Tower climber 4 a litrpg.., p.11
Tower Climber 4 (A LitRPG Adventure), page 11
“What?” said Max. “Just like that? No extra challenge or anything?”
“One step at a time,” said Zack. “Go on.”
Max took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He wanted to think it through before he triggered the break-mode.
His sister came to mind.
Elle could do more than segment part of her demon-mode power.
She could mutate her body into demonic axes and spikes.
She could transform any part of herself with total ease and grace.
It was incredibly deadly and powerful.
Her power was still so far ahead of his.
Not for much longer, he thought to himself as he gritted his teeth and attempted break-mode segmentation for the first time.
Zack watched the boy.
The mentor kept his arms crossed and his breathing steady.
He didn’t want the boy to pick up on his own excitement, his curiosity to see how quickly the boy would pick up this stage.
The boy then triggered his trait.
Zack could instantly tell simply by the wave of energy that flew off of him when he triggered his break-mode.
The boy was getting so used to transforming he didn’t scream any more as his body recomposed itself.
The boy merely gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes like a wolf intimidating its prey.
The transformation then began.
The boy’s muscles bulged.
His skin went red.
And then it happened.
The boy started screaming like the very first time he triggered the break-mode.
It’s not easy fighting against the transformation, Zack mused.
Pushing back against a powerful force taking over your body, dictating the way the transformation should go. It was like a higher level of cognizance. If cognizance was about gaining control over the transformed being one turned into, segmentation was gaining cognizance over the transformation process itself.
The boy kept screaming.
His whole body was fluctuating in and out of the transformation.
His eyes bulged, then softened.
His skin went red and then returned to its pale whiteness.
“ARGHHHHHHH!”
The boy roared with pain.
The pain had been so overwhelming Max had blacked out.
He woke up on the ground of the mana-training box.
“What happened?” he groaned.
It felt like he’d almost gone back a step after all the work he’d done going from stage one to stage two.
“Why the long face?” asked Zack.
“What do you mean? I—”
Max looked over and saw his right arm was triple its original muscle mass. Furthermore, his arm was no longer white-skinned but the frighteningly slimy red color of the demon-mode.
He scurried at the sight of it, wanting to get away.
Then, he remembered it was his arm! It would follow him wherever he went.
“I can’t believe it,” said Max. “I actually did it. On the first try!?”
Zack loomed over him, smiling.
“Like I said before, unlike transformation, it’s much easier to get the basics of segmentation. It’s much harder to truly control this stage, though.”
“You also didn’t mention it being incredibly painful either,” said Max, getting up from the ground.
“Don’t sweat it,” laughed Zack. “You’ll get used to it, I’m sure. Now before you go on congratulating yourself, remember this: you’ve only completed the first step of mastering the segmentation stage.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s right,” said Zack. “The real training to this stage begins now.”
25
An hour later, Zack set up a new training challenge to practice segmentation.
He had finished the contraption in the editor mode of the mana-training box and smiled.
“All done,” said Zack. “Let me give a demonstration.”
He walked a few meters away from his contraption and prepared himself.
Wow, he thought to himself. When was the last time I did this?
He couldn’t help but recognize it felt good to do something like this.
To practice. To teach.
To do more than sit around and drink himself into a total numb blankness day after day.
“Alright, watch this.”
Zack turned the contraption on and suddenly a powerful ball of mana came flying at him at thousands of miles per hour.
In less than a few milliseconds, Zack had triggered his break-mode, his whole body transforming into robotic metal.
He caught the ball of mana in his hands and turned to Max.
“Pretty neat, huh?”
The boy looked at him with awe.
The old man still has some cool in him then, doesn’t he? Zack thought contentedly to himself.
“Now,” said Zack. “This is the second and final step to mastering segmentation. If you can transform your arm fast enough to catch the zooming mana ball, you’ve mastered this stage.”
“If I don’t transform fast enough, though, won’t that thing rip through my body?”
“Don’t forget you’re in a simulation,” Zack explained. “The contraption is set so that it can detect a break-mode, anything else it will simply fly right through.”
“Fair enough.”
“You ready to get started?”
Max grinned.
“Of course.”
Max stood at attention in front of the mana-ball pitching contraption.
It reminded him of a baseball-batting ring.
Not that he’d ever had a chance to use it as a kid. There were a few batting cages in the outer-rim that other kids would go to after school. He had even gone once on his own to see what the fuss was about, but the owners would never let him through. They didn’t feel comfortable having a kid in a wheelchair get into the batting cage. To the owners of the business, it felt like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Max let go of the melancholic thoughts of his childhood and focused on the task at hand.
PSHHH!
Max blinked.
