Heading through the door, Sam kept his shield and mace at the ready as he cautiously walked forward a step at a time.
Entering the next room, he stopped short when he saw the sleeping form lying in front of him. Any gamer would know exactly what he was looking at: a short green humanoid with an ugly face, an oversized belly, and a bald head. It was a goblin.
“Your first foe appears, slay it before it slays you. This will unlock your next blessing, or usher in your death.” the voice spoke again.
“Thanks, Mister Tutorial, I always love our chats.” Sam snarked as the goblin jumped to its feet and grabbed the small club next to it, turning to face him.
Looking at the goblin, Sam decided to face it head-on. If this was a dream, he might as well have some fun with it. He didn’t really want to kill anything, but this was a goblin… right?
Looking at the goblin slowly approaching him, he began screaming unintelligibly and stomped his feet multiple times. The goblin froze in response, tilting its head and seemingly debating what to do next. A moment later, it charged him with its own rabid screaming.
Rushing to meet it, Sam’s shield met its club as his mace swung around and smacked the goblin’s elbow, causing it to drop its club. Screaming at him again, it tried to grab for its club as he kicked it in the stomach and sent it rolling across the ground.
Watching it crash to the ground, he felt how real the situation was. He was here, locked in battle with an enemy that wanted him dead. This was actually real… or felt like it, at least. But the system told him what to do, he had to kill it — or die himself.
Deciding to show no mercy, Sam ran towards the green beast and swung his mace at full force towards its head. A moment later, its head was dented with a loud crack as the mace made contact with the side of its head. A moment later, the goblin’s eyes rolled in the back of its head and it stopped struggling as its body began to be absorbed by the floor beneath it.
“What the hell… that was… brutal,” he muttered to himself. "The way it wanted me dead, the look in its eyes, the sound of my mace making contact... definitely not a dream."
Interrupting his thoughts, the voice echoed through his mind again. “You have now unlocked the system, continue through the maze ahead of you to complete your tutorial and start your journey into the tower. Life or death, it’s up to you whether you’ll face the challenges ahead. Welcome to the gates of hope.” the voice echoed through his head again, ending with finality.
Shaking off the eerie feeling of the voice and the gross feeling of having watched the goblin die, Sam turned his attention to the notifications clogging up the side of his vision.
Level up! 0 --> 1
Class now acquired: Mirrored Scholar (Unique)
Skills and trait acquired from class.
Full system is now unlocked, use ‘Status open’ to view status.
Starting to feel some excitement with those notifications, Sam did as he was told, “Status open.” And a large panel opened before his eyes once more.
Name Sam Kaye Level 1 Class Mirrored Scholar (Unique) Sub-class N/A
Trait(s) Mirror Image (Legendary) Active skill(s) Reflection (Legendary), Epiphany (Legendary) Passive skill(s) Eyes of Truth (Legendary)
Constitution Strength Agility Stamina Soul Mind 40 20 35 28 10 30
“Woah, what the hell. Did I win the Gacha jackpot or something? Why do I have so many unique and legendary things?” he shouted at the screen and received nothing but silence in response.
“Okay, okay… this is a system, right? Let’s test some stuff… Class open? Class information? Class… details?” With the last one, the system responded to his wishes.
Mirrored Scholar (Unique)
A unique class that grants the ability to understand and study the strengths and experience of other beings.
"The truth of the world can only be found in the pursuit of knowledge, strength, and wisdom. We’re all servants of the will of the world."
Grants multiple strong blessings in exchange for a limiting effect that restricts explorer growth. Once acquired, it cannot be changed to another class.
+ Trait: Mirror Image (Legendary)
+ Passive skill: Eyes of Truth (Legendary)
+ Active skill: Reflection (Legendary)
+ Active skill: Epiphany (Legendary)
- Effect: 300% slower natural development
- Effect: Class change not available
“Woah, so this class is where all those skills came from… but wait, what are those effects? 300% slower natural development? What does that mean? And I can’t change the class, I’m stuck with it? I hope it turns out to be good…
“I’ve always been the most useless one in the room, but a unique class could change that if this isn’t a dream. I hope this is finally a chance for me to be something more than a loser, always looked down on.”
