With a bouquet of bright blue flora in one hand, and a malevolently red-tinged dagger in the other, Lucille set about preparing a trap for the cat-like Abyss Monster. Anyone unfamiliar with monsters and their nature could possibly believe it possible to tame or befriend the monster, but those who thought like that and entered the Tutorial often ended up dead sooner rather than later.
Monsters were foul, horrid creatures. While the Abyss Monster did vaguely resemble its feline lessers, it was unmistakable that monsters were the nemesis of every sentient being. Monsters existed to distort, destroy, and devastate civilisations. Borne from the stagnant and malignant miasma zones of mana found in nature, monsters did not have sentience or complete souls. They attacked anything with a soul on sight and had no human emotions. No Tutorial entrant had a chance of taming a monster there.
The monsters themselves tended to incite revulsion on sight. Decked in tumours, defects and the twisted connections to the mana surrounding them, many have vomited just by seeing such creatures. Lucy had better control of her body than that, but she still wasn’t looking forward to seeing one of them again for the first time in a while.
Addictive blue flowers, check. Vampiric iron with unusually sharp edges, check. The leather gear I arrived in under my coat is decent enough quality for me to use. I'll find something better another time. I will not say something as dramatic as ‘I only got one chance at this’ because that is calling for fate to maneuver me into a MacGyver moment where I’ll probably lose a limb or two. My wrecking ball trap should give me two chances at this. Hopefully. Probably. Maybe.
....touch wood.
She carefully sneaked through the cave the Abyss Monster had made its den in, dropping a few flower petals on the ground at the crossroads. The flowers themselves were the magical-world equivalent of catnip and worked on any feline-like creature with mana. The dropped petals were hopefully enough to distract any monstrous minions, as the plant also had sedative qualities. It wouldn’t work on the Abyss Monster, but it should've been enough for monsters of the magical density the minions had.
She heard the flowers also made good tea but hadn’t tried it. She eventually reached the main cave where she made her way over to the pile of bones and leaves that seemed to be some sort of bed for the monster. The sensation of walking on white bone shards belonging to a variety of creatures’ femurs, limbs and skulls wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience.
She placed the rest of the bouquet on the bone pile and got out the lengths of rope and metal ball she had managed to get off some townspeople. It was good that the cave was still as she remembered, as she was able to set up the wrecking ball trap as plan B. The Abyss Monster had probably gone out hunting for the afternoon. A woodman she met mentioned he saw fresh traces going the opposite way. It was perfect timing for her to enact the plan. A plank of wood was jammed between two stalactites on the roof where she let down a rope tied to the iron ball. It was a failed helmet made by some apprentice blacksmith.
She had gotten up there using a potion of flight she managed to .....obtain from the old shopkeeper. The potion was a scam in and of itself, as it didn’t let the user fly faster than a kilometre per hour, and only reached a maximum of 5 metres, not to mention the 5-minute effect length. It was very good for Lucy's plans that the roof of the cave was low.
Going to the back of the cave, she rigged the ball’s rope so that it could be released when she was at the back of the cave, hopefully swinging into the Abyss Monster if her first attack failed. It was an atrocious plan, a fact she could definitely admit, but it was better than dying from using a cursed sword she couldn't even wield. Lucy could proudly admit she had no physical combat ability.
She also added her secret weapon to the flower pile to enhance its strength: spirit dew. She had snuck it off the shopkeeper's belt when he was busy checking the magic contract for loopholes. You learnt a few skills here and there when you entered the Tower, which may or may not include a convenient sleight of hand trick.
In the end, she waited patiently for a few hours before she could feel the thud of large, clawed feet making their way towards the room. There was always a possibility that the Abyss Monster could smell her scent hidden under the pile of leaves she made for herself in a corner of the room, and not be distracted by the flowers, but hopefully that wasn’t the case. She saw its shadow at the cave entrance and then it entered.
