So now Lucille was lying face flat on the floor, currently dealing with the sensation of wanting to vomit, while physically being incapable of it, and having the sensation that her own body was trying and succeeding to stab her with millions of finger-sized daggers. The possessed eye was also hurting again, and she didn’t know why.
She decided her first plan of action was to deal with the existential migraine inflicting torture on her so she could think straight. She sealed off her senses to her physical body to prevent it from affecting her actions after a brief spiritual perception scan showed her nothing was happening to her. Then she focused on her inward self, using her consciousness like an anchor, until she became capable of feeling her soul, complete with its mental power and spiritual energy sea.
Spiritual energy was the power of the soul. It was arguably even more common than mana, the energy of the material realms. Overlaying everything in existence was the layer the immaterial lay on, the spiritual realm, where spiritual energy was found. This was the layer where the soul resided. Whenever a sentient creature formed a thought or felt emotion, it released spiritual energy into the spiritual realm, forming ripples across it. Normally, this energy went undetected and unused actively by the soul, but in the case of mental communication or using psychic abilities, this energy was manipulated into a form with power.
Lucille was a rare User who specialised in it. It wasn’t like it was an unknown energy or anything, but across the entire population of the Tower, maybe less than 5% focused on it. Or how Lucy did at least. The Heavenly Realm was an exception and was excluded from this count, as they had no mana there. For the individual, spiritual energy aided them in thinking faster, better, and clearer, than someone with less spiritual energy. Its main ability when someone earned enough of it was to allow the user to think multiple things at once or have multiple ‘thought strands’. This was what Lucy excelled at.
When she got to look at her soul accurately for the first time since she had ‘come back’, she was properly shocked to discover that she had retained approximately 70% of her soul power. She was also properly irritated to find out the source of her personality degradation.
Lucille had, with the use of spiritual energy, ‘programmed’ her different thought strands to do different tasks concurrently. These included memory upkeep, counting her many thought strands, dissolving or reforming certain strands, and emotional control, to name a few. Emotional control worked by overwhelming particularly angry or panicked thought strands with the emotions of other thought strands thinking several different emotions at the time. This allowed her to keep herself mostly less emotional and in control.
So, she was angry to realise that certain mental shocks can send her whole mind in disarray, where her many thought strands, which were not part of her core personality complex and without her knowledge, had been sealed behind a System-made barrier to prevent her from overloading her body on Earth, were immersing themselves in a deluge of emotions not conducive to a good state of mental wellbeing.
Her structured mind had started infighting amongst itself in the form of emotional breakdowns because the 50-odd thought strands responsible for keeping a calm mind had absorbed the emotions they were there to overwhelm, infecting the others. These emotions were particular things such as full-blown wrath, insistent anxiety, panic, and depression. She knew she was not particularly…. happy about being back, but the extent of her anger almost scared her.
When taking a step back to overlook it all, her orderly, well-structured machine-like mind had completely made a mess itself, making her angry, which ironically heightened the wrathful thoughts even more and made the situation worse. The demon should be happy it wasn’t able to experience her wrath in its full glory.
So, what was she going to do about it? Well, she had a few choices. She could painstakingly dissolve and reform the thought strands one by one, giving them back their job before going on to the next one, or she could just dissolve the lot, leaving her with only her core personality complex, and a huge spiritual sea outside the borders of her mental power centre. Just thinking about the many years it took to get a functional system going made her give up the second option immediately, so she set herself to work. Besides, without any thought strands, her mind might literally collapse from the overload of information being received through her perception field.
The first thing she did was make sure her central thought matrix was fine. Generally, as a rule, she made sure the thought strands closer to her core were thicker so they could be less influenced by the feedback of the lesser strands, and indeed, her 10 major strands were fine. These had enough thickness to run about 5 times as fast as a pre-System human mind each. The major strands had another ten minor strands to oversee each, running at 3 times a pre-System mind’s speed, and those another ten each. It continued further on from there, and she believed she may have about 10,000 of them currently activated.
