Deacon leaped onto the final stair of the staircase that would lead him into the Academy of Beginning's back garden and the massive Waystone in its center.
He adjusted the strap of his sling bag and let out a breath through his nose, only for it to turn into a faint chuckle as he put away his manaphone into his Spatial Sling Bag and took out his Academy Graduate ID Card.
After Bonehead's father stormed into the alchemy room, yelling at him for "waking the whole house like a lunatic," the last thing Deacon and Sam saw before the call cut was the man stepping past the doorway - belt in hand. For a few tense seconds, Bonehead just stared at him, frozen. Then, without a word, he fumbled for his manaphone and ended the call.
Sam was already half-doubled over in laughter, falling out of his chair and onto the floor, with himself accidentally slipping on the wet lawn of the academy when he saw the belt suddenly come into view, while in contrast to the two of them, Bonehead's immediate reaction was to end the call.
He snorted at the memory before he began to approach the garden gate and place his Academy Graduate ID Card on the holographic mana panel that popped out in front of him.
"Welcome, Graduate Deacon Surtr Hayes," a monotone voice announced the moment he pressed his ID atop the designated area on the holographic mana panel. "Would you like to register how many Floors you've climbed? Or what you've discovered that caused you to return to Floor Zero only to return less than 12 hours after arriving?"
"Bite me," Deacon replied as he pressed the decline option and waited for a couple of seconds for the gate to begin to open.
The gates slid open with a soft chime and allowed Deacon entrance into the back garden of the Academy of Beginnings. As he stepped onto the cobblestone path, the floating lanterns that lined the winding stone path lit up and began to cast a soft amber glow across the wet grass and the pathways toward the Waystone that lay within the center of the garden.
He made it halfway across the lawn before a voice cut through the quiet night.
"Well, well… if it isn't the mad dog of the Class of C."
Deacon closed his eyes the moment the words hit his ears, he didn't need to turn around to see who it was that called out his him; he'd know that particular voice anywhere.
Jerimiah Heart, Deacon thought to himself, not even stopping his pace until he reached the base of the Waystone. He exhaled through his nose again, longer this time.
"I saw you steal the killing blow on the Floor One Boss and teleport to Floor Two with your two little bitches following right behind you, but I hadn't seen you on Floor Three yet. So did you fail Floor Two and had to come crawling back to Floor One to restock on your little daggers, eh, mutt?" Jerimiah called again, his voice drawing closer, footsteps squelching atop the soaked cobblestone path.
Deacon said nothing, only just about to raise his hand to press against the Waystone to access it.
However, just before his flesh would meet with the stone of the Waystone, he heard someone rush directly toward him.
His eyes widened in shock at the thought of someone trying to attack him in the middle of one of the most heavily surveilled areas on Floor Zero. Just as the shock came to him, he immediately pivoted on his heel and his right hand shot back and up like a viper and clamped down around a wrist that was inches away from his neck.
And in his attacker's outstretched hand was a lavender-colored feather that was soaked in sickly lavender-colored mana.
Deacon pulled the offending arm down and toward him as he then pivoted once more and got around the back of his would-be attacker and twisted the would-be attacker's arm behind their back.
Getting a good look at his would-be attacker, Deacon noted that he had a similar feather deeply embedded in his neck, marking him as someone who was brainwashed by Jeremiah Heart.
Formulating somewhat of a plan, Deacon slammed a knee into his attacker's side, using his back to block Jerimiah's view, he ripped out the lavender-colored feather from the guy's neck before driving a punch into the back of the guy's neck to send him crumbling to the floor.
Still holding the guy by his neck, Deacon covered both fallen feathers with his left boot before hurling his would-be attacker toward Jerimiah and watching as his throw sent the unconscious figure skidding across the grass toward him and his posse.
Jerimiah gave an unimpressed look at his mind-controlled follower's limp body stopped just short of him.
Jeremiah sighed and placed a hand over his heart, expressing the very image of mock concern. "Really now, Deacon. You didn't have to be so rude. He was simply trying to clean the wet grass off your back... This is what I mean when we call you the mad dog of our generation, you truly give us such a bad name."
Deacon still didn't answer.
Because if he did… If he even opened his damn mouth then, the Artifact around Jerimeah's neck, Heart of the Devout, that hung atop the folds of his pristine lavender-colored robes, would activate.
The Heart of the Devout is one of the five well-known mental manipulation Artifacts that everyone knew about, as House Heart used it as their main symbol and collected every Heart of the Devout they could find within the Floor World Maps.
The Heart of the Devout granted its wielder the ability to brainwash an opponent, so long as four conditions were met. A feather, generated by the Artifact, must be stabbed into the opponent. The opponent must emotionally respond to the wielder, the wielder must have an Intelligence stat at least twice the value of their opponent's Willpower stat. And the target who is intended to get brainwashed must be equal to or a lower level than them.
