Tower of Chaos
Before this story begins, the chat group probably won't appear until chapter 4 or 5, I want to do a small amount of story progression with the MC himself first before getting involved with interdimensional stuff.
[O]-----------------------[O]
The Tower of Chaos.
A colossal structure that appeared ten years ago within the Pacific ocean, with it came world-wide confusion. Any attempts to discover its origin were fruitless, and any attempts to fly above and reach the top were in vain.
No matter how high any vehicle could reach into the sky, it was as if the tower was truly endless. The distance between the highest point people have flown up and the ground were as calculated, but they never managed to reach outer space.
As if the tower itself projected a prison around the planet, an ever expanding prison that seemed to encompass the entirety of the night sky. Panic naturally ensued, and over time only multiplied when disappearances around the world continued to take place.
For those remaining on Earth, they speculate that the individuals who disappeared had vanished due to the influence of the tower. However, there was no way to confirm, nor was there any visible entrance. Even the strongest of bombs never laid a scratch on the tower.
The disappearances, while certainly concerning, didn't affect the world much overall. However, as they continued to happen, the world truly went into disarray now that over twenty-percent of the world's population had no disappeared off the face of the planet.
That may not sound like much, but that twenty percent totalled up to more than 1.6 billion people.
Only those who have disappeared know the true horrors behind the Tower of Chaos, the can of worms that never should have appeared. While those outside live in continuous worry and anxiety, those within have suffered immensely...
[You have died]
[Player - Kurai Ryuga]
[Death Count: 6,582]
[Resurrecting...]
[...]
[Resurrection Successful]
[Teleporting to Floor 1...]
[...]
[Location: Tower of Chaos - Floor 1]
"...!"
With a big intake of air, a male figure seemed to unconsciously throw himself up into a seated position. One hand supporting his body while the other gripping tightly on the side of his face, his breaths heavy and rapid as sweat dripped down the side of his face.
The male looked to be no older than eighteen, with a slightly pale complexion and somewhat messy black hair with blue undertones and a few vibrant blue bangs. His eyes also shared the same blue colour, though they seemed almost... emotionless.
Since the bed the male was sitting on did not provide a blanket, the male's outfit could be fully seen. From first glance, it appeared to be a rather formal school uniform. A black sleek long-sleeved jacket over a white dress-shirt with short sleeves, along with a pair of black dress pants and black leather shoes.
Around his neck was also a vibrant blue tie, properly tied underneath the collar of his undershirt.
"Shit...! All that progress..." The young male cursed under a low breath as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, remaining seated as he shook his head. "Back to square one all over again... I honestly thought I'd be used to this treatment by now."
Glancing down at his hand, he clenched his fist a few times and clicked his tongue after feeling all of his previous power completely stripped away from him. This was one of the laws of this tower, whenever the person dies, they get resurrected at rock bottom with nothing they gained in the previous life.
"From planet crusher to a normal human again, how freaking nostalgic..." Ryuga sighed to himself in frustration before pushing himself up to his feet. Swiping his hands against the air, he also thought of a single word. 'Menu.'
-
[TOWER OF CHAOS]
➣ Status Panel
➣ Floor Info
➣ Inventory - (0/30)
-
The overall menu given to each person within the Tower of Chaos was quite lacklustre in terms of content, but that didn't mean it was weak, anything but really. The system was simply the body, and the contents of the tower itself was the nutrients to cultivate such power.
-
[FLOOR INFO]
➣ Objective: Survive the zombie apocalypse (Duration: 6 Days 23 Hrs 44 Mins)
➣ Location: Floor 1 - Shinjuku, Tokyo
➣ Players: 9,726/10,000
-
'Another apocalypse, huh? The last time I experience this kind of objective back on floor one was around five-hundred lives ago...' Ryuga thought to himself as he approached the window of the room before looking out. 'Looks like modern Tokyo, guess floor one this time won't be on an intergalactic scale. At most planetary.'
He had already assumed this after seeing the number of players on this version of Floor 1, ten thousand really wasn't too many. The last apocalypse he experienced on this floor had a total of 10,000,000 players, and it expanded across multiple planets.
"In fifteen minutes, almost three hundred have already died. Most likely people who were just teleported into the tower." Ryuga spoke to himself as he looked at the information on the screen. "If it's an apocalypse, I should try and find a weapon fir-hm?"
Ryuga's words were interrupted when he saw a faint flash of light in the corner of his eye, and when he turned his head to look, he saw something materialising in the centre of the room in the form of blue particles that came together before condensing and taking shape.
