From Alessio Leone's Perspective
Six months.For many, that span of time felt like an eternity—an endless abyss of suffocating anticipation, a slow torture of anxiety fueled by the promise of something as revolutionary as The Awakening of the Black Tower.
But for Alessio Leone, six months were both a blessing and a sentence.Not long. Not comfortable.Short. Ridiculously short.If he wanted his life to follow a different path than it had last time, he had to treat those months as the most precious resource he had ever been given.
Seated at a table in the university library, Alessio stared at a blank sheet of paper in his notebook as if it were an altar of revelation. His amber eyes, hardened by memories of betrayal and failure, now gleamed with a clarity few could endure.
"Six months… not to wait. Six months to prepare. Every second must be sharpened into a weapon."
The urgency had a simple cause: The Awakening of the Black Tower was no ordinary game.It wasn't mere entertainment, not another title to be devoured by casual players in a frenzy of late nights and fading hype.
What he remembered—and what no one else could yet imagine—was that this game would be the dividing line of humanity.
Its complexity, its difficulty, its depth were beyond comprehension for most. Ordinary players would see only beautiful graphics, novel mechanics, and the allure of a "parallel world" waiting to be explored. But Alessio knew the truth: this was a battlefield, and there was no room for the naive.
It all started with a detail nearly everyone overlooked, one he knew better than anyone: the developers.Ghostly names, completely unknown to the public, hidden behind an enigmatic official page. No press conferences, no interviews, not even social media profiles. Only silence and mystery.
But silence spoke louder than words.
Alessio remembered the first time he had set foot in the Black Tower's corridors. Only someone with insane ambition—someone determined to reshape not just the gaming industry but reality itself—could have conceived it.
Creating the world's first full-immersion game wasn't enough.Allowing it to be played during sleep, without stealing hours from real life, wasn't enough.They had gone further: they had bent time itself.
Eight hours of sleep equaled sixteen hours inside the game.Two lives in one.Two futures running in parallel, overlapping like sharpened blades.
And as if that weren't enough, the game had been designed for everyone.
The immersion devices weren't prohibitively expensive. Far from it—almost scandalously affordable.A calculated, even Machiavellian plan: to make sure the entire global population could access it. Children, adults, exhausted workers, executives, students, even the elderly. Who in their right mind could refuse?
The result?Absurd profits, a global fever that reshaped entire cultures, and one inevitable outcome: inhuman competition.
And Alessio knew—that was only the surface.The first layer of a carefully constructed hell.
He drew a deep breath, the sound rumbling in the quiet room, adrenaline burning through his veins like fire. For any other player, six months would be an endless trial. For him—a veteran with ten years of experience and scars no one else bore—six months were nothing but a merciless countdown.
The clock was already ticking.
But that wasn't all.
The game still hid two staggering truths—details that had gone unnoticed at launch and only revealed their importance months later. Alessio, however, remembered them clearly: a player's physical and mental abilities in the real world translated almost perfectly into their starting stats inside the game.
At first glance, that seemed trivial. In reality, it had monstrous implications.
For young people in good shape, it meant an immense head start—sharp reflexes, strong lungs, natural agility, all converted into more solid stats within the Black Tower. But there was no absolute privilege. The system was coldly, cruelly balanced.
Hardcore gamers—the ones who understood hidden mechanics, meta patterns, buff and nerf cycles—rarely had the bodies to match. Their minds were sharp on keyboards, but their bodies were frail, worn down by endless nights and worn-out chairs.Meanwhile, those with strong bodies—athletes, soldiers, martial artists—rarely mastered gaming logic. Their instincts were physical, their strategies shallow, unable to unravel the hidden math that governed the systems.
And then there were the elderly, the children, even expectant mothers.For them, the game compensated. Somehow, the system granted subtle adjustments—greater vigor to the old, education and protection for the young, stability and serenity for those carrying life within them. Not unfair advantages, not undeserved perks, but careful balances that leveled the playing field.
Three distinct groups, each with strengths and burdens.Three paths, leveled by design.
