After a one-sided, passionate hug, William and Aunt Julia sat in the booth, the scent of fish & chips thick in the air as they dove into trial prep.

"Don’t worry, Aunt. You got enough troops to blitz through the trial," William said, flipping a chip into his mouth.

"Mmm, I don’t know. I hate all this blood and killing. One of my troops died in the last trial, and I couldn’t do anything," Aunt muttered, her plate still untouched, getting cold.

"The only skill I have is Purification. I’m stuck, watching from the lord’s floor while my troops fight with climbers."

Seeing her mood sink, William stood and gently rested his hand on top of her head.

"Aunt, trust me. You’re doing more than you think. Millions died in the last trial. We’re still here. That means something. Don’t let a little blood shake you. You’re a lord, it doesn’t matter whether you’re at the front or guiding your troops from the back, and after getting stronger, you can always join them."

Even shy little Vrdyl came in and hugged Aunt’s cheeks with a soft ’Kyunn~.’

Seeing William and Vrdyl’s efforts to cheer her up, a tear slipped down Aunt’s cheek. She brushed it away with a grateful smile.

"I still remember picking you and Dante up from the park after you two got exhausted. Now listen to you, you sound like a man. Thank you, Will, this all means a lot."

He nudged her plate closer and smirked, "Well, now I could probably pick you up five times over."

Aunt let out a low chuckle. "Fufu~ Yes, you could. You’ve grown a lot."

They lingered in the restaurant, chatting until the 6-hour trial warning flashed. William still had some prep left. He wasn’t worried about Aunt Julia, as she had 4 intermediate and 2 low A-rank troops, more than enough for the trial.

Previously, only 2 low-rank and 1 intermediate-rank climbers came to her tower. Her luck wasn’t as bad as his.

Her tower core was a fountain that produced Radiaqua, a faint golden liquid that boosted stamina and endurance by 30% for five minutes. She’d been selling it off for troop upgrades and had also given some to William.

After saying goodbye, William headed back to the tower and found Cent and Mutt sparring. Ever since Mutt surrendered, the bastard had done nothing but sleep, eat, and shit.

William had cut him some slack while he was injured, but two days after those wounds healed, Mutt was still loafing around.

If he’d known this idiot would be such a deadbeat, he might’ve finished him off instead. Before heading to the neutral zone, William told Cent to whip his ass into shape.

All his troops had been grinding hard for three days straight, except for that useless mutt. Cent’s Static Thrust had hit high stage, increasing the stun effect to 25%.

Vrdyl’s Binding Vines reached intermediate, letting her bind enemies for 15 seconds. Nyx’s Wind Arrow also advanced, her shots now reach up to 50 meters.

Even the Boom fairy had advanced her Cinder Burst to intermediate, now able to toss out 15 explosive seeds a day. She’d been practicing on the second floor, no way he was letting her turn the lord’s floor into a bombing zone.

Lumina hadn’t improved as she’d already maxed out her skill. William had asked Rollie about how they learn new skills, and Rollie explained that troops can either gain new skills when their whole tier upgrades, or you can get them yourself through gacha or the tower merchant.

She also told him something that was a game-changer: there’s a stage above high: perfect. It’s harder to reach, but once a skill is perfected, lords can upgrade it to a stronger version of that skill using TP.

For techniques, it’s a bit different; they also have a perfect stage, but they don’t upgrade. Instead, they can merge with similar techniques. If someone’s got a basic sword technique at perfect and picks up an advanced one, the basic merges into the advanced technique, giving foundation for the new technique, no additional effects.

He hadn’t known any of this, none of his technique manuals had a perfect stage.

All his troops were practicing their skills, even the mushroom had woken up and was hacking at the air in front of his hut with those blade-arms. Now it was William’s turn for final prep. "Rollie, use the Floor Expansion Card."

The moment he gave the order, the entire floor shuddered and began to rise, elevator-style. Seconds later, it halted. He checked the tower status; it now shows four floors.

He teleported to the second floor to kick off dungeon work. One look around, and his eyes bulged. "Damn, good thing I told them to practice here."

The place looked like a warzone. Vrdyl, Nyx, and Imp had been using their skills here for two days straight.

Nyx’s arrows had left scars all over the walls, Vrdyl’s withered vines tangled across the floor, and the Imp had blasted fist-sized craters everywhere. That little thing was basically a hovering grenade launcher.

