by Jakob Tanner
Max had expected the force of the grenade to shoot him back, but the explosion was all light-infused magic.
From what he’d read up on the subject in the library, light-infused magic was one of the weakest elemental forces to utilize, unless fighting against shadow-based opponents.
The shadow monster blinked to a different corner of the cave, hiding behind a rock, dodging the luminescent burst of light magic.
“You damn human,” hissed the monster again. “How dare you come here with such awful light magic!”
Max had clearly hit the monster’s weakness. He had five more grenades left. He had to make them count as they were his only way of defeating this creature.
The shadow creature suddenly started cackling with laughter.
Max wasted no time and threw another light magic-infused grenade at the spot where the monster was hiding.
BOOM!
Max raised his arm in front of his face to block out the bright light.
The light dissipated and the cave became shrouded in shadow and darkness once more.
Ha ha ha ha.
The shadow monster cackled with laughter.
The monster’s face appeared in the darkness. Its face then slithered along the shadows of the room. It wasn’t teleporting, but it could move almost at lightning speed so long as there was connecting shadowy tissue.
Max tried to keep track of the monster but he couldn’t.
“Try and track me now, foolish boy!”
52
A blade of shadow shot forth from the pools of darkness.
Max jumped away.
“Agh!”
The attack had cut his leg. Sayonara to his earthquake spell. Not that that was a huge deal. Sure, he could maybe destroy the whole cave, but this monster lived in shadow and darkness. It wasn’t slain the same way you’d slay a troll or an ogre.
The shadowy face flickered all across the cave, laughing.
“You won’t beat me foolish human,” said the shadow monster.
The demonic creature had returned to its torture dance, keeping a cautious distance as it slowly whittled away at Max’s sanity.
Max quickly got back up to his feet.
“Screw you,” he said, gritting his teeth.
Max readied another light grenade in his hand.
“You won’t beat me with your foolish trinkets boy,” hissed the monster.
He only had four more shots to beat this thing. He thought back to his research at the library. He must be forgetting something.
Shadow creature...
It never leaves its cave...
Max paused. It never leaves its cave. That’s it.
There must be a way to use the cave against it somehow. A cave was a limited space, so why was he being so cautious?
Screw it, he thought. I got nothing to lose now.
BURST!
The shadow monster had flickered and reappeared all around Max, engulfing his entire body.
Max flailed his arms around, not sure what to do.
How the heck did you remove a shadow covering you?
“Give up boy! It’s time I devoured you and your soul,” hissed the monster.
The monster’s words echoed all around him.
Stick to the plan, Max thought.
He let go of the grenade in his hand and let it explode right in front of him.
“Escape this, jerk!”
Max started firing off the remaining grenades, throwing them in all directions.
He just wanted the whole cave to be filled with light magic.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
53
The grenades shot off and filled the cave with light.
The shadow monster appeared in the bright light. Smoke emanated off it as if its shadowy body was burning.
“Damn you human!” hissed the monster.
Max had effectively used the cave against the monster, lighting the whole place up. There was nowhere it could escape to once he had done that.
“Arghghghg,” groaned the monster as the light magic surrounding it burned it to death.
“That’s right,” said Max, triumphantly. “I thought this place could use better lighting!”
“Ughhhhh....” groaned the shadow monster.
The light from the grenades dissipated but the shadow monster was already dead. Its body turned silver and it morphed into a glowing silver monster core at the bottom.
There it is, thought Max.
He rushed towards the monster core and picked it up.
This orb. It was the reason he’d gone through all this trouble.
It also looked slightly different than he expected. It was silver just like the one he’d seen at the monster core merchant stall in Hawker’s Alley, but this core had an extra glowing sheen around it. It was a translucent slightly rainbow color like a puddle of gasoline in rainwater in an alleyway.
It was mesmerizing to look at.
Max wasn’t going to wait to get back to the apartment. No. He was going to drain this core of its mana right now.
He let mana leak out of his fingers and filled the monster core, creating a mana bridge. He then began to pull the monster’s mana out of the core and into his own body.
Right as he finished draining the core, he felt his hair shoot up. He fell onto the ground as an intense sensation—both painful and delightful—rushed through his entire body, almost as if he was having a seizure of some kind.
And then—seconds later—the feeling was gone and Max was simply lying face down in the dirt.
What the heck happened?
He clenched his fingers in the dirt and then rolled over so that he was staring at the ceiling of the cave.
But he wasn’t seeing the ceiling of the cave.
He was seeing a message in his retina.
Congratulations! You have reached a new rank!
Your trait has evolved!
What does that mean?
Max quickly brought up his profile.
Name: Max Rainhart
Rank: E
Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.
You may choose to retain one ability you’re hit with, adding it to your arsenal of attacks at double the power.
