From Alessio Leone's Perspective
Maybe it was just an impression, but the streets of Eldenwall felt fuller on the second day. Hurried footsteps echoed on the worn stone, voices of players overlapped in frenzy, and even the alleys that had been silent before now bustled with people arguing about quests, monsters, and supposed discoveries.
But Alessio knew better than to trust simplistic perceptions. The Awakening of the Black Tower wasn't designed to hand out clear statistics about active populations in each city. There were thousands of starting points spread across entire continents, each with its own quirks and subtle mechanics. Maybe Eldenwall really was overcrowded. Or maybe it was just another cognitive illusion, carefully built into the game's design.
In the end, it didn't matter.Competition would come regardless. It always would.
All he could do was focus on his own plans.
And that day demanded an uncomfortable decision.Alessio would do one of the things he despised most in life: become, even if temporarily, a true pay-to-win player.
In the forums of his past life, he had mocked this type of player dozens of times. The "whales," as they were called — buying progress without sweat, puffing their chests with empty pride. Walking jokes, icons of disdain.
But the Black Tower wasn't like other games.
Here, pay-to-win meant something different.
A beginner couldn't just dump thousands of dollars and show up on day one with a full set of epic weapons, gleaming armor, and legendary grimoires. That was impossible. For a simple reason: nothing was for sale.
The cities only offered common gear. NPC merchants sold nothing but raw iron, beaten leather, and cracked wood. If some king or noble possessed something rare or epic, it was never placed at the disposal of commoners. Gold didn't buy true power. Not yet.
And it made sense. Why would such characters, written to be wealthy and powerful, care about the fleeting fortune of a newly created player? A novice waving a mountain of coins had no value to someone who, by narrative, already commanded entire cities.
The result was a paradox.Being pay-to-win early wasn't useless, but it wasn't glorious either.
It served only one purpose: speeding up the opening moves. Buying the best common gear, the best supplies, investing in small logistical advantages that, for a veteran, meant far more than appearances.
Alessio understood this better than anyone.
That's why, without hesitation, he deposited ten thousand gold coins into his account on the second day. A brutal investment — ten thousand real dollars, drained from years of hard-earned savings. The kind of decision anyone else would agonize over.
He didn't.
He knew the return would come.Sooner or later, it would come.
Guilds were still embryonic projects, makeshift meetings in digital taverns. But Alessio remembered clearly: in the future, they would become empires. And in that future, wealth in the Tower would be indistinguishable from wealth in the real world. Gold would be salary. Weapons, assets. Legendary items, currency traded between governments and corporations.
In that scenario, yes, using real-world fortunes to leverage progress in-game wouldn't be useless. But only the distant 1% of the population would ever have the resources to play that way.
But that future was still far off.Today, Eldenwall was nothing more than a jumble of crooked streets, NPCs hawking junk, and players shoving for the first decent loot.
The true value of pay-to-win wouldn't appear for years.
Still, Alessio smiled as he adjusted the cracked shield on his arm and looked toward the market ahead.
— Time to go shopping.
Because even in its cruelty, the Black Tower rewarded those who prepared early. And he wouldn't miss that chance.
The Awakening of the Black Tower had barely begun.
Alessio didn't buy weapons. Nor armor. To him, such investments were pointless at this stage. The common gear available in Eldenwall's markets wasn't worth it. Just polished versions of the same scraps everyone strapped to their arms or belts — cosmetic differences disguised as progress.
No. His gold had another destination.
In total, he spent only three thousand coins.More than two thousand of them weren't on goods, but on logistics: transporting cargo, paying helpers, covering the costs of setting up a small enterprise he already envisioned as a key piece of his strategy.
The Black Tower didn't offer players an inventory. That detail, which infuriated novices spoiled by infinite bags in other MMOs, was law here. Every object needed physical space. Every purchase demanded transport. Brutal, yes — but logical.
At least gold itself didn't exist as bars or coins jingling in pockets. It was just a number, a digital record, like real-world bank balances. A small mercy from the developers, who knew humanity had already grown used to not even carrying paper money anymore.
With his plans in place, Alessio left the shop.
It didn't take long for the translucent panel before his eyes to light up with a notification.
A message.
He already knew who it was from before opening it.
— Hey man, I'm in — Matteo said.
This message hadn't come from the game, but from his phone.
The link between a cellphone and the Black Tower console was one of the system's most ingenious — and underestimated — features. The moment a player activated the device, there was an option to link their real phone number to the digital profile. That not only allowed messages to appear as translucent notifications inside the game, but also let players trade invites and coordinates in real time. A nearly invisible resource, but vital: without it, finding friends in the vast open world would be a logistical nightmare, like searching for a needle in an entire continent. For Alessio, who had already lived inside the Tower with this feature in his past life, it was more than convenience — it was the difference between being lost forever and building alliances from day one.
— Which city are you in — I asked him.
— Some place called Veyland — Matteo replied.
Alessio exhaled in relief. Veyland, like Eldenwall, was in the same kingdom of Thalgrande, not far at all. If Matteo's starting point had been on another continent, it could have taken months for them to meet.
— Alright — I replied. — Head to the city center. Ask the NPCs, they'll give you directions. What's your nickname? I'll add you as a friend.
— I just put Engineer Matteo. No ideas — he answered.
Alessio closed his eyes for a moment and sighed again.
His friend was already exposing himself to danger. Playing under your real name was practically handing yourself over to scammers, reputation hunters, or future enemies. He should have warned him before.
Still, he said nothing. Just sent the invite.
— Invite sent — I said.
— Accepted — came the reply.
— Good. I'll send you the coins you need for the city teleport. I'm in Eldenwall. Just tell the NPC that destination — I said.
— Nice, teleport. Gotta see this — Matteo replied, already excited.
Another thousand coins gone in a sharp click.
His balance now sat at 6,250 coins. Of those, two hundred and fifty had been earned the night before, after completing five hard-mode quests. Most of the rewards had been extra stats, but the coin count still made clear the Tower's merciless logic: every piece of gold was a victory wrung from blood, sweat, and calculation.
It was hard. Brutally hard.
But Alessio had no regrets.
As he walked toward the city center, shield firm on his arm, he couldn't help but feel a thought warming his chest:
If Matteo could master the Black Tower with the same precision he mastered math and physics in the real world… then this time, he would have a true ally. A reliable one.
And not just that.
A talented ally.