“Do you want to take the first stab? You are more likely to have it counted towards your quest if you are the first to attack.”

Cleo and Alex were crouching behind a tree, far enough away from the boars to be able to whisper to each other without alerting them.

Turns out, it wasn’t just a single boar, but two of them, one of them simply napping behind a bush. Which was why they had missed it. Cleo was glad that they hadn’t just charged in, as Alex had initially suggested, but took the time to quietly surround them. Alex told her they could have easily handled two as well with their skills, but he did seem a bit flustered that he had misjudged the situation and completely missed the second boar.

“Sure…” replied Cleo, trying to judge the distance to the nearest boar. She would have to sneak up quite close and then cross the last bit running, if she wanted to attack it. There was no way she would get such a lucky surprise hit in as last time, the boars would definitely notice her charge. At least the one who wasn’t sleeping would, and that was the closer one.

But attacking with someone who already had a skill would make it easier. She didn’t have the time to ask all the details, but Alex told her his skill basically allows him to power up a single strike of his, making it faster and stronger.

She was just worried about the second boar. They had all agreed that Alex and Cleo would attack first, followed by Jack and Laira from the other side.

Cleo had protested about that arrangement, she really didn’t like leaving her sister with Jack. In her opinion, the best option would have been for Jack and Alex to attack together first, they both had skills after all. Then Laira and Cleo would support them once the boars were distracted.

But the others did convince them that it was better to have one strong person on each team, should the boars turn around and only attack the other team. That way they wouldn’t get overwhelmed.

And that it was better that each team had one with a good spear, since spears were a bit more effective on the beasts than swords. Hence Laira and Cleo were on opposite teams.

If Jack does anything to Laira, I’ll kill him, she grumbled internally.

She grabbed her spear with both hands and started advancing forward slowly.

“Alright, here I go…”

Sneaking up to the sniffing boar, she questioned again why they were the ones attacking first, when the sleeping boar was closer to the other side and more vulnerable. But Alex said it was better to engage the awake boar first, the other would take a moment to fully wake up anyways and would still get surprised once the other team joined as well.

She still didn’t fully agree, but he was the one with a skill and she wasn’t, so what did she know?

Trying her best to avoid any twigs and branches lying on the ground, she made it closer and closer to the beast without it noticing anything.

Alex followed closely behind, just as quiet as her, even with his much heavier build.

Looking to the other side, she could vaguely make out the shapes of the other two advancing as well. Seeing that Jack was in front and Laira behind him, did appease her bad feelings towards him a little bit.

At least he is not a complete jackass.

She stopped just at the edge of the last weeds, observing her target.

It was still just sniffing on the ground, only interrupted by the occasional scratching and digging. It looked as if it was searching for something.

*Sniff sniff… sniff?*

The boar looked up questioningly, sniffing the air.

Then it looked directly at her.

Ah shit. Well, here goes nothing.

She sprung forward, hearing Alex do the same behind her.

The boar squeaked and also started charging at them.

She noticed Jack and Laira also exiting the underbrush and running towards the other boar, which was already getting up.

Then the boar was right in front of her and she stabbed as hard as she could.

****

The tree shook, making Jett open his eyes. Again.

“You little shit!” he yelled down, “Stop it and annoy someone else!”

The boar stared up defiantly and went back into position for another charge.

With a grunt it ran up to the tree and jumped off it, making it shake again.

“Motherfucker…”

Two of the boars had left when they finished eating the leftovers of the unlucky man below, but this one had stayed and had been continuously annoying Jett.

Did it condense a skill from killing that poor sod? Is that why it’s so damn cheeky?

Usually it wasn’t possible to get anything from ungraded opponents, except with the starting alignment quests. The only way to get skills outside of the quests was to collect essence by killing things that already possessed some kind of System enhancement. For example graded beasts. Or something with at least one skill.

At least that was the case for humans. Tutorial beasts were a little different, they didn’t have quests, but they had a small chance to condense skills simply from killing humans. Or by eating mana treasures. Which was probably what the Copper I boar in his last regression was looking for.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

But who knows, perhaps the beasts got quests as well. Not like they could open up the brains of the animals and see if they had System screens too…

In any case, the “skills” that beasts got at the early stages were usually just passive body enhancements. Which, although they sounded mundane, weren’t anything to scoff at. They were one of the reasons Copper I boars were such tough opponents already.

The other reason was that higher grades would also enhance your biology, only adding to their skill enhancements, making them even stronger.

