Tower Climber 3 (A LitRPG Adventure)

by Jakob Tanner

  But he also knew he didn’t share the same drive to be the best as his friend did.

  Harold was content with being just okay.

  He was the team’s C-ranker.

  Competent and reliable.

  He was deep into middle age. Most of his cohorts from the academy, like Travis, had either far surpassed him in ability or accepted less demanding positions as police or defense climbers down in Zestiris.

  He’d only joined the human team for this tournament because Travis had begged him to.

  He couldn’t wait for it to be over.

  “Get a good night’s sleep everyone,” said Travis. “We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  The following day would be forever burned in Harold’s memory.

  The semi-final match pitted humanity up against team Caesaria.

  The contest took place in a mana-simulated environment as a protective measure for the climbers on either team.

  The battle format was randomly chosen to be team death match.

  A kill or be killed scenario.

  Last man standing wins.

  The mana simulation formed in the arena. Harold and the rest of the team found themselves in a murky swampland.

  “C’mon, everyone,” said Travis. “We’ve planned for this. Let’s go.”

  They hurried ahead only to fall into one of the battle scenario’s traps.

  Quicksand.

  Only Harold who’d been covering the back of the squad managed to avoid falling into the sinking mud.

  “What are we going to do?” cried the team’s E-ranker.

  “Everyone calm down,” said Travis. “There must be a way to escape the quicksand. All we need to do is figure that out before the enemy—”

  The E-ranker suddenly coughed and gasped, her eyes bulging out of her skull.

  A voice snickered all around them.

  “Escape before the enemy finds you?” said the sinister voice. “Too late.”

  All the members in the quicksand reached for their necks as invisible threads began to constrict around their throats, suffocating them.

  It was the Caesarian team’s A-ranker.

  A man known as Octavius.

  He could create tiny invisible threads of mana. His primary way of taking out opponents was suffocating them to death with such threads.

  The Caesarian team’s A-ranker had managed to capture everyone but Harold.

  Harold looked around frantically for the A-ranker, but he was hidden.

  His teammates faces all looked at him, especially Travis.

  “Help,” their faces said, for they couldn’t talk or breathe.

  Harold ran up to the E-ranker who was closest and tried to remove the invisible threads by reaching up to her neck.

  He jumped away in pain as the invisible thread burned into his fingers.

  The whole team gagged and suffocated to death except for Harold.

  There was no way he could take on the entire enemy team on his own now.

  This was it.

  The match was over.

  They had failed.

  Harold felt a blow to the back of his head and happily accepted the simulated death of the arena.

  He wanted it to be over.

  He didn’t realize the horror awaiting him once the mana simulation disappeared.

  All of his teammates lay slumped on the ground.

  “Guys,” said Harold. “The match is over. You don't still think you’re all in quicksand, do you?”

  Harold stepped over to his teammates.

  They were motionless.

  Still.

  Their skin was pale.

  Harold crouched down and nudged Travis in the shoulder.

  The body was so cold, Harold jumped back with fright.

  “Travis?” he said. “This isn’t possible.”

  Climbers weren’t supposed to die in the simulated environment.

  He looked around the arena as the crowd cheered and roared for the victorious Caesarian team.

  “Help!” Harold screamed.

  But no one seemed to notice or care.

  From that day onward, humanity and Caesaria wouldn’t speak to each other, even diplomatically, for another ten years.

  The rest of the team listened to Harold with rapt attention and shock.

  “That’s insane,” said Max. “How was that allowed to happen?”

  “How come the simulation didn’t work?” Casey asked.

  Sarah was too shocked to say anything. Blake lit a cigarette, most likely familiar with this dark tale already.

  Harold’s face was stern and serious.

  “The Caesarian A-ranker had kept them on the edge of death with his ability so that it turned into not only physical torture but psychological torture as well,” Harold explained. “When the simulation came down all the players had been kept on the edge of death for long enough that their brains truly thought they were suffocating and died because of it.”

  “And you said the Caesarians were applauded after the match?” Sarah finally spoke up with disbelief.

  “Yeah,” said Casey. “How come they weren’t disqualified and that psychopath wasn’t arrested?”

  Harold stretched his neck, barely containing the deep anger seething in his voice.

  “Back then,” Harold explained. “What that guy did wasn’t against the rules. Casualties were part of the risk of taking part in the tournament. That remains true today. Though the mana-simulation technology has improved to a point that it’s much harder to do what Octavius did back then.”

  Max’s heart thumped against his chest as he listened to Harold’s words.

  What kind of tournament are we getting ourselves into? he began to think.

  “Is that crazy guy going to be taking part again?” Casey asked.

  Harold shook his head.

  “No,” said Harold. “Octavius is now considered a rogue climber. He got into a spat with the Caesarian government a year or two after those dreadful games. His current whereabouts are unknown.”

