Raising his head to meet the eyes of whomever he’d accidentally struck, Alex found himself recognizing the person. From where initially escaped him, but the outfit, and possibly his advanced mental stats, clued him in a few seconds later. He’d never conversed with her directly, rather Alex had seen her with Janet during those first few excruciating minutes after he was moved from the arena floor. The woman was large, though not in the same way as Kauri, her form more fat than muscle. She wore a pink and white collared dress, all held tight by a brown and red stained apron. Alex remembered thinking of her as a lunch lady and the notion still held, though based on his current situation he doubted the stains were food related. As his eyes reached her face, taking note of close-cropped black hair and a scowling expression, Alex realized she had been talking to him.
When the two made eye contact she paused then said one word, her arms crossing over her large chest. Alex didn’t consider himself to be the best lip-reader and the woman already looked upset. Instead of getting into another sad excuse for a guessing game, Alex explained that he couldn’t hear, the words feeling like little more than vibrations in the absence of sound. She said a few words back, all too fast for him to even attempt to understand, before letting out a sigh and picking up a bottle off a platter on the nearby table. It was thin and clear, about five inches tall and two around. Inside was a deep red liquid, nearly appearing black in the dimmer light. Pulling off the cork, the woman handed it to Alex before making a drinking motion.
He nodded, a bit skeptical as he reached out to grab it, his hands only shaking slightly. Taking the glass Alex made to gave it a quick sniff when he felt the top hit his mask. He’d forgotten it was on, or rather hadn’t even noticed it on his face. Lifting it slightly, so it still obscured his face, Alex inhaled the substance. It didn’t smell like much, faint whiffs of herbs and metals the only scents he could discern. With a shrug he applied the only logic that seemed to work in this accursed tutorial and threw the whole thing back. The concoction went down with minimal chewing, it’s gelatin like consistency melting, leaving only a sweet aftertaste in his mouth. Alex had known he wasn’t fully healthy as he’d sat up. His back worked well enough, and he assumed he could at least walk, but now it was clearer what the issue was.
Before leveling, his max health had been nearly seventy-five, meaning his current hp of fifty-seven wasn’t entirely terrible. Someone had likely healed him to the point where no life-threatening injuries remained, but as he leveled the gap between his actual state and listed state changed, the potion he’d taken was meant to fix that. The sensation that spread across his body was mainly pleasant, slight muscle tears, a few lingering fractures, and other comparatively minor injuries all vanishing. Alex initially assumed that would be the end of it, but there was plenty more energy, and it had somewhere to go.
Pulling up his sheet to get a better understanding, Alex watched his health pass one hundred points for the first time. His skin was starting to warm as the potions energies spread further throughout his body until eventually reaching his head where his hearing returned with a pop of displaced air. That made him gasp, and Alex smiled at being able to hear it, and the sensation began to fade as his health ticked over three hundred. Just as he was about to close the sheet, he saw it jump upward once more, this time only by three points. Not sure if that was just lingering energy Alex kept his eyes peeled for another few seconds, but it didn’t move again before the woman interrupted his study.
“Well, you all fixed up now?” Her voice was both slow and raspy, reminding him of Roz from Monsters Inc, though right now she felt like his savior. Alex stood, considering her question. He stretched and did a few hops in place, he felt amazing. His muscles seemed to hold a coiled strength and the way his body reacted to his every command was eye-opening. It felt like when he’d switched from gaming on a TV to a monitor, latency he hadn’t even known existed vanished.
“Yea I feel great, thanks, hearing’s back and everything. Is there something I need to do now?” As glad as he was, to the point of wanting to hug the lady, Alex understood where he was, something like this wasn’t going to be free. Maybe they were going to try to saddle debt on him for the potions costs; luckily he had the money to pay it.
“No.” When she didn’t elaborate, Alex asked a follow-up.
“Like nothing… at all? What is this a free trial so I keep fighting?”
Rolling her eyes as if she was already tired of their short exchange, the woman sucked in a deep breath and spoke, her tone flat. “The initial healing I provided, including your stay here, was paid for by your sponsor. The health potion you just drank was supplied completely by them. I only acted as the courier since they are otherwise occupied. Any monetary concerns you have may be taken up with them.”
She sighed finishing her slow speech, and Alex found his smile fading slightly, he didn’t want to owe Janet more. Unless, that potion was prohibitively expensive he should have enough, he just didn’t want to explain where it came from. He would have rather paid the arena and been done with it.
“If there’s nothing else, I recommend leaving, you’re being charged by the minute for the slot.”
Alex looked around, he was in a large room, much like Sixth Sense had suggested, curtains separating the rows of beds into individual sections. It was obvious most beds were empty, their curtains left open, but Alex didn’t let that stop him from getting dressed. Both his fighter’s pants and jacket were on a nearby chair, though he suspected it to be a new pair entirely due to the lack of damage. Doing a final once over, even though everything but Janet’s ring was in his inventory, Alex ran to catch up with the healer.
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“How much does one of those potions go for?”