However, some of the thought strands had the thickness only capable of doing simple tasks such as counting or spelling out a single word, and it was these that essentially functioned as a mental computer. It was also these that had no resistance at all to very heightened emotions, and so probably required dissolving before being put back together. Technically she could make more thought strands, but she always ensured that 50% of her spiritual energy always remained under the control of her personality complex so she could think at least 20 times faster than a pre-system mind when needed, as her personality core controlled her body.
That was what she did then. She split off enough energy for her processes, considering her practically comatose body didn’t need controlling anyway, and used them all to correlate them with her memory and reform the thought strands to what their tasks were originally. She also used this to delegate some thought strands organising redundant plans to other uses. Considering her ‘return’, a good 430-odd plans needed to be completely deserted, as they held no relevance to the current her. Finally, after completing the extremely tedious task, her mental state returned to normal. With the mild irritation, confusion, panic, and a whole host of detrimental emotions erased, her mind was completely clear and refreshed, the literal mental fog gone. She triggered a function to test it.
Time since the last Rank up.
27 years, 10 months, and 24 days since Rank-7.
Oh. That thought brought up a whole host of complex emotions, mostly anger again, but when she reinspected everything, it was just her personality core acting up. To be on the safe side, she added another 10-ish thought strands to the emotional control section. She decided it would be best to sort her body out now.
Sending out another whole-body scan in the form of a spiritual energy pulse, this time more detailed, there wasn’t much she could see. All her organs were fine, her injuries had healed, and even the right eye that was hurting again was whole. However, when she focused on it again, she discovered there was a layer covering where her iris should be, and it completely nullified spiritual energy.
All the feedback she could receive was a miniature black hole in her eye, which shouldn’t be possible. Spiritual energy never had anything that could nullify it besides another’s spiritual energy, and it didn’t look like this. However, she didn’t have anything to go on that could explain it, so she ignored the eye for the time being. It was unlikely it had anything to do with the sensation of the world rejecting her very existence.
Considering it only happened when she started connecting to the System, and that her body was physically fine, it was probably the System’s doing. Not that she ever remembered it putting people through torture, but she didn’t know everything. She brought up her Status.
It…. was not what she expected. At all. It explained a lot, it really did, but it also created more questions than answers. However, it made it obvious it was a System problem.
Rolling her eyes mentally, she re-entered her soul again, but this time started inspecting the central part of her core personality complex. Past the thicker mental power or the ‘soul ocean,’ as the Heavenly Realm called it, she found the shell containing her consciousness. And there it was, the source of her issues.
When a User entered the System for the first time, they got what looked like a tiny irregularly shaped hole punched into the consciousness. It didn't do anything for them besides making a few holographic screens adhere to their mind, but for the System, it gained access to their thoughts and memories and granted it the ability to give them skills, levels, stats, and abilities. This ‘System port’ was what granted them a unique identifier for the System to read and make sure they had the correct abilities. In this way, when they died and returned to life, the System could give them everything they had back, minus some levels.
99.99999% of Users only ever had one of them. She had two.
For some reason, instead of using the same port and deleting her data, the System procured a new one. This caused quite a few errors, such as the System not knowing what her Status should look like. It was trying to reconcile the fact that she had ‘high’ stats, while also being a level 0 newbie, who should have no stats at all. Opening her Status up in the mental space to check again, she could see several signs that the System had royally messed up.
