> Restricted Orc Warrior (F) | 990 -> 1500 AP
Tutorial - 1st Stage
Congratulations!
You've defeated the final boss and cleared the first stage!
Unfortunately, you died at least once before killing the final boss, so you aren’t eligible for the bonus reward.
From now on, you'll receive help calls from others, and you can accept them by saying the requester's name. You can also leave for the next stage at any moment by saying, "Next stage."
To prevent abuses, you cannot wait more than an hour before accepting a support request or leaving for the next stage.
Also, to prevent abuses, you won't be healed until you leave the stage. If you die, you'll be forced into the next stage.
If you have enough points to purchase a rank up, or to improve your strength, agility, or resistance, we suggest you wait until the next stage, when you'll be provided with extra information about it.
Fight well!
The message was anticlimactic after dealing with a being called “final boss”. Then again, this was just the first stage, and he had had infinite attempts to kill the boss. It wasn't so impressive to clear it.
When the finished reading, the text changed into a list containing thousands of names.
Help Requests
Susan Brown — 2 helping
Edward Christian
Bruno Lagrand
Theodore Black — 5 helping
Travis Johnson — 1 helping
(…)
Luke Hamill — 1 helping
There were thousands of names on the list, and it moved up or down when he focused on one of its edges. Shen had taken a hundred “attempts” to kill the boss and had meditated for a couple of hours in ten of those attempts. It was expected that people would’ve killed the boss themselves and were already helping others, though there were less than five hundred doing so from a quick math he made. On the bright side, some names on the list were already disappearing as he read it, proof of their success.
He would help too, for no better reason than being a cultivator among mortals. They were weak and in need of assistance, and it wouldn't cost him anything to help, so it was the honorable thing to do. It would also net him some extra AP.
However, instead of reading a name at once, he sat down to heal. It wouldn't be much in the one hour he had, only a couple of points, but it was better than nothing. He could probably kill the other bosses without qi as long as they didn't sacrifice their memories to attack him like Uk'Gaar had done, but he had no reason to take any chances. He also wanted to consider his rights and wrongs in the latest battle while it was still fresh in his memory.
It was only almost an hour later that he stood up and had an idea.
Could he use this opportunity to deliver some justice? He searched for a Mark Williams on the list, but found none. Then he tried calling his name, but the system didn't teleport him to the redhead.
'What a shame,' he thought and shook his head.
By now, the first name of the list that wasn’t already being assisted was Alicia Winter. He guessed the names were ordered by who asked for help first, as there was a Robert Jackson right after her, then a Benedict Stuart. No name belonged to his culture.
He said her name, and light enveloped him.
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Alicia had learned soon how to avoid the terrible, terrible pain of death: running away. The orc warrior would attack within minutes if she was standing still or moving too slowly, but as long as she kept running, it would stay put. So she ran until she was out of stamina, which took a very, very long time. She couldn’t be sure without a clock, but it took at least an hour or two.
It was a little pathetic, but she had just barely defeated the last wave and had to go to the next stage. "Gods among men," the system had promised to turn them into, and she needed the abilities of a god to deal with the monsters who had destroyed her life.
She felt cheated though. She wanted to do some magic instead of fighting like someone from the Middle Ages. That's what she had signed up for!
What was up with all this physical brutality?
She had asked for help with the final boss right after she died the first time with a single punch. It had broken most of the bones of her face and her neck. How the hell was she supposed to kill that monster?
Yet, she had died twenty times after that too, even after all the running, and no one had come. Maybe many people had also asked for help after dying quickly? Or maybe the victorious were helping those they knew from the surrounding islands first? She didn’t know, but her stamina was running low once more. Soon, she would die again.
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Then a light appeared in front of her, and a human materialized in there. She finally stopped running.
She had never seen the boy, so he wasn't from her island's surroundings. He was around her height at 5'7, of Asian descent, with short black hair and black eyes. He was wearing strange clothes that looked somewhat like a kimono from Judo, only more stylish, she guessed, and had a big tear from shoulder to waist.
Through the tear, she saw a cut almost as thick as her arm. She guessed it resulted from getting cut by the red saber she saw resting by her boss's side, even though it hadn't been used before. The injury looked fresh, with exposed flesh and all, but he didn't look bothered by it.
It made her a bit ill though, even after all the killing she had done.
"Inspect," she whispered.
> Feng Shen (G) — 22 / 100
"Are you here to help?" she asked. "Did you kill your boss?" No matter how injured he was, if he could kill his boss, he could kill hers. Hopefully.
He nodded and looked around before showing a confused face. "Where is yours?"
Relief flooded through Alicia's body. Her legs just gave out and dropped her sword and shield. She wasn't as much physically tired as mentally drained from constantly running for her life and dreading the incoming pain of death. Adrenaline left her body, and she just started trembling and crying. She hid her face in her hands in shame.
Feng gave her some time, but eventually asked again, "Where's the— Oh, never mind, there it is. It's a different warrior, huh?"
She stopped crying just enough to feel the tiny ground tremors as the huge orc warrior approached. Looking back, she saw the final boss had come, so she had been staying still long enough. She grabbed her sword and shield and stood up to help, then turned to face the boss.
What she saw made her jaw drop open.