  A silence hung in the common room now.

  “For a long time after the games,” said Harold, “I seethed with anger and the desire for revenge. I took on more and more dangerous missions and pushed myself beyond C-rank in a pursuit to get stronger so I could ultimately…”

  The old man didn’t finish his statement.

  They all knew where he was going.

  The old man had wanted to get stronger so he could kill the Caesarian A-ranker who had murdered his teammates.

  “But along the way on my path to power,” Harold explained, “I realized I didn’t like being a climber and I didn’t like other climbers very much either. Somehow—and I remain grateful to this day for my own change of heart—I accepted peace. I retired and lived a life of solitude running my antique shop in Hawker’s Alley.”

  Max felt a mix of emotions.

  On the one hand, he was angry on behalf of Harold and yet on another, he was impressed with the man. The very emotions rushing through Max at that moment Harold had felt to an even greater degree.

  To be able to push such powerful emotions aside and find peace felt like a monumentally incredible task.

  Harold then looked each and every one of them in the eye.

  “The only reason I was convinced to step out from my antique shop was out of concern for the young climbers Zestiris would be sending up to their potential deaths,” Harold explained. “I want to protect you all from the misery I experienced. And I promise each and every one of you—if and when we survive this death spiral they call a friendly competition, I plan on going straight back into retirement.”

  22

  The following morning, Max woke up to a smelly wrinkled foot in his face.

  First, his nose twitched, then he almost gagged as the stench took him out of his dreams and into conscious reality.

  “Ugh,” said Max, looking up to the old man looming over him. “Do you not wash your feet?”

  “Get
up,” said Harold. “Your training begins now.”

  Max groaned and rolled out of bed.

  After the incredibly long and exhausting day previously, Max thought they might at least get a chance to sleep in.

  He thought wrong.

  “Meet me downstairs in five minutes,” said Harold. “We have no time to waste, remember? We have a lot to do and only a month to do it.”

  Harold left the room and gave Max the privacy to get dressed.

  He did so quickly and then glanced over his profile before meeting up with Harold.

  Name: Max Rainhart

  Rank: D

  Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.

  You may choose to retain three abilities you’re hit with, adding them to your arsenal of attacks at double the power.

  Ability Slot: Shadow Blink (Rare)

  Ability Slot: Chain Lightning (Rare)

  Ability Slot: Phase-Out (Uncommon)

  Strength: 35

  Agility: 35

  Endurance: 33

  Mana Affinity: 36

  Passive Skills:

  Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)

  Under any other circumstances, Max would have been ecstatic about the pace of his stats’ growth, but Harold was right, they had a lot of work to do.

  None of his stats were even considered D-rank, phase two yet.

  He sighed and closed the profile in his retina.

  He stood up and headed downstairs.

  Something told him that the next month was going to be the most grueling training he had yet to experience in his entire climber career.

  The fire in Harold’s eyes when Max stepped down in the lobby below told him straight away, that he was not wrong.

  The old man chose floor-29 as their training realm.

  The floor was composed of a misty mountainous region. Max followed behind Harold until he stopped in an open patch of space within a wooded area of pine trees.

  “How are we going to train?” asked Max.

  The old man hadn’t said a word since they left the climber’s outpost. Max wasn’t sure what Harold’s deal was: whether the silence was part of the training or not.

  All Max knew was the old man’s peculiar silence had made him grow more and more uneasy about whatever their training regimen was going to be.

  “Easy,” said Harold, finally breaking his silence.

  A few meters from Max, Harold assumed a fighting stance.

  “You’re going to try and land a hit on me.”

  Max looked at the man, not sure if he believed the words.

  “You want me to hit you?”

  Harold smirked. “You can try.”

  Max nodded his head determinedly in reply to the old man’s taunt.

  Your choice old man, Max thought to himself. I won’t hold back!

  Max rushed Harold with his fist raised.

  Harold lifted his hands to block the incoming attack.

  Does the old man really think I’m going to come at him with such a simple attack?

  Climbers weren’t simply martial arts fighters or boxers, they had so many other tools at their disposal.

  And in Max’s case, that included, one of his favorite abilities.

  Shadow blink.

  He triggered the move and reappeared behind Harold ready to punch the old man in the back of the head.

  Except when Max reappeared Harold was still facing him, hands raised to block the attack.

  How is that even possible? Max thought to himself.

  The old man’s reflexes were so fast, he had spun around to meet Max’s attack as soon as he had disappeared into shadow?

  But then Max should have witnessed the old man’s spin and turn when he had reappeared.

  Harold was already facing him by the time he had materialized again.

  It was like he moved to meet Max’s shadow blink reappearance before Max had even triggered the ability.

  How is that possible?

  Had the old man just guessed Max’s choices incredibly well?

  Max leaped back, making space between Harold and him.

  “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Harold taunted.

  Max grit his teeth.

