The Infinite Tower - [A Tower Climb Web Serial]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Climb. Die. Repeat.

The fate of those blessed by the Tower.

That is the path I’m on. When the Climber’s Mark appeared on my hand, it set me on this path.

I’m not a farmer, one chosen to harvest the bounty of the Tower that feeds our people. I’m not a miner who collects the resources from the Tower, to build our city. Nor am I a crafter, who takes the materials from the Tower, to create anything and everything the mind can imagine.

I’m a climber. One chosen to fight within the Tower, for our people, against the monsters and other dangers that exist within. Dangers that get even more deadly, even more varied, with every floor. For the higher you climb, the greater the risk, and the greater the reward.

I’ve trained since that day, since my tenth birthday, for this life. For eight years I’ve prepared to enter the tower and face its dangers. Today is that day. Today, I finally become a full-fledged Climber. Today is my first climb.

The only question is… what type of Climber do I want to be?

What to expect:

~ Written in the first person PoV

~ A fantasy world of sword and sorcery, inspired by games such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring

~ A world where every struggle, every death, can lead to greater strength

~ A world where the MC will fight, learn, and grow, with every hard earned step, to become stronger than he was the day before.

~A slow burn story that focuses on all aspects of a Climber's life, and follows the MC through not only perilous climbs, but navigating the day to day life of being one of the Tower's Chosen.

~ Nothing is set in stone. A true serial, with infinite potential and possibility. I’ve no intention of ever publishing this story outside of Royal Road. It’s purpose is to grow, just as the MC does, as he climbs higher and higher, facing new experiences, monsters, magics, and the likes. A truly infinite story, where creativity builds, using all the previous chapters, the world building, as steppingstones as we embark on this adventure, together.

Initial release timeline is one chapter a day for the next two weeks, will adjust after that. (At a minimum of three a week, no matter what).

