Lucy smirked. Well 2 is better than 4, she thought. I'll have to track down those other two, hopefully one of them dies...or seeing them fight starts a bigger conflict with the other monkeys. "I get credit for those", Lucy ironically informed the System...or the air...or whoever.

Now for these two. Lucy decided that since the monkeys were looking away from her she could try the hammer throw again. She was slowly starting to figure out how the unseen hand worked and thought that if her throw were a little off she could try and nudge it back on course.

At this point, Lucy was regretting only bringing two hammers on this 'easy' mission, but decided that if the first throw was good and caused a lot of damage Lucy decided she would throw at the second, presuming the remaining monkey would still be distracted, if not she would try to close the distance and attack by hand. She figured that she would be able to get the hammers back to continue the fight if needed if one or both were injured.

The using lots of force with the unseen hand remained a backup in case she was hurt or if a hammer was going to be carried off.

Luckily, Lucy's second throw was much more on target, though she guessed it was more that she just happened to throw it right rather than any increase of skill. She was even able to nudge the hammer just enough mid-flight that it struck one of the monkey's in the head. It fell over, twitching. However, she didn't get that familiar rush of energy. It probably wasn't dead quite yet but it certainly was getting back up. Lucy felt another trickle of blood from her nose but she ignored it while she charged the last monkey. A minute later, there were two dead monkeys, both giving Lucy a burst of energy. She had suffered when the monkey she was fighting had clawed her arm but it was only a flesh wound. She knew it could have done much worse.

Kill 15 Obsidian Monkeys. [3/15]
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:35, Wed 02 Mar 2022.

Lucy retrieved her second hammer and surveyed the monkeys while again wiping blood from her nose. Did it cost so much just to nudge a hammer mid-flight?, she thought. She hadn't noticed the exertion and was puzzled and a little concerned by the blood. Hopefully Pit could explain things to her better later.

Her arm stung from where the monkey had clawed her but it was easy to ignore. Lucy decided to go off in the direction of the other two monkeys to see if she couldn't find out what had happened to them. They had gone towards the forest which is where it sounded like she could find lots more monkeys anyways.

Lucy proceeded slowly, keeping her eyes and ears open. If possible, she was going to try and cause more fights amongst the monkeys before directly engaging in combat herself. With two more monkey kills, and hopefully a few injured targets ahead, Lucy's confidence was starting to grow that she could in fact finish the 'easy' mission.

Lucy was able to follow the trail of broken... monkey skin, she guessed, through some bushes where she found the two again. One of them, the smaller one, was clearly dead. It had had a leg ripped off, which was currently being chewed on by the larger one. It turned as Lucy came into view and growled. It didn't look too hurt, except for a few minor breaks on the skin, but it was somewhat tired, proving her strategy had weakened it a little. However, its first moved surprised Lucy as it took the initiative. It flung the body of the other monkey at Lucy with a little toss. She tried to dodge but it hit her on the shoulder and caused her to stumble. She didn't fall down but by the time she had righted herself, it was upon her. To her horror, it was going for her eyes.

Lucy fought frantically with the monkey as it went for her eyes, trying to catch its forearms and throw it off. If she could not throw it off with her own strength and the unseen hand (without exerting herself too much) to give her space to smash it with a hammer, she was going to crush its neck before it could gouge her eyes.

With the use of Unseen Hand, she managed to push it back just enough that it got her face, not her eyes. There was still a lot of blood, though. She managed to stave in the monkey's head with her hammer, killing it instantly. She still had a problem with the amount of blood she was losing and after she was tearing up her clothes to make bandages, she looking like a mummy. However, she continued her work, tearing up the monkeys. Soon it began even being killing the bastards, since word had apparently spread and they took off as soon as they sensed her.

Kill 15 Obsidian Monkeys. [14/15]

However, she had found something interesting: an alpha monkey. It was almost the size of a small chimp, it was so big. But something about it made Lucy wonder if there were hidden objectives. Maybe she could get a bonus by taking a risk?
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:47, Thu 03 Mar 2022.

Lucy had had it with these monkeys. By this point she was covered with small cuts and too many bigger ones; blood, most of it dry, but a little still wet; and bits of obsidian rock chips from these blasted monkeys.

She hated them about as much as they apparently feared her. Lucy was going to take the quickest path to 15 kills she could and if there was an easier target she would take that out first.

