When Aaron opened his eyes he found himself in a cave like tunnel. The walls of rock were covered in glowing moss and the floor had mushrooms with an incandescent glow that illuminated the rest of the tunnel.
"Just like how it was described."
Aaron's love for the book overwrote his sense of fear and allowed him to feel excited for the story that he read everyday.
[Welcome to the Tower, the challenger is required to go through a tutorial before becoming a 'Climber'.]
[Please select a weapon -
Sword, Spear, Axe, Staff, Bow, ....]
The list felt never ending, but Aaron knew a secret about the selection. At the bottom of the list there is an option for [Random Weapon]. This was a option that even the MC of novel didn't choose but the author revealed it late into the novel through a powerful character that used the reward to become as strong as the MC.
Clicking on the random weapon option he was met with a ping and another screen.
[Random Weapon Selected - Bonus: 10 Gold]
Since the tower is a grueling place it makes its rewards for hidden options and secrets very lucrative, because of this harder options usually result in a bonus. Although the bonus for his weapon choice might not seem like a lot because of a tutorial shop it allows him to purchase a useful skill that is unobtainable after the tutorial.
[Please proceed through the Tutorial.]
Once he read the screen he started to walk down the cave, luckily he knew the order in which the tutorial went which would help him survive.
After a minute he reached a section of flooring that was littered with small iron strips on the walls, with holes in the center.
This trapped section is the wake up call for everyone who starts the tutorial.
The floor of the trapped part was made of cobblestone that was uneven. Underneath some of the stones are triggers that activate the spear trap. Since the first set of spears were chest height he decided to lean back and use his foot to press down on the rocks until he found the right stone.
Click
Whizz
Out of reflex Aaron closed his eyes and when he opened them again he found a row of spears just in front of him. Using the information from TAFW he knew that only one stone activated a set of spikes. The problem was that the MC of the novel was already fast enough to just run through the trap without getting touched.
Moving to the end of the first row he was met with distraught as the second row was a double trap with one spear aimed at the head and another at the legs leaving jumping over or crouching under out of the equation. His best idea was to jump over the part and land just before the next set, except if he were to fail he would have to evade three more sections of traps before being able to stop.
Ultimately deciding that it was pretty much his only course of action he went ahead and jumped across landing on the middle between the next trap, but only for a second.
Losing his footing he spun around and fell on his back luckily avoiding the two overhead spear traps, but he kept rolling and was already past the fourth trapped section luckily not triggering it which would have killed him instantly.
When he stopped rolling he as in the middle of the 5th trap and as he heard the rock click he knew that he might be dead and when he opened his eyes he was fortunate to see that the last trap was meant to be an army crawl which he was already in position for.
After a short shimmy crawl he made it out the other side and was greeted with another message from the system.
[You have completed the trap trial of the Tutorial. This was to prepare you for the traps that are always around the floors of the Tower.]
[To prepare for the next trial think of the word 'System' in your mind.]
This was the part that most excited Aaron.
'System'
The screen popped up in front of him.
[Status] [Equipment] [Inventory]
[Name: Aaron Invictus]
[Race: Human]
[Tier: Bronze]
[Rank: 10]
The opening screen of the system shows generic information, but the tabs are where the real information is at.
Clicking on [Status] the screen changed
[Class: None]
________________
[Stats]
[Endurance: 1]
[Strength: 1]
[Mana: 1]
________________
[Innate Skill: Golem Creation]
[Skills: None]
Seeing his status he was confused about his skills section. In the novel skills had to be obtained through effort or as rewards. Its name alone is to vague of a way to decipher its application, but he decided to ignore it for the time being as skills are either usable right away or activate under certain conditions. There were no innate skills leaving him lost on its use, the only outlier was the final boss of the novel as it used powers completely separate and unobtainable from the Tower.
Clicking on the last option he opened his inventory and found a singular item in it, that being his random weapon, a flail. He was fortunate that he didn't get a magic staff or wand as he wouldn't be able to use them.
Tapping on the flail's icon in his inventory options popped up to equip and discard, hitting equip he closed the system and waited for it's next message.
[Now that you have equipped a weapon all you need to do to summon it is to think about it.]
Doing as the system said he found that flail appeared in his hand.
Clang!
The flail was too heavy for Aaron to hold properly and it fell to the ground, not wanting to carry it around he unsummoned it.
[Proceed with the Tutorial.]
Aaron knew what the next trial was, Combat. He would have to defeat a goblin to proceed through the tutorial. Only problem was that these goblins weren't weak. The MC only beat it because he his stats were already at 5 each when he started giving him a easy start.
It didn't take a long time of walking before Aaron saw his target.
[Defeat the goblin.]