To say that the tutorial had taken an odd turn would have been understating it, all they had to do in the previous stages was fight, grow stronger and survive. This stage should have been the same, and in some ways it was. The objective was to fight each other and win, but what the little blue man was saying was that there was going to be more than just what the system message said and he didn’t know how he felt about that.
“As you can all see you are in a colosseum, and the purpose of a colosseum is not just for people to fight in it.” Dijaun stopped speaking after that, a silence settled across the area as everyone waited for him to continue. This guy is worse than a TV presenter. “It's also so people can watch of course!”
That was a given, they would all be watching each other fight, at least at first, to try a figure out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses in case they would need to fight them later on. He didn’t get why that was such an exciting thing for the blue man to say to them all, honestly it was a bit of a let down.
“Haha, you are mistaken if you think you will get to watch each other fight, only those who lose will get such an opportunity. No, what I am saying is that we will soon be hosting guests from the multiverse who will get to watch all of you up and coming champions fight it out to see who wins!”
Now that caused a stir to go through the crowd, they had yet to meet anyone outside of humans from their own planet, so getting to see what other beings were out there was an exciting notion, if not a terrifying one. Shaun had a sneaking suspicion on what was about to come next, he had spoken to someone from the multiverse before, kind of, a copy of a Merfolk, Vilerelle, had provided him some information on what they were doing in a dungeon, scouting for talent. And why else would others come here to watch them if not to suss out if there was anyone here that would be worth being taken into a lesser faction, or clan, maybe if someone truly proved them selves they may be offered to join one of the twelve major factions, otherwise known as the major powers.
“Now you may be asking yourself, why would powerful beings from the multiverse want to come here and watch little old me fight? And it would be a great question! Now I shall give you a bit of a lesson of the multiverse and you will soon understand why. The multiverse is made up of twelve major factions, commonly referred to as the major powers, and they each control their own part of the multiverse. Under each of the major powers there are what is called lesser factions, or clans, depending on the major power they are under. Each of the major powers is made up of thousands, if not millions of clans, each vying for their own power within the ranks of their faction. And do you know what the best way of moving up the ranks is? Having powerful members! And what better way to get fresh blood to build up a clan than to scout out a new universe, you never know when you might find a diamond in the rough!”
And I was right. He thought to himself. The objective of this stage was indeed to win the tournament and be crowned, but the real objective here was not just to win but join a faction. The faction emblems they were encouraged to collect now made a whole lot more sense in the grand scheme of the tutorial. You needed an emblem if you wanted to join a faction, it would serve as an identifier and mark where you belonged. If he was going to make a bet the stands would soon be full of lower levelled members of all different clans, seeing if they could find anyone worthy of joining them who had the promise of rising in power to help boost them up the ranks.
“And you may be asking yourself, what is in it for you? Well that is an easy answer, you join an established clan, you can get a mentor to help you grow in power, the resources you may be offered will help boost you to levels you couldn’t even imagine. And what does it cost you? Just loyalty to the clan that you join! They will be a family, one who will always have your back. Now, some more information on this stage of the tutorial. You see….”
“Why bother joining a clan when I can join one of the major powers directly?” Someone shouted up at the being hovering in the air talking at them.
“Join one of the powers directly? Oh my, ha, haha, hahaha!” Dijaun had completely lost all sense, he was just laughing uncontrollably at that point. Shaun thought it was a valid question for one to ask so he wasn’t sure if this was an act on their part or if it really was such an outrageous statement that he couldn’t hold in his own laughter.
“Well now you see young Philip, was it? To join a power directly is no easy thing, only the most powerful and respected of beings in all of the multiverse are ever offered such a thing. You may feel powerful now, but let me put it in perspective for you. At level 25 you are generally thought to be E grade, at level 125 you are D grade, at level 250 you are C grade, level 500 B grade and at level 1000 you are considered A grade. But that is not where power ends, oh no! at around level 10,000 you are considered S grade, or what is more commonly referred to as a lesser god. The S grade will stretch into different categories such as a full god, Transcendent god, Divine god and finally an Ancient god. There are only twelve Ancients alive today, all of whom rule the twelve major factions. They are the powers so to speak. Now back to your question, to join a major power directly is to sit in the direct faction of an Ancient, and I can tell you, none of the twelve are currently looking to take on a member of a newly initiated universe, unless of course you are something truly special and unique.”
To say that Dijaun had just put everything into perspective would have been an understatement, yes they had all gained levels rapidly in the last two months, but they also knew how hard it was to get levels the higher you went. To get to level 125 to reach the next grade would not be something that happened quickly, to make it all the way to 1,000, 10,000 even, was not possible in one lifetime. It also seemed that there was a way to increase your lifespan though, these Ancients wouldn’t live 100 years and then die, they had been around for a long, long time if he was to guess.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
There was a lot of chatter amongst the groups that had formed from the 1000 people present, so much so that Dijaun didn’t even bother quieting them down, he simply waited, knowing that they would need to digest the information he had just provided. Eventually though he had had enough.
