Lukas turned to see a man standing in the aisle, arms folded, and with an expression that said his patience had been tested before and he’d developed a low threshold for it as a result.

"You guys won’t pay the fare?" he asked, drawing attention from other passengers.

"Oh. My apologies," Lukas said. "We’re new here." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The man’s expression didn’t change, but he waited.

Lukas found the fare price on a sticker affixed to the interior wall of the tram, and paid for all three of them without complaint. The man moved on.

Lukas sat back down with a soft sigh.

Of course the tram wasn’t free. The Le Fays governed this city and had provided infrastructure at this scale, but philanthropy and governance were different things. Everything here ran on someone paying for it.

He filed that away and turned his attention back to the window.

The tram moved through Salaria at a pace that seemed to slow to them, but would be considered fast for a normal human.

It stopped at marked intervals, where passengers alighted, and new ones boarded.

And as the trip continued, it didn’t take long for Lukas to realize the population of Adepts in the city.

They seemed to be everywhere.

Most moved in the hovering cars, gliding through traffic without a care in the world, but only one shared the team with them.

The man sat with a book open in front of him, entirely unbothered as he read.

To his senses, it felt like there was always an Adept somewhere near. And soon, he’d be among that population.

After thirty minutes, they arrived at their stop, which they identified by the street sign hanging on a pole near the stop.

They alighted onto a wide pavement and turned to look at what faced them.

The building was large and seemed to have been built from white stone. Its surface was clean and it had no signs or name above its door to tell what it was, but it had no need for one.

They already knew what it was.

The Adept spatial gate building.

They climbed the steps and pushed through the door.

The interior was cool, as if they had air conditioning, but Lukas couldn’t see anything of the sort in the large lobby.

Adept-ranked guards stood at every corner, watching them but not moving as they made their way through the lobby.

A large reception desk stood at the center of the hall, and they walked up to it.

"We’re here to advance to Adept," Lukas said.

The receptionist, an Adept herself, smiled and gestured to a corridor on the left. "Registration is through there. Second door on the right."

They followed the directions and found the office without difficulty. Another Adept sat behind the desk inside, who looked up as they entered.

"Advancement registration?" he asked.

"Yes," Lukas confirmed.

The man produced three smooth spherical objects from a drawer and set them on the desk. "Hold these, please. One each."

Each of them picked one up. The spheres glowed immediately, the moment they held it before themselves.

The man nodded, satisfied. "You’ve indeed, maxed out your experience." He reached across the desk. "IDs."

They handed them over. He worked through a process that involved a device Lukas didn’t recognize, running each ID through it and making adjustments.

"When you return from the Second Floor," he said, handing them back, "your IDs will update automatically. You’ll be recognized as Adepts from that point forward throughout Salaria."

He looked at all three of them. "Any questions?"

"None," Akira said.

He stood and led them through a set of corridors that grew progressively wider until they opened into a large hall.

The spatial gate sat in the center of it, significantly larger than any dungeon gate Lukas had seen.

Its surface glowing a deep red rather than the blue of the Awakener dungeon gates. Adepts moved through it as they both arrived and departed, moving through different doors all around the hall.

Their escort smiled at the look on their faces. "Good luck to all three of you."

Then he turned and left them there.

Lukas stared at the gate, with Melody and Akira standing on either side of him.

"Ready?" Melody asked.

"Ready," they both said.

Then they walked forward and stepped through together.

A flash of light enveloped them, and a second later, Lukas appeared in a vast darkness.

He looked around in surprise to see a void that extended in every direction, filled with stars so numerous and so close that they gave the space a quality closer to light than dark.

He turned slowly where he hovered, taking it in. He inhaled, glad that he could still breathe.

"Melody?" He called out. "Akira?"

Nobody answered. He was alone.

He floated in the star-filled void and waited, and then the notifications arrived.

Ding!

[Congratulations! You have advanced to E-Rank Adept!]

[Thief: +1,000 to all stats]

[Hexblade: +1,500 to all stats]

[Necromancer: +1,500 to all stats]

He felt as an energy poured through his body, rewriting it and making it stronger, but at the same time, compressing his aura to something denser.

He clenched his fists, feeling the new power that came with three classes adding four thousand stats in every category.

He grinned.

Then the second notification appeared, but instead of the usual blue screen, this one was gold.

[Congratulations, Climber. You have reached the true starting point of your journey.]

[Keep climbing, as those before you have climbed. For at the top of the Tower, a single wish awaits.]

[A wish to make true whatever you desire most.]

[Claim it before anyone else does.]

His eyes widened as he realized what he was looking at.

A wish. One wish, to whoever reached the top of the Tower first. And it could be anything!

This was something that had been kept from every Awakener on the First Floor.

The people grinding dungeons and hunting beasts in Havenhart had no idea. The guilds didn’t know.

But the Sovereignty knew. Everyone from Adept upwards knew.

That was why they fought the Brotherhood with everything they had. What happened if a member of a doomsday cult reached the top first and wished for the end of everything?

Lukas floated in the void among the stars, wondering what he’d wish for if he claimed the wish.

He had no idea what to ask but he’d already made his decision.

He was going to the top.

The wish would be his.

A flash of light took him, and the void disappeared.