The mana ball had gone so fast, it had gone straight through his forehead.
“You gotta be joking me,” said Max. “That’s way to—”
“Again!” barked Zack.
The mana ball flew and went straight through his head again.
Damn, Max thought. I gotta focus.
He narrowed his eyes and started preparing for the next ball.
He needed to be able to transform his body with lightning quickness.
It didn’t matter if he couldn’t do it just yet.
He was determined that he would be able to do so soon.
Despite hundreds of attempts that day, Max failed at the new challenge.
Zack watched the kid later that night as he lay down on the couch in the trailer, and put an ice patch on his head.
“You’re not really bruised, you goofball,” said Zack. “That was all a simulation.”
“I am bruised,” sighed Max. “If not physically, then mentally I am.”
“Excuses, excuses,” said Zack. “You better not be losing steam now that you got this far.”
“No way!” shouted Max, sitting up straight off the couch. “I’ll start training again, right now.”
“Alright,” laughed Zack. “Contain yourself. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Zack got up and went to his bedroom.
He turned back and looked at Max once more.
What a funny kid, Zack thought.
He reminds me of Him, before it all—
Zack shook his head.
There was no point thinking about any of that, especially right before bed.
They had a big day of training tomorrow.
The days went by and Max didn’t see any progress.
He smashed a fist on the ground of the mana-training box.
“Why can’t I do it faster!?”
He was incredibly frustrated. He thought he had made a breakthrough as well. He figured so long as he triggered the demon-mode trait quickly enough, the heijo-shin passive would kick in and his perception of time would slow down.
He thought this would be enough to succeed at the trial.
What happened instead was he just watched himself fail at infinitesimally slower speed.
It was agonizing to experience.
The heijo-shin idea led him to try combining his temporal defense to speed up the transformation.
It did the opposite, slowing everything down, and mucking up the process.
Each time he thought he had figured it out, broken down the secrets of break-modes, and was ready to impress his mentor, he instead came up short.
Why can’t I do this!?
What am I doing wrong!?
He ran it over in his brain, thinking over what he hadn’t attempted yet. He thought about other times as a climber when he struggled. He started from the beginning of his career.
Fighting the shield-slime.
Getting lost in the endless forest.
Learning to drain monster cores.
Max stopped rushing through his thoughts.
No, he thought to himself. It couldn’t be so simple.
The answer couldn’t have been staring me right in the face this entire time.
He started to grin.
He had the answer.
“Alright, that’s enough for today, kid,” Zack said. “We will try some more tomorrow.”
No, we can’t stop now, Max thought. Not when I’m this close to figuring it out.
“No,” said Max, picking himself up off the ground. “Let me try one more time.”
26
Zack stood nearby and observed the boy try the segmentation trial one last time.
He crossed his arms and watched his red-haired pupil.
“One shot,” said Zack. “That’s all I’m giving you.”
It was late afternoon and Zack had been hoping to be lost in a drunken haze by now. This kid was slowing down his daily routines.
The boy wouldn’t take no for an answer, though.
He had that determined look in his eyes, like he knew he was going to do it.
But that didn’t tell Zack much. The kid always had an intense focus and determination on his face, even when the idea floating in the back of the kid’s mind wasn’t going to work. He still attempted it like he’d just figured out the move to end all other moves.
Zack admired the boy for that spirit.
It also reminded him of someone he once knew.
Someone who would never give up, no matter the cost.
The recognition made him melancholic.
People aren’t often born with fighting spirits like that. The world forms such determined souls like cliff faces on the coast of an ocean, continuously battered again and again, until they’re given that shape.
Sadly, a happy life does not create such fighting spirits.
Only troubled and harsh upbringings do.
He sighed and waited for the boy to complete the trial.
It didn’t even matter if the boy succeeded today, because Zack was growing confident that Max would do so eventually and would do it faster than anyone else in history.
The boy’s eyes narrowed as he took in the machine, waiting for the mana ball to come flinging at him at deadly speeds.
Any second now.
POP!
Zack’s eyes bulged.
It all happened so fast, he could barely track it all, and could only be amazed at the end result.
Standing right in front of him was the kid.
Max.
His pupil.
The boy’s right arm was monstrously large with massive red demonic claws and between those clawed crimson fingers was the mana ball that he had just caught.
“So?” said Max, turning to him. “What do you think of my new moves?”
Once they were out of the training box and Zack was cooking them burgers on the barbecue, he quizzed Max on how he had accomplished the successful and speedy segmentation of his break-mode.
Max paced the yard with excitement at succeeding at the challenge. He had a gleeful bounce in his step.
