The Great Raid: A LitRPG Adventure (Tower of Power Book 4) Read online

  He leaned out of his cover and aimed his bow. Since his bow was formed out of his arm, out of Klyn, he didn’t have a finger to lean the arrow on, but he had shaped a shelf as well as a scope above it. He aligned it with his target—his Sharpshooter skill taught him how to properly aim—and then he let go of the string, shutting off his phase in the process. The energy arrow flew out of the bow, heading straight at Borodar.

  Somehow the man again noticed Morgan’s attack, and turned around, his axe coming up to block—but not fast enough. The arrow hit him in the chest and exploded, the metal aspect that filled the arrow had been instilled with the power of gravitation and mass, since those were the areas that Morgan specialized in for the metal aspect. The blast was a shockwave that sent Borodar flying back into a tree. Morgan moved back into cover immediately, his right hand grabbing his launcher even as he used Phase Dash to move to another location through the tree trunk. Klyn morphed and grabbed another branch as soon as Morgan was out of his phase, swinging him up on another tree. Behind him, he heard a roar, and glancing behind him, Morgan saw that Borodar’s skin had turned slightly red and that his markings were glowing.

  He had first seen that form during the tournament, but Morgan had witnessed it a few times after. It was Borodar’s strongest ability: it increased all his stats and made him able to ignore pain.

  Borodar started swinging his axe, sending blasts of heat into the trees, setting them on fire. Morgan quickly ducked back into cover and put his launcher into his left armpit, and grabbed the lever on the side, pulling both it and the launch spring back before opening the barrel. He grabbed another grenade from his back, this one with a red line around the body, and he loaded it into the barrel. He locked it and grabbed it with his right arm. A blast of heat set the branches next to him on fire, but he didn’t move—instead, he focused. Klyn morphed back into the bow form, and then from the back of his arm grew out a tendril that quickly shaped itself into the form of an arrow, he made sure to blunt the tip, and then the tendril moved the arrow into the slot on the bow and pulled the string back. He could’ve pulled an arrow out of the quiver on his back, but he needed more practice with having Klyn taking different shapes and manufacturing different materials. He could feel Klyn struggling to pull it back, so Morgan phased the arrow and the bow. He holstered his launcher and then put his hand on the trunk of the tree behind him. He used Mass Exchange, an ability that he had created as an alteration of his Mass Transfer ability, and pulled the mass out of the tree and fed it into Klyn, who in turn fed it to the arrow. The arrow became denser, heavier, but because it was phased it was weightless, though he could still interact with it since it was technically still a part of his body. He didn’t put too much mass into it, but it would help. Mass Exchange was an ability, which meant that it was streamlined. It exchanged mass between whatever he was touching and Klyn, but it only transferred around five kilograms worth of mass. He had created the ability so that he didn’t need to focus during combat and channel with Mass Transfer, which would transfer mass while he kept his focus. This way, he could transfer a bit of mass in an instant.

  He pulled out his launcher and left cover. Borodar saw him immediately, his eyes narrowing and his axe rising to fire a heat blast at him, but Morgan leveled his launcher before he could attack. He pressed the trigger, and the spring launched the grenade forward. Borodar fired his heat blast and his wooden grenade cracked and caught on fire, igniting the flammable gas inside. An explosion filled the area, throwing Borodar back. Morgan jumped from his branch, using his Acrobatics skill to jump from branch to branch until he was flanking Borodar, who had just gotten back up to his feet.

  Morgan aimed his bow, and then focused on Klyn. The small part of him connected to the arrow snapped, releasing the arrow as it shot forward. As soon as it left his area of influence, it unphased, and all of the extra mass hit Borodar in his shoulder with a resounding crack, probably cracking bone. The man flew to the side and rolled over the ground. Morgan reached up to a quiver and pulled out an arrow. He had created the first one because he didn’t have any blunted arrows left, and he didn’t want to kill Borodar. He nocked the new arrow which had a small canister at the tip. Morgan pulled back the string before Borodar could recover. He fired, and when the arrow hit the ground the canister at the tip shattered, the plant inside spilling on to the ground. Morgan activated his Accelerated Growth ability, and his energy reached out to the plant. Its roots stabbed into the ground even as the rest of it shot for Borodar, growing and tying him down. Borodar shook his head, looking down at the tripvine that was tying him down and trying to break free—but Morgan had upgraded his tripvine since the last time he used it against the man, and it was now far more durable.

