Chapter Three: The Tutorial
My will, strong as steel, pulled in what I was sure to be the last smidgen of Chi I needed. The energy entered my body through my nose and encountered a brick wall because my stores were full, but with a flex of more willpower I forced it to squeeze through the gaps and mix with the rest of its kind within my cells.
Something clicked, and I could almost hear the classic ding of a level-up from so many video games as I sensed a qualitative difference take place within me. I also noticed prompts appear in the back of my mind but I did not surface them, instead opting to check the time on my phone. Excitedly cycling my new and slightly improved Chi I picked my phone up off the dashboard and pressed the front button, which caused the phone to flash its lock screen for just a moment before it turned off again.
“Huh?”
I pressed the button again, then again, then tried the power button, then tried restarting the device.
Icy dread filled my chest, and the river that coursed within me lost momentum and died, returning to my cells. I tried to turn it on yet again, to no results.
“Fuck. Chi is incompatible with our electrical technology? Will this ever work again?”
It wasn’t the only possibility, but I felt it was likely.
Tossing the phone back onto my dashboard, I mourned over the loss for a moment before confirming the location of the flashlight that Agatha had given me “just in case”. I silently thanked her, despite already having a flashlight—albeit, a weaker one—in my trunk with my other emergency supplies that my father convinced me to keep there, also “just in case”. They were wise.
Hugging my emergency pillow and wrapped up in my emergency blanket in the passenger seat of my car, I was able to discern my surroundings a little bit thanks to moonlight. Somehow, the System had found a planet incredibly close to Earth for us, though I knew its moon was different by its unfamiliar crater patterns.
Having stalled and created enough suspense for myself, I finally opened the first prompt.
[You have reached Level 1. +1 Attribute Point]
Had I been drinking something I would have spit it out. Thankfully, I managed to keep myself from screaming. Instead, I channeled the maelstrom of skeptic turmoil into physical movements, and I swung my arms and legs around wildly from under my blanket, unable to comprehend the prompt for a moment.
“ONE POINT???” I whisper-shouted in my car, careful not to make too much noise since I knew some of the vehicles near mine were also occupied by people sleeping. “THAT MAKES NO SENSE!”
I stared at the prompt with wide eyes for longer than I cared to admit, confirming its contents several times with my updated Status Menu.
“Wow, yeah, leveling up gives just a single point.”
I reclined my head, staring up at the car roof and trying to figure out what I was missing, because there was absolutely no way in imaginary Hell that the System thought it was fair to reward me with 40 Levels’ worth of points for what I’d accomplished.
Several long minutes passed, but I remained stumped…and a bit scared. Everything had gone the way I expected until now, but this…
“It just doesn’t make sense!”
I let out a long, tired sigh before deciding to move on, lacking the mental energy to continue caring.
[Quest complete: Reach Level 1 by the end of the day. Choose your reward.]
[ > Level-appropriate weapon. Customizable design < ]
[ > Level-appropriate elemental Cycling Technique. Elemental specialization of your choice < ]
[ > Rechargeable Level-appropriate defensive treasure < ]
Most of my apprehension from the previous prompt faded as the widest grin of my life found itself on my face.
“This…is more like it.”
I smacked my lips, commanding my heart and mind to slow down. I had almost instantly chosen the Cycling Technique with a weird elemental specialization like “gravity”, if that even existed.
“I shouldn’t rush this decision,” I whispered to myself, feeling small in front of the prompt which would most certainly change a lot for me.
Since I had immediately discarded the weapon I thought first of the defensive treasure.
‘This is definitely not a bad choice. If I had a defensive treasure that could save me from a sneak attack back when the bearcat got me…it wouldn’t have gotten me.’
I imagined many scenarios where I was out in the forest hunting or caught in the middle of a bunch of enemies. A defensive treasure could save my life in such situations when I didn’t exactly know where the next attack would come from.
‘And it’s rechargeable, which means it’ll last me a long time…’
Looking at the last option longingly, I forced myself to consider why I wouldn’t want it.
‘Because…it won’t help against anything stronger than me.’
I grimaced at the image of encountering a massive spirit beast whose sneak attack was foiled by the defensive treasure’s limited charges until it ran empty, but with no time to recharge it and lacking the strength to beat the spirit beast, or the speed to outrun it…
‘It’s only useful against stuff I can already kill or survive against.’
Turning back to the Cycling Technique, it was easy to think of reasons to choose it. If my understanding of Cycling Techniques wasn’t wrong, then such a thing would help me in all kinds of complex ways, mainly for the long term. Such things could improve one’s cultivation speed, provide their Chi with more potency, and unlock the ability to learn and use other kinds of techniques, or just make them more powerful. So, if I chose a fire-aspect Cycling Technique I might also learn a fire attack with it, or gain the ability to learn one, or it would make all fire techniques I learn more powerful.
It was the sweetest of deals…which made it suspicious after really thinking about it.
Why wouldn’t the System just offer me a choice of Cycling Techniques? Why place it between two obviously worse options? Was something wrong with it?
Was this a test?
Part of me wanted to wait until I knew what the Tutorial offered to make my decision, but because I didn’t know when the Tutorial would take place I thought it best to choose now. After all, if I picked the Cycling Technique I would have plenty of time to familiarize myself with it before whatever System trials took place later, which I would excel even more at thanks to the added advantage of the technique.
But…was choosing a Cycling Technique something permanent, or in that ballpark of difficult to change? Would the Tutorial offer even better Cycling Techniques that I’d be locked out of? Was it not possible to wait that long?
I scratched my head, wanting to think a mile a minute but still forcing myself to slow down. To reconsider.
Choosing a weapon…wasn’t a bad idea.
Or at least, like the defensive treasure, it wasn’t a risky idea. Having a quality weapon or a tool to save me from sneak attacks did not offer the same potential for change as a Cycling Technique, but that’s what made them preferable, because I was…ignorant.
I was missing information. There was so much I hadn’t yet learned about the System and its magic. I’d been correct about so much on my first day in the apocalypse, but I had to remind myself that I, in fact, was NOT all-knowing, as proven by the level-up surprise. And chances were that if I continued making decisions based on assumptions, I’d be slapped down by a reality different from what I expected.
Like, how awful would it have been to come back out of the birch forest with my left arm messed the fuck up, and no Titles because I’d misunderstood what those were or because the ones I’d aimed for didn’t exist?
Before I could make a decision that could hamper my future growth I made my choice—a metal, spiked mace weighing about eight pounds appeared on my lap. Its handle was over a foot long, the ball at the end was no larger than my fist, and its spikes were each roughly half an inch in length.
I tried hard not to regret my selection, as difficult as that was. A defensive treasure would not keep me alive against something I couldn’t already survive against, and a Cycling Technique had too many unknowns for it to be a reasonable pick.
