The scene would have been comical to any outside observer with no knowledge of what was happening. A tall, somewhat lanky man holding a wooden staff and frozen stiff, facing an absolutely adorable puppy that was currently whimpering pitifully on the other side of the stage both of them found themselves in. Seeing this, most people would lower their guard, assuming that this puppy could cause them no harm. The only reason someone might there was something wrong with the puppy was that, instead of a normal dog colour, the animal’s fur was a deep, dark blue.
The man, on the other hand, simply continued to stay frozen. Someone else might think he was afraid of the puppy, but his mind was working furiously while he stayed still, planning and calculating the best way to solve the upcoming conflict.
Strangely enough, when the puppy realized that the human wasn’t reacting the typical way to its presence, it instantly stopped whimpering. The whole pitiful appearance was a fraud, and a frightening amount of intelligence appeared behind the puppy’s eyes, who started to move closer to the frozen human, trying to analyze what was happening.
‘Cunning Wolf Puppy, a weak, stage 0 creature, whose only distinct advantage being it’s much higher than average intelligence for a monster of it’s level. The offspring of a Cunning Wolf, it will evolve after maturing, being the first monster in the Cunning Lupine evolution line. Generally considered one of the weaker stage 0 creatures, anyone who knows of it’s intelligence will be able to quickly defeat it.’ The man thought, organizing everything he knew about the monster approaching him.
‘It was the most lethal monster present in humanity’s Introduction to the Tourney. Unfortunately, the fact that dogs were so beloved in human culture led to many people being unwilling to attack the Cunning Wolf Puppy, causing them to die when the puppy’s ambush was sprung. I myself almost died last time due to this, with the only reason for my survival being a lucky shot from the gun I choose, killing the creature in the nick of time.’ He continued, remembering his past experience with this fight.
At this point, the puppy had reached the man and started sniffing him, trying to determine what exactly was happening. Most of its past prey had either attacked it immediately or underestimated it, and never did someone simply stayed still like this. For a moment, the puppy wondered if the human had already died, but it dismissed that thought as it could still hear the human’s heart beating. It decided to try biting the human’s leg to see if it would start reacting.
Before it could do that, however, one of the ends of the staff the man was holding hit the puppy’s head, crushing its fragile skull and killing it.
The young man let out the breath he had been holding for quite a while, relieved that his plan had worked.
Despite the puppy’s abnormal intelligence, it was still not at the level of a human. Thanks to that, after it realized its initial plan of ambushing a naïve human with its appearance did not work, it instantly abandoned the façade and started to act according to its natural curiosity, trying to understand what was happening. The man had used that knowledge to attract the monster to within his attack range and, when the time was right and the monster was most distracted, he attacked.
In a way, he had used the puppy’s ambush strategy against it, and the young man found that slightly poetic.
The audience made of fog surrounding the stage seemed to be surprised at what happened. These beings, who were actually members of various different intelligent races, had their identities hidden while spectating several hundred different humans at once, both as entertainment and searching for potential recruits. Among all the thousands of fights they were seeing right now, most of them were epic, emotional tales of survival, with people fighting for their lives with all they had. None of these fights had ended in such an… anti-climatic way like this one.
Unfortunately for those who were curious about the strange actions of this human, the means they used to spectate these fights didn’t allow them to interact with the humans in any way, so they could only try and keep his features in mind and try to find him later.
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As soon as the monster died, never even knowing the source of its death, the various features added to this blank place for the fight, such as the stage and the lights, dissolved back into the fog, including the monster’s body. It hadn’t actually been a real Cunning Wolf Puppy, only a recreation the Tourney had created for the trial, even being infused with false memories.
Congratulations Challenger!
You and your Species have been chosen as another member of the eternal tournament.
You have proven your individual worth to join the Tourney.
The Tourney shall help you grow and develop in whatever way you want!
The Tourney is the ticket to everything you could ever want!
As long as you put up a fight.
Welcome, and try not to die!
This time, no weirdly dressed spider emerged from the fog. Instead, the Tourney decided to finally announce its existence, golden words writing themselves in the fog in whichever language the reader knew best, allowing those worthy enough to have survived their first battle to bask in its presence. The young man almost laughed at the incredibly simplistic introduction given by the Tourney, who neglected almost anything actually important in its explanation. It would have been funny, if it didn’t cause the deaths of an untold amount of beings, be they humans or not.
Regardless of the human’s thoughts, the Tourney’s introduction was still not over. As a final act of power, another set of words appeared, their purpose much different from the ones before.
Challenger Status
True Name: Alden Eldridge
Mask: None (Available)
Title: None
Race: Human (Variant-3 Species, Carbon Lifeform, Animalia)
Class: None
Ability: R̶̸̷̵̵͔̣̠̙̞͒̂͗̅̄e̷̶̴̴̶̢̥̤̖̹̍̾͌̕͝b̶̸̷̷̶̖̩̩͉̖̅̂̄̐͝ĭ̷̴̵̷̴͉̟̩̯̭̄͗̐̚ṟ̴̴̶̵̵̺̺̘̼̀̆́̑̌t̴̴̵̸̵͉͓͖͓̥͛̊̉͗͗h̶̸̶̷̴̛͓̥̼͇͉͑̓͐͠ (Warning! Conflict in Ability! User has pre-existing Ability! Please contact Tourney Organizer!)
Legacy: None
Enlightenment: Undiscovered.
Stage: None
Health: 100%
Stamina: 98%
Challenger Characteristics
Might: 3
Dexterity: 4
Endurance: 3
Senses: 5
Will: 10
Charisma: 8
Soul: 10
Arcana: 5
Ethereal: 10
Challenger Skills
None
Challenger Attachments
None
A status page appeared; the same one the man saw all those years ago. There were a few differences from what he remembered, which was acceptable given his circumstances. Firstly, his ability was clearly corrupted. Whatever system the Tourney was running did not expect someone to have a previous ability. Thankfully, the young man did not need an ability to follow along with his plans. Having one would have been nice, and everyone else would get an ability unique to them, but he couldn’t complain. He had gained too much of an advantage over others to do such.
Another interesting difference was that his Will, Soul and Ethereal stats were the max someone in Stage 0 could have. This was expected, given these three stats were mostly based on the soul. What was unexpected, however, was his Charisma. He could clearly remember the previously his Charisma started at 4, 1 point below the average for a person’s characteristics. He could only surmise that the reason his Charisma increased to 8 was due to the different mannerisms he had accumulated over the decades.
The rest of the status page was as he expected, mostly blank since he hadn’t done much yet. That would most certainly change in the near future, but it was still not the time to think about that. Alden still had another challenge waiting for him.
‘It’s finally time for the start of the Tutorial.’ He thought, watching the form of the human-sized spider emerging from the fog, who would inform him of the parameters of his future trial. Everything up to this point had been pretty easy and predictable, at least in comparison to what will happen in the future. The Tutorial was the point where all of this was going to change.