9 days since the system arrived
Taralyn was angry, it had now been nine days since the start of the end of the world, as the people she overheard referred to it. Nine days of struggle and she was still stuck in phase two of the tutorial, this phase was an introduction to magic and you couldn't leave without opening your heart node. She had completed this quickly but was trying to open her other 4 nodes before moving on. She already opened her life, shadow, and water node, but she needed to open her death node still. Tara didn't need these open but she wanted them, however, opening opposing nodes is difficult, it takes twice as much effort and magic to open the second half of the opposing pair. The first opening took a day per node, but now she was on her second day for this one.
Only about 20 of the girls who followed her were with her here, the area for this phase was twice as big as the previous area but held ten phase one tutorial groups and there were about five thousand in here so far. Stevens had given her space since their fight about Elias but was keeping an eye on her until yesterday when he moved on after opening his heart and earth nodes, he didn't want to stay too long. There were training stations but all of them were the same basic instructions on internal magic, nodes and the soul. It wasn't comprehensive information, just basics but after the 4th time she listened and watched the 90 minute explanation she could see where the holes were. Tara focused on making some quick guesses about what the gaps in information were and did her best to unlock all her nodes.
This phase went quick for most, only a couple days then on to the next. So again there wasn't time for factions or violence or stealing. No one had anything except the clothes on their backs, and food and water were all provided. As much as you wanted, no one focused on it since it was just some kind of nutrient dense flat bread and plain water. The magic stations explained that after your heart node was open, which could only happen after puberty started, then at level 10 you could choose a class. Most people would get a common class to start with, some would get uncommon, 1 in a hundred would get a rare class to start. nothing about what the rarities mean or anything above rare was explained. Tara was extremely anxious to get started leveling but she felt that opening this node was more important.
It had been explained to them that magic in everyone is a mix of 10 types from 10 possible nodes, most people would have 2 or 3 nodes available to open, it was about one in ten thousand would have 4 and one in a million for 5. Having 6 or more would be 10 to 20 per planet odds. The basic magic inside everyone that they could use for skills wasted the magic that wasn't the right type making the effects weak and inefficient, this is why most would go for skills that used more than one type. A skill attached to an open node could use a pure form of that magic from the node making it massively more powerful. This leads people to focus on these nodes, getting the best skills in them as possible and focusing on training their use, making them the basis for their fighting. Tara took a breath, and focused on her death node again, she was determined to get this open and move on today.
She took another day but she got it done and moved on to the next phase in the tutorial. The third phase was something else altogether, 10 phase 2 groups arrived in 10 different greeting buildings. Being in an actual building after 10 days in the elements was nice but there was a plaque in front of where she arrived informing her of the phase 3 rules.
"Welcome to phase three of the tutorial"
"There are 50 days left in the tutorial"
"You must reach level 10 and have a class before time runs out to complete the tutorial"
"There are three-man dungeons to assist with leveling for support type people"
"Monsters in the wild areas will respawn every 4 hours."
"Basic gear has been added to inventory"
"Select a weapon from the side panel, you can trade it in if you don't like it"
Opening her menus, Tara saw that the inventory tab was no longer greyed out and she opened it to see 3 pieces of gear, a leather chest plate, leather leg armor and leather boots. There wasn't going to be a changing room so she just got the chest armor out and took off her torn and frayed shirt, and put the chest armor on over her bra. Her jeans were not too damaged so she put the leg armor on over her jeans. She swapped out her running shoes for the boots and put her old shoes and shirt in her inventory. It took her a minute to figure out how, but she got it fast enough. Leaving the building in gear and a short sword on her hip, she moved quickly to get into a group of people and just listen to as many conversations as possible. It took everything she had to not adjust and shuffle the gear she was wearing, it would give her away as a new person.
The arrival buildings were ten in a line each about a quarter mile from the previous one, there were a few trees and grass around and in between the buildings where it seemed everyone was gathered. It was about midday and most people were in groups talking or moving around from group to group, everyone was in the exact same gear so it was hard to tell people apart. She needed levels and fast so as soon as she heard that you could go out into the wilds to kill monsters for levels she left. It wasn't until Tara got far enough that she was alone that she tried to relax her body so she could be ready for a fight. She might run into a monster at any moment, she glanced at her level 1 and her stats to force herself to push forward and grow strong.
"Magic level 1"
"Stats: Strength 2, Reaction 2, Vitality 2, Intellect 1, Wisdom 1, Resistance 2, Will 19"
Tara had spoken to many others about stats and it turned out that most people only had two twos and the rest were ones, but everyone's Will was different, some only having five but others being in the twenties or even someone claiming to be in the thirties. She had picked the shortest short sword she could find, she knew Eli would most likely have a big weapon so she wanted something to compliment him. Tara wasn't sure she had made a good choice but she could change it and the sword was small enough that it wouldn't be tricky to use. She kept walking and walking for about 4 hours, the best guess she had was that people had already cleaned this area up. Changing directions at random and at the sign of other people she kept moving until it was dark. The sun was setting, looks like wherever they were, it had the same day and night cycle, there was no way Tara was going to sleep though, not with possible monsters around.
