The next room in the dungeon was a frozen tundra, a wasteland of ice stretching as far as the eye could see. The biting cold reached temperatures that would kill even the hardiest of men, but such trials were nothing in Sam’s eyes.
Sam roamed the tundra for four days, using powerful magics to subdue each and every beast that came for him. His power was God-like. The Yetis and Howlers held little sway over his conquest of their domain.
Sam found the exit and left the Tundra as if it were a playground.
-
Room after room, trial after trial, Sam bowled his way through the ‘Tutorial’. His foes grew stronger and stronger, but he was undeterred. He became a force of nature, a hurricane ripping apart anything that dared stand before him.
Sam found several more books, but none of them held any new information. His study under the Demon Lords had already covered such subjects, often in more detail.
Sam continued on.
-
A Dragon roared, it’s monstrous body rippling with magic. From its maw fire circled and lightning cracked.
Sam raised his hand and circulated his mana, letting his magic flow like the water of a mighty river. A translucent shield sprang up from the ground, its form angled and sharp like a metal bunker.
The dragon’s breath smashed into the shield and the world shook. Sam didn’t flinch. He began forming seals with his free hand, holding onto the shield with only half his mind.
His fingers bent into odd shapes and angles, and arcane energies began to hover over him. Electrical flashes jumped from his body as raw mana built up. Even the dragon noticed the oddity; if mana were fire, the man in front of the beast could only be described as the sun.
Sensing its own doom, the dragon unleashed its most powerful attack: a torrent of thunder and ash, an attack meant to drown volcanoes, an attack meant to alter the surface of planets.
At the same time, Sam unleashed his own spell. Like the roar of a waterfall, a virulent surge of mana swept forth, overtaking the dragon’s spell and then smothering the beast under an ocean of magic.
Like an ant underfoot, the dragon’s body crumbled into nothingness, stomped into dust.
Sam had spent many years advancing through the dungeons and the tutorial. He stood over six feet tall, his brown hair wild and long hanging behind him. He wore a leather shirt, crafted from the hide of a Dire Crocodile. It not only provided protection from attacks, but hastened his own magical circulation. It was brown and plain, covered in shallow cuts and other wounds. His pants were Yeti fur with stitching down the seams, and his boots were wyvern scale. On his hip he carried a sword forged of steel and Marchrite, the hardest and most powerful metal known to even the Demon Lords themselves. The sword was unmarked and looked rather plain, with a straight edge tapering to a rounded point; it resembled a western hand-and-a-half sword with a straight crossguard and a pear-shaped pommel. The scabbard was also made of Wyvern Scale, known for its ability to resist cutting, and hung on his belt at a high angle.
With the dragon down, Sam walked down the hallway into a new room.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It was another safe room.
A new book sat in the middle, and Sam walked up to it, a budding excitement in his heart. With every new book, he always found interesting applications of magic from human perspectives; often humans proved to be more creative in their uses of the arcane than the Demon Lords due to simple variety.
He threw open the cover and read the title page…
“The Mortal Realm: Common Mythos, Currency Exchange, Markets, Common Sense, and Politics.”
Sam’s heart sank. He had hoped for more useful knowledge. He wanted powerful information that would unlock the furthest reaches of the arcane, or perhaps teach him new skills in crafting, forging, or alchemy.
Instead he was offered a book of ‘common sense’...
Every book Sam had been given introduced important skills and other things necessary to his survival in the ‘Tutorial’. He recalled how he had been given a book on surviving the wild just before the first ‘wild’ stage, the Jungle. He recalled how the book on elementary magic had been given just before the skeletons that resisted normal magics were fought…
Did a book on the mortal world mean he was finally going to return to the mortal world? Was he finally going to leave the ‘tutorial’?
Sam’s eyes went wide as he looked up at the doorway across the room. It was ornate, gilded with golds and jewels. Next to the exit was a small leather backpack.
Sam walked towards the exit and picked up the pack, searching through it. His first surprise was at how deep the pack went. It seemed to use feather magics and space bending Manifestation spells to create a large storage area… And half the storage was filled with strange coins. Innumerable gold, silver, and copper coins poured from the pack.
Sam panicked.
He quickly backtracked through the dungeons and areas, collecting his potions, tools, weapons, and books. The new space-folding backpack enabled him to store all of it and bring it with him. It took him nearly four months alone to collect and organize everything from the earlier stages that he wished to keep. He even packed, preserved, and cleaned several years worth of foodstuffs. He knew not what he would face in the coming rooms ahead. He was still unconvinced that the end of the dungeon was in sight.
-
With everything of value collected, Sam opened and read through the final book. Whereas the Bestiary had detailed the natural environments of the Braxia Continent, the new book detailed the kingdoms and major cities of the Braxia Continent.
From the Elven Cities in the Verisa Forest to the Dwarven Mine-Dungeons of the Southern Crown, a new world opened up before Sam.
Each Kingdom used its own coins, but the Grantwell Empire’s were universally accepted everywhere.
Reading the book, Sam grew excited. As he learned about new places, fantastic sights, or unique peoples he grew more and more restless. He wanted to see this world. He wanted to explore it, make friends, and maybe even raise a family…
Oddly, Sam had another desire in his heart as well. He wanted to teach and train others. He wanted to open or join a school to pass on his knowledge of magic…
Sam felt as if this desire to teach existed in him before, too. He tried, desperately, to remember his life before the tutorial but nothing came to him. His past was like a blank slate. Only the absolute strongest memories or desires remained.
-
When Sam finally finished reading the newest book, he closed it with a smile. His preparations were finished. He stood up and walked towards the door…
Then he paused. For as long as he could remember, Sam had lived in the ‘Tutorial’. It had not only guided him, it raised him and taught him. It provided for him. It gave him purpose and it gave him strength.
Sam’s hands shook as he tried to reach for the door. He felt fear for the first time in a very, very long time, for the first time since he first faced the Goblin in the opening room…
“Why do you even try?”
His father’s question echoed in his mind and the shaking stopped. Sam reached forward and threw open the door, revealing a blinding white light.
Congratulations! You have passed The Tutorial! Your reward is a basic understanding of all modern languages in Braxia.
Warning: The User’s respawn point will now be set to the peak of the World’s Crown. If the user dies they will be revived three days later at their respawn point.
Welcome to Braxia.