Nearly an hour had passed since he'd woken up.
Deacon remained on the floor, unmoving, eyes locked on nothing, watching the dust settle beneath his bed frame. Digesting the knowledge that his father was alive and so was his mother, at least according to his father, she was.
And in order to reach the both of them, I need to escape the Tower…
Eventually, breath began to return to a steady rhythm. He rubbed his face with both hands, dragging his palms down hard, like he could scrape the exhaustion out of his bones.
"What a… great way to start both my birthday and the day when I begin to climb the Tower," he muttered.
Deacon let out a breath through his teeth and pushed himself up, hands pressed to the floorboards that were somehow still slick with his sweat. His shoulders popped in protest, muscles stiff and aching - his back worst of all from that tumble earlier. The adrenaline was gone now, drained from his system, leaving nothing but the lingering sting of panic and a dull, empty throb in his chest.
He stood, slowly.
The cabin was a mess.
His leather armor lay strewn across the floor, along with empty sheaths, pouches, daggers, potion vials, needles, and short swords – all scattered from the night before, when he'd torn them off without thinking. Some of it formed a loose trail leading toward the cabin's entrance.
Piece by piece, he gathered his gear. He strapped on the leather armor he'd spent a year and a half saving for. Each blade and needle was inspected before being sheathed and returned to its proper pouch.
He secured the pouches to his belt and thigh holsters, then double-checked their contents to make sure nothing had slipped out from the night before. The pouches at his waist held: salts, dried herbs, a small whetstone, and extra coin, just as he'd packed them. While the ones strapped to his left thigh carried his needles, potion vials, and a spool of wire.
"I really need a Pouch of Holding," Deacon muttered to himself as he closed the pouch that contained his spool of wire.
Reaching for his snake pendant that rested atop his leather breastplate, Deacon lifted it to his face and stared at his pendant inquisitively.
I can't remember a time when I wasn't wearing this pendant - pretty sure I had this on me from the moment I was born... Not to mention, it was one of the first things the academy inspected after I was effectively kidnapped by them. Even under their scouring skills and identifier tools, all they found was that it was a mundane pendant made out of silver.
So, with that in mind, how was it able to do what it did an hour ago?
An answer did not come.
He stared at it for a long moment longer before he slipped it beneath his leather chestpiece and let it rest against his skin, just above his heart.
Then he turned.
His eyes roamed over the cabin in silence as memories played themselves in his mind.
The table beside the sofa he "helped" create with his father, the hearth where he would watch his father cook dinner for the both of them, the markings on his bedroom door frame, and many other memories played themselves in his mind as he took in the cabin for potentially the very last time.
Then he opened the door.
The forest greeted him, damp and shadowed beneath an overcast sky. The black-pine trees stretched endlessly in every direction.
Above the tree line were seven massive, interconnected towers that loomed off in the distance. Upon glancing up at them, he knew which direction he needed to head toward.
Closing the cabin door behind him, Deacon headed toward the academy.
***
The gates of the Academy of Beginnings loomed over Deacon's five-foot-ten frame, filling him with anticipation as he knew that this was probably the last time he would ever pass through these gates.
Deacon stood just before the threshold, staring up. The gates were wide open, groaning like they always did when the wind pushed against them.
He took in the sight of the academy entrance, potentially for the last time, before he would begin climbing to the top of the Tower.
Slowly, he let his eyes trace over what lay past the gates: the familiar cracked stone paths, the sprawl of similarly colored buildings decorated in posters and graffiti. The air smelled of wet moss, sweat, and a small hint of mint.
It hadn't changed. Not in the eight years since he'd been dumped here in binds by the Tier 2 Enforcers who found him beyond his cabin's borders, out hunting for food after a month and a half had passed with no sign of his father returning from his Tower climb.
If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't sure why he wasn't losing his mind after everything that had happened – the revelation of both his mother and father being alive and almost dying to a man made out of ice and shadow. It should be overwhelming him right now.
But, as normal, every breath he took buried the panic and fear deeper inside him, smothering the most overwhelming emotions that suddenly took hold of him. Just like it always had.
But somehow, this moment felt like it should've been different. That he should have been spazzing out and crying for far longer than he had.
But he hadn't. Was it because of the anticipation he felt? Was it simply too overwhelming for him, and he subconsciously locked it away when he passed out?
His boots left the slate sidewalk and onto the marble floor as he stepped inside the Hall of Classes and began to make his way toward the center of the hall, where he had been instructed to stand and wait for his name to be called in order to receive his Class Crystal.
As he walked down the hall, whispers found their way into his ears – some from cadet to cadet, instructor, and other teachers. Some chatting with one another, some sleeping, some pacing like they were about to meet a Floor Boss.
He caught glimpses of familiar faces.
Jass was nursing her head from what looked to be one massive hangover and cooling the right side of her head with the blade of her glaive. Bonehead wasn't far from her, trying to look mysterious while balancing a knife on one finger and trying too hard not to stare at her and every other girl in the hall who showed off their midriff.
