Preparation

"Ok, maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself," Raze said as he sat down on seemingly nothing. 

Despite there being nothing underneath him, Raze could both stand and sit down just like he would on normal ground. 

"Interesting," Raze said as he patted the 'ground' around him. 

'So this is what it's like in the waiting room'

He had read about it in the novel, and it was exactly as described in it. 

'Now, if I remember correctly, this should work'

Raze tried to visualise the couch they had in his previous world. 

With little to no effort from him due to his familiarity, it manifested. 

The couch was white in colour and was big enough for three people to sit on it. It also looked very comfortable, with squishy cushions and padding. 

Without even thinking about it, Raze sat on it and felt his body sink into the couch as his buttocks landed on it. 

Just from sitting on it, he could feel some of his exhaustion wearing off as his body relaxed, and he relived the memories of sitting on this couch with Rose and binge-watching movies while eating snacks. 

He felt melancholic remembering the good times when, even despite being crippled, he could spend a few hours with his only remaining family without a care in the world. 

His heart ached seeing how empty the couch looked despite him sitting on it. He was already starting to miss his sister, whom he had lived with for the past 4 years and who was with him at his lowest. 

'Now is not the time'

Reminding himself about his situation and the need for urgency, Raze managed to snap out. 

The reason he tried to summon this couch was to test something he remembered reading in the novel. 

And just as he had read, he could recreate basic furniture that he was familiar with in his tower waiting room as long as he remembered it in detail. 

The tower waiting room was basically a sub-dimension inside the tower where all climbers could go after finishing a floor to rest and relax before continuing their ascent. 

While that was nice, all the problem was that in approximately 2 hours he'd get kicked out and forced to start the second tutorial. 

He had already spent 30 minutes here, meaning he now only had 90 minutes left. 

A few moments ago, he almost challenged the second tutorial, but that was just him being impulsive and would lead to nothing but a untimely death

Since he had already made up his mind about completing the tower, he needed to be careful and take every possible precaution. 

Carelessness would lead to nothing but death. 

With that taken into consideration, the first thing he needed to do was get used to his legs and move his body. 

**

It had now been a bit over an hour of just walking, running, pushups, and a lot of other different basic exercises. 

At first, the movement felt a bit unnatural and awkward, but after a bit of repetition, it became natural. 

For the first time in years, Alex, or rather, Raze, had a normally functioning body. 

"So this is what it's like," Raze said with childlike enthusiasm as he felt one of his wishes that he had had for as long as he could remember fulfilled. 

It was truly a blissful experience to be able to move his body like he wanted; if nothing else, he was at least thankful for this second chance at that. 

There were a lot of things he wanted to try, but he was running out of time. 

Now there was just one more thing left to do before he could attempt the second tutorial. 

"Interface"

_________________________________________

Community [Locked]

Ranking [Locked]

Information 

Shop [Lvl 1]

Tower points: 500               Exit [NA]

_________________________________________

The interface was a system panel accessible to every climber who had cleared the first tutorial, provided they knew of its existence, of course. 

This interface had a lot of very helpful features for all climbers. 

Sadly, the community and ranking functions were locked, as well as the escape function. 

These functions were locked until he cleared the entire tutorial, which is fine as he wasn't interested in them right now anyway. 

The only features available to him for now were shop and information. 

Shop was pretty self-explanatory and just let him purchase items using tower points.

The interesting one was definitely the information one, as it allowed a person to use their TP for information about the tower. 

While this may sound nice at first glance, it's kind of useless as the information provided was very basic, and most of it wouldn't help with survival. 

And to make matters worse, most of the information was overpriced, but despite everything he had just pointed out, he was sure most people would still spend their hard-earned TP on it. 

Ironically enough, if he didn't possess knowledge of the novel, he probably would have also fallen for this scam. 

After all, humans hated being kept in the dark about something, this  was in our very nature. 

This just went to show how, while he didn't have any useful knowledge of the future, the things he learned from reading the novel had other uses. 

If he could, he wanted to inform others not to fall for this scam, but since the community feature was inaccessible to him and others, nothing could be done. 

Instead of wasting his time on useless information, he clicked on the shop. 

Scrolling through a few items caught his attention, but most of them were too expensive or weren't necessary to him immediately. 

Finally, after a few minutes of scrolling, he found what he wanted. 

It was a minor healing potion that could heal his injuries in emergencies. 

While he didn't plan on getting injured, it never hurts to be careful, especially when one is about to risk their life. 

He was a bit bitter about it costing 500 tp, which was all he had at the moment, but it couldn't be helped. 

"Inventory"

[5/100]

1.Glock 22

2.Black facemask

3.Crude steel knife

4.Plain steel spear. 

5.Minor healing potion

"Alright, this should be enough."

He had done everything he could do in this short period of rest to prepare himself for the challenge lying ahead; worrying anymore would just be detrimental. 

The only thing left to do now was to march forward and see what the future had in store for him. 

"Enter the second tutorial."