Tutorial failed.

Restarting eternity.

Tutorial failed.

Restarting eternity.

“Know what?” Jace asked as he kept on fiddling around with his metal gauntlet. It had taken him five attempts to get anything remotely useful, but he was getting the hang of it fast. The last loop, the thing had fallen off his hand after a minute of him moving his fingers about. “I think we should armor up. Remember how long it took for you to poison the knight?”

Leaning against the corridor wall, Will calmly listened to the sounds of broken glass coming from further down. Unlike the previous two times, it had lasted almost half a minute, giving him hope. Yet his suspicion was that they’d fail again.

“Maybe,” he said. Helen and Alex were the most experienced by far, with their own eternal weapons, and all levels and rewards from three floors. If there was a pattern, they would have spotted it by now. Therein lay the problem. In every loop so far, Helen had died in a completely different fashion.

First it had been poison suspected to have been present in the mirror. The second time, she had died from a projectile, at least as far as she could tell. The third time remained unclear, but it had occurred at the moment she’d attempted to enter the mirror, suggesting a trap of some sort.

At no point had anyone seen the actual opponent. Even when Alex had tried to overwhelm the monster, as the thief copy had done in their last major battle, the results had been the same.

The boy’s train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a slam in the wall that occurred ten inches from his face.

“Fucking hell!” Jace shouted, pressing his right hand—gauntlet and all—against his stomach in a display of extreme agony.

“Not quite there?” Will barely flinched. He had started getting used to eternity, including the extreme actions of his friends.

The jock continued to swear for another ten seconds, before finally reaching a point that he could tolerate the pain.

Carefully, he pulled his hand out of the gauntlet, before throwing it onto the ground.

“At least it’s in one piece.”

“Shut it!” Jace snapped. “Eternity sucks. I’d get ten times worse during training every day. Now, I feel like barfing when I stub my toe.”

“There’s a reason for it.”

The jock stared at him.

“None of our abilities match,” he said. “I bet if you give that to Helen, it’ll be a lot more useful.”

“I’m going through all this crap, so I don’t have to give it to her.” Jace said in a bitter tone. “Unlike you, I’m not willing to be trash for the rest of my life!”

“You can’t, and maybe that’s the point.”

Without mercy or hesitation, the jock grabbed Will by the throat. Since he didn’t have any of the rogue’s abilities, there was nothing Will could do to prevent it. The pain was multiplied to the point that he felt as if his throat was being crushed. Even so, he chose not to react.

“None of us can change it. Ever thought that might be eternity’s point?” He looked straight into the jock’s eyes, accepting the pain that would inevitably follow. To his surprise, the other loosened his grip somewhat.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But think about it. Why must we get our class every loop? We’re always close to our mirror so that no one else can take it, but until we do, there’s no restriction. Before you joined, Alex used to take your class every day. Helen let me borrow the knight once, and from what she said, Danny let her borrow his.”

“Your point?”

“With all of eternity’s restrictions, why are we allowed to get all the classes if we wanted to?”

An explosion of sound came from the vice-principal’s office, sounding as if a truck of crystal vases had crashed into a china shop.

Waiting for another few seconds, Jace briskly let go of Will’s throat.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Eternity’s a team game. Without me, the tutorial wouldn’t even fucking start.”

“I’m not talking about the tutorial,” Will admitted. “I’m talking about what follows.” He slid his fingers along his throat. The skin was still painful, as if it had been set on fire. What he couldn’t add was that he thought that Daniel had been lying about a great many things.

It was impossible that the previous rogue hadn’t come to the same conclusions Will had. The pattern was obvious. The classes of the skills were composed in such a way as to compliment each other. If one took them all, they’d be able to achieve so much more. Knight’s endurance, rogue’s sight and reflexes, thief’s speed and traps, plus the crafter’s ability to customize gear… with so much power, there’d be no stopping anyone. And yet, there was no indication in any of Danny’s desk scribbles that he had attempted doing so.

“Four are needed for the tutorial,” Jace said in a firm tone. “Why else end it if one of us dies?”

Will remained quiet.

“Unless eternity ends when we complete it…” the jock added. “You think that’s it?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I’m not sure,” Will admitted. “But you’re right. All four of us must start and all four of us must end.”

“You think that Danny completed the tutorial?”

The speed at which Jace came to the conclusion surprised Will. He never considered the jock to be stupid, but rather more on the “mentally lazy” side. The larger boy had put all his effort into football, intent on riding that ticket until graduation. There had never been any need to do too well in any other subject, since the coach, the teachers, and even the principal himself were willing to show leniency as long as the football team brought in results. When he wanted to, though, Jace was just as good at coming to complex conclusions at the slightest external nudge.

“What’s the thing that happens after training?” Will looked at Jace. “Competing against other teams.”

“Stoner, sometimes you really can be something.” The other tapped him on the side of the face. “He didn’t die before the tutorial, but after it.”

Will nodded.

“Helen and Alex said that there was a one week pause from eternity. There could have been more before that.”

“That fucker.” Jace shook his head. “He’s been recruiting a new team. Muffin boy, Hel, maybe even me, for all I know.”

“And while he did, something killed him.”

There remained elements that didn’t fully fit, like how he had died, and what exactly had caused the week of normalcy. Even so, the more Will thought about it, the more he believed himself to be on the right track.

“Is that why you let them go ahead alone?” Jace looked at the door to the vice-principal’s office. “Don’t trust them?”

“I trust them.” At least for what’s important. “I don’t trust Danny.”

Jace whistled.

“That’s a big one. How can you catch a dead guy in a lie?”

