The 20th Floors Bureau was quiet.

This was a peaceful world with few incidents.

The employees of the Bureau would clock in, take care of complaints, have a meal, and play chess or card games to kill time.

I thought Id get to do lots of fun stuff if I became a Ranker.

Creak

Howl, a newly appointed Ranker at the Bureau, mumbled while leaning back in his chair, Boring work for a slaves wage doesnt change anywhere, does it.

Its not completely a slaves wage. Besides, we should be thankful that its a permanent, full-time position, the coworker sitting opposite him said while moving a chess piece.

Tak

If they didnt have at least this, time felt like it would never move.

Howl scanned over the chessboard.

Hmm Lets see he thought out loud for a brief moment. Ill

Bang, bang!

Right before he was about to move a piece, someone started banging on the door.

Who is it?

Creak

Excuse me, the guest that banged on the door barged in.

It was a mean-looking man with red hair.

Howl squinted while looking over at the man. Horang? he said.

It was one of the faces he saw a lot after being appointed on the 20th Floor.

The regulars fell into one of two groups. They were either serious criminals, or they had such a reliable sponsor that they could walk in and out of the Bureau like it was their house.

Horang was someone that fell within both groups.

Why are you here? Did you cause trouble again? asked Howl.

No, thats not it.

Then why did you come here? Everyones acting carefully because things are serious right now.

Horang walked over to the sofa set the two were sitting at, and he sat down without asking before answering, I found two rabbits.

Rabbits? Which ones are we talking about?

Giants and Kim YuWon.

What? Howls eyes widened.

He had been observing the Giants movements. And now YuWon was with them.

Well, actually there are two Giants, so I guess I should say there are three rabbits. Anyway, some pretty dangerous guys have met up, Horang said.

He then said with a creepy smile, And we at Olympus happened to discover them.

Horang was technically not part of Olympus. Instead, he was an executive of the Crimson Wolf Guild, a somewhat famous guild on the middle floors. But there were rumors that a bigshot in Olympus was backing him.

Because of that, Ill need some assistance, Horang said.

This wasnt a request one would normally ask the Bureau, asking for support to get some players.

The problem here, though, was that Howl and the other Rankers in the Bureau didnt have a problem with him making a request to hunt players.

But he only just arrived on the 20th Floor.

No. You shouldnt judge YuWon by what floor hes on. I saw him fight in the Grand Martial Arts Tournament, and he was no joke.

You think?

I think Hargaan did lower his guard at the end, but the guy still knocked him out with a single punch.

I guess you have a point.

Also, itll be hard with two Giants accompanying him. Not to mention, he might have the backing of the Heavenly Demonic Cult

They two had a short debate about combat strength, calculating the variables that were YuWon and the Heavenly Demonic Cult.

Hmm

I guess as long as we can get him

Wed be promoted at least one rank.

The Rankers spoke with smiles on their faces.

And thus, a secret talk started in the tiny room at the Bureau.

* * *

* * *

Adam was basically a small city.

The trunk and branches that rose into the sky were the homes of Giants.

An indestructible tree.

With the exception of High Rankers on the level of the Big Three gods of Olympus or the Ruyi Jingu of Son OhGong, one couldnt even scratch Adam.

Naturally, that meant YuWon couldnt harm the tree with his current abilities.

I can go buck wild.

Step

YWon got on top of a branch of Adam.

The floor was hard, and there was far more than sufficient space for him to go wild.

Fwoosh

Flicker, flicker

Above YuWons head, hundreds of fist-sized flames of [Holy Fire] appeared.

Whoosh!

The [Holy Fire] burned violently, having now escaped YuWons control. Theyd soon start falling randomly towards the ground.

Phew

YuWon let out a deep breath as his eyes changed.

[Cinder Eyes reads the path.]

Among the many abilities of [Cinder Eyes,] one of the main ones was reading paths.

There were many kinds of paths, but a major one was evasion. By using this ability, YuWon could see where the fire would fall, read the path, and move a few beats faster.

This is making me dizzy.

It had been quite some time since he had started using [Cinder Eyes,] but whenever he used it, he still felt the overload. Especially at times like this when he was reading an especially difficult path to evade.

Beeeeep

His brain started to overload, but this still wasnt enough for him to read the paths of a hundred flames.

[Activating Sensory Field.]

[Checking the data of all objects and life forms within a 50m radius.]

[Perception increases by 50%.]

[Sensory Field.] Among the new skills YuWon obtained, it was the skill he was most familiar with. It was similar to [Cinder Eyes,] but it was much more effective. This wasnt because [Sensory Field] was a better skill, it was simply because he was much more familiar with it.

YuWon closed his eyes.

Fwoosh

YuWon could feel the fires that had escaped his control burning ferociously. The sensation of which direction they were going to fall towards and how powerful they were tingled over his skin.

That was the power of [Sensory Field.]

Within the field, YuWons senses multiplied manyfold.

He opened his eyes, and his vision through [Cinder Eyes] became imbued with the power of [Sensory Field.]