Besides, since I’d already managed to get a choice of Cycling Techniques on my first day in the System apocalypse, wasn’t it likely that I’d get more opportunities like that eventually? I’d achieved two Titles that awarded me “early Quest opportunities”, so didn’t that mean I’d get a second Quest soon?
I picked up my new mace, testing its balance and imagining how I’d swing it.
I’d been tempted to choose something cooler, or something with more reach, but ultimately a mace was perfect for a one-handed combat amateur. I had no fighting experience and currently didn’t have a second arm to help me swing or stab with something bigger. Maces were the simplest of weapons, simply requiring someone to swing it like they would any other primitive bludgeons while still causing massive damage. Basically a rock on the end of a stick, but mine was metal and spiked, so it was extra effective.
I nodded and even smiled. Yeah, I’d made a good choice.
Then I froze for a moment, thinking, before my smile grew wider.
“Yeah, it was likely a test, and I passed.”
After thinking about it more I was convinced that the Tutorial was going to give out Cycling Techniques as rewards, among other things. After all, how else would a population of newly-minted cultivators get access to them when they’d only just learned about Chi? Spend decades to centuries in research and experimentation? They’d die to the wildlife before then! I really doubted that the bearcat was the only threatening spirit beast prowling around nearby. It had been injured, after all.
Content with my rewards and discoveries I returned to my meditation, but instead of making progress to Level 3 I cycled my Chi to empower my body and activate my boosted Vitality for the healing benefit until I grew tired enough to fall asleep.
……
I awoke bleary-eyed and confused, my mind foggy but conscious enough to recognize that I hadn’t gotten much sleep.
The sun wasn’t even up yet.
Then I realized that the background noise my brain had been trying to tune out consisted of screams and shouts.
I grabbed my new weapon off the driver’s seat and reached for the flashlight with my left arm before the pain and bandages reminded me why I chose a mace, unlocked my doors, and burst out onto the parking lot with bloodlust in my eyes. I easily followed the calls for help and a few flashlight beams to the east end of the lot, where I could vaguely make out a grown man struggling to hold his ground against a thin creature about as tall as he was.
I clumsily charged forward with my mace, pulling a chunk of Chi worth probably 10% of my stores out from my cells and cycling it clockwise through my body until it became a roaring river, then steadily emptied it into my lower body and arms, noticeably increasing the power of my steps. When I neared I was unsurprised to find two more people on the ground.
Now within ten meters of the battle I could make out the beast thanks to several people shakily pointing flashlights at it and uselessly shouting, apparently trying to scare it away. An ostrich is what I would have assumed it to be had its head not been so lizard like, and its feet webbed.
To my surprise, the spirit ostrich let the struggling man’s arm out of its mouth and loudly hissed at me. Did it know I was a real threat unlike the other Humans it had attacked because I was cycling Chi? Now that I considered it, I did sense some energy emanating off the creature…
I had no more time to think about it as the spirit ostrich and I charged at each other, and the next moment was a blur. My left arm flared with the same, half-forgotten raging pain of yesterday as my right arm met pitiful resistance and my mace sunk several inches into my opponent’s body.
The ostrich screeched directly into my ear as it stumbled around after receiving my mace swing, and I recoiled from its bite at my bandaged arm. While I recovered from the shock of having yet more razor sharp teeth sink into and tear out of my limb, I realized that I should have allocated a few more of my unused points, and that I probably could have killed the ostrich with my bare hands and without taking damage had I chosen the defensive treasure. Oh well. At least I was safe knowing I could stand up against even stronger creatures than this giant lizard bird that could barely stand after having its torso caved in.
I finished the fight by hitting the beast with one more bone-shattering swing before dropping the mace and crushing its neck with a squeeze of my hand. Only after the spirit beast was neutralized I realized it had not only bit my arm but also tried to kick me, judging by the thin lacerations on my legs that were only now stinging. My mace striking its body probably decreased the power behind its kick.
Still, I couldn’t help but pale at how easily its teeth and talons had dug into my flesh, and I considered dropping a heap of points into Endurance…
‘No, that’ll be a waste,’ I thought with surety.
My attributes only came into effect when powered by Chi—which was why I didn’t feel any change when I used points—so unless I was precise enough to defend whatever specific part of me was was attacked, it’d be a waste of points. And I couldn’t just flood my whole body with stationary Chi that resisted attacks every fight or I’d very quickly run out of energy, since that was a different process than empowering my attacks. This fight alone consumed maybe a few percent of my total stores after earlier using a quarter in my efforts to heal, and I was under no illusion about the fairness of the future fights I would be involved in. There was no way I’d only have to fight one spirit beast, or person, at a time, especially because I was on the path to being an elite. Learning good energy management early was best, instead of wasting a bunch every battle.
And now that I thought of it, the reason the river of Chi within me didn’t empower me the whole time it was flowing was because it was in a passive state while it built up momentum, until I unleashed it with a mental command to activate somewhere specific with a specific purpose. Like my arm to empower my mace swing. I didn’t think I fully grasped the nuances of Chi and Attributes within my first few hours of being a cultivator, but I was getting a general idea.
I returned the river to a scattered collection of Chi that was reabsorbed into my cells, then turned to the ostrich’s victims. The man it’d been chewing the arm of hadn’t seemed to be mortally wounded so I ignored him and kneeled beside the people on the ground, heading first to the woman still moving. The crowd forming around me was very loud and distracting with many more flashlights pointing at me than were useful but I didn’t feel like yelling at them to shut up and just let them be while I inspected the woman.
“Are you responsive?” I asked slowly, with just enough volume to be heard without overwhelming her.
Through her tears and sobbing I could only make out a few words, but it was clear she understood me and only wanted me to check on the girl a few feet away who was apparently her daughter. With one glance at the little girl laying still on the grass, her clothing in tatters and covered in blood from exposed flesh, I understood that she was the ostrich’s first target, and I knew that she wouldn’t make it.
As callous as it may have seemed I tried telling that to the woman, but she would not have it and even became quite angry. I was torn between forcefully taking the mother to the doctor or fulfilling her wishes by bringing her dying daughter, and after a few seconds of thinking, the decision ultimately came down to one variable.
Which choice would make me look better?
I pointed out three people from the crowd and ordered them to help the mother to the pharmacy, before grimacing, empowering my entire body with superhuman strength, and scooping up the girl whose blood flowed like water out of a balloon with holes in it. Under the cover of darkness I felt comfortable holding the body out as far away from me as possible to avoid getting too dirty, knowing that had it been daytime somebody would have seen the cruel way I held her. Though, it wasn’t out of a disgust for blood, but a need to conserve water, which had also affected my choice of weapon. The stores we’d been isekaied with only had so much, and if we used too much when cleaning ourselves up every time somebody was hurt or even got splattered by the beast they killed, we’d run out sooner than later. I couldn’t let that happen until we found a permanent source like a lake, or hopefully a small river that wasn’t infested with powerful spirit beasts.
