{15 mins later}
{Same clearing where Lukas encountered Erin's team}
Niles Cullen was having a very bad day, not that the start was different than any other day. But being transported into an alternate dimension and forced to fight for survival looked amazing in books to read but when you had to fight against a hulking bear with fucking Wolverine claws, he had the right to curse Mondays.
He looked back at his little brother who was clutching his injured hand in pain as they both looked at the wedge of bushes in fear.
'That was too close, I should not think about outrunning monsters since they have more stats than us, sneaking around seems like the best idea...' Niles thought, and then he looked at the other dude they had met along the way, just one look at him Niles labeled him as a jock, he wasn't from his school but the hairstyle and clothes were all the proof he needed.
'He is not overbearing though, so there's that at least!' Niles thought as he got ready for the next encounter. The pattern of this labyrinth was a bit obvious, since the last layer had a monster waiting for them they might have another encounter now.
"Stay alert, we might come across others soon..." Niles spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm. He was treating this world like a game for now and he was fine with that. He even managed to gain a title for it.
[First person to use the Inventory]
[+100 Inventory space]
His initial inventory was a little too small and he had just 10 spaces but after the title, his inventory increased to more than 10 times its previous size.
The rag-tag group of three waited patiently but after a bit, they realized that no one was coming. Niles hesitated when he saw that the pattern was different, he wanted to wait some more but he wasn't sure about the rules of this world.
'Anyway, the first safe location should be nearby, without weapons they shouldn't expect us to move too much. Maybe a couple more layers and that should be the limit...' Niles thought as he spoke, "Let's go, stick close to the bushes, and hide if you see any movement. We can't risk running around trying distraction tactics again"
With the game plan ready the 3 of them slowly sneaked around, it was Dwain, aka the Jock, who spotted the bodies first. Niles stared into the surprised eyes of a blond-haired man, his face was unnaturally pale.
~Barf~~Barf~
Niles was barely able to suppress the bile that was traveling up his throat but the two with him started vomiting to the side. The smell of blood and half-digested food was too much for Niles and he rushed to the side and heaved the sandwich he had for breakfast onto a tree.
After a full minute of torturous retching all of them had already emptied their stomach, the problem was that they had no way to clean their mouth without water so the raw taste still tortured them.
"Shayne, drink your health potion," Niles spoke, since he was injured he might as well use it and at the same time free himself from this torture.
"Stay back let me see. If I can find anything," Niles thought as he walked through toward the blond head lying next to a headless corpse.
Blood was everywhere but it still hadn't dried up so the corpses must be fresh, but since there were no bubbles with their names floating above their head he was pretty sure that everyone was dead. He didn't go too close to inspect but he could see that there was no struggle whatsoever in this fight.
'Whoever they fought, they were straight up decimated with no resistance whatsoever...' Niles grimaced, he could see the fate of the three of them would be the same in front of overwhelming force like this one.
'Stay away from combat no matter what happens, in the games there are production classes and the potions were there as well so there should be something like a forger or potioneer...' Niles thought.
"Come on man let's go, the monster that did this might still be around," Dwain shouted at Niles who nodded.
"That wasn't a monster work," he muttered as he walked back to the group.
"Let's rush, the safe zone should be close," Niles spoke.
"Why did you say it wasn't the monster's work?" Dwain asked.
"Because a monster won't steal the shoes of its victims..." Niles spoke with a grimace on his face, "...It was a human."
The three of them walked for a minute before they arrived at another divide. He motioned for everyone to be quiet as they arrived back at the bushes, each of them sneakily looked at the other side but they were surprised to find tall walls in the distance.
...
...
"Fuck... fucking finally..." Niles nearly collapsed at the stress as everyone came out of the bushes and ran towards the clearly man-made walls. The walls looked like they were made of marble, there were two large wooden doors that were engraved with what looked like gold.
Thankfully there was a mall door cut out in the right door that was open, the three of them shared a final glance before they walked forward and stepped close to the gate. There was no gatekeeper keeping them away so Niles walked through the door. He paused as another notification arrived in front of him.
"Brother, what happened?" Shayne asked, Niles looked back and then moved away allowing Dwain and Shayne to enter as well. He then focused back on the notification in front of him.
...
[Arrived at the Tutorial Village #1321132.]
[Rank within the top 1000 to reach in the tutorial village]
[+200 EXP]
...
[Leveld up]
...
[Leveld up]
...
[Safe Zone Bonus activated]
[-99% to Physical and Magical attacks]
[+200 Health and Mana regen.]
...
The dual notifications were a sigh of relief but the last one was the most important for their survival.
...
[First-time entry into Tutorial Village detected...]
[Scanning User... Level 3]
[Gained Title: {Village Farmer III}]
...
[Village Farmer III (Uncommon): Gain 3 bronze coins per day if you are within the jurisdiction of the tutorial village.{Collect}]
...
'So in the end the test was speed itself, the real challenge wasn't to fight everything but arrive at this place safely...' Niles sighed in relief, thankfully they hadn't tried to take on that bear.
