*Slash* *Slash*
*Sizzle*
“Take the one 5 o’clock from you!”
“Got it!”
[Skill: ‘Power-Strike’ activated!]
(Bisect)
[You have slain a forest-critter(weak)!]
[Exp Pts. +22!]
“Nice! Now take care of the front one, 2 o’clock, 5 meters!”
“Roger!”
[Unequipped Weapon ‘Old Broadsword’!]
[Equipped Weapon: ‘Old Lance’!]
[Skill: ‘Flame-Dash’ activated!]
[Special effect of Weapon: ‘Old Lance’ activates!]
[Grants +20% Armor penetration,+10% critical chance!]
[CRITICAL!]
[You have slain a jungle-spider(weak)!]
[Exp Pts. +27!]
“Good one! Now take the ones at 9 o’clock! Kasha will provide support!”
*Mumble*
(Hymn)
*Churn*
[You are under the influence of Buff: ‘Old Girgisch-tales!’]
[Attack Speed +20%, Attack Power +5% for each enemy(up to 15%)!]
[Effect duration: 3:00 min!]
[Unequipped Weapon: ‘Old Lance’!]
[Equipped Weapon: ‘Old Broadsword!]
[Activated skill: ‘Power-Boost’!]
[Next Attack will be a Critical!]
[CRITICAL!]
[You have slain 2 jungle-spiders(weak) and 1 forest-critter(weak)!]
[Exp Pts. +71!]
[Exp Pts.+21! Bonus!]
[Level up!]
“All right, little Lad! Take a break to recover your stamina and we can go a bit deeper from here!”,
Mr. Da’prof informed the exhausted Elijah.
“Roger, Chief!”, Elijah shouted as he fell on his back to take a well-earned breather.
All the while he was checking on his Status Window and Quest Window to check,
which areas of his skillset could need improvement.
[Opening Status Window!]
[
Name: Elijah Winchester
Nickname: N/A
Level: 13
Exp. Pts.: 10/782
Gold: 685
Class: All-Rounder
Titles: Jack-of-all-trades(temporary)
Weapon Switching Master(temporary)
Status:
Health: 180/200 Hp(+5Hp/minute)
Vitality: 15
Longevity: 10
Body: Combat-Level:30
Strength: 30
Agility: 30
Craftsmanship: CP-Level: 9,618
Stamina: 20
Dexterity: 10
Mana: 50/50 Mp(+10Mp/min)
Wisdom: 10
Intelligence: 10
Special:
Luck: 0
Perception: 0
SP left: 5
Skills:
___
B
Block(Level 1 Lock)
___
F
Fireball
Flame-Boost(Level 3)
Flame-Dash(Level 3)
Flame-Shield(Level 2)
Flame-Strike(Level 2)
___
P
Power-Boost(Level 1 Lock)
Power-Strike(Level 2 Lock)
___
Rapid-Strike(Level 2 Lock)
Rapid-Flame-Strike(Level 2 Lock)
___
S
Sprint(Level 2)
___
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Skill-Limit: 10/10
]
‘This game sure is intricate, huh?’
Disillusionment with reality.
Ever since the last time seeing Elijah, the young man has been confronted with more
and more unfamiliar and simultaneously familiar scenes and is now in denial at the reality
of his situation.
A dream: Elijah Winchester feels as if he was inside a big dream.
Same as many of his former classmates Elijah developed a deep love for video games
during his teenage years and he was part of many a LAN-party during that time.
Elijah’s group would choose a place to crash at and they would take along their gaming setup
to play games locally. This type of party could even last days during the vacation periods!
Due to many circumstances, such as focusing on his outdoor-life and career, Elijah lost sight
of his childhood-heroes and favorite games and had to avert his eyes back to reality.
But right here and right now he finally recovered these lost treasures, and not just on the
small screen of his old computer but rather in himself!
Elijah himself became the character he would be bonding with over the next couple of months
and years! He became a game character!
At least that is the only explanation of his behavior... and it is also a common explanation
for the high amounts of deaths in the younger demographics entering the tower!
Disillusionment with reality can actively help maintain a cool and collected state of mind
while being inside one’s own construct of reality but especially in the corner cases,
where one is forced to look at their surroundings objectively, these people will most
likely fold under the pressure.
Or, to denote this in videogame-jargon, if you play with this mindset you are setting up the choke-flag!
In this case literally to the death, in the other figuratively inside a game.
Now one might pose one innocent question when thinking about this situation more deeply:
Did the creator of DToA intend for this to happen? DToA is explicitly tailored around the
ascender’s experiences and will take on the form they are most comfortable with.
