Battle Spire
A Crafting LitRPG Book
Michael R. Miller
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
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Enjoy!
Michael
1
For most people, I reckon nearing the end of finals eases the grizzly knot of tension in your stomach; for me, it only tightened the knot further. You see my real test was still to come and by the end of this weekend, I intended that my life would never be the same again.
But first, I had this damned exam to finish.
I glanced up from my answer to check the clock in the corner of the exam terminal’s screen. One minute left. Only one glorious minute.
Returning to my final answer, I pressed the turn icon to take a new page, frantically scribbling with my chrome stylus before the page finished loading. My aching hand scrawled out the last words, slipping here and there from the strain of the last three hours. Genetic Engineering had been a ball ache of a course but I’d reached the end now. It would stand me in good stead and get me a grad job, or so everybody says. If I passed, that is.
But I’d pass. I’d made certain of it by studying day and night for the last six months.
After I’d nearly flunked out last semester, I didn’t have much of a choice.
With two seconds to spare on the clock, I pressed in a period to finish my answer. A clinical sounding ‘ping’ rang across the hall, followed by low grunts and sighs of relief from my fellow students.
I caught the eye of my buddy Lucas nearby. He made an exhausted fist pump into the air and then became more animated as he mimed throwing back drinks with both hands. I smiled back and feigned a similar motion, though I had no intention on following through on that this evening. I had my own celebration planned.
A message blinked onto the middle of the monitor.
Times up! XenTech University hopes you’ve had a pleasant evaluation today. Please reconfirm your identity to proceed.
A box outlined in red appeared to the side of the message, large enough for my whole hand. I placed my palm onto the screen and the scanning process began. Out of well-practiced habit, I also looked to the lens on the monitor so it could double-check that I really was who I was supposed to be.
As if to triple confirm, it brought up my student ID, horrific picture and all. There I was, all eighteen and spotty; hair lank and ungroomed across my face. Hardly dashing. Still, my eyes looked brighter back then, all hopeful, idiot that I was. Oh, and my younger self was a lot thinner too; before the beer and takeout weight had taken its toll.
The prick.
At least the monitor was happy about it, flashing excitedly.
Confirmed!
Jack Kross
Congratulations on completing your examination. We hope to see you at the 2053 graduation. XenTech hopes you have a nice day (and a party-filled evening)!
Cringy corporate communications aside, I don’t think I had felt so giddy in years. Better than waking up on Christmas morning seven years ago to get my first fully neural interfaced VR headset, a Noir Dome 1160X model. It was a piece of junk now but the rented model I had stowed away in my backpack probably wasn’t much better.
In my eagerness to escape the exam hall, I jumped to my feet too fast and earned a dizzying rush of blood to the head, but anticipation for what was to come vanquished the knot in my stomach. Maybe this feeling was even better than that kiss with Clara Denson back in sophomore year, which was a worrying thought as that was one of my more cherished memories. I’m not great with girls as you might have guessed. Nor was I supposed to jump into a game for at least another six months if I wanted to win that bet with my parents.
I’d played Myth Online a bit too much the previous year. Huge epic adventure, forming guilds, slaying bosses and getting sick loot, what’s not to love? I loved it a little too much and was on the verge of being kicked out of college when I had a wake-up call. I guess I got a bit obsessed; happens to the best of us, am I right? So, I sold my VR Headset, a CryoScope 520G – God, it was the shit – and knuckled down. Even told my parents I was voluntarily quitting. They didn’t believe me, so I’d made a bet with them.
If I stayed off gaming for a whole year and smashed my final exams, they’d help me buy my first car. Just the fact that I’d be getting out of my room delighted them more. ‘Go for a run,’ they’d told me. ‘Get some fresh air in you, that’ll see you right.’
In hindsight, I should have made the time limit six months, then I’d already have made it. Oh well, I was gonna sneak a little in anyway. I had a plan.
I’d naturally ignored my family’s suggestion that I go for a run. Shocking as it might sound, I wasn’t one for running, but right now, leaving this exam hall, I was approaching something dangerously close to a jog as I wove through the crowd, the hubbub of post-exam relief rising all around me.
“Jack?” Lucas was calling after me, but I hurried on. If I could grab my bag before he got out, I could dash for the hover tram and make my getaway without any awkward interrogations. He’s one of my roommates and my family drafted them all in to make sure I didn’t break the terms of our agreement. The others wouldn’t bother so much but Lucas had a giant crush on my sister, so he would play kiss ass. It was real rich of him, now I thought about it. I’d never once told his family about how he spent all his book money on pot during our first week. All in all, this meant the apartment would be a no-go for my weekend of gaming.
