Chris
When the timer ticked to zero, my vision went black and I felt the same sensation as I had 90 days prior.
Teleportation.
The room I appeared in was different than the one I was expecting. It wasn't the nauseatingly bright white that I thought it would be. It had rocky walls that had a molten orange glow to them.
Like they were illuminated by the lava underneath, and there was a slight heat to it that matched that description.
My survey of the room was quick as I swiveled and looked for threats. The bare rockface was the same all around, four identical walls filling my view topped off by a rocky ground and ceiling.
Before I could question the bare room I was placed inside, a person appeared in the center. I wasn't an expert on monster biology, but I would bet a hefty amount of money that the horns and scales dotting the man were draconic in origin.
There wasn't a way for me to tell if they were real draconic parts, but they felt different than anything I had ever seen. I wasn't certain if it was the horns that were the root of the feeling, or the person itself, but it was difficult to focus on.
Something was pressing on my mind as I stood there, almost like I couldn't handle being in the same room as what was in front of me.
Other than the horns, there were a few more alterations that made the person distinctly not human. Or not pure human. With the alterations people could make that was going to be difficult to observe. With all the odd powers out there, it was impossible to tell if this was dragon in human form, or a human with dragon modifications, or something else entirely, I couldn't rule out that option.
While I looked my new companion over and walked around the room, it started to speak... at the wall.
"Congratulations, participant, for surviving the tutorial."
The words were uniform in tone, clear in their lack of enthusiasm or excitement. The delivery of congratulations was nearly sarcastic in dryness.
"To succeed where others failed and harness determination and grit to advance farther than most. I-"
The words continued and I couldn't help but get distracted. Congratulations? Drive? Others failed?
That was a funny way of putting it. Throwing people in a death trap and then saying that people failed for not surviving? That my family had failed?
The being continued its soliloquy while I seethed at what was said. The insinuation that it was our fault that we failed angered me. That it was because of something we did to deserve the deaths we had.
"If you get stronger and seek out the Sovereign of Flame, he might take you into his Pantheon. Rejoice, for he is the one who blessed you with this opportunity. While he will not bestow his blessing upon you now, he might in the future if you prove your worth."
The words stopped registering after that.
Rejoice?
Blessed me?
Anger ignited and my hammer leaped into my hand. The insinuation that this was a blessing drove me over the edge. This was hell. Torture that a sick and twisted mind thought up, it was not a blessing.
Saying I should feel grateful for the opportunity to watch my family die was too far. My hammer was out and swinging before my mind registered what I was doing.
Even when my mind caught up, I went through with it anyway.
My hammer passed through the person in front of me like it wasn't even there. Like a hologram parting around an object before snapping back into place.
I swung a few more times to the same effect.
It was a recording.
We went through hell, survived waves upon waves of monsters, lived through the 90 days, and we were congratulated by a recording.
There was nothing I could do. It babbled on about this or that and I could do nothing to stop it. My attacks passed through like air and there didn't seem to be an off switch.
I had to sit while it preached how benevolent it was to give me the opportunity it had.
If I hadn't wanted to kill the person responsible before, I sure as shit did now.
Ignoring the babbling recording was difficult without anything else to do but I managed. The words wrapped up not long after keeping the recording brief but still insulting.
As the recording finished, the familiar feeling of teleportation happened again without any warning. The recording ended and I was off. For some reason it felt like there was supposed to be something in between those two events. The only thing I could do was hope I didn't have to go through something similar again.
This time, when the light hit me again, it was the blaring white I had expected the first time. The bright room along with the 'guide' was my only company.
My seething anger cooled so I could process what was going on.
"Congratulations, human! You have survived the tutorial integration and are ready to return to your planet. For accomplishing that feat, rewards will be given based upon your performance."
At least this time the congratulations seemed a bit sincere even though I knew it was a robotic figure giving it.
"You may see how many Tutorial Reward Points you have by opening the shop menu. If you have any questions or need help to aid your search, you may query me by voicing your concern."
The unnaturalness of the guide was less surprising this time around and made it easier to get through the process. This was more in line with what I was expecting, not the experience earlier that ruined my mood.
A place to choose my rewards before being teleported back to Earth.
Having been through this once before, I listened to the guide and brought up the shop menu to see how many points I had.
I wasn't sure if they were the same points as before but I doubted it. They were called something else and referred to differently. When the tutorial ended, I didn't have any points carried over so I didn't have a way to test that claim. I had given them all to Abigail before I left.
Glancing at the number made my eyes go wide and made me speechless.
It was a big number. So big, that I initially thought I miscounted and added a zero or two at the end.
It was in the billions.
The encyclopedia-style list of tabs and sections of the store only seemed more daunting after knowing how much I had to spend.
