Once again the Tower has come for him, and is ready to mess with him.
Adrian’s heart pumps with anxiety, fear, and the absurdity of this situation. Once again his dream is being tested, even after going through all the special tests.
“Oh this is just great,” Someone grumbles. “How are we supposed to find the real one from the 30?”
Someone says something else, and then the conversations begin earnestly. People walk out of their seats to approach others and talk to them. Adrian doesn’t move. If he can sit down he’d rather do so in his condition.
“What do you think we should do?” He asks John and Michael.
“Maybe we should ask them questions? Quiz them into revealing the answer?” Michael suggests.
“We don’t have enough time,” John shakes his head, his stoic face now replaced with a more thinking gesture. “There seems to be something missing. I’m sure the Tower has already given us enough hints to find the real answer,”
“So it’s a puzzle huh,”
“I suppose you can say that if you want,” He waves his hand in dismissal.
In the next few minutes, the focus of discussions changes from within the group to wandering across the masked people. The masked people stand silently, unmoving even as some poked them, or even asking them to reveal the answer.
Unfortunately, no one finds anything. Adrian didn’t expect the method to work anyway. The Tower won’t make it so easy after all.
When the timer hits 15 minutes remaining, Adrian realises that the panic has become more palpable. The gentle poking and questioning are replaced with a little bit more rough ways, and when the timer hits 10 minutes, even that is gone, knowing that there’s no way that is the answer.
At this point, Adrian too is churning his brain as much as he could, trying to find anything that he could find. Any clue. Anything. He has a theory that perhaps the masks depicted the Sacrifice, but he does not see a dragon. And no way could someone’s biggest Sacrifice be a mouse!
That’s when Ji-a comes to sit by his side, sliding her chair up to him.
“Nervous?” She asks.
Adrian feels his throat drying and so he only nods. Then he looks at her, at the injury which still continues to drip blood and roll across her collar bone, and asks meekly, “You?”
“They don’t have my greatest Sacrifice. They can take everything else, and it still wouldn’t matter to me,” She says.
“How do you know?”
“Trust me, I know.” She looks at him, and asks, “The question is, do you wanna know the answer?”
Adrian shifts in his seat uncomfortably, looks at her, and asks, “Do you know the answer?”
Ji-a smiles brightly, the red blood adding a certain devilish feeling to her charm, as she confidently says, “Of course. It was obvious from the start. Just think about your previous tests, and you’ll know the answer,”
Beside him, John stirs at her words, his eyes unfocus in the way they do when reading a Tower message, and then he clicks his tongue. But before he says anything, someone else catches everyone’s attention.
“I’m making a decision.” A girl declares, standing in front of a dog masked man. Adrian realises she’s one of the three girls who were whispering together in the train.
“Liya, are you sure? There’s still time, we can think about it.” One of the other girls from the trio asks.
“Dogs… dogs have always been my favourite animal. According to our priests, they say that in my past life, I was even a dog! Not to mention, my best Sacrifice is an Adlet. There is no way this is not where fate is leading me to!” The girl, Liya, exclaims in a very pointed expression.
When no one stops her, or asks any more questions, she looks at the dog masked man, and declares, “I choose you. Give me my Sacrifice!”
The dog mask turns towards her, takes her in a deep hug, and then explodes.
Nothing is left of her, not even blood. No proof that she and the dog mask ever stood in this room, except for the subtle sense of emptiness.
Someone shrieks behind him, then comes the gasps, and then nothing more, but a fear of death is once planted in everyone’s heart. It doesn’t even matter if the girl really died or not, but the fear is there, and that’s what matters.
Beside Adrian, John moves. Adrian almost has half a heart to stop him after that explosive experience, but he does not.
John holds the public's attention now, and unlike the loud declaration last time, he simply moves and stands in front of a monkey, and orders, “Give me my Sacrifice.”
The monkey face turns towards him, gives a deep bow, and then presents him with his Sacrifice. The next second, both of them are teleported out of the room, gone just like that.
“How did he do that? Was it luck?” Michael asks, but Adrian isn’t focused on him anymore. He understands something after Ji-a said of thinking about the past tests. But what?
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Adrian too brings up the test message and reads it once again.
Eleventh Test: The last memory.
Dreams of your powers have led you here, with Sacrifices hand picked to be the best for you. A future depends on it, and this is the final time you put that future up for gamble.
One of these 30 people has your Highest Valued Sacrifice. Choose the right one, and take your Sacrifice. Choose wrong, and lose the future itself.
Goal: Find the person with your Sacrifice.
Time limit: 30 minutes.
Adios!
He reads it repeatedly, thinking and scrutinising every word, until finally something clicks. Dreams. Why did the Tower use ‘Dreams’ when it could’ve begun it any other way?
The previous tests came flooding back to him, and then did the memory of the seventh test. There was a line in the test message as well.
Reward and punishment may come when you rest, so do not let it get away.
Adrian still remembers that dream. It was an absurd dream, a bunch of mice fighting against a dragon. He had dismissed it as a mere figment of his imagination back then, but what if it is not just something he made up?