With a blank look on his face, Ryuga watched as a simple western-style one-handed swords materialised before dropping to the ground with a crash. Walking over, he casually picked up the blade and tapping the flat side of the blade against his left palm.
"Someone from the second floor helped me?" Ryuga frowned slightly in doubt as he inspected the blade. "Either it's some good righteous person, a curious person, or someone I met previously. Otherwise, I doubt anyone would provide any help to those on the lower floors..."
-
[Steel Sword]
➣ Item Grade: E
➣ Exchange Value: 2 Points
➣ Description: A simple western-style sword made using high-quality steel
-
The system belonging to the tower was similar to that of a game, and items within it have grades and exchange values. Grades were determined by how rare and typically how powerful an item is, and the exchange value was how many points someone could get by selling it at the resting point after the completion of a floor.
The grades went from F and all the way to SSS, and any items that are Grade-F have absolutely no exchange value. These items typically consisted of simple items like clothing, food, etc. The grade of an item could also change over time, such as if he broke this sword, it'd definitely change to Grade-F.
"Pretty shitty blade, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Then again, this is only the first floor, an item like this is probably considered a treasure."
As Ryuga was speaking to himself, a groaning sound suddenly sounded as Ryuga's ear twitched slightly. Without hesitation, Ryuga gripped the sword's handle before swinging his body swiftly around while swinging the blade as well.
Doing so, Ryuga saw a moving corpse that had yet to even prepare to strike before its head was cleanly sliced off with the blade in his hands. As the head flew up and bounced against the grounded two or so meters away, the body also soon dropped to the ground motionlessly.
"Not bad at all. Seeing how easily I dealt with it, it must've not been any higher than level one." Ryuga commented casually before bending down to look at the headless corpse. With a dull look, he used his blade to slice off one of the zombie's arms. "Down the hatch."
Without even a look of disgust, Ryuga opened his mouth before biting a chunk of the rotten flesh off of the severed arm before chewing and quickly swallowing. He then proceeded to bite off another chunk of flesh before dropping the rest as a notification sounded.
[Consumed: Zombie (Lvl 1)]
[Experience has been added]
You may be asking, why did he eat it?
Well, it's due to one of the twisted laws of this tower. The beings who created this incomprehensible structure seemed to value the idea of how the strong devour the weak, and they seemed to have enforced it in the most literal of ways.
Only by consuming a certain amount of the enemy's corpse can the person who killed it gain experience, killing it just simply isn't enough. Ryuga had already eaten much worse in the past, something like rotten flesh wasn't enough to even enter his eyes.
-
[STATUS PANEL]
➣ Name: Kurai Ryuga
➣ Number of Deaths: 6,582
➣ Level: 1 - [6%]
➣ Realm: Tier-1 First Stage
➣ Mana Gauge: 20/20
➣ Parameters (Points: 0): [Strength: 6] [Agility: 8] [Vitality: 6] [Wisdom: 8] [Luck: 5] (Avg: 6.6)
➣ Skills: [Temporal Overlay (S)]
-
'As usual, my original skill is still there.' Ryuga thought as he glanced his eyes over the given information on the panel. 'Seeing such poor parameters really does suck. That one zombie filled up my experience bar by six percent, not too bad for a level one.'
Regarding the skill, every single person that comes into the tower is given a starting skill at random upon entering. That skill then remains with them even after every death, some are lucky with the draw while others not so much, as for Ryuga's skill did... we'll leave it be for now.
"Before I head out, first things first..."
Ryuga closed his eyes silently for a moment before what looked to be a thing veil of blue aura seemed to completely cover his person, the light it produced did not illuminate the room and instead seemed to be contained and condensed around him.
[NEW SKILL: Mana Manipulation (D)]
There are many ways to learn skills here in the tower, let it be through killing and consuming monsters, bought from the tower itself, or by the means in which he just did. Mana Manipulation could be learnt naturally, and with how experienced he already was with it, unlocking it now was simple as raising a finger.
Although Mana Manipulation is only a D-Rank Skill as of right now, it it undoubtedly one of the most important skills to ever own. Manipulating mana and using it to empower yourself was incredibly important, further allowing one to boost their base physical abilities as long as the person had enough mana.
Even though he only had twenty mana to his name at the moment, there was a reason why he wanted to learn it now. Skills can be improved, although not all Skills, and this can be done in a few ways, one being continuous use.
After a few seconds, Ryuga slowly opened his eyes as the mana around him slowly disappeared into nothingness. Glancing at the window towards the silent city-scape, Ryuga stared for a moment before turning away.
"Alright, time to get going."
With that, Ryuga walked out the door of the room.