Esmerelda spun slow circles in her bare feet near the fountain, whispering to the "spirits" around her. And Sam, the golden boy of their group, staff at the ready, sharp-eyed, already dressed in his wizard robes, stood talking to an instructor. Judging by the look the instructor gave him, he was on Sam's father's payroll.
Deacon didn't stop for any of them.
While weaving through the crowd of his graduating year, Deacon let his thoughts drift.
The Academy of Beginnings, his prison for the last eight years, had been founded 270 years ago, which was forty years after everyone on Earth suddenly found themselves within Floor 0 of the Tower.
That's what the books claimed, anyway.
Supposedly, during that time, there were over eight billion people within Floor 0. It was absurd to even think about considering the current population of the Tower numbered less than twenty million.
His eyes caught onto one of the Class Z cadets, a girl with dirty green hair clutching her history book to her chest.
History Class was his second favorite class due to the bullshit material being taught in it. The whole point of the class was to explain the history of a world called Earth, where they had come from prior to being in the Tower.
Earth was some spinning sphere that floated through a void, around a sun they claimed wasn't fire but "a ball of gas." It also said that people flew… in manaless machines… out past the sky.
They built ships to explore something called the cosmos, where other "planets" like Earth existed within.
Deacon shook his head in amusement, the corner of his mouth turning into a smirk. "Complete BS," he muttered under his breath. "The sky is solid. You can't go through it."
He'd seen his father throw his rubber ball at it and had seen it bounce off the sky and back into his father's outstretched palm. Even the birds knew about the sky being a ceiling, as he never saw them hit their heads on it.
No one looked up at him as they were too busy with their own nerves and whispering in their heads about what Class they'd get today.
Back to the point, he reminded himself, ducking beneath a stone arch lined with flickering oil lamps.
In the early days, back when anyone who turned sixteen were able to choose their Tier 1 Class without the aid of a Class Crystal – lucky fucks, but the core structure was the same. There were three main Archetypes to choose from: Combat, Support, or Production.
For most people, magical variants of those Classes only became available after they had evolved their Classes and reached Tier 2. Only a rare few were able to choose magic-focused Archetypes right from the start – individuals who had been channeling mana long before they were pulled into the Tower.
They came in all forms: witches, wizards, vampires, dryads, humans, dwarves, and the like, all of whom had lived in secrecy on Earth. But with the skill Identify that everyone received upon unlocking a Class, any hope of blending in with the crowd vanished.
According to the textbooks, back then, they made up roughly 0.001% of the population at the time, around 80,000 people in total.
And naturally, once people realized that supernatural beings and mana-users had been living among them all along, hiding in plain sight, already able to control mana, they were hunted like the monsters they hunted on the Floors above.
And when they found out the trait could be inherited, that kids born from them could also use mana before they received their Class?
You didn't need a high Int stat to guess what happened next.
Experimentation, witch hunts, breeding farms, and the like.
Currently, nearly 78% of cadets at the Academy could use magic even before unlocking their Class.
Himself being one of the 78%.
His magic specialty being Fire magic.
Watching a cadet creating a couple of ice cubes inside his glass cup before chewing them, a recent memory resurfaced in his mind.
That bastard made of frost and shadow, Skalvorn, had said something before being blasted away by his father.
… Mattias was the youngest at three hundred years of age.
Deacon's boots came to a stop on the polished marble floor as he digested Skalvorn's words.
That couldn't be right. The oldest recorded lifespan in the Tower was 155 – a Tower Climber known as the Crimson Monk, who, when he was alive, extended his life by replacing his organs with other people's.
So, how the hell could his father be alive after three centuries?
His thoughts were interrupted as he passed a stone pillar engraved with the likeness of a woman: broad-shouldered, sharp-jawed, hair bound in thick braids of iron and gold.
Moriel Hill, one of the original founders of the Academy. A First-Generation Climber. One of the few who actually survived through Floors 1 to 10 back when everything was chaos and people were just as likely to kill you as the monsters.
Apparently, she and the others of her generation took to being a Tower Climber like a fish in water, were from a generation on Earth called Gen Z. Or some other similarly dumb name like that.
Honestly, the names they gave generations before the Tower…
With silent steps, Deacon slipped behind the base of the statue and popped open one of the hidden fridges built into the column. Similar fridges were scattered throughout the Academy – placed there for faculty to grab a quick bite while on duty. He knew of at least 87.
Inside: a nearly empty carton of milk, its surface slick with condensation, and a couple of sandwiches labeled Philly Steak stacked on a Styrofoam plate wrapped in clear plastic. A handwritten note below read: "Do not touch – saved for Enchanting Faculty."
Thank you, he smirked as he grabbed a Philly Steak sandwich and tore into it. As he chewed and reached halfway through the sandwich he paused and muttered under his breath:
"While I don't know what a Philly is... but whoever invented this sandwich? I pray that you are able to shower yourself in gold."