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

She’d do the same thing here.

She approached the little blonde girl and boy and surreptitiously tapped the blonde girl on the shoulder.

Before Casey could pretend like she hadn’t poked her, the blonde girl spoke with hostility.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Did you just touch me?”

Casey shook her head with a silly grin on her face.

“She did,” said the blond boy. “I saw her.”

“My father tells me to keep my hands to myself,” said the girl. “To touch someone is a mark of war.”

Casey blinked. “I’m sorry. I was just kidding around. I don’t want to go to war with you.”

“Of course you don’t. I’m a Westley and he’s an Archer. The question is: who are you?”

“I’m Casey,” she said.

“No, but what family are you from?”

“My last name is Everton,” she said. “My parents are over there.”

“Oh,” said Sybil. “You’re one of the fake-veins.”

Sybil and Cyrus giggled at her. She didn’t like being excluded from the joke. They were speaking in a coded language she didn’t understand.

“What’s a fake-vein?” she asked.

“Don’t tell her,” giggled Sybil. “Tell me: what do your parents do?”

“They own a stationary shop,” said Casey, proudly. “Our family sells really cool pencils, pens, and paper. I’m learning to do origami. I can show you if you’d like.”

They laughed even louder now. It was venomous.

“A shop!?” they laughed with theatrical cruelty. “Wow, how pathetic! They should just get rid of the traitless from the tower-zone!”

“Well, nice to meet you, Casey,” said Sybil. “See you never!”

With that the two kids laughed and walked off together.

Casey stood there all alone.

She looked over to see her parents, equally confused and ostracized at this meeting.

She wiped a tear from her eye.

One day, she thought. I’ll show them. I’ll show them that being born from traitless parents is a strength and not a weakness.

I’ll show them I’m proud of where I come from.

That a fake-vein can beat a pure-vein with enough effort.

One day, she said to herself, I’ll make them regret their dismissal of me.

Casey stood across the arena from Sybil.

The Westley girl looked as if she was mustering the strength inside her to unleash another devastating attack.

Casey had no other choice but to use her final move. She had been hoping to save it as a trump card until later in the tournament, but it was now or never.

She pulled out a small paper crane from her pouch.

“Really?” balked Sybil. “Is that your big ace up your sleeve? A stupid piece of folded up paper?”

Casey muttered, gritting her teeth angrily, “I once offered to teach you how to make a paper crane and you laughed in my face. Now, I’m going to make you regret that.”

Casey twirled her hand creating a gust of wind around her and as she did so she opened up her pouch, unleashing one paper crane after another, until she sent forth a whole flock of origami cranes in a swarming tornado at Sybil.

This was Casey’s trump card. Her ultimate move.

The Thousand Paper Crane Attack!

85

“What’s this!?” shouted Sakura to the arena down below. “I’ve never seen an airbringer do something like this before. This is truly a unique use of the trait!”

Samuel’s face was red with anger, a thick vein of irritation forming just along his forehead.

“How fascinating,” said the climber president. “She’s really made her airbringer trait her own with this move.”

They stared through the window to the arena below as the paper cranes swirled around Sybil.

Sybil held up her arms defensively but it was no use.

There were simply too many cranes.

“Aghhh!” she screamed out in pain.

She tried to push the wind back but it was no use. Technically, Sybil’s power over the wind and higher mana affinity stat should have been able to reverse direction of Casey’s tornado, but Casey’s paper cranes were imbued with mana of their own. All of the cranes were contributing to the ferocity and power of Casey’s tornado to a level much stronger than Sybil was capable of pushing back on her own.

The wings of the paper cranes sliced through Sybil’s clothing and flesh. Tiny bleeding paper cuts opened up all over Sybil’s body.

Sybil jerked spasmodically all over the place unable to defend the countless number of small attacks from the paper cranes.

The audience was silent, waiting with bated breath to see the outcome of Casey’s powerful attack.

For the longest time, Casey had never known how to make her trait special, unique to her. But it was after meeting Max and seeing the fierce determination in his eyes, his willingness to do anything to find and save his sister, that unlocked a determination in her self that had long been dormant. From that point on, she’d been working on perfecting an airbringer attack that would take advantage of her own unique strengths.

The thousand paper crane attack was the result of that effort.

“Agggghhhhh!” screamed Sybil as the pain grew worse and worse. She was bleeding out of countless cuts across her body now.

Casey screamed as she used all her power and mana to unleash the devastating attack.

The cranes swirled in a destructive violent torrent all around Sybil, her childhood tormentor.

“Do you see now, Sybil?” shouted Casey. “There’s one thing being raised within the traitless community that I’ve learned that a pure-vein doesn’t and that’s learning to work together with others, the idea that when combining forces you can create whole new strengths you never thought possible. You’re so focused on channeling as much mana and wind as possible to do powerful martial attacks, you didn’t realize one could use the wind to empower something seemingly innocent into something incredibly powerful. My paper cranes aren’t strong on their own, but when infused with mana and wind power and in a collective flock, each weak individual crane suddenly becomes infused with a massive amount of power! MY TRAITLESS BACKGROUND IS MY STRENGTH! BEING A FAKE-VEIN IS SOMETHING ONE CAN BE PROUD OF! NOT ASHAMED FOR!”

Casey threw her hands out with all her might as she channeled even more of all the