Anxiety creeping up in his heart, Sam turned his attention to the trait and skills next. Not out of desperation though, completely just out of pure curiosity. Yep, just curiosity.
Trying to call up another menu, he spoke, “Trait details.” The display opened immediately once more.
Mirror Image (Legendary)
A trait that lets you copy the stats and passive skills from any being you lay your eyes on. The stronger the being, the more capacity the copy requires.
Base capacity: 120
Capacity growth per level: +20
“Oh my god, what is this? Copying stats and skills sounds ridiculous. But how does capacity work?” he said, before thinking for a moment about the system.
“Capacity details? Capacity information? What is capacity? System help?” in the end, it was all in vain. No menus popped up. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out myself through testing… not a very helpful dream, if this is one.”
“I guess onto the next one? Skills details?” he hedged, and the comforting display panel opened once more. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked over the large display now in front of him. This one listed all of his skills at once, it was a bit overwhelming.
Passive skills
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Eyes of Truth (Legendary)
A passive skill that grants the wielder understanding of the truth of all they view.
+ Can understand the strength, skills, and mastery of all beings the wielder views.
+ Can understand the value, durability, and traits of all items the wielder views.
+ Can read and understand any mortal language the wielder views.
+ Can tell lies and subterfuge from truth if the wielder can see the person speaking.
Active skills
Eyes of Truth (Legendary)
A passive skill that grants the wielder understanding of the truth of all they view.
+ Can understand the strength, skills, and mastery of all beings the wielder views.
+ Can understand the value, durability, and traits of all items the wielder views.
+ Can read and understand any mortal language the wielder views.
+ Can tell lies and subterfuge from truth if the wielder can see the person speaking.
Reflection (Legendary)
An active skill that grants you equal strength to your opponent for a limited time. This effect only triggers if you’re outmatched by your opponent.
The higher your opponent's level relative to yours, the shorter this effect lasts.
Epiphany (Legendary)
After seeing a skill used enough times and learning how it works, you can develop the same skill permanently.
Mastery/proficiency will mirror the being you learned the skill from but can be increased by reusing the skill on a higher proficiency version of the skill.
Total skill limit: +1 for every level gained
“What,” he said, staring at the display in front of him for a while before speaking again. “What even is this? Some sort of mimicry or… studying set of abilities? What did I do to get skills like these out of the gate? These seem too overpowered…”
Sighing, he put a mark in the “dream” category. This seemed less and less believable by the minute, even if smashing in the goblin’s head felt pretty real. No world would start someone out with abilities like this.
He wasn’t going to get anywhere staring at these menus, he needed to test out some of the abilities and clear this tutorial. Nothing good could come of standing here forever when he had no idea what was left to deal with.
With that, he marched on to the next room through the doorway across the room.
Section divider [https://i.imgur.com/WQI1rlR.png]
Walking through an extremely narrow hallway with multiple twists and turns he wondered where he’d end up next. The glowing moss was still clinging to the walls and roof lighting his way, but the path felt uncertain and too winding.
Finally reaching the end he stumbled into the next room and came face-to-face with two goblins staring him down. One looked the same as the one in the previous room, but the other looked more mean and had blueish-green skin.
Quickly raising his shield, he braced for another fight. Looking at both of them, he decided to try out one of his skills. “Mirror Image!” he called out, hoping this worked like in games where you just called out the skill to activate it.
True to his expectations, two orbs of light jumped from his chest and hit the goblins as he felt their strength flood into him.
Successfully mirrored
Lesser Goblin Capacity used 25/120 (1) Stats +9 to all Passive skill(s) N/A
Successfully mirrored
Lesser Goblin (Rare) Capacity used 65/120 (2) Stats +12 to all, +15 to strength Passive skill(s) Great Strength (Minor)
Feeling a sudden rush of strength, the world slowed down slightly as the goblins ran towards him. Deciding to capitalize on this, he rushed toward the normal goblin and smashed it with his shield before it could react. Turning towards the blue-ish one, he braced for its club as it hit his shield harmlessly.
Pushing towards the goblin, he swung his mace and clipped its side hard knocking the goblin to the floor. Stomping on its leg, he swung at its chest and cracked a few ribs as the goblin screamed and howled at him.
