Zach jumped out of bed, sword in hand, ready to slay the vermin which threatened his existence!

Then he climbed back into bed… He had done this throughout the night.

Knowing that tomorrow he would be deposited on an alien planet, how could he sleep?

No longer interested in practicing his bed-exiting strategy, Zach opted out of getting back into bed.

Standing up, he walked to the bathroom. Before showering, he took a clear look in the mirror, taking in the changes a month of hard training had done to his body.

Zach smiled, by no means was he bulky, but his body was covered in compact and symmetrical muscle. Though Zach liked his shredded physique, the continual regrowth of his skin had left him looking like a vampire.

While wishing he could hit the beaches of Earth, Zach took his usual icy shower.

After changing back into the casual black training garments, Zach hung his sword on his back. Halt had given him a device for holding his greatsword.

Two beast-leather loops were attached to him, with one at his shoulders and the other his waist. The loops were held against his body by belts, which were made of the same leather.

When he wanted to get the sword out of the loops, he would twist it forcefully. The loops had magnetic connectors on them, which would open when he pulled the sword away from his body.

He had also practiced removing his sword numerous times throughout the night.

Zach leaned against the wall. If he couldn’t sleep, he would at least relax through meditation...

A few hours later, Halt showed up at his room.

“Time to go lad! Ready your mind and follow me.”

Zach followed Halt out of the room for the last time.

Their walk ended shortly when they came to a circular platform, which was similar in design to the tool which measured Zach’s talent.

Zach stepped onto the platform and began to wait for something to happen.

“We are currently near the planet which will become your new home. Before we send you down there I am going to give you one last piece of advice…”

“Always, put six in strength, one in precision, two in vitality, and one in endurance. This will be best for you. Goodbye, and do not embarrass me!”

Before he could respond, Zach heard the electric thrum of the teleporter…

 As he steadied himself, Zach looked around at the radically different terrain.

He was on a grassy hill, a few ponds and boulders were scattered around it, it was beautiful. There were only a two indicators that he was not on earth.

One of them being, that there were three suns!

Two smaller stars framed the largest star. Upon noticing this, Zach wondered if the moons were similar in number.

Besides the stars, only the greenish-purple grass made the landscape unfamiliar.

As he took in the scenery, Zach half-expected some alien children to run by following a nun!

Amidst the hills, he saw something truly shocking! There were other people!

Some people had gathered around a hundred feet away from him.

Zach took in their appearances as he walked towards them.

They were all dressed like they were coming from a cosplay convention. However, contrary to their theme-coordinated outfits, it was clear that only half of the group knew each other.

In the group, there were two families, one of three and one of four. The two families contained a total of three elderly people, who were likely the grandparents.

Standing in a close, yet separate, group, there was a total of ten college kids. The group of college kids contained six girls and four guys.

They of seemed to be led by a couple, Zach approached them first.

“Hello!” Zach yelled awkwardly. Though Halt’s training had made him stronger, the lack of social interaction had worsened Zach’s already-rusting social skills.

“Hey man!” The guy said, smiling at Zach as their group met up with him.

Zach noticed that even though they were speaking in what sounded like Dutch, he could understand them.

“Nice to meet you guys, I’m Zach.”

The couple leading the group was picturesque, they were both tall and blonde. Their names were Thomas and Lisa, aside from them, the rest of the group had clearly come from all corners of the world, with the clear majority being Asian.

Zach felt rather embarrassed being stared at by so many people.

He was one of the tallest people there, and the combination of his pale skin, good looks, and greatsword, made him stand out quite a bit.

Luckily, the two families walked over and started to talk to him and Thomas. One of the families was Asian, the other had clearly come from Africa.

The father of the African family began to speak.

“Hello, my name is David. I think it would be best if we walked around, and took note of our surroundings. This would also allow us to find any other groups.”

“I agree,” Thomas said, as most of the members of his group nodded in consent.

“My family also thinks this would be best.” The father of the Asian family said.

Going with the flow, Zach followed the group’s decision and began to walk.

