Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1)

by Jakob Tanner

  What’s happening to me? Max thought with a new found panic.

  The audience had grown silent. They were in awe at the turn of events. They waited now with bated breath to see what happened next.

  How had Cyrus paralyzed him like this? There must be some kind of trick to escape this power?

  Cyrus smirked and started slowly walking towards Max.

  The blond-haired boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a long silver scalpel.

  The crowd gasped.

  What was Cyrus going to do with that scalpel?

  “You know why the Archer family is the most powerful family in all of the tower-zone?” said Cyrus. “Because we can see what lies beneath the skin of each and every person. I can see the very vessels that carry your blood. I can see your heart beating. Faster now as I approach you.”

  Cyrus was revealing himself to be the psychopath Max had always suspected him of being.

  “Do you know why most victims of stab wounds don’t die? It’s because stabbing someone can be a frantic impulsive attack. Very few people remain calm and stab a person right in the spot that will kill them. I don’t have that problem though.”

  Cyrus took another step towards Max.

  “My grandfather was one of the earliest climbers. A great warrior that man. He fought in wars in the upper floors. He killed thousands upon thousands of warriors. For doing such a feat he was rewarded with the very hereditary trait I'm going to use now to kill you here.”

  Max’s eyes bulged with fear as Cyrus took another step towards him.

  Max squirmed, still frozen in place.

  The audience was hushed, watching fearfully as the entire balance of power in the match completely shifted.

  Think, Max, think!

  There must be some way to escape this paralysis. If he didn’t think of something soon, he was done for.

  Cyrus took another step towards him. He held the scalpel up like a surgeon approaching a serious operation.

  The pale blonde-haired boy smiled as he took another step, closing the gap between them even more.

  Max squirmed.

  If he didn’t get out of this paralysis soon, he was either going to die or fail the climber exam. Either way, his dream of fulfilling his promise to his sister would be over. His goal of becoming a tower climber would be down the drain. Everything he’d worked so hard for would be rendered meaningless.

  His heart raced as he began to panic more and more.

  Casey and Toto stared wide-eyed at the flat-screen television in the student climber waiting area.

  Cyrus had paralyzed Max and was now vindictively approaching him like a monster playing with its prey.

  “Isn’t anyone going to do something?” cried Casey. “Cyrus is going to try and kill Max?”

  The other students ignored her, watching the match.

  None of them cared. This was the attitude of climbers. They’d grown so used to the bloody violence and monsters of the tower that they’d grown apathetic to everything that happened around them.

  So one climber killed another—this was the reality of those who lived in the tower-zone.

  Casey turned to the buffer climber who was chaperoning them.

  “Isn’t anyone going to do something?”

  The buffer crossed his arms.

  “Have more hope in your friend,” said the climber. “If we interrupted now, we’d be dishonoring him, taking away his chance to escape or defend himself.”

  Casey turned back to the TV screen and petted Toto.

  C’mon Max, she thought. You can do this.

  Max squirmed on the ground, frozen in place.

  Cyrus was now only a few steps away before he could cut him up in anyway he so desired.

  “I love seeing the heart throb faster and faster as a victim panics at his own impending death,” said Cyrus.

  Max ignored the boy as much as he could. He needed to think through a plan. There must be some way to break through this ability.

  Cyrus lifted up his scalpel, grinning.

  The boy was close enough to stab Max now in any artery or spot he wanted.

  Cyrus pulled his arm back, clutching the scalpel.

  “Another reason most people don’t die of stab wounds,” said Cyrus. “Is that many fail to penetrate the important arteries. That’s because so many people are amateurs. You need a good thrust to cut through flesh and puncture a blood vessel.”

  So that was his plan, Max thought. Cyrus was going to stab him in the most important artery and let him bleed to death as he tried to fight back and win the match.

  “Time to die,” said Cyrus.

  The boy thrust his scalpel forward.

  This was it.

  Cyrus’s eye bulged in shock. His whole body squirmed in anguish.

  His scalpel was inches away from Max, but the sharp silver blade never reached the boy’s flesh.

  Cyrus’ scalpel and hand were frozen inches away from Max’s stomach.

  “Your rare trait is pretty cool,” said Max. “Its just got one weakness. Itself.”

  89

  Sakura had both of her hands on the glass as she watched the battle with panicked concern.

  Cyrus was about to stab Max and then—

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  The two student climbers were just standing there, frozen.

  “Interesting,” said the climber president, scratching his chin. “Max has escaped defeat, but now the battle has come to an impasse.”

  Sakura looked closer to the ground.

  Ah, I see, she thought. Clever thinking, Max. Use Cyrus’ own trait against him.

  Cyrus squirmed in front of Max.

  Max took a moment to catch his breath. The scalpel that was going to kill him was only inches away from his flesh.

  Max only figured out how to save himself at the very last second. He realized that Cyrus’ trait while paralyzing him, still allowed him to breath and speak. Did that mean he could do other things as well? Like trigger his own trait? That was when he realized he could now utilize Cyrus’ own bind ability and paralyze his opponent.