The countless items up for purchase seemed endless and my points bottomless. I knew I would be getting a lot but this seemed absurd.
My initial exploration led to subsections of subsections, with even more items available to buy. There was everything in the store. Gear, weapons, skills, materials, information, anything.
Anything I could possibly think of to buy was there and then some. Some of the items I didn't even know were a thing until I saw them available in the store.
This... this was going to take a while.
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There was a list I had made of things I wanted to buy as a reward but it needed to be updated. I had way more points than I expected and there were way more items available for purchase than I imagined. Those two facts combined made me reevaluate the entire situation.
One thing that I needed and knew for certain I would buy, was information.
I wasn't sure what exactly I would be able to get, but I knew I needed a map. The planet had irrevocably changed and I needed a map before anything else.
"Are there maps of the planet after the terraforming?" There were too many tabs to search for it myself so I relied on the guide to show me.
Wordlessly, the screen in front of me displaying the possible items changed. Switching to a list of maps that were available.
There were options of different sizes, like maps of regions, continents, and the entire globe, along with different information the maps showed.
A lot of different maps that were available.
They went up in price the bigger area it showed along with the more detailed it was. Some got to asinine prices with the entire globe showing every minute detail.
I didn't need any of the fancy ones, the reason I wanted a map was for the placement of my city.
There were things that I wanted near it that made placement important. Type of mana, mana density, the closest dungeon, and total number of dungeons.
All were important for where I was going to build a city. The most important, and highest priority, was defensibility.
Anywhere I built, it needed to be easily defensible. It couldn't be on an open plain that was assailable from every side.
Fortification needed to be prioritized and placement was a big part of that but it also couldn't be too far away from points of interest.
I wouldn't be able to get everything from the map itself, but it would make it easier to find possible spots to survey. Places near dungeons and of the mana type I wanted.
From what we knew, we would be put back in the same spot we had been taken from. I, and my family, would return to my grandparents' backyard in southwest Ohio.
The maps didn't show much and it seemed like they were blocked from perception unless you bought them. It would defeat the purpose if you got to see them without buying them. Especially if you had good memory.
"Show me maps of the continent I will be returned to."
None of them had labels or names to go along with them. There wasn't a North American map or a map of Europe. At least there were none I could see.
The list shortened to only show what I assumed was the North American continent. It was impossible to tell without looking at them.
"Show maps with filters for mana type, density, and dungeon entrances."
The list shortened further.
I was left with a few different maps, all with similar prices that I could buy. Each was pricy but well worth it in my opinion.
I purchased one of the options and moved on to the next thing on my list.
I didn't want to spend a long time here because I didn't know if it would delay my return. I planned to get back as soon as possible without rushing to make sure the area we returned to was safe before trying to find my Mom and brother.
With the map secured, it came time for my big ticket item. It was something I had known would suck up my points if there was an option for it and there was.
It was something I had discussed with others when we were fantasizing about what we would get at the end.
I wanted to upgrade my affinity.
There were countless affinities and there were more than I had thought possible. Higher tiers of affinity, combinations of affinity, and slight variations as well.
When thinking about what I wanted as a reward, my affinity was what I thought would be best. There was some debate about whether I wanted to add another, combine two together, or upgrade the one I already had, but doing something with my affinity was a clear choice for a reward.
Ice could be upgraded a few different ways depending on what I wanted.
Of the options, I decided upgrading it was the best option and there were two I had to decide between.
Glacier and Arctic.
Glacier was the straight upgrade of my current Ice affinity. Better in every way but without adding anything new.
Artic would boost my ice, but not as much as Glacier, and focused more on the coldness of ice than the hardness of ice. In the trade-off, it added Wind to the equation. So I would have both Ice and Wind as an affinity.
Like how a Storm affinity consisted of Water, Wind, and Lightning; Arctic was Ice and Wind. It was predominantly Ice still, but gave me more options to work with.
It also had the benefit of the Body Refining technique I used.
There were various ways to upgrade an affinity but the way the store did it was through treasures. Certain treasures held the power to upgrade an affinity once eaten and both options were available.
While I loved my ice and would continue to go down that path, Arctic sounded better than Glacier to me and was the one I chose.
It was exorbitantly expensive and was the majority of my points, but it would set me up for even more power as I grew.
Next on my list was back to information. In the tutorial, we managed to unlock 3 of the 4 paths of power and I wanted to know the last one.
We were told what it was but we weren't given anything else on it or how to take the first step. It was called Mana Cultivation and it was a part of the Body Trinity.
Both it and Body Refining were a part of the Body for some reason.
The list that was shown was similar in length to all the different Body Refining Techniques I had seen before and there were thousands of different options. All of them claimed to boost something different and it would take forever to get through them all and didn't seem worth it. Especially when all of them were so similar in their benefits. Just from the first page I saw 7 that boasted doing the same thing only slightly different.