With my body enhanced by Chi I ran so quickly that I almost tripped, which would have been a disaster. Thankfully, I made it to the pharmacy in record time without stumbling too much and just the moon to guide me because no one with a flashlight could keep up. The front entrance was unlocked just like the doctor promised it would be and I hurried in, feeling bad for the mess the girl was making.
I sighed through my nose at the foolishness of Humans, which forced me to make a mess and waste resources just for good publicity when I should have just declared the girl a lost cause and moved on to the people who actually needed attention.
Was I mistaken? Or too cruel? I cared that she was gone, but it was clear she couldn’t be saved so I wasted little time worrying for her. It was the people still alive and whom I could directly affect that I tried saving my emotional energy for.
Such thoughts flashed through my mind as I awoke the startled doctor with a corpse in my arms.
……
The need to complete my first Quest, the spirit ostrich attack, the subsequent hours spent healing and dealing with the social aftermath by accepting gratitude and praise as well as giving condolences, and the noises produced by hundreds of people waking up grouchy after being awoken earlier by the fight caused me to arise after insufficient rest.
In short, I was exhausted, but because I had shit to do and cultivation advantages to maintain, I was forced by my competitive spirit and desire for power to get up.
For some reason I didn’t expect everyone to immediately notice my presence and gawk or approach to thank me more, but they did, making me paranoid for a split second before I remembered the fact that I’d merced what was essentially a monster and saved lives in front of dozens of people. To have such a sincere audience after being a nobody for eighteen years was surreal, and nothing like the day before, which felt like teaching strangers about my favorite game that I’d played for years and then giving a well-designed presentation when most other students barely threw something together.
What I also didn’t expect was the number of people who were injured. As it turned out, the man whose arm was in the process of becoming ostrich food when I arrived was not the first or only normal person to face the beast. I counted at least ten people with bloody bandages somewhere on their bodies whom I probably didn’t notice go to the pharmacy because I’d gone in and out quickly, staying just long enough for the doctor to confirm the futility of doing anything but burying the girl. I hoped some folks helped the doctor clean up the trail of blood, because I didn’t.
“A hero already, huh?” Annice asked with a half-smile.
I turned to see where she came from and was surprised to see that she and her clique had been sitting in the meditation circle with Sam, Kate, and Malachi just a few paces from my car. Judging by the lack of excitement in their expressions when they saw me, nobody had broken through yet.
“I guess,” I responded lamely, too tired to think of something cool like So it seems. “Though a kid did die, so…not the best ending.”
The rainbow-haired girl pursed her lips and looked down at the ground. “Yeah…but I heard there was nothing you could have done. You couldn’t have known of the danger until after it appeared and couldn’t just teleport onto the scene to save the day. Please don’t blame yourself.”
I really hadn’t blamed myself at all, but I said nothing of the sort for fear of making myself seem detached or sociopathic. After the introspection of last night while carrying the girl’s dying or dead body I became more sensitive about my image and taking care not to present myself as antisocial.
After all, I wasn’t anything of the sort. I did actually care a lot about people, just not necessarily in the same ways as most others might. Sure, I hardened my heart and felt almost nothing for the kid, but it wasn’t as though I was okay with it happening. It wasn’t as though I would abandon everyone here if it meant getting stronger, because part of the reason I wanted power in the first place was to use it for others’ benefits! Helping people felt good! And if I had to trade the wellbeings of innocent people in order to achieve that, then it wasn’t worth it because I couldn’t live with myself…depending on the number of innocent people, how powerful I was, and how well I knew them.
‘There are no absolutes.’
I wondered if I was worrying too much as Annice continued talking, reporting our group’s progress. One of the guys from her clique had been a fan of fantasy and quickly gained his Chi sight, and Kate felt confident about commanding Chi pretty soon.
Was the reason I awakened my abilities so quickly really just because I’d vividly imagined doing so countless of times already with my overactive imagination while reading fantasy webnovels? Because I hadn’t expected my followers to take this long to do the same. Was talent also a variable?
I quickly shook the nothing thoughts from my mind, knowing that the answers to my questions didn’t matter. If there was actually a vast difference in talent between us then there was nothing anyone could do about it, so even considering it was a waste of time. I had to get out of my own head and focus…which was really quite tough to do with the lack of sleep dulling my senses. What was I even doing walking toward the grocery store? Was it just to eat breakfast?
“Umm, I’m going to have to ask that you stop talking,” I blurted out, causing Annice’s eyes to widen and forcing me to hurriedly explain. “Wait, uhhh, poor wording! W-with all that happened last night I basically didn’t get any sleep and I’m running on fumes, so y-you were taking up all my processing power, you know? I forgot what I’m even here for, haha…” I ended with a nervous laugh, hoping I got the right message across.
And judging by Annice’s expression transforming into an embarrassed smile, I had.
“Ooooohh, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, sorry about that, I understand, Niko.”
With the effects of my mistake undone she returned to meditate with the group, saying they’d all already eaten, and I continued on my way to the breakfast spread, which consisted of yesterday’s leftovers and even more fresh produce. If I understood the store well enough, the cooler and freezer rooms in the back were well insulated and already cold enough before they lost power that they’d remain cold for a while—though I had no idea for how long—and that’s where much of our temperature-sensitive food had been moved. Perhaps somebody would learn ice magic, or something?
I packed a plate as much as I could without its contents spilling over the edge before Agatha found me, giving me a strange expression.
“You did something really good, I’m told,” she began, glancing at the new tears in my bloody uniform. “It seems your confidence wasn’t just for show, and, well, I apologize. You are one of our most essential assets, and the least you deserve is support from the rest of us who need your help, so I’m letting you know that I’m not unreasonable, I was just skeptical at first, and you’ve proven yourself.”
I was unsurprised but still thankful for Agatha’s approach. Telling people what they needed to do and appearing to be right was one thing, but actually killing a monster to defend your peers was another. Anyone could have happened to figure out the right information they needed to know, but only someone willing to put themself in danger out of altruism—even if it was only a side effect—was the real deal.
“I get it,” I said with a nod, shrugging away her concerns. “I’m not worried about the little things; my eyes are looking far ahead into the long term.” I swept my gaze across the masses, the stores, and the forest tree line surrounding it all. “Soon enough our little ensemble won’t just be a bunch of sad people in a strange, new world. We’ll adapt, as Humans tend to do, and conquer our new environment. Powerhouses will rise from among us, and we’ll wonder how we ever struggled in the first place.”
As the two of us shared a companionable silence, I couldn’t help but to imagine all the things that could go wrong and prove me incorrect. Somebody had to stop the worst-case scenarios from happening, and I wanted to be that person.
