Aster put the notifications to the side and went to Castle. “You doing okay?”
Castle was out of breath, her armor roughly bent back into shape, though Aster doubted it could hold up to much anymore. She gave a thumbs up as she approached. “Physically? Fine, yeah. Those potions are… something else.”
Aster could only nod in agreement. “This fight would have gone very, very differently if we hadn’t had them. I’ve got a feeling they’re going to be important going forward.”
“Magical shots that bring you back from the dead?” Castle joked. “Yeah, probably. How about you?”
“Hmm?” Aster looked up from the satchel of potions. “Oh, I’m fine.” And she was. Mostly. “We almost died,” she said.
Castle took a seat on the ground. “Yeah.”
Aster sat on a rock that faced both Castle and the corpse of the raptor. “I don’t like it.” She felt her blood heating.
“I don’t either,” Castle sighed, “but it could have been worse.”
Aster just shook her head and turned away. “I need to clean up.”
She found a stone in the water and sat down, leaning on it and letting the current draw the blood away as she tamed her breathing. Could it have been worse? Sure. They could have died or been maimed— or she could have died of cancer back on Earth. None of that made her feel better, though. Tears budded in her eyes and she ducked her head under the cool water to hide them.
To have her life given back to her, and then some, only to come so close to losing it? In the moment it had given her a clarity unlike anything she’d ever felt. She’d come alive in a new way, feeling like she had been capable of seeing everything all at once— every step of the raptor, every flex of her muscles, every grain in the haft of her spear… It hadn’t even been a fair fight once she’d reached that point of focus. Somehow she’d just known.
But then the fight was over, and now she was hiding her tears and gripping the riverstone tighter to stop her hands from shaking. She’d gotten too close to the edge, and she never wanted to get close to that edge again.
How could she avoid that, though? This tutorial was a death trap:
Total Survivors Remaining: 928/1200
Nearly another sixty people had died since last night. For an initiation event that was meant to last some two months… Those numbers aren’t sustainable. Certainly not everyone would die, but… she had a sinking feeling in her gut that the number of people who made it through the Tutorial was not going to be a large percentage of its starting population.
So what would differentiate the survivors, besides luck?
Skill. And planning. Aster shook her head and raised her eyes, the cold water bringing her focus. I need to get stronger. Now. She decided to go through her System messages before making any other decisions.
*Warrior (Medium) class skill selection available*
She took a few moments more to calm down. As far as she was concerned, she’d run out of second chances the second the System Initiation hit. Then to get lucky again, just a few days later? Whatever reservoir of luck existed, hers had to be bone dry.
Aster shook her head and tried focusing on the prompt, which allowed a number of options to appear before her. There were a surprising amount of weapon skills available. [Basic Shield Technique (Inferior)], [Basic Unarmed (Inferior)], [Basic Archery (Inferior)], and others in the same vein. There were options for magic, such as [Basic Mana Tool Proficiency (Inferior)], [Mana Bolt (Inferior)], and [Mana Barrier (Inferior)]. She decided these would be what she’d choose from—until she saw the last three.
[Basic Stealth (Inferior)] - The deadliest predator is the one not seen coming. Unlocks basic proficiency in the art of stealth, allowing you to remain undetected more easily and blend into the environment. Adds a minuscule bonus to the effect of Agility and Perception when successfully remaining undetected.
[Basic Lunge (Inferior)] - The strike that hits doesn’t always come from the shadows— sometimes it comes head-on. Propel yourself forward, striking before your opponent can react. Adds a minuscule bonus to the effect of Agility and Strength while Lunging.
[Basic Reflexes (Common)] - There is a method to the madness of combat. Many can’t feel it— you can. Allows you to better anticipate the movements of others. Adds a minor bonus to the effect of Agility and Perception during combat.
Stealth wasn’t her thing, but the presence of the two final choices raised a suspicion in her. The other options presented seemed to be either the skills available to other starting classes or general needs, such as the Stealth skill, but had the System presented her with an option to choose a Lunge skill because of how she’d approached the fight with the raptor? Because of how she’d copied its technique?
And if that were the case, perhaps the skill that improved her reflexes was an option due to her general fighting style… She had always operated on muscle memory, after all. She’d find the rhythm in a battle and adapt to it— or subvert it with her own.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Aster considered her choices and wondered if there wasn’t a right way to go about these sorts of decisions. Could her skills evolve? After all, they had a rarity tag associated with them, and even with all her new levels she hadn’t seen one change yet at all. But maybe that’s because she hadn’t spent much time really practicing with them? She’d used them, sure, but she didn’t think she’d consider her use practice yet. After all, it hadn’t even been a full day.
So if she could do that— evolve her classes— what might an attack skill like Lunge turn into? Would it evolve to let her adjust her momentum or direction at all? Or simply become stronger? If that were the case, and if the System had indeed responded to her actions when it offered her the skill, then she wondered if she wouldn’t get a better option in the future by practicing what she already knew about the move in the meantime.
