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

Max wondered how safe it was to chase such a powerful figure in the tower-zone, but maybe as student climbers they were in the best diplomatic position to do so. Hopefully, it wasn’t too dangerous to sneak after him.

Max and Casey turned the corner just fast enough to see Samuel enter an elevator going down.

They rushed down the stairs to see what the man did at the bottom.

They kept the door ajar in the stairwell and watched the ground floor lobby of the building.

The elevator chimed and a door opened and Samuel marched out into the lobby. He held a cell phone up to his ear.

“Make sure those beyond the wall are ready for the call to action soon,” he said, before shutting his phone.

A limousine waited outside and the man stepped in and shut the door behind him.

Max and Casey looked at each other.

Beyond the wall?

What the heck was that all about?

Max and Casey agreed to investigate the Samuel Archer incident further, but after the night of the winter ball, there was simply a flurry of activity.

There were a few final classes at the academy all directed about how to best prepare for the final exams at the beginning of February.

“For the final exam,” their instructor explained, “You’ll all be competing in a fighting tournament against one another. I recommend you all double your training efforts. That is all.”

Cyrus grinned menacingly at Max. The boy was eager to fight him. Max felt the exact same way.

As the students started to disperse and go about their own independent study, Max contemplated how he was more than halfway through the school term. Time flies when you’re having fun, Max mused to himself. Or, really, it was more like, time flies when you’re constantly fighting for your life.

With so much going on, Max and Casey agreed to wait for the holidays to pass before they made any more moves to investigate Samuel Archer further.

And so Max focused on his studies and training as much as he could and tried to relax for the holidays.

It was going to be his first Christmas not spent at the orphanage in the outer-rim.

As he walked home on Christmas Eve in the cold wintry streets of the tower-zone, he made a small wish to the orphans back at the group home that they have the happiest Christmas possible and hopefully a year less miserable than the last.

It was a humble wish, but Max knew that those who lived at that orphanage with Mr. Grimes found a lot of joy in the humblest of circumstances.

What Max was not expecting was the level of Christmas cheer at the apartment with Sakura.

She had done up a Christmas tree, she was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, and seemed to always have a cup of mulled wine in her hand.

On Christmas morning, she woke Max up early.

“Wake up, Max! Come open your present!”

Max grumbled out into the apartment’s main area and saw that a few wrapped boxes of presents had been placed under the tree.

Sakura clapped her hands. “Open! Open! Open!”

Max opened up a present and saw that it was an ugly Christmas sweater with penguins on it wearing other ugly Christmas sweaters themselves. He thanked Sakura and put the sweater on straightaway.

“I actually got you a gift as well,” said Max, handing her a wrapped box.

Sakura shook it. “What could it be? A new dress? Diamond rings? Box set of my favorite romance series!?”

She opened the box and her eyes shined out brightly.

“Even better,” she said.

Inside the box was the most premium ramen noodles available on the market along with the most organic and immaculately raised eggs. Max hurried over to the fridge pulled out the most prized bacon slabs in the city.

“Are you ready to have the most delicious bacon and egg ramen of your life?” Max asked.

“Ooooh, this is the best Christmas ever!” Sakura squealed.

Max cooked them each a bowl of bacon and egg ramen and they dug into it.

When they were stuffed and finished from the hyper salty meal, Max said, “So what should we do for the rest of the day?”

Sakura smiled. “I actually invited a few guests over for dinner. I picked up everything you need Max to cook a brilliant Christmas feast!”

“Wait, who did you invite?” asked Max.

So that was how later that day, Casey and their instructor from the climber academy were in Sakura’s living room, laughing and celebrating Christmas together.

Max wasn’t celebrating as much as the rest of them as Sakura had left him to cook the entire Christmas meal. He had to keep an eye on the roasting turkey and vegetables in the oven, the gravy boiling over on the frying pan, and everything else.

It was all worth it in the end as Sakura and the guests all wolfed down their Christmas dinner and asked for more. They gave the highest compliments to the chef.

After dinner, the instructor and Sakura peeled off from Casey and Max, staying in the kitchen area close to the beer and alcohol.

“Do you think they’re going to—” Casey couldn’t even finish her sentence.

“I hope not. If our instructor is serious about courting Sakura, knowing her, she’s going to make him work very hard for it. She might even make him quit smoking.”

“They’re doomed in that case,” laughed Casey.

She suddenly went quiet and then reached inside her bag.

“Hey! I got you something,” she said.

Max was about to protest as he hadn’t bought her anything. He didn’t even know he was going to be seeing her over the holidays.

She handed him a beautiful origami paper crane, made out of really nice red paper.

Max didn’t know much about stationary but he knew that the paper this crane had been made out of was not your average dollar store variety kind of paper.

“We used to sell special origami paper at my family’s shop,” she said. “But things have been a bit more complicated recently. Anyway, origami always makes me smile