“Anyway,” I continued, “maybe in half an hour or an hour round everyone up again. I’ll give another speech from my car.”
Agatha nodded without question and returned to the breakfast spread, helping the elderly serve themselves. Satisfied with the encounter I returned to my car and the met with my little circle of followers, wondering how many of them would fight alongside me and for how long.
“Good moooorning,” Kate welcomed me, causing a round of greetings to come my way.
“A good morning for all except the dead girl’s family, indeed,” I replied, mentally thanking the System for descending and changing my life’s trajectory as I set my paper plate full of food down on the concrete. “Oh, right, you guys probably haven’t seen why it’s a good morning!”
With seven pairs of eyes watching me questioningly—discomfort from my joke evident in their expressions—I excitedly hopped into my car and pulled out the weapon that allowed me to so easily vanquish my opponent last night.
“Whoooaaa!” they exclaimed at once.
“Is that blood on it?!” Sam asked.
I looked over the spiked mace and winced. “Oooh, yeah, I didn’t do too great a job of cleaning it. Ah well.” I shrugged and changed the subject. “Anyway, is there anything I can help with here? Starting cultivating is mostly a solo journey but I’ll see what I can do.”
Kate’s hand shot up into the air, and I acknowledged her.
“I’m so close to grabbing the Chi in the air, and I want to learn magic soooo bad. Is that not enough motivation? What exactly did you imagine that worked?”
I nodded along with her question, having expected to hear it eventually. Then, making sure everyone was carefully watching me, I darkened my expression and slammed my mace down onto the street, scaring everyone and probably denting the weapon’s spikes.
“Whoa, what—“
“Don’t scare us like—“
“Why would—“
I interrupted and silenced them with another slam of the mace onto the ground.
“PAIN,” I half-shouted, raising my volume to be loud without changing my tone. “FEAR. ANGER.”
From my left to my right I stared at every one of my followers directly in the eyes for a moment.
“Imagine that I was your enemy, monster or not. Imagine that yours or the head of your best friend or lover was below my mace. Call to surface your deepest dread and helplessness without letting it consume you. Instead, let it fuel you. Your pain, your fear, your anger. The path of cultivation is not a light and fun one. It is gross, it is painful, it is heavy. If you’re thinking this’ll be at all relatable to what you’ve experienced or learned about back on Earth, you are wrong. You will not just live 80 pathetic years before dying. You will either live 5 easy years and die to something too strong for your protectors to kill, or live through 100 difficult years full of strife, but be so powerful by the end that you can live another 10,000 in peace.”
I frowned, even sneered at my followers for another moment before reverting back to my calm and cheerful self, feeling a bit guilty for plagiarizing the words from a character in one of the more recent books I’d read.
“That is what was on my mind when I managed to extend my willpower enough to tear energy from the world itself,” I continued. “Sure, it is exciting and even fun to learn and gain magical powers, but in order to do that, you must be fully aware of the road you’re walking down. You must be fully aware that conflict will not cease to find you, because in this new multiverse, the name of the game is limitless growth. While that might have been just a capitalistic myth in the old world, it is a reality here, but the cost of growing stronger is taking power from someone or something else. For now we will be leeching off the world to grow very slowly, but soon enough we will need to advance more quickly, which will require slaughter. So. Much. Slaughter. Because conflict fuels growth.”
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I thought back to the many progression fantasy series whose main characters managed to become what we would see as gods. I recalled to mind the countless scenes of wanton slaughter. So many people and monsters had to fall for the main character to take the next step. Every. Damn. Step. If the main character needed a very rare magical flower in order to absorb its energies and complete a powerful technique or reach the next stage of cultivation, then he would have to defeat every one of the thousands of other people who also wanted that flower…and then potentially the ancestors of the people he’d killed who came after him for revenge.
Everybody wanted to get stronger, but the resources required to do that quickly enough to reach the next stage before your lifespan ran out were not cheap, and you had to be prepared to kill everyone in your way to get them.
I summarized as much to my followers, and they wordlessly nodded. I expected to be asked more questions but was met with silence as they all closed their eyes and concentrated.
Thankfully, sharing my wisdom soon bore fruit, because Kate stood up with a smile, soundlessly raised her arms to the sky in a cheer, then sat back down and closed her eyes to continue meditating.
“Umm, you wanna tell us the Titles you received?” I reminded her.
“Oh! I forgot!” she said with a chuckle as she pulled up her Titles screen. “And you were right.”
[Titles]
Baby Steps to the Heavens: Every journey begins somewhere. Begin to sense and manipulate ambient Chi before receiving instruction from the Tutorial. +10 Attribute Points and early Quest opportunities.
“Dang, that sucks,” was my knee-jerk reaction, but I immediately took it back. “Actually, nevermind. It might be a good thing you didn’t receive [Ahead of the Learning Curve].”
Everyone looked at me strangely.
“Hear me out, hear me out,” I laughed with my functional hand up. “There were more than seven and a half billion people before yesterday. There are probably fewer now, but Humanity was still split up into a lot of different groups, judging by how many people are here. That means there are tens of thousands of pockets of people scattered across this new globe, and if several of us right here hogged too many limited Titles, then we might accidentally cause the deaths of a ton of people somewhere else. I think it’s enough if I’m our only elite cultivator and team carry, leaving room for more elites elsewhere who can then support more people.”
I saw some nods, but Sam, Kate, and Annice still looked conflicted.
“Does that mean you won’t be looking for as many limited Titles?” Annice asked with a raised eyebrow. “After all, you already have a ton more Attribute Points than the rest of us. Won’t it be a little hypocritical for you to still get a bunch more?”
I pursed my lips and stared back at my expectant followers, wondering how I could break the news to them that they weren’t as important as me without sounding arrogant or breaking anyone’s spirits.
I hoisted my mace and made a show of inspecting it under the sunlight. “You guys saw the ostrich monster, right? Its teeth? Its claws?” I asked, knowing that the corpse was still where I’d left it and that a lot of people had gone over to see it.
They all nodded.
“How do you feel about putting yourself in front of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of those every week for the rest of your life? Or killing other people because they want what you have? Not even just Humans. Remember that the System integrated us into the multiverse and thinks it important to list our Race as ‘Human’ in our Status Menus.”
I didn’t give them time to respond before I continued.
“I’ll admit to being one of the weirdos who wanted something like this to happen. For an event so large and catastrophic to occur that all our civilizations collapsed. Because only in such a situation like this could I be someone special, growing stronger than everyone else through my willingness to push myself to ever greater heights, and to rebuild a greater society from the ashes.”
Their expressions grew uncomfortable, but I went on.