He looks up at the group of the masked people, and although he does not find a dragon, he does find a mouse.
Adrian sighs in relief, a deep deep anxiety and dread leaving him at that moment and he suddenly felt like he could sleep for hours and hours.
“Dreams, right?” He asks Ji-a for one last confirmation and gets a smile in return. Adrian nods, and stands up groaning. He walks and stands beside the mouse man, Ji-a taking her own place beside a butterfly, and then he addresses the public.
“The trick, I think, is the dream we had in the 7th test. The sleep was not just for our benefit, but also a hint to this test. Try to remember, and you may notice that one of the animals here was attacking or perhaps capturing your chosen Sacrifice. For me, it was mice attacking a human. My Sacrifice is Human Worms.”
“For me,” Ji-a shrugs and says,“It was a flight of butterflies attacking a Squid.”
“If my assumption is right, then we both should pass just like John. If not, then well, good to meet you all.” Adrian then focuses on the mouse man, and orders, “Give me my Sacrifice.”
The mouse turned towards him, and for a second he fears it would engulf him in a hug as well, but he bows and produced his Sacrifice, the warm yellow glow of it soothing his heart, and then he is away.
#
Adrian had imagined that he’d wake up back on the train and spend another 30 minutes reaching the final station. But he appears directly on the final station, the mist all gone now, and one can see a board on the ceiling saying, “Final Platform!”. His bag is slung over his shoulder, and the three Sacrifices in his hand.
There are also flashing lights on the ground, leading towards a distant location deep in the station. Adrian follows it slowly, his body weary and tired, but the adrenaline of finally finally gaining his class allows him to keep moving forward.
It takes another five minutes of constant walking before he reaches what seemed like a central port. It is a large circular room made out of glass, filling the room with a perpetual sunset. And in the middle of the room, stands a monolith-like structure.
Adrian walks towards it, and quickly puts his hand on it. The messages come next.
Trial Taker registered.
Name: Adrian Alphona.
Trial Completed!
Number of special tests completed: 3/3
Calibrating Tower Energy for producing a class. Please present your Sacrifices for the class to be generated and active skills be distributed.
Adrian finds three holes opening in the monolith, where he deposites the three vials, his hands shaking and hoping that he wouldn’t break them at this final step. He does not.
The Sacrifices slid into the holes perfectly, and then the holes closed, a moment later, the messages returned.
Sacrifices Detected!
Spirit Wyrm (Spirit Element)
Human Worm (Human Element)
Bai Ze (Wisdom Element)
Generating Class…
Exclusive talent detected!! Exclusive talent detected!!
Re-calibrating. Producing a new class. Re-calibrating…
Adrian stares at the messages with a wide eye. Exclusive talent? Him? What? How? How would it change his class? Is it a good thing? What is gonna happen? Questions flood inside of him, and his knees feel weak, but he stands still with sheer will.
Class created! Primary Abilities Assigned!
Congratulations on Awakening!
Your Climb starts now. May you bleed and nourish the Tower with every step you take.
Adios!
Then the messages are gone, and Adrian removes his hand from the monolith. On the other side of the room, a door opens, most likely the exit. Adrian doesn’t care about that right now, instead he takes a few deep breaths, and then calls in his mind.
Tower.
Name: Adrian Alphona
Class: Manifold Warden lvl 1
Body: 1
Kinesthetics: 3
Resistance: 0
Mind: 3
Mystics: 5
Mana: 50
Free Points: 2
Primary Abilities:
Avatar
Timer
Prison
This is wildly different than what I was expecting. 5 in Mystics! 3 in Mind! My Body and Resistance is shit, but Kinesthetics is nice. What are these abilities though?
Adrian opens the first ability, and reads its description.
Avatar:
10 mana charge.
Create avatars of yourself to guard your prisoners at your will. The physical and mental familiarity of the creation scales with Mind, whereas the speed of creation scales with Body and Kinesthetics. The range of its function scales with Mystic.
Timer:
No charge.
Estimate a rough time period of an event that has occurred in the past. Scales with Mystic.
Prison:
5 mana charge. Invariable for bigger size.
Create a prison to capture those you deem to be your prisoner, whoever they may be. The prison can be reduced and taken with you wherever you go. For the Prison spell to take effect on a living person, your Mind stat should be higher than theirs. The shrinking ratio scales with Mystic.
Adrian is… impressed, kinda. His abilities seem to be focused on capturing prisoners, but he has a feeling that they can be used on not just that but more. They are… nice. Very nice. And the best thing is they all scale with Mystic, his biggest stat!!
Adrian could feel his thoughts churning and turning as he thinks about all the ways he can use his abilities and how strong they could be. He cannot wait. As he walks towards the exit, he glances at his class description for the first time before the white light beyond the gate takes over him.
Manifold Warden:
You are the enforcer of your own rules, and everyone who goes against them is your prisoner. Be present everywhere, and anywhere you wish, and enforce your will. The world is your prison, and you are its warden.
#