He didn’t care about the destruction, not if it meant stronger troops. Spotting the Swamp Forest blueprint in his inventory, he mentally triggered it. Just as he did, Rollie chimed in.

[Swamp Forest Blueprint (Uncommon) Detected.]

[Resources required: Respawn Core, 2200 Wood, 200 Stone, and 60 TP.]

[Construction will take 5 minutes. Please confirm to proceed.]

He expected the blueprint to eat up all his resources, but the TP cost made him jump. "Bullshit. Absolute BULLSHIT! How does it cost 60 TP when the hut was only 30 at the same grade?" As William yelled, Rollie replied.

[TP requirements for blueprints aren’t based on grade. They depend on the scale and extra resources it needs during construction.]

[Don’t nag, dear~ You’ll see the difference once it’s built.]

"Nagging? I don’t even have that much TP! After the hut and daily stuff, I’m down to 30. Every fucking time, something goes sideways. Now I’ve got to sell Blooms."

He put 10 Blooms on the regional market. Five minutes later, they were gone, and he had exactly 60 TP now. With that, he said, "Rollie, start the dungeon building."

As William confirmed, the mentioned resources vanished from his inventory. The entire floor began to tremble, and white mist began swirling in and swallowing everything in sight. The stone floor beneath his feet started to turn soft and muddy.

Not wanting to get swept up in whatever shit was about to happen, he teleported to the third floor and pulled up tower management to watch the transformation from a bird’s-eye view.

Even from the panel, he couldn’t see a damn thing, the second floor was lost in thick white mist.

The only thing he could see was the dome ceiling, slowly darkening until it turned pitch black, like a night sky with no stars or moon. It mirrored the artificial sky on the lord’s floor.

The mist lingered for a full five minutes before it finally began to thin. The floor slowly came into view. It was completely transformed into a swamp straight out of those movies where a massive alligator might crawl out of the water.

Nearly four feet of murky water now covered the floor, topped by a thick green layer of algae that made it impossible to see anything below the surface. Hundreds of trees similar to ’Water Tupelos’ stretched up from the swamp to heights of ten meters, their trunks and branches woven together by tangled webs of vines.

Silvery light from the fake night sky washed over the swamp, painting everything in 50 shades of horror. Shadows stretched long and thin, sending a chill down his spine as he watched through the panel.

At the swamp’s heart, a stone platform lay hidden behind a dense tangle of trees. William could tell the respawn core was beneath it, this was the platform climber would have to reach to move on to the next floor.

As the last of the mist cleared, Rollie’s voice chimed in with a confirmation notification.

[Swamp Forest completed]

Fifteen respawn core troops appeared in the murky water. One couldn’t spot them with the naked eye, not with all that algae and the thick muddy water, but William saw them as clearly as if they stood before him.

There were twelve tier-one (low) Razor Piranhas, just like the ones back on Earth, except their teeth were like mini wood saws. Then there were three Thunder Eels, each with a five-foot-long, snake-like body slithering beneath the water.

William pulled up their status to check out their stats.

⟡⟡⟡

Name: Razor Piranha (E-Rank)

Race: Mutated Piranha

Rank: Tier 1 (Low)

⟡⟡⟡

Attributes

Strength: 10

Constitution: 6

Agility: 12

Intelligence: 4

Mana: 6

Affinity: Metal

⟡⟡⟡

Skill

Flesh Shredder (Low)

They bite into flesh with teeth coated in metal, boasting a 50% chance to tear flesh clean off the bone.

⟡⟡⟡

Name: Thunder eel (E-rank)

Race: Mutated Eel

Rank: Tier 1 (Intermediate)

⟡⟡⟡

Attributes

Strength: 10

Constitution: 12

Agility: 16

Intelligence: 8

Mana: 16

Affinity: Thunder

⟡⟡⟡

Skill

Thunder Bind (Low)

Unleashes a burst of thunder from its body, covering a five-meter radius. Anyone caught in the area gets paralyzed for ten seconds.

⟡⟡⟡

William stared at their skills and swallowed. "Yeah, that’s one floor even I wouldn’t step into, lord or not, but watching climbers get their balls shredded by those little meat grinders is going to be priceless. The only thing left is Gacha. Rollie, roll ’em all."