  Even still, Borodar roared, steam rising from his body, and the tripvine caught fire and burned up in an instant. Borodar stood looking at Morgan just as he released another arrow at his opponent. The fighter raised his axe, blocking, but the force of the attack sent him flying back into a tree. Morgan saw him hit the tree hard, and then fall to the ground.

  Morgan nocked another arrow, but didn’t approach the lying body of his friend. “You do realize I know you’re faking, right?” Morgan asked from a safe distance.

  Borodar didn’t react, still pretending to be unconscious. “C’mon! I won’t fall for the same trick twice!”

  When Borodar didn’t answer, Morgan was tempted to just let another of his concussive arrows hit him, but he dismissed the idea. Borodar could genuinely be unconscious, and if he did shoot at him… Well, Morgan wasn’t about to do that to a friend.

  So, he approached slowly.

  “Borodar, buddy?” Morgan called as he got close to the man. And then Borodar moved—but this time, unlike the last time he did this to him, Morgan was ready. He activated his Phase Dash and phased through his friend as he was trying to tackle him. As soon as he unphased, Morgan turned, and let his arrow fly point blank. Borodar grunted as he took the arrow in the stomach and flew back, falling to the ground hard and rolling.

  “I told you I wouldn’t fall for that again!” Morgan yelled, and Borodar groaned from the ground as Morgan fired another tripvine arrow and had it tie him up. Seeing him trying to get out of it again made Morgan chuckle.

  Before Morgan had a chance to advance, the space between them bent and a man stepped out. Morgan stopped and lowered his bow, Klyn morphing back into the form of an arm. Azil glanced at them both, then nodded.

  “Morgan wins,” Azil said.

  Borodar groaned and Morgan reached out to the tripvine with his Phytokinesis releasing him.

  Azil watched them as they walked over to him. “Come. We should discuss your actions.” With that, the other ascended turned around and started walking, Morgan and Borodar sharing a glance before following behind him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Less than half an hour later, Morgan was sitting at a wooden table behind a medium-sized cabin. They were close to the town of Heddos, which was Azil’s home. Across from him sat Borodar, with Clara standing next to him, her hands hovering over his shoulder, healing his wounds. The other people present were Vrshar, a Gnoll, and Hexna, a human, who were part of Borodar’s adventuring team—the Last Vanguard. The rest of their team was half a world away dungeon diving along with the rest of Morgan’s team.

  Borodar’s Last Vanguard and Morgan’s Sky Force had both participated in the tournament organized by two Great Guilds in order to find teams that they would take with them into the Tower of Power. Both Morgan’s and Borodar’s teams had secured a place in the raid, and in about a month’s time they would present themselves to the Great Guilds for training. The Great Guilds that were organizing the Tower climb intended to create a formidable team that would climb to the top, a feat that no one had ever achieved—as far as anyone was aware, that was. No one had ever returned from beyond the third floor of the Tower, and the two Great Guilds, the Erthirium Riders Guild and the Call Guild, intended to be the first.

  After the end of the tournament the teams that had been chosen had been given five months’ time to put their affairs in order before reporting to the Great Guilds for training. Borodar and his team didn’t have much work to take care of; they were a part of a guild, but they weren’t its leaders, and so when Morgan asked for them to come to Skyreach with them, they agreed. That was four months ago, and since then both teams had been training with Azil. The silver-haired man was powerful, over level forty, and Morgan had managed to convince him to teach them all, because while they knew that they would get training from the Great Guilds, neither team wanted to come to them lacking. It was a matter of pride; they were chosen, and so they wanted to present their best selves. Since then, they had been alternating between training with Azil and doing dungeons all over the world.

