Archie glanced at the light filtering through the tent flap, the early morning breeze was the only thing calming his agitated mood.
Archie knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep since he was in a new area that he didn’t find completely safe, but he felt like he should have been able to at least get some shut-eye. Every time he tried to get some sleep there was always some noise beside his tent.
It's either the camp trying to make sure I’m not some type of spy from the ‘cult’ or someone from the ‘cult’ spying on me. Maybe both, I don’t know, Archie grumbled. Either way, I’m not gonna be sleeping in this camp anymore.
Archie stored his bed back into his spatial ring and walked out of the tent. The early morning sun was starting to show, casting a soft light over the camp. Barely anyone else was awake; the archers and mages that manned the walls were ending their shifts, replaced by those fresh from sleep. Chefs were preparing breakfast for the early risers, and various other people manned their stands. However, the vast majority of people were still asleep.
Remembering what Evelyn said about omelets being ready in the morning, Archie headed on over to her stand.
Looking around Archie noticed some farmland off to the side of the wall, with some farmers watering and tending to their plants. Probably where Evelyn got the ingredients to make that casserole, Archie thought, as he saw the various vegetables dotting the farmland.
Nodding to the many people who greeted him, Archie eventually made his way to Eveyln’s stand. He saw Evelyn chopping away at some vegetables before throwing them into the various pans on her many makeshift grills.
Noticing that Evelyn was absorbed in her cooking, Archie coughed to try and get her attention.
Looking up from the chopping board, she noticed Archie and smiled, “Good morning dearie.”
“Good morning Miss Evelyn. How are you?” Archie smiled. There was just something about grandmothers; no matter how upset you were, they always managed to brighten your day.
“I’m fine thank you,” Evelyn said, as she flipped a couple of pans. “And you?”
“I’m fine, do you need any help with anything?” Archie asked, seeing her speed around the makeshift kitchen with speed that did not belong to an old lady.
“Thank you, but I’m fine. Better really…The system is something else,” Evelyn said wistfully. “I can move much better now than I could a month ago.”
“Wait till you evolve, it gets even better,” Archie said, grabbing her attention.
“How does it feel? You’re the only one here who has evolved. The Assistants only mentioned vague information about what happens when you evolve,” Evelyn said.
“That’s because of the restrictions the system placed on them; they can only talk about certain things unless you know about them. At least that's what I was told at least,” Archie explained, "Anyway, evolving felt incredible—like I’d been running through sand my whole life, but now I could sprint on solid ground."
“Well then, I better push on,” Evelyn smiled, excited at the prospect of evolving and experiencing what Archie had described. If she felt thirty years younger now, how would it feel if she evolved?
Evelyn passed Archie a large plate of omelets and utensils. “So, anyone I should be aware of in the camp?” Archie asked in between bites.
Evelyn nodded as she continued chopping vegetables. "Sarah—the head of the healers here—has blonde hair and green eyes. James is in charge of the hunting groups; he’s got short black hair and a big build." She glanced around, noting a few others she hadn’t mentioned. "Then there’s Sophia and Daniel, our highest leveled farmers; they grow excellent vegetables. Angela and Eric, the camp’s only smiths. However, everyone listens to Michael, he brought everyone together when all this happened, and ever since then he makes sure we are all alright."
“Alright, got it, I’ll keep them in mind. Thank you for the meal.” Archie said while handing her his empty plate and paid Evelyn the same amount as last night. Evelyn thanked him as he walked away heading towards the only entrance to the camp.
Just as Archie was about to leave, he heard Michael’s voice. “Hey, Archie!”
Turning around he saw Michael run towards him. “Mornin'!” Archie greeted.
“Morning to you too,” Michael asked Archie with a chuckle. “You headin’ out to hunt?”
“Yeah, might as well see whatever lives on the island right now and fight them. I dealt with mostly beasts in basically Antarctica, and I don’t know what to expect on this island.” Archie said as he walked out of the gate with Michael to his side.
“Want me to join? I’m not as strong as you, but I can pull my own weight,” Michael offered, shrugging his shoulders; gesturing to the greatsword on his back.
“Sure, you can tell me about what you know.” Archie shrugged, before asking; “Where are all the strong beasts?”