[Status: ]
Name: Lucille Goldcroft (Lvl. 0̵̡͖͉̺̳̱̈́́̋̊͆͂̏̀͛͑̉̇̎̕̕͝͝͝)
Age: 18y
Race: Human
HP: 99/100 {+1/5m}
MP: 0/100 {+1/5m}
Stats:
Free Stat Points: 30
STR: &̸̧̨̖̦̩̖̥̪̅͑7̵̛͍̂̅̽̐̽́̄͠2̸̧̱̲͓̭̎̎̀̀̔̔ SPRT: 7000
CON: _̷͕̫̦̟̖͓̳͈͊̌̋̏͋̍̀͋̃2̸̣̼͗͒̕&̵̢̛͚̘̖͎̣̰̗͊̀̓̎̈́̊́̉̏̅7̴̡̢̻͇͎̼̦̈́ MENT:65
AGI: *̴̦̺̫̳̼̳́̍̈́̆̃̈́̀̔̈́͋̚͝2̶̢̼̬͖̰̭͕̬̥́̄̊̓̓̃̚)̸̛̩̩̃͂̑̀̀̒̓͗̈9̶̪͎̬̤̦̹̟̒͛͊͋͊́́̋͌̏̓͑̕̚ CHAR: 5̶̡̛̼͇̪̩͈̝͉͍̮̠̏͜^̷̨̢̣̰̖̟̮̘͇̀̎̎̎͐̀̀̆͗̇̋͝͠7̶̨̼͍́̈́̽̈́̄̎͆̈́͊̂̽̒̊͝ͅ
DEX: 1̶̛̹͕̬͇̰͖͍́͋̿̋̇̉̄́̉̏͒͛̒̉̈́́́̀́̈́̄̚͘͝ͅ5̷̨̟͕̫̙̖̼̣̯͙̯͇͖̻̦̣̙̼͔̟̩̝̻̘̇͗͆̽͒̀́̿̈́͜!̵̛͍̥̯̙̲̀̒̾̀̌̋̐͑̕͘̚͝͠͠͠3̶̧̢̣͉͙͚̣̝̪̮͍͇̣̮̪̮͈̭̖̳̈́̏͂̉̓͋̌̆̆ CHP: -̴̨͓͔̗̥̤̞̗̠̜͇̦͈̖́̀̂́͐̈́̇́̑̀̎́̉͌̈́̓̉̕͘͠
INT: 3̶̹͇̏̈́̄̄̒͛@̵̳͚̣̀̌̓͋͌̏͒̚2̴̧̬̜̦̤̞͔͊͒̃̌̅̕ͅ9̶̛̣̗̬̱̜̿̀̀̐ HRP: -̴̨͓͔̗̥̤̞̗́̀̂́͐̈́̇́̑̀̎́̉͌̈́̓̉̕͘͠
WIS: N̵̛̙͖̄̉̓̋́̋̅̌̄̔̓͊͋̀͐̿̌̂̐̋͘̚3̴̡̡̡̛͎̠̹̖̰̥̳̘͇̯̾̄̇͊̾̍͛͗͊͑̈́̀̀̚̚͘͠͠$̷̨͚̰̖̜̥̝͈̲̥̆̀̀̐͊̑̎̎̈́̀̅͗̕͘̕͜ͅͅ8̸͕̗̯̫͕͕̪̠̓̾
[Origin Skill: -___- | Type: /null/
* Desc: user.blank/data{^*}->all
* Subskills: ---------------
* Awakening: 0 ]
Skills:
[[Empty] ]
Scratch that. Lucy didn’t even know if she would be able to breathe oxygen safely at this rate. This was like a bombshell had gone off on her status screen. Though her mental stats remained normal. Or, at least what she expected. Watching the MENT on her screen, she made sure it was functioning properly. It ticked up to 66 and she nodded mentally. Her soul structure had a cyclic process to it that turned spiritual energy into mental power and back again. Mental power was essentially just concentrated spiritual energy, so only when she thought really hard did she need it.
She first tried to order what the issues were and their possible origins in her mind. Firstly, the most obvious of them all were the stats. Trying to compare them mentally to what she remembered it was before, she could see that the number of glitched symbols matched the number of digits for that stat, but they didn’t seem to be real. This could be shown by her health and mana points. Someone with 0 stats invested in CON would have an HP of 100. Every point after that added 50 HP to their max, which she didn’t have added. Her HP also didn’t seem to be regenerating and was permanently stuck at 99 which she thought might be related to her right eye. She didn’t know for sure.