Deacon eyes gazed over the blank-eyed cadets that surrounded Jeremiah with a complicated look before turning away from Jeremiah and his enslaved cadets and back to the Waystone without a word.
Let the bastard talk, let him throw insults, he wasn't going to risk that maybe needing to fulfill all three requirements to be mind controlled was a rumor spread by House Heart, and that only one needed to be fulfilled.
"No response, Hayes?" Jeremiah's eyes narrowed slightly before he made his way on the opposite side of the Waystone. "How droll."
Deacon ignored him in favor of pressing his hand against the Waystone and looking at the System Notice that popped out in front of him.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
You are eligible to enter Floor Three.
Confirm transfer?
[YES] [NO]
No, Deacon thought as the screen that popped out in front of him was replaced by another.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Please select your destination:
Option 1: Floor One World Map
Option 2: Floor Two World Map
Option 3: Floor Three
Deacon gave Options 1 and 3 barely a glance before he reached out and tapped Option 2.
The System Notice in front of him shimmered before being replaced entirely by a massive map that covered his entire vision. Within the map, there were hundreds of nodes atop various landmasses that were connected to other nodes, forming an intricate web – each one representing a Floor Two that had been completed by the generations before him and added onto the World Map for Floor Two.
But nearly every name remained dimmed and greyed out. When he'd tried to tap on them, he received a hard rejection pulse from the system.
Undiscovered Location – Access Denied
In order to be able to teleport to [Undiscovered], you must first find its Waystone and access it.
Thought as much, Deacon mused as he then began to zoom out the map in front of him to see what his options were.
And those options were only two.
The first was the very first Floor Two his generation had cleared only days ago, marked by a glowing blue node and an attached name: "The Cursed Forest of Moriah."
Deacon's hand hesitated over the glowing option, then shifted toward the other.
He wasn't stupid.
There was no way a CFMT Tower, Cross Floor Mana Transmission Tower, had been fully constructed on a newly unlocked Floor in just three days. It simply wasn't possible. Even if the exact location of the Cursed Forest of Moriah had been discovered the moment it became accessible to the public, a CFMT Tower still took at least a month to build.
Which ruled it out completely.
Which meant the only real possibility was the second glowing region that was smack dab in the middle of the Floor Two World Map.
Floor Two – The Grasslands.
The first-ever Floor Two region completed in Academy history. Cleared by Generation One, three months after having completed their Floor One and amassing the second most egregious Floor Mortality Rate ever recorded at 45%, around 241 million dead.
The reason why around 241 million people died? Lack of combat experience and overinflated egos.
On the very first Floor One, over 1.3 billion people died trying to survive for 30 days on the island; this was obviously done by the Tower creating parallel Floor Ones that could hold up to 400 people at once.
During the early mornings of the day, various oceanic creatures would emerge from the sea and attack everyone on the island, and by the afternoon, they would retreat back to the ocean, and everyone would lick their wounds.
And by the end, out of the 2 billion that attempted Floor One during Generation One's time, an estimated 1.35 billion people died. An incredible 67.5% mortality rate.
And when looking back on it, Generation One's Floor One was one of the easiest Floors within the Tower, same with their Floor Two. The only reason people died, other than the fact that they were overconfident and wanting to be something called Isekai Warriors and or Xianxia Cultivators, was due to their lack of combat knowledge and understanding of the System and the creatures we are sent to fight against.
Discretely picking up a rock with a string of mana and keeping it low to the ground, Deacon made it travel around the large base of the Waystone, pathing toward Jerimiah Heart's mana signature, and stop just behind him.
Moving his finger to select Floor Two – The Grasslands, a System Notice appeared in front of Floor Two's World map.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
You have selected to teleport to Floor Two – The Grasslands
Confirm transfer?
[YES] [NO]
Seconds just before he selected Yes, he sent the rock flying into the air and struck Jerimiah Heart right in the back of the neck and sending him forward and smashing his face against the Waystone.
"Bough-Ah!" Was the only sound Deacon heard before the Waystone teleported him from Floor Zero to Floor Two – The Grasslands.
A second later after his teleportation, Deacon was sporting a wide grin at the sound Jeremiah Heart made at the sound of a rock hitting him in the back of the neck and his face smacking against the Waystone.
Looking around the massive grasslands that stretched all around him, he took notice of the millions upon millions of graves that covered the entire west side of the grasslands.
If what Skalvorn, the man who attacked his Father, said was true and that his father was around 300 years old, then did that mean that he was also a part of Generation One?
Deacon's gaze wandered around as he was lost in thought, only to stop his train of thought when he saw the massive CFMT Tower to the East of where he was currently standing.
"… Huh, it looks a lot like those towers I saw on my Floor One scattered across the ruined city of Seattle," Deacon said aloud just before he sprinted towards the CFMT Tower.