If the alpha was all that was around, however, she was not going to ignore it. Not going to let that thing do something sneaky.

If it threw anything she would dodge and try and nudge the projectile away from her without straining. She planned on saving her ability to push with the unseen hand to augment her own swings with the hammer, hoping to break whatever part of that thing unlucky happened to be in the path.

Her plan was going well. The jungle had one major advantage over the open, rocky terrain: she could get a lot closer before launching her ambushes, letting her use Unseen Hand for force rather than range. In this case, she had realized she could use it to push it forward just as it hit, for some extra damage. She had nailed the alpha right in the back of the head with this tactic, dealing critical damage but, as she suspected, he was a lot tougher than the others and other than a slight wobble, was up and ready to fight. Mid fight, when Lucy backed off to get a breather, he also revealed a trick of his own: he pulled an obsidian spike out of his body and chucked it much faster than Lucy had imagined. Fortunately, Lucy had figured out a counter and had just managed to dodge it.

She took a few big hits before the end but she emerged victorious. A message appeared before her:


Kill 15 Obsidian Monkeys. [15/15]

[Hidden Objective Achieved]

[Grade-F reward upgraded. Grade-B reward achieved.]

[10,000 merit points granted. 5 days supplies given.]

Darkness enveloped Lucy once again. When she could see again, she found herself in her Tutorial room. Pit was sitting on a chair he had apparently conjured, still in mid air, and was reading a book.

When the alpha finally fell, Lucy let out a yell as if daring any more monkeys to come close. She reached down to pick up her hammer and winced as she bent over. I'm all banged up, she thought. Hopefully my medical supplies made it back in the room.

Lucy tried to study the message that appeared and take note of what it all meant. So there are hidden objectives. The other items didn't make much sense to her. Then the world went black.

---

"Pit!", Lucy exclaimed, seeing him floating there. She sat down cross-legged on the floor, wincing at some of the pain. Later, when Lucy had time to reflect, she would be grateful she was teleported back to her own room and didn't have to find it in the midst of all the other identical looking doors, but at this point Lucy was grateful to be done with that forest and those monkeys. Good riddance, she thought.

"That was supposed to be easy?", Lucy started. "Look at me, I'm a mess. Where was I? Were those monkeys real or was that something that the System just made up?"

"I have a lot of questions:" she continued, stating the obvious, "what do all those notes at the end of the tutorial mean? What are these rewards and merit points, and f-grade something, what do those mean and what are they? My body even feels different too, more energy, my mind is clearer, what happened?"

Pit didn't seem surprised at Lucy's state "Ah, you survived. I thought you would. Good to see you. And yes, that was easy. The System has a certain bias, as pushing people tends to lean towards people getting stronger, faster. When it can, it places people in life and death situations. And you even got a B-Grade, that meant you did something special!"

Pit coughed and returned to her questions "As for where you were, that's a bit harder to explain. Even I'm not privy to even the moderate complexities of the System. It has enough power to conjure up such places and creatures, sure, but most likely it just sent you to the place it felt like would you learn the best. Many scholars argue over it."

"As for how you feel, well, open your menu and find out. Say the words "Status", "Dao", "Quests", or "Skills" as if speaking to the System. And do note, the best of the best of your world was a 10 before the System integrated your world. We'll go over merit points once you have a chance to clean yourself up. Here, I bought a healing pill with some of your points, swallow it." He chucked a small, medical pill at her.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:50, Thu 03 Mar 2022.

Lucy raised an eyebrow as she examined the pill Pit had just thrown her. She had seen lots of pills and wasn't sure how she felt about taking some strange medication. Or about Pit spending her points.

She swallowed it anyways and started cleaning up. Lucy hadn't commentes on Pit's explanation of the System and it's 'easy' setting, but pondered on it now. I'm stuck in a System that is going to try and push and kill me. I don't like this.

By the time she finished she was rather hungry, but curiosity got the better of her. She pulled the chair by the table out and sat down.

"Status, Quest, Dao, Skills", Lucy said and examined the different menus that appeared.

Looking at these prompted more questions: "what is F-rank or b-rank? It says I have free points, I assume that they are assigned by hitting the plus sign. Doa is empty, what is that? You mentioned merit points too, what are those? And what are the rewards from the tutorial?"