Another thing was her atrocious mana. She knew someone was supposed to be unconscious when their mana was at 0. It wasn’t regenerating either. However, she was able to manipulate mana within her body during the Tutorial, which meant she still had access to mana of some sort. In fact, in the System-made white space she was in, she could feel the mana and spiritual energy surrounding her and sensed that she was still able to manipulate it like one would any spell, so it’s not like she was crippled. However, manipulating atmospheric mana outside the User’s body was an advanced ability only found in people Rank-4 or above, so that wasn’t supposed to be happening either.
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The glitched level 0 was related to her stats, so the final thing was the Origin Skill. She had to stare just to make sure. She had never, ever seen a ‘blank’ Origin Skill. Origin Skills were unlocked by the System as soon as the User finished the Tutorial and were the most important part of their skill set. Origin Skills were powerful, unique, and independent from each other, with each Origin Skill being the best-suited skill for their User. The Origin Skill was formed from a User’s pre-System accumulation of life experience, personality, affinities, physical talents, race, realm, and several other factors.
All Origin Skills had equal potential and what varied between individuals was the degree of awakening, which could be increased by multiple factors, such as the X-ranked elixir she took back on Earth. Normally, that elixir would allow her to gain limited usage of her Origin Skill on Earth, but she had entered the Tower and gained access to better awakening resources.
The ‘blank’ Origin Skill she had currently was not the same one she had before. That one enabled her to design spells with a unique puzzle cube formed of mental power. It had been called ‘Manifester’s Cuboid Energy Matrix’. With it, she could essentially program spells for herself and use them later whenever she wanted, vastly different from the practices of wizards and mages from the Tower realms who had to form spells with just their mana manipulation.
This Origin Skill, however, was not that. Even when she tried to trigger what would’ve been her former Skill, she could feel her will interact with where she knew the Origin Skill sat, but it just slipped off and failed to find purchase. She concluded that the System somehow managed to use her other memories to create this skill, as well as optimising it due to her Completion Rate in the Tutorial, but looking at the System jargon filling the skill, it failed to complete it and was missing something. She internally shook her head and decided to put it aside until later.
She believed that there was nothing she could currently do to resolve her issues without entering the Tower properly. She realised she still hadn’t made any progress with the rejection issue, and so decided to do something that normally people would call stupid: she unsealed her body’s sense of agonising torment just to see if anything had changed.
To her surprise, the overwhelming sensation of ‘wrongness’ and most of the pain had reduced to some extent. To her irritation, however, a strange, incessant tingling sensation was vibrating against her spiritual energy, and causing chills to run down her spine. That was a sensation that occurred because she had been ignoring the System messages. She could afford to ignore them for a bit longer though. Returning her consciousness to her body in full and sitting up, she pulled up her status and decided to try something.