Does that not mean that it is deliberately disillusioning the players to enter and to die?
What is the Tower?
A trap that the prey enters off their free will? Or…?
…
Taking a moment to backtrack a little Elijah has gotten his temporary status and was occupied with
Quest #2 of DToA’s tutorial Cutscene.
[Quest #2: Succession of Knowledge (2)]
[
Contents: You have united with this tutorial’s ally ‘The Girgisch-Species’!
The Girgisch-Species are a species native to the tower. They hold great potential
in their bodies and have been granted an impeccable mind by the tower.
Due to the kindness of their heart you will be given a chance!
You have established contact with them and are welcomed into their circle with open arms!
Learn from your superiors and succeed their skills!
Clear condition:
Clear the path designated by the Girgisch-Species and follow their instructions while doing so!
Rewards: Class Selection, Linked Quest!
Depending on your contribution and actions during this passage additional rewards may be granted.
]
[
Class: All-Rounder!
Description: Your body is filled with the power of the tower.
However you choose to utilize this energy will determine your future pathways!
Effects:
All Class-Restricted Items are equipable!
All Physical and Magical Damage is dealt at 100% efficiency!
Fighting will open opportunity!
]
[
Title: Jack-of-all-Trades(temporary)!
Description:
You can learn skills faster than others!
There is no limit to what skills you can learn!
Effects:
Your skill-proficiency rises 20% faster than normal!
There is a chance to create skills by performing certain actions
Skills created this way will be locked at level 5!
You can only learn 10 skills at a time with this effect!
Discarded skills can never be relearned, even outside of the title effect!
Restricted skills based on limited skills take up a skill slot!
Discarding a skill will not discard the Restricted skills based on it!
Skill-Level will cap out at Level 5!
]
[
Title: Weapon Switching Master(temporary)!
Contents: Hey, you might not be much but at least you can switch out your weapons pretty quickly, eh?
Effects: Cooldown of switching weapons during combat reduced to 0!
]
It became Elijah’s favorite pass-time-activity to look at his current class,
stats and titles awarded to him by the game while appreciating the
thoroughness and namesake of the Tutorial Cutscene inside his mind.
‘Seriously, this class is broken! I don’t need to specialize my stats on one single focus
and along with being able to equip any weapon regardless of class-characteristic my versatility
is off the charts!
And to top it all off I get the two most broken titles I have ever seen!’
Jack-of-all-trades both provides a variety of utility-skills and raises the skill growth-rate overall.
The effect of this title diminishes the need to actively focus on skill acquisition or
proficiency accumulation.
Elijah has yet to experience the title’s downside, which would permanently damage
his maximum proficiency of each skill:
The downside of Skill-Levels being capped out at Level 5 does not only apply to
the skills acquired through this title but to any skill possessed by the person with this title.
But luckily for Elijah, he will probably never find out about the class’s demerits
since most of his current titles and skills will be deleted in exchange for his yet to be determined permanent class.
The group of 5 was still resting for Elijah to regenerate his resources and stamina
while the man once again let his gaze waver over his four temporary companions once more:
The attendant farthest away from him is called Ljinminslovam, also known as Limin.
With her powerful long-range spells she took on the role of a pinch-helper in case Elijah
got into a dangerous situation, which admittedly happened quite often during the earlier
parts of this little excursion.
With her blonde hair running down behind her slender shoulders and the jaded eyes
she is dazzling to look at, not unlike a mystical elf from fantasy literature. Her pearl-white skin
attributes her a stoic type of beauty, that Winchester is not used to.
The two of them rarely talk and their chemistry does not quite match
but whenever Limin notices his gaze, she will without fail respond with a
radiant smile making Elijah take a step back.
Opposite to her and closest to himself there is the beautiful Kashnagava, aka Kasha.
She is a black-haired beauty with a seductive charm to her. Her entire appearance
stands in contrast to Limin: silk-like black hair worn in a long ponytail,
brown eyes that have an innocent charm to them and luscious lips curved
into a playful smile adding to her mischievous atmosphere.
Kasha’s role in the group is providing Elijah with support and buffing his stats with her chants.
This woman is a lot more outgoing and approachable than Limin and her rack personality
is also a lot more to Elijah’s taste as it is as lush as it is inviting.
In this scene Kasha was sitting in very close proximity to Elijah with half
of her legs already on top of his lap as the two of them were actively engaging
in aggressive flirting.
Fascinatingly enough, simultaneously Elijah was actively avoiding physical
contact with Kasha’s rear-side, whatever reason that might have.