From the little information we knew, affinity was the deciding factor for which technique to use. All of them were designed for a specific affinity. Mana Cultivation was different than Body Refining in that regard.
You weren't able to use a technique for an affinity you didn't have.
Mana was picky like that.
I still wasn't sure what exactly Mana Cultivation was and I didn't have a lot to go on which made my search even more difficult.
Filtering by the Arctic affinity didn't help. Hundreds were still on the list as options.
Without anything else to go off of, I turned to the only other thing that could help me.
"Show me Mana Cultivation techniques for the Arctic affinity that will suit me best."
I wasn't sure if that would work or not but I tried it anyway.
There was a slight glitch on the screen before only one option remained. The hitch seemed unnatural for an all powerful System but I dismissed it as filtering out my request. Without any reason to say no, I bought it before moving on to the other things I needed to get. It seemed good enough if the guide only narrowed it down to one.
Next on my list was The Northern Winds technique for Body of Stone. I had used the technique to reach Body of Wood and wished to continue with it to reach Body of Stone.
I wasn't sure if I would be able to get my hands on it later and wanted to make sure I had it now just in case.
Next up was the Civilization pylon. It was one of the last things I had to get and soaked up more of my quickly dwindling points. With how many I had, they sure disappeared quite fast.
With that done, I wanted to ask for something... outside of the norm.
There was only one thing left I planned to spend points on and I wanted to see if my idea was possible before I spent everything on my last purchase.
"Are things that aren't listed available to purchase?" I asked.
The same hitch in response as before happened before the guide answered my question.
"What is it you want that is not listed?" It voiced.
The voice was different than before. Instead of robotically requesting me to define my query, it asked in a more personable manor. Plus, its voice was normally robotic in nature but this one sounded almost human. And more feminine.
To answer, I clarified, "I want the hill."
The guide stared at me for a moment before I realized it had no idea what I was talking about.
"The hill adjacent to our pylon that was our cemetery." I specified.
It was a long shot but I hoped to take it with me. I didn't want to leave them there.
The guide took a long moment to answer and it seemed almost conflicted, "Is it the remains you want? Those can be extracted."
"No, I want the entire hill."
It paused again. "It will be... expensive,"
"I don't care," I replied.
In front of me, a new item popped up on the list and the guide was right. It was expensive.
Not as bad as my affinity upgrade but up there nonetheless.
The main reason it was so much was because of storing it. What I was asking for was tons of dirt and rock that I wouldn't possibly be able to carry.
Most of the cost came from the ring it was stored in. I knew that storage devices were a thing but they weren't available until higher ranks. They weren't even available in the prize store to buy, I looked. The only things available were spatially expanded packs.
The ring wasn't a storage device exactly, but it served the same purpose. It would hold the hill in limbo until I wanted to place it. It would then deposit what was inside before breaking.
It would let me take the hill with me and place it where I wanted. I didn't care if it crumbled to dust after as long as it did what I needed it to.
The price tag hurt but I thought it was worth it. I wasn't going to leave my family in that place.
There were a few smaller things I purchased from the store that caught my eye while I searched that I picked up now before dumping the rest of my points on my last purchase.
While scrolling through the different blacksmithing tabs, there was a list of different spirit fires and I purchased one of those. An Ice affinity spirit fire sounded counterintuitive but it would help me with my smithing.
Vinny had convinced me to look for them which was why I saw them in the first place and knew what they were. A fire affinity one was on the list of things he wanted to buy and his babbling drew my attention to getting one of my own.
Some others popped up here and there but there wasn't much else I wanted to spend points on. There was still one more purchase I had to make but I had points to spare for a few more small things if I wanted.
There were a few skills I picked up with the last of my spare points before I searched for the topic I was assigned and my last purchase. [Identify Blocker(Common)] being the biggest one.
Before we left, Abigail gave us all topics we were in charge of acquiring from the store. Different things that we would need when we returned.
As an example, someone was in charge of buying farming equipment, seeds, and knowledge about plants and growing conditions.
Things that we would need while building a city.
People were assigned different things to buy so we could split the cost while still getting everything we needed.
My topic was formation materials.
One big factor that was different between the tutorial and when we would be returned, was we had to build everything ourselves.
There were no walls that popped into place, no defenses that magically appeared. That was a tutorial-only occurrence.
Everything we needed had to be built with our own two hands.
One of the biggest things we needed to make were the formations and wards lining the walls. To make the strongest city we could, those were a requirement.
Being the leading expert in such matters, it was left to me to get the materials necessary.
With the last of my points, I loaded up on rare metals and crystals that were needed for strong Wards and Formations.
With everything spent it was time to go back home.
I couldn't wait.