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

The man walked over and placed his hand on Max’s hospital bed.

“What do we know about him?”

Sakura let out a sigh. “I honestly don’t know where to start. The kid has a unique trait for one thing.”

The climber president nodded at that, thinking to himself.

Considering the rarity of a unique trait, Sakura was surprised by how cavalier his response was.

She continued. “The boy also has one of the three great passive skills.”

The climber president raised his eyebrows at that.

“Impressive for a boy so young,” said the president. “Which one does he have?”

“Kokoro, sir. Warrior spirit.”

“Ah,” said the climber president.

“All of which leads to the strangest thing of them all. The medical healers were able to find an arcane inscription on the boy’s back. Invisible to normal human eyes. It forced the kid to be wheelchair bound for the majority of his life. Not to mention unable to access his trait or profile.”

“I see,” said the climber president. “So the warrior spirit was what ultimately broke the inscription then.”

“That’s what I figured,” said Sakura. “But who would do such a thing to a mere child?”

She looked over to the boy. An orphan. Disabled. This boy had not had an easy life. Her heart ached for him.

“Whoever did this, they did it because they wanted to neutralize a threat,” replied the climber president.

Sakura thought back to the fight with the minotaur. For someone near death and untrained, the boy had shown remarkable resilience and power.

“The kid’s outer-rim file says his whole family was killed in a car crash,” said Sakura. “But that doesn’t quite line up with the fact that he has a unique trait and passive skill.”

The climber president scratched his chin. “Red hair, mysterious past. Reminds you of a certain climber, doesn’t it?”

Sakura’s eyes rose at the climber president’s words.

So she wasn’t crazy. There was a similarity.

But all that could be dealt with later. There was a more pressing question.

“What are we going to do when he wakes up?”

“Well,” said the climber president. “He’ll have to stay on this side of the wall now that he’s here. Those are the rules.”

“I want to train him,” said Sakura, clenching her fists with determination.

The climber president looked surprised.

“You!?” he coughed. “The great Sakura Sato. Sakura The Golden Blade wants to train a kid with a unique trait. That’s not like you. I’m surprised.”

Sakura smirked. “His ability is powerful, but it’s so situational as well. Without proper training, he could be even less powerful than someone with a common trait. Plus, with everything the boy has gone through, he won’t have the regular privileged smugness of someone with a unique or rare trait.”

“You’re not wrong,” said the climber president, looking at the resting boy once more. “But what makes you think he’ll even want to stay? He’d be eligible to re-apply for outer-rim citizenship, get a visa, return to where he grew up legally. It might take a while, but the courts might speed it up due to the unique circumstances.”

Sakura recalled the boy punching the minotaur with everything he had. The determination.

Then there were the bruises on his arm. Swollen. Older. Those were given to him before the fight with the minotaur.

“Something tells me, this kid’s not going to want to go back.”

Definitely not, she thought. Especially if he was related to the red-haired climber he resembled…

8

Max’s eyes twitched. He heard the faint sounds of beeping.

Where am I?

His eyes cracked open, revealing a white ceiling above him.

More curiously were the words floating in front of him.

The words read as followed:

Name: Max Rainhart

Rank: Unranked

Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.

Strength: 4

Agility: 4

Endurance: 5

Mana Affinity: 2

Passive Skills:

Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)

What the heck does all this mean?

He reached out his hand to touch the words in front of him, but found that his hand and arm went past the words, not even touching them.

What’s happening to me, he wondered.

Then like a lightning bolt, he suddenly recalled Mr. Grimes tossing him into the tower-zone, the fight with the minotaur, the climber lady, and then...then what happened?

He couldn’t remember.

Was that lady okay? Someone needed to help her.

He jerked his hands, taking in the medical wires attached to him. He swung his legs so he that he was now sitting on the hospital bed rather than lying on it.

He paused.

He just swung his legs.

He thought for a moment and then tried to wiggle his toe.

His toes wiggled.

He suddenly felt nauseous.

Am I dreaming?

Since the car accident that had changed his life forever, he had yearned to be able to walk, run, and jump like everyone else. To wiggle his toes. He almost felt sick with happiness. Then fear that this happiness was fleeting because it was a just a dream, a cruel joke to wake up to.

“You’re awake!”

A woman stood at the door, smiling at him.

It was the climber lady from the fight with the minotaur. So last night hadn’t been a dream! Or was this just the most super involved dream he’d ever had?

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she said, walking in and sitting down at a chair beside his bed.

“Where am I?” Max asked. “What happened? I thought you may have died.”

The woman laughed. “It would take a lot more than that to kill me. Well. The minotaur did give me a run for my money, but I’d underestimated the threat level, which was a grave error I won’t be making again.”

Max stared at the woman.

“I guess my wounded pride wasn’t the topic at hand, was it?” she smiled. “Let me answer your questions. You’re currently in a hospital in the tower-zone. As to what happened, you were attacked by a ruby-ranked monster, and if it weren’t for your courage and willingness to fight against the odds, both of us wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”

A pain throbbed in Max’s head.

Tower-zone.

Monster.

Ruby-ranked.

He didn’t even know where to begin, how to even piece all these things together.

On top of all of this,