[Stage two of the tutorial has begun.]
[Please enter the portal. 10… 9… 8…]
My eyes opened to the blaring of my instincts, a voice in my head whispered death to me. When I opened my eyes though was when the real panic caught on, a system message commanding me to go towards the portal that had appeared right next to me.
The seconds ticked down as I tried to get up, my muscles ached and burned but still I pushed myself up.
Finally on my feet I was able to hobble over to the sword given to me and grab it. I didn't have enough time to attach the sheath to my waist as by the time that I had picked the sword up their was only a handful of seconds left.
[2… 1…]
My hand reached the portal just as the last second ticked by a world of nothing greeting me.
…
I opened my eyes to the sight of a void around me. My eyes scanned around the void like room that I sat in. For what else could it be, as in a second look around I had seen walls that seemed to have scenery inscribed upon them that tricked the mind into thinking they were endless.
Three more flashes of light were seen as three people entered, disoriented just as I was from the seemingly endless walls. Though soon they looked around, each person wary of the other. The one similarity that we all had was the blood that stained our shirts.
'They probably had to kill in order to advance just as I did.' I thought to myself while observing their moves.
They each had different weapons, one had a hammer and not a big one but a tool sized one. How he had survived with that against whatever he had faced I didn't know. The last two had normal weapons, a spear, the safe option and a combat knife. Things that I could actually see being useful.
[Welcome to the second stage of the tutorial] the same sadistic voice echoed into our ears. I could see as the people around me narrowed their eyes, their hands reached to their weapons as they looked around for any sign of the being.
[You may be wondering why I'm conducting this second tutorial and not the system. Well that's simple. I had the power to and I wanted to]
At that last sentence his voice turned playful, a hint of danger passing through me.
[Now that all of you are listening. I'll explain the rules of this little tutorial.]
It paused for a second, a world appearing in each of the walls. A desert oasis, a land of rolling fields, a cave system, and a forest filled with vegetation.
[You four will be assigned a land, each comes with its own species. The better they do over the following days of hardships the better rewards you will get at the end of the tutorial.]
With that the voice was gone, the room had turned silent as each of the contestants around glanced at each other. No one wanted to be the first to move nor the first to talk.
[oh~ one last thing. The contestant with the least amount of points will be disqualified. What that means. Heh… you can speculate all you want.]
…
[You have been assigned the cavern world]
[Your species is the kobold]
[Initiating transfer…]
I saw as the rest of my opponents in this tutorial each looked up to their own screens, eyes scanning left and right as they read through their own messages. Though I was not able to see them I was at least able to confirm that others could not see my own screen. Whether I could allow others to or not would be something to find out another day.
I felt something at my side, the wall that I had been leaning on had turned transparent, my back falling through it. My eyes widened in momentary panic but that wasn't for long as soon after I composed myself and took one last look at the room that we had been held in.
My opponents all were dragged into their own side of the wall. Mentally I noted down who went to which world. Though it didn't help much as I didn't know any of them, only their weapons. The one with the hammer had gone to the desert oasis, the one with a combat knife was sent to the forest world and finally the one with the spear was sent to the fields.
That was the last look I had of them before my world was consumed by darkness, the little light that I could see showed me that I was in a cavern. The very same one that I had been chosen to lead.
[Generating quests…]
[1. Kill all subordinates(1000p)
2. Kill a contestant(250p)
3. Kill 100 of each cavernous species(100p for each species)
4. Kill a contestants subordinate(100p
…
…
500. Plant a tree and watch it grow(1pt per hour watched)]
After looking at the top missions I scrolled down and down till I found the bottom. There were some good ones that I might be able to do but most of them were useless like number 500 here where I would most likely only get a handful of points.
It was as I was looking at the missions that I remembered the runes that I had gotten from the previous battle. They were just sitting in my pocket waiting to be used.
I pulled them out the colorless crystal shining in my hand as I crushed them, power flowing through my veins as my whole body felt more flexible, as if I could do things that I otherwise could not have done before.
With a swipe of my hand I brought up my status screen, the text appearing right before my eyes.
[Mihr Masamune]
Vitality: 1
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 2
Mana: 1
[Skills]
[Memoria(rank 1) (0.1%)
Allows the user to remember]
I looked on at my stats, nothing but my dexterity had increased but it was a big increase. From all of the crystals that I had crushed it had net me a whole .9 increase bringing my total up to 2 dexterity. The difference was insane, I wiggled my fingers, my arms, and my legs. Everything felt light and when I decided to dash towards the wall I was able to get there in seconds. Much faster than I was able to before any of this. That wasn't the only change that I felt, my feet felt light and the usual echoing of sound from running was muffled as if my form had changed or that my body was lighter. Whichever it was, the change was a welcome one.