Novel Boss
Chapter 14: Piercing The Tower
"What's so interesting?"
James's question seemed to attract Ronald's attention again, Ronald, who had been observing the sea behind James until then, became as still as the sea itself and suddenly spoke:
"As I said, there is no room for lies on the black path, only truth and the desires of the truth...The interesting thing is that you are Mr James. From the moment the Tower was created by Chaos itself, it has always worked in the same way, it was a system Chaos put in place."
"But you are so naive, open to lies, unable to see the truth, and having wanted nothing or lost everything you wanted, unfortunately I am not capable of seeing the memories outside the tower or inside the tower, so I would like to ask you...what is your desire?"
When Ronald uttered these words, James was about to speak when he suddenly fell silent. Only the sound of breathing was heard in the white space.
"I don't have an answer...."
When James voiced this answer, Ronald spoke again with a smiling face:
"Innocence, lack of desire, and being lost. These three things are the main things that will kill you in the tower. Trusting everyone completely, not finding the reason to continue and finally losing yourself, these three things are the things you must escape from, Master James."
At Ronald's words James realised that the way he had expressed himself had suddenly changed, the floor manager seemed to be looking at him positively.
"The Tower is out of its system because of your innocence. Your desire to see your family was not an absolute desire. In your heart, you already knew they were gone and you would never come back. While you thought that the tower was punishing you, the tower was desperately thinking about how it could test you. The black path lied for the first time since the creation of the tower.
With the black path, it has ceased to be [the path of the righteous]."
"Master James. I am almost two billion years old, the tower has been around for such an enormous amount of time and even longer. I have seen what many worthy warriors and even gods have gone through after losing their desires.
If I have to give you certain advice, find out what you want to do right away because hundreds of hundreds of thousands of things that will exploit your innocent heart will be waiting for you on the upper floors of the tower."
James had been writhing in strange emotions ever since he heard that he was [chosen]. Maybe Chaos had brought him to this tower to make him suffer, or just like in the films, a strange story of heroism lay behind this reality.
Nevertheless, there was one thing that even James could not deny. He had lost his family and cut them out of his heart because he thought they would live better in heaven than on earth. His girlfriend had probably cheated on him many times, but because he loved his girlfriend, he didn't think about anything and was just happy to have her.
Maybe it was his desire, but he was very good at letting go of his attachments, maybe that's why when the tower called him, all the desire he had for his girlfriend disappeared.
To live a good life? To give in to emotion? James didn't care about that, he just wanted something he could connect with.
He needed to be ruthless. Having enough desire.
"My desire...In my world, there is such a thing as games, Mr Ronald, as I'm sure you've heard. Some of the games have characters based on the gods here, or using their direct natures. Perhaps I might wish to become one of them."
James's words seemed to fill the rabbit man's eyes with light as if this man had been waiting to meet such a person for a long time.
"Your wish...?"
"When the Tower summoned us, humans, when the towers appeared in our world, it explicitly told us that we could enter the game of the gods, that we could become a god. The tower makes this clear enough to us both on the outside and the inside and who knows, maybe to me too...."
"It's a hard road, Master James. The tower loves to tell such lies to the living, as I said, the whole tower rewards the competent and deceives the incompetent with lies. Do you believe that you can enter places like Olympus, and Valhalla, where there are high Gods and Goddesses?"
After these words, James paused for a few seconds and just looked at Ronald. At that moment, he shook his head and said the words that all the gods and goddesses would hear and that would be engraved in the history books and even on the walls of the main castle of Olympus:
"Who knows, maybe I'll reach the top of the tower and pierce it, wouldn't it be great to meet Chaos?"
These words literally echoed in the white space. Ronald did not know what to say and smiled in amazement, and after only a few seconds, laughter rose in the whole area:
"PUHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAA!!! 2 BILLION YEARS! 2 WHOLE BILLION YEARS AND I MEET SOMEONE LIKE YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!"
James couldn't stand this huge decibel sound and plugged his ears, he couldn't understand what was going on.
"Right...why come to the tower if that's not what the users...no the players want! Master James, I adore you, I will watch every step of your journey, every battle you fight, everything you lose, everything you win, every moment of happiness and every point of sadness."
These words were spoken in a gentle voice and turned James into a bewildered creature. The rabbit's ears were constantly moving and its eyes were shining with a rust-bright light.
"Please choose a card and move on, I have stolen enough of your precious time."
James thought that everything was happening too fast and with that, he looked at the cards in front of him. He had never thought that he would choose his class by cards.
Yet there were more cards in front of him than he could have ever imagined, strangely enough almost every single card was either yellow with a golden glow or velvet red. There were only a few black cards among them.
James had no idea what to choose and on top of that the words that would require another wait rang in his ears:
"Remember, Master James, each class on these cards is a gift from the gods, so choose accordingly, though everything will be random, but be careful."