Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-107.196.24.18-20151220040402/@comment-26854521-20151221003111

As of yet, he still doesn't have a desire to climb the Tower for himself, except for that tiny bit of curiosity as to why Rachel wanted to see the stars and sky and stuff (that's probably gonna change with the 43th floor/Princess arc). We also kind of know that he is supposed to be the one to climb the Tower further than the Zahard Empire. So the way the story is going right now (Hell Train Revoultion) there is no way Baam is gonna struggle to become a Ranker (there are going to be a lot of hurdles for him, but not Regular-Test related stuff, if you do not count rigged tests), while there is obviously going to be a significance in him reaching the 134th floor. Be it confronting Zahard himself, or one of the Lords in charge, he will probably at that time be at least in the same league or at most one league below Zahard. The hurdle between becoming a Ranker and actually thinking about taking and passing the next test is probably huge and at the same time reaching the 134th floor and going for the next floor afterwards are probably going to be two huge plot points, so they might very well be a fair bit apart, or at the very least initiate a time skip.

Then there's the aspect of his teammates. It was already made a point that they relied on Viole too much in earlier tests and so they tried to climb apart from him to get stronger themselves, but for them to climb at the same speed as him, that will only be possible if Viole slows down himself. As mentioned before he has no reason to rush to the top of the Tower right now, and even FUG probably wants him to take his time and get stronger, but that will, at some point, probably change. I also think that it is very likely that Baam will be going alone or in a lot smaller group (Hwa Ryun+2max) after the Hell Train arc. It would be questionable as to how many of his former teammates would remain relevant to the plot, in case they survive the Hell Train, but I think a bunch of them are already irrelevant enough to just let them vanish in thin air or die on the Train (Akraptor, Prince, Miseng (I kinda like her, though T.T)).

Then there's also the possibility of Baam falling into some sort of coma for at least a few decades and his teammates swearing to become stronger to be able to protect him when he wakes up again, or to avenge him, and so they climb the Tower in small groups. Then Baam wakes up and climbs the Tower and sees them while he passes the floors quickly. The part that doesn't go well with this theory is, that I assume that Baam will catch up with Koon Maria Zahard at some point on the higher floors, who entered the (inner) Tower shortly before the plot started and I don't think that she's gonna take long, but she's no Urek I suppose.

Then there's also the possibility of him backtracking floors right when he becomes a Ranker or even while he's still climbing. But overall I think he'll at least take 70 years, since we do know that Urek did a few things on the side as well (Baek Ryun, Arie Hon's test, Hell Train Revolution), while many of those things might have actually sped up his climb, but I think he was playful enough not to be too serious about his climbing time, although he seems to be pretty competitive in character overall. Kinda really depends on when and for what reason he wants to reach the Top, but I'd be surprised if most of his extended circle of 'friends'/teammates wouldn't be crushed somewhere along the climb.