The Abyss Monster itself was covered in a mangy and flea-bitten brown coat, with a raggedy darker mane reminiscent of a lion. Unfortunately, the rest of it wasn’t nearly so nice. Its muzzle had been covered in festering scar tissue, and its right eye had gone a sickly green colour, its pupil and iris glazed over to show it had gone blind. Pus leaked from some badly healed wounds on its face and body. The Abyss Monster’s tongue lolled out as the mouth was opened in an ever-present sneer, froth collecting at the sides of its jaws. Its fangs occupied most of the room in its mouth, more than any typical creature, and the arrangement of the teeth looked like a dentist’s worst nightmare. Its muscles bulged twistedly and dreadfully as if some sort of steroid overdose had happened. The claws were solid black, signifying its ability to use dark magic, the origin of its name ‘Abyss’.
It was also 2 metres tall.
The monster noticed the blue flowers on its ‘regal’ throne and sniffed them suspiciously. For a moment it looked like the flowers weren't enough to distract it, but after a tense moment of waiting, it flopped down with its back turned to Lucille, and started munching on them. She waited a few moments longer to be safe, but it was well and truly distracted. The monster conveniently rolled onto its back to sleep, as the sedative properties of the large quantity of the blue flowers, as well as a nice big meal, sent it into a deep sleep.
She was lucky the monster wasn’t any stronger, as it would’ve developed abilities that could sense her presence. She approached carefully. Taking care not to disturb it, she positioned the dagger very specifically over the spot she assumed would be the heart. She took a deep breath and plunged the dagger down. The blood sprayed everywhere.
Unfortunately, she underestimated the survival instinct of the beast, and as soon as the dagger had gone in halfway, a massive limb swung and collided with her side, sending her flying backwards to crash into the back cave wall. Her vision briefly dimmed and swam as her head rang, and when she touched her side, it came away bloody. She slowly got up from the floor where she had landed and tried to move.
The Abyss Monster had gotten up and was still thrashing about, trying to dislodge the dagger with tendrils of dark magic. She could see the malicious red glow of the life-drinker enchantment draining the lifeforce of the monster, but it was in danger of being dislodged if the beast kept this up, so she shakily got up and slowly moved towards the rigged cord.
Pulling it down, she heard the rush of wind as the iron lump speedily moved down towards the Abyss Monster. It collided with the back of its head with a hard thunk. She waited in tense silence before becoming confident that the beast was out for the count. She came closer. The life-drinker enchantment was doing its thing but wasn’t enough to kill it, so she pulled out the dagger before plunging it in once more, making sure she got the heart.
She waited calmly until the breathing of the beast slowed, and then ended. She waited a bit longer. She still hadn’t seen the completion rate go up from the monster's death, and so, with a groan, resigned herself to slicing open its midsection and digging around with her bare hands until she found the monster’s core, then pulled it out with a splash of blood. One could never be sure a monster wouldn’t regenerate. She heard the ding of a notification.
[Objective: Defeat the ‘Abyss Monster’ of the caves without dying by the end of the month]
[Completion Rate: +30% ]
All of a sudden she became a bit dizzy, and decided to find a place to sit down. She looked around.
Not here, that’s for sure. I don’t fancy a bath of blood. I didn’t fancy a blood bath just then either, but look how that turned out.
Eventually, after about 5 minutes of half-hearted searching, a good shove to a boulder made it give way to lead her to the musty remains of a camp. It used to belong to a group of young adventurers, but their luck seemed to have run out as a cave roof had come down, blocking them from escaping. If she had taken the normal way, she would have had to traverse 20km of windy and treacherous tunnels. It was much easier to smash a hole through the cave wall.
She sat down on the rotten rug of the campsite, ignoring the miserable remains of its owners, and found the two books she was looking for. The mana-skill book was what she expected. A leatherbound book filled with several martial forms on yellow-tinted stiff paper that taught the user how to use mana to trigger an enhanced strike when using a blade. A common skill for weapon wielders in the System. The other book though…
She eyed the spell tome with strong suspicion.