“So I will continue to prove that I’m better than all of you. To prove that I’m better than as many people as possible and deserving of the power from putting myself in danger and reaping the rewards of coming out alive. Of course, I’m not that selfish. I’m not going to put any good people down in order to stay on top, and nor will I try to hold onto my throne if someone proves themselves more fit than me. I’ll gladly… Well, no, I won’t gladly hand over precious resources to someone who can use them better than I can, but I will do it. Angrily, but I’ll do it, because we are no longer ants who only managed to build civilizations thanks to working together—we are now in the multiverse, where one person can decide the fate of an entire planet with their sword. It is far better to have one monstrously powerful person than it is to have five people each with one-fifth of the other guy’s strength.”
I looked them each in the eye again before adding, “So until one of you proves to be more capable than me and even more willing to bear the burden of so many lives on your shoulders, then I will stand comfortably at the top and pave the path to survival for the rest of you, alright? That’s what I meant by it might be a good thing that all the [Ahead of the Learning Curve] Titles were taken before now, because that means that more people than just me have stepped up to carry Humanity on their shoulders.”
I didn’t expect my followers to immediately grasp or agree with everything I’d said—after all, half of it was based on inferences. But I did hope that they wouldn’t hold a grudge against me, or feel bad about never becoming as strong as me, and would understand why I wanted to be that powerful.
……
“Most of you have undoubtedly heard the details of what transpired last night,” I began, addressing the somber masses that surrounded my car-turned-stage again. “A magical animal like I described yesterday was prowling at the edge of our compound when a woman took her daughter out to relieve herself in the middle of the night. It pounced and took her life before I could arrive to kill it. Please, let us have a moment of silence for the fallen.”
I put my chin against my chest and closed my eyes with hands clasped in front of me, counting fifteen seconds until I continued my speech. I found the injured mother in the crowd, grief, disbelief, and regret marring her face.
“For the first fallen, may I remind you.” The words caused many to bristle as they raised their heads back up to look at me. “I know you don’t want to hear it—trust me, neither do I want to say it—but it needs to be said: there will be more casualties and we will need to be prepared for them. This new world is dangerous beyond our understanding. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a monster as large as a country just floating about in the sky, or hiding in the ocean’s depths, or digging around far beneath us. Not all of us will make it, potentially including me, since I will be at the front lines of danger every time.”
I swallowed, lubricating my throat with saliva.
“I propose several changes to the ways we will live from now on, to include using the buddy system. It is a given that we will need to relieve ourselves since we are just mortals, for now, and we can’t just drop a deuce in one of the bathrooms without plumbing or onto the parking lot. Carry weapons with you at all times—garden utensils, kitchen knives, rocks, or glass bottles. Nothing was stopping that ostrich spirit beast, or any other, from attacking us in the day. This compound of ours is not safe from the dangers in the forest.
“Along with the buddy system we also need to work out a nighttime guard schedule. We need a few capable volunteers to stay awake during the night and keep surveillance, and warn us if anything else comes looking for a meal. On top of all that we also need to eat and drink only what we need. Even if we can hunt spirit beasts for meat, we don’t have a renewable source of water or crops, nor are we currently strong enough as a group to fix those problems, which brings me to my next point: getting stronger.”
I began pulling Chi from the air for the benefit of the now-handful of people who could see it.
“Few of you can perceive it, but I am controlling the magical energy around me right now. As I said before, I can use it to make myself stronger, faster, and more durable. Soon enough, I might also be able to cast magical spells. But I can only do this right now because I spent roughly five hours meditating yesterday,” I lied by technicality. I had meditated that long, but I’d immediately gained my powers and used the rest of the time I mentioned to reach Level 1. They didn’t need to know the exact details, for now.
“The thing is, we all need to become cultivators. Not all of you will fight like I did, or even at all, but cultivating is kind of like exercising and eating a healthy, balanced diet. If you do it, you’ll be all the better for it, both physically and mentally. I say that we all spend maybe an hour every morning meditating together, using the power of peer pressure to our benefit by socially forcing each other to spend at least a little bit of time making magical progress every day. And we can start now. Spread out to make room for everyone capable of it to sit.” I had to specify because I’d counted more than a dozen severely old people who even seemed to struggle with walking.
The crowd did as I instructed, taking a few minutes for everyone to shuffle about and sit. I spoke louder to compensate for the increased distance.
“Now, close your eyes and don’t bother trying to empty your mind. For this to work you must be capable of vividly imagining magic and its effects—“
A loud prompt that everyone seemed to get at the same time interrupted me, causing many startled cries.
The Tutorial begins.
May fortune favor the ascents of the bold.
Before I could even think of calming words to give the masses, our environment changed as smoothly as it had the first time when we were plucked from Earth. Though this time our compound had been left behind and we approximately two hundred Humans appeared in a vast, opulently decorated audience chamber that one might expect a king to use. Sparkling gems and gleaming metal adorned a throne that was sized for a giant, about half the size of the Lincoln Memorial statue’s chair. Giant banners displaying a single orange stylized lizard eye hung from all over the room, and hundreds of chairs lined the walls bleachers-style, with the chairs farther back being elevated. Thanks to the room’s circular nature all the chairs pointed toward the throne.
While I studied the room many others were panicking, shouting, and screaming in confusion. I imagined that the last teleportation had been easier to stomach because most people had been in a building that was transported with them when it happened.
Before I had the chance to gather everyone’s attention, the room’s every occupant was knocked over by a shockwave that emanated from the throne causing even more grisly screams to rise, and when I looked up, its owner had made their appearance.
“Silence.”
The softly spoken word painlessly pierced my very existence like a bullet, and before I knew it I was calmly sitting upright on the ground, waiting for the being’s next command. I was not alone, either, as every single startled cry and panicked shout had ceased, as though the concept of words had been annihilated.
“I see that a lot of you are broken,” the unidentified being said. “Heal.”
Once more, the command became ever-present, permeating everything in the room as though the laws of physics had been rewritten. I looked down at my arm and the scratches on my legs and hip. Sure enough, there was no more discomfort. Skin and flesh as real as all the rest took the place of the scabs and other dead tissue I’d thought I would have to get used to for a while. I unwrapped the bandages on my arm and marveled at regaining my limb’s full range of motion. I was also energized, no longer feeling the need to take a nap.
“Welcome, Humans, to my planet called Yorgefan. Yes, you are still on the same planet that the System made your new home; you were not teleported off-world. However, because there are so many of you the System has seen fit to separate you all into many different instances. You are all viewing a projection, so I will not be able to answer your individual questions, nor would I have wanted to had I the time. This is the first phase of your Tutorial. Feel free to take a seat.”
With the last sentence uttered, the veil shrouding the mysterious entity was lifted, and my mouth dropped. Lazily sitting atop the throne was what I could only describe as a dragon-turned-Human. The man had dark scales that I’d almost mistook for skin, long, flowing hair of tiny chain-like structures that seemed to be made from his scales, lizard eyes like those on the banners, and two magnificent, rocky horns sprouting from either side of the top of his head, curved and pointing forward like a bull’s.