“Why, trying to get a leg up on your debt.” She chuckled, the sound slow and somewhat forced. “Don’t know exactly what she used, but I’d charge at least 150 gold. That’s after my labor charges and other fees though, you’d likely owe less.” With that she opened the door and left, letting it fall back so he had to catch it on his way out. As he made his way out into the stone hallway she was already gone, and Alex realized he had another issue. Sighing he began walking. He could afford it especially with whatever bonus had been added to his bet, but the price was still steep, though not when the alternative was his life he supposed.
Alex wandered the passageways aimlessly for a few minutes, looking for someone to help him find Janet, or a way out. He reached a restroom before another person, and decided he’d be better off walking in his normal clothes. Changing was a simple affair. The stalls were fairly clean and being able to throw or pull things in and out of thin air removed most of the juggling that normally came with the task. As he was leaving, Alex saw a young woman walking in. For a moment he was embarrassed to have walked into the woman’s room, though her confusion when he apologized made him realize there was no such thing. After a moment of hesitation Alex asked her for directions, and she quickly told him how to return to the main seating arena before ducking into a stall.
It took a few staircase transfers, but soon Alex found himself surrounded by people and flashing lights. The stadium was much more full than it had been, many of the seats in the upper section he’d arrived in full. Alex spotted carts everywhere vendors selling everything from food to action figures, and in one case what he thought looked like sexual favors. Alex made a mental note of the last, out of curiosity he told himself, before continuing.
The walk helped him get a better handle on the monetary system, and Alex took in the information with enthusiasm. Knowledge would be a key factor to his survival in this tutorial and Alex already felt he had a bit of catching up to do.
The money went as follows: there were bronze, silver, gold, and platinum coins, bars. It was 100 bronze to a Silver, 50 silver to a Gold, and 50 Gold to a Platinum, meaning one platinum was 250,000 bronze. Alex had a moment of feeling unimaginably wealthy, but it was quickly apparent why the different denominations existed. One bronze was literally nothing. The cheapest thing Alex saw listed was for a silver, and they were all poor quality flags that seemed to depict random emblems and colors. The second cheapest was food. Alex’s stomach rumbled as he walked up to a small line where a vendor sold cubed ingredients on a stick.
They were listed as a silver and a half each and while it wasn’t exactly cutting into his funds he suddenly felt much less rich. After asking for a variety platter of all five different kebabs Alex handed the man eight silver, hoping he wasn’t about to get fifty bronze in change. A few seconds later the man handed back his food, all wrapped into a bundle, and a single half silver coin. As far as he could tell it looked as if the man had literally halved one of his coins but as no one behind him seemed to care, Alex made it disappear into his inventory.
Continuing his walk Alex enjoyed the different flavors from each stick, one even having a plant based filler similar to tofu, that was surprisingly good. When he was down to his last one, some type of fish by the looks of it, Alex decided to try something. Walking over to a trash can to toss the foil he made the last kebab disappear into his inventory. Janet had said this would work, but she had been referencing the type of storage she was familiar with, Alex now knew his was different.
A second later he pulled it back out, seemingly no worse for wear. Taking a hesitant bite, in case something had happened to it in storage, Alex felt the meat melt into another delicious set of flavors, the entire thing gone in another few bites. If his inventory was safe to store food in, he’d need to stock up on meals. While he currently had allies in this tutorial world that could change at any moment. Anything he could do to stop a future problem he would, especially if it would be this easy, and fun.
Alex continued his self led tour with new abandon, stopping at every food stall that interested him. By the end he had well over fifty pounds of meals of all kinds, including dessert. No one had given him odd looks as he’d stored the food, and he even caught a few other people doing the same. Turning a corner into a large tiled room, Alex finished his last bite of cheesecake.
“Welcome to the Foren Casino, are you here for the normal or high rollers tables,” a man in a black and white suit said as Alex entered the space. Something was different from the suits he was used to, but he couldn’t tell what it was, so Alex just blamed it on the bowler hat.
“Umm, neither actually I was just looking for how to get to the level below this. Oh! And could you tell me the time.”
A bit of the man’s overly polite attitude dropped, but he answered both questions, even chatting with Alex for a bit before they said their goodbyes.
Alex had been in the medical ward for about two hours following his fight. He’d missed Thomas’s fight and the money he would have won from betting. The man was now eight and zero, though this fight had been his most difficult yet according to the Casino greeter, with Thomas’s entire left side sporting broken bones. While the details about the fight of his fellow arena competitor weren’t inspiring Alex doubted he would have eight fights in the arena. Even with reduced experience in the future, he shouldn’t need more than five wins to hit level 25, or E grade. By then, he’d have already entered the forests surrounding the city.
That made him think about what level Thomas was if he was still fighting E grade beasts, but Alex decided to stop guessing and just ask someone when he got the chance. And that was the end of it; Alex had expected his mind to continue to wonder, but it didn’t, giving him another level of appreciation for the control his upgraded mental stats had granted him. Currently, it was four in the afternoon, the first fight of the main bracket would start in thirty minutes, which meant it was time to find Grave. The two of them had work to do.