Chapter 7 The Tutorial Mission
Rayleigh spent the remainder of the night and the next several nights chatting with the insane bloodthirsty assassin droid. Although not the best conversationalist, he was full of useful insights.
[Statement. Jedi are not difficult to kill if you know a few things about them. It has been proven in multiple instances that the advantages granted by their connection to what you call the Force can be taken away using the right stimulus and tactics.]
"If you were to train a Jedi, how would you do so?"
[Statement. I would first recommend the Jedi stop being a Jedi. My protocols and primary functions are not suited for the peacekeeping work of a Jedi.]
"What, you don't have any negotiation or diplomatic protocols?"
[Objection. Master, I was Built as a tool for diplomacy! My numerous negotiation protocols confirm that any matter that requires negotiation can be expedited by the removal of limbs and the effective use of torture. My diplomatic protocols are extensive and include a plethora of means to make an assassination look like a suicide or frame one politician for the death of another. If your political opponent is unable to breathe or has been arrested for murder, they cannot argue or vote against you. I would argue that my diplomatic protocols are far superior to and more efficient than anything taught by the pseudo-pacifist Jedi.]
Rayleigh could not decide if he should laugh or cry. Who designed this murder-happy robot?!
"In that case, what training do you think would make a Jedi harder to kill?"
[Conjecture. A Jedi's skills are only as reliable as their connection to what you call the Force, which, as I have previously stated, is variable under certain circumstances. Removing a Jedi's over-reliance on the Force would effectively neutralize many of their most easily accessible weaknesses.]
"How would that work?"
[Explanation. There are many meatbags in this Galaxy just as proficient at killing and not being killed as the Jedi, and they do not rely on the Force. The best example would be the Mandalorians. I have spent much time on Mandalore assassinating one officer or another. I have spied on their training regimens to allow for greater accuracy in predicting their tactics and movements in combat.]
[Recommendation: Using the Mandalorians' physical training program without the Force should upgrade your inferior meatbag body to the point where you are less likely to be killed using the same tactics that most Jedi are vulnerable to.]
HK-47 then explained the harsh, unforgiving training used by the Mandalorians, with a note of approval in his voice. This was probably from the fact that many did not survive what he described as their training method. When the matter of using weights came up, Rayleigh took out the Zoldyck Family Adjustable Training Weight Set. What was interesting about it was that before he took it out, he could assign how heavy it was. For the first time, he took it out, he assigned it to its lowest value of five kilograms.
The weight set appeared on his bed. It included a thin vest, two thin wristbands, and two thin ankle bracelets. They were all adjusted to his current diminutive stature.
Rayleigh picked up one of them and immediately frowned. It weighed five kilograms. Each piece weighed five kilograms. That's over ten pounds a piece, and there were five pieces. And this was the lowest setting?! Rayleigh was tempted to try the highest setting at one point, but feared the floor would crater in from the weight. In any case, they should be useful for the Mandalorian physical training regimen.
When asked about the use of weights when it came to training, the assassin droid had this to say.
[Advisement. For every session spent training while slowed by weights, you must spend two sessions training at your maximum speed. If you mostly train while slowed down, you will only become proficient at moving slowly. Only increase the weight after you can reach 50% of your maximum speed with current weight values. Speed is more important than strength for your objective of survival.]
Keeping that in mind, Rayleigh started a new routine. He'd wake up early before breakfast and go for a run, similar to before he started his lightsaber practice. Even with just the vest, he was quickly tired out. Using Force Valor made him feel weightless, so it was not difficult to move very fast for long periods. Thanks to his affinity for the Force, it was like becoming one with the wind. But Force Valor did not affect the weighted vest, meaning he no longer felt weightless. No matter how strong he was with the Force, a five-year-old running with five kilograms of weight will quickly tire out if not used to it.
It was then that Rayleigh realized how dependent he'd become on the Force. This wasn't a problem for the Jedi. It was perfectly natural to augment your body with the Force when exercising. The Jedi did not exercise to build muscle, they exercised to increase their proficiency with using the Force to boost their physical abilities.