She had a feeling the reason why the old scheming conman back in town wanted it was not because of the spell. She didn’t really know why, maybe it was the horrifyingly ostentatious gold binding, or the literal gemstones decorating the front. Or maybe it was the signed name ‘Rostchilde’ written in gold lettering on the front, which just so happened to be the name of the powerful Marquess family she had to go to if she wanted to report the Lord’s corruption.
Lucille believed she had just found her ticket to fulfilling the 3rd objective.
She put it down and considered her fight. Anyone with a love of fighting would’ve been sorely disappointed at how her ‘battle’ had turned out. She had to use traps and tricks to get a small opening and hadn't even managed to get its vitals on the first try. She heard people who defeated it through direct combat earned a completion rate of 40% rather than 30%, but she didn’t care that much. This wasn’t going to be her last fight in the Tutorial, so preventing herself from getting any more injuries was the most important thing. At least until the last battle. She had some experience with recreational martial arts, so she could move her body when she needed, but it was the more supernatural methods of physical combat that she failed to grasp.
After an hour of rest, she eventually got up. Using some spare bandages in her backpack she brought there, she had managed to do some minor first aid for her side. The bleeding was mostly from a somewhat deep gash caused by the monster’s claws, but what worried her more was the dull deep-seated ache she felt coming from it, which probably meant she broke a rib on that side, as sometimes it turned to sharp pain when she moved. She decided to abuse her monster slayer privileges when she got back to get some expensive healing from a member of the town.
However, first, she needed to learn the skill and spell before she could lay a trap for the conman using the book. It was not the brightest idea to learn or practice either spell or mana-skill when injured, but if she went back to the town conman would get suspicious when she didn’t take them straight to him. If she did it in the cave, he couldn’t accuse her of learning them, even if he had suspicions. The shopkeeper should’ve specified that she couldn’t learn them in the contract.
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He probably thought I would be too dumb to learn them. He likely expected me to try them, as I look like a stereotypical run-away daughter with my lack of callouses or muscles, trying to escape an arranged marriage through adventuring or something of that sort. He probably also expected me to die to the Abyss Monster. I wonder how many others he tricked into going to hunt the Abyss Monster.
On second thought…. never mind. Ignorance is bliss.
She got into the default stances of the first book. Mana-skill books were made so that the stances functioned as guides for mana to travel through the user’s mana veins. They activated effects until the user was able to sense the mana and became confident enough to activate it when they liked it. But… she was terrible at physical combat. After years of attempting to learn any good physical skills, she had concluded it was an innate disability for her.
She supposed you couldn’t have everything when you already had stunning good looks, genius intellect, inheritance rights to billions of dollars and a once-in-a-millennium talent for magic, but it was very annoying when trying to do mana-skills. Something about them just wouldn’t click for her. Like a missing puzzle piece.
She contemplated burning the book in many interesting ways when she finally tripped over doing the stances. Maybe she could dissolve it in acid. Did she mention she hated physical combat?
She was probably going too hard on herself. It had only been an hour after she got up, and she was missing her stats. If she had the INT for mana, then maybe she could just brute force it. Then Lucy facepalmed.
Mana. Of course. I don’t need the stances, or even the book if I can just make the mana move how the skill wants it to. I know how to manipulate mana; it just didn’t occur to me because I haven’t tried to sense it yet. Maybe the missing INT and WIS have made me dumber, and it wasn’t a myth?
Actually, I need to think more about this. I was able to place a spiritual marker on Agent Lawrence when I shouldn’t have had the spiritual power to do that yet. Something’s not quite right here.