He was beautiful.
Along with the veil, the compulsion to sit still had also been dispersed, though the command to be silent stayed. I stood and motioned for others to do the same, moving toward the chairs lining the room. When we’d all sat down, the dragon man continued.
“None of you need to know my name, but you may think of me as the Lord, the Lord of Yorgefan, or Yorgefan’s Lord, and I am acting as an assistant to the System for the integration of your people from whatever desolate rock you came from. I will explain some basic cultivation concepts, the System’s role in all of this, and your circumstances, not necessarily in that order. You will have another handful of breaths to make yourselves comfortable before I begin the presentation.”
‘Did he just say…presentation?’ I internally chuckled at the wording.
“Now then, let us begin.” A blank square like a TV screen appeared in the air above the Lord of Yorgefan. “You all naturally evolved on a rock devoid of the Heaven’s bountiful energies, but your evolution was not without guidance. Some say that the Heavens influence life even so far outside its influence, and others say it is the grand Dao, but it doesn’t really matter. The truth is simply that by chance you Humans came into being because your ape ancestors were lucky enough to have plenty of nutrition and the right genetic mutations. Had things been slightly different… Hmm, let’s see…”
The Lord looked up at the projection which now displayed what looked like video of dinosaurs in a heavily forested area until the perspective panned upwards and a burning meteorite came into view. The screen paused on that image.
“Well, I’ll be,” the Lord whispered, surprise evident on his face. “If it hadn’t been for that damned rock there’s a chance I might have been welcoming a Race much more like my own than you lot. Though, said hypothetical people would have never been true Dragons such as I, given the Heaven’s absence.”
I gawked at the Lord’s acknowledgment of his Race. My guess was spot on.
“Anyway, my point is that you all being Humans is nothing special. There are plenty of people and other Races almost exactly like yours across the multiverse. However, what is special is the fact that you’ve been welcomed by the System and all now have opportunities beyond your wildest dreams. There were probably many kings, queens, and other rulers on your old world, yes? Let it be known that whatever privileges their statuses bestowed them are nothing compared to what you can achieve now in the System’s care. It says here your lifespan was capped around the one hundredth solar revolution of your old solar system, but that has changed. Now you may even live long enough to watch a mundane animal naturally evolve into a person like yourselves! Of course, it is highly unlikely that even one person from your population will grow powerful enough to live even one percent of that time length, but it is technically possible.”
I looked around to observe the shock in the expressions of my fellow Humans, thankful for how the Tutorial was being managed, so far. What I had thought would be one of my greatest challenges on this new planet was properly motivating people to do what needed to be done, but hopefully the Tutorial would work that out for me.
“You Humans are not the only Race on Yorgefan, by the way. You have competition from several others, but of them I can only tell you that one Race will pose far more of a threat to you Humans, specifically, than any other. Again, I cannot say why. So, enjoy the diversity, hahahaha!”
I would have thought the Lord of Yorgefan the final boss from his laugh had he not actually been our instructor.
“That is all about your circumstances for now. Next I will explain the bare minimum about cultivation and the All-Seeing System. However, this part is optional for those who have figured some or all of it out and gained the [Baby Steps to the Heavens] Title, because phase two and beyond of the Tutorial can only be accessed by true cultivators.”
[Will you proceed to phase two of the Tutorial? Yes/No]
Surprised by the prompt, I looked around, finding the members of my little squad. I made sure they were all looking at me from their seats, mimed writing something down on my hand before I pointed at and locked eyes with Kate, the only other person to become a true cultivator. I gave her the thumbs up and immediately agreed to the prompt, causing the world to shift yet again before I appeared in a different kind of space entirely.
Strong winds buffeting my face, I looked around to find myself alone atop a rock floating in the sky.
“Oh my,” I said as I peered over the edge of the rock the size of my car, seeing nothing but more sky and clouds around and beneath me, except for what looked like a giant compass imprinted on the sky above like a tattoo. I kicked a pebble expecting it to plummet, but to my surprise it traveled just a meter before its velocity noticeably slowed, and after coming to a stop it lazily floated back up to join the rest of the rock, sticking somewhere on its side.
“I guess that makes sense,” I muttered to myself. “There’s something keeping this rock floating, so there’s no reason to believe that if something falls off the rock it would exit that something’s field of influence.”
To be honest, a not-insignificant part of my brain thought it would be fun to jump.
I shook my head of the crazy idea, and I caught sight of something strange in the corner of my eye. I turned completely around and was startled to find the horizon replaced by more floating land that definitely hadn’t been there before. After a glance up, I saw that according to the sky compass the new land was to the south.
‘Illusions musta hidden it,’ I guessed, before stepping onto the landmass whose ends I could not make out in the distance as the wind threatened to throw me overboard.
Once safely atop the continent I noted my environment’s key features: a field of lush grass that reached my knees, some dozen or so humongous trees comparable to redwoods scattered around with plenty of distance between each giant, and hills that prevented me from seeing very far because I stood at the bottom of one.
My first order of business was to climb a hill, and once I’d done so I gained a greater vantage point, allowing me to confirm there were only a dozen ginormous trees and that the hills were of the rolling variety, going on for several kilometers before the landscape changed in different directions. To the southeast, which was my left, I could see what looked like a swamp of some kind. To the southwest, my right, there was an evergreen forest with no special qualities that I could discern from this distance. My first impressions were that if I had to enter either one it was going to be the evergreen forest, because I had little experience with swamps and did not like the idea of traveling through one. However, I did not yet know anything about these rolling hills scattered with giant trees, so I withheld on forming a plan until I knew more about my immediate surroundings. I began walking toward the closest giant tree that towered like a skyscraper.
However, once I traveled halfway down the first hill I’d climbed I was alarmed by a rustling of grass to my side. I jumped backwards and turned to face the sounds just quickly enough to spot some kind of large mammalian rodent with its beady little eyes trained on me. Thinking back to the encounter with the long-tailed weasel minutes after the System apocalypse I waited for the creature to jump before I would sidestep to avoid its claws, but the fat rodent never did. It barreled towards me with giant buck teeth raised and ready to dig into my flesh, so I kicked it in the face, sending it into a backflip.
It landed on its back and wiggled its legs around but seemed too dazed to right itself properly, so I jumped and landed on it with both feet while I had the chance, losing my balance and falling off the to side but crushing its insides pretty effectively, judging by all the cracking and squishing sounds.
[Title earned: Tutorial]
[Tutorial Points earned: 1]
Excited, I opened the Title’s description.
[Titles]
Tutorial: Complete Tutorial Objectives to receive better rewards. +0 Attribute Points.
