This Tower's Art Style Is All Wrong

Wu Neng, 23, office drone, gets sucked into a tower while working overtime past midnight. Forty-nine floors, each with a different setting. The first floor is a beginner’s village, the second an eternal night forest, the third a secret realm of cultivation, the fourth a fairy-tale town, and the fifth a gourmet prison… He thinks it is a game of clearing levels, until he discovers the truth: All forty-eight previous Hosts are dead. The forty-eighth looked exactly like him. The tower spirit, Xiao Ta, claims to be aloof, omniscient, and omnipotent, but can’t keep up the act for more than three sentences. The divine beast Tuanzi will eat anything and always says, “Tuanzi is hungry.” And the smiling village chief at the entrance keeps saying, “You’re finally here.” The first piece of gear he gets is a slingshot left behind by the forty-eighth Host. A line is carved into it: Don’t chop. Don’t jump. Don’t trust the village chief. Wu Neng reads the line and says, “No big deal.” Then he jumps down a well.