[Status: ]
Name: Lucille Goldcroft (Lvl. 0̵̡͖͉̺̳̱̈́́̋̊͆͂̏̀͛͑̉̇̎̕̕͝͝͝)
Age: 18y
Race: Human
HP: 99/100 {+1/5m}
MP: 0/100 {+1/5m}
Stats:
Free Stat Points: 30
STR: &̸̧̨̖̦̩̖̥̪̅͑7̵̛͍̂̅̽̐̽́̄͠2̸̧̱̲͓̭̎̎̀̀̔̔ SPRT: 7000
CON: _̷͕̫̦̟̖͓̳͈͊̌̋̏͋̍̀͋̃2̸̣̼͗͒̕&̵̢̛͚̘̖͎̣̰̗͊̀̓̎̈́̊́̉̏̅7̴̡̢̻͇͎̼̦̈́ MENT:65
AGI: *̴̦̺̫̳̼̳́̍̈́̆̃̈́̀̔̈́͋̚͝2̶̢̼̬͖̰̭͕̬̥́̄̊̓̓̃̚)̸̛̩̩̃͂̑̀̀̒̓͗̈9̶̪͎̬̤̦̹̟̒͛͊͋͊́́̋͌̏̓͑̕̚ CHAR: 5̶̡̛̼͇̪̩͈̝͉͍̮̠̏͜^̷̨̢̣̰̖̟̮̘͇̀̎̎̎͐̀̀̆͗̇̋͝͠7̶̨̼͍́̈́̽̈́̄̎͆̈́͊̂̽̒̊͝ͅ
DEX: 1̶̛̹͕̬͇̰͖͍́͋̿̋̇̉̄́̉̏͒͛̒̉̈́́́̀́̈́̄̚͘͝ͅ5̷̨̟͕̫̙̖̼̣̯͙̯͇͖̻̦̣̙̼͔̟̩̝̻̘̇͗͆̽͒̀́̿̈́͜!̵̛͍̥̯̙̲̀̒̾̀̌̋̐͑̕͘̚͝͠͠͠3̶̧̢̣͉͙͚̣̝̪̮͍͇̣̮̪̮͈̭̖̳̈́̏͂̉̓͋̌̆̆ CHP: -̴̨͓͔̗̥̤̞̗̠̜͇̦͈̖́̀̂́͐̈́̇́̑̀̎́̉͌̈́̓̉̕͘͠
INT: 3̶̹͇̏̈́̄̄̒͛@̵̳͚̣̀̌̓͋͌̏͒̚2̴̧̬̜̦̤̞͔͊͒̃̌̅̕ͅ9̶̛̣̗̬̱̜̿̀̀̐ HRP: -̴̨͓͔̗̥̤̞̗́̀̂́͐̈́̇́̑̀̎́̉͌̈́̓̉̕͘͠
WIS: N̵̛̙͖̄̉̓̋́̋̅̌̄̔̓͊͋̀͐̿̌̂̐̋͘̚3̴̡̡̡̛͎̠̹̖̰̥̳̘͇̯̾̄̇͊̾̍͛͗͊͑̈́̀̀̚̚͘͠͠$̷̨͚̰̖̜̥̝͈̲̥̆̀̀̐͊̑̎̎̈́̀̅͗̕͘̕͜ͅͅ8̸͕̗̯̫͕͕̪̠̓̾
[Origin Skill: -___- | Type: /null/
* Desc: user.blank/data{^*}->all
* Subskills: ---------------
* Awakening: 0 ]
Skills:
[[Empty] ]
Taking one free stat point, she placed it in INT. The instant she tried to do so, the overbearing sense of ‘wrongness’ and the stabbing pain that reared its ugly head again threatened to send her comatose. Her Status fizzled for a second before the little [Free Stat Points: 29] popped back to [Free Stat Points: 30]. Gritting her teeth, she attempted it with all the other stats, including the hidden ones that were also not supposed to be there. To her shock, she couldn’t even add any to the hidden stat SPRT.
CHP, or Chaos Power, and HRP, or Heroic Power, she could understand, as they had specific requirements to gain those, but for SPRT or MENT? She knew how those stats functioned like the back of her hand, and realised the System was blocking almost anything from interacting with her. That had some crazy implications, but now she knew that she couldn’t get stronger through stat points, she had to take a mostly non-combat role for the foreseeable future. The System always rectifies errors, however, so she knew it would leave a way somehow, if it realised she was back to level 0.
There was one last thing she had to do before checking her messages. She opened her right eye, which she had been keeping closed for safety’s sake, looked around and….. what she saw made her outright flabbergasted, even more so than her Status.
Instead of seeing the empty white limbo she expected, she was somehow looking through the ‘walls’ of the infinite space, to see pale, semi-translucent white-blue geometric structures floating in an endless void. Even as she watched, chain-like things moved to run through spherical cog objects and she could now hear the grating as they were threaded through millions of gargantuan pulleys, a giant machine revealed behind the non-material space she was in. It seemed endless, and the mesmerising sight entranced her for a while.
