Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) by Jakob Tanner (interesting books to read for teens .txt) 📗

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 blade 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