  He couldn’t answer any of his questions about the old man from that one exchange alone.

  He’d simply have to surmise Harold’s power through trial and error.

  An hour went by of Max futilely trying to hit Harold again and again.

  At first, Max thought Harold had super powerful chess grandmaster level intuition, so he tried to unleash a complex set of feints before he’d try to land a hit on him.

  No matter what he did, though, the old man was always facing right in front of him, fists raised, ready to block him easily as if Max had run straight at him with no strategy at all.

  It was mind-boggling.

  How does the old man do it? he wondered to himself.

  Max stared at the old man as he caught his breath after the first hour of training.

  Harold hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  “Don’t tell me you’re ready to give up?” Harold smirked.

  Max spat on the ground and clenched his fists. “Never.”

  He got into a position to charge Harold once more.

  What haven’t I tried yet?

  He’d gone through all of his arsenal abilities and none of them had helped. He hadn’t even gotten Harold to trigger his trait yet—

  Or had he?

  Max narrowed his eyes and stared Harold down as he triggered his mimic trait to see if he had picked up Harold’s trait somehow.

  Suddenly, the world around him went fuzzy and strange and he thought he was going to throw up.

  Stop.

  He blinked and his vision returned to normal.

  Is that what I think it is?

  Harold was still waiting for his attack.

  “Hey kid—you’re not going to hit C-rank by just standing around. Now, c’mon, try and hit me!”

  Max smirked.

  He was beginning to piece together what Harold’s trait was; he was beginning to understand why he couldn’t land a single hit on the old man.

  And, thankfully, Harold hadn’t seemed to notice that he’d tested it out a little bit already.

  He only had one shot to hit the old man with the surprise and he had to use a trait he only vaguely understood.

  He only had one shot at this.

  Knowing that there was no time like the present, Max charged towards the man, fists raised.

  “Finally,” snickered Harold. “I was falling asleep over here.”

  Harold took on a defensive stance as the young climber rushed him once more.

  The boy ran at him fist raised.

  “You won’t keep humiliating me, old man!” shouted the red-haired punk.

  Harold raised an eyebrow at that.

  Those are fighting words.

  How long would it take this kid to figure out his strategy? And what would the boy do once he did?

  Harold focused and readied himself for whatever Max was about to throw at him.

  Max’s fist came flying directly at his face.

  Easy, Harold thought. I’ll just pause this and stand over—

  Max’s fist kept flying at his face full speed.

  That shouldn’t be the case, Harold thought. Unless—

  The sneaky kid!

  The boy had figured out his trait.

  Well done.

  But even without his trait, Harold was far faster than the boy.

  He swerved his feet, ducked down, and lifted the boy and flipped him onto his back, before the kid even knew what happened.

  Max cried out in frustration.

  “Very good,” said Harold. “You quickly figured out how I was able to deflect all your attacks. You’re ready to move on to the next stage of your training. I promise you this will be a lot more excruciating than anything else we’ve done so far.”

&
nbsp; Max laid on the ground, exhausted, breathing in and out, heavily.

  “What are we going to do next?”

  Harold crossed his arms, triumphantly. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to teach you how to use my trait properly. Are you ready to learn time manipulation?”

  Over the next hour, within the misty mountainous forest, Harold walked Max through the basics of his unique trait.

  “You can go back in time?” Max blinked.

  Harold snickered. “No. The name of my trait is a little misleading. Probably a better name would be temporal defense. Though, it can be used offensively as well.”

  “Amazing,” said Max.

  He was in awe of Harold. His trait was so cool. It lent itself to so many possibilities. It was making his head swirl with both amazement and confusion.

  “Here’s the basics to how it works,” said Harold. “My trait creates a circle with a radius of one meter with the user at the center of that circle. Within that circle, you can pause, rewind, and fast forward ten seconds of time.”

  “Whoah,” said Max.

  “It’s not impenetrable as you’ve seen. When we were attacked by those mercenaries on floor-16, they were able to paralyze me by surprising me and landing an attack outside of my temporal radius.”

  “Damn,” said Max. “Every trait has its upsides and downsides.”

  “That’s correct. There was a moment in my life where the time manipulation trait lulled me into a false sense of security. That’s probably its greatest weakness. You can manipulate a sliver of time, you cannot control fate. You can merely react to it better than most.”

  “So what happened when I attacked you?”

  “That was very interesting,” said Harold. “I’ve never come across that exact scenario before, but I’ve encountered others like it. Essentially, our temporal circles overlapped with each other and cancelled each other out. I had to rely purely on reflexes to stop you.”

  “Whoah,” said Max.

  Harold then returned to a fighting stance.

  “But if I focus,” he said, “I can trigger the temporal radius, rewinding ten seconds back and forth for as long as my trait limit will allow. In theory, we’ll be able to train for much more than a month this way.”