Towers Of Heaven - 79 Book 3 Chapter 73

Aamon remained still even after several minutes. Veteran monks would find his technique impeccable, while statues would feel ashamed. Only after Aamon was motionless for more than ten minutes did the Alliance dare to relax from their previous fight. The grips on their weapons loosened as the adrenaline coursing through their bodies subsided, leaving exhaustion and soreness.

The fight against the demon generals only lasted a short while, yet it had been the most intense fight in their lives. While their stamina gauge might appear healthy, everyone exceeded their limit during the battle. The generals outclassed most ascenders in every stat. A single mistake meant death, and only by consuming their potential could they survive. Many hadn’t been able to keep up and, as a result, lost their life.

Although the Alliance lost almost a quarter of their numbers, nobody intended to bring this matter to light. The greatest threat they’d ever faced sat just in front of the haven. If they started to grieve now, how could they hope to overcome what came later? Hence, everyone’s expressions were devoid of emotion as they left to fill their stomachs, repair their equipment, or take a nap.

Even then, Aamon’s presence was so overwhelming that everyone in the haven could see him in their mind no matter where they were.

An all-consuming black hole.

It was like the opposite of mental suppression. Instead of weighing down your will, Aamon sucked it straight out of you just by being in his presence. This was of no conscious effort on Aamon’s part, just a simple consequence of his existence.

From another perspective, you could say Aamon’s power was so great he couldn’t completely keep it under control. To gods like Vex, this was the sign of an amateur, but it was terrifying to Jason and the others.

After all, the standards of a god were too high. Who could control their minds and body with 100% efficiency? Truthfully, this was a struggle for many creatures, no matter their strength. As you continued to grow in power, what was once familiar became foreign. It was a catch-22.

Take Jason’s World Conqueror skill, for example. He wasn’t aware it was the perfect training tool for the energy-path. The skill gave complete control over Battle Energy while active or, in other words, 100% efficiency. Since it only had a short cooldown of 10 minutes, Jason could frequently use it as a reference to refine his control over Battle Energy. At Jason’s current standard, he only had roughly 25% efficiency without the skill active.

In comparison, Roy had 31% efficiency with Holy Energy, Amara had 35% with Elemental Energy, Andy had 33% with Illusion Energy, and Olivia had 19% with Void Energy. This didn’t mean Jason was an idiot and Amara was an unparalleled genius. There were too many factors at play. How long had it been since they acquired their specific energy? Did they have an affinity for it? Did they understand its nature? Did they train with it, or even come up with a training method?

One thing they all had in common was a complete lack of guidance. The gods gifted them with extraordinary energy yet were forbidden from teaching them how to master it. Not even by using one of their monthly quotas could Roy and the others get any help. This was intentional. The tower was both a test and a training ground. Some would shine brilliantly, while others would fizzle out into nonexistence.

Aamon, both the final boss and a genius in his own right, possessed 56% control over his energy. The difference between Jason’s 25% and Aamon’s 56% was the difference between heaven and earth. The increase in power between each percentage was not linear.

To best explain, imagine two people cast Fireball, one of the first skills encountered in the tower. If person A had 25% mana control and person B had 50% mana control, person B’s Fireball would be more compact, faster, hotter, and explosive.

In truth, this was what a skill grade was.

Unlike real life, the tower was a simulated environment, a type of game. If an ascender continued to cast Fireball, even without any greater understanding of how the skill functioned on their part, Fireball would gain experience and eventually level up. This was just smoke and mirrors. What actually happened was the tower secretly fuelling the ascender’s soul with knowledge, thus resulting in greater control.

Eventually, however, the tower would stop providing such gifts, thus the skill cap: Hero grade. In universes where energy like mana was prevalent, Hero grade was equivalent to 20% control, a significant threshold.

The gift provided by the tower was not as great as you would think. Fireball reaching Hero grade did not mean an ascender had 20% control of mana, just Fireball. Mana was all-encompassing, and Fireball was only a teeny, tiny fraction of what Mana could do.

In the universe where Aros and the other gods came from, having 20% control in Mana took many decades to accomplish for the average creature. Understanding this highlighted how useful the tower was. After all, how long had Jason and the others used their relative energies?