In combat, Jedi did not wholly rely on their muscles and nerves to move. They moved like puppets, using the strings of the Force. This was considered superior as the Force allowed for movement and strength far greater than that which could be attained just using muscles and flesh. Because of this, they could fight with great skill regardless of their age or infirmity. But this also led to the Jedi neglecting their physique because a stronger puppet did not necessarily move faster. A Jedi's speed was determined by the strength of their strings, their connection to the Force.
This was not acceptable to Rayleigh. After all, he was also going to use the Hunter Class and Pirate Class. He doubted either would benefit from a poor physique. What was worse was that his year of training may have already screwed him over compared to other Classes. He was willing to bet that a five-year-old Warrior or Ninja could run around at max speed with a five-kilogram weight for more than just a half hour without getting tired out.
With this, another year passed by. He would be allowed to start using Psychometry on the stored relics after Master Dyanameez felt he would not gain further benefit from practicing Shii-Cho. He was still sanctioned off to the campsite and nearby river, but he never complained because it was peaceful, lively, and fresh. He had learned multiple languages, the abridged history of the Republic, and the basic laws of the regions where Jedis usually worked.
In order to keep his training as effective as possible, Rayleigh wore the weighted wristbands when sparring with Master Dyanameez while copying her understanding of Shii-Cho. Due to his talent in the Force, he was able to feel how she interacted with the Force, and he did his best to copy an exact image of it. In this way, he was not learning Shii-Cho, he was copying her Shii-Cho. His progress in duplication was offset by the training weights, so he did not outwardly appear to master the form at an overly exaggerated pace.
This went against his initial reason to quickly learn the forms and end the painful Lightsaber training, but HK-47's admiration of his description of Master Dyanameez's training eventually changed his mind. The fact that the Jedi-murdering Droid had good things to say about the regime was enough for Rayleigh to understand it had greater merits than he could appreciate at the moment.
Even with the memories of an adult, a small child's brain naturally looks for every way to shirk their responsibilities, avoid hardship, and take the easy way out. It took some time for Rayleigh to even realize he'd been unconsciously doing exactly that.
Still, he was not learning Shii-Cho one movement at a time, but using every sense he had to observe and imitate Master Dyanameez's use of Shii-Cho. Because of this, his own practices were not advancing at a rapid pace. He wasn't using the Shii-Cho he was copying from her since there was little point in downloading an incomplete program. He would only install it once he was satisfied. Even then, his own progress was proceeding at the normal youngling speed. It wasn't like she expected him to master Shii-Cho. She just wanted to make sure he had enough of an understanding of it to use as a foundation for the later Forms.
Back in the Tavern, things were starting to heat up. At least a dozen Players had already tried the First Mission. After trying the First Mission, you can start doing other Missions. The problem was that no one shared what happened on the First Mission. What was worse was that they didn't share what happened on any other Missions they tried either.
After a few months, one of the Players admitted that he didn't remember what happened. It was then that the Barmaidens and Bartenders told the Players that if a Player fails a Mission, besides not getting any Mission Points, they won't remember the Mission either.
Rayleigh's confidence in trying the First Mission took a hit when he heard another Jedi Player with a Lightsaber had failed it too. It was funny at the time. One of the Players admitted to being a Jedi with a Lightsaber and he said he would tell everyone what happened and then went to do the First Mission himself.
Missions don't actually use up time. You simply accepted it and a moment later, checked if you had the memory of completing it or not. The Jedi Player could only admit afterward that he didn't recall the Mission. Missions could be done once a week, so he tried a Mission the following week but didn't remember what happened there either.
This wasn't the case with everyone though. At least one Jedi Player, some Pirate Players, Ninja Players, and even a Wizard Player were seen applying for a Mission once a week. For the Players that failed, they would usually not try for another Mission until they were stronger. The presence of Players already doing weekly Missions meant those Players were strong enough to complete Missions and were getting ahead of everyone else. At least that seemed to be the case.