“At first, I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t do it as fast as I needed,” Max explained. “I tried everything and that’s when I realized I’d forgotten one of the most basic principles of mana control. When you drain a monster core for its mana, you can’t just suck out the mana, right? You need to send some of your own into the core first to create a bridge. That’s when I realized I hadn’t been doing that during segmentation and that’s why it took so long for it to transform. Also, probably why it was more painful. The different streams of mana from one form to another were fighting against each other. Once I considered all that, I knew exactly what I needed to do to succeed at the trial.”
Max couldn’t help but be pleased with himself. He was making great strides at his break-mode. If he was almost done with segmentation that meant he would be onto the mutation stage next and then from there mastery.
Zack grinned and took a sip of the beer.
“I’m impressed, kid,” he said. “Here, you can have this burger. I didn’t burn them this time.”
Max went over with a plate with an open bun and Zack placed the hot grilled burger onto the piece of bread.
“Tomorrow do we go onto mutation training?” Max eagerly asked.
Zack started laughing.
“Are you kidding me? We still have a lot more work to do at your current stage. Trust me.”
Meanwhile, in the slum village of The Junkyard where Casey and Tiberius were staying, Casey returned to their lodgings with a big smile on her face.
“Good training day?” Nadine asked.
“Hey,” said Tiberius, who didn’t even look up from his PlayDudeAdvanced, he was so engrossed with his game.
“Do I need to take that away from you?” asked Casey, putting her hands on her hips.
“What, no!? What are you talking about? Actually, can you be quiet, I’m almost at the next level in SweetBursters.”
Both Casey and Nadine gave each other looks.
“You can still tell me why you came in here smiling,” Nadine said cheerfully.
“I had another great training day,” said Casey. “I took out a whole bunch of silver-ranked monsters too. Their cores don’t do much for my own training any more, but I was able to slay enough monsters to create a great haul of cores that I just sold at the market for a pretty penny.”
Nadine’s face fell before she said, “That’s great news.”
“What’s wrong?” Casey asked, feeling like the mood had shifted.
Nadine tried to muster a smile, but she was just a kid, and her emotions were written all over her.
“I’m just going to be sad to say goodbye is all,” said Nadine. “I’ve not had anyone to play with in so long. Same with Georgie.”
Casey looked over at Toto and Georgie who were getting into a tiff over who got to sleep on the big pet cushion bed.
“I don’t know if those two are getting along that well,” Casey sighed.
“They are,” said Nadine. “They just don’t know it yet.”
Casey laughed.
“Listen Nadine,” said Casey. “We might have to go for a bit, but we’ll definitely come back to visit for sure.”
Nadine’s eyes widened at that and all of her normal exuberance and glee returned to her face.
“Really! You mean that!?”
Casey laughed. “Of course.”
Tiberius didn’t look up from his screen, but continued to pretend to be part of the conversation.
“Sure, sounds great,” he said as he bashed more buttons on his game console.
A week later, Max stepped out from the mana-training box, with the satisfaction of knowing that he was ready to move forward to the next stage of mastering his break-mode.
He and Zack had spent the last week pushing the segmentation stage to its furthest possible limit.
Max couldn’t believe he thought he had mastered the stage a week ago when he’d quickly transformed his arm.
Now, a week later, he could segment either arm, leg, or chest.
The versatility of segmentation was incredible.
The possibilities of its power blew Max away.
“You’re getting closer, kid,” said Zack. “And damn is it not impressive, how quick a learner you are.”
Max grinned and was about to thank his mentor for all of the man’s help getting to where he was now, except they heard footsteps and panting in the distance.
Both Max and his mentor’s shoulders jumped and they were both prepared for anything.
They both relaxed slightly when they saw it was Tiberius and Casey turning the corner.
“What’s up, guys?” said Max. “You missing me?”
Both of their faces were ghostly pale and Max quickly realized something bad had happened.
This was no time for jokes.
Then, Max noticed Casey held a leash in her hand and Georgie the dog stood beside her.
The dog’s face was also full of concern.
As was Toto’s.
“What’s going on?” asked Max.
His heart was beginning to beat faster and faster as his imagined worries and concerns began to spiral out of control.
The reality was even worse.
“Someone has kidnapped Nadine!”
27
The second after Casey spoke felt like one of the longest seconds of Max’s life.
That was saying something since he even had a time-manipulation ability.
Still, within that one second, he felt the rug pulled out from under him.
One second he was feeling the jubilant satisfaction of another great training day to a whole avalanche of emotions.
Sadness at the thought of the cute little girl being kidnapped against her will.
Then anger that someone would do something to harm her.
“What!?” growled Zack, crushing his near empty beer can between his fingers and flinging it at a nearby pile of junk with rage.