'Well, unfortunately, whether people realize it or not, they should rush here due to fear anyway. No one would want to farm those animals anyway. That's why we were rushed out of the top 1000 even though we basically ran here as quickly as we could.' Niles thought, while he might want to worry about it some more he was more worried about something else right now, their small party had a test to phase.
Dwain looked at the notifications in silence, he was a little relieved that they arrived at a safe place, it gave him some time to think about what to do. He looked sideways and noticed the nerdy-looking guy was also staring at him.
'We both know how the world works, no need to create any friction, in the end, he did help me a lot too...' Dwain thought.
"Dude, I'm gonna look around the village and see if I could find some more acquaintances, should we meet around here in a couple of hours?" Dwain asked.
Niles nodded to Dwain and then turned to his brother and said, "Let's g-" he froze, his abnormality was noticed by both his brother and Dwain.
"L-let's see if we could find something to eat," Niles spoke in a hurried tone as he motioned for Dwain to follow him. The three of them sneaked away and looked into a shop. The shop once again surprised them, Nigel wasn't sure what he was expecting but a simple counter with just the prices of items listed wasn't something that they were expecting.
"What happened?" Dwain asked, Shayne was the silent type like Niles so he patiently waited for the answer. While if they were back on Earth he might have fought with him by now, in a life-and-death scenario he trusted his brother to have his back.
Niles looked out of the shop and looked at the man who was walking away, it wasn't something he did that frightened him it was the fact that his level was too high, his name appeared red instead of blue and the fact that he was wearing bloody sports shoes with a standard 2 piece suit.
"Stay away from him... he's a monster."
...
----------------------------
{25 mins ago}
Lukas stared at the gold inlaid within the gates as he walked through the gate. After dealing with Erin's party he rushed straight through the fence since he didn't sense anyone. He then arrived at this village hidden behind walls.
...
[Arrived at the Tutorial Village #1321132.]
[Rank within the top 3 to reach in the tutorial village]
[+800 EXP]
...
[Leveld up]
...
[Leveld up]
...
[Safe Zone Bonus activated]
[-99% to Physical and Magical attacks]
[+200 Health and Mana regen.]
...
...
[First-time entry into Tutorial Village detected...]
[Scanning User... Level 8]
[Gained Title: {Village Noble III}]
...
[Village Noble III (Rare): Gain 3 Silver coins per day if you are within the jurisdiction of the tutorial village. {Collect}]
...
Lukas stared at the barrage of notifications that had appeared in front of him.
'I'm third, how!! I basically ran all the way here, how did someone beat me to it...' Lukas was puzzled, he was in the Top 3 the wording was a bit confusing but he was pretty sure he wasn't the first one.
'At least for the reward it counts levels and not the position, the position only gives a bonus to Exp...' Lukas thought as he dismissed the notification and added 1 point each to his three physical stats and added the extra point to Reflex.
While he was starting to walk forward toward the nearby shop and clicked on the {Collect} button next to the title and another notification popped up.
...
[Detected that User has the most amount of money in the Integration #???]
[Gained title: {Richest across the 4 suns}]
...
This happened a little too suddenly giving even Lukas a bit of a pause he opened his status screen quickly to check.
...
[Status]
[Name: Lukas Atkins]
[Titles: Psychopath{Unique}, Pioneer{Common(Growth)}, Richest across the 4 suns{Unique}]
[Race: Human{E}]
[Class: ~]
[Sub-Class: ~]
[Level: 8 (220/450)]
[Health: 500/500]
[Mana Points: 10/10]
[Stats]
[Physique{E}: 9]
[Reflexes{E}: 10]
[Vision{E}: 10]
[Mana{E}: 1]
[Soul{E}: 5]
[Points: 4]
...
...
[Richest across the 4 suns {Unique}: Money and greed are the driving forces of evolution. To survive in the new world and evolve, items and potions are a necessity. +33% Discount at any shop.]
...
While this title wasn't as overwhelming as his primary title its effect could be the same. However, it did have a small downside. It limited the amount of money he could spend if he wanted to keep the title. And keeping this title, in the long run, was even more difficult once there were more methods to contact with the rest of the multiverse.
'Most likely the merchants or even production class would take this title away once they start up their business, if I want to keep this title for myself then I would have to use some underhanded means...' Another plan started etching up in Lukas's mind as he arrived at the first shop and looked at the prices.
...
[Consumables]
[1 Power Bar: Fills Satiety and Thirst - 1 copper]
[1 basic health potion: Restores 100 Health instantly -10 copper]
[1 basic mana potion: Restores 100 Mana instantly -10 copper]
[Level 1 Fire Scroll: Does 100-1000 Fire damage - 1 Silver]
[Level 1 Water Scroll: Does 100-1000 Fire damage - 1 Silver]
[...]
...
Lukas didn't read much more as his gaze was stuck on the damage numbers attached to the Level 1 Fire scroll.
'Someone could wipe me out for 1 fucking silver!!!'
...
-----------------------------
AN- Intro to Tutorial Village in the next chapter!