The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Thinking about the destruction that the world was going to face, and knowing that part of it would be the result of her existence, she felt extremely burdened.

"Haa... This is troubling," Aria thought that she would get rewards, which was why she was quite enthusiastic about going into the Tower, but this started to seem like it was unnecessary work aside from the materials the monsters hidden inside could provide her with.

This was basically playing the game in hard mode whereas the others were on either easy or normal mode. She wondered if there was at least another <Player> who had to face a similar level of difficulty like hers. Alena clearly said that her Tower was the hardest, and that caused her to become even more depressed.

How could she match the others if this was the case? The Tower turned out to be completely different from what she envisioned apart from the monsters it served. She was prepared to fight the monsters, but did not expect it to not give her anything in return except for the multiples of ten.

The levels would soon catch up on her if that was the case. She was level 30, but the previous level was already decently hard. Each level really was the representation of what you could do at the specific floor number. Aria had to proceed with caution. She could no longer rush things anymore, since the Tower was completely adjusted to her power level.

If it was the dungeon gates, she was able to bypass the ranks, but she wouldn't be able to do it in the Tower, that completely understood her capabilities.

Since her job for today was done, she quickly got out of the dungeon. She did this by thinking of the dungeon disappearing before her own eyes, that caused the room to fall apart and warp her existence out of the Tower.

When she woke up, she was back in the training room that Alena brought her to before she started to scale the floors. She looked around, still at a lost over her experiences inside the building. The first thing she wanted to check was the time. How much time had passed since she went in?

She checked her phone. To her surprise, a whole day had passed. However, considering that she spent more than three days in Raon's memory, it was actually a quite generous amount. She counted the time she spent inside the dungeon from her own perspective and found out that a day had truly passed if she substracted all her time inside the memory lane.

"Those memories were... like a dream, I suppose." Aria concluded. It wasn't reality, but at the same time, it felt extremely real. If it  was an illusion, then the time flow should be the exact same, but it wasn't. Which meant that the memory she went through was actually just an experience that involved her astral projection and not her true being.

Sighing, she stood up from her position. She had been sitting for a long time without any movements. Naturally, her entire body was sore, and she couldn't help but get cramps all over. Wincing in discomfort, Aria patted herself and went to a nearby bench, where she laid down at listlessly as she looked at her phone, which had received a lot of notifications from Alena's number.

With a concerned face, she opened those notifications and found out that Alena's messages were actually all about her 'disappearance'. She did not understand what the girl meant, so she just directly called her.

The other side picked up extremely fast, to the point where Aria herself was shocked.

"Big sister?? Is this really big sister? Or are you someone who found big sister? Who are you?" Alena was extremely anxious as she conveyed her speech.

"Calm down, Alena," Aria assured the other party. "It's me, Aria. Have you forgotten my voice already?" Aria confirmed her identity.

Alena's loud sigh could be heard, before she began to scold the other with a wronged voice. "Big sister, I thought that you really abandoned me! You were nowhere to be found, and the tracker I placed on you couldn't register at all. I almost called the company to rage at them for making and sending a faulty product to me. Luckily, you reported back. I was right to trust you and let a day pass without doing anything. Haah," Alena lashed out, compiling her protests in one go.

The two had some small chats before settling on meeting up. Alena asked Aria where she was, to which Aria replied with a confused tone saying that she was obviously inside the training ground.

Alena, in turn, let out a sound of shock before saying that she would head there right away and cutting off the call right then and there.

Within minutes, there was a sound coming from the doors to the training ground. When the door fully opened, Alena entered and looked around.

"Ah.. so you really were still inside this place? I thought that you had exited without saying anything, and I was waiting for you at your lodging, but you never came back," Alena heaved a sigh of relief as Aria's figure entered her eyes. She ran up to the taller woman and scrutinized her before taking out her mobile device.

"This is strange.. The product isn't faulty. It's working right now," Alena's brows were knitted as she checked her tracker, which showed that Aria's position was right in front of her. "Big sister, were you really here from the start? Did you move anywhere? It's alright, you can tell me, you know?" Alena asked sincerely, hoping to get a different answer.

Aria raised a brow at this statement. Alena was implying that she wasn't inside the training room when in fact, she really stayed there for more than a day. There should be nothing that prevented Alena from going in and checking on her progress.

She thought about this question and drew a stray conclusion. "I really thought that I was in the training ground, but it seems like I wasn't. This is a misunderstanding that caused you to worry, I suppose," Aria said.

"Basically, you are saying that when I thought I was inside the Tower and clearing the floors, my real body was also transported into the Tower. That is why, to your tracker, I disappeared. Because my self isn't even in this world anymore. But then.. I felt cramped once I returned here. I thought that it was because I sat here in a meditative position in the start. If I really got transported, how could I feel that? This is confusing,"

Alena had to take several seconds to process what Aria meant, and finally understood it when she digested the content. Aria thought that she stayed inside the training room, but to Alena's eyes, there was no one inside the room at all. No signs of Aria anywhere inside the building.

This was when she realized her mistake. The building they were staying in was quite peculiar, and it would be just as hard to go out as it was going inside. Aria couldn't have went under the surveillance of her guards without triggering any records. Which meant that her disappearance could only be explained by a mystical matter like being warped away.

"Possibly because the maintained state you left the world in was the one that the System kept for you during the one day stay in the Tower. I suppose that we can think of the Tower as a gate.. or something like that," Alena said. "The stress you experienced in the System is directly calculated into your current state?"

One's existence would be completely separated from the real world upon being in a gate. They would be transported to a different realm altogether, and the Tower seemed to work in the same way.

"I see.. That's how it is," Aria nodded as she scratched her head in distress. "Anyway, I want to take a bath.. or something to relax with. I will tell you what I got from the Tower and how I managed to get through it. You will eventually go inside yours as well, right? It's better if I provide you with contextual information so that you know what you will have to face," Aria said.

Aria hadn't fully understood everything yet, since the Tower was a new feature that no one would even know the full details of. She planned to discover it as she went on her journey.

Hearing that, Alena stopped in the middle of her actions, making Aria wonder what the little girl was thinking about.

"Actually..." Alena looked left and right, as she took a deep breath and faced Aria.

"Big sister Aria, the information about the Tower popped up. Would you like to hear it now?" Alena tilted her head, offering the tempting question.

Aria gulped a mouthful of saliva as she wondered what type of data the child was about to present.