“Huh,” I said to myself aloud before moving on and trying to open any page associated with the second prompt about “Tutorial Points”. To no surprise nothing happened, but I’d at least understood the gist of this phase of the Tutorial, and subconsciously understood that I could transfer points. I had to kill spirit beasts to gain points, and those probably had to do with my Tutorial Title. And judging by the large rodent’s barely existent aura it had only been Level 1, thus gaining me 1 point.
I had to find stronger beasts.
Before doing anything else, I steeled my heart and lamented at what had to be done. I had hoped to have discovered some kind of Cycling Technique or something that allowed me to become a mage by now so that I could confidently distribute my points into Intelligence and Wisdom…but alas, it was not meant to be. Before I could convince myself to do otherwise, I dropped 10 points into Strength and 15 points into Agility, bringing both stats up to 25 and my total available Attribute Points down to 4.
Niko Tess
Strength: 25
Endurance: 11
Chi Condensation (Level 1)
Agility: 25
Vitality: 15
Race: Human (Tier 1)
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 11
Attribute Points: 4
[Titles] Tutorial
[Quests]
I sighed at the path I’d been forced down but was still happy to have had points available to distribute. Had I been a more normal person like Kate who’d been taught how to cultivate but hadn’t earned as many Titles, I would have been in a significantly less advantageous position in the Tutorial’s second phase with just 10 points to my name instead of the 41 that made me so much stronger than the average human.
I looked inward and was surprised to find my Chi stores completely full despite having used a good bit during the night to fight and heal. Either it was a complimentary gift from the Tutorial or Yorgefan’s Lord when he healed us, and I was most certainly not ungrateful for the time saved.
I powered up and tested out my 25 points in Agility, almost immediately tripping and being forced to slow down and gradually build up my speed. I easily reached the speeds of bicycles being ridden on even ground and quickly made it to the nearest sky-scraping tree. On the way I’d scanned the ground for rocks I could use as weapons but found the dirt completely empty of details besides grass, which confirmed to me that this second phase of the Tutorial took place in an artificial environment.
After circling the tree a single time I found that the northern side had a door carved into it. I was thrilled by the discovery that the skyscraper-sized tree was hollow and might have been a kind of indoor challenge, but I hesitated to enter, considering the dangers within.
On the way to the tree my run had been interrupted by a cute and common, but oversized wall lizard similar in weight to the rodent from before that charged at me recklessly. It had been Level 2 and granted me 2 Tutorial Points. If I entered the tree challenge I might gain untold benefits but it also held untold dangers, compared to the option of staying out on the rolling hills and hunting small spirit beasts, where I could consistently gain a handful of points every few minutes. Plus, who knew what else the rolling hills hid? There might have been beasts that offered more points that I hadn’t yet seen.
Then I remembered two crucial details: there were twelve trees, so the challenges within couldn’t have been anything too grand, and…I had 31 more Attribute Points than what was required to enter this phase of the Tutorial! What was I worrying about? I was probably 3 times stronger than the average cultivator at this point!
With renewed confidence I opened the door carved into the tree’s side and entered with gusto. Inside was exactly what I’d hoped—a room housing several monsters, and stairs in the very back that led to the next floor.
Simple and easy.
With adrenaline coursing through me I took the first step, prompting the two water-bottle-sized mice within to squeak and charge. Two well-timed kicks was all I needed to make them past tense.
[Tutorial Points earned: 2. Total: 8]
My trip up the stairs was without surprises, if very long for just a single flight, and I arrived within an identical room whose only difference was that its occupants were more numerous and a tad stronger. Three mice, one of them at Level 2, I reckoned.
[Tutorial Points earned: 4. Total: 12]
As I went up the next flight of stairs I figured from the ceiling heights of these rooms that there were at least a dozen floors, and I guessed that each floor would have a spirit beast one Level higher than the strongest in the last room.
So far I was right, because the third floor contained about ten Level 1 mice with a single Level 3 mouse behind them, which was relatively easy to tell because they stood still and let me analyze their auras until I made the first move. When the cannon fodder rushed me their apparent leader held back, looking for good angles to attack. I easily kicked and squished four mice to death before one bit into my shoe and nicked a toe, and another began climbing my pants. I kicked the former and crushed the latter within my hands, but doing so allowed the Level 3 mouse an opportunity to jump at me. It landed on my chest and held onto my shirt with tiny little claws before furiously biting down. I shrieked with pain and irritation while it bit three times, and after dealing with another mouse climbing up close to my crotch I dealt with their leader.
[Tutorial Points earned: 13. Total: 25]
It wasn’t long until the battle ended and I was splattered in blood that mostly wasn’t mine, but I still sat down to catch my breath and think. I’d been overconfident because of my Strength stat and hadn’t considered that a small swarm would pose any threat. They’d ultimately only cut my skin in a few places, but had there been too many more they might have gotten me somewhere vital like the face. I had to start taking advantage of my Agility stat too, even though I’d worried about hurting myself with the increased speed I could barely control. Had I spent several minutes practicing dashing around in the first floor I might have gotten the hang of my newfound speed enough to simply pick off the mice one by one without any of them drawing blood with their disgusting little teeth.
As I became acquainted with my Agility I wondered whether my injuries could become infected.
Between five and ten minutes of practice later, I ascended to the fourth floor, where a green Level 4 fox spirit beast and several Level 2 mice waited for me. This time I did not simply rely on my ability to kick them as they came, instead opting to spend a bit more energy empowering my entire lower body and speeding around the room, dodging the fox’s and mice’s attempts at biting me.
After spending 1% of my total energy solely dodging I was confident enough in my evasion skills and ended the fight, knowing I’d have little issue taking on the next floors.
……
The fifth floor had contained two foxes and a badger, one of them being Level 5. After fighting the Level 5 spirit beast I realized that it had been a lot stronger than the bearcat, displaying physically strength comparable to a grown, muscular human. I imagined that people at Level 1 would be able to acquire [Punching Up] in this phase of the Tutorial, but without either a weapon, multiple Titles, or having previous martial arts training, it would be difficult.
The sixth floor held a surprise and a lesson to remember: birds were powerful. The Level 6 spirit beast there had been a large woodpecker whose attribute spread had apparently been fully focused on Agility because I could barely react in time to its dive by enforcing my entire body and making use of my 11 Endurance. Thankfully the woodpecker barely had any Strength because despite its claws raking across my defensively raised arms it only left white lines on my skin. After that wake-up call I placed my last 4 Attribute Points into Endurance, bringing the stat up to 15.
The seventh floor had surprised me even more than the sixth, because in it resided a single Level 7 bear with what I imagined was a ton of Strength, which I never confirmed thanks purely to my agility training on floors three and four. As soon as I moved, the bear had lunged at me with force that shook the floor, and had I not practiced evasion I would have tripped up and likely been mauled to death. But I had trained, and the fight from there was easy because it seemed the bear’s fast lunge had been a result of Strength rather than Agility. It couldn’t keep up with me because I never stopped circling it and giving it a good kick or punch in the backside when I thought it safe enough.
