"While the tutorial itself is dangerous, the actual number of people who die in it is far lower than the number that dies in the first months after it. This is attributed to both the fact that the System no longer limits the levels of monsters as well as the natural conflict that happens when a large group of sentients are without any preexisting leadership or rules."
-Excerpt from 'A Treatise on Integration' by Loremaster Squibb
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Taking a look around at my surroundings, I noticed that we seemed to be in a large clearing between some city ruins, with a number of mostly destroyed buildings covered in ivy and plantlife to our left and a primeval forest with truly massive trees to our right. There was also around 40-50 other groups in the clearing with us. It was easy to tell different groups apart because while Leo, Jackson, and Jason were within arms reach of me, the next closest person was three or four meters away and within arms reach of another three people. It seemed that most groups had the full four people, but I did see a few smaller groups, and it was notable that those with less than four people tended to look more haggard than everyone else, and they made up most of the people who were visibly injured. Examining those close by with the system I saw that most people were low levelled and seemed to be wearing almost exclusively the starting gear, though I was unable to tell what their classes were as the system only told me that they were human followed by their level.
The air was thick with tension as everyone eyed the people surrounding them, looking for either familiar faces or signs of aggression, the constant danger of the tutorial still fresh in everyone's mind. And while I did hear a few tearful reunions in the distance, most were just cautiously waiting for others to make the first move. After a few minutes of tense silence where nothing happened people started to relax a bit and some of the more courageous groups started conversations with those nearby to try and find their loved ones. Once one group started talking it didn't take long for the tension to drop and for most of the gathered people to start looking for their own loved ones, minus a few people who immediately darted into the forest or ruins once it became clear that there was no immediate conflict. Naturally our group stayed behind to look for our families and luckily it only took an hour or two for us to sort through the throng of people and reunite with them.
By the time everyone was assembled, there were 12 people, being me and my parents, Jackson and his parents, Leo with his father and little sister, his mother having died when he was younger,and Jason and his parents. It seemed that our families had been grouped with each other, my parents with Jackson's and Leo's with Jason's, his sister had always been very shy and withdrawn, so it seemed that the system deemed it best she was with her dad for the tutorial. However, not everyone reunited with their whole family, as Jackson's baby sister was missing which caused him to panic, but apparently those under the age of 13 were unable to access the system, and as such were put in a separate, danger free, tutorial that would last another two months before they would either be sent to their parents/caretakers or distributed randomly depending on if they are claimed by those they recognize as parents.
Once we had all made sure that everyone was okay and accounted for, the conversation quickly turned towards the tutorial and the classes that we had gotten, and how we would use them to survive the coming days. Among all of us, three had rare classes, being myself, Jason, and Jacksons mom, five had uncommon, being Leo, his sister, my dad, and Jackson's dad, while my mom, Leo's dad and Jackson's dad all had common classes, with only Leo, Jackson, Jason and I having reached level 10. As for the specifics of the classes, most of them had distinctly non-combat classes, which was likely the cause of their low levels. As we were discussing our current abilities and experiences in the tutorial, we heard a loud boom coming from the clearing, shortly followed by a series of similar noises.
Carefully making our way back to the clearing, we saw two people fighting each other, one of them wielding a large hammer while screaming and attacking wildly while the other had a sword and wooden tower shield, and seemed to be just trying to survive. The attacker seemed to be much stronger as each of his strikes caused an explosion that knocked the other man back every time they hit his shield. Once we got a bit closer we were finally able to make out what the attacker was screaming.
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HER! HOW COULD YOU LET HER DIE!"(Attacker)
While the attacker kept yelling and throwing accusations that let us realize that apparently the other man was in a group with his sister, who had died in the tutorial, the defender remained silent and just kept using his shield without even attempting to attack.
*CRACK*
*CRUNCH*
Eventually the force of the hammer with its explosive strikes proved too much for the wooden tower shield and it shattered, followed by a much meatier crunch as the hammer met flesh and launched the man like a ragdoll across the clearing until he landed in a bloody heap only a few meters away from us, arm bending in the wrong direction with bone protruding from flesh, but still alive. While Leo's little sister started vomiting at the bloody sight, the rest of us were able to see the other man coming to finish the job, using explosions at the soles of his feet to rapidly close the distance, taking only a few seconds to reach the barely conscious man and hold his hammer up with rage and insanity in his eyes. He was close enough that I could probably stop him if I tried, only five or so meters away, but every time I tried to move my body or the energy within me, I saw the madness in his eyes and froze.
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*SQUISH*
The world paid no heed to my internal struggle and effort to move, and the man brought his hammer down on the other man's head, and this time there was no explosion to mask the strike, just steel meeting flesh and causing the head to crack open and splatter gore all over the ground, some of it splattering against the attacker, who's anger rapidly faded and was replaced with pure emptiness once the deed was done, and just lethargically wandered away towards the forest, leaving the evidence of his deeds behind. It wasn't until he disappeared into the treeline that the situation caught up to me and I threw up, which caused a chain reaction as everyone processed that they just saw a human die in front of them by the hands of another human. Needless to say i was not the only one to empty my stomach that day, and the walk to find a semi-intact building to fortify was a much more sombre affair.
