Tower of Origin - Book 1 - Chapter 4 - Manor (Patreon)

                                                                          Blake Artorius
                                                       Year 6137 | Month 11 | Day 1
                                                                      Half an hour later

I look at my reflection in the glass of the token gambling game of the arcade to see if there’s anything different about my appearance since before awakening as a Chrono.

Besides the Chrono eye of course.

But in the end, there really isn’t all that much different. I’m still the same short height, with the same short black hair, the same blue eye opposite to the Chrono one, and the same blank and seemingly emotionless expression on my face.

I frown slightly before looking around for a second and pulling up the eyepatch to look at my Chrono eye in my reflection.

Not entirely sure why I didn’t do this while I was at the hospital, where there were actual mirrors, but I think it was because I didn’t really care at the time. Not when I constantly had doctors and officers badgering me with annoying shit.

Anyways, the eye itself is just a ball of pure white energy, with some of the energy occasionally trying to leave the eye socket, only to be drawn back in again not long after.

The first thought that comes to my mind when I see it is that it looks kind of pure. Which is odd considering that it’s my eye.

It’s just pure irony at its finest.

I shake my head at the thought before lowering the eyepatch again once the arcade game in front of me makes a ringing sound, indicating that I won something. When I look down at it, I find the words ‘Jackpot’ flashing at the end of the machine.

Huh… that’s kind of surprising.

My thoughts are interrupted as I hear the voices within the arcade begin to quiet down.

I turn away from the machine to find everyone in the arcade staring at the entrance, and when I turn to the entrance myself, I find Diane standing there staring at me in her director’s uniform with a frown and her crimson Chrono eye flaring for everyone to see. She has both of her hands held against her hips and seems like she’s about to go into some sort of lecture, but I turn away from her to instead kneel in front of the arcade machine while moving my token bucket to gather the tokens that are falling into the section at the bottom of the machine.

After a couple of seconds of gathering my tokens, I hear footsteps begin to echo through the dead-silent arcade – with the exception of my own actions – along with a faint sigh coming from Diane’s direction.

“You couldn’t have just waited for ten minutes?” Diane asks as I see her boots stop right in front of me before she kneels down and begins helping me gather my tokens.

“No,” I answer rather bluntly, causing her to pause for a second before chuckling and finishing helping me with my tokens.

Once we both finish and stand up straight again, I notice the various people in the room beginning to whisper amongst themselves while sending us glances from time to time.

“Isn’t that the CRD’s Director?” “It’s the Avenger! I can’t believe I got to see them in person!!” “A Chrono…?!”

The majority of the voices sound like fanboys and girls, but there are still a few people that are obviously afraid of the Chrono in their midst. Which is the exact reason why I am hiding my Chrono eye in the first place.

When I turn back to Diane, I find her standing there staring at me with a faint smirk on her face.

My lips twitch slightly in my irritation before I ignore her to approach the counter.

“I never understood why you were always so big on arcade games,” Diane begins speaking as we’re walking, “especially considering how anti-social you are.”

I simply shrug in response without stopping.

If I’m being honest, I don’t really know why I like arcades either. And it’s not really just the games themselves that I like. It’s going to the arcade itself.

It’s weird. I hate being in crowds, but arcades for some reason feel a little calming.

Just the fact that everyone here – excluding the people just using it as a hang out, or those working here – are here to play games, mixed with the music and the games themselves…

It’s just nice.

No other reasoning for it, and definitely not one that I have to explain to someone else much less myself.

At least I get to play games in my sleep from now on while being paid for it. Even if I have to deal with people watching me play. And that’s not even mentioning the pretty damn high chances of death in a lot of those games, specifically the Mid and Top Ranked Games.

That said, I am absolutely using the anonymous filter for my games, because having everyone know my name along with my face and title would be annoying as hell.

With the filter on, they would only know my title and face, so everyone would only know me as Zero.

Which is a rather fitting title for me if I’m being honest.

Not that I would admit that to Diane. Not unless I want to be popped in the head.

Once I get to the trade-in counter, I lift the bucket of tokens and place it on the counter before stating, “Trading in.”

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                                                                           Blake Artorius
                                                       Year 6137 | Month 11 | Day 1
                                                                       A few hours later

“Okay, we have a little over an hour before the Hour of Origin,” Diane says as we pull into the driveway of a rather large house, “so I will explain as we walk.”

Walk… where?

Is this her house?

Weren’t we living in a much… cheaper… home?

“Oh, but before we get to that,” she continues after parking the car and opening the door with a glance back towards where I’m sitting in the passenger seat, “welcome to our home!”

I step out of the vehicle before staring blankly at the large building, only looking down again once Diane tosses her keys to a man in a tuxedo.

Wait, do we have a butler now…?

Diane chuckles at my reaction before waving at me and starting towards the expensive looking double front doors.

