Natalie felt someone shaking her shoulder, annoyed at the interruption of her dream, she swatted the offending hand away.

Someone was shaking her awake. In her apartment. She did not have guests. The woman sprang up to her feet and turned to face the intruder. Just as she was about to start screaming for help, her jaw dropped. She was standing in the middle of a spacious plaza, ceiling replaced by a clear, blue sky and a mass of people surrounding her from all sides.

It was quite, the vivid dream. Annoyed she pushed the man in front of her away... and he tripped backwards. That...

"Excuse me, am I not dreaming?" she asked, bending down to help the man back to his feet. "I apologise for pushing you, I just thought..."

"No harm done, we are all quite shocked." The man waved his hand and looked around. "Most of us were teleported here awake. What game did you pick?" Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "Oh, my name is Jerry and I chose HoMM3!" Jerry laughed and turned back towards the groggy woman before him. "I mean, how is that even supposed to work?"

"What? Oh, right. I'm Natalie." The sleepyhead dusted her pants and sniffed at the clothes she's been wearing the past few days. Strangely, they were clean. "I just typed in FF, all of it. I think, I kind of fell asleep as soon as I did."

"So, everyone here..." Natalie began and got interrupted.

"So all FF are a thing? My friend chose just Seven, but he didn't appear here, so I thought it was a bust." An excited teenager, wearing cargo pants, comfortable hiking boots and a thick jacket piped in. "I went with BB. If it were chosen, we can basically become immortal!!"

"I'm Jake by the way!" The kid extended his hand towards Natalie and she slowly shook it.

"Excuse me? Do you understand what is supposed to be happening?" An elderly voice came from behind and below the woman. "I only typed in that game my grandson talks about a lot, I think it was called Sk..."

Attention

"Good day mortals." "I am the divine in charge of your Reality." "You can pick the name you wish to call me." Came at once from everywhere and nowhere. The words jumbled together, yet clear to everyone.

"Goodbye." "Shortly, the administrators will appear in your tutorial pockets and they will answer any questions you may have." "Or not." "Your gods might be real, none had been well mannered enough to stay and introduce themselves." "Once you return onto your world, it will be changed and all of your legally owned properties will be waiting for your withdrawal in specified vaults." "You have a week to gain the tutorial benefits." "Your homes will be gone."

The wave of thoughts and concepts, accompanied by palpable annoyance and excitement, washed over every sentient being in the tutorial zones across the universe.

Natalie and the people around her, stared blankly into the distance for a while, digesting what was shoved into their minds.

A sudden cry broke the silence, "Spiders!!". Four human-sized, white spiders dropped from a crack in the sky, right onto the centre of the plaza.

Walls of light, split the plaza into four equally sized sections and humanoid spiders - dressed in pure white, butler outfits - began ushering everyone to form lines. A black crystal sprung out of the ground at the intersection of the walls, four simple desks crystallised around it.

The white spiders in the centre changed into albino humans with hundreds of spider legs in place of arms and sat behind their respective desks.

Before further commotion could break out, everyone except Natalie and the albinos disappeared.

"Sharding, a pretty neat invention, isn't it?" The unnaturally white woman said in a smooth voice and waved for the human to come over. "Please, take a sit."

A simple, black armchair grew out of the paved ground of the plaza, in front of the desk. "I don't bite." The creature smiled widely, showing her black, sharp teeth.

Natalie froze up, shook her head and sat down. "I suppose, if you wanted to harm me, I wouldn't be able to run, would I?"

"Do not worry, mortals leave a bad taste in my mouth. Divines on the other hand..." The woman leaned to the side and supported her head with half of her left limbs. "Well, if you were to become one and another divine wanted to eat you, you could still just start from the beginning after reincarnating. Keeping your memories between lives is a nice benefit of having a powerful soul."

The spider fixed her posture, patted down her white suit and put on a business smile. "That is quite far off though. Is there anything you'd like to know about your current situation?"

"Why? Why are you doing all of this?" Natalie waved her hands in the vague direction of everything.

"Every now and then a new Reality becomes known to the [...One Who Owns Everything Known...]. Sometimes, those Realities are magically... insufficient." The creature tapped it's chin with a couple of claws and continued, "This time a System was chosen as the means of introduction."

"I read some of your fictions on how and why such a thing might happen. They sometimes are a sort of reality TV show, for the entertainment of the masses. If you hoped to become a celebrity known across all worlds, I will have to disappoint you." The woman tapped the table with all of her limbs. "No one would find such a show sufficiently entertaining. There are countless gods among the many Realities and billions of mortal for every god. You guys are nothing special."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The spider smiled again and crossed the tips of her claws on the table. The human just nodded, shook her head and nodded again.

"Right... The... The games. This System is based on our games?" Natalie's voice trembled and she balled her hands into fists, to stop them from shaking.

"Should be easy to understand and runs a low risk of introducing forms of magic beyond the endurance of your souls."

"Alright, then... How do I get started?" The mortal asked and looked around.

The plaza was surrounded by four black, two-storey, marble villas. Beyond them, just forests and grasslands, circled by a mountain range.