Ability Slot: Shadow Blink (Rare)
Strength: 11
Agility: 11
Endurance: 10
Mana Affinity: 11
Passive Skills:
Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)
Max grinned at his profile.
He’d done it!
He’d reached E-rank!
Even more excitingly, his trait had evolved. Now, not only could he hit somebody back with their same ability at twice the power, but he could choose to keep a power he really liked for later without losing it on the likely chance that he was accidentally hit with a different ability before then.
There was a new message waiting for him in his retina as well.
Alert! Would you like to insert “shadow blade” into your extra ability slot?
What’s this?
He recalled that attack he’d nearly dodged from the shadow monster. A blade of shadow had emerged and cut his leg.
So that ability must be in the current normal mimic slot, and he now had the option to hold onto it semi-permanently if he wanted to.
The ability to summon shadow blades sounded super badass and cool, but it would be maybe slightly redundant if he ever was able to trigger Sakura’s slice ability again. Plus, it was just a purely offensive move which were frequent amongst climbers; whereas shadow blink had a lot more situational value. The ability to hop around a battle location would offer incredible strategic and tactical advantages, regardless of what other ability he was currently wielding. In fact, the ability to teleport would only ever enhance another ability he had, unlike shadow blades which would just be another offensive option.
The decision was easy.
He was going to keep shadow blink and hold onto shadow bla
de until something better came along or he was forced to change it due to whatever circumstances came up.
He got to his feet. He couldn’t wait to tell Sakura he had reached E-rank and not only that, he had done it without breaking any rules or laws of the tower-zone.
He walked towards the entrance of the cave, full of satisfaction.
He then stopped halfway towards the exit.
There was a group of men waiting outside.
It was far too great a coincidence that a group of men came to the exact same unexplored spot of the endless forest on the same day he had. No—they must have followed him here.
But why?
They must’ve followed him here.
Max could only think of one reason. They’d been hired by whoever had assigned that guy to attack him on the night of the October monster wave.
This was an ambush and these guys were here to kill him.
54
Eli waited cautiously near the entrance to the cave.
His brothers were getting bored and irritated. They wanted to rush into the dark cavern.
“When is this kid coming out?” moaned Kendrick.
“I think he’s dead,” said Patrick. “We should go in and confirm so we can stop waiting and go home.”
Eli considered all the noises they’d heard coming from inside that cave. There had been a powerful monster in there and, regardless of what the outcome was, the kid had clearly put up a good fight. It might be worth going in there to finish off what the kid started and collect the unique monster core. It might not do him much good as a C-ranked climber but it would net a good amount of coins with a merchant.
“It’s been over ten minutes since we last heard anything,” said Kendrick. “Is it possible there’s another exit out of this cave?”
“Nope,” said Eli. “There he is.”
The figure of the boy emerged at the entrance of the cave.
“C’mon out, kid,” said Kendrick. “There’s no point in hiding. We’ll come in there and kill you if we have to. Just like we killed the defense climbers at the front of the teleporter.”
The boy didn’t move.
“Alright, Eli,” said Kendrick. “Make the call. I say we all go in and crush this kid.”
Eli sighed. “You guys win. I’m tired of waiting too. Let’s go.”
Eli and his five brothers walked into the cave.
Thunder crackled around his fingertips, he looked forward to finishing this job, killing this kid.
“Which element was going to win today?” said Kendrick. “My vote is fire.”
“You always vote fire,” said Patrick. “I don’t see my trait working out too well here.”
“Waterbringers suck,” said Kendrick.
The Reckless Brothers’ traits all revolved around the different elements: air, water, earth, fire, and thunder.
Every fight they had was a competition to see which element would come out on top.
The kid ran deeper into the cave.
Eli snickered. He didn’t understand why the kid was running. When he had come to the entrance, he’d proved to them there was no other exit.
Max’s heart raced as he hid in the shadows.
The footsteps of the five men got louder and louder.
“C’mon out little boy,” said a creepy menacing voice.
The voice held more venom than even the shadow monster he’d just fought.
“Don’t try and escape us, kid,” said a different voice. “Because you won’t. Even if you do, you don’t. You get what I’m saying, kid? You escape us here. We come find you somewhere else.”
Max thought about how he was always running away and hiding from those stronger than him. That was what he used to do at school with his bully Seth. Same with Mr. Grimes at the orphanage.
He was always hiding.
Never standing up.
And he hated himself for that.
The voice echoing through the cave continued.
“If we can’t find you: we go and take that little airbringer friend of yours and make sure you come to us. We’re professionals, kid. We’ll torture everyone you love until you come out of hiding.”
The man had gone too far.
He was threatening those he loved.
