Chapter 2: Reporting the Item
In the morning, Kai woke up in his inn room located in Newerth, the planet that humanity populated in the Trials.
You see, the term 'Trials' referred to the general realm where Ascenders were sent to. From the Trials, Ascenders entered the Spire to clear its 100 levels, so the Trials and the Spire were not the same thing.
The Trials were essentially a new universe that held the Spire within it, with the Spire specifically located on Newerth.
Though people did dispute how big the Trials really were.
Some said the Trials were as big as a galactic quadrant, others proclaimed it was as large as an entire universe, still others said it was as big as the Administrator wanted it to be.
In any case, there were an uncountable number of planets, stars, and other alien races - races that had challenged the Spire and failed - within the vast expanse of the Trials.
When a civilization failed to ascend all 100 levels of the Spire, their home planet outside of the Trials was destroyed.
However, the Ascenders of the civilization that lost were not killed. They remained stuck in the Trials, stranded forever.
They came to be known as Inhabitants, the fragments of civilizations who had been forced to make the Trials their permanent home after failing to scale the Spire.
Inhabitants, stripped of their status as 'Ascenders', lost the guidance of the System which gave stat interfaces, quest objectives, maps, directions, and other crucial information for an Ascender to reliably scale the levels of the Spire.
Humanity, on the other hand, as the newest round of Ascenders, were automatically settled on the nexus planet - which they called Newerth - that contained direct access to the Spire.
It was on Newerth, home of humanity's greatest heroes and their many great gods, surrounded by a vast expanse of cosmos and foreign civilizations, that Kai lived in a humble, well-cramped 200 square foot room.
The too bright sunlight of early morning dove through his window and smacked him right in the face.
He got up, rubbing his eyes as he eyed his sad excuse of a living space. His place had just the bare necessities. A bed, a desk, and a bookshelf packed with training manuals, most of which were useless to Kai because of how weak he was.
There was definitely not space for two.
Not that Kai ever got that kind of visitor in the first place. As a white star - the term given to those that started the Trials with a white uniform - a woman wouldn't be caught dead with him. It was the equivalent of going out and picking up a homeless dude back on Earth.
Snow groaned as she stretched, rubbing her head on Kai's leg.
Scratch that. There was room for two.
"As long as I have room for just you, I'll be fine," said Kai.
Snow grumbled with a low growl, staring at Kai with a judgmental side eye.
"Okay, you got me," said Kai. "You've probably heard me rambling about wanting to get a date or even just having a friend way too many times to get suckered by that line."
Kai quickly got dressed, looking quite positively like the most basic NPC commoner in any standard fantasy game with demure brown tunic and pants. He slapped on a jacket riddled with holes and on his shoulder, attached a white star indicating his social status.
It was illegal, punishable even by up to death, to walk around without a class identifying star.
That star meant nobody wanted anything to do with Kai, but after he cashed in on his key, that would all change. The fame and the money would start rolling in. And on top of that, he could finally get strong enough to challenge the Spire.
Kai looked at himself in a small mirror on his desk. A pale, thin, sunken-cheeked, decidedly-average face looked back at him.
The face of weakness.
No more.
He could save his sister and father back on earth from having to go through this in another wave. And, just maybe, he could even find his mother, long lost from the first wave.
It all changed today.
Kai sat down at his desk and placed his palm on the mirror. It was a common magic artifact called a [Looking Glass] that let him communicate with others on Newerth.
Basically, it was the equivalent of a phone on earth.
It even worked on a number system that people were used to.
At first, the magic worked via symbols and runes and other strange inscriptions, but humanity had changed it to suit what was familiar to them.
In fact, a lot of earth technology existed in the Trials in the form of modified magical tools. Conventional technology did not work in the Trials, but retrofitting magic to work just like familiar tech?
Leave it to humanity's ingenuity and penchant for nostalgia to pull that off.
He punched in the area code for the Norse District and then the number for the Loki Guild's Rewards Department.
