Jake stood in front of the wolf, his body weak and his eyelids heavy. He knew that if he fell asleep now, the wolf would win, and he would be no more. Jake circulated arcane energy through his body with stamina, pushing his physical body to the limits. Jake rushed forward, rifle in hand. The wolf struck at him with its claws. Jake stuck his rifle into the wolf's mouth and fired. The claw dug into Jake's side as brain matter painted the sky.

Ding! Class lev–

Jake lost consciousness as the notifications started coming in.

“Come on, Matt, this way.”

“Why, Jess? Didn't we have a good spot to hide until the end of this so-called tutorial ends? We've already lost ten to that wolf from hell.”

“I told you I heard gunfire last night. There has to be someone still alive,” a female voice said.

“But I don't get it. Why should we go to where the gunshots came from? If we are going to do anything, we should be heading away from them, not towards them.”

“Stop being a wimp, Matt. Just because you were disillusioned by all those games you played and thought you would be some kind of powerhouse just because you picked mage as your class. Just shut up and follow me.”

Unbeknownst to Jake, two people were closing in on his position.

“Hey, Matt, look up there.”

A long tail with a barb on the end was hanging off the edge of a building.

“That's not right. It only comes out at night. Jess, we should go. If it's still alive, we're dead. And if it isn't, I don't think we want to see what killed it.”

“OK, Matt, you can stay here. I will go look by myself,” Jess said before walking off.

After Jess had entered the building, Matt decided it would be safer for him if he stayed with Jess. So he ran, following her into the building and started up the stairs. As he caught up to her, she was in the middle of tearing down a barrier someone had erected. There was no way Matt could have moved any of the stuff. Jess was easily shifting out of the way. As the barrier was removed, they noticed there was a hammock set up, but no one was in it.

“What do you think, Matt?”

Jess was pointing at the door leading onto the roof.

“OK, Jess, it's your call. Just don't get us killed.”

Jess opened up the door. The first thing she saw was the wolf. Its head had a big hole where its brain used to be. But then she noticed its claw piercing the side of the person who had killed it. Jess walked quietly over to Jake, and once she got there, she was surprised. She knew this person well. Well, "knew" wasn't quite right. She had never met him, but her brother was his radio operator, and anytime her brother would get back from a mission, she would be there to welcome him back. Until that last mission. She had regrets about it. She had an argument with her brother just before he left, as she found out that it was basically a suicide mission to capture the Victorian premier and ransom him back for the safe release of captured resistance members. She argued that if she knew of the mission, their enemies would too. All he said to her was, "We know the risks. But when we were given an out by the boss, we all stepped forward. Not a single step back," he said. She knew what happened to their team. Her brother set up a radio for her to listen to. So when she saw that man there, she was confused. Part of her wanted nothing more than to see him dead. But another part of her remembered the way he treated her brother and what he would want her to do.

When Jake woke up, he was in a bed in a dimly lit room. He looked down to see that he was naked once more. Looking around the room for his clothing, he found them in the corner of the room. He got up to put them on, but his weapons were nowhere to be seen. So, while no one was around, he pulled out his cauldron and started creating a small, simple knife he could hide in his clothing and use in case of an emergency or if the people who brought him to this place were less than friendly. Two hours later, footsteps could be heard coming down the hall. Jake put his cauldron back in his storage space and waited for the person to arrive. The door opened, and in strutted a kid no older than 16, with a body like a rake and a complexion as if he had never seen the sun. Jake looked at what he was holding. The kid just stood there, trying to look domineering, like he was playing some game or something.

“So, can you speak or not? And do you mind giving me my rifle back so I can get on with my objectives?”

“You're not in control here. I am,” the kid snapped back.

Identify: Race: Human, Level: 5

Stolen novel; please report.

Jake was about to laugh when the stupid kid pointed Jake's rifle at him. Jake dodged to the side as the rifle went off. Then he rounded on the kid, his concealed knife in his hand, stabbing the knife towards the kid's neck. Just as his knife was about to slit the kid's throat, a second person entered the room. Jake looked at her for a second before pulling back the knife edge.

“Jess, it's good to see you out of your wheelchair. I just wish James was here to see it. He would... I'm sorry, Jess. I failed to bring him home to you,” Jake said, his emotions all over the place.

“It wasn't your job to do that,” Jess said.

“Thank you, Jess. But we all know that's not true. I was the commander. It literally was my job to complete the mission and to do that, I needed all my men back safe.”

