Hades Tower
Prologue
The day was the damnation of all. The day that cursed structure appeared. For it marked the start of an era of total darkness where humans were no longer on the top of the food chain. 3 months ago the tower appeared, many who never went into the tower called it Hades Tower but those of us who know the truth about the tower call it the tutorial tower. You don’t just stroll through a door to get here for this tower is akin to a being as if not smarter than us humans. It selects people from around the world and suddenly they hear a notification bell and the next thing they know they are looking at an archway with the following words inscribed on it “welcome to the tutorial tower.”
You guessed it I was a part of the first group of people to be taken into the tower. You wouldn’t realize the feeling the tower gives you is equal to being petrified, the tower gives an aura like that of the whole forest turned against you. You feel thousands of eyes watching the rattling of your head and the hammering of your heart as you find yourself on the cold black stone that makes up the entrance of the tower. The first thing that pops up in your head is where am I? And then the feeling of unease takes over. You look for your phone and that is when you realize you are wearing some sort of leather armor, where it came from, or how you were wearing it. That is when you start feeling a true sense of danger.
Then a popup opens and you see some options much like those that you find in the typical video game but the feeling of cold and dread lets you know that this is no game. The popup shows a weapon and skill selection option. The options for weapons are a sword, dagger, bow, and a dozen arrows or a spear all look like those you would find in the cavemen’s time.
After weapon selection, you get the skill selection out of which you have six options from which you can select two fireballs, rock bullet, crosswind, water splash, pathfinding, and taming all of these skills allow you to go on a wider path. Each of them is at level one and does a certain thing with certain effects. For example, the pathfinding skill allows you to detect the area in a one-mile radius allowing you to understand the terrain as well as detect monsters in that certain area. A useful skill for exploring.
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Now as to the question you all must have had on your mind what did I choose? Well, I used to read a lot of manga and watch anime before all this happened. But I gave it a lot of thought. In the weapon list the choice was easy I was never a good shot and I didn’t like the limited use ruling the bow out. My height was lower than average at the time ruling out the spear as I wouldn’t be able to handle it. A sword would be difficult to carry and attract a lot of attention (something I didn’t want) hence the only remaining weapon was a dagger around 10 inches long it was perfectly suited to me.
Now time for the skills I kind of just chose the taming skill as I liked the sound of that and pathfinding was a must. Hence my starting artillery. Now once our skills were selected we were sent to what seemed like a forest well for me that was where I ended up but if all of us ended up in there I can never be sure of it. Right off the bat, I was relieved for had I chosen something other than pathfinding I might never have made it out.
But instead of using it to get out right away, I needed to go and test out my Taming skill so I used the pathfinding skill to locate a monster there weren’t many monsters where I was but luckily I soon found a level 1 slime. So I started to sneak up on it, for those of you who don’t know slime is a grade 1 monster and is the weakest one there is. Well after using a sneak attack to deal some damage with my dagger I was able to deal it some damage bringing it low enough to tame without much of a problem.
Now the hard part naming the slime now I didn’t know what to name it so, for now, its name is gluttonous it will level up and evolve with me gaining new skills at the same time right now they aren’t much impressive.
“Finally the last floor boss” exhausted from our journey me and my companions made it to the final floor boss for the 6th and the last time we were ready to take it down and avenge our fallen comrades and return to our world.
“Time to take out the behemoth”
“All out,” I said as I let loose all of the monsters I had tamed all this time. I and all my human companions also attacked. Using their power and all of mine I attacked with all the power I could muster. For the first time, we had weakened it and now it was time to end it “Millennial Stab.”
My attack found its mark as my strongest skill went directly towards THE Behemoth’s weak point the gem on its chest. Usually, the attack wouldn’t even faze it but the constant attack had forced the behemoth to let off its defenses.
“Lucky break,” I said to myself as the gem broke, being alone makes you a little senile. But no more of that me and all my companions and monsters and humans were finally leaving this godforsaken place and the portal is here.
We all said our goodbyes and to find each other once outside as we stepped into the portal. I closed my eyes waiting to feel the fresh air on my face.
Ding. I opened my eyes but what I saw made my heart clench “Welcome to the tutorial tower.” etched in the archway in front of me my fourteen months of patience and hard work gone to dust.