I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 417: Floor 23

He turned and walked deeper into the vault, past the materials storage, descending stairs that led to the fifth level.

Kaedor followed with considerably less enthusiasm than he’d shown earlier, and Loryn trailed behind them both with that same silent observation.

The fifth level was different from the others. Smaller, more focused, designed to hold items that were too unique or too dangerous for the standard storage above.

Individual alcoves lined the walls, each separated and contained, as if keeping the items apart were as important as keeping them secure.

But Jack didn’t stop to examine the remaining artifacts. Instead, he moved directly to the chamber’s far wall, where something shimmered with unstable energy.

A portal.

It hung in the air like a tear in reality, its edges crackling with purple lightning that matched the veins in the massive tree that would be visible on the other side. The portal’s interior showed glimpses of a different environment.

A warmer, more humid, electrically charged atmosphere that made the air itself feel alive.

”Through there,” Jack commanded, gesturing at the portal.

Kaedor stopped walking, his expression shifting from dread to something approaching panic.

His rings clicked together frantically, and his hands made agitated gestures that betrayed his inner state.

”Master, Floor Twenty-Three is... It’s dangerous. Extremely dangerous.” His voice climbed slightly, losing some of its usual smooth merchant’s tone. ”The Blessed One who rules that floor is...”

”I know what’s on Twenty-Three,” Jack interrupted, his flat voice cutting through Kaedor’s building panic. ”That’s exactly why we’re going there.”

”We?” The word came out almost as a squeak. ”Master, I’m not a combatant. I’m a merchant. A craftsman. A creator of wealth and value, not a fighter. I don’t have the skills to survive Floor Twenty-Three. I don’t have the power to...”

”You won’t be fighting,” Jack said. ”You’ll be observing. Learning. Understanding what resources are available on that floor and how they can be utilized.”

His red eyes fixed on Kaedor through the visor, the intensity of his gaze making the merchant demon take an involuntary step backward.

”And if we encounter the Blessed One, you’ll stay behind me and try not to die. Simple plan, really.”

{Oh, I like this plan,} Oscar commented with entirely too much enthusiasm. {Bring the nervous merchant to the dangerous floor. Force him to confront the reality of your power. What could go wrong?}

’Everything,’ Jack thought back. ’But he needs to see what we’re doing. Understand the scope of what’s being built. And more importantly, I need him to understand that his value comes from being useful, not from hiding in a vault counting coins.’

{So this is a teaching moment. How thoughtful.}

’This is a demonstration of expectations.’

Kaedor looked like he wanted to argue further, but the contract binding him to Jack’s service was absolute. A soul-bound contract was absolute.

He couldn’t refuse a direct command, no matter how much he might want to.

His shoulders slumped in defeat, and his rings clicked one final time before his hands fell still.

”As you command, Master,” he said weakly, his voice carrying the resignation of someone who knew they were about to have a horrible day.

Jack stepped through the portal without hesitation.

The transition was instantaneous. One moment standing in the vault’s fifth level, surrounded by black ice and magical lights, the next standing in a completely different environment.

Floor Twenty-Three.

The air hit him first. Humid, thick, carrying scents that were both organic and smelled vile.

The temperature was warmer than Twenty-Four or Twenty-Five, easily twenty degrees higher, and the atmosphere felt charged with electricity, making the hair on his arms stand on end beneath his armor.

Loryn emerged behind him, the demon’s purple eyes immediately scanning their surroundings with tactical precision.

Then Kaedor stumbled through, looking considerably less composed than he had in the vault. His robes were already starting to stick to his body from the humidity, and his rings seemed to glow slightly brighter in response to the electrical charge in the air.

They stood at the edge of a massive circular floor, and Jack could immediately see what made this place so distinctive.

The floor was divided into thirds, each section completely distinct and separated by clear boundary lines that were visible even from a distance.

To their left stretched swampland. Massive trees rose from murky water, their trunks easily ten feet in diameter, their roots twisted and exposed above the surface like grasping fingers.

Mist hung thick in the air, reducing visibility to maybe a hundred feet at best.

Strange sounds echoed from the darkness.

Splashes, growls, things moving through water that shouldn’t be able to move that way. The water itself looked too dark, too still, except where something disturbed it from below.

To their right was wasteland. Flat, barren ground stretched to the horizon, the earth scorched black.

Lightning struck the ground in constant bursts, leaving glowing impact craters that pulsed with residual energy.

The air above the wasteland shimmered with heat and electrical discharge, creating a hellscape of continuous bombardment that never stopped, slowed, or gave any creature in that section a moment’s peace.

And straight ahead was the jungle. Dense, overgrown vegetation so thick it formed walls of green that blocked all light from penetrating more than a few feet.

The trees were different from those in the swamp. Smaller, more tightly packed, their branches interweaving to create a canopy that looked almost solid.

Mist drifted through the jungle, similar to the swampland but drier, less oppressive, creating an ethereal atmosphere that made the entire section look dreamlike and unreal.

But dominating the center of all three sections, rising from the exact middle point where the three environments met, was a tree.

Not just any tree. A tree that defied description, that made the massive swamp trees look like saplings by comparison.

Its trunk was easily a hundred feet in diameter at the base, maybe more.

The bark was dark, almost black, but veins of purple lightning ran through it like blood vessels, pulsing with energy that lit up the surrounding area with each surge.

The tree climbed upward impossibly high; Jack’s enhanced perception could follow it for maybe five hundred feet before it disappeared into darkness above, and he suspected it went even higher than that.

The branches spread outward in all directions, creating a canopy that covered portions of all three environments. Some branches stretched over the swamp, others over the wasteland, still more over the jungle.

The tree didn’t just exist in the center. It dominated the entire floor, its influence touching everything.

”I hate this floor,” Kaedor muttered, his voice carrying genuine distress despite trying to maintain his composure.

”Everything here is stupid. Why did you bring me here?! The environments don’t make sense together. The creatures don’t follow normal rules. The temperature shifts are impossible. And that tree...”

He gestured at the massive structure with one trembling hand, his rings catching the purple lightning’s glow.

”That tree is where the Blessed One lives. Stormfang. It nests in the upper branches, somewhere we can’t see from down here, and it watches everything that happens on this floor. Every. Single. Thing.”