[First battle format has been selected. Administrator James, please finalize the starting quest.]

{You have activated Edit Quest. -5 Tower Points. 1364 Tower Points remaining.}

{You have added “1 Low Quality Health Potion” to the Reward(s). -75 Tower Points. 1289 Tower Points remaining.}

[Details for the quest: “First Battle” have been finalized. All preparations complete. Launching tutorial once class selections have been completed.]

I finally won't have any distractions this time. No floor needs to be created, no skills or modifiers left to choose, I can focus solely on watching how people handle the first battle, learning what I can do to help them, and what I should try to teach anyone still outside of the tower.

"61-3, open a screen for each party in the first battle once it starts, please." James added on at the end. I can't let myself forget my manners just because I'm focused on something important. 61-3 has helped me a lot thus far, and I don't want to lose a potential friend. I want to believe they enjoy my company too, with how much more helpful they've become over time.

[Understood.]

"Thank you."

[You are welcome, Administrator James.]

Twenty screens appeared in front of James as the first battle quest for the third wave of climbers began. This is my first time getting to see the very beginning. I've only ever been able to see them in the middle of combat, before. Now I can finally see exactly how long they have to prepare themselves before the goblins attack. James thought to himself, as he focused on one screen where a party had just appeared.

"-od, it's happening. It's actually happening." A middle aged man said from one of the screens, he was significantly overweight, and nervously shifted from one foot to the other while carrying a staff and wearing the robes of a mage. The man looked around as the party members met for the first time. A middle aged woman wearing the robe of a priest and wielding a mace, a younger woman wearing plain cloth clothes and wielding a walking stick unadorned with any magic focuses denoting her as a fool. An elderly man with a crossbow and the cloak all rogues started with, and a young man wearing the colorful vest of a merchant, also wielding a crossbow.

The party all looked at one another, they don't have a warrior James noticed, and while the exact sentiment wasn't said, the mage pointed out something similar.

"We only have one melee fighter, don't we? Against, ten goblins!?" The man said, as the prompt notifying everyone about the first battle quest appeared.

"I'll go up front, I can heal myself if I take damage." The priest said.

"I can avoid one attack that will seriously injure me automatically." The woman with the fool class said. "The goblins all have weapons, right? If you two can kill one, I'll take their weapon and use it instead." She explained further as she motioned to the two wielding crossbows, before waving her weapon around at the end. "I don't think I can kill a goblin with this."

"What class did you pick, anyway? You look like a hobo." The merchant man asked. "I picked merchant because it lets me identify treasure, and I can sell and purchase items in the middle of combat like that one guy was doing on the screen." Someone saw the broadcast! It's working!

"Fool. It doesn't give any real equipment, and I can only get a skill point at every odd numbered level, but I can pick from any skill regardless of class. Classes that start underpowered like this usually become incredibly powerful later on. I just have to survive until then." The fool woman explained, muttering the last part to herself. I didn't know they could do that. I should definitely include a segment once I begin editing to show the details of all the various classes.

"We have stat points!" The fool exclaimed, and switching to her observer, James saw her character sheet in front of her. I can only see the prompts a climber is seeing whenever I'm viewing their observer directly. "It says I have five unassigned stat points!"

"Well you better spend them quick, 'cuz we've got company." The elderly man said as the bushes a few meters away began to shake as goblins stepped out of them. "Hunter's eye." He muttered, and a second later, he fired. The bolt flew past the goblins that had just left the bushes, and the observer James was watching through zoomed in at the horizon to show it hitting a goblin shaman that was at the very back. "I'll take care of any shamans or archers. Boy, you focus on getting rid of any about to run into us." The rogue instructed the merchant, who fired a bolt at one of the goblins running towards the priest, but missed.

"Fuck." The young merchant said, before looking over their crossbow in confusion. "How do I reload this? I picked it because it's a good ranged weapon that I thought I could use without needing a skill for it... Wait, can I just-" The merchant moved the crossbow into their inventory, and took it back out again, finding that it was now loaded with one of the crossbow bolts that had also been in his inventory. "You can reload instantly by putting the crossbow into your inventory!" He shouted at the elderly rogue as he fired again, this time managing to hit one of the goblins that had just left the bushes.

The priest swung her mace as two goblin warriors approached. She killed the first one with a direct hit to the skull, but the second ducked underneath and was about to gut the priest with its axe when the fool thrust their walking stick into the goblin's chest. It only served to shove the goblin back, but that was enough to buy the priest time to prepare a second swing, and the fourth of ten goblins died.