Kicking it in the groin as hard as he could, he watched the goblin drop its club and swung his mace as hard as he could at its head — watching it burst like a watermelon on contact. Seemingly, his strength was nothing to scoff at now with the buffs he got from the goblins and his initial level-up.
Turning towards the other goblin, it had just gotten to its feet and seen what happened to its companion. As it turned and tried to run, he ran towards it and smashed into its head with his mace and sent it flying into the wall nearby.
The pair of goblins had been defeated. With that, he stopped for a minute and checked himself up and down before seeing there was nothing amiss. His blue hoodie and sweatpants were mostly clean still and had no damage, and his weapons were in perfect condition still.
Seeing this, he turned his gaze towards the next pathway and raced onwards. Three goblins down, now it was time to see what was next.
Section divider [https://i.imgur.com/WQI1rlR.png]
What was next was a huge mistake. Big room, 20 goblins, all of them out for his blood. It was no wonder the last two rooms were so easy, the tower wanted to catch him off guard with the hell he had just walked into.
Shouting “Mirror Image!” again, he tried to copy another blue-ish goblin standing near the center of the group.
Successfully mirrored
Lesser Goblin (Rare) Capacity used 110/120 (3) Stats +13 to all, +17 to strength Passive skill(s) N/A (Already acquired)
Feeling the rush of more stats once more, he slowly backed into the hallway before screaming at the goblins once more. Fighting in the narrow passageway would limit his mobility, but would limit how many goblins he’d have to fight at a time.
He was already slightly worn out from the last few fights, not being used to swinging a mace and using a shield, but now he’d have to fight 20 of them? Absurd.
In horror, he watched all of them run towards him and funnel into the corridor after him. In response, he braced his shield and swung his mace to knock weapons out of their hands. He had the upper hand in strength now, but they had a huge numbers advantage. This would be tough.
1 goblin down, 2 goblins down, 3, and then 4. With that, finally, something changed.
Level up! 1 --> 2
“Oh, thank god,” he said, feeling his stamina return to normal. He felt refreshed and could tell he was at peak fighting condition again.
With a sigh of relief, he continued to smack their arms and smash in their heads as he blocked attacks from two or three of them at a time. None of them were smart enough to do anything besides throw themselves at his shield, so he was able to hold his position well.
4 turned to 5, turned to 8, turned to 15. Now it was him and 5 goblins, three blue and two green, staring him down. The blue ones beckoned for him to leave the hallway, standing near the center of the room still. It seemed like they knew he held the advantage where he was, and the two green ones followed along.
Hesitantly leaving the hallway, now free of goblin bodies thanks to the floor absorbing them, he walked into the room with his shield at the ready.
“BRING IT ON!” he shouted at the group as the green ones raced towards him. The blue ones followed right behind, hoping to crush him from all sides.
Rushing towards them, he bashed his shield into the ones in front, knocking them over as a notification popped up, and ran to the side of the room with goblins in pursuit.
Spinning around, he readied his shield again as the three blue-ish goblins approached. As they all came rushing at him, he slid around the side and smashed his shield into the legs of one of the goblins, knocking him into another one. As they both tumbled to the ground, he swung his mace at the third one and clipped its club arm causing it to drop it. Swinging the mace back towards the goblin from the other side, he smashed it in the head and sent it flying.
Quickly checking his notifications as the goblins got up again, he smiled to himself.
Active skill learned: Bash
Level up! 2 --> 3
Rushing back towards the green pair, he shouted “Bash!” and smashed into both of them with his shield. The surface glowed slightly and sent them flying, now turned into little goblin pieces.
Turning around, he repeated the action on the blue-ish ones and finished them off. “23 goblins down, 1 human still standing. Not bad for a day’s work.” he proudly strutted as the goblins began to disappear into the ground.
Looking around, he approached the hallway on the opposite side he entered and crossed the threshold. A moment later, he felt a splitting pain in his head and fell to his knees.
“You have done well, challenger. Your ‘tutorial’ is complete. You will now be transported to the 0th floor of the tower. May the tower’s blessings shine upon you.”
With that, the world went dark once more and Sam faded into nothingness.