  Morgan hadn’t really realized what reaching level thirty meant, but compared to the great majority of the ascended, they were in the top. Ascending was dangerous—only a small percentage of those who tried to ascend actually succeeded, and of those that did manage to ascend, a large number died every day. To keep living as an ascended, one was required to ingest ascension crystals that dropped from monsters in order to live. Every ascended had a timer, a countdown, that showed them how much time they still had to live. Ingesting ascension crystals extended that time. To survive, ascended had to hunt monsters, but the more ascension crystals of the same grade an ascended ingested, the less time those ascension crystals gave them. That forced ascended to hunt stronger and stronger monsters if they wanted to live. But, like in anything else, people had found ways to abuse that. Guilds had people who didn’t hunt, who were supported by the guild as long as they were useful, and there were services that one could provide without hunting. The smaller level someone was, the more time
they got from higher grade crystals, letting them live longer, too.

  Level thirty was high. People on such a level were considered incredibly powerful, it was where most adventurers retired. Morgan understood how that was possible. With all the ascension crystals that Sky Force had acquired, the five of them could’ve lived for another fifty years easily—but Morgan and the others sent back most of their crystals to support people in their guild, so Morgan had about five years on his timer currently. Still, he didn’t plan on stopping. He wanted to climb the Tower, to reach its end, because he knew the purpose behind this world, why it was created and why those systems existed. Oxylus, also known as the Great Lord, the being who had created this world and everything in it, was in fact Morgan’s father. Morgan still didn’t know how to feel about that, and in fact he tried really hard not to think about it. Nonetheless, his father wanted warriors, powerful people to serve as his army. The Tower was a test to find people worthy enough to be soldiers for a being that might as well be a god.

  He knew that this world was a…disappointment in some aspects. Few wanted to risk their lives, and of those that did, fewer still managed to reach high levels. The highest level in the world was said to be just above sixty, and those were the leaders of the Great Guilds. People who were that strong didn’t often care enough to try and get stronger—they had wealth which equaled life in this world, and had no need to risk themselves. No one had attempted to climb the Tower beyond the third floor in years. The raid that they were to be a part of was the first such undertaking in a long time. The Great Guilds hadn’t been able to gather enough powerful people to climb with, so they’d had to resort to finding lower-leveled people like Morgan and his team, who they could power level to a suitable degree of power. Morgan wondered just what the Great Guilds intended to do with them all, how they were going to train them for the Tower, but he knew that they would find out soon enough.

  Clara pulled her hands back from Borodar’s shoulder, and the man rolled his arm around, testing it out. “That’s great, Clara. You are much better than Jelara,” Borodar said as he grinned at the orc woman. Clara rolled her eyes and walked over to the other side of the table to sit next to Morgan.

  Azil clapped his hands and put a small box-shaped device on the table, then placed a larger round crystal ball over it. A moment after, the ball flashed and then it was filled with images of a forest. It was an FV, or farsight vision, something akin to a television on Earth. It had been used during the tournament to record and broadcast the fights all over the world, and it was a new invention devised by the Grand Mage Ta’elara, leader of the Magical Academy and one of the most powerful people in this world. Morgan had met her at the party held for the winners of the tournament, and she had shown some interest in Morgan—or rather his arm. She had invited him to the academy, having wanted to know how he had created Klyn. He had declined to reveal the exact process, and she had offered him great wealth if he ever changed his mind.

  The FV had come to his guild a few months ago, a gift for him from Ta’elara, along with a short message. She wanted him to visit her before he went to the Tower. Morgan was a bit intimidated by the woman, and he had yet to decide what to do, but the FV had come in handy, had helped Azil train them better. With it, he could record their contests from afar, and record them for later viewing and discussion.

  Which was what they were doing now.

  Everyone at the table watched the fight from the beginning, without saying anything. After it was finished, Azil spoke up. “Thoughts?”

  Borodar leaned forward, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “I lack a sensory skill. I couldn’t find him at all until he started firing.”

