Chapter 1
My name is Max Veritas.
l've always loved exploring video game worlds. It was a great joy to discover hidden things and overcome challenges in exploration.
As a kid I also liked to watch other people play games that I played and I used to scream inside every time the streamer missed something interesting and hidden that I discovered. I hated watching those who breezed through a game just doing the main quests.
This game world I'm in or should I say tower, is just the thing that I craved for so long. A fully immersive, gigantic and detailed VR game.
There were other VR games I had played that were even fully immersive, but were nothing compared to this.
This was the most ambitious game in history.
If only we weren't trapped here and at risk of losing our life.
Yes, if you die in the game, you die in real life. Your brain gets fried. According to the developer's message we received when it was too late. It's just like that famous old anime. I even joked about this being like that when I bought it with my friends.
Fuck.
My wife and kids luckily didn't play this before or with me, so I'm the only one trapped. My brother, however...I don't know what happened to him. I never met him in the game, though I know he joined this game on release.
If you reach the final floor and kill the final main boss, the game will be cleared. That's what the creator told us in our Inbox.
The face I had upon realizing there is no log out button. When I realized my jokes turned real.
Players have already reached the fourth floor. However, I am still on the first floor. Exploring it.
There's so many unexplored things in this giant world of the first floor.
I formed a party of passionate people like me who try to have some fun in this deadly game doing what they enjoy.
The friends I bought this game with have all died, except for one guy. He went to a higher floor.
One hundred million excited players started playing on release on just the EU server that I'm in. That number is now thirty million. You can see the number of "online" players in the Game Menu. And I would say half of the remaining players have settled down and given up. Living in these worlds, working jobs and forming relationships. They turned into ordinary residents of the floors. NPCs.
I don't want to be a coward. I will face this colossal challenge of surviving in this deadly tower. I will be a hero.
What an ambition, haha.
Well, let's take it one step at a time.
***
Changed narration to third person.
Right now, Max is in quite the predicament. He is currently alone and as he was walking tiredly, all sweaty and dirty, he encountered a giant dark monster that resembled a black flower in this desert in which he's trying to obtain a few quest items.
It sprouted out of the ground and startled him. It opened its flower head and fired aura infused projectiles.
Max leapt out of the way and dodged the narrow attack of the monster.
'I didn't expect a monster of this level! I'm solo too!' The player thought anxiously.
He anticipated that he would be attacked from range since the monster couldn't touch him currently.
He got up and rushed towards the monster. Evading another ranged attack.
He slid into its range and slashed at it. The monster slammed its head down and rotated around itself with its head.
Max leapt away before the monster even slammed its head down where he had slashed. His cautiosness saved him.
But he still got caught in the leg when the monster was rotating, causing sharp pain and him to fly away and into the scorching sand.
Luckily, he made sure to coat himself in aura to enhance his physical capabilities, including defense. He quickly got up and decided to send a couple aura slashes at it from range. Damaging it somewhat.
After dodging its annoying but dangerous projectiles, Max came up with an idea. The player activated an ability of his.
Deep Vision. A weak spot detector.
He then quickly charged in to attack it up close with his skills.
It again bent over and started spinning, but he leapt on top of it. He went to its top part, its weak point. He charged up a large amount of his aura into his weapon since he thought of this idea.
It coated his blade, and rapidly expanded around it, increasing his attack range by around 1.5 times. Then, he slashed it several times, dealing critical damage.
Its health bar was halved and it suddenly sprung up and knocked the player off.
Max got up immediately and prepared for an incoming attack, however...
It suddenly grew out...snakes? No, the head of the supposed snake is a sharp spike.
'Don't tell me it will send out projectiles and try to pierce me with those as well?' Max thought.
There were three spike snakes.
Damn.
The projectiles flew at Max from its ovule, and the spikes targeted his unprotected head. He was surprised by the monster's...intelligence? Why and how it knows where to strike, he will never know.
Max activated one of his strongest active abilities, Phase. An ability which lasts for 10 seconds.
You automatically dodge all targeted attacks with the help of the system, as long as you don't use an ability or attack the enemy in any way.
Abilities are rare system rewards and active abilities like Phase are activated with the use of aura. They are not manually controlled or executed. You think of its name and command it to activate. This happens on the level of the speed of thoughts and is in no way inferior to simply pressing a keybind. When activated, the system takes care of the rest.
Max quickly got within arm's reach of the monster. It couldn't attack him with the projectiles anymore. He swiftly slashed the snake-like spikes while remaining on the lookout for the moment the monster would perform the slam and rotation attack.
He got hit once by a snake spike in the face. Causing great pain.
[You have been poisoned!]
[You will lose 1% health every 5 seconds and your movement and reflexes will be 20% slower.]
"Ugh!"
He swiftly finished it off after it tried one last, hopeless attempt of blowing him away with its rotational attack by getting on top of it and once again cutting its ovule apart.
It's a monster he never fought before.
'I did pretty well for a first time encounter...'
All in all, he didn't lose too much health. The poison was going to be taken care of. Had he not had an antitode in his Inventory as a mandatory precaution, he would've died in this wasteland.
He received a good amount of EXP and some drops.
[You have defeated a field boss monster: Sprout of the Buried Titan.]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
"Finally."
His levelling up slowed down significantly. It has gotten to a point where he wouldn't level up for a week fighting regular monsters. This EXP amount was refreshing, to say the least.
No player on the first floor is supposed to kill a field boss monster on his own. The spike snakes, the projectiles...All of those things usually needed to be handled by multiple heavily armored players with a shield while the main attacker and ranged attackers dealt the most damage.
Max sat down on a rock in the shade of a vertical cliff to shield himself from the scorching heat and consumed an aura regeneration potion. Even the taste itself was regenerating.