Another shake of the tree ripped Jett from his thoughts again.

He sighed in resignation. “Okay… you win.”

He sat up and dusted off his clothes.

If things didn’t want to let him be in peace, he would simply have to fix them.

It’s only gonna take a minute. One minute of work, then peace again. Yeah, not too bad, I can do it.

He hung himself from the branch, his feet stemmed against the tree trunk. Below him the boar was waiting, looking straight at him.

It snorted.

“Don’t complain now, you brought this upon yourself.”

****

Jett cleaned his blood covered hands and dagger, which he had pilfered from the remnants of the guy, on the boar’s bristly hide.

“Are you satisfied now? You got me dirty in exchange for your life. I hope it was worth it.”

Turning his attention to the blinking dot at the corner of his vision, he opened the notification.

Enemy slain! +2 Copper I essence.

Two? Not bad at all for an ungraded beast. But active skills always give a bit more.

As it turned out, its skill wasn’t passive after all.

During the fight it had used its skill and suddenly sped up drastically, almost catching Jett off-guard. Almost. He did suspect it to be an active after the boar didn’t initially exhibit any other improvements compared to the regular ungraded boars. And it wasn’t his first time where opponents tried to surprise him with a sudden use of a boost skill. He always kept them in mind in his fights.

Having cleaned his hands to a somewhat satisfactory extent, he stood up and made his way back to the tree.

Okay, I hope nothing bothers me until tomorrow now. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll briefly visit the lake. I'm thirsty already. But it’s not overly far, so it should be alright.

Shortly before noon on the second day, the next batch of beasts would spawn. And they were a bit more annoying to deal with. After all it was much harder to shake off a bunch of Copper I wolves in the forest than it was ungraded boars. With much harder meaning impossible, you basically had to fight if you encountered them.

Hence why he wanted to go there before noon.

Approaching the tree trunk and getting ready to climb it again, he suddenly noticed that the blinking dot in the corner of his vision was still there.

Another notification? For what?

Mildly confused, he focused on it and brought out a big blue textbox.

Finding your Path

Without having chosen a path, you have nonetheless proven your worth and defeated an opponent of equal grade, using an unaligned weapon.

Show that you are willing to commit to your new path and be rewarded with even greater prowess!

Quest: Be a major contributor to the death of 6 opponents of equal or higher grade, using a Dagger [1/6].

Rewards:

Dagger alignment.

Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.

Accept Quest?

Okay, this is new… and crazy. Just 6 ungraded kills and you get a whole new alignment? And a skill? Almost feels like I’m scamming someone.

It was really hard to influence your alignment in a significant way. Of course you could change it a bit by learning unaligned skills and then shift your alignment once you enhanced your grade. But there was a reason it was called an alignment shift, not alignment change. It was borderline impossible to completely change your alignment from one moment to the other.

Jett did expect (or at least guessed) that he would be able to somehow attain an alignment later on, if he didn’t get one at the start, but he had expected it to only happen if he enhanced his grade to Copper I, not before. Grade enhancements were usually the only time when you could influence your alignment.

The quest was so laughably easy in comparison, it meant you could just pick up a random weapon and simply change your alignment to whatever you-

Hold up. Wait wait wait.

He let out a groan and buried his head in his hands.

There is no way, is there?

There was one peculiar thing about the initial alignments. Not many people paid it any heed at the start, but for someone who had to live through the next few years again and again, it was plainly obvious.

You could only choose weapons for your alignment. Did that mean there were only weapon alignments?

No!

This was one major reason why humanity struggled so much later on. Why they always eventually succumbed to the attacks of the Corrupted. Why their forces were always slowly ground away, like stone to dust. Not because they were so weak. They had many strong fighters. No. It was because… they had too many fighters.

What was the point of winning a fight if you couldn’t recover from it in time and easily died in the next one? What was the point of acquiring powerful items if they would break apart after a few months?

Quest Finding your Path declined!

He had to test it. He didn’t want to, he really really didn’t want to try anymore, but he simply had to now.

If it really works, I should kill myself a few times as punishment. I feel like such an idiot.

He recalled the many people desperately trying to shift their alignments later on. The images of his many attempts of finding the most efficient shifting paths sprung up in his mind. He saw himself trying to teach others the necessary skills, so that they could maybe get the right choice once they enhanced their grade again.

For the first time in a long while, he felt like crying.

Was it possible all along, all this time, to already acquire crafting alignments in the Tutorial!?