"At the crystal behind me, you can pick from the available classes. In the surrounding buildings, you can find whatever you might need, to get started on systems not available through class selection." The spider withdrew some papers from a crack and shuffled them, without looking. "You can also check for the available Outposts, but you won't be able to build one until you are back on Earth."

"Some items and powers should be tied to quests, or locked to a party member, how can they be acquired?" The human continued her questions.

"The quest rewards were distributed onto various loot-tables, can be bought at a corresponding Outpost..." The albino shuffled the papers again. " For the duration of the tutorial, you can also hire other humans, to take the role of specific party-member NPCs. It's those of you, who correctly guessed one or more of the games, but only after hearing of them from somebody else."

"This sounds, quite cruel." Natalie furrowed her brows. "I mean, I could force them into a build that only works with specific tools, the character was introduced with, then take those tools from them."

"You certainly can do that. Do not worry, back on Earth, all of those items and companions can be acquired through one means or another. Everyone taking part in the tutorial will also get to chose where they will be spawned." The spider shrugged. "They can choose to appear close to the source of whatever it is they would need. Since those would be early-game items, the areas will be relatively safe."

The human nodded and looked up at the sky, lost in thought. "Can I ask you more questions later, if I walk away now? This all... it's a lot."

"After this Q&A ends, you will be able to find me, or one of my siblings in any of the buildings here." The monster gave a toothy smile and shoved her files back through the crack. "Oh, but do be careful. You won't be sharded anymore, once you get up." The spider gave a small wave with her right limbs and looked into the distance, focusing on something unseen to the mortal.

"Thank you... See you later I guess?" Natalie got up and came face to elbow with a tall man, currently dancing in place, trying to avoid stepping on an elderly lady.

The woman took a step back and sat down on the arm of the chair, bumping her back into someone just getting up. "Sorry..." She mouthed towards the kid she was leaning on and quickly got back up, bumping into the man.

A minute and fourteen "sorries" later, she managed to squeeze her way out of the crowd. Before her, stood a violet double-door to one of the villas. One side of the door had a large V engraved into it and the other a gryphon standing on its hind legs. No plaques detailing what could be found inside. After some thought, Natalie decided to check if the other buildings had different doors.

The next villa clockwise had engravings of a bonfire and a lamp. The one after it only had two rhomboid crystals.

Natalie shoved one side of the door open and squeezed through the gap she created. She found herself inside a spacious lobby, lacking any decorations. In the middle of the room, blocking the sight of the stairs at the back, stood a map of the building. The map lacked a legend, but each room was labelled with a number from one to fifteen or some random title.

"World of..., Tactics, one and... there. Eight is on the first floor and to the right." The woman slowly traced her finger over the map, until she found her target.

Feeling slightly on edge, Natalie ran up the stairs, dodged a pair arguing over who should be the dedicated healer and busted into the room with a large eight engraved into its door.

Unsurprisingly, the place was empty. The particular title, known more for its terrible magic system, than the incredible early game progression. The woman chuckled, seeing the familiar classroom and jogged over to a desk in the back.

Before taking a seat, she calmed her breath, stretched and cracked her neck. If this worked, she just might unlock an easy mode, for whatever was to follow. Swiftly she tapped the tutorial button and a window detecting the user popped up.

After a few seconds of loading, which to the woman felt like ages, a message that the GF was loaded appeared and her vision got covered by a screen asking her to name the electric bird.

Natalie leaned back and tried to look beyond the screen, at the ceiling. "What should I name you, my beautiful card maker?"

P E R U N

"Yeah, that should do." The woman giggled and laid her head on the table before her. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Ah, fuck it. Suck it the motherfucker up, you can break down once you've got some more shit done." She brushed away the few tears that formed and looked around the room. Finally, her sight rested back on the computer screen before her. 

There were two tabs that weren't there in the game, named "Students and faculty" and "DP". The first allowed her to check through a list of everyone present at the Academy during the opening section of the game and the second listed the various spells that could be drawn on its grounds and the surrounding area.

Next to each spell, was an animated icon of swirling, pink lines. Natalie tapped on an Esuna, but nothing happened. She scratched her cheek and widened her eyes realisation, before letting out a tired sigh. "Open menu?"

Her black character screen appeared before her face and she quickly navigated the menu, to slot in the GF and its skills.

"Alright, let's try again." She tapped the screen once more and once more nothing happened. "Draw?"

Esuna x 10 Blizzard x 3 Cure x 6 Fire x 11 Thunder x 14 Cure x 7

Pink lights streamed from the screen and flowed into the woman's hand. "Could have been worse I suppose."

"Now, let's check the other tab." Natalie tapped the screen a few times and clicked the first name on the list. The option to challenge the student to a TT match appeared. "Great! In that case, let's take Perun out for a spin, stock up a few spells and cards... and I guess I will spend the rest of the day gambling and scamming NPCs out of their cards."

"I wonder if anyone else will come by this room? Probably not?" The woman stretched. "Who knows though, some guides popped up over the years."