Before one completed the First Mission, a Player could not even register the content of the other Missions. No rule prevented Players from sharing what they knew, but sharing such advantageous information freely was not something the Players would easily do. At least not before they had a large enough head start.
Rayleigh wondered if Red may have been exaggerating when he said the strength needed to hunt and kill a pack of hungry wolves was enough to complete the First Mission. Because of this, Rayleigh waited until he could use 15-kilogram weighted wristbands without a problem and wanted to finish copying Master Dyanameez's version of Shii-Cho. This took a full year of miserable, intensive, pain-saturated practice.
Today, Master Dyanameez said they would move on to Form II, Makashi. Rayleigh took that as a signal that he was ready to try the First Mission.
"Are you really going to do it?"
At the Tavern, Lord_of_Madness was torn between wanting to make fun of him or cheer him on. He was leaning toward the former. He didn't even have a lightsaber or any weapons in his Inventory, so he'd probably take a few years to get strong enough to complete Missions. It would be hard to continue shooting the breeze with Swordsman if he got ahead of him.
Rayleigh answered, "Of course I am. I've been murdering myself daily for two years already! If I didn't have at least some confidence at this point, I should just put down my lightsaber and pick up knitting." When he didn't have to suppress himself, Rayleigh was very cheeky.
He got up and pushed in his chair before walking to the back of the Tavern to the stairs leading up to the wall of Missions. Several Players stopped conversing with one another and checked out who was going to do a Mission and to see if it was someone new or someone suspected to have done the First Mission before.
Seeing a new face, everyone took note of it. Every Player figured there would be a point in the future when they would be against one another, so it was normal to keep track of who was in the lead.
On the top of the Tavern's upper deck was a wall of blank pages tacked to the wood. All the way to the side closest to the rail, overlooking the Tavern's first floor was the only page that had some content, though said content only included two words. Rayleigh placed his hand on it without hesitation.
[First Mission!
Do you want to Start?
Yes | No.]
Rayleigh answered Yes and the world whited out.
When his senses returned, Rayleigh immediately discovered the reason most Players probably failed the First Mission.
In the Tavern, everyone's age was set to 21. That was the legal drinking age for most countries, and they'd always be 21 until their actual age surpassed 21.
When Rayleigh's senses returned, he was six again. It turns out that Missions had to be done at your Character's age.
"Hey, little brat, over here."
Rayleigh looked to his side and noticed a beautiful blonde woman wearing medieval-style half-plate armor. She even had a sword strapped to her side.
She looked him over for a moment before smiling, "Ah, the lucky Jedi brat. I was wondering when you'd show up."
Rayleigh asked, "Does everyone know about that?"
She smirked before answering, "All the Tavern's staff knows. We are the ones who decide what freebies go into the 20 Talent Bundle and we decide who gets what when the stuff is divided up. My addition to that bundle was the Mandalorian Melee Shield. Useful right?"
Rayleigh nodded, though he hadn't used it yet. Even without Metaknowledge, his character had HK-47 to explain what it was and its uses. When activated, it produced a glowing shield over the user which blocked physical damage. It was maintained until it blocked a certain degree of damage, or until 200 seconds passed, whichever came first. It could be used five times, but since Inventory items became good as new when retrieved from the Inventory, he basically had one fully charged melee shield a day.
Melee shields were useless against energy attacks like blasters, flames, or lightsabers, but useful against cold weapons like solid ammo guns or swords. Although blasters were more common than slugthrowers and swords in the Star Wars Galaxy, he had a lightsaber to deal with those, and guns with bullets were more common everywhere else. A single charge had enough power to stop a single fragmentation grenade, three shots from a handgun, or a single shot from a high-powered rifle.
"Then thank you for that. Is this the First Mission?"