It was a subject to think about later. She had a task to do, and now a way to do it. Then, in less than 5 minutes after she rediscovered how to pulverise someone's insides, she had fulfilled another objective:
[Objective: Learn a skill without dying by the end of the month]
[Completion Rate: +10%]
[New! Completion Rate: 40%]
Yay! 10% up! Now I get to sit in a corner and cry because every single per cent to come afterwards will be like pulling off fingernails with a tweezer. This is the point the average elite member of the Tower would’ve reached when they did the Tutorial. Unfortunately, the option to exit early hasn’t appeared, so even if I wanted to, I can’t leave now. It must trigger at 50% I suppose.
Come to think of it, what did I get last time? 46%, 48%? I think I got those extra percentages for partially completing an objective by the end of the Tutorial. I miss my eidetic memory. Anyway, time for the fancy spell now.
The spell was much easier if a bit weird. ‘The Vortex Foundation Builder Vol. 2’ was the name of the spell tome. She grimaced at the title.
Blighted battlemages infecting everything. If you wanted to inflict stupidity and violence on the masses, go hit each other with iron sticks like the rest of the normal idiots. Don’t bring your lacking intellect to other, more well-learned societies. Seems the Rostchilde March was a noble family of storm mages, the second most common battlemage school. At least the spell is somewhat useful, not that it would work for my magic.
The spell itself enabled the user to briefly overcharge their spell with extra mana and keep it from going out of control for a maximum of half a minute, inflicting added damage. It was obviously only in Volume 2 to prevent young Rostchilde nobles from crippling themselves in an attempt to show off when they begin learning magic. While Lucy happened to use magic far more refined than what a mere storm mage could do, she, um, could maybe admit to having the fireball spell in her arsenal. Because what sort of mage didn’t know fireball?
However, she didn’t plan on ever casting it in the Tutorial for reasons A: She didn’t want to drain herself, and B: It would be cheating. Plenty of prospective System Users could use some limited low-ranked spells or similar, but she had the inkling, based on her understanding of how the System calculates the Completion Rate, that she wouldn’t get as high a score as if she limited herself to what was in the Tutorial. So using the charge mana-skill and the, ugh, battlemage spell, besides her abysmal stabbing abilities, was all she could attempt to use. Luckily it was her planning ability that was her strong point, and not her ability to conveniently place her blade in areas where something might run into it.
She decided by that point to look over what objectives she had left:
[You have one month to Complete one of these Objectives:
1. Survive until the end of the month.
2. Defeat the ‘Abyss Monster’ of the caves without dying by the end of the month.
3. Become Lord of the town without dying by the end of the month.
4. Find poof of the Lord’s corruption without dying by the end of the month.
5. Find proof of the Lord’s corruption and send a message to a neighbouring town Lord without dying by the end of the month.
6. Learn a skill without dying by the end of the month.
7. Learn a spell without dying by the end of the month.
8. Discover the sealed treasure under the town and escape without dying by the end of the month.
9. Kill everyone from the town.
10. Find the Demon.
Good Luck and May You See Future Horizons!]
[Completion Rate: 45%]
The completion rate showed up as above 0% even if the objectives were technically incomplete because, by that point most sane, normal people had resolved themselves to having an enjoyable, relaxing time leeching off the town Lord’s tax money and not tempting fate until the end of the month.
Lucille was by most societies’ definitions not sane or normal, and so decided her next step would be to gain the proof of the Lord’s corruption from his locked vault, hide evidence of her search, sneak into the secret passageways of his mansion to head towards the basement, all while the Lord and his servants were still in the building before she got kicked out because of a stingy Lord having to give up his hard-earned tax money and not wanting to see the cause of it for any longer than necessary. Piece of cake.
So, with the vault key she had found under the rotten rug of the campsite, and definitely unused books in hand, she started to walk towards the cave entrance. Her eyes saw the Abyss Monster and she realised that the Lord might make excuses if she didn’t bring back anything but the monster’s core. Now annoyed and irritated at the new paint job she got due to the bloody head she had to put in her pack, she walked towards the cave entrance again.
Did she ever mention the blue flowers were poisonous? The petals were able to kill the lesser monsters in the area, showing her little experiment was a success, and that she should continue to not drink them in her tea. Maybe the more annoying kind of visitors in the future could get to try it.
