Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) by Jakob Tanner (free children's online books TXT) 📕

understand why the kid was running. When he had come to the entrance, he’d proved to them there was no other exit.

Max’s heart raced as he hid in the shadows.

The footsteps of the five men got louder and louder.

“C’mon out little boy,” said a creepy menacing voice.

The voice held more venom than even the shadow monster he’d just fought.

“Don’t try and escape us, kid,” said a different voice. “Because you won’t. Even if you do, you don’t. You get what I’m saying, kid? You escape us here. We come find you somewhere else.”

Max thought about how he was always running away and hiding from those stronger than him. That was what he used to do at school with his bully Seth. Same with Mr. Grimes at the orphanage.

He was always hiding.

Never standing up.

And he hated himself for that.

The voice echoing through the cave continued.

“If we can’t find you: we go and take that little airbringer friend of yours and make sure you come to us. We’re professionals, kid. We’ll torture everyone you love until you come out of hiding.”

The man had gone too far.

He was threatening those he loved.

Yet, he was still hiding, still running away.

He was always running. Always hiding.

Not anymore.

“Give up the chase, kid, and let us do our—”

SLICE!

“Kendrick?” asked Eli.

They were suddenly deep enough in the cave that it was mostly shadowy darkness.

Eli couldn’t see his brother. He couldn’t understand why he’d suddenly stopped talking.

SLICE!

“Urhgh...urhgl...”

Kendrick collapsed on the ground.

Dead.

“He’s attacking,” shouted Eli. “Everyone be on your guard!”

Eli triggered his trait, casting a blast of lighting through the cave.

He wanted to get a better view. The kid must be hiding in plain sight if he was able to sneak up on Kendrick.

But even as the purple lightning filled the cave, he couldn’t see anything.

Where the heck was the kid?

“He’s over there,” shouted Patrick.

The feeling in the cave was of such high-strung panic they all triggered their traits at once.

Earth, lightning, and air magic filled the cavern.

The whole place trembled.

“You idiot,” said Patrick. “Don’t cast earthquake in here!”

But it was too late.

The cave was trembling and beginning to collapse in on itself.

Dirt and rocks were falling from the ceiling.

“We gotta get out of here,” shouted Eli.

They ran towards the exit as the rocks collapsed in on them.

Eli led the way.

But they weren’t going to make it.

The last thing Eli saw before the rocks of the cave crushed him to death was the kid, waiting at the entrance, arms crossed in satisfied triumph.

55

Max rushed back through the forest as fast as he could.

He kept an eye on the knife slashes in the trees he had left for himself to help him get back.

They said they’d killed the defense climbers at the arrival teleporter.

Please don’t be true, thought Max as he hurried back.

When he got back to the teleporter, there was a whole group of defense climbers examining the area.

Sakura was there and she turned around and caught Max’s eyes before rushing over and hugging him.

“I was so worried,” she said. “After there was a report of a double homicide on floor-2 after the Reckless Brothers had appeared, my mind raced. I’m so happy you’re okay. Did you see the Reckless Brothers?”

Max let go of Sakura’s embrace and nodded his head.

“You won’t find them,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she said.

Max didn’t even know where to begin. So he started from the very beginning: going to the library, devising a plan, getting the proper equipment, fighting the shadow monster, the ambush attack, and finally, how he played the Reckless Brothers off of each other with his new shadow blink ability so that they ended up burying themselves in the cave.

“I don’t think they survived the cave’s collapse,” he said, finally.

Sakura sighed after Max told her everything.

“That’s quite the story,” she said. “You must be exhausted. I’m going to have to pass this on to the other climbers dealing with this incident. Just wait here and then we’ll go home. We’ll pick up food on the way.”

After ranking up, Max took the next few days off. With all the craziness from the incident with the Reckless Brothers, he needed a break. Plus, he’d trained really hard to get to E-rank, so he thought he deserved a few days off. He stayed in during the November 1st monster wave, watching a film that Sakura had recommended. It was a cheesy romance film that he ended up falling asleep to.

As the days passed by, Max wasn’t sure what to focus on with his training next. Even though his mana affinity would allow it, the student climbers weren’t allowed to go beyond the floor above them. The endless forest was, well, endless after all so there was the possibility to mine it for more secrets, but after the event with the Reckless Brothers, he had a bit of a sour taste in his mouth.

He ended up returning to his training routine, the one he’d done in the build-up to his clash with the shadow monster.

Without the earthquake trait, killing multiple monsters in the endless forest became a much bigger pain in the bum. That said, one cool thing about having reached E-rank was that his daily limit of his trait had increased. Before ranking up, he could use his trait three time consecutively with a daily limit of six times per day. Now, however, his daily limit had grown from six times per day to ten times per day. It was awesome. Even still though, without an ability that had a large area of effect, destroying multiple monsters now felt horribly inefficient. So Max stuck to just doing laps between the two teleporter locations and more push-ups and sit-ups within the mana-dense forest.

By the end of the two weeks, he looked over his stats with satisfaction.

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