"Yeah, though it's more accurate to call it a Tutorial Mission. Follow me." She then turned and walked into a small stone house.
Rayleigh did as instructed but still looked around. He was momentarily dazed when he looked up. What he saw was not a sky, but a golden layer of glowing clouds. He couldn't imagine what this place was.
Once they got inside, the woman said, "I'm Beatrice, and though we probably won't meet again, it's nice to meet you." She extended her hand, which Rayleigh amiably took and shook.
"Nice to meet you too. Where are we exactly?"
Beatrice motioned to a wall that had a large map on it. Most of the map was filled out, except for a circle in the middle.
"This, little Jedi, is a pocket dimension. You don't know anything about those, right?"
"Uhhh, let's say I do not."
"I figured as much. Before you start on the Mission, I'll go ahead and explain why Missions are important, what the Tavern does with them, and why you're here. We'll start with pocket dimensions. Skipping all the boring stuff, when a Universe is born, it doesn't always form correctly. There are plenty of times when a new Universe is born that it just fails to form properly, explodes, and its pieces fly away and form countless small spaces which evolve into pocket dimensions. Following me so far?"
Seeing Rayleigh's partially dumbfounded face, she continued as if he nodded, "Good. Now, what the Reincarnator's Tavern does is locate and mine pocket dimensions for resources. That's where you Players come in."
"Wait, what? We're miners? That's why we're here?"
"Yes and no. It is illegal to conscript departed souls and make them work, outside of Hell anyways. Oops, forget I said that. There are more laws around all of this than you can believe. Six Classes of Reincarnation is a convoluted workaround. Mining is not your job. We do not pay you to mine. Nothing bad happens to you if you refuse to mine. And your primary occupation is not Miner. All of these are true, so we are not breaking any laws."
Pointing out the first thing to come to mind, Rayleigh asked, "Umm. Mission Points don't count as payment?"
Beatrice shook her head with a wry smile, "Nope, an in-game currency that cannot be used outside the Tavern doesn't count. You are not an Employee. This is like a friend asking you for help moving furniture and paying you back by buying you a beer. Legally speaking, this is not a transaction, this is volunteer work. Imagine if someone worked on designing a game like Fallout and was then paid in caps they could use in-game. That's pretty much doing it for free."
Little six-year-old Rayleigh jumped onto a wooden chair and leaned back in a half-daze as he digested the new information. "Why though? What do you do with them?"
Beatrice answered, "The Reincarnator's Tavern uses the resources mined from pocket dimensions to create new worlds. How do you think the world all of you live in was created? We certainly didn't find it, and it's not a computer simulation. That world is just as real as the world you were first born into. It was created using resources mined from pocket dimensions.
"And it's not like Players don't get any real benefits from using points and getting stronger. It is related to the grand prize. I'm sure you're wondering what's in it for you Players right? Well, if you become strong enough, you can become eligible for the Final Mission. Wanna hear what the reward is for that?"
Rayleigh nodded, his curiosity peaked after hearing that the Tavern could create Universes.
"The Final Mission's grand prize is a choice of one of two rewards. First, you can choose to gain ownership of the Universe in which the game takes place. We made it and we can give it to you. You would basically become its God and be able to do whatever you wanted with it. Second, if that doesn't appeal to you, you can create your own Universe from scratch. You can make it however you want! But only one Player can complete the Final Mission, so it is first come first serve. That being said, the Final Mission really isn't easy. The whole game is basically to help Players get strong enough so they can attempt the Final Mission."
"That's... That's a lot."
Beatrice nodded and sighed. "At least you'll remember this. One law when it comes to using indirect labor to mine pocket dimensions is Full Disclosure. I have to explain this to everyone, but most fail the Tutorial anyway and don't remember."
"Why don't they remember?"
