Chapter 1176 - Extra -The Ivory Tower
Pei stared at Kraft for a while but instead of agreeing to it, she queried what he was about to do. "Nothing much really. My foxes and I are going to hit their vaults as anonymous raiders. This place is essentially their bank. Many armies and adventurers had always challenged it."
"Doesn't that mean their security would be as tight as that Paradise whatever prison in Demopolis?" Pei asked but she did not want to use her powers that much if possible. Just a warm up exercise would have been fine.
"Hmm yeah. From what I heard; they are quite infamous for creating a labyrinth that spirals underground too. Remember what some of the Demons said? The Church of the Afterlife introduced that concept to build that prison." Kraft said as he took Pei's hand without her permission, forcing her to move along with him.
"Wait- a minute!" Pei startled for a moment before she stabilised herself from Kraft's quick leaps before forcing him to release his hand and followed unwillingly behind his back. "Then, what is that tower right in front of us? It seemed to spiral endlessly to the sky." The white ivory tower looked similar to one of Jin's buildings in the Islands Instance which he later hoped to implement in the Virtual Reality Instance.
"Oh. You have to go through the underground first before going up that tower. It's kind of like you reached the bottom level and then you go up. And as usual, greedy people tried to skip and wanted to crash gate into the higher portions of the tower. The funny thing is, those adventurers merely dissipated into thin air." Kraft explained.
"Shouldn't we be at better position to enter from the top? I mean those adventurer's power level could not match with us a single b-"
"A few of the Night Foxes gave it a try but paid with their lives. They even used some of the extreme magic that I wielded in the Graveyard Technique and it did not work for some reason. It's like a law of nature protecting the ivory tower from intruders. Perhaps, it's the working of a unique Dungeon Core just like those Moloch had mentioned before. Those bastards got lucky to receive it and utilise the core to its maximum potential."
"Then, why bother raiding?" Pei asked the obvious which Kraft found it totally unncessary.
"Why not? They opened their bank for all to try because they were confident that adventurers or even city armies were not able to clear the entire tower." Kraft said as he stood at a rather tall building and beckoned Pei to have a look at the horizons. She then understood the problem immediately.
Even though the city had been fortified with walls and guards, the Ivory Tower itself had its own set of walls… No, Multiple sets of walls each with their army protecting the area. That was for other rival cities to give it a try against them but for the groups of adventurers attempting to win some money, all they had to do was to register at the front gate with a condition attached.
By surrendering all the gold in their possession before they could proceed.
And considering the Church of the Afterlife was in each major city, they too control the financial situation of each and every adventurer. So should the adventurers lose a fight, 20% of their entire wealth would be confiscated by the Church of the Afterlife.
However, Kraft was not going into the dungeon as adventurers or city armies. They were going in as raiders. The term raiders were given to adventurers who decided not to follow the norm and fight their way through. As long as they could make it to the Ivory Tower's entrance, the guards would harass them no further as dictated in their rules. They would then be able to fight against the challenges stored for them within the tower.
That's not all for raiders as the fun part of it is that any guard they killed before going into the dungeon would also yield them some Dungeon Dollars by the Dungeon Core itself. It was part of their Dungeon Core System which they had to oblige and thus, the Church of the Afterlife tried to mitigate their losses by installing one of their few strongest available guard companies in the region as the Ivory Tower's defence.
Naturally, there were more heinous creatures and guards that protected each and every level of the Ivory Tower and rumours stated that the lowest number of floors any selected group of army soldiers or adventurers could only pass the 5th basement level.
Thus the Ivory Tower was known throughout the Dungeon World as the Tower of Blood Money and only desperate people would attempt their fates against it, just to have a quick turnover. Moreover, despite all these risks and dangers, the number of adventurers and cities that attempted these Ivory Tower were numerous to count. So much so that cities had to pick a date to invade or adventurers had to wait for their queue to enter.
Naturally, as a team of raiders, none of those matter to Kraft and the rest of his Night Foxes. If they were as menacing as the rumours had said, Kraft would then admit defeat and send a proposal to Jin as well as the Nine Foxes to petition an assault against the Ivory Tower. That way, they did not have to worry about money for quite some time.
But for now, it was for Kraft, Pei and the rest of the Night Foxes to give it a try.
"Even if you do not want to compete, I could use a competent healer for the raid," Kraft said and Pei sighed heavily as she saw the Night Foxes were fully geared. Once again, they were equipped with newly improved Gearbox suits as well as a magic amplifier mod that somehow looked like Jin's System Rider's belt.
"Don't you worry, even as we wanted to copy the original, those Living Armour plates are a pain in the ass to grow, so we improvised by using the System's Fusion powers which were previously performed on the Dragon Devils. You know, those metal looking dragon fusions? The System and the Science Research Team were able to create a mass production prototype that temporarily allowed power armour fusion." Kraft got way excited explaining as he passed one to Pei.
As much as he knows she was an all powerful cultivator, it doesn't hurt to let her 'power up' a little more. Not to mention, it sealed the deal of her going into the Ivory Tower alongside the Night Foxes when she accepted Kraft's gift.