by Jakob Tanner
“Do you know where we are?” asked Casey.
Max peered all around the forest, nervously.
He shook his head.
They were lost.
30
Max and Casey walked nervously through the forest. Each and every one of their steps was filled with trepidation.
“Are we sure we’re going the right way?” asked Casey.
Max had no idea. He was starting to realize how dangerous this floor was. Sure, the monsters weren’t exactly the most deadly, but it was the area itself that would consume you.
Max wasn’t sure what they should do. If they didn’t keep moving, they would lose the test. But if they were lost and going in the wrong direction, it would make it even harder for the instructor to find them—at which point, they didn’t just have to worry about losing the test, but they had to worry about staying alive.
They didn’t have any food, water, or shelter. This floor didn’t seem like it offered those kinds of amenities, even if they went hunting for them.
Max sighed. All the options were bad, but at least, if they kept moving they still had a chance at finding the others and passing the test.
For the time being, he figured that was their best option.
Max and Casey continued forth in the woods—if they were going in the right direction, they had no idea.
Cyrus Archer stood with the rest of the class in front of the teleporter along with the instructor.
Cyrus kept his arms crossed and smirked as he stared out into the empty forest.
It looks like my plan worked, he thought.
Cyrus and his goons had made sure to kill off as many monsters in the surrounding area from when the test started to limit the prospects of the other students.
It looked like the plan was paying off perfectly, seeing that the new kid and the fake-vein still hadn’t made it back.
He turned to the instructor. “How much longer do we have to wait here for?”
“There’s still forty-five minutes on the clock,” said the instructor.
“But what if the remaining students are in danger?” said Cyrus. “Shouldn’t you be out there rescuing them?”
“As an instructor, it is my duty to look after the students,” said the older flamebringer. “But that also means I can’t coddle them either. I’m training you all to be warriors to protect others. I must honor those struggling with the test the allotted time.”
“Even though, you think they should’ve been back by now,” Cyrus pried.
The man didn’t respond and just stared out into the forest.
So he does think something’s gone wrong out there, thought Cyrus smugly to himself. But it doesn’t look like he’ll be convinced to call the test early. So they were just going to have to wait.
The boy grinned and contemplated what he wished for more.
For the two remaining students to fail the test.
Or for them to die out in the endless forest.
I guess option two satisfies both my desires, he grinned as he stared out to the empty forest.
“Are we there yet?” Casey groaned.
They’d been walking for ages and they hadn’t come across anywhere they recognized.
“Are you sure we haven’t been going the wrong way?” she asked Max for what may have been the tenth time.
Max wasn’t sure. If they had gone the wrong way, should they turn back? But there was no way to prove they were going the wrong way. It was possible the same area looked different on the way back, no?
His stomach growled.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s stop for a moment to catch our breath.”
Casey’s shoulders slumped at that and then she plopped herself on the ground.
“Damn,” she sighed. “It looks like we failed this test.”
Max sat down as well and rubbed his forehead.
“I just wish there was some way to tell where we were, but this damn forest looks so similar in every direction!”
Max sighed. “Let’s take five minutes to clear our heads and then maybe a new idea will come to us.”
They sat quietly for two minutes.
Finally, Max broke the silence and asked, “Why were you nice to me earlier today? Everyone else seems to be so outright cold and mean.”
Casey hugged her knees and looked down at her feet.
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I guess I just know what it’s like to be an outsider.”
Max considered the name they kept calling her. Fake-vein. What did that even mean?
“Why were they calling me a commoner and you a fake-vein earlier?”
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “It’s just the stupid names the prestigious families use to make themselves feel better than everyone else. They called you a commoner because you have a common trait. They called me a fake-vein because my parents are traitless. I don’t come from a family of climbers.”
Casey’s face went pale with dejection.
“Hey,” said Max. “If it makes you feel better, I barely got to know my parents at all before they died. I would rather have traitless parents than, you know, dead ones.”
Casey shook her head. “Was that supposed to make me feel better? Now I just feel bad for both of us.”
They went silent again for another few moments. Casey broke the conversational lull that time.
“Why do you want to become a climber anyway?”
Max was caught off guard by the question. They were supposed to be thinking of a way through their predicament, not getting to know each other better. Plus, he wasn’t sure how much of himself he wanted to share.
“I want to become a climber because I’m looking for someone on the upper floors,” said Max.
He’d leave it at that.
The silence settled on them once more, until Casey broke it again.
“Are you not going to ask me why I want to become a climber?”
She looked up at him. Her previously dejected face now looked full of irritation.
