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

to ascend to the next floor. How does the tower achieve that test? By having two teleporters on every floor. The one we’ll enter at is known as the floor-2 arrival teleporter and the one that will take you all to floor-3 is called the floor-2 departure teleporter. You can only visit floor-3 once you find that second teleporter. Then, when you’re on floor-3 you’ll need to find the floor-3 departure teleporter to ascend to floor-4. And so on. The good news is: once you’ve reached one of those higher floors, you can ascend to their arrival teleporter from any other arrival teleporter you visited. Pretty nifty, huh?”

“You said that was the good news,” asked Casey. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is: many climbers have died while searching for a floor’s departure teleporter. Some floors are as vast as entire worlds and finding the departure teleporter can take months to years, sometimes even longer if it’s a floor so high up that no Zestiris climber has ever discovered the departure teleporter’s location.”

“You mean a floor that our climbers haven’t climbed beyond?” said Cyrus.

“Oh believe me, kid,” said the instructor. “There’s a lot to this tower that even the best of us still don’t understand.”

The instructor flicked the butt of his cigarette to the floor and rubbed it out with his boot.

“Now,” said the instructor. “Wait right here.”

The man suddenly disintegrated in the white light, disappearing entirely.

The whole group of students gasped.

Thirty seconds later, he reappeared in the white glow.

Casey nudged Max. “See? That’s a lot more impressive than the blue flames, right?”

The instructor took a little bow. He then stepped to the side. “I went up just to make sure there were defense climbers on duty guarding the teleporter and that there were no roaming monsters in the immediate vicinity. Now, if you could all form a single-file line and one by one, ascend to the next floor.”

27

Max wasn’t sure how it happened, but all the other student climbers had ended up behind him, making him the first in line to enter the teleporter.

“Looks like you’re the guinea pig,” giggled Casey.

Max shook his head, disappointed with the other students. Were none of them brave enough to face the teleporter first?

Sure, they’d all seen their instructor do it, but it was a totally different thing to watch someone teleport than to do it yourself. Was he really going to voluntarily walk into the light and then willingly let himself disintegrate?

I guess I am, gulped Max, taking a step forward into the light.

He expected to teleport as soon as he stood in the glowing light of the teleporter, but nothing happened at first.

“Close your eyes,” said the instructor, “and think to yourself: ascend to floor-2”

Max did as he was told. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He then thought to himself: ascend to floor-2.

SWOOSH!

Max felt his stomach lurch and then settle within the span of a millisecond.

Was that it? Had he teleported to the floor above?

He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to disrupt the teleportation process.

His nose twitched. He could smell pine trees and dirt. He then heard laughter.

“You can open your eyes, kid,” said a voice.

Max opened his eyes and found himself standing in the middle of a forest. The glowing white light of the teleporter was still at his feet. He swerved around to see two defense climbers with E-rank badges standing guard.

“You might want to move?”

“Huh?” said Max. “What do you mean?”

CRASH!

Max was on the forest floor and Casey was lying on top of him. Her eyes were closed and her lips were pouting slightly.

Max’s whole body froze. He wasn’t sure what to do, whether he should grab hold of Casey and move her off him.

“Mmm,” she said, before her eyes opened. “Ahh! What are you doing!? You pervert! Get off of me!”

She kneed Max in the groin and jumped to her feet.

“You were on top of me,” Max cried, rolling over in pain from Casey’s attack.

Casey crossed her arms and shook her head. “Inappropriate behavior! Did no one ever teach you how to treat a lady!?”

Max got up to his feet and stood away from the teleporter. To be fair to him, no one had really ever taught him how to treat a lady, but that was besides the point. She had crashed onto him!

He was about to explain all of that when Casey changed the subject.

“Where are we? This forest is pretty. I wonder if there’s any cute animals here we can play with! C’mon Toto, let’s make animal friends!”

“Uhh,” said Max. “Does that mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”

Casey picked up a stick and started poking around the small clearing they were in.

“Mad about what?” she asked.

I guess she’d gotten over it already, thought Max. Fine by me. I’m NOT going to remind her about it then.

“Uhh,” said Max, scratching the back of his head. “Nothing.”

The two defense climbers on guard duty snickered at the interaction.

After a minute or two, the rest of the class including the instructor were standing in the forest along with them.

“Welcome to the floor above our own,” said the instructor. “Also known as The Endless Forest.”

Everyone looked around the woods in awe.

The Endless Forest, huh?

So this whole floor was just a gigantic forest, thought Max. Nothing else. Interesting.

“Follow me,” said the instructor.

The group of students followed the instructor through the woods.

“The tower consists of two types of floors: wild floors and tamed floors,” said the instructor as they walked deeper into the forest. “I bet by looking around you can guess that floor-2 is a wild floor. Such floors are typically full of monsters and wilderness. The monsters that roam on a wild floor typically respawn every twenty-four hours if slain. Due to the harsh conditions, not many people choose to reside on a wild floor for very long. They have become more or less adventuring sites and training zones.”

Max peered around the forest. There was so much to learn about this world.