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

your profile. Some people like to think it’s the profile and the traits that separate climbers from the rest of humanity, but that isn’t it. It’s mana.

“Mana is magical energy that permeates through all the floors of the tower. When someone unlocks their trait and profile—what’s essentially happening is the body is resuscitating long dormant mana pathways and channels through their whole body from their head down to their toes.”

“How many channels are there in a human body?” asked Max.

“Internal mana in humans flows through a complicated network of meridians and channels that exist within the body in parallel to one’s network of blood vessels. There are over four hundred channel points in the human body.”

“Whoah,” said Max.

It was crazy to think his whole body had a network of veins and channels that he’d never known about.

“Mana vessels and channels exist in all creatures who live in the tower, but different creatures and species will have more or less mana channels and be organized differently depending on their physiology.”

“Okay,” said Max, keeping up his jogging pace. “So, I think I get the basics. What does the actual stat entail?”

“The mana affinity stat measures one’s ability to control, withstand, and handle mana. You may have noticed when a monster or climber uses special attacks, a colorful aura surrounds them. That aura is mana manifesting itself outside of their body. The special ability of one’s trait is based on how one’s body is particularly designed to manipulate mana both within themselves and outside of them.”

Max’s head hurt as he took in all the information. He had so many questions, but he didn’t know which one to ask first.

“Okay,” he said. “But we’re outside of the tower right now—how is it possible monsters and climbers can use abilities that require more than their own internal mana?”

“Good question,” smiled Sakura. “Mana does leak from the tower and so the mana density in the tower-zone is much higher than elsewhere.”

“I get that,” said Max. “But the outer-rim isn’t that much further away, either. How come mana isn’t manifesting itself over there.”

“Ah,” said Sakura. “Very good question. Some E- and D-ranked climbers don’t even ponder such a thought. Perhaps that’s because most of them haven’t been to the outer-rim. You have a unique perspective that many young climbers lack. To answer your question though: there are powerful arcane wards built into the wall that separates the city. Those wards capture any mana drifting away from the tower and block it from entering the outer-rim. Furthermore, that captured mana is then reharnessed to power the wards themselves as well as other manatech infrastructure around the city.”

Amazing, thought Max. All the rules and infrastructure in place to separate the two areas of the city always seemed over-the-top to Max. It was so fascinating to hear how more of it actually worked and functioned. It was nice to know the actual purpose of things than to be consciously left in the dark as so many of the curious citizens of the outer-rim were.

“Alright, here’s another question,” said Max.

“So many questions,” groaned Sakura. “Maybe you wouldn’t have as many if you were running faster.”

Max quickened his pace just to spite her.

“My next question is,” said Max. “My ability mimics other people’s abilities and yet my mana affinity is so low. How is that even possible?”

“It’s something that makes your trait so unique and powerful,” said Sakura. “For whatever reason, the mana flowing inside of you is able to temporarily increase its power to dizzying heights when you trigger your trait. It will be amazing to see what happens as your mana affinity grows and you rank up.”

“Heck, yeah,” cheered Max. “Let’s get training on my mana affinity stat, ASAP!”

Sakura made a face. “What do you think we’re doing right now, moron?”

“I thought we were training my other stats,” said Max.

“We are mainly,” said Sakura. “But by training in the proximity of the tower, you’ll be growing your mana affinity stat as well.”

“Fantastic,” said Max. “I’m ready to do another hundred laps then! I’m so fired up!”

“Hey, slow down, mister,” said Sakura. “Well, actually, you can speed up in a minute, but I still haven’t explained to you the full importance of the mana affinity stat.”

Max’s eyes widened.

There was more!?

“As I said, mana affinity is the single most important stat of a climber’s. Climbers may focus on solely improving one or two stats or spread them out amongst the stats equally—but mana affinity must always be a focus. Theoretically, a climber with S-rank strength and E-rank mana affinity is still an E-rank climber. Such a hypothetical doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, though, as there’s no way an E-rank climber could develop S-rank strength without being able to get to the higher levels of the tower. It’s basically impossible for that to happen. If you want to train any of your stats beyond E-rank you need to develop your mana affinity stat and that’s because your mana affinity dictates how far up the tower you can climb before you develop tower sickness and die.”

Max blinked. Tower sickness? S-rank strength? He shook his head. One question at a time.

“What the heck is tower sickness?”

“If you climb beyond a floor with a mana density that your mana affinity stat can’t handle, you develop tower sickness. Your bones will atrophy. Your lungs will suffocate. Very few people survive tower sickness.”

“How do you know how high up the tower you can travel with your mana affinity?”

“You may have been wondering what I meant by E-rank mana affinity and S-rank strength. Technically, climbers only have one overall rank, but we’ve come to rank the stats individually ourselves as a good rule of thumb.”

She rummaged in her pocket and handed Max a piece of paper.

“I wrote it all down for you,” she said. “To make it easier.”

Max took the paper out of her outstretched hand and looked it over as he jogged.

Stats 1-10 (Unranked Citizen)

Stats 11-20 (Rank E)

Stats 21-30 (Rank E)

Stats 31-40 (Rank D)

Stats 41-50 (Rank D)

Stats