In the end, everyone faced the same brutal climb.There were exceptions, rare individuals who combined two of these qualities—both physical training and gaming expertise. But such people were almost legends.
That imperfect balance was what Alessio had sworn to destroy.
The memory of his past life burned like a whip. He recalled how he had relied solely on his gaming skill, neglecting his body more and more, trusting only in sharp instincts and technical knowledge. At first, it was enough to put him ahead of thousands. But as time went on, every inch of physical weakness turned into a crushing disadvantage. On the Tower's upper floors, where every movement demanded superhuman reflexes, his body could no longer keep pace with his mind.
"This time will be different."
That was the promise he repeated every morning.
From the moment of his return, his routine had changed completely.At dawn, while most classmates still lay buried under the stale air of their dorms, Alessio was already awake. He descended the stairs in firm strides, crossed the dew-soaked courtyard, and entered the empty gym, where only the sound of his footsteps filled the air.
He ran.He ran as if every lap was a battle. Sweat poured in rivers, breath scorched his lungs, muscles screamed for rest. He didn't yield. Every pain was fuel.
After that came the weights, sculpting his body with military discipline. Each repetition was fueled by memories of past defeats, each set a brick in the foundation of a new self.
Alessio wasn't chasing strength alone. He sought speed, endurance, explosiveness. He sought to become lethal in every aspect.
Because when the day of awakening arrived, he didn't want to step into the Black Tower as just another player.He wanted to step in as the best version of himself.
And then came the final point.
The game was divided into two great spheres.
The first was the open world—vast continents and seas nearly as large as Earth itself, fantasy kingdoms teeming with life, trade routes linking monumental cities, hidden dungeons scattered across wilderness, and thousands of paths for growth. A realm of wonder and brutality, where each player could carve their own path.
Most who pursued lifestyle or support professions stayed here. Digital farmers, craftsmen, alchemists, musicians, merchants. People who didn't want to fight, but to live.And the system, cruel yet beautiful, allowed it. There, one could build a second life of peace—filled with beauty, serene achievements, breathtaking landscapes, and genuine friendships.
Alessio liked that place. He liked its vastness, the sense of freedom it offered. But his true goal wasn't there.
His goal was at the heart of the game world, on the island intentionally placed at its center.There stood the Black Tower, waiting for its challengers.
The tower that gave the game its name.The tower that was more than a dungeon—the ultimate trial for true players.
One hundred floors. One hundred trials.Each floor, a test.Each test, a blade separating dreamers from the relentless.
The rule was simple and brutal: only by conquering the 100th floor could one "beat" the game.And no one—absolutely no one—had ever even come close.
That was when Alessio smiled—a hard smile, heavy with memories that still burned like embers.Because he knew something few had realized.
The one hundred floors weren't random inventions of the developers.Whether fanatics of history or cold strategists, they had shaped each floor of the Black Tower after pivotal moments of humanity.
Ancient wars. Scientific discoveries. Cultural revolutions. Epic tragedies.All reinterpreted by the game, turned into impossible trials filled with enemies and obstacles bordering on madness.But still—historical facts.
And Alessio understood: the more mastery of history a player had, the greater their advantage in the Tower.Every detail memorized, every date, every battle, every real figure—any of it could become a key within the game.
That was why, in these six months, when he wasn't breaking his body in training, Alessio was burying his mind in history books.From ancient epics to twentieth-century wars.From Greek philosophers to technological revolutions.His notebooks filled with feverish notes, diagrams, comparisons, attempts to predict which hundred points the Tower's creators had chosen.
Because only by mastering history could he truly be prepared for what was coming.
And deep down, Alessio knew that every page studied, every muscle trained, every night of proper rest—it was still not enough for what awaited.
He had a single goal: to fuse his physical strength, his historical knowledge, his sharp gamer's mind, and, above all, the crown jewel—his ten years of experience and memories of the game.
All of it would be necessary.
Because this time, he wasn't going in just to survive.This time, he would conquer the Black Tower.