought to consume, corrupt, and bring absolute chaos.]
[The World was caught between them. A battleground. A prize to be claimed.]
[And so, the World did what it had never done before. It created protectors. Not servants of the gods. Not slaves to the demons. But something new. Something powerful enough to stand against both.]
[It created Dragons.]
The book's pages turned on their own.
[Dragons were not born of divine will or demonic corruption. Dragons were born of the World's desperation. Its need for balance. For survival.]
[Dragons were given power beyond mortals. Strength to rival gods. Magic to defy demons. And one mandate:
Protect the World. Keep the balance. Let neither light nor darkness consume all.]
Owen stared at the words, his mind reeling.
The book continued.
[The first Dragon King rose to lead his kind. He established Drak'thar. He forged the covenant with the World itself. And for millennia, dragons fulfilled their purpose.]
[But power corrupts. And even dragons are not immune.]
The pages turned darker.
[Some dragons will forget their purpose. Some will sought to rule rather than protect. Some will became tyrants. And one will nearly destroy everything.]
At this point it began to sound like prophesy, rather than a recount of history, then An image appeared on the page, a massive black dragon with golden eyes, wreathed in flames of destruction.
"That's...that's not me right?"
[Vorthraxx the Desecrator. The Tyrant King. The Dragon Who Would aim to be a God.]
Owen sighed in relief.
The book showed scenes of devastation, cities burning, armies crushed, entire kingdoms erased. Vorthraxx had turned against the World's mandate, seeking to dominate rather than protect.
[It will take the combined might of all dragons, all mortals, and even a temporary alliance with divine forces to defeat him. The cost will be immeasurable. Dragons will be nearly driven to extinction.]
The book closed.
[This is your heritage, young one. This is what it means to carry the Blood of Kings. You are not just a dragon. You are a guardian. A protector. A keeper of balance.]
[So the question remains: Will you uphold the mandate? Or will you fall to the same corruption that will consume Vorthraxx?]
Owen stood in silence, processing everything.
"I...I guess I'm not just some reincarnated guy with a cool system. This is way too much responsibility, I.... I really am the protagonist huh?"
He looked up at the endless library.
"I'll protect it. The World. Yuki. Everyone. I won't become like Vorthraxx."
The voice seemed to approve.
[Then continue, heir of kings. Prove it.]
The next twenty floors were brutal.
The tower tested not just his combat ability, but his application of the knowledge he'd gained.
Floor Forty: He faced a divine construct, an angel of pure light that attacked with holy fire. Owen had to fight something theoretically "good", something that claimed to represent order and righteousness. But the angel sought to dominate, to impose its will. Owen defeated it, understanding now that even divine beings could threaten the balance.
Floor Fifty: A demonic entity from the abyss, writhing with corruption and chaos. It tried to tempt him, offering power, freedom from responsibility. Owen incinerated it without hesitation.
Floor Sixty: He fought a projection of Vorthraxx himself, not the real thing, but a projection of the Tyrant King's power. It was the hardest battle yet. Owen was forced to use [Sovereignty of Destruction] for the first time in the tower.
His vision went red. His power skyrocketed. His attacks became overwhelming.
But unlike before, he maintained a thread of control. He'd been training his mind, his willpower. When the berserk state threatened to consume him entirely, he forcibly ended it, gasping, drained, but victorious.
[Sovereignty of Destruction - Mastery: 5%]
He pushed forward.
By Floor Seventy, [Sovereignty of Space-Time] had reached 40% mastery. He could slow time for nearly thirty seconds now. He could move almost freely within it.
Floor Eighty tested his [Dragon's Aura], forcing him to dominate a horde of lesser drakes through sheer presence alone.
Floor Ninety pushed him to combine all his skills simultaneously, [Space-Time], [Momentum Shift], [Dragon's Breath], [Piercing Dive], in perfect harmony.
And then, finally, he reached Floor Ninety-Nine.