The fool still had their menu open, and finished putting two skill points into resilience and three into agility, before picking up the wood and stone axe the goblin had been carrying, and standing beside the priest as three more goblin warriors approached.

"Magic Arrow!" The middle aged mage shouted, launching an arrow made of mana into one of the goblins. "Magic Arrow!" They repeated again, launching two more arrows at one of the warriors before it was defeated.

Arrows rained from the three goblins remaining within the bushes, using them for cover as they shot arrows at the priest and fool. The fool's balance suddenly swayed as two arrows missed, and while the priest simply pulled the arrow out and healed herself.

"I can get rid of them. Boy, keep firing at them, keep them from being able to focus" The elderly man said, having already activated Hunter's Eye a second time, and released another bolt into one of the goblin archers.

The two remaining warriors were quickly taken care of with a swing of the priest's mace, and the fool's stolen axe, but the fool received a slice down their arm in exchange. The priest cast another healing spell as two arrows barely missed her. The covering fire from the merchant who kept firing, only to instantly store and take out their crossbow before firing again, created a one man volley of bolts that failed to hit either of the goblins, but kept them intimidated and distracted. With additional help from magic arrows cast by the mage, the goblins failed to hit anyone before he and the rogue killed them both. The mage woman I saw in the first tutorial could only cast fireball a few times. The magic arrow must have a lower mana cost in exchange for being weaker.

More importantly, they... They did it! They killed all of the goblins without losing anyone! I think one of the groups from the first wave managed to do that, too, but I don't know if anyone from the second wave did. The outside broadcast skill really worked!

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I used up all twenty bolts. I have to buy more. Can I have, like, three goblins?" The merchant man asked, looking towards the priest and fool, and the six goblin corpses in front of them. The priest nodded, and her and the fool took two of the corpses in front of them, leaving the one the mage had killed for the mage to take. The mage made his way to the one he had slain, and added it to his inventory, before walking towards the bushes.

"I'll help you get the goblins that are hidden in the shrubbery. You were awesome!" He said, complimenting the elderly rogue. "I didn't even see the first goblin you killed, I only noticed because of the notification that popped up." The mage explained, but right after the merchant had taken three corpses, and before the ones further away could be picked up, the party and surrounding area vanished, with the screen from the party's observer disappearing as well.

"What happened? The screen cut out but they're still alive."

[The areas for the first battle are a temporary instance that only persists for as long as it takes for the quest to be completed. The climbers return to stasis shortly after until all parties have finished the quest, at which point they will all be sent to the next floor. Time spent in stasis on the tutorial floor, whether during class selection or while being transferred to the next floor, is unavailable for observation.]

Huh. Should I show that they didn't have time to loot the goblin corpses? It could be useful to know ahead of time, but I'll only have so much time to inform everyone. More importantly, they didn't notice they had stat points right away. I hadn't realized they weren't immediately aware that they had them. I should try to ensure future waves know that, as well as what their options are for classes, skills, and stat points, if at all possible.

James watched the remaining footage of other climber parties going through the first battle. A second party of five managed to complete it without casualties, but four others were wiped out, due in part to bad matchups of classes, or the goblin hunters ambushing one or more climbers during a critical moment. The goblin warriors are easy as long as they don't swarm you, but the hunters often kill or seriously injure a climber before they die. It's odd that there's such a range in difficulty based on what the goblin's role is, and odder still that the arrangement of goblins is random. A group of five goblin hunters can almost instantly kill a party, let alone ten.

By the end, with the exception of the two groups that completed the tutorial without a casualty, and the four that were wiped out, it looked like the other groups survived with an average of three climbers, a few having two and a few others having four.

[First battle complete. Moving remaining climbers to floor 1. Tallying rewards.]

{First Battle Results:

Climbers Survived: 52/100

Groups Wiped Out: 4/20

Highest Viewer Count: 99,101

Longest Single View: 11 Minutes}

It looks like the tower points rewarded are based on the minutes of the longest consistent view added to the max number of viewers in the thousands. I know I should be paying attention to what gets the most views, but honestly, I hate the idea of looking at everyone struggling to survive and trying to make it 'entertaining'.

{You have earned 110 Tower Points through Viewer acquisition and retention!}

Alright, that at least refunds the 80 points I spent editing the quest to add a health potion. Climber Menu. James thought, choosing an observer at random and then switching among any climbers within the screen until he was watching a climber that had stayed awake to greet the new arrivals. I'll keep this running in the background in case anything important pops up, but until then, I should have until morning to work on creating a 24 hour long repeating video, showing information that'll best help the people outside of the tower survive should they be chosen for the next wave.