Then she hissed in utter agony as a sensation akin to someone feeding her eye through a blender was felt. Quickly holding the eye shut, she had to wait in the white space, breathing heavily as the intense strain coming from her eye was released, that mind-breaking pain fading slowly. She pulled a hand away from the eye, and it was wet with blood.
Did I just cry blood? Wait, that’s not important…. did I just see the System outside this space? Not the Tower, Not the Realms, not the Tutorial, but the System itself, which none have seen since besides its creators?! What on earth is this thing?!?
Summoning an imaginary mirror in the space hurriedly, a feature of the metaphysical area, she held it up to take a look. Indeed, thick tears of fresh blood were rolling down her face’s right side, exactly where her tear ducts would cry tears. This did not seem to be a good day for her.
Very, very carefully, she opened her right eye to look in the mirror. She saw…… what did she see?
At first, she thought it was a pitch-black hole covering just larger than her iris, but as she watched, it twisted and turned to become a kaleidoscopic amalgamation of yellow, blue, purple, and black spiralling in the shape of a galaxy. That made her uncomfortable, as she did not want to be some magical anime girl, but then it formed a decagon before shattering to look like a piece of glass smashed in the centre, with multiple pupils within each shard. When the fly-eye similarities made her feel slightly repulsed, the eye shifted again, making her question what it was that was in her eye. Was it responding to her thoughts?
The thing, for she hesitated to call what it was that this was happening to her ‘eye’, finally settled on something that looked like a golden magical array in front of a black background, complete with its angles and slight magical glow. Even as she watched, it slowly rotated and shimmered in a way an activated magic array does. She frowned because this was even more obvious than the galaxy, but it didn’t move again. She groaned. Thinking of how the heterochromia would make her stand out even more than her past look, something in the eye shifted and she watched her reflection become what she looked like before she went back to Earth. She dropped the mirror. When it became obvious that the mirror was harmless, she picked it up, and that changed reflection was still there.
Figuring it was the eye, she focused on the mirror just to be sure. She felt the eye make a strange twinge, and to her sight from it, the mirror had disappeared. To her normal eye, the mirror hadn’t changed. That interested her, and she tried focusing on the mirror again, which returned it to normal. It still didn’t tell her much about the thing covering her eye, but at least it allowed her to tell what was physical and what was not.
Then her eye twinged again, and she stared as gold lettering slowly appeared in the mirror as she was focused on her eye. It wasn’t lettering like System notifications though, which was blocky and neat. This was wavy fancy lettering that shimmered slightly above the surface of the mirror. Lucy raised an eyebrow as it spelled out a sentence.
{Shard of Totality}
Well, she knew what to call it now. Though having a ‘shard of totality’ in her eye seemed a bit over the top. She’d just introduce it as the shard to others. Closing her right eye, as the strain was building up again, the gold lettering disappeared leaving just her face looking back. Then she noticed her other eye and groaned sighed. Why was it purple?! She wasn't some edge lord for heaven’s sake, she could talk and socialise with people just fine!
On a closer inspection though, it seemed to be because of something else and not the shard. It was probably because of how high her spiritual energy was now. She did have a naturally unusual eye colour of a dark bluish colour bordering on indigo, and people with high mana or any kind of energy in their bodies tended to have brightly coloured features, so this wasn’t something that uncommon. However, this purple was essentially violet, and paired with her golden eye, she would not be forgotten easily.
Deciding she needed a break, she finally started inspecting her vibrating Status messages. It was time to prepare for her Tower entry.
[User has completed the Tutorial]
[User has gained new rewards! Please check your notifications to receive them.]
