To be The Elden Lord, The Tarnished will face many challenges. Here comes one.
There is a monster tower of height

, the strength of the monster on the

-th floor is

. The initial strength of The Tarnished is

.
For any moment, The Tarnished can choose some monster not stronger than him from the lowest

floors, and kill it. After The Tarnished kills the monster on the

-th floor
)
, his strength increases by

, and the

-th floor will disappear. So all floors higher than the

-th floor will fall, the original
)
-th floor become the

-th floor,
)
-th becomes
)
-th, and so on.
Now, the problem is what is the
minimum 
to kill all monsters in this tower.