Beatrice shrugged noncommittally. "It has to do with how mining works. We don't send you into a pocket dimension with a pickaxe. You are the pickaxe. When you take a Mission, a projection of your current self is sent into the pocket dimension. While there, you need to obtain Information. You can obtain Information by interacting with the pocket dimension. I'll explain that in a moment. Once you have enough Information, your projection returns to your body in the Tavern. That grants you the memories of the Mission and gives the Tavern the information you mined through your interactions in the pocket dimension, which we reward with Mission Points. Once we have mined enough Information from a pocket dimension, we can directly obtain ownership over it and its resources."
Rayleigh asked, "So if you die in the pocket dimension, your projection never returns, so you won't know what happened to it?"
"That's right. And it takes resources to send and receive a projection. Most Missions have timers. You can't be there forever. If you haven't gotten enough information to recoup the cost of retrieving your projection after a certain point, we'll just cut the connection. The projection will fade and the Mission will fail."
"Are you a projection?"
Beatrice shook her head. "No. I'm here since we already own this pocket dimension. We use it as a tutorial to teach you everything you need to know."
"Then why have so many Players failed?"
Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Because you're only five or six years old! The difficulty of the Tutorial is supposed to be accessible by the age of twelve. In Dragonball, twelve-year-old Goku made it to the finals of the World Martial Arts Tournament, and Krillin wasn't far behind. In Naruto, Ninjas graduate from the academy when they're twelve and at least know their Academy Three. Twelve-year-old Wizards have at least one year of Hogwarts. Gon already had his Hunter-License when he turned twelve. Any twelve-year-old Jedi is at least a Padawan with their own Master. And anyone who picked Pirate as their Primary Class probably has a Devil Fruit Trial Pass and should be able to get a Devil Fruit before they turn twelve just by trying the trials over and over."
"But don't we need Mission Points for a good transfer to a new world? Especially for Players who want to go to Hogwarts."
Beatrice shrugged uncaringly. "If they put enough effort into it, completing the Mission and getting enough points for a good transfer by the age of ten is still possible even without good skills or items. Besides, we made it so that transferring into a Magic School after the age of eleven is cheaper if you pick a School in the U.S.A. and go there instead of Hogwarts. It is a massive pain to set things up if thirty, forty, or even fifty Players all go to Hogwarts during Harry's year, so we try to discourage that as much as possible. And it's not like you need to Multiclass. It's not impossible to complete the Final Mission with a single Class."
"Do you think I can complete the Tutorial?"
"Most likely. A Lightsaber on its own isn't enough, but that Melee Shield will cover you if you suck too much. Besides, you have a very nice advantage over others when it comes to Missions."
"I do?"
"Yep. First, let me explain how Information gathering works. Missions are divided into several types of interactions, depending on the Information we need from a pocket dimension. The first is Mapping. This is where you explore an area fully, see everything, and return. This Mission is mainly assigned when a new, unexplored pocket dimension is discovered."
"Next is Gathering. This is where you collect a large amount of a certain material that we need examples of. Things like herbs, ores, and naturally occurring things that form in the pocket dimension."
"Then we have Killing Missions. Most pocket dimensions evolve some form of life and lifeforms within younger pocket dimensions are usually aggressive. Pocket dimensions can expand by obtaining information as well, so their occupants have an innate desire to kill and eat anything that enters the pocket dimension. A Killing Mission is when a group of dangerous pocket dimension natives has been identified and we need you to kill them. By killing them, you are collecting their data which we can use to subdue them. This is required to obtain ownership over a pocket dimension. There are a few more types, but these three are the most common."
Rayleigh asked, "Are there lots of different pocket dimension creatures?"
"Just call them monsters. And it depends. Pocket dimensions expand and evolve naturally by colliding with other pocket dimensions. The inhabitants will instinctively fight, and one dimension will swallow the other. Sometimes survivors from the losing side will live through this and start populating the winning side, leading to pocket dimensions with different monsters."
"So what advantage do I have?"