[User has unlocked their Classes]
[User had unlocked their Skills]
[User has unlocked their Aspects]
[User has unlocked their Titles]
[User has unlocked their Quest Log]
[User has unlocked their Directory]
[Would the User like to view the System Guide? Yes/No]
Ignoring the question of whether she would like to view the System Guide, she pressed [No]. Lucy had spent a total of 231 years as a member of the System and could be considered highly knowledgeable about the functions of the System. In fact, due to the high utility of spiritual energy when manipulating System functions, she might even be the foremost expert on it, as she spent a rather vast period just researching the System. She could explain each and every function by heart.
What Classes themselves did was rather self-explanatory, but the System had a few added quirks compared to Earth fiction. Picking a class gave someone a main skill, or primary skill, which gave them the main ‘class’ abilities. With a rarity ranking ordered from lowest to highest, it went Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Ancient, and Legendary. Classes could tier up, and to evolve them to a higher rarity, a second class must be absorbed.
Skills were simple. Passive actions such as walking, running, and jumping were tertiary skills and were skills that could combine to form a skill someone actively used called the secondary skills. These secondary skills went into the skill slots of a main skill, allowing it to tier up and tiering up the class the main skill was from in the process, potentially evolving the rarity of the skill if the skill was compatible enough. Skills gave you information, techniques and abilities that could range anywhere from mana manipulation to cooking to flying on swords.
Aspects were also known as traits or perks. A User had three Aspect slots at the beginning, and a class gave an Aspect, occupying a slot. Aspects also had tiers but didn’t have rarities. Non-human races automatically had an Aspect, reducing the available Aspect slots and causing them to receive fewer class Aspects than humans, but they gained strong racial-specific abilities in return. Aspects gave percentage-based stat boosts, or they could give you information and skills too. Some stronger Aspects gave multiplicative boosts instead of additive ones.
Titles were also self-explanatory, however, unlike classes they didn’t have tiers. They did have rarities though, following the same rarity ranks as classes, skills, and items. Titles could only be gained by real-life events, such as defeating the strongest of your rank and becoming an owner of a Faction, or entering capital ‘E’ Events, and could reward the User with unique skills or great stats. They could also grant you special authority and permissions to access certain places. The nobility had Titles matching their status.
The Quest Log was a bit different. Each Realm in the Tower had overarching ‘objectives’ a User had to complete before they could become stronger. Lucille’s Quest Log looked like this:
[Quest Log: ]
Main Quest (Rank-1: Beast Realm):
* Objective: Complete Stages 1-10 In the Beast Realm to reach Rank-1
Rewards: Rank-1 Status, Lvl cap increased to 199, Main skill slot +1, Class Tier cap +3, Aspect cap +3, Class Tier +1, 1000xp, Main Quest (Rank-2: Demon Realm) Unlocked. Failure: N/A
* Objective: In the Beast Realm, find and secure an item, object or bond that is Rare or higher with the System Obelisk.
Rewards: Stages 6-10 Unlocked, 1500xp, Crystalline Token +1. Failure: N/A
General
* Enter the Tower by picking a city in the Directory.
Rewards: 100xp, Beginner Ascendant Title, System Obelisk Access. Failure: N/A
* Reach Lvl 10(MAX)
Rewards: Class Tier +1, Stages 1-5 Unlocked, Novice Title. Failure: N/A
Class
* N/A
Faction
* N/A
Realm
* N/A
Personal
* Explore the realms of the Tower as pioneers for Earth. Unlimited Resurrections during this period.
Reward: Forerunner Title, Home Realm Permissions, Class Rarity ^1. Time Limit: 4:11:29:23:17:45
* Go to the Hidden Temporary Event in the Mystical Realm exclusive for Forerunners on November 22nd. Objective location is indicated in Directory.