Actually, I shouldn't make it an entire 24 hours long. Having a shorter video that loops a few times a day would be better. It needs to be short enough that everyone will have a chance to see everything they need to know while continuing to survive everything that's happening outside of the tower.

Recordings Menu, Editing Menu.

James watched two screens appear, one containing the few hours that had passed since he had obtained the recorded viewing skill, and a list of every climber, living or dead, that had an observer on them during that time. Imagining himself pressing on one of the names brought up a screen showing the climber's observer starting from the earliest moment possible. The editing menu, meanwhile, reminded James of watching a video on his phone. It had buttons to fast forward, rewind, and a meter he could imagine dragging his finger across to move to anywhere within a video's timeline. Following his intuition, he moved the screen of the recorded video into the editing menu, and watched as it slotted into place where the editing menu depicted a video would be, in the center of the field of buttons.

Alright, let's see, I was never into video editing before, but there should be a way to splice a segment out of the overall video, and then connect the splices together. Which button does that?

James experimented with the buttons on the video, eventually finding out how to trim and combine clips. He also found a button that let him toggle whether or not things like the monster levels and climber names James was able to see floating over everyone would be visible on the screen, in addition to if a climber's own system would be visible. I can only make the system of a climber visible if it's from the perspective of the climber's observer, so I can't show multiple people going through their menu or receiving the same quest all at once, but that's not a problem.

The question is, what do I want to show everyone? Information of character sheets, like stats, skills, and classes, as well as that everyone gets five free stat points right at the beginning. How much time everyone has to allocate their stat points before the tutorial starts, and the skills and appearance of the different goblins they could have to fight. Clips of people effectively working together and information on how people can put things into or out of an inventory, as well as the equipment everyone has to choose from when they start.

Outside of the tutorial, I should also include the village, and how people are working together to provide food and build shelters for each other, even if the only thing they've built is an outhouse. I should show them what the general store sells, and the quests to build the bathhouse and canteen as well. Lastly, the daily quests, and the quest people have been getting at the end of the day, to help everyone come to terms with how their living conditions will change, and that they'll have a time limit and be unable to just hide in the village forever.

I guess I should start by watching all of the records of the people that just went through the first battle. I can pick out clips of people looking at their character sheet and switch from there to images of the climbers with that class. It looks like I can save dozens of different clips while switching videos, so I'll watch everyone's experience in the first battle, and clip any good view of a character sheet or another climber, as well as any good shots of someone blatantly using a skill.

Then I'll remove the redundant clips, and begin splicing them together. First showing the status sheet, a view of someone with the same class, and a shot of them wielding each of the weapons I have a record of someone with that class using, then... Can I zoom in? I can! I'll return to the status sheet and zoom in on the skill they've selected, and then switch to a clip of someone using that skill. Once I've shown all the weapons and skills I can, I'll show a zoom in on the part that shows they have additional skill points available, and then a clip of someone saying that outloud. The moment when that woman pointed it out and the old man mentioned the goblins were already approaching would work great to show how they'll have to act quick to spend their stat points before the fighting starts.

After that, I'll show the different types of goblins, a clip of them attacking and them being attacked to show what to watch out for and different ways people have dealt with them, and then I'll include a clip of one team killing the goblins without casualties... and a clip of everyone dying... if I can find clear examples of why some people survived and some didn't, it could help people avoid the same pitfalls. Point out moments someone overlooked something and got attacked by a goblin they weren't paying attention to. Any time someone accidentally hit a party member instead of a goblin. Times when party composition and morale broke and how the panic made things worse, and how holding things together can help people survive even when someone gets hit by an unlucky arrow or a goblin hunter ambush...

James went to work, starting with only videos of the third wave climbers' time with the first battle quest. James quickly realized it would take hours to watch all 100 videos without fast forwarding, but experimenting with using only his thoughts to manipulate the menu were proving fruitful.

I can't specify the kind of scene I want and get it to go to that type of scene, but if I think of a moment I have seen I can get it to jump to that exact moment if another observer had that moment in it. I only have to watch each party's full battle once without fast forwarding, and then I can skip to the moments I think something useful will appear. I can also create clips and add them to the others I have saved without having to manually scroll through and select the timeframe I want to cover, and if I have what I want to clip in my mind clearly enough I can do it without even pausing the video.

James didn't notice the sun had risen until the sounds from the one screen showing what was going on in the village became loud enough to distract him from the recordings he was watching.