Chapter 3

Two weeks later.

"I'm glad that the spirit of the tower is so good to provide me with food. He even set up a small room for me with a shower and a toilet. Here, I even have a bed." I thought to myself while yawning happily.

"Good morning spirit. Please move the screen in front of the bed and give me something suitable for breakfast in bed. Maybe a French croissant and with Viennese coffee. Ah yes, and some Himalayan blueberry jam."

"Do I look like a room service to you?!" the ghost said indignantly while materializing breakfast on a suitable tray. "Only crazy people like you are left. We just don't know what to make of you."

"If there's anything I can do to help, just say so," I said.

"Please wait a moment..."

My heart sank for a moment. I wasn't serious when I suggested that.

"Maybe there is something you can help us with."

"I am listening.- I said, moving the tray of food to the side."

"A lot of the chosen participants also are hesitant to move on. That's a pretty big problem, since we need an exact number of participants from each race."

"What are your criteria for selecting participants? Maybe you're not selecting the right people?"

"We have no set criteria. Just any random person between the ages of 15 and 65."

"Men and women?"

"Yes."

"Is that it?"

"There are a few more criteria related to minimum IQ, physical and mental health and the like. We need normal functioning members of your race."

"So the people were chosen by chance. Most of them are much older and half of them are women. Somehow I don't see 40-50 year old aunts eager to take part in some crazy tournament with medieval weapons and magic. Maybe if you focus primarily on people under the age of 30-35, most of them men and possibly military, police, firefighters, and other people attracted to violence. Also all fans of science fiction and computer games."

"You sound pretty convinced."

"Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."

"I will pass on your recommendations to the leadership. However, we cannot purposefully select military personnel. This will not be fair to other races."

"I see. And what percentage are giving up?"

"I can't tell you the exact percentage, but the numbers are very high. We've been recruiting more and more people several times now. I don't know about the other races, but it's a lot of work and a lot of resources for us. Which reminds me - hurry up and make your choice. Do you think the energy for this place is endless?

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going back to work." I replied, "You can turn off the lights in the refrigerator and save some electricity."

"Ha-ha, very funny."

I continued with my breakfast and then spent hours practicing with the crossbow, and with the various weapons in the room as well as general strength and endurance exercises. I also tried to meditate every day and try to sense any sort of energy in the air and in my body. Since mana existed, maybe it would be possible to sense it and start using it.

***

My name is Luke Garden, and I am seventeen years old and somehow I ended up in this fucking game. I was greeted by some strange thing calling itself "The Spirit of the Tower". At first I thought a psychopath had kidnapped me and was playing a joke on me, and once he got bored he was going to abuse me for days in his basement. I had heard similar stories. I hate psychopaths.

However, it turned out that I could choose my class and move on. I chose a standard rouge class and then moved on to the next stage, that of training. It was a real nightmare there. I had two or three weeks of training for each of my skills.

The first instructor was a real sadist. He gave me tasks to run, to go through training polygons, to avoid objects coming at me and attacking training dummies. He constantly yelled at me and beat me with his whip because apparently I was "clumsy". Every hour of every day I cried and wanted to go back home. I hate this disgusting game!

Turns out being a rouge isn't even a combat class. According to my instructor, only an idiot would decide to attack, say, a big bear with two simple knives. Even if he killed it, it would be hundreds of times harder than with, say, a huge heavy halberd. My skills were primarily related to stealing, tricking and sneaking, and the combat part was kind of pretty much in the background.

I once asked the instructor why the rogue didn't have those acrobatic skills I saw so often in computer games. He explained that three weeks of combat training couldn't teach me to hold a knife properly, let alone acrobatic moves. Maybe after a few years of hard training... Then I remembered a friend of my sister's. She was an athlete, competed in some competitions, but not exactly the kind they show on TV. And still she trained every day 5-6 days a week, at least six hours a day. Wow! Apparently, it takes a long time to become as good an athlete as the ones on TV.

Besides, I don't think the instructor likes me. That's not fair! At school it's always like that. I always come across the worst teachers who are always to blame for everything. But that's another topic.

From time to time I had to fight various small creatures, for example goblins. It was a nightmare. I was all wounded, and the little cunning creatures were constantly moving around and attacking me in unprotected places. I'm sure if this wasn't training, I would have died multiple times. Good thing at least I had the skill of making traps. It was so much easier to trap the vicious goblins, or throw knives at them from afar before they ever saw you.

I've been learning to recognize certain poisons and how to store and apply them to my weapons. I could set traps for snakes or extract the poison of a number of plants. It was quite difficult, and I learned that most poisons are slow acting, and real fights between opponents are dynamic and often decided in seconds or a few minutes. Not enough time for all but the strongest poisons to work. This game would be quite dangerous.