That floor had cost me the most Chi so far, bringing me down to 50% of my total energy stores and forcing me to sit down to recoup on my losses. When I reached out to the ambient Chi I almost gasped, surprised at its density. It was many times higher than what I felt back at the grocery store and I was almost tempted to spend time on cultivating instead of refueling. However, I quickly realized that the lower my Level the easier I would find gathering Titles to be. [Punching Up] was likely just the first of a line of similar Titles, and I’d soon find out if at the 10 Level gap was the next one.
Floors eight through ten were very similar with no more surprises, simply containing a squad of varying spirit beasts for me to kill, including one flying bird each, some rodents, a lizard or two, and a large mammal, dinosaur, or flightless bird. Yeah, dinosaurs—meaning large reptile-or-bird-like creatures rather than the literal classification of “dinosaur”—were included in the fights sometimes. It was frightening at first, but they weren’t too different from the other spirit beasts.
“Floor eleven,” I said to myself, palms sweaty. “Finally.”
After massacring the beasts on floor ten I wiped myself down with my hands—splattering blood everywhere—and confirmed where my wounds were. After the bear I’d suffered little cuts and bites every floor because of the increased number of opponents, and though they didn’t distract me or limit my capabilities nearly as much as the mauling of my elbow yesterday, they were worrying. Not only for the fact that they might very well become infected later, but also because I’d hoped that my 41 Levels’ worth of Attribute Points would allow me to safely clear this entire second phase of the Tutorial, especially after practicing moving around with my increased Agility.
Yet here I was, bleeding even after learning my lesson on floor three.
I gathered my wits at the base of the stairs, psyching myself up for the challenge to come. For some reason I had a feeling that a single powerful spirit beast would be waiting for me. I looked at the points I’d accumulated so far.
[Tutorial Points earned: 29. Total: 145]
I hoped I was wrong. I hadn’t discovered what the points were for so far, but I definitely wanted as many as I could get, and if the floor only had a single spirit beast I would gain as few points from it as was possible, like with the bear floor when I only received 7.
Mentally prepared, I made my way up the stairs.
“Oh thank the Heavens!”
Waiting for me was a large Level 11 monkey whose fur shone gold, accompanied by two Level 8 wolves. I would gain 27 points from this floor, which wasn’t bad at all even though the last floor had given me 2 more than that.
Then I spent a few seconds inspecting the monkey’s aura, and I began to have second thoughts. Its aura…was almost as strong as mine. I’d already figured out that along with one’s aura quality being determined by their Attribute Points combined with their Level in some weird way, I’d also noticed that as the spirit beasts increased in Level by 1, their actual Attributes didn’t reflect an increase of 1 total like mine had. The only way to reconcile what seemed to be an inconsistency was to accept that spirit beasts gained more than one Attribute Point per Level.
And this monkey had a lot of them.
But instead of retreating down the stairs and exiting the tree, I…did not move. Auras could only be felt when Chi was being expended, and though I hadn’t felt like doing it on any floors until now, I’d known that if the beasts were displaying their auras for me and wouldn’t attack until I made the first move, I could just stand still until they ran out of Chi, or at least lost a lot of it.
However, it seemed the System had accounted for that loophole because even though I didn’t so much as breathe too hard, after thirty seconds the spirit beasts charged. Surprisingly, the golden monkey did not allow its lackeys to attack first while it waited for an opening. It went straight for the kill, immediately engaging in close-quarters combat, trying to wrestle and bite me with its huge fangs. I punched and kneed every grapple attempt, and though my Strength and Agility were higher, I quickly found that its Endurance far eclipsed mine. Punch after punch it simply shrugged me off.
Then the wolves came running, and I realized that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. With my fists and the majority of my attention occupied by the Level 11 monkey I could barely put any strength behind a kick that deflected the first wolf to reach me before I was forced to enforce my entire body and hop backwards to figure out a new strategy.
One second to myself was all the time I needed.
Screeching, the monkey lunged toward me exactly as I expected, and though I knew I could lose my hand if I messed up, I shot my arm forward to grasp it by the neck. I succeeded, and instead of celebrating like I wanted to, I squeezed my fingers hard, causing the creature to gurgle and desperately scratch at my arm, tearing at my skin but not causing any deep damage due to it having nails instead of claws, just like a Human.
I easily kicked away the second wolf before using both hands to lift the golden monkey. It must have weighed at least one hundred pounds, but by holding it closer to me combined with my 25 Strength I found the task trivial. Now holding up its body in the air, I targeted the first wolf that I’d kicked earlier and twisted my waist, slamming the monkey down on its back like one would throw someone over their shoulder. The difference here was that my slam produced a satisfying crack, because I’d held onto the monkey’s neck with all my strength, and the forces produced by the throw had broken it.
With its spine crippled the monkey was no longer a threat, and I took care of the two wolves in short order. However, I did not receive the completion prompt until I crushed the monkey’s skull, because despite being in the process of dying, it hadn’t died yet.
[Tutorial Points earned: 27. Total: 172]
[Title earned: A Rookie no More]
[Title earned: Rushing Ahead]
After only a moment of regaining my breath I began the march up the stairs to the twelfth floor…and stopped halfway, gaping at the second Title. I’d struck gold yet again! I quickly opened the new Titles’ descriptions with fervor.
[Titles]
A Rookie no More: Slay a wild spirit beast at least 10 Levels above your own without assistance. +3 to all Attributes.
Rushing Ahead: You are the first of your people to earn A Rookie no More. +5% to all Attributes.
“Good thing I climbed the tree,” I said aloud to myself with a chuckle. “Though if there’s a [Rushing Ahead] equivalent to [Punching Up], it’s a shame I wasn’t fast enough to receive it.”
I thought back to the moment the System descended and wondered whether I could have been any faster. Definitely, was the answer. I’d spent about thirty seconds just getting over my shock, checking my phone to test whether I received cellular data, and then not bursting into a full sprint, merely running and even jogging in the forest.
Those wasted seconds could have cost me another good Title, but I tried not to dwell on it, because there were likely still plenty left to take. I opened my Status Menu to console myself by staring at my winnings.
Niko Tess
Strength: (28+5%) = 29.4
Endurance: (18+5%) = 18.9
Chi Condensation (Level 1)
Agility: (28+5%) = 29.4
Vitality: (18+5%) = 18.9
Race: Human (Tier 1)
Intelligence: (13+5%) = 13.65
Wisdom: (14+5%) = 14.7
Attribute Points: 0
[Titles] Rushing Ahead
[Quests]
“Ahhh, simply beautiful,” I sighed with content, before continuing my trek up the tree.