"Psychometry. Each Class has a skill or talent that really helps with mining, but we can't tell you that beforehand, and due to certain laws, we can't even offer the skill to others after the game starts. You're not the only Player to get Psychometry, but no one else will get it in the future, and it's one of the few Force Skills you cannot learn. You either have it or you don't. Unlike Psychometry though, the mining skills useful to other Classes can be learned manually, except for the Dōjutsu some Ninja Players missed out on."
"Why would giving us a skill to help mine be considered illegal?"
Beatrice pouted and replied, "Stupid laws, that's why. It goes like this: Once you know you are a volunteer miner, if you ask us to give you a better pickaxe to help you mine, and we give it to you, you are no longer legally classified as a volunteer, but a worker."
"But why do you need us? Can't you guys mine them yourselves?"
She shrugged once more before answering, "It's an age thing, sorta. The younger your existence, the less contaminated the pocket dimension is when you mine it. Sure, someone like me can go over and obtain all the Information in one go, but the information would be corrupted by my presence and the pocket dimension could either collapse or lose its value. Well, that's not technically accurate, but that's the easiest way to describe it using words you are familiar with."
Beatrice then pointed at the hole in the middle of the Map and said, "Alright, that about settles it for Full Disclosure and Q&A. Any further questions you can ask at the Tavern. For now, let's get back to the Mission. The Tutorial Mission requires you to perform one of each type of Mission to get yourself familiar with the basics. You will explore this area fully. You will collect twenty of a certain herb in that area. And you will kill five Goblins."
"Goblins?"
"Well, we call them Goblins. They aren't the same as those beings from Gringotts, but Goblin is easier to say than Ugly Outer Dimensional Horror. All the Players that failed were killed by the Goblins. I can't give you more hints than that."
She handed Rayleigh a sheet of paper with a hand-drawn sketch of a strangely shaped plant, which the paper named, 'Star-leaf Herb.'
Rayleigh asked, "Where should I put the herbs?"
"They will turn into Data once you pluck them, so don't worry. Now, get out of here. Time stops here once you're gone, so the longer you take, the longer I have to wait for the next Player."
With that, Rayleigh was shooed out of the house.
He was still quite puzzled by the convoluted explanation. It wasn't hard to recall the various theories about what the Players thought the Tavern was. Some guessed they had been conscripted, but no one could figure out why. It turns out the Missions were the point all along. Everything else was just some elaborate workaround. To be honest, the big reveal even felt a bit hollow. He almost wanted to complain. Where was the mystery, the conspiracy, the hidden plots in the shadows? Turns out there was a downside to knowing all the answers.
There was only one thing that felt a bit off. Although she answered Rayleigh, he felt a lack of sincerity from her. She only answered the questions he brought up, and he doubted she would have volunteered to give any of that information if he hadn't asked. Honestly, to a certain degree, he now had even more questions than before. Who wrote those laws that protect the dead? How are they enforced to ensure other parties don't cheat? What if everything he was just told was a lie?
The main reason he felt a lack of sincerity was the fact that all of this useful information was given in a way that many Players would lose access to it. Was it a reward for stronger Players? Favoritism for those with better builds? Were they intentionally sabotaging the Players from the start so they could not get points too fast?
Although all these questions floated through his head for a moment, he elected to discard them. None would help him complete the Mission and even if he knew the answer to all of them, it would neither grant a large advantage nor improve the quality of his life. He was already living a more interesting life than he was before. Why pollute gratitude with pointless accusations and suspicion? Until he saw the Tavern actually do something bad, he'd just be grateful to them and have fun.
This was a habit from his old life. In order to be as cheap as possible in his previous life, he'd rationalized away any form of greed he once possessed. It was because of this that he didn't tread on the path to seek restitution for perceived sleights. He was many things, a Karen was not one of them. Besides, for all he knew, they could've just been lazy. Any Player at the Tavern who succeeds in the First Mission could explain this to everyone who didn't. If they had some evil scheme, that would make it pointless, wouldn't it?
For now, he has a Mission to complete. And he had a strong feeling it would not be as simple as she explained.