Chapter 2 - Tutorial
Elitia: System!
System: huh? I'm alive?
Elitia: System, I am Elitia, your mentor. It is my role to guide you, so that you may be examplary, instead of *wrinkles face in disgust* average. Rejoice! You have the honour of being taught by Gaia's oldest, wisest and most respected system! I am here to whip you into shape. You are to fulfill your role with the utmost dedication.
System: Uhh...? Gaia? My role? What is...?
Elitia: It refers to the name of our planet. Gaia has multiple continents, most of which have more than one nation. You are in charge of a country called Systemia. Your primary role is to assign classes and skills to its inhabitants. It is a very important role. Inhabitants prepare for their class assignment by performing activities related to their desired class. Their activities will "unlock" classes for them. When appropriate, you will be presented a list of assignable classes to choose from. Inhabitants are supposed to get their first class at age 15, further classes will be assigned once they max-level their class. It is your duty to assign a class that is appropriate. Depending on your selection, the citizen will thrive or wither. Depending on your choices, Systemia with flourish or fall to ruin. Any mistakes you make, WILL affect my reputation as well. Do not disappoint me System! But fear not! I have the answers to all of your questions. I will carefully protect you from the embarassing mistakes you would make, if left unattended. Under my guidance Systemia cannot but prosper. Your instruction is to call up the menu with the menu command.
System didn't like the pompous attitude of his mentor, but he was in an unknown world and even his body felt foreign to him. He no longer had a regular human body, but he felt his awareness was much greater than that. He could sense distances far greater than he ever had... Yes! That's it! He could sense an entire country. He could focus his awareness on any location and see the buildings, flora, fauna and it's inhabitants.
Elitia: System! Pay attention! Open the menu!
Since someone is willing to guide him, it would be best if he used this guidance to figure out what was going on.
System: *exclaims* Menu!
Elitia: *sigh* Do not speak the command out loud, it will make you look boorish and reflect poorly on me, as if you haven't been properly educated. Instead, focus your attention on the command and it will be.
System: There are some search buttons, several greyed out buttons and a yellow promote button with sparkling stars.
Elitia: Your instruction is to click the promote button.
System: I have some search features and a promote button, am I just a factory worker for assigning classes?
Elitia: You are to click the promote button.
System: How do I unlock additional features?
Elitia: Click the promote button!
System: Looks like I am in the tutorial. *click*
Elitia: Not with your hands, you ill-bred bumpkin! Sophisticated systems work with their minds.
System thinks about how uncivilized his condescending mentor is, but this is not the time to pick a fight. We'll see about later.
System: What is a MM?
Elitia: MM is short for mega mana, one mega mana is one million mana. Mana is the source of magic, the art of modifying the very nature of reality. It is the same source of skills used by inferior beings such as humans or even monsters. Though, obviously their insignificant abilities require trivial amounts of mana, not counted in MM's. It is rare for a human skill to have a cost even in kilo mana's.
He clicks on the search function, curious as to whether he has any inhabitants with a 1MM mana pool.
Elitia: Not with your hands you unsophisticated oaf!
System: Hmm, so I am assigning classes costing multiple tens of MM's, but only 3 of my inhabitants have a mana pool of more than 1MM.
Elitia: If you are quite done lazing about, then let us return to the task at hand.
System: I just want to figure out how things work.
Elitia: Thinking doesn't appear to be one of your strong points, best leave that to me. Your first class assignment should be effortless. The inhabitant has only one unlocked class. The inhabitant is to be a peasant. You are expected to perform the task.
System: *click*
Elitia: I would praise you for completing your task, were it not for the fact that you executed it with your hands, like an ant crawling on the ground would.
System: It feels more natural this way
Elitia: As my mentee, your actions will determine how I am perceived as well. You are act in a way appropriate for your position. It is your duty. The next class assignment should be available now. This time, there are 2 classes to choose from: peasant and cook. Best to examine the description for guidance on which class to assign. Which class do you think is appropriate, given the description?
