“Almost all of you will die.” The old man said, a hint of coldness and sorrow were mixed in his voice. Jin was confused by the manner the old man talked to the kids. He had expected him to try and fuel the competition and improve their grades but this was close to the opposite. Jin inspected the appearance of the old man who the kids next to him called the headmaster. The man was filled with scars and his walking stick was a sword made of stone, he looked defeated as if he was close to losing all hope. After leaving a short break in his speech he continued: “This might sound concerning to some of you but I’m not here to create pathetic and weak humans.

Our main goal is to save our race and not to have fun. I’m here to guide you into becoming monsters who’re willing to work with their lives on the life to defeat the tower.” He placed another break in his speech. When he continued, his voice was a bit shaky as if he was scared of saying the next part. “I myself saw what went on inside the first ten floors of the tower when I was around your age. There’s only one thing I want to say before I’ll leave you to your teacher. The tower is worse than you could ever imagine. People die there every second, monsters that try to eat you alive and worst of all demons that try to turn you on your allies. They’ll come in all shapes and sizes, some looking as a monsters others in the body of a human, yet already dead inside. I want to warn every single one of you that there is no turning back.

You might’ve been promised fame, power or treasures by others but at what cost? Is living your life in a place that’s worse than hell worth only that much? This is the last chance to turn back. The moment this day ends you’ll be seen as a big military camp under the united unions. This means that quitting is equal to desertion of the first degree, choose wisely and don’t hesitate.” With having said those words he left the podium. The stadium was left in a silence that should normally be found at a graveyard. All of the sixteen-year-old kids were left in the moment. Jin realized this was best, the kids had to know what they’d have to go through before making the decision. Hundreds of teachers came on the podium and lined up for the public. From the speakers in the room a calm voice started speaking: “All of you will get until midnight to leave the school, after this is over you’ll be an official member of the academy. Please follow the teachers to the dorms you’ll stay in tonight. Please get ready for the first of august. This will be the day you’ll be tested and placed into classes. Just for information you have 32 days left so use them well. You may use the library and sport terrains as you like. This is it for the opening, let the first year of the Imperial Academy start.”

Staff came from every opening guiding the students to their dorms. The nine kids who Jin was in the room with all left with a personal guide. A team of five man walked in after things got quiet, each of them wearing a black suit, black sunglasses and a white tie. “good morning Jin” The man in the front said. Jin inspected the five of them while nodding at the man who talked to him. “We’ve come here to bring you to your room. Because you’re not in a normal state, we’ll give you a room of your own which is normally not allowed until you’re put in an alphabetical class.” One of the men walked towards Jin and started pushing his wheelchair while the others were walking around it as if they were protecting it.

“May i ask who you guys are?” Jin asked. The man who had spoken to him before raised his eyebrows and looked confused at Jin as if he hadn’t expected him to ask that. “We’re the defense team of the academy, we’re here to make sure no one infiltrates or tries to escape. You could see us as a security team.” Jin nodded his head and let the men pushed him to his new room. After several minutes one of the security guards broke the silence by whispering to his colleague. They had already traveled quite a distance and it amazed Jin how big the terrain was. “Is it true what the professor informed us about? Will it really happen within a year? Isn’t this almost the same as opening the tower ten years earlier? An external opening to “help us prepare”? They have to stop bullshitting us, it’ll be our demise.” His colleague saw that Jin was listening and told the guard who was talking to shut up. Not long after they reached a grandiose building that looked like a luxury hotel. They walked inside and the guards had to undergo multiple identity confirmations and other checks. At last they reached the elevator and went to the room. Jin had requested that they placed him at his desk and then leave him. The guards did as he asked and Jin didn’t hesitate to continue his awakening of the first gate.

He was close to open the gate by pulling the small particles of mana to his right eye. Jin had done this lots of times before but it never went this slow. Normally he was able to collect clusters of mana to him at once but now he had to do them one by one. It felt as if you had to focus on a single atom and try to merge it with the mana organ. Jin didn’t know what the eye had as it’s base magic. He had never met a person or monster where the mana was stored in an eye, let alone two eyes. The thoughts about the sinister energy were still lingering in his mind. Hours passed by as if they were minutes and Jin at last opened the first gate: the gate of truth. He felt energy gathering around his body, it all focused to his right eye where the normal mana was kept and started to enter. Jin embraced for impact before he would fall unconscious. His world went black as his muscles started to relax and he fell back in his wheelchair.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He woke up in a familiar place for the first time since he had died. The climbers had called this the tower’s mind. An endless misty place where you wake up surrounded by blue lanterns, each of these lanterns resembled a tier of the soul also known as a gate. Only one lantern was in front of Jin which made the place look empty. He reached twenty-two in his previous body and was on par with low-level constellations. The words that were engraved on the lantern were the same as the previous time he opened the first gate:

“Kill one and be called a killer, kill ten and be called a monster, kill hundreds and thy shall be remembered as a the slayer of it’s own kind, kill a thousand and thy shall be called a hero. Kill all and thy becomes a constellation. This is the unspoken truth, this is law, this is creation of predators.”

Jin walked towards the lantern and took the candle out of it. He wasn’t in the mood to be cracking his brain over the meaning behind the text. Without any signs of hesitation he brought it to his right eye and placed the fire into his eye. Excruciating pain followed as he had expected. The organ started to reform as it was supposed to but it was worse than usual. The liquids that should protect his eye started to boil from the heat and his eye started to melt. Jin screamed out into the void for hours. The process was very simple: you had to burn your mana source with the flame and destroy it. After this you had a 1% chance of success and if it failed it would regenerate the organ so you could try again.

Of course there was a catch to it, every time you failed the pain got worse and every gate you opened the chances got halved. Jin’s eye was regenerated well over a hundred times and burned to crisps again. At last it worked and the mana in his body activated. Sweat was dripping on the ground, blood was all over his face and a hundred molten eyeballs were disappearing on the ground. With deep and raspy breaths the young man sat down. He had finally completed his first milestone towards his end goals.

Days had already passed by in the misty world but time was different here than on earth. Although there wasn’t a lot of it, Jin could feel mana coursing through his body. It took him a while to get back to his normal state, he knew that the worst part was over but he still wasn’t very motivated to move on. Jin started to build a “link”. It was the connection between a human and the tower which was normally given to humans it saw worthy when the tower opened. The user of this link would receive a game-like overview of their strengths and abilities. The awakened climbers liked to call it a status window. Creating a link wasn’t very hard but extremely dangerous. If you made even a single mistake the system would activate it’s self-defense and try to kill you. Jin started calculating the way in by deciphering the mana patterns of the tower. After this he took up an empty slot that would’ve been used by a worthy candidate when the tower opened. The link started connecting with his soul and started generating his profile.

Starting up the tower link… completed.

Player: Jin Gelida {Jin-Kah}

Age: 16 {537} Gender: Male

Stats: STR: 9 (E-rank) / INT: 16 (C-rank)

DEX: 11 (D-rank) / MEN: 32 (S-Rank) / CON: ★

Skills: 🛇

Title: Frozen Flame

[1]

Jin looked at the overview and read it out loud. He sighed after reading the stats and started talking to himself, he was extremely pissed and frustrated: “Are you serious? Holy shit this boy’s body is the definition of trash. Highest stat is intelligence with a C rank? And what the fuck is CON? Strength, intelligence, dexterity, mentality and CON?” Jin lets out a frustrated sigh and keeps reading. “He doesn’t even have a skill? Damn, this is going to be way harder than I anticipated. At least the title and mentality stat are not connected to the body but the soul.” He pressed the little 1 at the bottom with close to no expectations. The number normally represented an unclaimed reward or a missed notification. The tower link started to reshape until it finally showed Jin’s rewards.

Unclaimed rewards:

* Ullr’s frozen stone (EX)

* Hephaestus’s heart of mithril (S)

* Chronos’ time defying liquid (EX)

* Medusa’s venom (A-)

* D..r.a…g..o..n.’s heart (error)

Still frustrated Jin looked at the screen. “At least I kept my unused items from the previous time. The fuck? How is the tower glitching?”He closed the thing and told the system to bring him back to the room he had received. Jin got sent back in his wheelchair. After thinking for a while he opened the craft menu of the tower. With his new link to the tower he would be able to open the functions almost everywhere. Inside the crafting menu Jin placed all the rewards he had spared from the previous tower run except for the glitched item. The four ingredients were all of exceptional quality and would make an amazing weapon. Jin pressed create and the screen went blank. A little timer appeared telling him to wait 60 seconds. He waited it out and right when the clock hit 0 a note appeared.

Successfully created a weapon:

A year of frostbite (★★★)

Soul bound to: Frozen Flame

Weapon can only be used against constellations.