Waking up with a start, Sam sat up quickly and smacked his head on something. Closing his eyes again, he rubbed his head.
“Ow, what was that for??” he heard a female voice say in front of him.
Opening his eyes, he saw a blonde girl sitting in front of him — probably a year or two older than him, holding her bleeding nose.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” he immediately said, looking at her.
“Yeah, yeah. Occupational hazard,” adjusting her nose she spoke the words “Healing aura” and the air around her began to shine slightly as the bleeding stopped and her nose set properly again.
“Third broken nose today, how thrilling. I need to be more careful, apparently. Anyway… welcome to the tower! I’m Selina, the healer and receptionist assigned to you today. I’m glad to see you made it out of the tower, you were completely unharmed which is unusual. How did you get past the goblin horde?”
“Oh, that?” he scratched the back of his head shyly. “Well, I just smashed my way through them.”
“Oh, so you ran through them to get to the other side? That makes sense, most people do that,” she asked, curiously.
“Oh, no. I defeated all of them,” he replied.
“WHAAAAAT!?” she shouted, causing the guards behind her to turn around and look at her. “What do you mean you defeated all 20 goblins?”
“Oh, well… I blocked, hit them with my mace, and killed them. You know, goblin hunting?”
“I… see. Sorry about my outburst, we haven’t heard of someone killing all the goblins during the tutorial in years,” she said, tucking a strand of hair that came loose back behind her ear.
Looking back at the guards she waved them off, showing that she was okay. Using that opportunity, Sam adjusted his sitting position and looked around the room.
They were in a room with wooden walls and a stone floor. He was resting on a padded bed on the floor, but there was nothing else in the room.
“No worries, I’m just as surprised as you that I made it through them. So, where are we?” he asked curiously.
“Oh yes, sorry. I forgot to explain. We are currently in the resting ward of the adventurer’s guild here in Fair Grove, the city on the 0th floor of the tower. When you arrived you teleported into the central chamber and collapsed, so you were brought here to be tended to and then have everything explained to you. But as I was inspecting you for injuries, you sat up and here we are now.” she explained.
“I see. Sorry for that then, but I feel fine. What explanations do you have for me? I came here from the tutorial, right? Is there a new quest, or?”
“No, no, nothing like that. This is the living quarters of the tower, all current and former challengers live on this floor. We’ve built a lively city here!” she excitedly said.
“A lively city, huh? How many people live here anyway? And what am I expected to do now?” he asked, starting to feel a bit lost. He had thought he’d be moving onto a new challenge, but instead, he was liberated from the tower for a bit? Seemed too good to be true.
“Yes, I get why you’re confused. This is a resting stop we return to in between challenging the tower, so you’re not expected to do anything except face the tower's challenge again when you’re ready.” she chirped.
“The city currently has an estimated population of 8200, give or take a few people. New people are arriving all the time, and some challengers unfortunately never return from the tower.” she finished as she looked down in reverence.
“Okay… so, I’m free to go or? What now?” he asked hesitantly.
“Well, you’ll need to register with the guild but then you’re free to go wherever you want. You’ll get enough current for a night in an inn for registration, and then from there, you’ll need to do quests for the guild to make enough money to rent, buy food and essentials, and so on. If you beat all of those goblins, you’re sure to do well here in Fair Grove! Follow me and we can get the process started.” she said before standing up, turning around, and walking towards the door out of the room.
Turning back towards him, she gestured for him to follow and walked out of the room. Getting up, he chased after her, nodding once to the guards as he passed through the doorway.
Now in a large hallway, he quickly spotted Selina among a few similarly-dressed women walking through the hallway toward a much larger room. Running after her, he entered the larger room and stopped in his tracks.
Looking around, he took in the sight of a massive chapel-looking structure with various platforms in a ring around the outside and various religious-looking decorations. Hesitantly walking forward, he approached Selina, who was waiting for him in the middle of the room.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“Oh, this? This is the room you arrived in. The way we just came from is the resting wards, where we take people who just arrived from the tutorial. Most people arrive in much worse shape than you, so we heal them when possible and guide them into their new life.” she smiled warmly at him before turning away and walking toward a large doorway on the side of the room.