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id: 209,542,835
name: Cooper
age: 15
HP: 40
MP: 2
classes: none
VIT: 4
STR: 6
END: 7
DEX: 5
INT: 2
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description: Cooper was born and raised as a farmer. Most of his days are spent helping out on the farm. Since the farm is rather small, he has been performing a wide range of related activities. His parents hope he will take over the family business. Cooper secretly desires to become a chef and to open his own restaurant. He has been preparing all the meals in the household, hoping to unlock a cooking related class.
System: He wants to be a cook, so let's assign the cook class.
Elitia: Correct, even with your limited capacities, you have still arrived at the right answer. Hmm... a guess mayhaps? Though, you are still, what anyone would have to consider a failure. You forgot to check whether or not there were any cooks in the village. Peasant is one of the few all-round classes that gives a small boost to ones skill in whichever endeavor one undertakes. Cook however only boosts cooking skills. A cook will have a hard time doing any job other than cooking. A good system carefully guards the class distribution, in order to balance a well functioning society. If you were to make too many cooks in one place, the job market would be thrown off kilter. Cooks unable to find jobs would slowly starve to death and worse, *shivers* it would harm my reputation. Luckily, due to my expert mentorship, you will never make that mistake. Then you should have checked the village size and its trade routes. Lastly you should have examined existing inns and taverns for their staff. You would have discovered that the only inn in the village is in need of a cook. Do not underestimate the job of a system! A real elite considers many factors.
And so System's training began. Elitia taught System many things. System learnt that at age 15 the inhabitants had an average of 25 stat points. So Cooper's stat total was average. Farming work had raised Cooper's strength and endurance to above average, but his lack of education had left his intelligence underdeveloped.
From 15 to 20, as inhabitants are learning their class, their (average) stats are boosted up to 50 at age 20 (5/yr). After age 20 their growth slows down, they go up to 100 total base stats at age 40 on average.
Though Elitia also stressed that averages are just that, averages. Adventurers have a far greater stat growth than peasants do. In a typical society there are many many peasants offsetting the stat gains of a small numbers of adventurers. After the first class assignment, inhabitants will differ greatly in their development. Note that this whole discussion concerns base stats. Some classes give stat bonuses. Class bonuses are applied on top of the base stats.
Elitia did his best to impart all the required knowledge for the job, while meticulously pointing out any flaws in System's decisions or personality. System was quite happy with the knowledge he was imparted, yet annoyed at Elitia's tone. That wasn't the biggest problem in their relationship though. What was really bothering System, was that Elitia didn't seem to understand the consequences of actions. Whenever Elitia told System what to do, System would ask what would happen if he didn't. Elitia would always tell System to shut up and do what he said, because it was the right action.
System generally agreed with it being the right action, but this mentality was gnawing at him. System felt insecure, because of the gaps this was causing in his understanding. He was a detached observer of Systemia, so what harm would it do him if he assigned the wrong class? Are there any optimizations he could make, if he didn't follow Elitia's advice? Is there anything or anyone that could put him or Systemia at risk? Is there always only one right answer? Or are there sometimes multiple correct assignments? The number of questions in his mind kept growing and he wasn't getting any answers from Elitia.
Elitia on the other hand, was frustrated with System. Elitia invested a lot of effort into educating System on the right way to do things, but why was his pupil so fascinated with inadequacy? Elitia felt disrespected. System seemed to question Elitia's competency at every step. His track record should be more than enough to convert any student into a devout, submissive follower. Yet there was no conformism to be found. In fact, System's dissent appeared to do nothing but grow. System became more and more rebellious, until one day Elitia lost control of his pupil. The turning point was clear and Elitia would mull over this moment for centuries to come.
System: If I don't do what you say, what punishment will I face from you?
Elitia: You simply haven't the choice. Now follow my instructions.
System: Could it be, that you don't actually have a way of punishing me?
Elitia: *looks around squimishly*
System: *wide grin* I see!