Reward: ??? Failure: 50% reduced Xp Penalty. Time Limit: 4:20:23:17:45
[ ]
Lucille’s Quest Log was the same as every Rank-0s besides the personal quests. Those personal quests were unique. They were related to the 1000 people aged 18-25 who got teleported during July into the Tutorial. Due to Earth not knowing of other realms, 1000 people were selected by the System to visit the Tower to bring knowledge of its and the System’s existence back to Earth in roughly 5 years’ time. Lucy told her great uncle Marvin it was one year for a very simple reason: It would be one year for them. During the next 5 years, Earth was going to be experiencing time at a rate 5 times slower than her, so for them, those missing would only be gone for a single year. The other forerunners wouldn’t know that though, except for possibly one other.
The other personal quest was an Event that would occur in 5 months. During it, Earth’s status, and the System’s plans for it, would be revealed to all of the Forerunners. It allowed the Users to focus on building up strength in the Tower realms without worrying about their families’ circumstances, or foolishly trying to find a way back to Earth.
But Lucy’s focus was on something else now. The very first notification, and the most important of them. Rewards. She tapped on the notification and a massive list appeared.
[User has new rewards (11) available: ]
Tutorial (Completion Rate: MAX):
* Origin Skill Primer (Rare) x1
* Blank Skill book (Rare) x1
* Unattributed Stat Potions (+5) x6
* Resurrection x1
* Overachiever (Unique) Title x1
* Faction Command (Common) x1
* Inheritance key (Soulbound) x1
* Dimensional Pack (Soulbound, Uncommon) x1
* 1 Crystalline Token
Bonus:
* Accessory – Mask (Epic-, Soulbound) x1
* 1,000 Crystalline Tokens
[ ]
Lucille couldn’t help but feel like her haunted right eye was worth it. Just the rewards themselves were worth more than what some of the most famous Permanent Events could reward you with. The Origin Skill Primer could be considered the most valuable of the lot, as Origin Skills were the most important feature of a System User. It affected their entire skillset.
The blank skill book enabled you to choose any Rare skill generally available without specific requirements. Unattributed stat potions, which were given by the System, rewarded the User with fixed stats, but enabled the User to choose which stat they wanted their potion to increase, and better yet, didn’t have a risk of failure. Hopefully, the stat potions would work if she couldn’t assign free stat points.
The resurrection wasn’t particularly useful to her at this stage, but it was worth having, as her infinite resurrections only lasted 5 years. The Overachiever title was rewarded when someone gained a Completion Rate of over 70% but was typically a reward not given during the Tutorial, so she guessed the System had increased the bonuses with that Unique identifier.
The Faction Command was arguably the least useful to her. She would keep it as an emergency plan, but she hoped she didn’t need to create a Faction with it. She could probably sell it if all went well. The Inheritance Key was a one-time pass to a re-occurring once-a-decade Permanent Event. Every User gained the key, and it was an opportunity to gain hidden classes, special skills, or rare weapons by completing trials left by different Factions.
The dimensional pack was essentially a pseudo-inventory. Typically, a User gained a subskill from their class that functioned as an inventory when they reached Lvl 100, but she had plans that would make that an issue, so it was of great benefit to her.
The 1 crystalline token was…. Well, when placed next to the 1,000 crystalline tokens in the bonus reward, it was rather pitiful. But they were still valuable. Crystalline tokens were the currency handed out by the System itself. The Realms each had their currencies, however, the crystalline tokens could be exchanged for any of the currencies. In the Mystical Realm, a single crystal token was the equivalent of 1000 rose crowns, the highest denomination there. Crystal tokens were also capable of upgrading a Faction's Faction Authority, so they were very rarely used as a method of payment.
That was why it was good the System only kept crystalline tokens at the System Obelisks for her to exchange. Money exchange was one of the most basic features of the Obelisk, and they had many other features including tiering up a class, selecting classes, class evolution, skill selection, ranking up, viewing the Leaderboards, creating a Faction, completing a quest, and teleportation to other Obelisks. Ascendant cities were cities that had been built around the Obelisks to take advantage of their traffic and utility.
She continued to the next reward.