Black Tower

For some reason, Ivan felt incomprehensibly attracted to this tower. It seemed to give Ivan a sense of familiarity. This was not something Ivan had ever experienced before. Though blessed with his outstanding intelligence and handsome looks, he was cursed to never have any family or friends. Together with the awe instilling appearance, it shook Ivan greatly.

"Oi there, you aren't dead are ya?" The young male did a response test by waving his hand in front of Ivan's eyes. After a few seconds of this, Ivan awoke from his stupor.

"Is there any building higher than the Jidan Royal Academy?" Ivan decided to be careful with his questioning, after all, a twenty-five story tower just appeared in the middle of the city!

The young male looked confused for a moment before answering. "Heh, little buddy, if anyone did that, they'd just be asking for a beating inside Jidan."

Ivan silently mused. He decided to do a practical experiment. Ivan stood up and walked to the right of the man. With his back facing the tower, as long as the male looked his way he should be able to see the tower.

However, the young male looked at him, waiting for him to say something. So, obviously, he didn't see anything strange. Ivan was mostly convinced now.

"Are there any towers nearby?" Of course, this wasn't subtle, but no one would be able to guess where he was getting at.

The male looked at him puzzled. "As long as my name is Isaac, there is none." At this point, Ivan wasn't even sure if the approachable male was playing with him, so he decided to leave.

"Well then, thank you, Isaac, but I have somewhere to go to, so who knows if we'll ever meet." When he left, Ivan was almost in tears as he realised he needed a good fifteen minutes before he could have a normal conversation, besides being cursed three times at.

After the somewhat normal conversation with Isaac, he made his way to the tower.

Though due to the extreme height, it seemed to be fairly close but in reality, it was more than an hour walk for Ivan. Huffing and puffing, he sits down close by on a low wall to catch his breath.

It also allows him to observe nearby pedestrians for any signs of recognizing this enormous tower. Yet, unbelievably, no one even looks at the building!

No one looked at the intricate carvings of several legendary and mythical beasts such as a Dragon, Phoenix, Kraken, three-headed dog, hydra and more all over the building, some stretching over fifty metres in height. But oddly, though perfectly depicting these beasts, they seemed incomplete.

There also seemed all sorts of rune-like symbols. They seemed to make you lose track of time and forget your surroundings and just immerse yourself in them. Ivan slowly but surely lost his consciousness.

A loud clink sounded. Unknowingly, more than half a day had already past when Ivan finally woke up to the sound of a coin falling and rolling. The coin kept rolling until it hit his foot and even then continued pushing against it. However, when he removed his foot it simply rolled to his other foot. Ivan continued playing with the coin like this when he finally picked it up.

Of course, in the hours of staring at the door, he had noticed some things. One of these was the coin-shaped keyhole. This led to Ivan not able to resist but put the coin into the keyhole. He knew the square-shaped tower was undoubtedly dangerous, as just staring at it had left him in a trance for half a day. But, how was anyone supposed to contain their curiosity?

As soon as Ivan inserted the coin, a series of loud clicks were heard inside it. It took almost twenty seconds before the doors opened with a loud sound. Ivan tried to see inside the tower, but even though there was light from outside, Ivan could not see even his own hand a few centimetres away from his eyes.

Ivan's spirit seeking for interesting events was unstoppable. Unable to control himself, Ivan squeezed through the small gap between the incredible heavy doors. When he finally got through entirely the heavy doors closed surprisingly swift behind Ivan.

Ivan found himself in a dark place completely unknown to him. For the first time since coming to this world got afraid. Ivan worried about questions about his life choices while sitting down. Exactly ten minutes passed when heard a small sound Ivan could immediately associate with booting up.

Torches on the walls lit up all around with a blue-purple flame. Ivan was able to properly see the interior of the tower. The space inside the tower was surprisingly large. Ivan estimated it to be at least four to five times as large inside than one would think from outside. Besides the room, also the interior was surprising. The entire space was divided into four quadrants, which were further divided into rooms. A lot of rooms were locked and others were open to him. In the quadrant right of the entrance, a room was filled completely with gacha's, arcade wheels of fortune and even other luck games were present. Another room was more like a long hall. It was filled with technology akin to portals from different sci-fi games and movies. Unfortunately, they all seemed to be either defect, off or had a lack of energy.

Besides these two rooms, Ivan had access to five more. In the corner furthest left from the entrance, there were a kitchen, a bedroom and a lounge. At the corner furthest left there were several rooms locked, but the two unlocked were a library and storage. Though clean, the library was completely empty, just as the storage. Why did he know an empty room was storage? Except for locked doors, there was a sign above every entrance telling what it was used for.

From the overall look, Ivan could roughly guess their uses. The quadrant furthest left was the living quarters. The quadrant furthest right was the place to study and storage. Ivan guessed the quadrant right of the entrance was used for utility and the quadrant left of the entrance was unknown.