Earth Year 2049.
Right after a series of unfortunate events that started with a Pandemic, followed by World War 3 and 4, massive earth quakes, tsunamis became common occurrence.
Economic crisis crushed the world system we were all familiar with, democracies were reverted to dictatorship, the powerless Monarchs regained power and slowly within few years, world entered a second dark age. A dark age with electronics you would assume? Nope. The laws of physics started changing, leaving humanity with much to study, nature that we understood, was now a fiction. At first, we started noticing too many glitches in our computer system. Servers would randomly reboot, information stored would randomly get corrupted without any external means. Although, we didn't conclude this finding until our governments witch hunted all hackers. Ethical ones included. The banks crashed and nations were forced to revert to Gold Coins. The technology became obsolete when electricity stopped working as intended.
The last image the earth's satellite sent to SERN base was of a new continent that rose in the middle of Pacific Ocean. A continent bigger than North America. It was immediately named Atlantis.
Although the world looked like early 1800s except whatever remained from skyscrapers that were damaged by both man made and natural disasters, Humans were looking forward to the Exploration of the new continent. As soon as the first human stepped foot on Atlantis...
> "Congratulations, you are the first human to walk on the fragment of Panasia"
A system alert appeared in front of the explorer who walked first on the land.
> "As a reward, you are granted with early access to Tower of Transcendence"
>
> 10000 xp Points
>
> 20 Mana Stones
>
> Purple Ticket of Mystery
"Tower of Transcendence? Fragment of Panasia?" Mumbled the explorer.
This alert, I wonder if others can see.
As he turned, he found that just like him, everyone else was puzzled. They seems to be reading something in thin air, but he couldn't see what they were reading.
> "Congratulations, you are second person to walk the fragment of Panasia"
>
> "As a reward, you are informed, that the first person to walk on fragment of Panasia is among you. That person is granted early access to Tower of Transcendence, If you can find that person and convince to form a party with you, you may also enter the tower early."
>
> "10 Mana Stones"
>
> "4000 xp points"
> "Congratulations, you are third person to walk the fragment of Panasia"
>
> "As a reward, you are informed, that the first person to walk on fragment of Panasia is among you. That person is granted early access to Tower of Transcendence, If you can find that person and convince to form a party with you, you may also enter the tower early."
>
> "3000 xp points"
> "Congratulations, you are fourth person to walk the fragment of Panasia"
>
> "As a reward, you are informed, that the first person to walk on fragment of Panasia is among you. That person is granted early access to Tower of Transcendence, If you can find that person and convince to form a party with you, you may also enter the tower early."
>
> "2000 xp points"
> "Congratulations, you are fifth person to walk the fragment of Panasia"
>
> "As a reward, you are informed, that the first person to walk on fragment of Panasia is among you. That person is granted early access to Tower of Transcendence, If you can find that person and convince to form a party with you, you may also enter the tower early."
>
> "1000 xp points"
> "Congratulations, you have discovered fragment of Panasia"
>
> "100 xp points"
As he read through the messages and coordinated with his colleagues, the explorer understood that the system intends that the first five walkers, form a party. The total strength of a party can only include a maximum of 5 members. They formed the party and entered the Tower.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Soon, Human Civilization entered in a new phase. Humans now have new goal. Climb Tower of Transcendence and find out what is on the summit. Find the reason of the sudden change in the planet, our lifestyle, find answers.
Tower also provided means that will allow Humans to regain the void created by lack of technology. Mana Stones, replaced batteries. When used, the electricity would function to some extent. Scientists are researching on how to utilize the stones as efficiently as possible to get the best outcome. Naturally, the Climbers as we call them, became a high demanding job. People in this line of business were highly paid but the risk was death. One wrong move, and you would die. There was no resurrection possible as far as humans could understand the system.
Arman with his party is one of the world's leading adventurers who were attempting the final floor, the 100th. Humans believed the 100th floor should be the final but no one knew for sure. There was no rule, no guide, no administrator for this tower and system would not explain anything about the purpose as one would expect since Tower system was similar to ones from novels. This was real world however and this Tower was as real as the world. As unfair as the world too. Humans could only guess about the purpose.
