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

The newly graduated student climbers mingled with the higher-ups and other climbers, laughing and having small talk.

Sakura had gone to pour herself another glass of punch when a man stood beside her.

It was Samuel Archer.

An A-rank climber and newly promoted branch commander of the healer climbers.

“You seem happy,” he said in a dour voice.

“Thanks,” said Sakura. “It feels really satisfying to have graduated. I can’t wait for whatever’s next.”

The older man snickered. “I wouldn’t be so happy if I were you. You’re nothing but a fake-vein with a common trait. E-rank is as far as you’ll ever go. How does it feel to know you’ve reached your peak? That your potential is nothing worth celebrating.”

The man walked away from her then.

His words had felt like a punch to the gut.

She knew that she shouldn’t listen to the words of a curmudgeonly snobbish older climber, but she couldn’t help but internalize them. She knew already that’s what everyone said behind her back. Everyone was surprised she had made it this far.

The graduation had been one of the happiest days of her life and, in seconds, it had been ruined.

Who was she kidding? she thought. She was never going to make it as a climber. Graduating had just been some kind of weird lucky fluke.

She went home that night and cried.

But in the morning, all she felt was anger.

Anger at herself.

She’d graduated from the bloody climber academy! Less than 10% of the students at the start of the year passed and she was one of them.

How could she let the words of some jerk get the best of her?

She wouldn’t let that happen again.

Furthermore, she was determined to become stronger.

After a year and a half of harsh training, she hit D-rank.

People began to speak about her differently.

“A silver-ranked slicer, huh? Don’t see many of those.”

That was right, she thought. She was going to do better than anyone ever believed she could.

She was going to show the world that a climber with a common trait would be able to be just as powerful as any other climber!!

Sakura’s whole body trembled in pain.

She gritted her teeth and pushed herself up, wincing as she ignored the overwhelming pain as much as she could.

“Here’s the thing, Samuel,” said Sakura as she stood up. “You’ve always underestimated me and that’s been your biggest downfall.”

As a B-ranked climber, Sakura could use her slice trait twenty-five times consecutively at a total of seventy-five times a day. Take off three slices for attacks she’d already used and one more for safety, leaving her with seventy-one slices before she hit her daily capacity.

She was going to die in a few minutes anyway, she had nothing more to lose than go all out.

She clenched her fist and triggered her slice ability, again and again and again...

Until seventy-one massive golden blades of energy filled the entire arena and shot straight at Samuel Archer.

“Dodge this, asshole!”

103

The seventy-one slices shot forth into Samuel.

The man lifted up his shield slime-covered fists to dodge the blow.

“That won’t be enough to dodge all my attacks,” shouted Sakura as she commanded the blades of energy to blast into the A-rank climber.

This was her last attack she’d be able to do before she passed out and bled to death, so she had to make it count.

The slice attacks pounded into Samuel Archer.

He kept his fists raised, but it wasn’t enough.

“Arghhh!” he yelled in pain.

There was no way for him to dodge the attacks, so he was focusing on defense, but it was a huge amount of damage to take.

“You won’t defeat me,” he shouted.

The shield slimes that covered his hands liquefied once more and began to cover his whole body.

“Hiding behind your shield slimes, eh?” muttered Sakura.

She manipulated her remaining slices, enlarging them into huge blades of energy, before slamming them down into Samuel.

Samuel’s body was almost entirely coated in shield slime now.

“You can’t hurt me,” he yelled. “My defense is too high with the shield slimes protecting me.”

Arrogant as always, thought Sakura. The fool!

One slice shot into Samuel and then another.

CRACK!!

The shield slime disintegrated around him.

“You idiot,” shouted Sakura. “You screwed up as soon as you covered yourself with the shield slimes.” Beforehand, Samuel could keep alternating between the two shield slime-covered fists as one recharged its energy shield, but combining them meant two hits were all that was required to break through the shield slime’s energy barrier.

“Let’s finish this, Samuel!” shouted Sakura, sending in her remaining slices into the man.

A barrage of blows shot into Samuel.

The man screamed in pain.

When all the attacks were done, the arena swirled with smoke.

Sakura collapsed onto her knees, out of breath.

Had she done it? Had she stopped the mad man from wreaking havoc on their city?

The smoke cleared.

She stared out in shock.

Samuel was still standing where he had been before. His clothes had been completely burned off, but his muscular skin was hardly damaged at all.

“If anyone’s running out of tricks, Sakura,” he grinned. “I think it’s you.”

104

A huge explosion emanated from the nearby tournament arena.

Max peered over as they rode atop the drake.

“I hope Sakura’s okay,” said Casey.

Me too, thought Max. Me too.

The wind swirled around them as they flew the drake towards a rooftop where one of Samuel’s buffers was out posted.

On the roof, there was a D-rank climber torturing an E-rank climber.

“The era of weaklings ruling over Zestiris is over,” said the buffer.

He carried an energy blade similar to the buffer they’d fought in the alleyway on the way to the control center.

He was making big gashes in the E-rank climber’s body, but not enough to kill him, just enough to put the man into incredible pain.

Suddenly, the evil buffer was surrounded by a swarm of paper cranes.

“What the—!?”

The man collapsed on the ground, unconscious and defeated.

Max and Casey stepped out from behind an air vent and hurried over to the cowering E-rank climber.

“Are you okay?” asked Max.

The man had cuts all over.

“Thank you,” said the man. He materialized a healing