Within one of the Three Rooms of the Tutorial

Not long before Ashley was pulled into the Gate

Rachel Harris feels her heart skip a beat as she sees the young teenage girl fall off of one of the floating blocks after the sentinel attacks her. But just like before, she finds herself unable to assist her. She doesn’t have any ranged attacks after all. And the three people in their group who do have a bow or a ranged ability are amongst the group cowering in the back of their number.

Not anyone who can be relied on in a situation like this.

And even if there were someone who could attack the sentinel, it’s too late. The girl is already falling down into the array of floating blocks and the eventual darkness down below.

She feels her teeth gritting as she stands at the edge of the ledge they’re on, with Jeffrey – one of the other enforcers of her team that happened to end up in the same tutorial she did – trying to calm down the other people in their little group. A group of just the people they managed to gather together while heading towards this room.

At this point, she can only hope that the girl manages to learn how to control her wings.

But after what she’s seen so far, she doubts she will be able to. Since it’s clear she hasn’t been using them until now.

What upsets Rachel even more is that she immediately recognized the girl as the new one to enter the tutorial, resetting it in the process. Meaning she had just woken up from a coma, and now she has to deal with this.

It’s just heartbreaking to a mother and enforcer like Rachel.

One of the reasons she set out to become an enforcer other than the money it came with and a way to use her powerful ability for good was to help children like that girl. To save them from Rogues, and to donate her extra proceedings to hospitals for children who need it.

It doesn’t take long for the girl to vanish from her sight, having fallen too far down. Then Rachel, with her fists clenched so tightly her nails almost dig into her palms, stands up and faces the others.

“We need to find this mini boss,” she says, drawing every gaze amongst them to her. Including the people who previously were watching with excitement at the battle until the girl fell to her death. A sight that seems to have snapped them out of their immature belief that this tutorial is fun. “But before that we have to level up everyone here a little bit. So please work with us and at least do what you can, okay?”

The cowering people in the group continue cowering, proving just how motivational Rachel is.

She grimaces a little, knowing very well how intimidating she can look sometimes. And her being an enforcer doesn’t help since a lot of people tend to get nervous on instinct around the authorities.

Rachel looks back down the endless pit again for a few seconds before shaking her head lightly and turning away. Deciding that there isn’t anything she can do for the girl right now.

What she needs to do is to figure out how to corral the others in her group together. And to do that soon.

She briefly glances at the number in the corner of her interface which shows just a couple dozen followers. A sight that makes her more than a little uncomfortable.

The fact that people are watching her every move.

But she just ignores it as always, just like every other crappy thing about her current situation.

Because there’s no other choice.

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Ashley

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My break ends up lasting for about twenty minutes, giving myself more than enough time to fully catch my breath. Then I begin climbing up the blocks, deciding to leave my wings for flying after I get a bit higher. Simply to save my stamina a bit.

I don’t want to tire out this early on after all.

It doesn’t take long for that opinion to change though. After one of the sentinels nearest to the ground spots me and comes flying to attack.

♢ Level 5 Iron Sentinel – 24 Potential Skills – X ♢

I end up jumping off of the platform to dodge it again before using my wings to catch myself. An act that proves a little awkward since I’m still not particularly used to flying.

The sentinel quickly turns and begins moving at me again, but I manage to dodge it in the air and stab it with my knife. Only for my knife to ping off just like before, merely scratching the thing.

My eyes narrow as I search the thing for weaknesses, with the thing still flying past me in the process before it comes to a halt. Then it turns and charges at me again, so I move out of its way just as awkwardly as the last time.

Fortunately though, the monster, while fast, isn’t fast enough. So my awkwardness doesn’t end up causing me any real trouble.

And this time, I reach to stab it in one of those extended parts on the corners of its body. An act that proves to be the correct one when my knife draws some sort of oily blood from there and almost cuts the small extended part off entirely.

Good. I won’t have to use it.

Was wanting to keep it a secret for as long as I can from those people watching me.

The sentinel ends up thrown off course after my attack, and when it tries to stop, it appears to have some trouble doing so. Then, when it does manage to stop, it turns around and begins flying at me again.

But this time it’s flying rather awkwardly. Keeps wobbling back and forth, swiveling like a car on an icy road.

Which makes it even easier to kill.

So, now that I feel confident with this monster fight, I go ahead and activate Assimilate before stabbing my knife into another of those segments. Then I repeat the process with the last four segments, leaving the thing to lose control of each segment when I cut them. As if it’s using those things to float itself.

And when the last one is cut, the thing falls right down to the ground like a doll whose strings were cut.

Following which I get the System Messages I was looking for.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial. EXP has now been allocated accordingly.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Iron Sentinel}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Enhanced Perception, is now unlocked for your usage.}

The moment I get the skill, I feel my eyes widen a little as my senses just expand outwards. To the point that I gain a vague awareness of everything within a few meters of myself. Simply knowing that it’s there.

Right. Guess this was how the iron sentinels sense things. Seeing as they clearly don’t have eyes.

Then again, a sort of magical sense like this is generally rather common amongst those with some sort of magic ability. Although I’m pretty sure it normally comes with the package of them using magic in the first place.

I quickly move to the side by flapping my wings harder once, awkwardly leading to me smashing into one of the floating blocks in order to avoid a sentinel that flings itself at me. But I just grit my teeth and turn towards the new sentinel that I’d sensed coming with the new skill I just got. Ignoring the pain from my arm and wing, both of which were smashed into the block.

One is still flapping right now to keep me in the air.

These sentinels are getting far too annoying.

I begin flying to the side again when this thing charges towards me. And this time, I swipe out with my knife to strike one of its weak points.

After that I proceed with the process of killing it I learned for the first one before reading the System Messages I get from it.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a monster within the tutorial. EXP has now been allocated accordingly.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Iron Sentinel}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Enhanced Perception, is now unlocked for your usage.} – [ERROR – Enhanced Perception is already unlocked. No skills are unlocked. 4 Skills will now be added to the preexisting Skill Tree: Iron Sentinel.]

Yeah, guess my assumption was right. Looks like most monsters other than those hounds in the second phase have the same root skill.

Which means I’ll only be getting one free skill from each type of monster I assimilate from. The rest I have to unlock with Skill Points.

And speaking of Skill Points, I should have over a hundred again by now. Almost forgot about that due to all the fighting.

So it’s time to purchase a new skill.

I stop flying on one of the floating blocks a bit further away from the monsters.

Then I open my Skill Trees menu and begin searching through my skills again to see if there’s anything better than my current most likely option.