...
Sir Conman the Soon-to-Suffer seemed to be ecstatic that someone was competent and had gotten the books. He also seemed nervous because someone was competent and had gotten the books. Lucille saw him try to play it off and act normal, but she could see the way his attention was more on the spell tome than the mana-skill book, increasing the likelihood that it may be a stolen good, and was her ticket to becoming her own little noble in the Tutorial.
She left him with a handshake and a spiritual marker for good measure after reminding him the dagger was loaned to her for a month, but the old man seemed eager to leave and possibly didn’t even hear her. He was probably making plans to hide and become a well-known mage under a different name, whatever it was currently, but too bad for him, until she removed the marker from her end, she could always find him. Permanently. Forever and ever.
So with her plans prepared, she got healed, and then she made her way to the front gate of the Lord’s marble manor, present in her full glory: A black trench coat, black pants, black turtleneck, black boots, leather vest, rough corn sack leaking blood, and a dagger in its holder, strapped to her thigh. It may seem that she was wearing a ton of black, but she didn’t wear black because she liked it, she wore black because she knew the blood wouldn’t show up on it. She found blood gross, but she, unfortunately, tended to find herself in situations involving copious amounts of it.
The two gatekeeping guards watched her cautiously, which she understood after considering herself in their position, watching a young woman walking up to them with a bag leaking blood and wearing all-black clothes. Maybe she could pass as a necromancer on any other day. She dropped the sack on the ground to let them see the Abyss Monster’s head and core within. It was comical watching them lean in with curiosity before jerking back in horror.
“Lucy Goldcroft is here to turn in the head and core of the Abyss Monster for the bounty,” she announced with pomp.
These things had to be said with confidence to get any sort of benefit out of the deal. Otherwise, she might have to go on a revenge spree because someone thought they could take advantage of her. Revenge was overrated and would get their ancestors chasing after her instead. Too much effort to deal with.
If even a single one of the descendants ends up saying ‘My family’s future is ruined’ they’ll pop up like demons hearing somebody wants power.
It seemed like her introduction worked as intended, as the gatekeeping guard who looked like he had higher seniority ordered the younger guard inside to report to the lord. He likely suggested to his junior to make it quick too, as the younger gatekeeper came back before their stare-off could get any more awkward.
“L-L-Lord Seburus will r-receive you now,” the young guard stuttered.
She picked up the bag and followed him in, pretending to not see the offer of aid the younger guard was suggesting with an outstretched hand. Pretending to be oblivious was much more polite than ignoring him, insulting the Lord by suggesting she didn’t trust his guard with the bag in the process. Which she didn’t.
A servant came with a box for her to put the bag in which she agreed to. It was presumably so she didn’t leak monster blood all over their nice fancy carpets, so there was no sense in ignoring it. She was brought to a suitably ostentatious living room where she placed her box and was told to wait before being left with a cup of tea and some biscuits by the aged butler. Maybe the Tutorial knew she was British.
In preparation for what would come next, Lucy shifted a bit into a proper noble seating position and readied her mind to act like a pretentious privileged runaway noble. She thought she might try to mimic that brat that had subordinated under her at the Distorted Depths. He left a memorable impression on her, as it was her first time dealing with someone who had such utter disregard for her ability to obliterate him with a mere thought. The idea they might meet again, and she could teach him reality once more made her slightly more happy about the stress she could see occurring in her future when she thought of him.
She refocused her distracted attention, which she had been getting really annoyed at these last few months due to her stat loss, on the living room door as it opened once more, allowing another addition to the butler to come inside. She got up and bowed to the extra person, but not before making sure it was perfectly angled to be low enough to not be blatantly offensive, but high and dismissing enough to be disrespectful of the other.
“Greetings, my lord. I am Lucy Goldcroft, here to turn in the Abyss Monster’s proof of death,” she said haughtily.