Nevertheless, we eventually found a building that was once some kind of store at the edge of town, with the side facing the street being covered in what was once windows but is now just open air, and empty shelves that were surprisingly mostly intact. After confirming that the remaining walls were mostly secure, we set to fortifying it, using my dad's [Architect] class as well as Leo's dads [Carpenter] class to cover the gaps in the walls and make sure that the ceiling wouldn't fall on us while we slept, using wood and materials from the surrounding buildings and tools that I made from crystals. Once the building was as safe and secure as we could make it, it was already sunset so we just went inside and had a meal from the food that various people had brought from the tutorial, mostly fruits and berries, with water from the endless canteen to wash them and drink with crystal cups. Making the tools and cups only took about 150 mana since only the tools needed to be strong, and they weren't particularly complex.
I was unable to sleep that night as the thoughts of the fight echoed in my mind, reminding me of how lucky we all were that our families survived and warning me of how dangerous people could be when stressed, and judging from the movement of the others I was far from the only one. Sleep wasn't made easier by the occasional scream that resounded every so often, further reinforcing the danger of our situation, so after a while I simply gave up and decided to meditate instead of just staring at the ceiling and jumping at every noise. Moving away from the group behind some shelves where we had eaten dinner and slipping into the comfortable feeling of connectedness with the world, I was disappointed to find almost no energy in the surroundings, unable to grasp what little was there to see what element it even was. Even without any progress towards attunements, it was still a better than just sitting and worrying, so I continued to meditate anyway. After an hour or so, I noticed something odd, I could still feel the crystal cups that I had made and hadn't dissipated yet, and while they felt distinctly different from natural energy and I couldn't use them to enhance my affinity, I could still feel their connection to me. With nothing better to do I focused on that connection until I could feel the outline of one of the cups clearly, and with a surge of intent and mana I pulled.
*PLINK*
A sudden, if mild, pain knocking me out of my meditation, I saw one of the cups resting between my legs and felt the remnants of a dull impact on my chest. Quickly checking for any system notifications and finding none, my thoughts ran at a mile a minute as I pieced together what just happened and what it meant. Back in the tutorial, no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to move any of my creations after the initial push, but clearly I was able to do it just now, and while it did take a whopping 50 mana just to lightly toss a single glass, it wasn't actually that difficult once I felt the connection.
Wait...
THAT'S IT!
Previously, when I tried to control my crystals post creation, I was focusing my intent and trying to do it in a similar manner to when I create them, but that never even felt close to working. I totally neglected the meditation skill since I figured that it was purely non-combat, and while the skill itself is certainly not something I'll be using mid-fight any time soon, I need to mimic the way that it connects me to the elements, and by proxy the energy that has already left my body if I want to actually control the elements beyond just creating and launching them. With the excitement of discovery eliminating any tiredness, I spent the rest of the night practicing sensing and strengthening the connection I had to my energy after it's solidified, with and without the meditation skill, having to create a new practice crystal partway through the night as the cup dissolved.
By the time the morning sun peeked through the cracks in our makeshift walls, I had made a small but noticeable amount of progress, able to connect to a crystal within a meter of myself if I focused on it for a while, still far from actually being useful, but a solid step in the right direction. I also found out that the stronger a connection I was able to make with whatever I tried controlling, the less mana it would take to actually move it, but if I lost focus, the strength of the connection would start to deteriorate, so I was currently more focused on quickly making connections as opposed to how strong I could make the connection. I did get much better at maintaining the connection from the creation of the crystals, but any connection would still break if it went farther than one meter away.
My practice drew to a close as everyone started to wake up and eat breakfast, most of us habitually rising with the sun while the others were awoken by the noise of everyone else waking up, the conversation turned to what we were going to do. Thanks to Leo's and my dad's classes, shelter wasn't much of a concern, but food very much was, as even with what we had all brought from the tutorial we only had maybe another day's worth before we ran out, not to mention the sounds of violence from the night before making it abundantly clear that relying on our fellow man would be a poor idea. Honestly, the fact that we had two people capable of creating and fortifying structures was a godsend, as I hadn't seen a single building that had four intact walls, much less a door.
Eventually we came to the inevitable conclusion that we would have to go into the forest and hunt. But even with that decision, it wasn't like we could all just get up and go kill some rabbits, hell only six of us even had combat classes, and only my original group was level 10. After much discussion and argument, mostly the parents not wanting to put us in danger but not having any good argument to stop us, it was decided that of those with combat classes, we would do two rotations of three where one group would go hunting while the other stayed behind just in case. The groups were me, Jackson, and Jacksons mom, who's name was Janet, who was level 4 and had a rare [Shadow Mage] class that let her use an enemies shadow to attack them, while group two was Leo, Jason, and Leo's little sister, who's name was Evelynn, who was level 5 and had an uncommon [Tamer] class but hadn't tamed anything during the tutorial, and apparently could only tame one creature at most currently. While there was a brief discussion about taking those with non-combat classes out hunting, it was decided that we wouldn't at least until we knew how dangerous the forest was, Plus Leo and my dad could use the extra hands to fortify our residence as much as possible just in case.