Chapter 1

"Zen, where are you?" Shouted a young man with blonde hair.

"I'm over here." A voice replied. 

The voice belonged to Zen, a young man, who recently turned eighteen years old. He had brownish-grey hair, pale skin, and yellowish-green eyes. He stood up from the spot he had been lying on in the field, "How are you doing, Buddy?" He asked, the wind blowing through his hair as he spoke.

"Not too bad, what you up to out here." Buddy was slightly younger than Zen, but he was only an inch shorter than him at 5'9, the two of them had relatively average builds, but Zen's was slightly better due to his age.

"Just chilling, thinking."

"Fair enough man, do you ever miss them?" Buddy asked.

"Who?" 

"Your parents, I know I miss mine. Just thought that might have been what you were thinking about on your own out here." Zen and Buddy had both lost their parents years before during dungeon breaks, leaving them orphaned and living in a government-sanctioned orphanage.

"Nah man, sure I miss them, but it's best not to think about that stuff so often. I'm sure there was a reason that they died, I'll probably be able to avenge them one day, who knows though, I still haven't awakened."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, I'm sure you'll awaken sooner or later. I heard you've got to move out soon because you're eighteen, any idea where you'll go?"

"No clue Buddy, I'll probably just leave it up to God, my living conditions and awakening that is."

"You view everything in a weird light man, I know for a fact that you aren't even religious."

"You're right, just easier to put everything onto someone invisible than yourself, isn't it?"

"You're probably right."

"I know. I'm sure everything will turn out fine for me. It always does."

"You have a point, even when we were little kids you just did whatever you wanted and it worked out, I don't even know how you passed all of your exams with your terrible work ethic."

"Just left it up to God, that's all I can say."

Buddy sighed, before lying down in the field, and Zen followed him, retaking the spot he had claimed beforehand. 

The two of them lay down in the field, not brothers, but close enough. 

"Hey, Buddy, I think I've awoken. Unless I'm hallucinating, there's a status screen in front of me."

"You're not joking, are you?" Buddy shot up, looking excited for his friend.

"Nah I'm serious, but it's saying something about moving to 'The Tower' in sixty seconds."

"I have no idea what that means, but if you've got a time limit until something happens, tell me what skill you've got first!"

"Sure thing man." Zen looked at his status window, and moved his eyes down to the Skill section."

Name Zen

Display Name: -

Age: 18

Species: Human

Class:

Level: 0

Skills:

Skill Synthesis (SSS): Fuse skills together to increase the base skill's rank.

Stats:

Strength: 5

Speed: 5

Vitality: 5

Mana: 5

"Huh, a triple S rank skill, pretty crazy."

"No way, you're pulling my leg, what did you actually get?"

"I'm serious, Skill Synthesis, SSS Rank. It says I can fuse skills into another skill to increase its rank and destroy the catalyst skills. Sounds pretty interesting."

"That's crazy! People can barely ever rank up skills, it takes a super long time, if you can do it easily then you'll be absolutely broken compared to everyone else."

"I guess so, but it isn't that easy to get skills in the first place, right? I remember them being really expensive, even the F- ones."

"Well, then you better start making some money."

"I guess you're right, Budd-" While in the middle of his sentence, Zen suddenly disappeared from the field, leaving Buddy alone.

"Good luck Zen, no clue what that Tower is, but you'll be fine." He said to himself while walking off, confident that his friend would be fine.

After disappearing, Zen found himself in an incredibly basic-looking room all alone. The room had grey walls, a bed, and a fridge in the corner, as well as a toilet and shower.

A screen popped up in front of him, 'Welcome to The Tower. Every awakened person on Earth has been summoned here, as long as 90% of you are in the Tower, dungeons will not break or appear on Earth. Climb the floors, or be trapped here forever more. If you can clear the 100th floor of the tower, you may rid your world of dungeons and monsters. Every climber has been granted an F- to E+ Rank skill at random to ensure everyone has a chance of survival. You have also each been granted 1000 Tower Shop coins, you may use these coins to purchase items while in the safe rooms before each floor.'

'Well, this is interesting, I assume this is new because I haven't heard of this before. I guess I should have a look at what skill I was given, and then browse through the shop.' Zen thought to himself. 

In his status window, there was now a new skill.

Soul Manipulation (F+): Can temporarily control the souls of recently deceased enemies and use them as projectiles.

'Seems alright, hopefully, it will be useful. Tower Shop open'. He thought to himself, and a screen popped up in front of him, displaying all of the items that he could purchase.

There were multiple tabs, weapons, armour, skills, consumables, and daily shop. 

'Interesting.' He thought of opening the skills tab, and the only things he could buy were F-rank skills, he looked through them to see what he could buy to test out his Skill Synthesis. 

He picked two out that seemed more useless than the others, unsure of if he consumed them with his skill that they would come back. 

The first skill he picked was Light Match, which summons and lights a match that goes out after one minute, and costs mana to summon. The second skill he picked was Linguistics, which increased his range of vocabulary but didn't do anything else.

Guess it's time to test out my Skill Synthesis then.

He thought of fusing the two new skills into his Soul Manipulation skill, as it seemed to be a more useful ability than most of the other skills he could find that were in the shop. 

Immediately upon thinking of it, the two skills disappeared from his status and he could tell that his Soul Manipulation skill was on the verge of increasing to the E- rank.

'Well, I still have two hundred coins left so it would probably be best to get a weapon.'

He could only buy the most basic of weapons, but further down the page, he could see some pretty crazy ones that cost significantly more coins than what he had. 

He settled for a 'basic sword', and immediately upon purchasing it, the sword materialised in his hand. It was of average length and thickness, and the weight was about what he had expected. It didn't have any defining features whatsoever, but it would help his chances of survival, especially considering he had never used a sword before or had a fight at all.

"Enter floor one?" Zen said out loud, unsure of whether this would cause him to be transported to it or if there was another way. 

However, his guess was correct, as a screen popped up in front of him, 'Would you like to enter the first floor of The Tower?'

"Yep."

'Transporting you to The Tower's first floor.'

Immediately, just like what had happened from the field to this room, Zen could feel himself travelling through some sort of portal or wormhole. 

When he left this state, after a few seconds, he found himself in a relatively small area which was comprised of a thick bush and tree wall that surrounded the zone, as well as a river that ran through the middle of the area. This river had a bridge running over the top of it, and it was a near-perfect arch despite being made of primitive-looking stone. 

There was no clear objective or enemies, so Zen decided to do the only thing which made any sense to do.

He decided it would probably be best to have a walk over the bridge.

The short walk to the bridge was almost a straight line from where Zen was stood, so he began to walk towards it. 

Once he reached the bridge, Zen took a cautionary step to see if it felt safe, and surprisingly it was very sturdy. He started his walk over it, and the more he walked on it, the calmer he felt. The sound of the water rushing beneath the bridge, the breeze that was gently blowing on him, and the squelching noise of feet that was coming from behind him.

'Wait a second, what is that noise?' 

Zen was snapped out of his peaceful trance and turned around to look at the source of the strange noise.