Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) Jakob Tanner (reading comprehension books TXT) 📖

“How ya feeling?” smiled Sakura.

“Ughhhh,” groaned Max.

“What’s that?” said Sakura. “You want to do one hundred push-ups and one hundred sit-ups as well?”

“I definitely did not say that,” sighed Max.

“I think you did! Now get up and get started!”

Max’s whole body hurt, but he knew he wasn’t going to give up. Groan and complain? Okay, maybe a little bit, but ultimately he knew Sakura was pushing him so he could get stronger and that’s exactly what he needed to do.

Max got into push-up position and got to work.

He pushed himself up and down to the sounds of Sakura’s whistle. The shrill high-pitched sound of his mentor’s whistle began to take on a demonic tone.

After the push-ups and sit-ups, Sakura made him do an hour of meditation while balancing a book on his index finger.

“Now that’s volume five of Love Amongst Climbers,” said Sakura. “My favorite volume. So if you let it fall off your finger too many times that you damage it, you’re going to get into serious trouble! You have to keep it on your finger for an hour and if it falls, the timer restarts.”

Max took a deep breath and focused on keeping the book on his finger. He could maybe balance the book for a second or two, but his finger wasn’t strong enough to hold the book up on its own. Within seconds, the book would fall off his finger and hit the ground.

SHRIEK!

The whistle was like a knife stabbing into his ears.

“Restart the timer,” said Sakura. “You better not wreck my book!”

You’re the one who came up with this insane training exercise, thought Max to himself, sighing.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking,” barked Sakura. “Put that book back on your finger.”

Max ended up spending most of the afternoon on this exercise and was never able to go longer than ten seconds.

Sakura eventually sighed. “I guess that was too much to expect from you on your first day of training. Let’s call it a day now. We’ll get back to work straight thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!?” balked Max. “But don’t you need to give time for your muscles to stretch and heal.”

“Don’t be a smarty-pants kinesiologist with me, mister,” said Sakura. “That may hold true for normal folks, but you’re not normal, Max. You’re an unranked student climber. You have a unique trait. You have mana coursing through your veins. For this reason, you’ll be able to train harder and faster than a normal human. Plus, pushing yourself at this stage is going to help raise your endurance stats. And, finally, last but not least, I’M YOUR TRAINER AND I’M TELLING YOU WE’RE WAKING UP TOMORROW MORNING TO TRAIN. THAT’S AN ORDER, GOT IT?”

Sakura was red in the face.

Max nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright, good,” said Sakura. “Let’s go pick up some groceries. You need to eat a good diet of meat and vegetables, while I need you to make me more bacon and egg ramen, so let’s get shoppin’ and cookin’!”

Max hadn’t had a chance during the training, nor while shopping or while doing chores around Sakura’s apartment, to check his profile and see how his stats had improved. Finally, once his insane trainer had gone to bed, he felt comfortable to take a look.

His stats must have jumped loads after today. He couldn’t wait to see how much he had developed.

He thought to himself, open profile.

The liquidy screen appeared in his retina with all of his information, stats, and skills.

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)

Max’s shoulders fell in defeat.

His stats were exactly the same. After all that work, nothing had happened?

He fell asleep, frustrated, and then woke up the next morning, even more frustrated, to the sounds of Sakura’s whistle.

So began day two of training.

That day as Max did his one hundred laps around the track, Sakura jogged alongside him.

She was wearing a cute red jogging outfit, which was saying a lot because in Max’s mind, she had become a sadistic bossy psychopath of a trainer.

“Please don’t tell me you’re running beside me to blow the whistle some more?” asked Max, as he ran at a breezy pace.

“I bet you’d just love that, wouldn’t you?” grinned Sakura, manically. “But that’s not why I’m running with you right now.”

Uh oh, thought Max. Why was she running with him then? Was it to make him go faster?

“This is a good opportunity to teach you about the different stats,” said Sakura. “I figured I could explain them all to you while you ran. Sort of killing two birds with one stone, you know?”

If anyone is being killed, thought Max. It was him on this grueling training regimen.

“So, let’s begin,” said Sakura.

She ran ahead of Max and then went into his lane and started running backwards so she could face him.

She ran like this with ease and grace. It was such a simple gesture, but it was the power of higher stats and mana affinity that allowed her to do this. Just like how during his preliminary trial, both Sakura and Samuel were able to jump down from the balcony of the battle chamber with ease.

Max wanted such power himself.

“As you already know on your profile, you have four stats: strength, agility, endurance, and mana affinity,” explained Sakura. “Strength measures physical power. In simplest terms: strength gives you a measurement for how powerful your punches are. Agility, on the other hand, measures speed and balance and dexterity. In simplest terms: agility gives you a measurement for how fast your punches are. Finally, endurance measures your body’s constitution and defenses. In simplest terms, endurance is a measurement for how well you can take a punch. You following, grasshopper?”

Max nodded along, keeping his breathing steady as they started another lap around the track.

“What about mana affinity?” asked Max.

Sakura nodded. “And then we come to mana affinity. This is the single most important stat in