“I...uhh...”
Max was at a loss for words suddenly. He figured she wanted him to ask the question and yet somehow he was struggling to get the words out.
“Casey—why do you want to become a climber?”
She smiled with a devilish grin. “There’s a lost treasure hidden on the higher floors of the tower and I’m going to be the first to find it.”
Before Max could ask about what treasure she was referring to exactly, he had an idea.
Treasure.
Treasure map.
Clues.
He looked around. Maybe their way back to the teleporter wasn’t so hopeless after all.
31
“C’mon, this is unfair,” said Cyrus back at the arrival teleporter. “You should go out looking for them now. What if they’re dying out there? You’re letting them bleed to death.”
The instructor kept his eyes on the forest around them and ignored the boy’s pleas.
“Hmph, fine don’t listen to me,” said Cyrus. “When my father hears you let two student climbers get killed on the second floor, I’m sure you’ll be in deep trouble.”
The instructor simply lit another cigarette and took a puff, continuing to ignore the boy.
Cyrus gave up and stomped away.
What did he care, the test would be over in ten minutes anyway. Those two would fail and quite possibly be dead.
Cyrus would just stand there smugly until that happened. That was his new plan.
Then through the thick labyrinth of trees appeared the silhouette of two figures.
“Look!” shouted another student. “I think it’s them! They made it back!”
“There’s no bloody way that’s them,” muttered Cyrus.
They would have had to travel a great distance away from where they started, killed eight monsters, and then made their way back through the undecipherable forest. Very few people survived in the endless forest without a map, so it was pretty much impossible fo
r those two weaklings to have lived.
The silhouettes got closer until the new kid and the fake-vein were in view. They were limping and had some dirt on their clothing, but they were very much alive.
The new kid grinned as he reached the instructor.
“Did we make it back in time?”
Max was out of breath, but filled with joy that they’d made it back and had passed the test.
The instructor smiled and congratulated them for making it back.
“Seriously,” he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I thought you two might be dead.”
“They bloody should be,” shouted a voice.
It was Cyrus coming up to the three of them.
“They must’ve cheated,” he cried. “How could they have survived out there for so long and then made it back? Impossible!”
“Do you want tell us how you got back?” asked the instructor. “Or should I take a guess?”
“I’ll explain,” said Max. “We were really lost and I thought we were done for. We both did. However, then I started to think: all the different ranks and branches of climbers go through this floor from the arrival teleporter to the departure teleporter. There must be some kind of system of signs to mark locations throughout this labyrinthine woods. So we started looking at the trees and we discovered signs carved into the trunks near the bottom of the tree.”
“Bullshit,” yelled Cyrus. “I didn’t see any signs.”
“They were easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them,” admitted Casey. “But once we started looking for signs other climbers would’ve left for each other, we found the markings in no time.”
Cyrus’ face was flush with anger. “Fine, you found out how to get home, but I still haven’t seen you guys present your monster cores. I doubt you would’ve been able to get lost, find your way back, and defeat four monsters each.”
Both Max and Casey materialized each of their own set of four copper monster cores and presented them to Cyrus.
The blond boy fumed and strutted away.
Max suspected Cyrus must have had something to do with all the nearby monsters being killed off. Why else would he be so frustrated that they had completed the test?
“All I can say is, well done,” said the instructor. “It was very clever of you to figure out that the climber’s guild has set up a series of signs in the trees as a way of communicating the different locations of the endless forest. You’re a couple of lessons ahead of the class. Keep up the good work.”
Max and Casey smiled at each other.
“I guess we make a good team,” said Casey, cheerfully.
“Yeah,” said Max in agreement.
“Alright, class,” sighed the instructor. “Gather around. Today’s lessons are over. We’ll take the teleporter back to the ground floor of the tower. Classes will resume tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. sharp.”
“What about the monster cores we collected?” said Max.
The instructor smiled. “They’re yours to keep. In fact, they’re more than that. They’re tonight’s homework.”
32
By the time Max got back to the apartment, he was absolutely exhausted.
The lights were off when he came in. Sakura wasn’t home yet.
He sighed.
So that was day one of the climber academy. He almost got expelled and then almost killed before the day was over. Was he honestly going to be able to survive the whole school term?
He put some of his things down on the living room table and then tidied up the apartment a bit.
After twenty minutes, he got started on dinner.
He had done some grocery shopping earlier in the week with Sakura, so luckily for him, every meal wasn’t going to be bacon and egg ramen.
He chopped up some onion and garlic and started sautéing them in a pot over the oven. He added some ground beef and continued sautéing. He then opened a few cans of tomatoes and threw them in as well.