Yet, he was still hiding, still running away.
He was always running. Always hiding.
Not anymore.
“Give up the chase, kid, and let us do our—”
SLICE!
“Kendrick?” asked Eli.
They were suddenly deep enough in the cave that it was mostly shadowy darkness.
Eli couldn’t see his brother. He couldn’t understand why he’d suddenly stopped talking.
SLICE!
“Urhgh...urhgl...”
Kendrick collapsed on the ground.
Dead.
“He’s attacking,” shouted Eli. “Everyone be on your guard!”
Eli triggered his trait, casting a blast of lighting through the cave.
He wanted to get a better view. The kid must be hiding in plain sight if he was able to sneak up on Kendrick.
But even as the purple lightning filled the cave, he couldn’t see anything.
Where the heck was the kid?
“He’s over there,” shouted Patrick.
The feeling in the cave was of such high-strung panic they all triggered their traits at once.
Earth, lightning, and air magic filled the cavern.
The whole place trembled.
“You idiot,” said Patrick. “Don’t cast earthquake in here!”
But it was too late.
The cave was trembling and beginning to collapse in on itself.
Dirt and rocks were falling from the ceiling.
“We gotta get out of here,” shouted Eli.
They ran towards the exit as the rocks collapsed in on them.
Eli led the way.
But they weren’t going to make it.
The last thing Eli saw before the rocks of the cave crushed him to death was the kid, waiting at the entrance, arms crossed in satisfied triumph.
55
Max rushed back through the forest as fast as he could.
He kept an eye on the knife slashes in the trees he had left for himself to help him get back.
They said they’d killed the defense climbers at the arrival teleporter.
Please don’t be true, thought Max as he hurried back.
When he got back to the teleporter, there was a whole group of defense climbers examining the area.
Sakura was there and she turned around and caught Max’s eyes before rushing over and hugging him.
“I was so worried,” she said. “After there was a report of a double homicide on floor-2 after the Reckless Brothers had appeared, my mind raced. I’m so happy you’re okay. Did you see the Reckless Brothers?”
Max let go of Sakura’s embrace and nodded his head.
“You won’t find them,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she said.
Max didn’t even know where to begin. So he started from the very beginning: going to the library, devising a plan, getting the proper equipment, fighting the shadow monster, the ambush attack, and finally, how he played the Reckless Brothers off of each other with his new shadow blink ability so that they ended up burying themselves in the cave.
“I don’t think they survived the cave’s collapse,” he said, finally.
Sakura sighed after Max told her everything.
“That’s quite the story,” she said. “You must be exhausted. I’m going to have to pass this on to the other climbers dealing with this incident. Just wait here and then we’ll go home. We’ll pick up food on the way.”
After ranking up, Max took the next few days off. With all the craziness from the incident with the Reckless Brothers, he needed a break. Plus, he’d trained really hard to get to E-rank, so he thought he deserved a few days off. He stayed in during the November 1st monster wave, watching a film that Sak
ura had recommended. It was a cheesy romance film that he ended up falling asleep to.
As the days passed by, Max wasn’t sure what to focus on with his training next. Even though his mana affinity would allow it, the student climbers weren’t allowed to go beyond the floor above them. The endless forest was, well, endless after all so there was the possibility to mine it for more secrets, but after the event with the Reckless Brothers, he had a bit of a sour taste in his mouth.
He ended up returning to his training routine, the one he’d done in the build-up to his clash with the shadow monster.
Without the earthquake trait, killing multiple monsters in the endless forest became a much bigger pain in the bum. That said, one cool thing about having reached E-rank was that his daily limit of his trait had increased. Before ranking up, he could use his trait three time consecutively with a daily limit of six times per day. Now, however, his daily limit had grown from six times per day to ten times per day. It was awesome. Even still though, without an ability that had a large area of effect, destroying multiple monsters now felt horribly inefficient. So Max stuck to just doing laps between the two teleporter locations and more push-ups and sit-ups within the mana-dense forest.
By the end of the two weeks, he looked over his stats with satisfaction.
Name: Max Rainhart
Rank: E
Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.
You may choose to retain one ability you’re hit with, adding it to your arsenal of attacks at double the power.
Ability Slot: Shadow Blink (Rare)
Strength: 13
Agility: 13
Endurance: 11
Mana Affinity: 11
Passive Skills:
Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)
Look at all those stats increasing, thought Max with satisfaction.
A lot of the other student climbers who were also training in the forest in preparation for the midterms thought he was crazy. He was always the first one there in the morning and the last one to leave. Now that he wasn’t even fighting monsters and just training, they thought his level of determination bordered on insane. They’d never seen anything like it. Max could see their astonishment every time he jogged past them or they came by him doing push-ups in the forest.