To the left of his with a decently big gap inbetween there is Ruroma, short for Ruroma.
Ruroma is a short, short-haired man with brown hair trimmed to the sides and a bulky build.
He does not like to talk all that much but when it comes to combat his mostly the protection
of Kasha and Limin in case there are any attacks on them.
Or so he said but for the short while that this group of five people was traversing through
this jungle-area, none of the monsters managed to even get close to the two of them
leaving him free to mostly loaf around.
Elijah and Ruroma do not talk much with each other, so their relationship could favorably
be described as neutral tolerance.
Ruroma simply focuses on checking his broadsword for cavities or cracks while
not partaking in the conversation.
Da’prof, the powerful secondary melee-attacker and leader of the group,
rounds up the quintet and surveys the command-structure during combat.
His power is focused on fire-based swordsmanship and mobility. He attacks by
jumping above the monsters and unleashing close-range area-of-effect-attacks
(from now on shortened to AOEs) of searing blue flames.
Apparently the fire-based skills in DToA tend to change their coloration
once their level reaches a certain threshold. Da’prof is also the person that Elijah
used as a role-model and example for his own skillset.
At camp and on travels he is the person to set the mood or to stir up a conversation
with his lighthearted words of encouragement and playful but serious attitude.
“Was that enough of a break, lad?”
Elijah was forced out of his own thoughts by Mr. Da’prof’s cheerful inquisition.
The fact that he was this well received by his peers and actively sought after by
a peerless beauty makes Elijah quite happy. It would not even be a stretch
to go farther with that statement.
“Aye, Sir!”
He put in the effort to imitate the vigorous pep in his attendant’s voice.
You have changed since that day. Let’s break up.
These were the words his ex-girlfriend last spoke to him as they echoed
silently without being heard or understood.
“All right! You are now getting used to your new skills, so I plan on going
deeper into the jungle area, lad!”
Elijah’s previous girlfriend did indeed break up with Elijah but she did not do
so because of a petty reason such as hunting after fame or being appalled by
Elijah’s weak side.
“The Monster’s Levels will make a large jump once we cross a certain threshold.
I will notify you once it’s happening! Can you handle the burden of soloing for a bit?”
In the beginning of his toughest period in life she was there to support him
through it all, be it mentally or physically. She did her best to alleviate his already
fuming temper and depression with her presence and the two of them were actively
going out during the first two weeks following Elijah’s accident on the soccer-field.
[Optional Sub-Quest arrived!]
[Hunt the monsters without receiving help and without Hp dropping under 20% for more than 10 minutes!]
[Do you Accept?]
The thing that changed wasn’t physical; Elijah himself started to change,
no, the hard times brought forth Elijah’s negative sides clearer than ever.
Drinking, violent behavior, depression, melancholy, blocking out conversations,
self-centeredness and many other things started to show up as wedges being actively thrown
inbetween the two of them.
It was a long process of her actively trying to appeal to him but her words only
fell on deaf ears. Only after a considerable time were those words uttered.
“Sure, Boss! As long as you think I’m capable of doing this I will trust you wholeheartedly!”
What purpose does this story from Elijah’s life hold?
*Swing* *Klang* *Klang*
[You have slain a Steel-covered Urchin(normal)!]
[You have slain a …!]
Well, to name one of a few, it is a prime example to show Elijah’s personality: pure self-centeredness.
*Spark* *Burst* *Burn*
[You have defeated a Wolf(normal)!]
[-22 Hp!]
A self-centered person enters a room. The room is filled with traps and
dangerous beasts starved for flesh on one side. On the other side there is
a cozy echo-chamber. No matter what words he shouts into the chamber,
approval is what will be reflected into his ears.
“Hey Boss, can you help me out here?”
“What? You said you could handle it, did you not?”
But this person misunderstands the nature of an echo.
*Slash* *Burn* *Swoosh*
“I get it I was wrong so please help me! These monsters are getting to many for me to handle!”
[-15 Hp]
Hearing an echo means hearing the words behind your own actions.
“HEY MISTER! HELP ME! RIGHT NOW!”
[-22Hp!]
[-30Hp!]
But these type of people think of the echo as more than that.
*MUNCH*
“AHHHHHHHH”
As Elijah was falling to the ground, one arm completely teared off his body,
he should have realized the truth: An echo is not a friend. An echo can never
replace the bonds built upon mutual trust. An echo cannot and will not protect you from
the monsters and traps.
[-35 Hp]
[Quest failed!]
As the notification resounded from inside Elijah Winchester’s ears, and as he was
being protected by the group of five again, the person on the ground without their right
arm just sat there in shock.