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

the endless forest and therefore was probably another E-rank monster. Maybe slightly more powerful than the boar, but he wasn’t sure.

The mushroom monster clenched its fist and winced its eyes.

Slowly purple vapor began to emanate from the monster.

Purple tendrils of smoke began to fill the ring.

Two members of staff with the power of elemental stones manipulated the air so that the purple smoke didn’t waft into the crowd.

Crap, thought Max. I can’t get hit by that vapor, otherwise mimic will make that my new move instead of Sakura’s overpowered slice ability.

Max shook his head. I can’t have that.

He leapt back and triggered the slice ability once more.

The energy blade shot forward and ripped through the flesh of the mushroom monster with ease.

As soon the monster was defeated and had disintegrated into the monster core, Max immediately jumped out of the ring to make sure he wasn’t hit by the venomous mushroom vapor.

The crowd booed. They were losing money as they kept betting against Max. They had come to this arena to see someone like him get devoured and killed. They were all out of luck today.

“You’re not giving them much of a show kid,” said one of the staff members, handing him another mana potion along with the mushroom monster’s copper core and the coins it dropped.

“Give me a stronger monster to fight then,” said Max.

The man snickered. “Just you wait, kid. Your final match of the morning is about to start and that’s exactly what you’re getting.”

Max thought the man was trying to intimidate him, but he grinned just as happily back at the staff member.

The whole reason he came there today was to fight stronger monsters.

Bring it, he thought.

He swallowed down his mana potion and stepped back into the ring.

The arena staff removed the cage of the mushroom monster and returned with a much larger cage.

Max at first couldn’t make out the monster behind the bars.

It rattled and hissed in its steel cage.

Finally, the staff members placed it in the center of the ring. They opened it before rushing off.

“Let the match begin!”

A large creature the size of a grizzly bear stepped out of the cage, but it was no grizzly bear, but rather a monster made entirely of stone.

“Five hundred coppers on the silver-ranked monster destroying the boy!”

People cheered and took up the bets.

Max snickered. The audience really wanted him to die, huh?

He didn’t care.

He was just psyched to be finally facing a higher-ranked monster.

Here we go, he thought.

39

Max didn’t waste any time.

He stretched out his arm and triggered slice.

The golden blade of energy emerged in front of him and shot forward at the rock golem.

The crowd booed at that.

They were sick of Max decimating monsters with a single slice move. It was boring and made worse by the fact that they kept betting against him and losing more and more money.

But Max didn’t care. He wanted the silver monster core more than anything else.

He also had learned from his mistake with the mushroom monster. He couldn’t give the monster even a second of a chance to unleash a move against him.

The slice attack shot across the ring towards the massive rock golem.

The creature quickly pivoted and the energy blade went right through the creature’s arm rather than the center of it where Max had been aiming for.

The rock golem’s right arm fell to the floor.

“I hate this kid!” someone moaned.

“Kill him rock golem!” cheered another.

Max didn’t understand why they hadn’t tried to change their bets at the last minute in his favor. If they bet on him, they might actually win some money. They still seemed quite confident in the powers of the rock golem though.

What did they know that Max didn’t?

The rock golem crouched down and picked up its fallen arm.

The crowd cheered at the rock golem’s actions.

Max tried to figure out what was going on.

Was the rock golem going to throw the fallen arm at him as a projectile? Or swing it as a melee weapon? What the heck was this rock golem doing?

The monster did none of the things Max was expecting.

Instead, the monster shoved its arm back into its shoulder socket like it had never been detached.

The crowd cheered with more rage now than ever.

“Weren’t expecting that were you punk! The rock golem’s going to kill you now!”

Damn.

One of the rock golem’s abilities allowed it to rebuild itself.

That, however, didn’t make the rock golem invincible. It just meant Max had to be more cunning with his slice attack. He had only two more good shots left—after that, he’d have to spend the rest of the fight dodging until it was safe again to use his trait once more. He was sure the staff members wouldn’t like that and the gamblers would throw a riot.

So he needed to kill this thing with two slice attacks then.

The golem didn’t care about his internal strategizing though and went straight to work on killing him.

The monster placed its hands on the floor of the ring.

An aura of energy surrounded the monster’s arms and hands.

“Crush the punk!!” shouted the hecklers.

Whatever was about to happen, thought Max, this was the rock golem’s trait ability. The re-attachable arm wasn’t a magical attack and just a part of its physiological make-up. The incoming move was the real threatening power of the monster.

The floor began to rumble.

CRACKKK!!!

The ground cracked and rippled in straight zigzagging lines towards Max.

“The kid won’t survive this,” said one of the audience member. “The rock golem always crushes the upstarts.”

BOOM!

The rock golem’s earthquake ability had torn a massive scar of rubble into the ring.

Dirt and debris swirled around cloaking the ring momentarily.

Max coughed and got to his feet.

At the last second, he’d dove to the side to dodge the attack.

It had been a close call.

Max got to his feet.

The smoke of the arena cleared.

The audience gasped. “Unbelievable! The punk is still alive!”

Max smirked. He wouldn’t get beaten that easily.

It was time to finish the rock golem once and for all.

He stretched out his arm and triggered