Perhaps my dash for freedom had been a bit of a giveaway? Never mind.
I arrived at the storage unit outside of the hall somewhat breathless and leaned onto the counter for support, drawing in embarrassingly large gulps of air. I really ought to work out more. I’d say I’ll start properly after this weekend’s experiment, but who am I kidding?
After picking up my bag I made my way toward the exit.
“Excuse me,” I grunted as I tried to negotiate a throng of people blocking the glass doors. They may as well not have heard me. “Sorry, could you move, please?”
No dice.
I like to kid myself that I’m a confident person who projects his voice.
It’s moments like this that bring that fantasy crashing down. I resorted to a good old-fashioned shoulder barge to squeaks of protest, but no matter. I was out and was greeted by the bright sun over the Bay Area.
It was one of those rare hot days in San Francisco when you can really smell the heat, you know? That sort of mix of sunscreen and sweat, when everyone’s face is hidden behind shades. The kind of hot weather that brings out all the best-looking girls and gives the gym bros an excuse to take their shirts off. And here I was about to lock myself into a dark room for the rest of the day. I couldn’t wait.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and started to move, heading towards the hover tram terminal at the edge of campus. As I approached, the tram pulled in and I really did run this time to hop aboard. I didn’t feel like waiting fifteen minutes for the next ride north. The way I jumped through the closing doors was almost heroic.
Quickly scanning my palm to charge my account, I looked for a place to sit. The only seat left was one on the west side of the carriage where the sun was beating in through the window.
I sat down, bag slumped between my legs, and tapped the window to bring up the shade filter controls. I selected medium, darkening out the world.
It would take a while for the tram to reach its most northern stop and then I’d have to change onto the old Powell-Hyde cable car line for the last leg of my journey. The Tenderloin wasn’t an area I’d usually visit, never mind plan on staying for two nights, but it would offer me the reclusive setting that I desired. Hell, everyone knew about the sordid VR ‘salons’ that littered the area and while I wasn’t planning such activities, the single room occupancy joints were amongst the few places left that still took cash in hand without asking questions.
Anywhere else, even a low-key motel, would likely want my palm print or simply get my identity from their security cameras. Not a bad thing for the most part, except that I couldn’t leave a record of where I was if I wanted to pull the wool over my family’s eyes. Not that they were regularly checking up on me or anything, but I like to be thorough.
Call me obsessive, but I like the fine detail. It’s why I enjoy delving deep into an RPG, figuring out the best path, tweaking the talents and stat numbers to be just right; theory crafting weird new builds to gain an edge over others. I just wish I knew more people in the real world who understood that.
My immediate family still saw it as a stigma. Yet the rise in Esports was allowing people to make legitimate careers in gaming, like any football or baseball player. I bet you anything that if I’d been making serious cash doing it, like the top MOBA and Battle Royale players, then it would have been an entirely different story.
It wouldn’t have been a ‘stupid waste of time’ then. No, no, no; it would have been me working really hard.
If you’re asking why I don’t just shoot for those top-paying spots the answer is simple, I’ve not got the reflexes to play competitively. I enjoy a shooter or MOBA like anyone else but I’m just not quick enough. I’m at my best when I get to sit back a bit, plan things out and take my time. Play the long game, if you will. In Myth Online, I played a utility class and acted as the guild leader. I organized the raids and, yes, I admit it, screamed at people down voice comms for not doing their job. Looking back, I can appreciate why my roommates found it worrying.
Still, I refer back to my main point: they didn’t ‘get’ what I was doing. I’ve seen coaches here on campus screaming blue bloody murder at their team during a match and nobody pulls them up for it. And we all know that there are bosses across the country shrieking in boardrooms right now. So what if I loudly told the idiots who died over and over again in the Elder Dragon’s deep breath attack to go screw their own moth— well, you get the idea.
The basic point is this. If I can make money from gaming, then no one will call it ‘wasting time’ again. They’ll call me hard working. And what’s more, I think I know how to do it.
2
You might be wondering why I’m so hell-bent on making some money out of playing this new game? It can’t all be to prove a point to my parental overlords. And you’d be right. Truth be told, I doubt I can make loads, but anything that can help to make a dent in my student debt wouldn’t go amiss. I’ve racked up a quarter of a million bucks in tuition fees from XenTech. Ivy League schools are supposed to be worth it, right?