She felt faintly proud of her acting when she saw the slight eyebrow twitch on the other person, who was the Lord in question, and a bit amused at how he waited just slightly longer than was required before allowing her to sit down with a motion. She ensured that she made herself comfortable on the couch more quickly than was acceptable for a guest, and to her amusement, she saw the corner of his mouth twitch again as he tried to maintain a polite, disarming smile.
He returned her introduction with a boisterous laugh with bejewelled hands and arms spread wide.
“And what a fine proof it is, my girl! Come, please, eat some refreshments before you regale me with tales of your exploits. It is a joyous occasion indeed that such a foul beast has been slayed before it could wreak more havoc across my land. I will, of course, ensure you are paid in as much coin as you should need for your future amazing adventures.” He gave a mocking tilt of the head with his patronizing statement.
“A lord such as yourself will not hesitate to reward such a promising young woman as myself for dealing with a terrible beast plaguing your land and citizens for a while now. It is practically mandatory for a good Lord,” she responded in kind, a calm smile on her face.
They continued to make small talk and jabs for a while, with the Lord steadily growing more incensed, and Lucy continuing to seem oblivious to his sarcasm until they started to wrap up their discussion and head towards the bounty reward. But Lucille had one more remark to make before she could begin the next phase of her plans.
“I don’t suppose, Lord Seburus, you know anything about demons would you?” she asked sweetly.
----------------------------------------
Earth, New York, Malcolm Street, Sunrise Apartment 3B, 3 Months before the Tutorial.
In a dingy grey apartment fallen into complete disrepair and covered in the omnipresent musk of poor-quality lemon air freshener and human sweat, a young man in his early 20s awoke to find himself on a rickety mattress, creaking under his weight as he sat up, grasping his chest. Cold sweat dripped from his body into the fabric of his second-hand grey shirt and baggy tracksuit pants, and his brown hair had darkened from the grease. He remained there for a while, rocking backwards and forwards until his breathing had calmed. He lifted his head to take in his surroundings.
Clearly, it was not what he expected, as his face screwed in befuddlement, and he viewed the room again in blatant confusion. His nose wrinkled as he took in the scents of the shabby square dump and ran a hand through his hair, which turned out to be a mistake, as it was now stuck in one position. He glanced down at the metallic strap on his wrist in surprise and turned on the holowatch, a square emerging to show the date in a green-blue translucent fashion. He let out an audible gasp and got up to throw open the window, to find himself peering out at a busy American metropolis in full traffic-jam splendour. He watched for another minute before returning to fall backwards onto the bed. He clenched his teeth.
I’m… back? I’m really back? How?! I died. I felt it. That swell of mind-rending agonising pain from my soul, and somehow I’m back on Earth in this dingy apartment?!
Conlan Griffin found himself in more confusion than when he woke up. He took another look at his holowatch and realised the make was ancient, way too ancient, for what he had before he died. A good few centuries too old. Then he realised.
Did I… go back in time? Is that how it is? I did hear the activation of a subskill from my main skill, but all my skills should’ve been locked due to over-using them. Wait… I had an unknown subskill too, didn’t I?
He thought back on what his skills were. One subskill had always remained locked no matter what he did, so it was reasonable to think it could’ve been a life-saving skill that would only activate with death. In fact, it was the only reasonable cause for his situation. He looked up at the roof and clenched his fist in front of his face.
This is a second chance, isn’t it? A chance to do everything right, and have no regrets. No fears, no ruined relationships, and to rise higher than I could before. And most importantly, gain more strength to protect my friends and family. I need it more than ever now that I know what’s coming next.
And… please wait for me, Adrianna. I’ll come for you once again, and this time, I’ll save you.
But first, he needed to fix his terrible physique and get out of his ugly financial situation. And then obtain the X-ranked awakening elixir by saving his long-time friend Stephen Lawrence from a rift break.
Everything will surely go right for him this time. Everything.