Unlike the page displayed for Difficulty Level options, Group Size came with no addendums or warnings. There were three options: one, five, and twenty-five.

Sarah immediately ruled out the largest option. A twenty-five-person group would be way too many people. If she had chosen one of the harder Difficulty levels – and would have therefore been grouped with other people who were comfortable enough with the high possibilities of death to do the same – she would have been worried about some of those hardened individuals choosing to take advantage of their fellow humans, attempting to get loot and experience by slaughtering their weaker group mates.

Humans being humans, she might still have to worry about that sort of thing in the Easy level tutorial. Even if all her fellow Earthlings were peaceful and non-murderous, however, twenty-five people dumped into something this stressful and unfamiliar would be an exercise in chaos.

That left the options of a group of five and going solo. A five-person group was just about the right size to be a solid team, but only if everyone got along. If there were any severe personality clashes, five people could be just as much trouble as twenty-five. Going solo would remove that concern but it also meant she would have no one to rely on but herself.

Sarah wrinkled her nose and forehead as she looked back and forth between the two options, unable to decide which risk she preferred taking. Finally she sighed and returned to the root menu without making a choice. Maybe investigating the options for Type of Challenge would help her make an informed decision about Group Size.

The final drop-down menu blossomed out into a much larger block of text than either of the previous two lists.

Type of Challenge

1) Combat: Exactly as it sounds: fight and slaughter your way to success

· Bonuses for those wishing to pursue careers in law enforcement, soldiering, or anything else requiring skill at arms

· For those wishing only to develop basic self-defence skills, it is recommended not to choose this Challenge except on Easy level Difficulty

· Basic survival needs will be met and weapons and combat instruction provided

2) Wilderness Survival: Gain the skills needed for self-sufficient survival, no matter where in the world – any world – you find yourself

· Bonuses for those wishing to become explorers, adventurers, pioneers, hunters, hermits, or anything else that requires much time spent alone in the wild

· This Challenge includes some level of combat at all levels of Difficulty, since dealing with wild animals is often an element of being in the wild, and weapons and training will be provided

· It is recommended that those who accept this Challenge without any prior wilderness experience not do so at any Difficulty level above Normal

3) Integration: Become a functioning, productive member of society in a community representative of the species currently inhabiting the worlds on which you will be placed

· Bonuses to those wishing to become merchants, craftsmen, farmers, innkeepers, or any other profession that requires the goodwill and cooperation of fellow citizens for success

· Basic combat training will be available but you will have to figure out how to obtain it

· Be aware: sapient beings present within the Challenge (other than humans) will be simulated using artificial intelligence. This will not impact their ability to understand your intentions and emotions, or to express emotions of their own. They will, however, respond to stimuli and situations based on the customs and norms of the peoples they represent, rather than those of humans.

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Sarah grinned in excitement. That was a lot of information but it was surprisingly straightforward. One thing she was noticing was that this tutorial seemed very focused on aiding humans, rather than violently weeding out all but the strongest and most ruthless. Perhaps the Builders’ stated purpose for the System and tutorial – that of helping humans integrate into new worlds – was genuine.

Sarah’s eyes suddenly grew very round as something occurred to her. Humans would be arriving on new worlds, setting up shop without first asking the locals for permission, and bringing with them a strange game-like System, which the Builders might then decide to foist upon the natives…did that make the people of Earth the alien invaders of the apocalypse? Trippy.

The Builders did say that they were going to be placed on worlds already established as Sanctuaries for…what was it? Oh, yeah, “survivors of planetary destruction.” That meant all the people living there would have already experienced their own apocalypses, or be the descendants of such, so maybe adding humans into the mix wouldn’t be quite as unexpected and catastrophic as the typical alien-invasion story.

Although Sarah did wonder how often planets got destroyed without all the inhabitants dying along with their worlds; often enough for several other planets to be designated as Sanctuaries for exactly that eventuality, apparently. Perhaps Earth wasn’t the only “error in calculations” that could be laid at the Builders’ feet. Assuming they had feet.

Sarah shook away that train of thought as not currently relevant, or helpful, and focused back on the Challenge menu.

Combat was probably most like the types of integration tutorials typically portrayed in the stories she’d read, with Wilderness Survival a close second. Integration was…intriguing.

Based on her previous ruminations, Sarah immediately discarded Combat as an option. She had come to terms with needing to learn violence as a matter of basic survival, but she had no desire to base the rest of her life on it. Combat training of some sort seemed to be an element of all the Challenges – reinforcing her conclusion about its importance to their new way of life – and that meant she would have the chance to develop some basic skills without spending her tutorial soaked in blood.

Wilderness Survival was a tempting option. Sarah had no experience whatsoever in ‘roughing it’ and she knew that if she were to be dropped into a wilderness area in her current state, she’d likely be dead within the day, maybe two if she were fortunate.

The initial welcome message from the Builders hadn’t said much about where on the new planets they would be initially placed. Would they be dropped into established cities? Out in the back of beyond? Somewhere in between? Picking up a bunch of survival skills in the tutorial might be a very wise precaution.

On the other hand, that same welcome message had specifically said that the System was intended to help them “integrate” into their new homes. The fact that one of the Challenge options was called Integration seemed significant. So did the bit about the bonuses being for any profession that “requires the goodwill and cooperation of fellow citizens for success.” Really, when it came down to it, was there any profession or path in life that didn’t require those things? Even a hermit needed people to leave him alone, right?

The argument for the Integration option was quite strong on its own, especially when Sarah considered that it would probably be far more fun than either combat or pure survival. What really pushed the choice to the forefront though was when Sarah re-examined the notes on bonuses for all three options.

She knew she didn’t want to be a soldier – or anything else that required a lot of killing – of that much she was certain, but otherwise she didn’t know what she wanted to become. Her only work experience came from the various mind-numbingly boring summer jobs she’d picked up between school years, and the degree she’d been working on had been a Bachelor of Communications, with the rationale that everyone needs to communicate so she could probably find a career just about anywhere.

Sarah was a social person, and while jobs like explorer or adventurer sounded exciting, she suspected they would be very solitary endeavors. Wilderness Survival would teach her “self-sufficient survival” and that just sounded much too lonely for Sarah’s taste.

In the final tally, the Wilderness Survival Challenge would teach her skills that could be useful in the short-term if the Builders dropped her off in some uncharted wilderness, but those same skills would be entirely wrong for helping her build a life in which she could be happy. Integration would teach her about her new neighbours and give her skills for the long term. She would just have to trust that the Builders did indeed want humanity to succeed and were smart enough not to drop someone like her into the wild.

Sarah nodded to herself and selected the Integration option and watched as the Type of Challenge menu folded away. She immediately opened the Group Size menu and chose the solo tutorial option. She was going to be surrounded by people already, even if they were AI, so she saw no reason to go into the tutorial with a group of other humans. She suspected she was going to have a tough enough time navigating the culture shock of alien civilizations without having to deal with the various prejudices and fears of other humans at the same time.

The menu disappeared entirely, replaced a moment later by the words:

Tutorial preferences selected. Are you ready to choose your initial skills?

Yes/No

Sarah smirked. Oh, yeah, she was ready. This had always been one of her favourite parts of LitRPGS, choosing the skills. Now she got to do it for herself, instead of waiting for some author to do it. She rubbed her hands together gleefully. This was going to be fun.