412, the guide, gathered all of the survivors together, "Alright, your ten minutes are up. I'll now be explaining the tutorial area."
"The setting will be extremely similar to Earth, having the same landmarks and countries even. This is to give you some time to adjust. The only difference is that now there are doomsday pillars that spawn monsters and dungeons that you have to complete. You will be in the tutorial area for a year, meaning that there is a limit to the time you can spend there. By the end of the year, each participant must already have one martial spirit, you cannot think of saving your first spirit until you have more knowledge later."
412 continued, "Besides that, each trial will have a different currency system than the shop. For example, Earth right now uses gold coins, silver coins and copper coins. Each person will be starting off with 20 copper coins, while an apple is worth around a copper each. Each city around the world will also have a teleportation station that you may use at a cost of 1 gold coin. Last but not least, you will be able to pick where you spawn. No need to worry where to spawn as well, because everyone can understand each other."
Max agreed with everything he said except that last sentence. As most people are unfamiliar with this apocalyptic situation, they will try to find some comfort in their home town. If you first spawn in an unfamiliar country, the people there will be highly suspicious and you will most likely get bullied until some time has passed and some other people that aren't from there come exploring as well.
This makes sense, though, as there must be a reason for someone to spawn somewhere other than their home. Max will definitely not inconvenience his group of 3, so he told the other 2 to choose to spawn in Miami, Florida. Before they the summoning, they were living in the USA and were already used to the culture. The most important reason is that Charlotte's last ingredient for her martial spirit is here.
Although it is the most dangerous of the 3 trees to get, it is much easier than having to deal with people. They will need to take some caution, though as it is considered the most dangerous tree in the world. Even now that this mutated Earth has made it even more dangerous.
As everyone had selected their spawn point, 412 said, "Now that everyone has selected their spawn point, you are ready to get started. Good bye and good luck, you're going to need it."
As he said that, everyone started to disappear one after another, nervous about the future and what exactly they will need to survive against.
-------------------------------------------------
Landing in Miami, Florida, Max and his group of 3 weren't the only ones to choose this place. Each batch of summons will have millions of people sorted out into spawn groups of about 100. Most people never see the others from their spawn group ever again. Florida isn't called the most crazy for no reason. Outside of the cities, it is a known chaos ground. Even before on regular Earth, there would be crazy stunts every week or so by a "Florida man" or "Florida woman."
Agreeing with that stereotype, there was a huge tan fella that came to greet all of the newly summoned people, "Hello everyone, my names Leo and I'll basically be introducing the basics of the basics to you. I get paid a pretty penny to do this. First, although it might not have anything to do with you, new batches of people are summoned every month and each person only stays 1 year. I myself, have been here for about 5 months. Second, the cities are usually the safest place to stay, but that doesn't really make them that safe. I mean, this is Florida, right? You still need to be somewhat cautious as everyone will resort to different means to get more powerful. Gaining more power will give you a higher chance of survival."
Leo continued, "That leads to my last piece of advice. Try to get as powerful as you can rather than just hiding and waiting for the year to end. That'll just make you more miserable as you wouldn't even be able to fight for your own survival. Any questions?"
A middle-aged white man came forward with a smile and asked, "Is there any sort of governing system or the like? If so, I would like to participate as I am the mayor of Jacksonville."
Leo chuckled in response, "Of course there is, but if you want to have the right to speak, you have to have the power to back it up. You can't just be a weak politician, no one will listen to you. Anything else?"
This time a black teenager came up, "Will be able to check up with our family and friends if they didn't come with us?"
Leo gave him a helpless look, "You can try adding them as friends using by adding their names and picturing them in your head. If that doesn't work, then good luck. Hopefully they'll contact you if they haven't come yet. And if they have, they are most likely dead."
Max was quite lucky in this regard, as he already had Ross and Charlotte right next to him. He also didn't want to act like he knew this in advance, so he only added Ross and Charlotte as friends now. You can basically mail items and messages to friends while also seeing if they're dead or alive.
The middle-aged white man came forward again, "Is there a guild system or alliance-like system that you can form? Like the ones in video games."
From the pattern of this dude, Max could already tell that this was the usual power-hungry politician that always had to have the advantage.
Looking at Leo's eyes of disgust, Max knew he was thinking the same thing, "The only system like that in the tutorial area is the party system that you can use to see the status of those in the party. There is still friendly damage though, but it still helps with organization. There is also a party channel that can be used to give commands."