Tonight’s dinner would be Pasta Bolognese.
As he threw in the spices, he thought about what he was going to do for the rest of the evening.
I’ll cook this dinner. Eat quickly. Save the rest for Sakura and then get down to my homework with the monster cores.
When supper was ready, he wolfed down his plate of pasta rapidly. He then chugged a glass of water, put his dishes in the sink, and then went to the living room to get started on his homework.
He sat cross-legged on the floor and materialized the four copper monster cores from his pouch.
He looked at the stones. They were similar, but not identical. One was quite larger than the others and some were much more weirdly shaped than the rest.
They did all have a metallic coppery hue, however.
He sighed as he lifted each one up and turned it over.
How did these things work?
He had a feeling they were important somehow. Sakura had explained to him how the tower-zone’s entire currency was based on these monster drops and the fact that other races on higher floors used these currencies as well. If the mere coins these tower monsters dropped were enough to shape whole currencies of multiple worlds, then surely these cores were just as important, if not more so.
He picked one up and held it in his hands.
He closed his eyes and channeled his mana into the fingertips that were holding the stone.
The monster core suddenly glowed, shining out light from inside of it.
Holy crap!
The monster core had absorbed his mana.
He placed the stone down and excitedly paced the living room floor.
He then sat back down and picked up the core once more.
If the core can absorb my mana, can I drain the core of its mana?
Max took a deep breath and held the copper monster core up once more.
He closed his eyes. He had figured out the basics of manipulating the mana channels inside himself, perhaps it was the same motions necessary to draw the mana out of the monster core.
He held the monster core up and tried to drain it of its mana.
Nothing happened.
He paused.
He tried to think the puzzle through. He was able to move mana around his body because there were channels and vessels that allowed for the flow of his internal mana. He could even send mana through his fingertips into the monster core. Yet when he tried to pull the mana out of the monster core nothing happened.
Max tried one more time.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This time instead of simply trying to pull the mana out of the monster core, he was going to send his mana into it once more. Only after doing that would he try and pull the mana out. His hypothesis was by sending his mana into the monster core first, he was thereby creating a makeshift mana channel, which he could then use to drain the core of its mana.
He enacted his plan and, within seconds, felt a rush of adrenaline and energy coursing through him. It was enough to make his whole body shiver. He dropped the monster core on the ground.
He gulped. Holy smokes, what happened?
He looked down to the floor and saw the copper monster core had turned into a black lusterless stone.
He had drained it of its mana!
This was how climbers raised their mana affinity, wasn’t it?
He checked his stats with excitement, only to find his mana affinity was still at 3, exactly where it had been when he last checked.
He sighed and got to work on draining the three other monster cores.
When he was finished, he looked at his stat sheet once more.
Name: Max Rainhart
Rank: Unranked
Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.
Strength: 7
Agility: 7
Endurance: 6
Mana Affinity: 4
Passive Skills:
Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)
Max grinned at the sight of his profile. His mana affini
ty stat had gone up by one. Based on what Sakura had told him, he had to hit eleven to hit E-rank. He was now only seven mana affinity points from reaching that goal.
He collapsed on the floor in both exhaustion and satisfying bliss.
“I’m hooooome,” said Sakura, stepping into the apartment. “It smells good in here. What did you make, Max?”
She found Max in the living room, asleep on the floor. Four blackened monster cores lay in front of him.
“Couldn’t wait up for me, huh?” she said.
She looked down at the boy and the blackened monster cores. The boy continued to impress her. He had figured out how to drain them of their mana all on his own. This kid was something else.
She picked him up gently and placed him back down on his bed and covered him with a blanket.
She smiled down at the boy and then sighed.
At what point do I talk to him about what I know, she wondered. Not that I know much, but I guess I know a little.
Definitely not tonight, that’s for sure.
But when? And what will he do when I tell him?
33
Just after midnight, Bruno Slevsky finished his shift at the Pole Dancer’s Lounge, a strip club in the tower-zone’s red light district.
Most nights he worked as a bouncer for the owner, one of the city’s ruling mob bosses. Some nights were more unusual than others: less bouncing and more going to someone’s house and beating them up because they owed his boss money. Sometimes he did more than beat them up.
Tonight, however, wasn’t one of those nights. Tonight was a typical shift, which meant, standing in front of the door in the cold dead of night, making sure the lowlifes who came in were the kind of lowlifes that spent money and didn’t cause trouble.
It was the end of his shift, so he collected his share of the tips and then left the establishment, making his way home for the evening.