Jess just looked at him, as Matt was standing in a puddle of his own piss. Jake looked at the kid and grabbed his rifle back before saying to him, “Just a piece of advice: try identifying the person before trying to kill them, or you might just find yourself dead next time.”

Jake went to leave the room before Jess stopped him.

“Where are you going?”

“To get stronger.”

“Can I come with you?”

“No, you're not strong enough yet. Though I might have an alternative for you and even piss pants over there.”

“What is it?”

Jake pulled out his teleportation token to show them.

“This token will take you to a place only I have access to. There are still dangers there, but the place I wish to take you should give you an opportunity to gain levels in a profession. But there are only two professions that have enough information on them for you to progress relatively quickly. What do you say? Would you like to give it a try?”

“What are the two professions that are there?” Matt said.

“The one I would recommend for you is alchemy. As for her, it would probably be smithing.”

“OK, that sounds fine. I just would prefer if you would stop calling me that name.”

“And I would prefer that you didn't try to kill me. But we don't all get what we want.”

Jake took a deep breath. “OK, what's your name?”

“Matt.”

“OK, Matt. Can you get your stuff ready? How about you, Jess?”

“I don't know. It's not like I can kill anything here, so why not? Let's go.”

Five minutes later, Jess and Matt were ready.

“Just a fair warning: I don't know how this will work.”

With a thought, Jake and the two others were inside the cottage on Aaliyah's home world.

“So, just to let you know, this is another world. It is outside the tutorial, as far as I'm aware. As for getting a profession, come with me.”

Jake and the two others walked into what Jake called the study. There were books everywhere. Even more than the last time he was here.

“The books on the first bookshelf have general information on the system and the universe. You are welcome to read anything on that shelf. The other books, you can read anything related to alchemy or smithing. But if you find anything about arcane smithing, you are to put it on a shelf by itself, and don't read them. They will only distract you from your path. You are also allowed to use anything in the cottage. I will warn you before I leave. The spiders on this planet are big. I will be back before the tutorial ends. I will probably need your help, so try to get stronger as quickly as you can.”

Before Jake left to go back to the tutorial, he checked to see if his shuttle was finished upgrading.

Item (Soul shuttle of shadows uncommon): Binds to your soul space and can be summoned. Cost of summoning: Mana and Stamina. Soul shuttle has a slow repair function when in your soul space.

Item upgraded to (Arcane Soul shuttle of the wandering path rare): Binds to your soul space and can be summoned. Cost of summoning: Mana and Stamina. Soul shuttle has a slow repair function when in your soul space. Can use arcane power or mana to operate weapons systems.

After checking that it was done, Jake returned to the tutorial. On his return, he left to find a location big enough to summon his shuttle. Using up over half of his Mana and Stamina to summon, looking at the outside of the shuttle, it looked the same as it was the first time.

“Great, it's still a rust bucket. I hope the inside is better and not as rusted.”

Going inside, Jake took a deep breath. “Yes, it has fixed the seats. Of course, it didn't fix anything else, but you've got to take every win.”

Thinking back to the objectives, one was to destroy the invading fleet. Moving up to the cockpit, Jake started the shuttle to use its scanner to see what was happening in orbit. The other reason he went up to scan was because of what he saw in the sky before the fight with the wolf. In orbit, there were five ships. Two of which were smaller in comparison to the others and looked to be in a bad state. They seemed to be unmoving, and their weapons fire had stopped. The other three ships seemed to be leaving towards the second planet in the system. Jake decided to go up and check the condition of the spaceships and see if there were any survivors on either of the ships. If there were, then Jake would see if he could help them. If there was no one left alive, then he would figure something out if that happened. Taking off, Jake flew over the land, taking note of any interesting things to look at when he comes back. One of the interesting things was a structure built into a mountain. It had large hangar doors, one of which looked to be slightly open. After spotting this, he marked it in the shuttle's navigation system and then pushed the throttles up. As he did, the shuttle started to rattle until the atmosphere thinned, reducing the pressure on it. Jake put the shuttle into a low orbit as he attempted to do something he probably shouldn't. Jake set the radio to broadcast in the clear.

“Unknown spaceships, unknown spaceships, this is the rusty bucket. Requesting communication.”

Static!

“Unknown spaceships, unknown spaceships, this is the rusty bucket. Requesting communication.”

“Rusty bucket, this is the destroyer Jaxxen. Requesting frequency change to 122.1.”