  It was a very interesting ability Max realized. The way it worked was simple. A string of mana emanated from your finger like the thread of a spider’s web and then it froze anyone in place who touched it.

  Cyrus kept squirming, frozen in place, trying to break the hold.

  The audience began to get bored at the two of them just standing there. They started to heckle and boo.

  The match had come to an impasse. How long it would stay like this, Max wasn’t sure. He still didn’t completely know the full functionality of Cyrus’ trait. How long did the paralysis last for?

  “Give up now,” shouted Cyrus. “Give up. You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

  Inevitable.

  For Max, the word felt like a punch to the gut.

  Many years ago when Max was eleven, he rolled up to Mr. Grimes on his wheelchair with a piece of paper he’d received from school sitting on his lap.

  “What do you want, Useless!?”

  He presented the paper to Mr. Grimes and the orphan manager snatched it out of the boy’s hands.

  “What’s this, Useless!?”

  “It’s a field trip for this coming Saturday,” said little Max. “There’s a career fair downtown. All the schools are invited.”

  “Pah! You can’t go, Useless!” shouted Mr. Grimes at the little boy. “You’re going to clean the cellar on Saturday, remember?”

  “What if I cleaned the cellar the following Saturday?” asked Max.

  Mr. Grimes shook his head. “That’s not how things work, Useless. You need to clean the cellar this Saturday. What do you need to go to a career for anyway?”

  Max perked up at this. Such a question suggested maybe Mr. Grimes could be reasoned with.

  “I need to go so I can see what I can be when I grow up,” explained little Max.

  The orphan manager laughed in his face. “You!
? But you’re nothing. You’re going to grow up to be nothing. Trust me. It’s inevitable.”

  Cyrus squirmed in irritation, staring Max down.

  Something had changed in the red-headed boy. He was staring at him with a new level of anger and rage.

  Suddenly, a horrible piercing pain filled Cyrus’ entire body as if he was burning from the inside out.

  “What’s happening to me!?” he screamed.

  The bind ability wasn’t an offensive trait. If they were both frozen, there was no way for them to hurt each other. How the heck was Max dealing this level of pain to him then?

  The sizzling internal burn was too much for Cyrus to bear.

  He had to escape it. The only way to was to let go of his bind spell.

  He released the bind on Max, but the burn still continued.

  How was Max doing this to him?

  “I’m so sick of people telling me what’s inevitable,” screamed Max. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you jerk!”

  The sizzling pain inside of Cyrus disappeared and so too did Max’s bind over him. Yet, by the time Cyrus realized this, a mana-imbued fist smashed into his own face, sending him hurling across the arena in pain once more.

  90

  Samuel was shivering with a quiet rage inside of him.

  He pulled out his phone surreptitiously so that Sakura and the climber president didn’t notice.

  None of this was part of the plan, thought Samuel. Cyrus—you foolish boy. I thought I had been hard on you growing up, but clearly I hadn’t been hard enough.

  Since Cyrus botched the original signal, none of the operatives were moving ahead with the plan. He had to send them a new signal.

  Samuel typed a text telling them to get to work regardless of his son’s incompetence.

  When he was finished, he clicked send.

  “Don’t you agree, Samuel?” said the climber president.

  He blinked. He hadn’t been listening to the conversation happening in front of him.

  “That question is unfair, Mr. President,” said Sakura. “You can’t ask the man to comment on his own son’s defeat.”

  “Cyrus is defeated?” said Samuel.

  “Well, not yet,” smirked Sakura. “But Max has displayed some very clever thinking. First, he used the bind trait against Cyrus, but then with an even bigger stroke of genius, he used the mana threads of the bind trait as a mana bridge to then send hostile mana into Cyrus’ body causing him to burn from the inside out.”

  Samuel bristled. It was a smart play from the boy from the outer-rim. Maybe he had approached his arrival in the wrong way. The boy may have been a good recruit. It was too late now though. The sides were already drawn.

  The operatives should have received his text message by now.

  There would be no more delays to the plan.

  Everyone was silent in the student climber waiting room.

  Toto squealed and nestled into Casey’s neck.

  “I know, Toto,” said Casey. “I can’t handle the suspense either.”

  Was this it? Was the battle over? Had Max won?

  Max took a deep breath as he watched the smoke and debris settle on the other end of the arena.

  He’d given Cyrus everything he had.

  The audience watched with bated breath for the smoke to clear.

  With Cyrus’ low endurance, he didn’t see how the boy could survive.

  The smoke began to settle.

  It was now the moment of truth.

  Cyrus was bruised to a pulp, but he stood up, wiping blood off of his mouth.

  No way, Max thought. How was he still standing?

  Cyrus started to laugh manically. His eyes bulged.

  This guy was truly insane, thought Max.

  “Nice trick,” said Cyrus. “But I’m still right and you’re still wrong. You’re weak and I’m strong. I’m Cyrus Archer and you’re bloody nobody. Just watch.”