She moved slower, much slower, still changing directions and still avoiding people as much as she could. The whole night went by and she went unnoticed, twice people got close but she heard them coming and hid. They didn't seem to be looking for her, just didn't know how to hide. When the sun came up, she ran, full sprint away from the sun. This was her original direction and she wanted to make progress while the sun was low. After about an hour of running, she was getting tired and lost her footing and fell. When she got up there was a snake hanging from the trees and it dropped itself down into a pile that quickly coiled up to strike. This was a big snake, with a big head, long fangs and violence it is eyes. She grabbed her mouth to stop herself from screaming but a little bit got out before she did. If anyone dangerous was following her or in the area they would assume someone was in a fight and coming running to play white knight or to wait it out and attack after she finishes the fight.
Grabbing the handle of the sword slowly, she tried to get it out of its sheath while walking backwards, but it wouldn't come out. Keeping her body from panicking, she took a slow breath and took off her belt, the snake just kept getting closer and coiling up then getting closer and coiling again. Tara held up the sword in its sheath like a one handed bat and was ready to take a swing and stood still, she knew the snake was going to strike and right when its head dove in she moved her sword towards it and it drove her sword and sheath right into its eye and the attack missed. It coiled again in pain and she began beating it until it stopped moving. She was out of breath, exhausted, covered in gore, but she was now level 2, and the predatory smile on her face would have scared the toughest of men. She enjoyed this more than she thought possible.
Tara reveled in the violence, it was the first time one of her emotional outbursts was productive. Usually she would keep a lid on her emotions until they exploded in someone's face, it got so bad she would purposefully date a useless guy to explode on so she could keep herself in check at work. During long deployments, she would let loose on Eli, who would just stand there and take it, not interrupting, not trying to help, and certainly not taking offense. After she trusted him, she would unload everything she was feeling, from work and friend troubles to boyfriend drama and how she felt about him. She even told him she loved him, kissed him, then slapped him at the end of it. After up to two or three hours of all this week after week, Eli never judged her, never treated her any differently, he wouldn't even say a word, he took it all, gave her a long and tight hug then would leave. Most of the time all this would make her frustrated in a different way so she would go to the gym and she eventually took up boxing. She didn't fight other people, she would just hit a punching bag until her body gave out so that she could relieve tension. Eli gave her a lot of tension.
A week of combat with monsters, broken bones, and blood, and she had hit level ten. The gear everyone had was self-repairing which was good because her old world clothes had been cut, torn, and covered in blood so she wasn't wearing them anymore. She didn't want to waste the fabric so she put them in her inventory after washing herself and them in a stream. Tara found a safe place up on a hill giving her lines of sight to go through her class options. She wanted to get more skills before unlocking her class but she needed to get it and get more levels in. Right now she had short sword weapon skill level two and cursed slash from her death node level two. That should be enough to open her class choices, but to her surprise she only had two.
"Choice 1 - Liquid Shadow Warrior - uncommon"
".5 stat to strength or reaction, 1 free stat per level"
"This class grants the water node skill - liquid warrior - activating the skill massively increases flexibility."
"Choice 2 - Shadow Warrior servant - Rare"
"1 stat to strength or reaction, 1 free stat"
"This class grants the shadow node skill - lords shadow - you can become a shadow, blending into any shadow you can fit into."
"System Help - Lord/servant - for 12 years after the tutorial, the top 100 people on the planet in strength will be lords. Those who have a deep connection to a lord, or are fated, may get access to servant classes. These classes offer higher rarity skills and with a good enough bond, a will skill that lets the servant temporarily boost themselves in service to their lord. Both lord and servant must enter into the connection willingly and in good faith. Disobeying a lord's command as a servant will lead to system enforced punishment. After selecting a servant class, and after the tutorial is over, the servant and lord both sign system contracts to make it official and allow access to servant specific skills."
Tara was absolutely shocked by this and did not have a clue to how this worked, the description was confusing, part of it made this seem very beneficial, but another part felt more like a warning. So her best guess was that this was for the close friends and family of the powerful, an opportunity to help them keep themselves safe and focus on getting stronger. So the question was, did she want to serve Eli? This was a big risk because she couldn't talk to him about it, but the fact that she got the option means she already has a close bond to a lord. That would confirm that Eli is in the top 100 because that is the only person she would be able to say she has a bond with. She wanted the power that comes with a rare class but she also loved Eli and wanted to be by his side, but he did not like people making decisions for him.
Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and focused on Eli in her head. She knew she loved him and would follow him anywhere, but she also knew that he wasn't to be pushed into anything. Knowing all that, she would follow her gut, and it was screaming that she should choose the servant class and have Eli be her lord. He might be mad but if there was one thing she was confident of she knew deep in her soul that he would accept it. The hope in her heart was that he would love her back and they could be together. If the end of the world wasn't her opportunity, nothing would be.