Michael smiled before saying, "There are a bunch of them in the jungle.”
“Jungle? I thought rainforests were on islands.” Archie asked, confused by what Michael said.
“Welcome to the system, where spiders the size of wolves wander in droves.” Michael laughed as he saw Archie’s face turned whiter than paper. Giant spiders?
***
“So, why didn’t you choose the Group Tutorial when you were choosing your class?” Micheal asked while cutting through the thick vines blocking their path, trying to make some small talk.
“Family’s in another state and never really got to know my neighbors. So, it was either trying to survive with people I don’t know or on my own.” Archie explained while observing the tall trees around them, looking for any potential monkey business. He’d dealt with enough monkeys to know how they acted
Michael nodded in understanding, “I chose the Group Tutorial because of my son. I just finished a tour a few months ago and was spending some time with Noah when all of this happened. But when I arrived, Noah was nowhere in sight.” He explained with bitterness in his voice.
“How many tours have you done?” Archie asked.
“Three,” Michael answered somberly, the grip on his greatsword tightening.
“Thank you for your service.” Archie said, causing Micheal to smile at him, “Thank you.” But then his smile vanished as he noticed that they weren’t alone anymore.
Archie saw Michael’s smile vanish and turned around to see what had caused him to turn serious. The trees and floor behind them were covered in giant green worms. Identifying them, revealed they were in fact not worms.
[Emernigan Leech Lv 23]
One didn’t pose a threat, however when faced with at least 30 of them, each the size of a pitbull. They then became a threat.
A couple of the leeches spat a green liquid at Archie and Michael, but due to their reflexes, they’d dodged their spit attack and charged at the leeches.
Archie activated Savage Charge and Thorns, causing him to appear in front of the nearest leech with transparent green thorns covering his arms and punched right through its gelatinous body.
Seeing how physically weak the leeches were, Archie decided to jump into the horde of leeches and activate Relentless Flurry.
As Archie jumped into the horde of leeches punching through them with ease, Michael was dealing with them in his own way. Due to his greatsword being inefficient in dealing with the sheer number of leeches one by one, he activated what seemed to be a power-up skill gaining a green hue around him and slicing through the leeches horizontally.
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Eventually, after a minute or two the fight ended with Archie crushing the last leach that attached itself to his forearm.
“Wow, looks like I really need to evolve,” Micheal said as he saw how easily Archie dealt with the leeches. Both of them were covered in leach guts, but only Micheal was slightly out of breath.
“The evolution is great, you become faster and far more responsive,” Archie said while looking at his notifications. “But don’t cut yourself short, you also did good. It was just a bad matchup with your weapon.”
*[Emernigan Leech Lv 23] has been slain – XP has been given. 69 Tutorial Points given*
***
*[Emernigan Leech Lv 25] has been slain – XP has been given. 75 Tutorial Points given*
He had killed around 20 of the leeches in the time Micheal killed around 10. Looking at his status page, he smiled. ‘I don’t know why Evelyn was shocked when I spent 100 Tutorial Points on a meal; they’re easy enough to get. Does no one tip?’
Archie Gracefield
Race: Human E-Grade Lv 54
Class: Nature-Attuned Pugilist Lv 55
Profession: Novice Forgesmith Lv 52
Health: 3286/3286
Mana: 880/880
Stamina: 2320/2320
Stats:
Vitality: 313(328)
Strength: 256(294)
Endurance: 221(232)
Agility: 208
Intelligence: 212
Wisdom: 88
Willpower: 88(96)
Perception: 189
Free Points: 79
General Skills: Identify (Initiate), Nature's Meditation (Epic)
Class Skills: Basic Martial Combat Mastery (Uncommon), Savage Charge (Uncommon), Adrenaline Rush (Rare), Pugilist’s Grit (Uncommon), Retaliation (Uncommon), Relentless Flurry (Uncommon), Taunt (Uncommon), Thorns (Common)
Profession Skills: Forgesmith’s Flame (Initiate), Basic Smithing Mastery (Initiate), Basic Rune Scribing (Common), Material Insight (Common)
Bloodline: Adrenaline Junkie (Unique) [+10% to Strength and +10% to Willpower]
Affinity: Greater Nature Affinity (Epic)
Blessing: Blessing of the Forgefather (Moderate) [+5% to Strength and +5% to Endurance]
Titles Collected: Bloodline Progenitor [+10 Vitality and +5% Vitality], Flawless E-Grade Evolution [+10 all Stats]
Tutorial Points: 113,178
“Fair enough, I’m close enough to the max level for E-Grade with my Class and Race,” Micheal said while looking over his stats and notifications.
“You get the Flawless Evolution Quest?” Archie asked, looking around for anything else that would jump at them.
“Yeah, I reached max level for my Profession a couple days ago but couldn’t leave the camp to go and hunt due to tutorial mid-boss roaming around. If I left, all types of shit would go wrong in the camp, ” Micheal said as he signaled Archie to follow him as they continued their trek through the jungle. “Is it worth it?”
“Yeah, I recommend you complete it, it gives you 10 points to all your stats,” Archie smiled, causing Micheal to look at him with an excited smile. “You said something about a boss? Did you guys kill it already?” Archie asked.
“I don’t know where it is, we’ve been on edge waiting for it to come to us. Maybe Oliver and the others in their camp saw it, but the quest is still here.” Micheal said, looking at what Archie assumed to be the quest panel.
“If it hasn’t disappeared, I assume it’s still alive. When I killed my tutorial boss, the quest gave me rewards and vanished.” Archie said, but then he realized he never got a quest about killing the mid-boss when he arrived, he had only gotten the Group Tutorial page instead.
“That’s weird though, I haven’t received the quest yet. Seeing how it’s still alive, I should have gotten it. Unless you guys only get the quest since you were here first,” Archie reasoned. Hoping that wasn’t the case, since he wanted to both fight it and get some rewards.
“Maybe, I’m pretty sure it would be hard to find a snake anyways, they’re pretty sneaky,” Michael said nonchalantly.
“What do you mean by snake?” Archie asked confusedly.
“Oh right, the tutorial mid-boss is called the Verdant Serpent,” Michael answered, looking back at Archie trying to see if that caused a reaction.
“Oh, that’s not that bad. With your comment earlier, I thought it was some type of giant spider,” Archie sighed, relieved at Michael’s answer.“I’d rather fight a giant snake than a giant spider.”
“Why would it be giant?” Michael questioned before a realization came to him. “Ah, fuck! We’re in a jungle. Every jungle movie always has a giant snake in it.”
“The boss I killed was called the Giant Frostiron Tortoise, it was five meters tall,” Archie explained. “So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Verdant Serpent was also giant.”
“Oh,” Michael said as his face went white as he imagined a five-meter-tall spider chasing him. “Yeah, I agree. I’d take a giant snake over a giant spider.”
“So, what other things can I expect to fight here?” Archie asked while pushing a vine to the side.
“In the jungle, we’ve found spiders, snakes, frogs, leeches, monkeys, lizards, jaguars, venus fly traps, and various other poisonous plants.” Michael explained, “Outside the jungle are chickens, ducks, fish, and crabs.”
“Oh, so life outside the jungle is pretty safe then,” Archie said, seemingly deciding where he would set up camp in the Group Tutorial. Should find myself a cave overlooking the sea, far away from everyone.
“Not exactly,” Michael replied. “Thing is, everything out here has mutated. Chickens with stone feathers, ducks with glass ones, fish are all piranhas and crabs? They’re around three meters tall with exoskeletons tougher than steel.” He dropped into a combat stance, catching movement in his peripheral vision.
Archie noticed it too—but he had a clearer view. It was a jaguar, five at that, and they were all high-end of F-Grade.
[Shadowstalker Lv 45]
[Shadowstalker Lv 48]
[Shadowstalker Lv 46]
[Shadowstalker Lv 46]
[Shadowstalker Lv 47]
“Fuck,” Michael muttered as he quickly pulled out his greatsword as his eyes stayed focused on the shadowstalkers. While Archie looked at them with boredom, he had been expecting to see some E-Grades but had yet to see any. Nevertheless, it was something at the least.
Archie activated Savage Charge and Thorns once more, charging at the furthest jaguar and socking it with a punch to its jaw. The jaguar’s jaw gained large puncture marks the size of a thumb causing it to leak blood.
The other jaguars were not idle; two went towards Michael while the other two pounced on Archie.
