Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

Just keep your gaze forward and don’t look at them.

Despite trying to maintain his calm, the weight of millions of gazes locking on to him was becoming too overbearing. A lot of aliens had clearly marked his face by now.

Uhtred was sure none of them actually knew who the Sovereign of Chaos, Drakgon was, but the surprise and excitement in the host’s voice had been more than enough to set them off.

Even in his chat, his total subscriber count had shot up to a crazy ten thousand paid subscribers, reaching the full capacity for a Nascent realm channel like his.

After reaching Level 25, his channel capacity had upgraded from the previously measly hundred maximum subscribers to ten thousand. And this time he had made sure to increase the entry fee to the highest the System allowed.

200 Multiversal Tokens.

That was only double the previous fee — something that Uhtred was still very salty about. He had hoped to increase the fee to at least 1,000 in one go —but now, seeing his current Multiversal Token balance, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath. Even at two hundred, the payout was insane.

2,363,700 Multiversal Tokens!

He had earned three hundred and sixty-three thousand seven hundred tokens over the past year — an already crazy amount — but even that had increased by a whopping two million in one go!

Looking at that amount, Uhtred’s tension was immediately alleviated. Even though it was just money, there was still a certain kind of joy seeing such a massive sum in his balance.

He didn’t even care that the host was still rambling about him, hyping him up and trying to bait other climbers into targeting him.

He felt all their gazes, but it meant literally nothing. He just wanted to reach that entrance to the next floor above. There, he would know what to do next and how to proceed.

He continued leaping upward, each step bringing him closer to the featureless sky where the distortion shimmered.

A few times he felt someone lock on to him with more than just curiosity, but a single cold glare was more than enough to make them pause in their tracks. They had seen the strike that ended the insectoid alien in one go.

That was the same attack the host had gone crazy over.

Sure, the ascenders here were elite talents who lived for competition, but even the craziest murder-hobos among them weren’t dumb enough to risk going up against such a mysterious technique on the very first floor.

There would be plenty of time to fight Uhtred on the higher floors, so they simply memorized his face and kept climbing.

After exactly six minutes of ascending, the first person finally reached the shimmering concave. Their body disappeared right through, sucked in before they could even stop their ascent.

The same happened to those who followed. They all disappeared through the large shimmer.

Aaand we have the first thousand to cross to the next floor!! A hundred thousand!! The first million!!

The host’s voice boomed again, full of enthusiasm.

Uhtred reached the edge of the shimmer and felt himself being pulled immediately.

As he reached the crossing, he heard the host gleefully announce that the real treat was coming. The vast majority of the climbers were still only halfway through, meaning the last minute was going to be extremely chaotic... a total bloodbath.

However, none of that concerned Uhtred. He was through, and he knew the rest of the human team were also safe. So, as he crossed through to the next floor, he steadied his mind and readied himself for the next challenge.

.

.

His body dematerialized and reformed on the new floor. Before he could even take in his surroundings, he immediately activated several layers of elemental barriers.

Over a million alien ascenders had reached this floor ahead of him, so he wasn’t taking any chances with a sneak attack.

But it turned out there was no need...

”Handler Roy?” Uhtred raised a brow in confusion, scanning where he had appeared.

Contrary to what he had thought, he found himself in what looked to be a simple brick-walled room. A three-foot-tall rat with a long mustache that drooped down the sides of his face in an exaggerated manner stood at the center of the plain room, his arms crossed behind his back like a sage.

He wore a simple robe, his presence bearing the air of someone that had seen the vicissitudes of life.

”Oho? You’re the second person that immediately knew it was me. Have you ever met a Klurrgan before?” the rat man asked with a chuckle, a knowing glint in his eyes.

Uhtred’s expression became flat. He looked around the room. Diya was already present, and surprisingly, Perfection was too.

Uhtred’s eyes narrowed at the mysterious man, then moved very quickly back to Diya.

Without a doubt, she was definitely the person Handler Roy was just talking about. She was the only one present who would know that the rat man was handler Roy at first glance.

Uhtred had told her about his findings from the Andronian Inheritance Shard. Aside from information about the otherworlders, the Shard had included inside intel about the Tower itself, revealing that a trial was coming long before the System announced it.

That intel was what had pushed Uhtred into seclusion to prepare over the last year. It was also how he knew Handler Roy belonged to a shapeshifting race.

Klurrgans.

Roy’s first form had been a cat, likely to seem non-threatening to humans by his own strange logic. And now...

Well, now he had taken on an appearance that was exactly the same as the famous Master Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series of Pre-Integration Earth.

How the Klurrgan had gotten his hands on that reference was a mystery, but in truth, Uhtred wasn’t even really surprised. Handler Roy was a being that likely surpassed their understanding. The Klurrgan didn’t even know how many years had passed since his birth.

Uhtred cleared his throat, then deflected Handler Roy’s probing question expertly.