“By looking at what he left behind.” The boy took a step forward. The noise of breaking glass had diminished, yet the slamming of metal on concrete continued in full force. “I need you to ask for a pause next loop,” he whispered. “Say you want to focus on gear. I’ll back you up.”

“Sneaky fuck. Sure. What then?”

“I’ll have a chat with Alex. If there’s anything fishy, he’ll know.”

“Then I’ll focus on Hel and see what she knows.”

The reaction was more than logical, but deep inside, Will felt opposed to it. For some reason, he really preferred for Jace to do his own thing in private.

“Okay,” he said, despite his inner reluctance. “I should be done in a few loops, but we’ll keep in touch.”

“And what if they win?”

Will instinctively wanted to retort that there was no chance of that. However, reality proved faster, doing it for him.

Tutorial failed.

Restarting eternity.

As he promised, Jace asked to take a pause from the tutorial for a few loops so he could build some protective gear for Helen. The girl, on her part, remained determined to defeat the opponent before she would allow that.

Neither she nor Alex had any idea regarding the opponent’s exact nature. All they were able to find out during the last loop was that the enemy was a humanoid using a series of exotic weapons—chiefly poison. Will’s decision to offer his class had helped a bit, but even then the poison had finally managed to take hold, killing off Helen and bringing to the restart of eternity.

For the next two loops, Will and Jace were forced to play along, focusing on issues and discussing them in the entrance corridor of the school, while the other two of the group did all the fighting and killing.

The jock’s gauntlet continued to improve to the point that he offered it to Helen for her next fight. Since it didn’t provide any solution to the problem at hand—poison—the offer was briskly rejected.

Finally, five losses later, the group mutually decided it was time for a break. Jace convinced Helen that with the proper gear, she’d be able to avoid getting poisoned altogether, while Will arranged for a longer meeting with Alex.

“We should go to the third floor, bro,” the goofball said, sampling chocolate fudge biscuits that he’d never otherwise buy for the sole reason that each cost thirty-five ninety. “A few more levels to get OP and we’d go back.”

“It’s not the level,” Will said. “The two of you have been boosting those to the max and you still couldn’t win.”

“Nah, bro. Two classes take a lot more to level than one. Three more wolf rooms and we’d be done.”

Will highly doubted it, but nodded nonetheless.

“Did you think about what I said about Danny?” Alex suddenly changed the topic.

“Yeah.” Will paused for a moment. “You’re right. He must have had a team. I also think that he completed the tutorial.”

“Lit.” The other smiled. “Taking your first step beyond eternity.”

“His conflict with the archer, the ability to go beyond the school zone…”

“For real. He almost confirmed it with his sessions with Mister June. It wasn’t even a dream this time. He just said he imagined himself leaving school and walking about the city, leaving everything behind. Well, there was more.” The boy bit into another biscuit. “Want one? They’re fire.”

As tempting as the offer was, Will had other things in mind.

“Teach me how to be a thief,” he said, causing his friend to freeze.

“For real, bro?” he asked after several seconds.

“At some point, the tutorial will end. I want to be ready.”

In truth, there was one more reason for which Will wanted to get used to the other classes. His permanent reward skill allowed him to face past elites alone. Even if he wouldn’t be able to collect any additional items from them, he wanted to measure up against stronger opponents and see how much he needed to improve.

“Eternity isn’t for going solo.” Alex’s tone changed. “Even Danny didn’t try that.”

“It’s not about going solo. It’s about being ready. You’ve used two classes.”

The other’s eyes narrowed. There was nothing goofy about him anymore, as if Will had ventured into a taboo topic.

“Have you tried it?”

“Yes,” Alex said. For the first time since Will had known him, he could feel a note of regret. “Before Helen joined in. Was just me and Danny, so I asked to try out all the classes. He let me.”

Will waited.

“What happened?” he asked after a while.

“Archer. No idea how he found out. While I was checking out how the four classes gelled, he stormed the school.” Alex leaned back. “The arrogant jerk didn’t even try to be subtle. He killed out half the people at school, and most of the first responders. I felt too good about myself as well, so I tried to stop him.”

This was an interesting detail that the boy had kept hidden. By the way he spoke, Will already knew that the story wouldn’t have a happy ending, although he was curious why his friend hadn’t shared it before, especially since he seemed so open about it now.

“He killed you,” Will guessed.

“Killed me.” The other let out a bitter laugh. “That would have been too easy. He shot through my arms and legs, then left me there, just to let me know he could do that anytime. Then, he took Danny and went off.” The boy closed his eyes. “Remember before when I said I made sure that the archer stopped meddling with things? I lied. He acted out once more—that time. I don’t know what he did to Danny, and the guy never told me, but after that, he really stopped. Since then, he’s reappeared a few more times, just as a reminder. At first it was shortly after Helen joined eternity. The second time was when you got looped.”

“And Jace? I haven’t seen him—”

“Whatever the tutorial is, it seems to protect us from outside meddling. But you guessed right. Once it’s over, he’ll probably be back. If he sees you taking on all four classes, he might be back sooner.” He looked at his phone. “We’ve faced some nasty mods since the start of the tutorial. Those elites are no joke, but they’re nothing compared to him. If you stand out too much, he might target you, and it’ll be on his terms. So, are you sure you want to start learning other classes, bro?”

That wasn’t a revelation Will expected. He’d already seen firsthand how powerful the archer was. If, according to Alex, that was him playing around, one could only imagine what he’d be like when he got serious. For some reason, that made Will all the more determined.

“Yes,” he said. “I want to learn how to use your class properly.”

“Okay.” Alex reached out and grabbed another luxurious biscuit from the table. “You know where my mirror is. Meet me there.”