  Max rushed forward. The sight of Cyrus’ face was enough indication that Max only needed to hit him one more time to knock him out unconscious.

  After two steps, however, he found himself frozen in place.

  “We’ve been through this, Cyrus,” said Max. “You can’t keep me frozen.”

  Cyrus snickered once more.

  “Oh yes, I can,” he said.

  Max’s heart raced. What was Cyrus going on about?

  BOOM!

  A huge explosive tremor of noise and destruction came from beyond the arena.

  Sakura swerved her head to the other side of the room.

  A huge tremor reverberated against the wall.

  “What’s just happened?” shouted Sakura.

  She quickly glanced over to the branch commander of the healer climbers. Samuel’s face was as placid and apathetic as ever. Almost as if he’s not even surprised or worried about the explosion.

  The door to their private arena box swung open and it was an E-rank city climber. Her face was pale with fear.

  “They’re attacking the city!” she cried.

  “What do you mean?” said the climber president.

  “It’s unbelievable...but it’s a brand new monster wave!”

  How was that possible? A monster wave wasn’t due for almost another month? None of the city’s defensive wards were even powered up to deal with a monster wave. The city was defenseless.

  “Go warn others,” Sakura commanded as she rushed to the door to see if there were any threats coming from the hallway.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Sakura,” said Samuel. “But it’s too late.”

  The woman shuddered.

  “There’s nothing you can do to stop it,” grinned the man.

  The audience suddenly screamed with hysteria.

  There was a sudden flash and a C-rank climber appeared beside Cyrus.

  People in the arena were clambering over each other wanting to escape.

  “Such idiots,” said Cyrus. “None of you deserve to live. You don’t even know why you’re scared. You just hear an explosion and you start running. You realize you’re all running in the direction of the thing you’re afraid of. Maybe you should just stop.”

  Cyrus lifted up his hands and suddenly everyone in the arena froze in place.

  Max watched all this develop as he too was stuck mid-run, unable to move.

  But how was this possible? Paralyzing one person felt like a reasonable power, but the entire arena?

  Unless—!

  The climber who had appeared beside Cyrus. He was similar to the one they’d encountered in the waiting room.

  The climber in the waiting room had the power to stamp out people’s powers. He was called a debuffer.

  This climber had the inverse of that ability. He was able to magnify people’s abilities, strengthening them beyond their normal limits. This climber was a buffer.

  The arena had gone silent.

  No one could move while the strange screeches of monsters emanated from just beyond the arena’s walls.

  91

  Max squirmed, still trapped mid-step.

  Cyrus and his buffer companion had completely paralyzed the entire arena audience.

  That didn’t just include ordinary citizens, but other climbers as well. People who were currently needed to help defend the city.

  Cyrus laughed.

  “It’s about time,” he sighed. “I’ve been waiting a long while for this plan to come to fruition. I thought I might have a few extra minutes to kill you individually, but alas, we ran out of time. I’m sorry to inform you, outsider, but this is a coup d’état. The Archer family is taking over. No longer will the most powerful climbers bow to the rules put in place to enslave them. They deserve to rule as they are the strongest!”

  So that was what this was all about. Power. The Archer family felt like they didn’t have as much of it as they deserved and they were willing to kill and hurt people to get more of it.

  This was the exact danger the climber president
had told him about. The shifting concerns of humanity as individuals grew in strength and power leaps and bounds beyond their common peers.

  This was the very destructive impulses and tendencies that had led to their original world getting destroyed. It was what led to the formation of this city in the first place.

  And now the Archers wanted to burn that all to the ground.

  They couldn’t let them win, Max thought. Not if he could help it.

  He squirmed in place.

  He tried to do the mana bridge technique once more, but nothing happened.

  “Your little mana bridge trick won’t work now,” said Cyrus. “So long as I have this buffer here. My mana cannot be overpowered by yours.”

  Crap.

  What am I going to do, thought Max.

  Easy solution, he thought. He’d already figured out how to work around Cyrus’ trait. Last time, he’d used Cyrus’ trait against him, but that was harder now with the buffer present. Even still, he could still use his own trait, shadow blink. The ability didn’t require any actual physical movement to perform. In fact, the shadow blink ability operated in defiance of physical laws.

  The only problem Max could foresee was if he did use shadow blink, would he still be paralyzed when he reappeared? He didn’t see why he would be though. By shadow blinking, he’d be escaping the clutches of the bind trait’s mana thread.

  The next question was, who should he target: Cyrus or the buffer?

  He’d pick his target, shadow blink, and then knock one of them out. He had a feeling too that his punch might be more powerful than normal.

  Cyrus and his companion stood in the middle of the arena, grinning.

  Cyrus had given his smug speech already, so they were just waiting. That was their role in this operation on the tower-zone. Paralyze everyone so that there could be a smooth and hostile takeover of the city.

  It wasn’t going to be so smooth any more now though, thought Max right as he triggered his shadow blink ability.