Fwoosh!

YuWons red eyes opened wide.

There was only a single thought running through YuWons mind.

So, the world can look this clear.

He saw where each flame was going to move and how he should move himself. Everything was visibly clear.

Whoosh

The balls of fire finally started to fall.

One by one, the flames of [Holy Fire] began to rain down. In just a few seconds, they all started descending together.

Boom, kaboom!

Fwoosh!

The fires fell on a branch of Adam, and the flames rose up. That branch became tinged in the purple light of the flames.

But among that inferno, a small space no bigger than one meter wide opened up.

In the sole space where there was no fire, YuWon landed.

Phew

He managed to evade everything he saw. In fact, YuWon thought it might have been possible to dodge everything even with his eyes closed.

He had started practicing with [Sensory Field] consistently as soon as he got it, and he observed that the proficiency was growing faster than normal.

The two skills synergize well like I thought they would.

The combined effects of the two skills were multiple times greater than their sole effects, but the downside was that, as effective as it was, it was also that much more taxing.

My brain cant keep up with the sensory information.

Expanded vision as well as other senses overloaded the brain greatly.

He had a lot of experience using [Sensory Field,] but [Cinder Eyes] was a relatively newer skill for him, even though in this life, he had been substituting [Sensory Field] with [Cinder Eyes.]

Now he had both skills and the ability to use them in tandem, but that meant an even greater load on his brain.

Ill need some practice.

He decided hed likely be busy with this for a while.

Whoa. Whats this? You were here? an exaggerated voice suddenly cut in.

YuWon turned his head and noticed a familiar face.

Huh? Its a human?

Whats a human doing here?

Didnt you hear? Elder Urpha gave him permission to stay.

The Elder did that?

Still, to let a human

Kwant and four other Giants spoke to each other.

They were around the size of Buar and Nwiar, meaning they were young Giants.

Is Kim YuWon really that amazing?

I dont know. I only ever heard the humors.

So what? Its not like hes a Ranker. Hes only a guy that just got to the 20th Floor.

He was still very impressive in the latest Grand Martial Arts Tournament.

The Giants whispered amongst themselves as they followed Kwant and approached Yuwon.

Stomp, stomp

They might have been young, but they were still Giants. And five of them at that.

It was an intimidating sight, seeing them all approach someone at once.

Kwant led the pack.

So we meet again, he said with a sinister smile. And would you look at that? That son of a bitch Buar isnt here,

With an intimidating face and stature, Kwant was seriously picking a fight against YuWon.

It might have been because he had met Urpha yesterday, but Kwant now looked cute to YuWon by comparison.

Kwants gang tried to stop him.

Hey. I think youre going too far with the Elders guest

Im sure he had a reason for calling him here

So what? Kwant growled. All humans are enemies. Every single one of them.

YuWon let out a laugh. It was like seeing kids that wouldnt listen to their teacher. Though Urpha was more like a principle in this metaphor.

Hes laughing?

Whats up with him?

Is he trying to hurt our pride?

YuWon realized that they really were just big kids, seeing how easily they were provoked by some simple laughter.

I dont think you understand the situation youre in right now Kwant threatened YuWon while reaching his hand out to him.

The size of Kwants palm was bigger than YuWons head.

YuWon also reached his hand out to Kwant.

Clench

The two grabbed each others hands.

Squeeze

No way. Is this guy Kwant couldnt believe that YuWon had grabbed his hand. Trying to challenge a Giant in strength when hes only a human?

Kwant had heard plenty about YuWons skills. He was also well aware that he had been going around topping all the test rankings and that he was the winner of the Grand Martial Arts Tournament, which proved that he was the strongest among the players in the lower floors.

But setting all that aside, Giants were the greatest when it came to physical strength. That was the power of genetics.

Im going to crush you, Kwant thought as he squeezed YuWons hand.

But

Kgh

The one that ended up feeling pain was Kwant.

Crack, crack

Kugh!

His fingers started to twist, and bones started to break.

Whats going on? He wondered.

Kwant tried to strengthen his grip through the pain, but nothing changed.

Crack, crack

Kuaaaagh!!

Thud

With his hand crushed and broken, Kwant fell to his knees in pain. He tried to pull back his hand, but it wouldnt budge.

M-My hand! My hand!

Kwant tried to smack YuWon with his other hand while screaming in pain. It was unsightly compared to how prideful he was acting just a moment ago.

W-What the?

Did Kwant just lose in strength?

Against a human?

In terms of strength, there was no race that could beat the Giants in the Tower.

Of course, there were plenty of humans that were as strong as Giants with enough stats and levels, but most of them were Rankers.

Kwant was a player that had reached a much higher floor than YuWon.

Theres more than just five of you guys, right? YuWon asked.

Adam was one of the central residences of the Giants. There were likely tens of thousands of Giants living inside this tree.

With more than enough time left until the start of the test, YuWon smirked, having come up with a good idea.

Go call all your friends, he said. Ill play as much as you guys want.