A skill that enhanced her reflexes, on the other hand, seemed like it had the potential to get overpowered really fast. She had thoughts of Spider-Man’s spider sense and grinned. Her attacks and reflexes would naturally get better as she leveled up, but she could train her attacks more easily than she could her reflexes. Not to mention, it was the only Common rarity skill offered, which instantly put it in a league of its own.
In the end, she settled on the Basic Reflexes skill, and set her mind on figuring out how to upgrade her existing skills.
Now for what to do with my extra points… She had six of them, and was tempted to put them all into Agility. She wondered whether it would be smarter to shore up her weaknesses or add to her strengths. The Basic Reflexes skill scales with Perception, too, right? Por que no los dos?
She put four points into Perception, bringing it to 21. The last two she split between Strength and Agility. Now done with all her progress management, she turned to see if Castle was ready to get moving.
Castle was walking stiffly in her direction, but before they could talk, they received a System notification.[If people are dropping like flies, we need to evolve— get ahead of the curve. Whatever it is they’re doing, we can’t afford to do the same. We have to be better. Maybe this isn’t a game, but there are clear winners here. And I intend to be among them.”]
[Tutorial Panel] Duration: 62 days & 23:59:99
Congratulations on your continued survival. The alloted time has passed and the details of your first challenge are now available to you.
Challenge One: Gaining Levels
In 6 days & 23:59:57 the island with the fewest total levels gained will be eliminated. The two islands with the most levels gained will be rewarded, and the island with the most amount of levels gained will receive an advantage in the next challenge.
Levels will not be detracted from your island’s score in the event of a death.
Current Standings:
Your Island: 982 Collective Levels Gained
Current Place: 4th
Well, that makes my life easier, Aster thought. She’d resolved to get more powerful and only moments later the system had told her to go and do just that.
“That doesn’t seem too hard,” Castle said. “We just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Aster wasn’t so certain. “Maybe. But I think the biggest problem is going to be our population. Do we have any food?”
“I think our biggest problem is going to be the dinosaurs, but we’ve only got the strips of meat we gathered from the small ones yesterday.” Castle approached the body of the giant dinosaur that had almost taken her life. Using her boot, she lifted the thing’s lips up to reveal its wild “Seriously, though. You don’t think these will be the bigger problem?”
“In the meantime? Maybe…” She looked deep in thought. With a sigh, she continued. “Nothing about this is natural.”
“Obviously,” Castle said. “We’re in a video game universe with dinosaurs.”
“It’s not that.”
“Of course there’s something more unnatural.” Castle fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“Seriously,” Aster pointed back at the corpse. “What do you think that thing eats?”
“People?”
“That have only existed here for a day? What does that tell you?”
Castle sat down at the edge of the water with a grunt. “Why don’t you tell me what it tells me.”
“It tells me that this is a shit show. There should be dozens or hundreds of prey animals here, but there’s nothing. If this was a natural ecosystem, everything would be different. Maybe it is on the other islands, but we should have seen something by now. That tells me this place was designed.”
“Well, it is a ‘tutorial’.”
“Yeah, but this tutorial isn’t Animal Crossing. It’s a tutorial that’s going to trim off the weakest ten percent of the population every week, and leave the rest on islands inhabited solely by superpowered carnivores. And I can’t imagine them staying only at the levels we’ve seen them.”
They were silent for a few moments before Aster spoke again.
“This thing is going to kill off everyone but the strongest, and trap them on an island together with monsters.”
“Don’t forget,” Castle said after a beat, “the tutorial said you can get tutorial points from killing other people.”
Aster closed her eyes. “This is gonna be a bloodbath.”
----
Elsewhere in the tutorial…
Malcolm stared at the System notification with a frown and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. Most levels gained… That put a pin in his plans.
“What do we do?” The man next to him said. He was wearing light armor over an orange jumpsuit.
“We hold off for now,” Malcolm said, motioning with his free hand to tell his men to retreat.
“But the fuckers are all right there, man,” said another further behind.
Turning and avoiding the tropical brush that threatened to scratch up his face, Malcolm eyed the fresh meat. He’d only been in lockup with them for a month or so and didn’t know better. “They’ll still be there at the end of the week.”
The newbie looked like he was going to say something, but a look from Malcolm was all it took to shut him up. He turned toward the man next to him. “Thoughts?”
The man, a fellow lifer by the name of Chun, narrowed his eyes. “We’ve got to keep them alive to survive, but…” a wicked grin crossed his ugly face. “What makes people stronger if not adversity?”
Malcolm frowned, then turned back toward the correction officers in the clearing below. “If we approach the issue that way, we may end up making them stronger.”
“Doubt it,” Chun said. “We can keep an eye on them. We don’t have to kill them, or at least too many of them, yet. No, we’ve just got to keep them scared enough to try and get stronger, but not scared enough that they leave their safe place.”
Mirroring Chun’s smile as his eyes landed on one of the female guards down below, Malcolm whispered. “I’m pretty damn good at scaring folks, ain’t I, Chun?”
Chun grunted. “The best.”
How to scare them… He could always just do what he did best. “Leave the lot of them for now. Capture the brunette for me.”
“Consider it done.”