If it took decades to reach 20% control in mana, just one of many energies, what about the soul-path or body-path? Things quickly got complicated.

Generally, since not everyone could live for millions of years, once a creature’s control reached a bottleneck, they’d focus on the application of their control. In more familiar terms, a skill. It wasn’t uncommon for someone’s skill to defeat someone with higher controlefficiency and application were two different things.

The tower dumbed down these concepts, similar to how a baby first learned math with colored blocks. The tower provided ascenders with training wheels, assisting them with each skill cast, much like how a parent would hold their child taking its first steps. Once Aamon was beaten, the tower would teach all these concepts in great detail.

The tower’s mission was to guide creatures into taking their first steps onto one of the three paths: body, energy, and soul. At least, that was how it was supposed to be. The majority of creatures didn’t know there was something far, far greater than the three paths.

The Greater Paths.

Unlike their counterpart, the Greater Paths numbered in the tens of thousands. Gravity, space, and time were Greater Paths. Fire, water, earth, and wind, these too were Greater Paths. Some were more arcane. They came in many shapes and forms, but they all had one thing in common. Controlling one leveled the playing field between you and the universe.

The difference between a fireball and the fire path was so immense they were not even comparable. Think of it this way: energy formed a fireball, but a fireball could not exist without a corresponding Greater Path.

Thus, the reason the tower’s creator sent Jason back in time.

During the fight against Baal, something miraculous happened to Jason, something he caused unknowingly. The sign of a Greater Path.

Two years had passed since Jason returned to the past. Since then, no signs of that Greater Path appeared. Until now.

When everyone left to regain their strength, Jason remained on the wall, staring straight at Aamon in a trance.

Jason thought about the difference between Aamon and Baal. While both were the tower’s final bosses, Baal could be considered the tower’s medium difficulty boss. Aamon was the hard difficulty boss. The change was Jason’s own doing, whether he liked it or not. The butterfly effect caused by Jason’s knowledge of the future ultimately elevated humanity’s status in the eyes of the tower, and so the test’s difficulty raised.

Before, you couldn’t die even if stabbed in the brain or your heart exploded. Only if your Health reached zero would you die. Now, Health was misleading. Barring exceptional stats or skills, a pierced brain resulted in instant death, regardless of Health. This change resulted in several deaths before ascenders could adapt.

It might seem unfair, but this change also affected monsters. Before, a raid boss with millions of Health took a long time to kill. Now, if you had enough strength to break their defenses, an instant kill wasn’t impossible.

Jason thought about all this as he inspected Aamon. Slowly, the gravity of the situation sunk in. This was the final battlethe last obstacle preventing Jason from ascending this tower once and for all. As for their odds? Jason was not optimistic.

And yet, he found no trouble finding the resolve to overcome everything and anything. Perhaps it was because of his recent boost in confidence or his desire to prevent his companions from dying a second time. It could even be the subtle change in his mentality from taking on the role of a tank for decades. Maybe it was all these things.

Regardless of what reasons there were, it was a fact Jason’s current will was unbreakable. Tenacity and perseverance was his DNA. His lifeblood. His soul.

In Jason’s trance, he didn’t realize everyone had returned to the walls, recovered, and prepared for their deaths. Only when Peter shook his shoulder did Jason awaken. “It’s been an hour. How’s your Soul Force looking?”

Jason took a moment to wake up fully. He was about to shake his head but realized he felt better than ever. Confused, he glanced at his Soul Force and was surprised to discover it completely recovered. But how could that be? Less than two hours had passed since he spent 70% of his Soul Force. Even if he meditated the entire time, it would still take 6 hours at least.

Unable to come up with an answer, he could only reply with a smile, “It should be fine.”

“Okay,” Peter answered without putting much thought into it. After seeing Aamon nearly instantly kill the ash orc chieftain, his thoughts had taken a turn for the worst. Checking Jason’s condition was merely a habit on his part.

At this moment, Aamon opened his eyes and stood. “Let’s begin.”

Please go to to read the latest chapters for free