"Oye, we aren't the first ones to enter the 100th floor aren't we?" queried Damian who was the laziest in the group
"Do you think anyone prior to us survived?" he added nervously
"That's the line of business we are in Damian. You wanna chicken out?" Dared Sourav
"*spits* me? chicken out? weren't you the one who always vote for backout when something unexpected happens?" asked Damian mockingly
"I kept us alive no? but now its different. Last floor, last boss, we can't run away now" sighed Sourav as he plucked up his courage
"Alright team, enough chit chat. Is preparation complete?" Asked the Party Leader
"Aye Captain" Confirmed Sakshi
"Good, let's enter"
As soon as Arman and his party opened the gate to 100th floor, a white light engulfed all their beings.
Waking up, Arman sees something very bizarre. He finds himself in a room, blood everywhere, on floor, on walls. Wide and beast like scars on walls, furniture broken, curtains, torn apart. He checks himself and finds his hands are covered in blood and a dagger piercing his palm. He takes the dagger out and more blood gushed out. He tightly pressed the wound to stop bleeding. He notices several dead decaying dead bodies of dark elves type creatures laying around him.
Ah the headache, I feel drowsy. As I get up, I feel my whole body in a excruciating pain. I walk a few feet limping notice the room is large like a boss room but not as large as a museum hall, something that would be common inside tower where many boss rooms are large enough to fit a dragon. Even if the boss is just a goblin, the room size will always be very large. While this room gave off the feeling of a boss room, it was but a significantly smaller one and there were furniture like sofa and even a bed. Its like someone was living here. As I struggle to balance, I finally find a washing area. It was like a very small pool with glowing water.
I dip my injured arm only to find that my injured palm healed right before my eyes. To get rid of injuries on the rest of my body, I enter the pool. Slowly, all pain in my body subsided.
As the water in the pool get stagnant as he had stopped moving, he noticed his reflection.
Huh! I look different. What the hell is wrong with my eyes?
I noticed that my iris in both eyes were burning red in color and the eye pupil looked like a settings icon colored as bright yellow. Hair was also a darker shade of red color and I wore a different outfit than what I remembered. I also feel a bit taller, no wonder I was struggling to balance.
The rest of the features looked like the original me.
It seems I have somehow merged with the body of the person this body belonged to. Based on the eye pattern, its like a settings icon, what could it mean?
As I was pondering over this, it suddenly occurred to me that I should check with the system.
As system was mostly unhelpful with explanation, people stopped caring about it after a while and it was obvious, climbers would not remember asking questions to system that would just answer unintelligently.
As I checked the system, nothing seemed out of ordinary.
"Just as I expected, the useless system is being useless as usual" I protested angrily
Right when I was about to exit, I noticed an icon that was similar to how my pupil in eye was shaped. This was but a dim yellow icon so it was very easy to miss.
I mentally clicked on it and it prompted for credentials
> "Welcome back XD$21SR... Enter sudo password"
"Sudo password? What the hell is that?" I was puzzled
Well a password is a password, I tried "admin" as username and "admin" as password
> "Incorrect Username or Password"
"Why do I think everything in the world is like a router." I gritted my teeth as I mentally pressed Try again button
If the welcome message says my name, I'm screwed, since usually name and username are different. But the name looks too odd to be an actual name. Maybe this is the username for the login. I should try that
> "Incorrect Username or Password"
Ah it wouldn't even tell if at least I got the username right. Why would system even want me to enter password when its just me that can see my personal interface.
I must find the password. Lets take a look at the room, maybe I can find something. I started checking all my pockets, all were empty. I checked all belongings, desks, looks for all sorts of papers. Some where written in English but few were written in a different script that I was not familiar with. I keep those papers in my pocket. Maybe they will be useful.
As I was about to place them in my pocket, it occurred to me, what if this is the password?
I called upon the system again. While I have never seen system prompting me for writing something, I was still able to try entering credentials naturally. I also entered English characters. Knowing that this body have writings from an unknown language, I felt nervous on how I would be able to type something as this.
Still lets try first. I mentally imagined the writing that was written on piece of paper and somehow system wrote that same exact phrase that was written on the piece. Excited, I said "login"
> "Incorrect Username or Password"
Fuck!
My science of deductions have failed me.
I was about to hit quit but then it occurred to me. "Why the hell my eyes look the way they are?"
What if my eye is the key?
Might as well try that.
I went back to credential page and started staring on the password box.
yeah its not working. I'm not doing it right. I need to check all options.
I never noticed this icon before, maybe my eye is not the key. I can see that icon because my eye looks the way it does?
I wonder.
As I was thinking on how to access the options, my sensitive ears picked some sound. Someone was coming the way he stood.