SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 564: Leaving Money on the Table

Leon crossed the chamber and came to a stop at the pedestal.

The Spatial Tempering Crystal turned slowly above its surface. Pale-blue light drifted through the crystal, tracing darker veins within it. Those lines seemed to curve whenever Leon shifted his angle.

He didn’t need to touch the treasure to notice its effect. The space around it was already reacting to him.

The Tower had picked its bait well.

An ordinary reward would have been easier to leave behind after that warning. This crystal offered something tied directly to one of Leon’s strongest abilities. It could improve his understanding of space and permanently increase his resistance to hostile spatial manipulation.

The cost would appear later, at the central gate.

Leon looked back at the ruined Stalker.

The guardian had been dangerous in the way an adaptive Tower construct could be, but it had never brought him close to dying. Most of its threat came from the way its jumps disrupted his spatial awareness. Once he figured out what the creature was doing, the fight became much easier to control.

If the Gatekeeper gained something similar, Leon would at least understand the mechanic already.

He reached for the crystal and closed his hand around it.

[Optional Treasure Acquired]

[Spatial Tempering Crystal — Epic]

It fit easily in his palm. The cool surface hummed faintly against his fingers, and Void Dominion stirred in response as if it had recognized something familiar.

Leon didn’t absorb it.

An Epic treasure could cause a major change. Trying to understand and integrate one in the middle of an unexplored trial would be needlessly reckless. He stored the crystal as it was and decided to examine it somewhere safer.

The Tower answered immediately.

[Optional Treasures Claimed: 1]

[Gatekeeper Enhancement Applied]

[The Gatekeeper has acquired Spatial Resistance.]

Leon’s expression tightened.

The warning had only said that each treasure would strengthen the Gatekeeper. It hadn’t said the enhancement would be directly connected to the reward.

This wasn’t a simple increase in strength.

Because the Stalker had guarded a spatial treasure, claiming it granted the Gatekeeper Spatial Resistance. The other optional chambers would probably work the same way. Each treasure Leon collected could add another related defense or ability to the final enemy.

Take enough rewards, and the Gatekeeper might become a mixture of every optional challenge on the floor.

That made the choice more dangerous than Leon had first thought.

It also made the final fight sound much more interesting.

Interesting did not mean he would claim everything blindly. One reward had given him something directly useful. From this point on, every optional route would have to justify both its own danger and the ability it granted the Gatekeeper.

He left the pedestal and returned to the Stalker’s body. Before moving on, he wanted another look at the guardian’s core. Its internal structure might prove useful once he eventually absorbed the crystal.

The metal beneath its head had split where Leon’s sword went through. Broken channels spread around the destroyed core, most of them dark now that the construct’s energy had disappeared.

Something black rested among them.

Leon crouched beside the remains.

The object hadn’t been inside the core. It had been hidden behind it. His earlier spatial examination missed the thing because it carried no energy and blended into the empty space around the Stalker’s central mechanisms.

He eased it loose.

It was a narrow shard of black material, a little longer than his thumb. One side was perfectly smooth. The opposite edge had broken unevenly. A faint design had been pressed into its surface, but the marking ended at the fracture before it could form anything he recognized.

No mana came from it.

There was no aura or spiritual presence either.

Even its weight felt hard to measure.

Leon rubbed a thumb over the flawless surface.

The sealed black door came to mind at once.

Only a few minutes earlier, he had felt that same unnatural smoothness beneath his palm.

He tried to identify the shard through the Tower’s interface.

Nothing happened.

Then Leon called on the Cosmic System, expecting at least a name or some kind of category.

It gave him nothing.

That silence interested him more than a long description would have.

The Tower had named the Stalker and the crystal without hesitation. It had explained the trial, its dangers, and its rewards. Yet it refused to acknowledge the black fragment.

It had treated the black door the same way.

Leon turned the sliver in his fingers and looked at the broken marking.

The door has no symbol. This carries part of one.

One piece couldn’t reveal the full design, but the fractured edge proved something. The shard had once been part of a larger object.

Maybe other optional guardians held more fragments.

Maybe they could only be found in certain hidden areas.

Leon had no idea how many existed or what collecting them would do. What he did know was that the shard and the sealed door seemed to share the same material.

That was enough.

He stored the black fragment apart from the Spatial Tempering Crystal.

A low rumble moved through the chamber.

Leon stood and drew his sword, but no enemy appeared.

Behind the pedestal, the stone wall began to separate. Sections folded inward with precise mechanical movement, opening onto a wide intersection.

More than a dozen passages extended from the new area.

Some archways carried an engraved key. Others displayed an open treasure chest. The remaining routes had no markings at all. Dim light reached only a short distance into those corridors before darkness swallowed the rest.

The floor’s design had become clearer.

Key paths moved the required trial forward.

Treasure paths improve both the challenger and the Gatekeeper.

The unmarked routes offered no explanation.

Before Leon chose, a faint disturbance passed through the corridor behind him.

It came from the circular room where the trial had started.

The sealed black door pulsed once.

His spatial awareness still couldn’t enter it, but the ripple spreading from its surface was impossible to miss. At the same time, the black fragment in storage gave a small vibration.

Then both stopped.

Leon smiled.

The fragment belonged to the hidden route. He still didn’t know how many pieces were needed, but now he had a reason to search for them.

He stepped into the intersection and studied the choices ahead.

The floor only required three Tower Keys. Finding them and leaving would be the safest option, especially now that the Gatekeeper possessed Spatial Resistance.

But the labyrinth offered much more than three mandatory routes.

Epic treasures waited inside it. Adaptive guardians protected them. Unmarked passages led to unknown places, and hidden fragments connected to a door that neither the Tower nor the Cosmic System would explain.

Completing only the required objective would mean walking away from most of the floor’s value.

Leon still wasn’t going to throw himself into every chamber without thought. Permanent death remained permanent, no matter how good the reward looked. He would examine each route, keep track of what enhancements he gave the Gatekeeper, and withdraw from anything beyond what he could safely handle.

Greed and caution could exist together.

An idiot took everything simply because it was there.

Someone capable made sure the price wouldn’t kill him.

Leon compared the nearest entrances. Two were marked by bronze keys. Another carried the silver image of a treasure chest. Farther down, an unmarked corridor bent out of view.

His hand settled on his sword’s hilt.

Three keys were enough to clear the floor.

Anything else would strengthen the Gatekeeper.

Leon’s attention went to the silver route first.

Collect three keys and leave? In a place like this, that would be a waste.

He made his choice and continued deeper into the labyrinth.