Following her, they exited through the door into another larger space — this one filled with people of all kinds, wearing various equipment. Armor, robes, vestments, and other gear of all sorts.
Walking through them, he felt out of place in his hoodie and sweatpants. It was like an isekai gone wrong, with him as the out-of-place protagonist. All he needed was a haughty goddess companion or a magical talking dog.
Walking through the room, he noticed something new he hadn’t paid attention to before: everyone had text over their heads, like a video game or something.
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Selina’s overhead text read “Tower Priestess - Level 22”, others around her reading out as “Tower Knight”, “Paladin”, “Pyromancer”, and others — all ranging from level 6 to the highest at level 41.
As eyes turned towards him, probably looking at the text over his head, he realized the text likely showed his class for everyone to read. “Mirrored Scholar - Level 3” didn’t sound that appealing to him, but it was probably an unusual sight for them given it was supposedly a unique class.
Feeling self-conscious, he hurried after Selina until they reached a counter on the other side of the room. He figured this was the guild hall, based on the scenery. To his right was a massive cafeteria-like tavern area, and to his left was a huge wall of flyers and posters with quest information.
This seemed like a stereotypical adventurer’s guild, just much much larger than he expected. When you have a population of over 8000 adventurers, maybe this much space was a minimum requirement.
Standing at the counter, she gestured for him to wait a moment and then walked through a side door and around to the other side of one of the empty counters. Gesturing for him to come up to her, he took a place in front of the counter she was at.
“Okay, we just need to get you registered with the guild and then you’ll be all set. If you could place your hand on this crystal, that is all I should need to get this process started,” she said, putting a large crystal in front of him.
Setting his hand on it, he felt the smooth touch of geode against his hands. A comforting feeling amongst all the chaos of the tutorial and adventurer’s guild. As his fingers found purchase on the stone, it began to glow slightly and a display appeared behind the crystal, in front of Selina.
Realizing she probably saw his stats, he called up his menu himself to see what it looked like now. “Status open.”
Name Sam Kaye Level 3 Class Mirrored Scholar (Unique) Sub-class N/A
Trait(s) Mirror Image (Legendary) Active skill(s) Reflection (Legendary), Epiphany (Legendary), Bash (Common) Passive skill(s) Eyes of Truth (Legendary)
Mirrors stored (3) Goblin, Goblin (Rare) x2 Mirrored passive skills Great Strength (Minor) Capacity 110/180
Constitution Strength Agility Stamina Soul Mind 54 (+34) 27 (+41) (+15%) 45 (+34) 35 (+34) 12 (+34) 42 (+34)
“What an interesting status…” she muttered to herself. “Are you aware you already received a class, Sam?” she asked him, using his name for the first time.
“Yes, it was one of the blessings in the tutorial,” he responded carefully, feeling a bit suspicious of the question.
“I see… most people don’t receive a class until level 10 at the earliest, I guess this and your stats explain why you beat the goblins. Unique classes are pretty rare, and once you’re registered everyone will be able to see your class over your head like you can now see theirs. Be careful not to attract the wrong attention.”
“Wait, why were they staring at me before then if not the class?” he asked, confused.
“Your clothes are almost entirely clean and are perfect, with no holes or cuts. That’s not normal for a newly arrived,” she replied.
“Anyway, your registration is now complete. The system has recorded your data and we now know your natural affinities, those being constitution, agility, and mind. I recommend developing your skills in the direction of your affinities, we don’t choose how our stats are distributed here in the tower, and having a class already will limit your potential options.
Be careful not to hone the wrong skills or do anything too reckless in the tower, your stat boosts may feel meaningful now but they’re nothing next to the challenges ahead of you. The wristband is your guild ID, keep it safe and take care of yourself.” she finished, setting 10 copper coins and a wristband on the counter.
With that, she walked away from the counter and vanished into the back of the building, leaving him alone and standing there. Annoyed at the sudden disappearance of his guide, he twirled the wristband in his hand and put the coins in his pocket.
After standing there for a minute, he equipped the wristband and wandered over to the quest board. He figured he might as well live up to his MMO dreams and pick a cool starter quest before he tried to find food and lodgings for the night.