From Alessio Leone's Perspective
The timer on his sports watch was still flashing red when Alessio stopped in front of the park bench, hands braced on his knees. Ten kilometers. His body burned with sweat, yet his breathing remained steady — the product of months of almost military discipline. What he felt wasn't fatigue but confirmation. Every muscle responded like a well-oiled gear.
He sat down, letting the water bottle drain down his throat in measured sips before finally pulling out his phone. The screen lit up with a storm of notifications: forums in meltdown, groups exploding with screenshots and theories, headlines already declaring the Awakening of the Black Tower the event of the century. He scrolled just enough to confirm the obvious: collective hysteria. Then he locked the screen.
Right now, there was no room for distractions.
What Alessio sought wasn't in the heated debates about classes or the blurry captures of starter loot. What mattered was invisible to most.
The five extra points he had earned through months of discipline were living proof: the real body could cross the threshold and turn into numbers inside the Tower. And those numbers weren't cosmetic — they were margins of life and death. But it wasn't an infinite resource. The human body had limits, and no matter how much he trained, it would never become an endless fountain of attributes.
Still, it wasn't impossible to squeeze out another five, maybe ten points, even with his character already created. To do that, though, he would have to push his body to its peak. He remembered well the legend that had set the forums on fire in his past life: a former Olympic athlete who, upon entering the Tower, already boasted double-digit stats in Strength, Agility, and Vitality. A monster born ready. If only he had MMO experience back then, if only he hadn't taken so long to adapt to the meta, he could have rewritten history.
Alessio knew that was just one side of the equation. The other was harsher.
If it was possible to gain stats through discipline in the real world, it was also possible to lose them. That truth wouldn't surface until two months after the launch, when the game's economy fused completely with the global financial system.
For now, it was possible to buy gold coins in the Black Tower to speed up progress. The rate was simple: 1 dollar = 1 gold coin. Thousands of players had already poured fortunes into it, buying progress as if they could also buy victory.
Unfortunately, these players didn't realize the Tower wasn't the kind of game where "pay to win" worked so easily. Not useless — wealth was never truly useless — but not nearly as simple as in any other game.
Two months later, when the exchange rate flipped — 1 gold coin = 1 dollar — not only could players buy gold with real money, they could also sell it to earn real money. The fever turned into an epidemic. People quit jobs, abandoned families, dropped out of school. Tower gold became salary, livelihood, obsession. Alessio had been one of them.
And that was when the hidden price revealed itself.
Sedentarism.
Many, stacking endless hours in-game while neglecting their real bodies, watched their digital stats rot away. They lost Strength, Agility, Vitality. The system didn't differentiate: if the body weakened, the avatar weakened too.
Even with free days ahead, people just wasted time online, scrolling through social media, waiting for the Tower to open again.
And in the end—
The rule was simple, cold, unforgiving:
If you can gain points with a strong body, you can lose them with a weak one.
Alessio leaned back on the bench, eyes half-closed, letting the morning sun wash over his face. He didn't run for vanity. He didn't train for looks. He ran because every stride was a brick against ruin.
Discipline wasn't optional. It was law.
A law no one else knew yet.
The sweat had already dried on his skin by the time Alessio rose from the bench and adjusted the backpack on his shoulder. His body craved iron, sets, repetitions — the routine engraved in his mind like an unbreakable code. He was just about to cross the street toward the gym when a sharp sound interrupted his thoughts.
His phone buzzed in his palm. An incoming call.
Alessio frowned immediately. Unusual. In recent months, almost no one called him. His circle of contacts could be counted on one hand, and even then, they rarely reached out. The world had grown used to living through short messages, noisy groups. Phone calls felt almost intimate, invasive.
Then he recognized the number.
The ringtone echoed through his small apartment like something anachronistic. The phone vibrated on the makeshift coffee table — a plank balanced on two crates — and the screen flashed in the silence of the morning. Alessio froze for a moment, sneakers already pointed at the door.
He rarely received calls. In the last six months, his phone had rung for nothing but group notifications or payment reminders. Who even made calls anymore?
The strangeness quickly faded when his eyes locked on the number.
Matteo Romano.
The name rose like a breath of memory, carrying with it a forgotten feeling — belonging. One of the few true friends time hadn't completely eroded. One of the rare ones who, even at a distance, still belonged to the tiny circle Alessio could call his social life.
His face brightened for a brief instant, though the gesture was subtle, almost imperceptible. A muscle relaxed, the line of his lips softened. Rare. Far too rare.
But the relief carried hidden weight: the bitter memory of his past life.
Back then, Alessio had let his human bonds unravel one by one. First, neglecting get-togethers. Then replacing conversations with online matches, raids, forums, illusory metas. Until only screen companions remained — faceless voices, fragile alliances that shattered at the first whiff of profit.
And beyond that, he hadn't only lost friends. He had also lost Bianca.
Her name echoed in his mind like a painful refrain. The sweet smile, the petty arguments, the growing silence. Then the final rupture. He had lost not only a girlfriend, but an intimate witness to who he'd been before the Tower. And when he tried to come back, it was already too late.
The Black Tower had consumed everything.
Friends turned into nicknames on guild lists.
Obsession, fever, false brotherhood. Digital allies, towering guilds, promises of loyalty worth less than Tower gold. He had trusted. And that trust was repaid with daggers in his back and spells burning his skin. Companions of a decade revealed themselves strangers the instant a valuable item appeared.
In that moment, Alessio understood: in his past life, he had lost everything. Friends, love, even the right to trust.
But not this time.
He drew a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second.
"Not this time."
The insistent ring pulled him back from memory. Three rings, four. Then he moved. With firm steps, he crossed the small space, picked up the device, and spun it between his fingers before accepting the call.
The screen still shone: Matteo Romano.
He swiped, pressing the phone to his ear. For the first time in a long while, his heart didn't beat with warning, but with ease. Something resembling joy — yet tempered by the weight of knowing the value of what he had almost lost forever.
His voice came out steady, controlled, but with a warmth he rarely allowed to escape:
— Hey, good morning! — he said, with a surprisingly light tone. — How can I help you on this fine morning, Matteo?
Deep down, he knew: it was these small choices — answering, valuing, refusing to let isolation swallow him — that would make all the difference in this new life.