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As he walked, Zach mentally took note of who in the group looked trained. 

The elderly and children of both families were untrained.

Thomas had a shiny sword and shield on his back and was most likely a knight in training. Most of the guys following Thomas appeared to be wielding either swords or spears, but, Zach noticed that one of the guys was wearing red mage robes.

Lisa had a longbow on her back and was clearly an archer in training. Most of the girls following her also had longbows. However, one Asian girl in the group had a sword on her back, and a blonde girl was wearing a white mage robe, she was clearly their healer.

It appeared that the group of college kids was an intentionally balanced party. As they walked along the hills, Zach could not resist asking Thomas some questions.

“Thomas, how did you guys form this group?” Zach asked.

“I figured you would ask. Lisa and I made this group during warrior training. We met Jessica, who knows some basic healing, and Rob, our fire mage, during some exercises between the warrior and mage training groups. We were allowed to form parties before being sent here, so we chose to go together to increase our chances.”

“Considering how balanced your group is, that’s what I figured. It’s nice that they allowed families and friends to stay together. Well nice, ignoring the fact that they just dumped us here,” Zach replied.

After chuckling dryly, Thomas continued.

“Anyway, what training did you go through? Were you in advanced warrior training like that guy?” Thomas said while pointing at David.

Zach once again took in David’s appearance. David was around his height but made the ripped Zach look small. David was built like a bodybuilder and had a massive battle-axe on his back. He was likely also training to become a destroyer.

“No, I’m not that strong. One of the instructors in general training thought I had some talent with greatswords and gave me this weapon,” Zach said, as seriously as he could.

“Whoa man, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, I understand.”

Having been seen through, Zach was too embarrassed to continue talking to Thomas.

For the next hour, the group walked around the grassy hills gathering anyone they could find. Soon, a group of around fifty had gathered on one hilltop.

Most people, besides their group of eighteen, had clearly undergone only general training.

However, there were a few exceptions, some individuals held swords, axes, or spears, and looked somewhat-trained.

Looking around, Zach noticed that all the mages had already become part of parties, they were clearly valued for their utility. Also, it was clear that the colored mage robes represented elemental affinities.

This told Zach that their group of fifty contained no dual elemental mages. But, there were still some interesting individuals in their group of fifty.

Besides Thomas and Lisa’s group, there was another party of five. They were of similar age but looked like they had undergone advanced training.

Their party had a male mage in white robes, signifying the healer, and two female mages, who wore dark purple, and charcoal robes respectively.

Besides their mages, they had a stocky warrior, he looked Russian and wielded a sword and shield of visibly higher quality than Thomas's. Besides the Russian, there was a lanky Chinese man; he carried a gray longsword.

After the group had gathered onto a hilltop, chaotic-conversation ensued.

Considering his appearance, not to mention the eye catching greatsword he carried, a few of the females talked to Zach.

Though Zach was not an extrovert, he wanted to talk to the spacial-mage who was in the party of five.

Politely ending his conversations, Zach walked over to her.

As he approached, Zach took in her appearance.

She had long raven hair, pale skin, a cute smile, and deep-green eyes.

Though there were a few other attractive girls, none of them could help Zach learn Spacial Misdirection from talking to them, so Zach was interested.

“Hi, I’m Zach”

“Alice, nice to meet you.” She replied in a pretty voice.

“Are you a space mage? “Zach asked.

“Yes! Our group met during joint exercises between the advanced warrior and mage training groups,” she said, with bubbly enthusiasm.

“Wow, that is pretty cool. I have an affinity for space also.”

“Cool! Maybe later we could talk about space? I only managed to learn one of the two basic spacial-spells, but maybe you can help me learn the other!”

“Sure. Maybe…” Zach's sentence was cut off abruptly. The leader of her five-person group had stepped between them and begun to speak.

“Hi, my name’s Andrei! I didn’t see you in advanced warrior training, but nice to meet you buddy!” the stocky Russian said while holding out his hand.

