Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

He looked up in surprise and found he wasn’t the only one taken aback by how dense the food was with essence.

”I see you’ve all taken a liking to my cuisine,” the Heavenly Demon said, a pleased, smug smile on his face.

”You made this yourself?” Uhtred asked, even more surprised.

”You tend to pick up some little skills when you’ve lived as long as I have,” the Heavenly Demon shrugged. ”But still, this is nothing compared to a cuisine created by a Cosmic Feastweaver...”

”A Cosmic Feastweaver?” White Raven asked this time.

”A terrifying cooking-type support class that requires at least ten Elemental affinities, one Esoteric guile, and one Fundamental law,” the Heavenly Demon explained, his eyes gleaming. ”I have heard that they can create essence-infused meals that can shoot a newly integrated Level 1 Mortal all the way up to the Mortal-Nascent Realm threshold in one go...”

”What?!” Uhtred blurted before he knew it. A similar level of shock could be seen around the table. White Raven, Zara, and even Perfection were visibly taken aback.

The Heavenly Demon chuckled at their shocked expressions.

”Are you saying there are people out there in the multiverse who can bypass the entire Mortal Realm at once?” Uhtred frowned.

”You draw the dots quickly,” the Heavenly Demon nodded. ”There aren’t just people out there who can do it. It is standard practice among the upper echelons of the Great Empires. They have the wealth and resources to employ scores of Cosmic Feastweavers permanently, allowing their heirs to skip weeks of Mortal Realm grind and reach the Nascent Realm in a single day.”

”And the System allows this?” Zara asked, her brows furrowed.

”Ha! The System allows a lot of things... but at the same time, it limits others...” the Heavenly Demon chuckled, then his expression soured again.

”I guess this is a good way to begin telling my tale...”

He returned to the main reason the four of them were here and began to tell his tale — the Heavenly Demon’s Tale of Er-Alith.

He spoke at length for minutes, then hours, and the whole time, Uhtred, Zara, White Raven, and Perfection all listened with rapt attention.

The more the Heavenly Demon spoke, the more the reason for this Floor and this sub-scenario became apparent.

Basically, the Heavenly Demon had once lived a vibrant life in Er-Alith — which was now what was known as the current scenario world.

The question of whether the people within the Tower were real or not was thus answered. The current Heavenly Demon was nothing more than a memory — a phantom, more aptly.

He had compared his current existence to something similar to the beasts conjured by the System inside of dungeons. Just like them, he had once lived before, and was now an amalgamation of his prior consciousness, placed here by System mechanisms beyond his understanding to serve as a whetstone for newly integrated ascenders like Uhtred and the others.

”The System is ruthless, the Tower is ruthless, but they are also both fair at the same time,” the Heavenly Demon had said with a sordid smile. ”I am bound to this Floor to cater to human species during every new Tower trial cycle, but the Tower also provides a means for me to break free...”

”By being ferried along to the higher floors...” Uhtred nodded. No wonder that was the wrong choice.

He thought of the other six members of the human team — Diya, King Alexei, Black Sun, Isolde Castiglione, Hassan Al-Malik, and Antoine Blanc. It meant they had succumbed to the Heavenly Demon’s strength and agreed to ferry him along to the next Floor.

The Heavenly Demon suddenly chuckled, his eyes full of a tired rage.

”Unfortunately, the ones who end up carrying parts of my consciousness to the higher Floors end up failing before even reaching the fifth Floor,” he shook his head. ”To keep climbing, you need to reach each sub-scenario on every Floor and gain the insight needed to understand the Floor’s true objective...”

”...which means you’re still trapped here either way,” Zara muttered, completing the train of thought. ”I take it you need to reach the tenth Floor to be set free?”

The Heavenly Demon scoffed.

”No one has ever reached the tenth Floor of this Tower. But reaching the ninth Floor with the help of ascenders like you is enough to give me back my life again.”

”Isn’t that like a full rebirth?” Uhtred frowned. ”Has there been any ’Floor Boss’ like you to ever get reborn by the System?”

His question seemed to hit a sore spot for the Heavenly Demon, as he simply scowled and continued his story without answering Uhtred’s question.

Ah... I take it that’s a no, Uhtred realized. So he knows it’s basically impossible, yet he hopes the impossible will somehow end up happening...

It was a miserable existence in a way, but Uhtred wasn’t one to give sympathy willy-nilly. There was definitely a reason the Heavenly Demon’s consciousness was bound here by the System.

And the more the Heavenly Demon’s tale progressed, the more it turned out that he was right in his deduction.

According to the Heavenly Demon, everything they had seen in this scenario world so far mimicked the exact situation within Er-Alith right before the end of the sixth era.

”The sixth era?” Uhtred asked with a frown.

”Yes. The Sixth Era... The Era of the Lesser Limitation,” the Heavenly Demon elaborated. ”There were five major eras before that era. Unfortunately, I only know of the one prior to mine... The Fifth Era: The Era of Greater Limitation.”

”What exactly do you mean by ’Limitation,’” Uhtred asked, an inkling of an idea already forming in his mind.

”Each era was characterized by major changes to the System’s core rules. It starts with a slow change easily seen by everyone alive in that era, and it ends with a Great War as all principalities and great powers of the multiverse fight to stop the change,” the Heavenly Demon explained.

”The fifth era, for example, was when core grade and core attunement as you know it were created.”