So, what’s my plan? Well, it’s to start playing the scavenger class in the new virtual reality massively multiplayer online game, Hundred Kingdoms. You’ll have heard of Hundred Kingdoms, of course, it only came out about a month ago, but in case you’ve been living under a rock, or are like my sister, I’ll run over it again.
Hundred Kingdoms is the big new thing, being hailed as the game changer for VRMMO gaming, the way that World of Warcraft was for classic MMOs early in the millennium. Sure, there have been some great VRMMOs already but Hundred Kingdoms seems to have struck gold, bringing in both hardcore and casual players alike in droves. It’s been estimated the game has fifteen million players worldwide and it is growing every week. An advanced AI runs the show, which some people have called a waste of good tech; mostly politicians who want to build smarter robots to kill people with.
The most important thing is that in-game gold can be exchanged into dollars. And vice versa. Now, it used to be that companies would go to any lengths to stop gold sellers in these sorts of games but I’m sure you’ve heard of the 1920s Prohibition. You can’t completely stop people from getting what they want and if you can’t beat them, then sell the goods yourself.
Players can go to Frostbyte Studio’s online store and purchase a token which they can redeem inside Hundred Kingdoms for in-game gold. But that gold isn’t just generated out of thin air; that would lead to some crazy hyperinflation. No, no, it’s the players who have amassed legitimate in-game wealth who are free to put up their gold for a token and take a share of the profits. Frostbyte carefully monitor and adjust how much the gold is worth, meaning the amount of money needed to buy one hundred gold goes up and down based on supply and demand.
At the launch of a new game like this, many hardcore players who are pushing for world first rankings are willing to spend a bomb to get an early edge, but the amount of gold generated by players isn’t huge yet as people haven’t had time to farm it. It effectively means that the in-game gold is strong against the dollar.
If you have a lot of gold in the game right now, you stand to make a pretty penny. Going forward, the system will still allow those who like to play the auction house in-game to do well for themselves back in the real world. With any new frontier, there is money to be made, if you can discover where to make it.
Enter me and the scavenger class.
A soft ping-pong noise emanated from the speakers overhead, pulling me back to reality as the tram pulled into its next stop. The doors opened, letting in hot air from the outside, and a shuffling of people then ensued. Jolted by the noise and bustle, I shook my head to fully wake myself up. Out of habit, I decided to check the leveling leaderboards of Hundred Kingdoms.
I pulled out my phone and with a few quick taps the leaderboard appeared. I’d been checking it regularly since the game’s release, to see how far behind I might end up being during exams. Not too far as it turned out. While most people bemoaned the fact it had come out in April – right before exams for many students across the country – I’d been glad.
Hundred Kingdoms had been scheduled to come out before Thanksgiving, but there had been an attempted hack which delayed its release, granting the developers time to beef up security. Frostbyte Studios hadn’t confirmed what the digital thieves had attempted to do. Most people assumed to the attackers had tried to find a loophole in the game’s economy system to plunder it for quick cash upon release. Whatever the case, Hundred Kingdoms had launched in April, meaning I wasn’t so far behind.
Had it been released on schedule, I wouldn’t have been able to play as that was when I’d made the bet and started to focus on my studies.
I would have had to try and resist jumping online for six months rather than just one. That would have been cruel.
The leveling leaderboards had become one of the most watched pages on the web these past weeks. Frostbyte Studios had offered in-game vanity awards and titles to the first one hundred players who reached the level cap of 50. Shockingly, few had made it so far. Only twenty-four players in the world.
The rankings on the leaderboard were calculated by using time played, while also factoring in the number of deaths and a weighting based on the player’s chosen class, with certain classes deemed to be easier to level than others. Since I’d checked last night, the board hadn’t moved an inch.
Leaderboard
Legolaas – High Elf – Ranger – playtime 10 days 3 hours 34 minutes
OneShotMaster – Orc – Ranger – playtime 10 days 5 hours 14 minutes
PyroPotter – Gnome – Mage – playtime 10 days 7 hours 47 minutes
Azrael – Undead Human – Death Knight – playtime 13 days 14 hours 3 minutes
ScrubSlayer – Minotaur – Berserker – playtime 10 days 10 hours 50 minutes
WhiteNoise – Vampire – Mage – playtime 10 days 12 hours 34 minutes
Longtuuusk – Troll – Ranger – playtime 10 days 15 hours 50 minutes
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