As Kael moved through the hidden city streets, he saw a couple of red dots in a building near him. It was the last building he needed to clear before arriving at the main arena where the Fire Rune was.
The minimap floated at the edge of his awareness like a second set of eyes, and he kept glancing at it the way a man checked mirrors while driving through a bad neighborhood.
The street around him was a corridor of broken stone and half-standing walls, the kind of place where sound traveled strangely, sometimes swallowed by rubble, sometimes echoed back from cracked windows like a warning.
He could smell dust and old smoke even when there was no fire nearby, that permanent ash-scent that clung to everything in this floor like the Tower had baked it into the air.
Just as he thought about a path to avoid the contact, he was finally struck with a realization. A grave one at that. It didn't come as a dramatic moment with thunder and clarity; it came like a cold hand wrapping around the back of his neck and forcing his attention inward.
The building was there, the dots were there, the arena was close, and his first instinct was still to detour, to slip around, to pretend the problem didn't exist until it cornered him.
"I've been too passive."
A simple thought that came to him, yet it was as heavy as a mountain. It settled into him and didn't move, like a truth that had been building since day one and finally decided to stop being polite.
His feet slowed, then stopped entirely, and he stood there in the street with rubble under his boots and a red sky above him, letting the words echo through his skull.
Passive meant alive, yes. But passive also meant broke. Passive meant weak. Passive meant the Tower deciding the terms while he nodded along.
Since the day he got here, he was too passive. He could easily blame it on the fact that he was a newcomer to the tower, he had to play it safe, since it's the Reverse tower even.
He could list excuses like inventory items: no knowledge, no allies he could trust, goblins everywhere, the debt hanging over him like a chain. All of it was true. All of it was also convenient.
The Tower didn't care why you hesitated. It only recorded that you did.
But what does playing things safe ever achieve? It'll only make him lose on potentially good rewards.
That was the part that made his stomach twist, because he'd already seen what "reward" looked like here, legendary items, titles, power spikes, and he'd also seen the price.
Still, the math didn't change. He didn't have the luxury of waiting for opportunity to fall into his lap. Opportunity didn't wander. It had to be taken, stolen, dragged out of danger by force.
Growing strong early creates a good foundation for later. And having obtained the title [Legend] he has no excuse for himself to keep playing it safe. The irony wasn't lost on him. The rabbit had tried to kill him with that title. The Tower had branded him with it anyway.
Now the title sat on him like a suit of armor he hadn't asked for, heavy and uncomfortable, but still armor. If he kept acting like a frightened rookie after being handed that kind of advantage, then what was he even doing here?
'I'd better be dead than not use the power I got.' The thought settled in his mind like an unmovable mountain.
It's been three days now, and he has yet to go on a 'farming' streak where he should be getting Soul Cores. The word farming felt almost insulting, like pretending murder was agriculture, but that was how climbers talked.
That was how systems made slaughter sound like routine. He didn't like it, but he couldn't deny the reality behind it. He needed cores the way he needed breath. The Tower had priced survival in a currency, and the Tower didn't accept excuses.
Not only is he in debt, he also needs the cores to payoff the price of leaving the first floor. The goblin merchant's smile flashed in his memory, the casual way the debt had been laid on him like a collar.
Fifty cores. It sounded like a number until you had to collect it one kill at a time. Every time he avoided conflict, he was choosing to extend his time on this floor. Every time he extended his time, the odds of dying rose. It was a neat little spiral.
Granted, there wasn't much of an opportunity to kill any enemies before, not on the first day where he had no knowledge, and had to escape the horde of goblins, not on the second day, when he was in the black building, and the goblins were too packed up, and he had an ally with him that he didn't trust.
Those days had been about not dying, and he couldn't fault himself for that.
But today, the third day, he spent it all simply wandering without a clear goal. That was the part that made him angry. Not the danger. Not the Tower. Himself. He had moved like a ghost, choosing detours and empty streets, letting fear dictate his path instead of intention. He had been moving, but he hadn't been progressing.
"I need to get my shit together," Kael finally steeled himself, clapping his face twice. The words were quiet, but the resolve behind them felt solid, like a bar locking into place. He inhaled slowly, letting the air fill his lungs all the way, then exhaled with control.
If he was going to fight, he had to fight deliberately, not as a panic response.
He looked at the broken building in front of him. The dots were a grayed red, the creatures inside were inactive, asleep maybe. The minimap made it obvious: red, but dulled. Not alert. Not moving.
The structure itself leaned the wrong way, as if it had been punched and never fully recovered. Cracked windows stared outward like empty eyes. The doorway was half-collapsed, forcing anyone entering to step over debris and announce themselves with every crunch.
Even with all that, there was no point in giving up free soul cores. The thought came with a bitterness that surprised him.
Free. Nothing was free. But compared to fighting awake goblins in the open street, two sleeping dots inside a crumbling building did feel like a bargain the Tower had mistakenly left on the table.