“Of course, I’ll be going with you to the Tower of Origin and showing you around inside as well,” she begins again as I start following after her, “but I still want to fill you in as much as possible about being a Chrono before we’re drawn into the tower.”

I simply nod my head after I catch up, prompting her to continue, “First things first, some of these things you might already know, while others you might not either know or remember. So I’ll just go over everything just in case.”

Deciding that it would be better that way, I nod my head again to show my agreement.

“Since I didn’t get into what MVCs are earlier, I’ll go ahead and get into that now,” she says before grabbing the handle to one of the double doors. The door itself beeps and a strange red light flashes from the doorknob, followed by a camera on the side of the wall next to the doors activating and recording us.

After what I’m assuming is the security system is confident that she’s Diane, I hear a clicking noise come from the door as it unlocks itself, allowing Diane to simply pull it open and continue in while speaking, “The species that was assigned by Chronos to be the hosts for the games is called the Keepers, and each host has the ability to name one MVC in their career, which stands for Most Valuable Chrono. When someone is named an MVC, they gain several benefits which include priority choice for games, discounts on everything in the Tower of Origin, and a 2x multiplier for all game rewards earned for winning games in the Tower.”

As she’s talking, I look around at the interior to the fancy house. It’s a very modern-looking house, with – if the security system is anything to go by – a high level of technology mixed in.

The entryway is in the form of a short hallway leading to a large entrance hall, with a rather sizeable staircase in the center and two more hallways on either side, and another hallway to the right of the entrance.

“Since the Tower of Origin itself should describe the basics to you in your brief introduction that you’ll be having later, I’ll just continue to talk about the stuff that won’t be in that,” she says while taking part of her military uniform off, leaving her in a simple white top and military jeans before she hands the part she took off to some maid that I suddenly walks around the corner, “you’ll instantly fall unconscious no matter where you are once it reaches the Hour of Origin, which is also known as midnight. After this happens, your body here in Arkea will turn transparent, keeping it safe from any damage and other people’s meddling, while your mind will move into a copy of your body in the Tower of Origin.”

I continue to look around the large entry hall before focusing on the maid, who immediately bows once I leave the short hallway.

This place might take some time to get used to. Assuming I don’t just go with that idea I had earlier to avoid the politics of the Chrono by moving to a dark plane.

“I think I mentioned this at the hospital, but you have ten Time Arcs, and every time you die or don’t fulfil your required attended games for a month, you lose one Time Arc, which will also decrease your overall power by ten percent,” she continues as she walks up the stairs at the center of the room with me following not too far behind her, “and if you lose all ten Time Arcs, then the Tower will kill off your body in Arkea as well.”

Once she gets to the top of the stairs, she pauses and glances at me, “And I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you this, but if you die on Arkea, then you die. No retries, regardless of if you have Time Arcs or not.”

I blankly stare at her before turning my head to look at the second floor of the entrance hall.

“As for the Chaos and Order factions?” she continues while turning towards the right side of the entrance hall’s second floor balcony, “The Chaos faction is constantly changing leaders, with anyone being able to take charge as long as they kill the previous leader, while the Order faction is extremely stiff in its leadership and only having a single leader in each plane, with their overall leader being their faction’s founder. Their tendencies tend to follow their faction names rather bluntly, with the Chaos faction being relatively free, with its members only having to do stuff when asked, and the Order faction being extremely strict and having monthly requirements for their members.”

She suddenly pauses as we reach a hallway before turning to look at me and saying, “Try not to piss off the Order faction, because they despise both of the other factions, with a particular hatred towards unstable factors.”

I nod my head, prompting her to turn around and start walking through the hallway.

“Obviously, the Neutral faction is neutral and doesn’t require any of its members to do anything. It’s – for the most part – just a faction people join when they don’t want to have any responsibility or any part in the Chrono politics, not that it keeps them completely out of it. The faction is guarded by five leaders in each plane, with five grand leaders overall for all of Arkea, and they are what is keeping the other two factions from forcing the Neutral faction’s members into their own factions,” Diane says before stopping front of a room and saying, “This’ll be your room by the way.”

She then opens the door and walks in.

I walk in afterwards before my mouth parts slightly in surprise at how large the room is.

Although I should have expected it, considering how large the rest of the house is.

“Before you ask, I ended up getting a pretty big raise in my income after becoming a Tier 3 Chrono and starting to fight in Top Ranked Games every few days,” she says with a smirk on her face at the sight of my own.

I close my mouth before nodding my head.

That makes sense when I really think about it.

Not to mention that she’s the director of Faust’s – the plane we’re living in – CRD. And that must pay quite a bit as well.

Diane glances at her watch before grabbing my arm and pulling me with her as she says, “Anyways, we have some more time, so let’s do a very brief tour of the manor before entering the Tower.”