“Alright all, listen to me now, its my time to talk.” After a moment everyone managed to calm themselves, if only barely. “In two days everyone is to meet back here for what I like to think of as a little opening ceremony, at this point we will have a little meet and greet, in that I will introduce some the more important beings who will join in watching the fights, and you will stand there and be respectful. You will then see who and when you will be fighting up on the board behind me.” Out of nowhere a giant board appeared in the air, blank for now but it would be assumed it would fill with names once the time came. “Soon each of you will be provided with an orb, that orb will glow when you have one hour until you will be called to fight rather than standing around for hours on the day you fight waiting for your name to be called. Pay close attention to it as if you fail to show you automatically lose. The orb will also guide you to your room where you will stay for the duration of this stage.”
All of a sudden he felt the orb appear in his hand, it was small enough that he could carry it on him and was completely clear, meaning when it glowed it would be obvious. The idea of having a room, hopefully with running hot water sounded nice, it had been months since he had a shower and bathing in a cold lake was not the same as having a proper wash.
“One last thing. You may be wondering how you are to grow strong enough to re-enter the fight if you have already lost, especially as there are clearly no monsters here for you to fight. There are three dungeons available to you here, all of which are at a different level of difficulty, but they do have one thing in common. They are not like what you have experienced before where you kill the boss and your done, these dungeons will send wave after wave of monsters at you, not stopping at all and slowly rising in power. You may exit these at any time simply by voicing or thinking the statement ‘I give up’. Simple really. There are also many stores that are fully stocked where you may purchase many different types of goods, and for the purpose of this stage you will be able to exchange items, may they be monster parts, crafted goods, or even your own services, for coins to spend on whatever you wish.”
This definitely caught his interest, he had so much stuff in his inventory that he didn’t need nor want that he would be able to unload for coins to hopefully find things more valuable to him. It seemed many others had the same thought as there was excitement growing within the arena, he could understand that as most of the people present were still using very basic gear that looked in need of an upgrade. Looking down at himself he figured he did too. His pants were in tatters, his boots worn through and his vest could use an upgrade. His weapons though were in good condition though, even if he had yet to improve his sword, something he would do in the next few days unless he found something better.
“Now, before you all go running off, know that no one is able to enter your room but you unless you give them permission, you also will not be able to fight each other outside of your scheduled battles, would hate for us to miss out on watching wouldn’t you? Now off with you all, I will see you again in two days.” And with that he disappeared into a sparkly white light.
“Where do you guys want to go first?” Gabe asked first.
“I say we check out where our rooms are, get settled for a bit, hopefully have a shower, and then meet back up in lets say an hour. By then most people would have done what they need with selling their stuff and looking around at what to buy. Unless you guys are different, I don’t need anything except some clothes and armour and I can't imagine them running out.” Eric said.
They all agreed that that was the best plan, Shaun was in no rush to queue in a line to get rid of his stuff, a shower was much higher on the list of priorities. Everyone was moving through one of the exits of the arena, whichever one was closest to them as it wasn’t like they actually knew where they were heading. Once Shaun and the others started moving through their own exit it became clear just how big the space was. There were signs pointing the way to where the shops were as well as directions to the dungeons and lodgings. They all moved towards the lodging sign and eventually found where they needed to be. The different rooms where they were to sleep were split into 10 areas, each with 100 rooms, thankfully once they got close the orbs they each had helped point the way by growing warmer when held in the right direction to their rooms. Weirdly enough they found that Shaun, Gabe and Eric were in the same area of rooms while the other person from their team, Mitchell, was in a different area. The group of 100 rooms in their area was then split again into groups of 10, and by some weird coincidence, they were in the same group of rooms.
It made more sense when he sensed more people coming to where they were. Michael walked into the area not long after they did and he was standing with Jessica, the mage that he had worked with back in the old world and been brought to the tutorial with. As they started walking closer to them they quickly realised that they were all in the same set of rooms, and if they were all going to be here it was safe to assume that Trevor would be too.
As soon as they had come right up to Shaun and the others the awkwardness of the entire situation was felt by everybody there. Shaun had not left them on good terms, in fact the entire time he had spent with Michael in the dungeon had gone from bad to worse very quickly. This was the first time they had seen each other in over a month and it was not a reunion that he was looking forward to.
Michael just walked past him and smiled at him like he was happy to see him standing there. “Congratulations on being first place on the leader board Shaun, I new you had it in you!” he said and simply kept walking until he found the door to his room and went inside. Jessica stopped for a moment, gave them all a smile and shrug. She told them they would catch up later and found her own room and went in. They both looked pretty rough, not in the best shape, so getting some rest and recovering was high on their list.
“Anyone else find that uncomfortable?” Gabe spoke up.
Nods of agreement came from Eric and Shaun and then they all moved to their own rooms to freshen up before heading out.