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2024
Author: Glyax

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 1,466
Views: 539,535

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

DroidproRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far I am enjoying the book, interesting take on the tower climber genre.
Hopefully the main character decides what kind of climber they will be as the author asks at the end of every other chapter.
Mc is likeable, dialogue is good, looking forward to a good long series
LoktaiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I've been a huge fan of Glyax's previous work, and this is no different on that front. Some people may not appreciate the relatively slow burn compared to most tower/climber stories, but I like a good slow world-building start. I still have so many questions, like "how did we end up like this?" "Where is the Tower from?" "Why are humans living underground?" and I -love- the slow reveals we've gotten so far.
dragon723Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a really good story, with a well crafted narrative and world. It avoids the pitfalls of massive early growth and instead focuses a lot of effort on character interactions and making the early levels feel like they are worth exploring.
As for the style there is a strong sense of continuity both in characters and storywise. The characters also have a strong reason to enter the tower, namely that its a requirement for the survival of their town.
The story so far hasn't really been developed too much, we are on the early levels and still learning how the tower works and why good teamwork is critical in real life situations. While they may have trained for eight years, that doesn't matter much without combat experience.
Grammarwise there have been no issues so far. Either the author is very good at writing, has some awesome writing software or there is some pretty good betareaders. Or maybe its a combination of all three.
Characterwise I think the story does really well, from the petty washed out bullies to the mentor, all of them have a sense of purpose, a reason they exist in this world beyond driving the plot. The character relationships thus far have been decent, though I do miss a bit off an antagonistic character, an opposition for our intrepid heroes to struggle against.
KittyJinglesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I liked the early sense of mystery in the cave tower and the comraderie. Later chapters are mostly driven by relationships between people. The indecisive main character is pure and happy, but there's hints that not all is well, shown through things like his cynical best friend and the creepy jerk acrolytes. It's a nice read just from that worldbuilding aspect, but there's also some action sprinkled in.
There's no numbers going up (the actual stat numbers rarely appear and I personally like that boxes didn't clutter things.) Some may feel it's mislabled as progression. It's pretty slow, they're still in the first tower level (as of ch50) and pretty weak. They may start adventuring in the second level after ch60, or they might still be meeting people and gearing up, there's no rush.
It's not particularly dark (although the religion is suspicious). It's likely mislabled grimdark. Even if some reveal happens sometime after ch50, it's a mostly cozy slice of life adventure with hints of something sinister in the background. Don't go into it for angst or grim dystopia or grand hopeless odds or you'll be disappointed. Overall it's been a pretty chill slice of life story set in an oddly restrictive society.
The main character is competent for a recruit that has never experienced mud in his life, so don't expect him to be a perfect killer. There's chatty friends and exploration, read it for that
Don't read it for progression or leveling or fast tight pacing. Expect a long, laid back, day to day exploration of "What kind of Climber do you want to be?"
harkanomRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Could be good, but the pace is too slow and there is a lot of inconsistencies.
32 chapters in, the MC is still level 3 (went directly from 0 to 3), in the first level of the tower.
Despite being trained for 8 years to prepare them for climbing the tower as adventurers, the MC still doesn't know anything about the working of the tower nor the system.
StillnessRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
The story is slow which I don’t mind as much as some other reviewers. There is a lot of world building that the author is trying to get to in a natural way and that takes time.
I’d say the problem is that it isn’t interesting enough. The main character doesn’t really know anything about the society he lives in, which means I have no reasons to care. I’m still curious and I’m sure the author is going to try and introduce aspects of the world to the reader along with the MC, but I can only hope for answers so long.
I’d like to know why climbing the tower is important. There is just something to the story that rings hollow so far.
UnaSalusVictusRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
I kept coming back to this story week after week, but I couldn’t figure out why I was gradually losing interest. The world-building is good and interesting. The characters are okay, even if they all feel pretty similar.
After some thought, I came up with what I think is missing, and I identified three things, which are somewhat related.
First is a sense of conflict. Yes, there’s fighting against the monsters in the tower, but there’s no overarching conflict. With no perma-death, there’s no sense of consequences and thus no stakes and thus no conflict.
Second is a strong sense of progress, which I think is tied to my first point. Progress can be made by gaining floors or levels, but in the first 75 chapters, the progression is really slow. The problem with this is that higher floors should be even more difficult, which means it will require even more chapters to finish those floors.
The third thing that’s missing, and this may be subjective, is a sense that the main character is going through something special or unique. We get the sense that he’s just an average climber with no exciting circumstances. The tower is a new world for us to explore, but I just don’t get anything that makes the MC spectacular. I’m missing “The Call” or something to put him on “The Quest”. It also isn’t a rags-to-riches story. I guess I don’t have any sense of the MC going somewhere special in his own world, so I lose the drive to invest in him.
KenrioRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
I started reading this because the synopses give a picture of a ever growing mc. The reviews too praised this fic to the sky. But not one mentioned the obvious weakness that don't even have a tag or warning by how slow paced this is. In 50 chapters mc growth is praticaly inexistent, diferentof what author make us be live in the synopses about a mc that everyday he is better than the previus him. My god not even the amazing writing style can make me like this too much. And without a doubt I don't want to waste 300 chaoter to see mc reach his first boss or reaching the double digits levels.
poutchou_uRoyal Road
★★ 1.5
1- Il ne passe rien d'intéressant
2- le personnage principal n'a pas d'âme ou de personnalité, son meilleur ami aurait fait meilleur protagonistes
3- l'auteur n'aimes clairement pas les litrpg, parce que ce qu'il à écrit n'en ai pas un ( et ce n'est même pas parce qu'il refuse d'afficher l'écran de statut du prota, donner moi une raison pour ne pas utiliser le principal trope du genre que tu écris ) l'évolution ici est caractérisée par l'acquisition d'âme et non par une monté de niveau
3- l'auteur écrit très bien on sent qu'il a du potentiel mais, dieu qu'il écrit lentement
4- il se passe quelque chose mais on se pas, il semble que cette chose à un rapport avec l'intrigue principale, mais à cause de la lenteur et du manque d'évolution de protagonistes l'intrigue n'avance pas pas donc on s'ennuie
5- le protagoniste est stupide et fortement endoctriner ( il me fait penser à un PNG de dark soul ) il n'a aucune volonté.
6- en 5 mois d'écriture le protagoniste n'a toujours pas batu le premier Boss d'une tour qui est censé être Infini.
Ce n'est pas l'histoire d'un gars qui s'est entraîné pendant 8 ans pour gravir les étages d'une tour Infini dans un monde fantastique inspiré de dark soul, non clairement pas.
C'est l'histoire d'un png endoctriner d'une secte basé sur la vénération d'une tour dont il ne sais rien, un png dont l'existence n'a aucune influence sur l'histoire et qui va mourir bêtement encore et encore jusqu'à ce qu'il ne puisse plus et qu'on ne le torture à mort au pied de la tour qu'il vénère ( dark soul classique ) mais pas une histoire que je veux suivre pendant 100 chapitre en attendant patiemment que le png tue son premier Boss.
NoTime..Royal Road
★ 0.5
1 - Pacing of the story was incredibly slow.
2 - Characters were shallow and very one dimensional. They were boring.
3 - Little to no world building. Which made for a very bland setting.
The characters get all this "great" training just to perform incredibly poorly. And to top it off they have a fanatical belief system which is incredibly unappealing.