The mirror's reflective surface rippled like water, emitting a low buzz that indicated it was ringing.
Each ring made Kai's heartbeat pump harder. This was it. Once that call went through, once he showed the Midgate Key, he was destined for greatness.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Then more rings.
...
...
"Ugh. I should've figured they were busy." Kai slumped his head on his desk. The mirror had been ringing for a solid thirty minutes now. Unsurprising, when he thought about it.
The Loki Guild was one of the larger guilds in Newerth and had many thousands of mages in their ranks. There were probably tons of people ringing this exact line, reporting that they had found some magical artifact on a lost planet or finished a contract hunting down a dangerous monster or whatever.
Since the Trial realm was big, full of many unexplored planets, it was possible to travel across the cosmos to pick up artifacts, materials, and hunt monsters. Not that Kai ever did this - he was too terrified to even leave Newerth for fear that some alien passerby might kill him.
Safe zones existed in Newerth and some other planets, but the vast majority of the other worlds, especially uninhabited ones - Wild Worlds as they were called - were free for all. Not a good place for someone as weak as Kai to be in.
Snow licked Kai's hand to comfort him, and the moment she did, the line went through.
"Yes!" shouted Kai. "I knew it, Snow, you're magical! The moment you licked me, the line went through!"
Snow zoomed around in circles, matching Kai's energy.
"…Uhm, excuse me?" A tired woman's voice leaked out of the mirror in low quality, raspy audio. Courtesy of Kai being unable to afford anything decent.
Her face showed up in peak blurry 240p, and the dark bags under her eyes matched how tired her voice was.
As a clerk for a large Guild, she was probably overworked to the bone.
"O-oh, sorry about that, my neighbors can get loud," said Kai. "Ahem. I'd like to report a found artifact."
"Tell me what it is and I'll file it for you. You can come to the Guild later to pick up your rewards. Do be noted that traffic has been high today, so unless you have privileged access, you may face an estimated wait time of up to three hours.
I have here recorded that your number is White starred, which means you will be at the lowest priority queue, so wait times may increase to-,"
Kai cut her off. "The Guild won't want to wait for this." He fished out the Midgate Key and showed its shining white form to the clerk.
"…Am I supposed to be looking at anything important?" said the clerk, unable to feel the magical energy radiating out of the key from across the mirror.
"Go ahead and [Inspect] it."
The clerk looked at Kai like he had just cracked the most awful, mind-numbing joke in existence.
"…Fine. I guess I'll humor you." The clerk stared at the key, and her eyes briefly flashed white as she used [Inspect].
The clerk jumped up in a burst of energy that completely belied her fatigued face. Her chair tumbled behind her. Her eyes widened like saucers as her mouth dropped agape.
"B-boss! Boss! Boss! Someone! Anyone!" She whirled around, flailing her arms in the air to call people to her. "I-I need someone who is authorized to handle a S, no, SSS rank artifact! The Midgate Key!"
"What!? Where!?"
"I'm coming!"
"Shut everything down! We need all our manpower on this!"
Kai scooted back in his seat as a huge commotion of stampeding feet, shouting voices, and falling furniture blasted out at him. Snow whined at the ruckus.
"It'll be fine," said Kai, petting Snow's head. "They're just, uh, processing my request."
After a few seconds, someone else appeared in front of the mirror. An absolute stunner of a woman with long, flashy red hair and lightning crackling from her deep blue eyes that Kai recognized as Kara, a Fourth Wave Ascender who had cleared up to the 45th floor.
A living legend, basically, when you considered the fact that humanity never got past the 50th.
"Stay RIGHT where you are, white star!" said Kara. "I'll have representatives assist you immediately. And do not let anyone, I repeat, ANYONE, get near you or know of this.
With a SSS rank artifact, your life is forfeit at the wrong hands. Do you understand me?"
Kai gulped. "Yes."
"Good." Kara nodded, and the mirror connection flickered off, the rippling on the glass surface settling back into solidity.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone