Ch 23: Tutorial II I am Magical ?? Days (Sarah)_Broken Empires

Condescending Guide stood where I had left him as if he had not moved a muscle. I would not put it past him because he was an avatar of the Tutorial AI.

Goddammit, I had forgotten to get an AI.

"Can I duck back in, Guide? I forgot to get something?" then I remembered I had no money!

"To gain further access to the shop again, you must complete some quests."

I groaned. This is why I was not fond of games; nothing was straightforward. If it were a gathering quest or kill something quest, I would murder this Guide.

I ignored Guide for a second, "I’m going for a swim first. It’s a beautiful, warm day, and the lake is inviting. I also have a couple of bikinis to try out."

"Before swimming, you must ensure the area is safe."

Tutorial Quest Received: Investigate the lake.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Frame: None The reward for success: 10 experience.

Before you swim, you must investigate the lake and see why swimming is unsafe.

Failure: No quest reward, No Swimming.

"Fuck no!"

Please refrain from using profanities. A Negative karmic penalty will apply.

"What the fuck"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours. Penalties are cumulative.

HUD filter enabled.

HUD Filter Options Disabled.

Profanity Randomizer Installed.

"What the loan? Target Motherkicker, bull-usual."

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

This was absolute BS. At least I could rage against this.

I didn't even know what HUD filters and HUD Filter Options were!

"Hey Guide, what are racket HUD Filter Options?"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

He looked blank momentarily, then smug, "They are options to filter your interface to remove or add extra data to the output. They are useful for things like colour-coordinating names and identification skills. Common settings are red for aggressive and green for friendly. The system has flagged Earth Humans as being negative in speech patterns. You have a profanity filter built in, which becomes enabled when you swear. It can be configured to display question marks or random words."

He paused, looking into space. He looked even smugger, "It looks like yours has been set to random words, and you have lost the privilege of altering it. You get that for ignoring Karma and going against the system."

I glared at Guide as I stormed over to the lake beach. It looked magnificent despite the quest.

Leaf of the Broken Season: Red Bikini.

"The lake looks fine", I yelled over my shoulder.

I waded into the water.

The water was beautiful. I could see the sandy bottom right out to the depths, which was energising.

Mana regeneration increased.

Health regeneration increased. Energy restored.

Wow, the water felt beautiful, and I felt a surge of powerful energy course through my body.

I turned around to shout at Guide and unload some more negative karmic words.

You have been grappled. You are immobilised.

You have been poisoned. Resistance Failed.

-2 health per second. 30 seconds remaining.

-1 health Mage Armour mitigates 10 damage.

Confusion 30 Seconds. (-20 Mind)

You have been poisoned. Resistance Failed.

- 4 Energy - 5 mana per second. 30 seconds remaining

"READ ME!" I yelled as the pain and shock set in.

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

I was in panic mode. Didn’t I have some skills, spells, or crap to deal with this?

Pause by Nulore

Nulore Hypermode Active.

Nulore is not responsible for brain damage caused by this spell's excessive use.

You have used this spell 0 times in the last five minutes.

Timer Active 5 * tier(3) seconds.

This was batshit. There, that was better. Now, I had 15 seconds to sort something out.

It was interesting, the pain and the confusion seemed to have been compartmentalised and I could think.

To say I felt stupid was an understatement. I was so wrapped up in this coolness and being annoyed and pissed off at the stupid quests and the stupid tutorial guide, Guide, that I had forgotten it was not a game. Luke told me that he had made some similar mistakes.

12 seconds.

Crap. I needed to think.

Skills:

OMG, Heal me, it hurts.

Can’t see me. I am invisible.

Leaf of Broken Season

Class Skills:

Identify

Mage Sight

Enhance Item

Spells:

Arik’s Improved Find Item

Pause by Nulore

QuickStep™

Sobine’s Minor Mending

Rite of Purify Body

Class Spell:

Light

Mage Bolt

Mage Armour

Man, I needed to get all my skills and things sorted.

3 seconds.

So, plan. At least I was facing away from whatever had grabbed me.

Nulore Hypermode Ended.

Please do not use this skill again within the next 5 minutes. Brain Trauma and or death is probable.

QuickStep™

Blink and a jolt, and I was back up next to Guide. I gritted my teeth to stop myself from punching him. I had other things to worry about.

Status

Poison: Veephite Toxin. 28 Seconds remaining

- 1 health Mage Armour mitigates 10 damage.

Toxin: Neurotoxin. 28 Seconds remaining. Confusion (-20 Mind)

- 4 Energy - 5 mana per second.

Fuck. I only had 25 health.

I could still feel the toxin, but I figured it was just a bit of pain for 20 seconds. Then I’d finish a healing potion and wait until the debuff ran out.

OMG, Heal me, it hurts.

Healing reduced, Debuff active. (Toxin)

Shit.

I felt nauseous and like crap as I watched my Mana and energy sink. My brain was slightly foggy, and my thoughts were a lot slower.

Fuck. My ritual thing.

Rite of Purify Body.

I got the herbs and performed the rite as quickly as possible with shaking hands. It was pretty basic, and I managed it despite the tremors.

The herbs vaporised, and I inhaled the misty smoke, as required by the ritual, feeling a sense of peace and tranquillity wash over me.

Toxin Cleared. Poison Cleared.

I smashed down another healing potion. Blue was not my favourite.

Quest Complete

Tutorial Quest: Investigate the lake. Difficulty: Easy

Time Frame: None

The reward for success: 10 experience.

A Freshwater Shaderkel lives in the lake.

You gain 10 experience.

Class Quest Complete: Cast a spell in combat.

Reward: 10 XP.

Reward: Skill Spell Friends.

Grants +1*level to Charisma for 1 hour when casting helpful spells on others.

Nice. I glared at Guide.

He glared at me. "I told you to make sure the Lake was safe."

"Container you"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

Tutorial Quest Received: Make the lake safe.

Difficulty: Hard

Time Frame: None

The reward for success: experience, Items based on contribution.

A Freshwater Shaderkel lives in the lake.

Stolen novel; please report.

In your tutorial group, free the lake from its tyrannical grip to enjoy the benefits of these magical waters.

"Practice West Reading Tea!!" I yelled at Guide.

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

"Please, Sarah, I tried to warn you. The tutorial quests should guide you, and you should listen to me. Your first quests are related to ensuring you know how to use basic skills, then slowly work your way up. This tutorial is supposed to be fun and full of people. I am trying hard to adjust to a solo tutorial. I was not notified of this when this gig came up, and I am doing my best on short notice."

I continued to glare at him.

"You need to stop swearing; it will become more and more difficult if you do not. The system is warning you, and you are ignoring it. The System does not like to be ignored!" he started.

I smiled, making a rude gesture. I did it again when I saw it was not considered swearing.

Shutting his monologue out, I turned around to face the lake and started walking. A cold fury was building in me. This was supposed to be a tutorial. An accessible introduction to using skills, earning experience and levelling up. It was supposed to be fun, he said.

This was the opposite of fun. I was supposed to learn how to use skills and meet others.

I stood a bit back from the lake. Now that I could see the fucker, I had a plan. The creature was essentially a big butt, ugly octopus thing. You would think that the AI who built this place had a bit more creativity. It was a poor imitation of what I imagined a Cthulhu creature might look like. Maybe they might discover something genuinely frightening once they raided Earth’s cultural database. Horror was one thing that I think humans would be considered good at. The Shaderkel was hard to see, but I knew it was there. I could see it just under the water's surface, small watery swirls with the occasional ripple as its bulk broke the surface.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to configure my HUD. I did see where the profanity filter was greyed out. It had a timer at 239:28:22; it was Hours, minutes, and seconds.

"Rabbit Reward Project"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

Yep, it jumped to 311:28:15.

Maybe it was time to work on not swearing. It would be pretty embarrassing if people discovered how much I swore. I worked around with the other stats and set it so that I saw my health, Mana, and energy at the bottom of my HUD as bars with a percentage overlay. Beside them, smaller, I had their regeneration rates. It was cool. I could just glance at them and instantly know their values, percentages from full, and regeneration rates thanks to my PRM skill. It took me a bit to do the math to work out how long till they were full, but I decided that if I got an AI, they would be all over that.

I used one of my healing canisters. They were all pretty nice. I really liked the Red and Purple ones. I tried a Black one. I was not a total fan of Licorice. That was a hold out from when I was younger and I ate a whole bag of Licorice bullets, I pooed green and had stomach cramps for two days.

LIFE:

HP: 312(11/sec)

MP: 302(11/sec)

EP: 307(11/sec)

I sat watching the beast as my Mana and Energy trickled up. I started channelling Mana into my wand. I could channel 300 Mana into my wand before I bottomed out, which made me feel fuzzy and light-headed. A massive brain freeze followed this as I pushed too far. Think zooper-dooper ice block shoved up your nose, brain freeze.

I could regenerate 66 mana a minute. That took a couple of minutes to top up. I topped the wand up, That was 100 mana per shot, so I spent another the extra time topping the wand up, eventually it had 1000 mana..

I sat watching the beast for just over three hours while I was channelling Mana and recovering. Guide was talking, but I was furious at him, and I was ignoring him.

Stupid fucker.

Channelling mana felt so good. Toe-curling pleasant – shivers like when I copped the feel of Luke’s new abs. The mana drain was sweet and smooth. It felt so good. It was eating chocolate, and fresh coffee smelled good. A bubble bath and chill music were good. Solid bicep and abs on a boyfriend are good … and I had to stop daydreaming and focus.

Eventually, I was able to get my plan happening. I would Mage Bolt and Wand the sucker.

Class Spell: Mage Bolt

Active

5*level - 10*level Mana per bolt

Current Rank Uncommon, Upgradeable, Trainable.

Damage: Mana + Rank Bonus * 10 per bolt

Cast Time: Instant, 2 * (1-Rank Bonus) seconds delay.

This spell sends a bolt of condensed Mana towards a target. Rank up to improve damage. Rank up to add elemental damage. Rank up to improve accuracy.

I could cast a 10 Mana Mage bolt that would do 10 + 2 * 10 for 120 damage every 1 point-something seconds. Hey, who knew being a Mage needed math? I could be a mathemagician! During the cooldown, I would sling some fireballs with the wand. I had no idea what damage they would do, but if an uncommon spell did 120 damage, it should be at least 5-10x that being a Tier 3 wand. Minimum of around 600 and maximum of 1200. That sounded like a lot, but I had no baseline for health. I had a measly 300. I had no idea how healthy the creature was, but it couldn’t be too much, given that this was a tutorial.

Although this was supposed to be a group quest, it could have a couple of thousand health. Maybe. I was not going to ask Guide. I was still pissed at him and ignored him.

Wand of Fireballs. Tier 3. (1000/1000)

Add Mana and cast. Activation on purchase. 10 Fireballs per 1000 Mana stored. You must be able to channel Mana to use. A Wanderous Wand. Contact Wanderous for custom wands.

Hopefully, it would be less than 10 shots. I was going to cast mage bolt, then wand, mage bolt, then wand.

Great plan.

I stepped towards the lake. The Shaderkel was about seventy meters out. Now that we knew about each other and I knew where it was, it surged up out of the water into the shallows straight at me when I got to 10 meters from the lake edge. It was an ambush predator, but not a very bright one.

Mage Bolt.

Fireball.

Mage Bolt.

Fireball.

Mage Bolt.

Less than 4 seconds!

Mage Bolt: You have inflicted 136 physical damage on a Freshwater Shaderkel.

Wand of Fireballs: You have inflicted 4290 (Critical x2, Weakness to Fire x 2) fire damage on a Freshwater Shaderkel.

DEFEATED: Freshwater Shaderkel. (Chaos, Tier 3)

Experience Awarded: 240000 x 100% contribution bonus: 240000 experience.

System Credits Awarded: 24000 credits x 100% contribution bonus. 24000 Cr.

Bonus Experience for completing raid quest solo.

Bonus Credits for completing the raid quest solo. Karma is Awarded for defeating an agent of chaos.

Mage Bolt: You have inflicted 139 physical damage on a Deceased Freshwater Shaderkel (Deceased).

Wand of Fireballs: You have inflicted 4190 (Critical x2, Weakness to Fire x 2)fire damage on a Deceased Freshwater Shaderkel (Deceased).

Mage Bolt: You have inflicted 146 physical damage on a Deceased Freshwater Shaderkel (Deceased).

Mage Bolt: You have inflicted 116 physical damage on a Deceased Freshwater Shaderkel (Deceased).

"Zone me dead."

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

"Wand of Fireballs" at Tier 3 was so OP for this tutorial. I smiled.

Title Awarded: Solo.

Kill a raid boss of equal or greater Tier by yourself. Effects: + 1 to all stats. +5 Luck.

10% bonus to get 1 Tier Higher items from loot drops.

+ 20 renown.

Quest Complete.

Tutorial Quest: Make the lake safe. Difficulty: Hard

Time Frame: None The reward for success: 1290 experience shared.

Loot. A Freshwater Shaderkel lives in the lake.

In your tutorial group, free the lake from its tyrannical grip.

Quest Update: Loot the defeated Foe.

Tutorial Quest Received: Collect a Chaos Bounty (1) Difficulty: Easy

Time Frame: None The reward for success: credits, experience, and renown. Collect a Tier 1 or higher Chaos trophy. Redeem for bounty reward at any System Store.

Do you wish to loot this defeated foe: Y/N?

Yes

Loot will be randomly assigned between all members who damaged the creature.

Designated personal inventory as the default looting target.

1 Tier 3 Chaos Trophy added to your inventory.

8 Tier 3 Toxin Sacs added to your inventory.

5 Tier 2 Poison Glands added to your inventory.

28 Uncommon Freshwater Shaderkel Teeth have been added to your inventory.

2 Rare Freshwater Shaderkel Teeth have been added to your inventory.

230 Uncommon Freshwater Shaderkel steaks added to your inventory. (3 slots taken, stacks of 99)

5 Rare Freshwater Shaderkel steaks have been added to your inventory

3 Rare Loot Chests are added to your inventory.

6 Uncommon Loot Chests added to your inventory.

34000 Credits (Split between all raid members).

Total Experience Gain: 265310 (Split between all raid members).

Total Credits Gain: 172600

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 2.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 3.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 4

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 5

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 6

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 7.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 8.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 9.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 10

Congratulations. You have reached your first milestone.

Class Choice.

You may not dismiss this prompt.

You must choose to upgrade your class or select a new Class before you proceed. You will be offered another Class or Path Choice at Level 20.

If you are unhappy with your choices, you may decline a choice and level without Class Skills. This is not recommended. Some bonuses may apply to those brave enough to select this option. You may lose class skills and perks if you choose this option.

If you are unsure about this, you should have waited until you are ready.

1. No Class - Level Without a Class

2. Continue Mage Path: Uncommon Mage Upgradeable

3. Rare Spellsword Upgradeable Path available reach level 20 for

5. Epic Master Magician Upgradeable to ??

An epic class at level 10! That was so much better. However, I did want to be a battle mage. Maybe I could become a Battle Magician. But epic sounded so much better than uncommon.

Please Confirm choice 4: Epic Master Magician Upgradeable to ??.

Yes

Class set to Master Magician Rank Epic

Class Level Bonus:

You receive 24 stat points per level: 12 distributed in Mind, 8 distributed in Body and 4 in Spirit.

You receive 10 free points to assign. You receive +100 mana per level.

Your mana regeneration gains + 10 per minute per level.

Title Awarded: Epic (First)

First in Realm to receive an Epic Class.

Effects: +5 to stats. + 2% to all stats.

Epic Item Token.

Epic was so much better than Uncommon.

Assign Stats.

Auto-assign free stats to Comeliness and Charisma.

Because I was vain and insecure.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 11.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 12.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 13.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 14.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 15.

LEVEL UP. You are now Level 16.

Title Awarded: Truly Epic.

Be first in the realm to achieve all stats over 50. +10% to all stats

People notice you.

I collapsed into the shallows. I had been so caught up in all my plans that I realised I was still in my red bikini. At least I looked good.

It was an Epic Boss battle in a hot red bikini. Life didn’t get much better.

Battle Recorded. Save Battle Recording.

"Superreaction, yeah!"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

TUTORIAL: WARNING DUE TO LEVEL IMBALANCE, YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE TUTORIAL IN 5 MINUTES.

Please retrieve all your belongings.

You may not enter this System Tutorial again.

For further training, you are required to hire a System-sanctioned Trainer.

"What the menu Guide?"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

"That was a Raid boss for an entire tutorial group. You were supposed to wait until you had explored and gained some levels. That was a day 7 or 8 activity, possibly day 10 for a non-combat group. It generally would have taken 20-30 participants at the end of the first week and then some the same number of support classes. You have flagged some inefficiency in this tutorial. I am sorry that you did not get the full tutorial experience. No personal shops will be allowed in future tutorials. All Items will be level-capped or removed to be handed back after the tutorial. There will be a credit cap on spending in the store. I am filing for this to be removed from my record as a trainer. Since you had a positive outcome and passed the tutorial in record time, please rate me positively in your Tutorial Guide Rating. You did succeed under my guidance."

I killed a raid boss in a red bikini and broke the tutorial guide.

This was awesome!

"Hey, Guide…" man, I could be a bitch.

"Yes, Sarah?"

"Midst you!"

Negative Karmic Penalty. Luck penalty for the next 24 hours.

I spent the last remaining minutes swimming in the beautiful lake, ignoring Guide.

I wonder if I could join the Legion now.

Ch 23: Tutorial II I am Magical ?? Days (Sarah)

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