Feng was chasing the boss away. Not even once had the orc used his big red saber, and now, it simply couldn't deal with the incoming spear strikes. The boy was just too fast. The monster even tried turning back and running away, but Feng's spear pierced its right leg, and it fell to the ground. What followed was just sad, as Feng thrust his spear repeatedly and the orc failed to defend itself until it died.
> Restricted Orc Warrior (F) | 880 -> 881 AP
The system had said AP would be shared, and her contribution amounted to nothing more than 1 of the 10 AP the final boss gave. She was totally cool with that, as the only thing she had done was luring it away from its weapon.
The orc immediately turned into motes of light and light surrounded Feng to take him away.
"Wait!" she yelled. "Thank you!" she said, but didn't know if he had heard.
She got a new system message congratulating her for killing the final boss—Really?!—and telling her she could either help other people or go to the next stage.
Alicia didn't have to think twice. The only help she could give was telling people to run away to wait for better qualified people to arrive, and it would just suck if Feng had arrived just to tell her that. She wouldn't do it to others.
She did promise herself she would do better though.
Her revenge depended on that.
"Next stage," she said, and light enveloped her.
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When Shen saw that Alicia Winter's final boss wasn't a copy of Uk'Gaar, he was tempted to train again, but decided against it. It had taken many lives for Uk'Gaar to take him serious enough for the fight to become something interesting, and when that happened, Shen had needed to use qi to defeat his foe. His body was still not ready for another qi-enhanced fight.
Fighting without qi would also help him if he fought enough times, and there were thousands of names on the list.
So he just killed the orc as quickly as he could, and the system brought him back to the place he had fought his own boss at.
The list of names appeared in front of him again, and he picked the next one that wasn’t getting help already. "Bob Timothy Junior."
This time, he arrived to see a muscular black teenager shooting arrows from his long bow at his boss. The arrows hit but did minimal damage, if any at all. The orc warrior just kept sitting on his throne, hand in front of his eyes—almost facepalming, really—not even moving to counter-attack.
Bob spoke as soon as Shen arrived. "Finally! I was almost out of stamina again! Thanks for coming, bud. Dying is such a pain."
Shen nodded to the boy. "He attacks when you run out?" he guessed from what Bob had said.
"Yeah." He waved at the orc. "The system should've told us arrows wouldn't work against the final boss. I learned how to use a bow for nothing."
"I'm surprised you even killed the last wave with it," Shen said, gripped his spear and stepped toward the orc, who took his hand away from his face and, upon seeing the new arrival, stood up from his throne. "And didn't you fight the middle boss? Its hide wasn't as thick, but it should've had no trouble ignoring arrows."
“I... When the middle boss came, I was kinda scared and didn’t even shoot before dying... Arrows weren’t wonderful against the last wave's orcs, but they killed them alright."
Seeing two challengers, the orc grabbed his saber at once. Unlike Uk'Gaar's, this one was made of what looked like common steel, though it had beautiful wavelike patterns on it.
"I'm Feng Shen. Nice to meet you, Bob Timothy Junior," he told the boy, then attacked the boss. He was an Incarnation, a mere puppet, a tool. Shen wasn't in the habit of greeting all tools he met on his way.
The fight was swift and brutal. That boss didn't even release a domain, which made the fight much easier. Soon enough, Shen was back on his empty battlefield. He rested a little to recover his stamina, then helped the next person on the list, and the next, and so on.
Many of the people he had saved promised they would help, too. He met a lot of them fighting together with the original challengers of a boss. There was this one time when almost a dozen people arrived while he was fighting the boss!
The list was shrinking faster the more people were saved, and thousands of dead orcs later, it became so common for people to interfere in his fights that it actually became just annoying. They all wanted to get extra AP, and some even told him to stay out of the way while they did it. He even agreed once, but the issuing fight was so dull and took so damn long to conclude that it was just boring to watch. At that point, Shen decided he wouldn't bother with it anymore.
Honor demand he helped those in need, but it wasn't unconditional. Help was already coming to them, so he might as well use his time better.
"Next stage," he said at last, and the light took him to his next challenge.
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When the light disappeared, Shen found himself floating above a huge green planet, a blue box in front of him.
Tutorial - 2nd Stage
Congratulations!
You've reached the second stage!
The first stage was merely introductory, with many advantages:
1. You could die once with only a final reward penalty;
2. You learned things faster because of a slight change in your mind;
3. Your enemies bled while you didn't;
4. You had time to rest between battles;
5. You knew how many enemies to expect;
6. You were healed before important battles;
7. You were given as many weapons as you wanted for free.
Only the first two advantages will remain from the second stage onward.
Losing the third advantage means your enemies also won't bleed, not unless your weapon is enchanted to achieve that result. Beware: special weapons and abilities can do the same to you!
With enough skill or AP, you can counter-balance the loss of most advantages.
Use your AP wisely!
If the planet slowly rotating below was any sign, this stage would have more freedom of movement and an exploration factor to it. That explained why he would have no time to rest between battles or not be aware of his enemy's numbers. Those depended on his planning and scouting abilities, or even on sheer luck.
When he finished reading the message, he got a new one with the promised explanation about using AP to improve his status.