Zach knew, from his words and his gaze, that Andrei felt threatened by him. Clearly, this joker had feelings for Alice.  He must have taken him talking to her as him hitting on her.

Well, he supposed he kind of was hitting on her, but it’s not like he gave a shit what Andrei thought!

However, Zach was too lazy to fight over beauties. Considering all he had wanted was more information on space, Zach did not get angry.

Taking Andrei’s provocation as a joke, Zach responded with equal derision.

“Oh, I wasn’t in advanced warrior training… So, I didn’t have the fortune of meeting you earlier Andrei, I’m Zach!” Zach said, returning his firm handshake, and matching Andrei’s hostile-gaze.

Zach smirked when Andrei’s brow furrowed. Giving the Russian no time to respond to his mock enthusiasm, Zach continued.

“Anyway, I am going to go talk to David and Thomas to see if we can all convene as a group, and figure out a plan. Catch you two later,” Zach said, before turning and leisurely walking away.

As Zach walked away, due to his stats, he heard Alice angrily rebuking Andrei.

“Why did you have to scare him off? He was hot!” Alice said, in a clearly annoyed voice.

“Don’t get too attached to these people Alice! We need to stay as a tight-knit party of five. God knows how long these clowns will survive. Especially people like him, who try to stand out. He wasn’t in advance training for our sector, and we don’t know if he was even in warrior training!” Andrei replied defensively.

Andrei’s amusing-drivel provided Zach with one valuable piece of information. Zach now knew, that during training, Earth’s population was divided into various groups called sectors.

Zach inferred that these sectors were large, probably a few thousand at least, and these groups were further divided into increasingly selective training levels. The levels Zach currently knew of were: General Training, Warrior/Mage Training, Advanced Warrior/Mage Training, and Individual Training.

Clearing his head, Zach addressed David and Thomas.

“Hey guys, I think we should talk to everyone and establish a plan.”

“Seems like a good idea,” Thomas said.

David nodded his head, then bellowed at the crowd, in a deep voice.

“Gather up! We are going to establish some rules, and share some information!”

After everyone had gathered, David continued to speak.

“After walking around, we have determined a few key points, which we would like to share. First, these hills stretch for around a mile in each direction, we are currently at their center. Second, dense forest’s surround these hills.”

Pausing to let that point sink in, David continued.

“It is reasonable to assume that these forests are filled with creatures we do not wish to encounter. I would recommend establishing a base here. We need to ensure the safety of our families, and the group!”

After David had finished speaking Thomas continued.

“We have water here, and it appears reasonably safe, so I second the notion of building shelters here, and protecting each other…”

Before Thomas could finish speaking, Andrei rudely cut him off.

“Though protecting each other is swell and all, we need to eventually go into the forest to level up. The only way to survive on this planet is to get stronger! Otherwise, a random high-level creature could simply slaughter us all! What if one were to venture out of the forest?”

Though Zach did not like Andrei, he had to agree that his words came close to what he was thinking. However, as Andrei was speaking, Zach felt something amiss.

“My group will not be responsible for protecting everyone! It is every man for thems…”

“Stop her!” Zach yelled, cutting off Andrei while pointing to the back of the group.

Amongst all the people, Zach sensed a child at the back of the group, and they were walking towards some type of creature!

As the group turned and took in the scene, everyone gasped. A small Chinese girl was about three feet away from what looked like an earless purple bunny.

Zach knew that even if he ran with all his might, he would not reach the girl before she touched it.

The air seemed to freeze, as silence descended.

Luckily, the creature looked harmless enough, it was even cute.

Everyone gasped again when the little girl touched the fuzzy creatures back….

Nothing happened for a few seconds… Some people even smiled at each other jokingly.

Suddenly the creature whipped around, with a speed almost half as fast as Zach’s!

Its fuzzy tail instantly-hardened into a flat scaly-blade!

It was over in a fraction of a second, most people hadn't even seen what happened.

As the creature cutely scurried away, the little girl’s head slowly fell to the floor.

Their silence was broken, and the screaming began…