Chapter 4

"Hey what skill did you get?" asked Emily looking at me with a curious expression.

"Why?... Can't you see my status window?"

"Nope, apparently only the player himself can view their own status window"

I see…. So players cannot see the stats of other players…..This was probably a system put in place by the Tower in order to ensure the privacy of the players as well as to ensure fairness when climbing the tower because after all, if a person knew the skills of another person, then they might be able to attack the player based on the information by targeting the weakness of the skill itself. It would seem that the Tower itself was quite an intelligent entity.

"My skill is Hearing enhancement… basically I hear things better than others. It is a common tier skill."

Yes, I lied, but that was the most sensible thing to do because she was a complete stranger and I believe that it is always smart to hide your best cards especially when dealing with someone who might potentially become your enemy in the future.

"So, what skill do you have?" I asked her.

She hesitated for a second before responding"

"I have the deceiver skill. It tells me when a person is telling the truth however since my mastery is extremely low, I only occasionally receive hints when a person is lying. It is a rare skill."

I had a strange feeling that she was lying and as someone who always trusted their instincts, my best bet would be to only trust in myself. Plus if she really did possess the deceiver skill then she would have already realized that I lied to her making her wary of me as well so best to be cautious either way with her.

Compiling the information of what she had said and the information on my status window, the only reliable information that I was able to derive was that the mastery level affected how accurate or powerful a skill is and hence higher the mastery, the more powerful and efficient a skill is and vice versa and hence one of my priorities would be to increase the mastery of my skills but the problem was how does a person do that?

 My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a notification ping from my status window only to see the alert below:

{YOU HAVE USED YOUR INTUITUION AND YOUR DETECTIVE INTELIGENCE TO DISCERN THE LIE FROM THE TRUTH}

{INTELIGENCE HAS INCREASED BY 3}

{INTELIGENCE 13 16}

It would seem that I was correct, Emily had lied to me after all. Although it was a pleasant feeling to be right, it was heart wrenching to know that the first person whom I had considered to be a potential VALUABLE FRIEND would do something as wretched as deceiving me. I am a person who believes in the avoiding of mistakes already committed and hence I became a fan of history when I was alive. This was because I believed that some of the most greatest mistakes were already listed in history books especially in events such as World War I,II, and III, the French revolution as well as religious history such as the crucifixion of Jesus or the Death of Samson and one of the greatest mistakes that I had come to discover over time as a fan of history is the invention of lies.

Lies, I believed, were the children of evil and were some of the greatest contributors of death and destruction in history as old as time itself such as when the devil lied to Eve, causing her to eat the forbidden fruit or in Islam when Isa was betrayed Yahuza al-Iskhriyuti which later led to Isla's crucifixion and the suicide of Yahuza himself through hanging. Joan of Arc was also forced to lie by signing a confession that she never received divine guidance which later led to her death by burning. In front of all of this atrocious evidence, I had without realizing it, come to abhor lies in my life and even now, my hatred of lies burned deep inside me. Sigh….I know…I'm a hypocrite..but so what! I'm allowed to feel and do as I please even if it goes against my own self-taught ethics J …..

That being said, I suppressed my feelings on the matter because I did not want to alert Emily of my thoughts on the matter. So I simply smiled and said "That's pretty cool, you got rare skill. Wish I got one." To which she replied, "It's fine, I'm sure you will get better skills later on."

A hum resonated in my head as an emotionless, almost robotic voice announced in my head.

{DUE TO THE RECEIVAL OF YOUR SKILLS, YOU WILL NOW BE TELEPORTED TO THE TUTORIAL STAGE OF THE TOWER. GOOD LUCK!}

Judging by the expressions of the other participants, it would seem that I was not the only person to hear the voice in my head. This was the voice of the tower itself alerting us of what was happening.

"Well, that's that I guess, good luck and may we meet again". The participants turned their attention towards Zeus who was slowly fading away. His body growing more transparent as each second passed while a dim light shone from his body. To my surprise, he turned towards me and looked at me with a face full of pity which scared me a little before vanishing completely.

The whole room seemed to vanish into and out of existence as the floor trembled. I could only hear the confused voices of the participants which were getting muffled as each second passed. As my vision blurred, I caught a faint glimpse of Emily, who I now realized had been holding onto me, being pulled away from me by what seemed to be ... a shadow? and as her screams rang in my ears, I shut my eyes and the lost consciousness as the world faded away.