Usually, aura is recharged when you sleep. But this expensive concoction helps you recover it while awake but only up to seventy percent. It also takes an hour to recharge from ten percent to seventy. Right now, he has around thirty four percent left, after fighting several desert monsters. So it should recharge in about thirty minutes. Max also drank juice to not die of thirst.
Aura, a stat in this game. The game system rewards you with the option to increase your life energy through a level up from succeeding in various endeavors. You can use it in many ways. To attack, to protect, to strengthen something or someone, and more.
It's a stat that has to be high in order to survive in this world. It increases by investing stat points in it which you get upon levelling up, which increases aura capacity, aura density, efficiency, etc.
Max took a glass water bottle from my Inventory and greedily consumed it.
And then, he took the antitode.
He browsed through the game's interface a safe distance from the monsters.
Max decided to watch the video of the killing of the third floor main boss which happened a month or so ago. He didn't watch it yet.
The video was slightly awkward to watch as it wasn't recorded by a player but the game's system itself. It recorded the monster mostly from a third person view of it.
It was a giant humanoid crystal monster with supernatural strength and power. It leapt two dozen meters into the air and landed on a spot several players had been a second before.
It started attacking them, quickly destroying two in a matter of seconds. Its body was infused and enhanced with rainbow colored aura.
Then, the player considered to be the strongest in the game, the king of the tower appeared behind the monster.
His body looked like it was being incinerated by white flame. He started glowing too much. To the point where it was hard to see what happened.
But the monstrosity was knocked down and burning with pure white flame.
Other players approached the monster in a second to land a few attacks. Several ranged attacks also hit it.
One player leapt into the air, falling down onto the lying boss, coated in a red blaze of aura that formed a monstrous, alien head with a set of jaws that looked like they were going to bite the head of the boss.
A giant golden javelin came from somewhere farther away, hitting the monster in the stomach.
Beams, blasts, arrows and other unexplainable things were unleashed on the boss.
The first-ranked player leapt on the body of the monster and dug his sword into its powerful body while infused with a brilliant white aura of divine fire. He leapt forward across the torso, with his white sword in the boss' body.
The monster got up after three seconds and everyone dispersed. Its eye was glowing brightly. The flames that burned on its body after the king's attack were extinguished.
Then it unleashed its strongest ability from its only eye. It was a rainbow beam of radiant light that killed anyone on the level of the tower's third floor and below instantly. Everyone leapt away or dived.
Fortunately, the ability is brief, but it still killed six players. It activates when the eye is at full capacity with the monster's vast, incredibly dense and powerful aura.
The monster moved crystals in the cave at a sonic speed with its own aura while it pounced on the heroic players.
Crystals came from above, from the left and right, and even below the ground. They attacked the players from all angles.
The players dodged, blocked or sustained blows.
The white armored, brown-haired man with a red cape who was the first ranked leapt from a spot that now had a rainbow colored gem spike poking through.
The king dodged several powerful attacks and rushed into the giant monstrosity.
The boss dodged his attack and clashed with the player. White aura and rainbow aura collided.
After around four minutes, the monster was defeated by the third floor players' strong abilities and teamwork. Out of 50 players who raided its hidden cave, only 20 remained alive.
'I should just concentrate on my own journey... I know they're all stronger than me, but I still prefer exploring and taking it slightly easier than them. It does get me abilities, titles and loot no one has, which is a plus. I really can't miss this opportunity to fulfill my deep desire of exploring huge, unknown and unexplored worlds. I know it's deadly, but I don't want to cower away. I don't want to settle down. That's how I feel.'
The player was lost in his thoughts. Attemptimg to rationalize his chosen path.
'I think defeating main bosses or quickly moving to unlocked floors and exploring are two equally viable ways to obtain power. One increases your stats and levels faster, another gives you more unknown, unobtained loot, abilities, knowledge, titles and more. Not that those higher floor players don't get cool abilities and loot.'
Perhaps it's a coping mechanism for when he sees those superior to him in every way.
In truth, Max was cowardly the first few months. He worked jobs in towns to live.
All main boss kills are available for viewing. Only those kills. Max watched the other ones again to kill time while recovering.
While he was relaxing, he spotted something bright, flying in the sky.
He equipped an item.
It was a round glass with a gold-like frame.
He put it in front of his right eye.
"What the fuck?"
It was a human.
The item allowed him to zoom into distant objects.
The man was flying with aura wings. Max couldn't do that.
"Good timing, I've just about recovered my aura. Let's go." He spoke to himself.
He trailed the person to see where he was going. Perhaps he would find something interesting.
Max fully charged his body with aura from his soul core and sprinted after the flying human.
He followed him for minutes. The man didn't fly too fast.
He soon got down two hundred meters away from Max.
Max kept a safe distance, however...
"Do you want something?" The person turned towards Max and called out. He looked forty and had a messy beard. His body was covered by a cloak. But it seemed he wore black armor beneath. His head was covered by a hood.
Max froze.
'How did he notice me?'
"I asked a question."
"No, I'm here to find something. I have no intention of hurting you. I was just wondering where would a person be going in the middle of a desert."
"I actually saw you fighting the flower and realized that you are too weak to kill me, hahaha."
He was probably telling the truth judging by the fact that he easily noticed him.
"And anyone looking for me would never know or think I'm all the way over here, comfortably living in this uninhabitable, scorching hot desert. You know what, I've been lonely lately, how about you come with me to my hideout?"
Max hesitated.
"Oh come on, if I wanted to kill you, I would've done it by now."
"Alright."
What will this wildly coincidental and unusual encounter mean for Max and for the game itself?