One of the two jaguars not attached to him lunged at him, but he managed to dodge just in time. However, in the process, his arm was caught in the jaws of the other jaguar, Its sharp fangs easily tore through his plated chain-mail sleeves and sunk into his flesh.
Ignoring the searing pain erupting from his right bicep, Archie swung his left fist at the jaguar’s head, but the jaguar tilted its head, causing Archie to miss it.
It’s fine, it’s not doing much damage. I just gotta get it off, before it does something else, Archie thought, as he felt the adrenaline coursing through his body start to pick up speed.
The sudden agitation caused the jaguar to clamp down even harder on his bicep, causing even more pain to erupt from his arm. With the first jaguar lunging toward him and the one holding his arm still biting down, Archie knew he had to act quickly. He activated Thorns along his legs and delivered a spartan kick, sending the injured jaguar crashing into a tree with new puncture marks along its side.
As he sidestepped the other jaguar, he landed a sucker punch with his left hand, knocking it to the ground.
With a plan forming, Archie activated Thorns around his right bicep, channeling a large surge of mana through the vines. Translucent thorns erupted inside the jaguar’s mouth, cutting through its tongue and the roof of its mouth, catching it by surprise.
The unexpected attack caused the creature to loosen its grip on his arm. Seizing the opportunity, Archie punched its midsection, sending it flying to the side and tumbling onto the jungle floor.
Then he activated Savage Charge and punched through the jaguar’s chest. He glanced back at the first jaguar he had kicked—it was stuck in the tree and limp.
Turning his attention to the second jaguar, still prone on the ground, Archie approached its head and brought down his foot with all the strength he could muster, crushing it with a sickening thud.
*[Shadowstalker Lv 48] has been slain – XP has been given. 240 Tutorial Points given*
*[Shadowstalker Lv 47] has been slain – XP has been given. 235 Tutorial Points given*
*[Shadowstalker Lv 46] has been slain – XP has been given. 230 Tutorial Points given*
Not a single level. Seems like you can’t just kill things lower than your grade and gain a level, Archie complained.
Gonna get a new one from a leather worker and use it as a base for an iron one. Archie thought that overall, the fight went well other than his beginner sleeves getting ruined, he didn’t really get hurt much.
Archie wiped the blood from the two puncture wounds on his bicep and watched as they began to heal, the skin already knitting itself together. E-Grade benefits Archie smiled.
Archie looked over at Michael and saw him kick one jaguar away as he swung his greatsword and beheaded the other.
“Need any help?” Archie shouted, not wanting to kill-steal from Michael, he wasn’t like those shitty teammates from when he gamed online, he had manners.
“No… I’m…good” Michael replied in between breaths as he set his sword ablaze and chopped the last jaguar in half.
“Woah, that’s cool as shit! How did you coat your sword in fire?” Archie exclaimed as he approached Michael.
“You don’t know? It’s a basic skill we all learned from the mage Assistant.” Micheal looked confused at Archie’s confusion.
“I didn’t have an Assistant camp in my Tutorial,” Archie said, causing Michael to look at him in confusion before remembering the night before.
“Cyric, the Mage Assistant, taught us how to use our mana, connect it with an element, and place it on a weapon to learn the Basic Elemental Weapon skill. It was a pain in the ass to get, but very useful nevertheless.”
"Well, another thing to add to my list of goals," Archie said, feeling a thrill at the thought of becoming a fire-punching badass. Wait… would that conflict with my Affinity? He wondered. I don’t think so. I can use Forgemaster’s Flame alright.
“We should head back. We’ve been out for a couple of hours now,” Michael suggested, causing Archie to raise an eyebrow in confusion, before nodding in understanding. Right. He has to look after the camp and going off alone with a stranger whom they met last night who is a whole grade stronger than them might stir up some tension in the camp.
“Sure, I need to get upgrades for my sleeves, been rocking the basic ones, and I need an upgrade.” Archie said while placing the jaguars into his spatial ring, “Know a good leathersmith?”
Michael shook his head in disbelief at the disappearance of the three jaguars Archie killed. “Yeah, I do… how did you do that?”
Archie just laughed at Michael’s reaction and continued toward the camp, already thinking about what snacks he might find once they got back.