  Azil nodded. “You are a front-line warrior. Your strengths lie in a different direction. But it is important for you to understand your weakness, as well as to know the strength of your enemy. As you have seen, Morgan is at home in the forest; he could track you, and his powers allow him to quickly change positions. His long-range attacks are powerful, and his utility is high.”

  “So, I should try to get some detection skills?” Borodar asked.

  Azil looked around the table at everyone in turn. “As adventurers, you will rarely be on your own. A good team covers for each member’s weaknesses and enhances each member’s strengths. So no, you should not get detection skills. I believe that I have explained to you exactly why focus is so important for ascended. Many things factor into the outcome of a battle, and out of the three bouts you and Morgan had, you won two of them, did you not?”

  Borodar glanced at Morgan and nodded. To be fair, the other two duels they’d had were both much more favorable for Borodar. One was just a straight-up fight one on one, in a small arena, and the other was a king of the hill challenge. Neither scenario gave any opportunities for Morgan to shine.

  Morgan had trimmed his skills and abilities, streamlined his kit a bit. He had always used whatever worked, which had made his skills and abilities range wide. Now, he had focused on control and ranged combat. He returned to using a bow, because with Klyn he didn’t need to carry one all the time. With his launcher he could fire a variety of grenades with different contents. He had smoke bombs filled with flammable gas, with poisonous gas, as well as ones filled with acid and a variety of other things. The reason for the launcher was simple: it allowed him to launch larger grenades further away. He had some arrow with small canisters at the tip, but those were all both smaller as well as more difficult to carry. He couldn’t have many of them on his person because they took up a lot of space, and he needed that space for his regular arrows. He did have some in his storage ring, but getting those out in combat situations wasn’t wise—it required focus and he couldn’t risk not being able to get to what he wanted in a bad situation. He could have Klyn create arrows, of course, but every arrow he made reduced Klyn’s mass, and he needed to consume something to get it back unless he used Mass Transfer, but he couldn’t always do that, and it was only temporary. His fighting style had solidified as a result of Azil’s instruction and guidance. Morgan’s place in his team had become that of support and ranged DPS. He had a few abilities that could deal a lot of damage, like his phased shots, but they required setup as well as a moderate amount of energy.

  It wasn’t as if he’d changed his combat style all that much. Instead of throwing orbs with transfered mass, he fired arrows. He’d abandoned his one-handed crossbow for the bow and his hand-thrown grenades for the launcher. He had mostly abandoned directly manipulating plants as a way of dealing damage though he still had specialty arrows that replaced his pouches filled with plants, like his tripvine arrow. Using his unique plants in combat was too energy and focus expensive, and it required him to stand still and focus on what he was doing. He still experimented with plants and had perfected new types that he used in battle, but most of them he now utilized through his arrows and grenades. The rest he grew for the purpose of materials for his grenades.

  With Klyn he had good melee capabilities, but he was not up to par with those who focused in that direction like Borodar. But also, as this last bout proved, he could take him down, just by maintaining distance and utilizing his strengths. That was what Azil had been teaching them: how to utilize their own strengths best in different scenarios. And Morgan had to admit that his lessons were important. Both of their teams were strong, they wouldn’t have been chosen by the Great Guilds otherwise, but they needed to be more than just that. They needed to be the best if they were to survive the Tower.

  That was why Morgan and the others had followed Azil’s advice to trim down on their skills. Respec stones cost a fortune, but all of them had gotten additional funds from the Great Guilds prior to leaving. Removing a skill gave some points back, even if you didn’t upgrade the skill but just leveled it through training, but only about half of the level’s worth. Azil had once cautioned Morgan against using those points to upgrade skills, as he had said that it wasn’t as good as actually training a skill up, but he had suggested that they do so now. Going to the Tower was going to be dangerous and they needed all the help they could get. Morgan still hadn’t put all of his points in—he was planning on purchasing some new ones after he saw what the training from the Great Guilds entailed, and the others were doing the same.