"Yes, that is how they are assigned. Dao... is complicated. It is a way of understanding the universe through concepts. For example, a man who chops lumber for a living understands the Dao through Trees and perhaps the Sharpness of his axe. It varies. Classes are usually what allow you to access the Dao at first. Depending on the class, it will give you visions of those who perfected their Dao in those ways. The rarity of the class determines the amount of visions. Common gets none, uncommon gets 1, rare gets 2, epic gets 3. F-Grade and B-Grade and such are the way things are ranked. In the middle of those ranks are four smaller ranks: Low, Middle, High, and Peak. The tutorial gave you merit points to spend at the shop, this can be anything from healing pills to weapons to one use items. If you'd like, I can do some research. Just give me some idea of what you want. Before you go out, though, you might want to clean up."

When she went to do so, Lucy found two things out: one, the wounds on her face were just... gone. She could still barely see the lines but those too seemed to be fading away. It was almost like regeneration. Two, here appearance had changed a LOT. She had a lot more muscle, her posture had been corrected, and in general, she almost seemed to have been refined by her experiences.

"Well then", Lucy began, "I'll go ahead and assign some points. If you could do some research, that would be great, but I really don't know what the options are. I'll give it some thought. Armor, I hate getting hurt. Something to help me sneak around better. A way to see in the dark." Who knows what the System would do next.

"I see that when I reach level 25 I will get access to the class system, will I be able to chose any class or will the options be limited? Why would anyone not chose an epic level class?"

As Lucy was getting cleaned up she wondered at the physicals change in her appearance as well.  Are these skill points actually changing me and making me better? A thrill filled her gut at the possibilities that this could open.

She also took some time to look around the room more and found that all of her camping supplies, including the tent, had been moved to the storage spaces...weird. She got out some of the food and started preparing dinner. It had been a long day, at least she thought it had only been a day..."How long has it been since I came here, Pit?"

After she ate and cleaned up and her discussion with Pit, Lucy went to bed. It had been a long day.

OOC: I assume it is evening and Lucy actually needs to sleep.

"I'll take a look. About the classes, though, it's difficult. Sometimes you get the feeling that you don't want to go down that path and the difficulty to improve that class increases with the rarity. Especially since few people have used that class, there is very little information out there that tells you what you need to do to get passed the first bottleneck, at level 75. Each class has requirements, you see, and the System doesn't tell them what they are. Of course, you could always just keep throwing yourself into danger and hope for the best but the survival rate is less than optimal, even though you have much better of odds of success." He paused to look at apparently open air "It's been about 10 hours since you've come here."

In the morning, Lucy awoke to find her body... not really sore? What the hell? She had done more exercise yesterday than she had done the week before and she felt fine. Good even. Any large wounds from the previous day were now just white lines, like faded scars. Pit was still there, either not choosing to leave or having come back before Lucy awoke "I've found some things you might want: Oiled Shadow Snake Leather armor, with a self-cleaning and self-repair function. It's expensive and doesn't have a shield but should protect you against most things out there until your Endurance eclipses it. Unless, of course, you go to one of the higher difficulties. It should still help you survive even then and it is soundless and blends into shadows. Seeing in the dark was a little more difficult, there's an occular skill available or some goggles. The goggles, however, rely on Nexus Crystals for power. You should probably also get some healing pills as well as perhaps a few one-use defensive arrays, though the armor is pretty expensive."

Lucy was surprised at how good she felt and how well she had slept in a new environment. Her mind had been processing the events of the last day and starting to work some things out. First, the System really needed a user guide or help menu. Whether by design or coincidence it seemed to be slightly malevolent and very tight lipped. Pit on the other hand was greatly helpful.

The changes to her body and the possibility of unimagined improvement had Lucy intrigued, but she hadn't quite come to terms with her whole life being wiped out in an instant by some uncaring system. What happened to my family and friends?

"I can pass on the goggles," Lucy said, "hopefully the System will recognize that I can't see in the dark. I was just thinking of possibilities. This armor sounds great, it fixes itself! What are these defensive arrays? Armor, and a few of the healing pills and defensive arrays all sounds good, what can I afford?"

"Do you have any advise for what I should select when I go to the crystal today?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot influence your path, for weal or woe. I can, however, tell you the past survival rates: Easy 90%, Medium 50%, Hard 25%, Impossible 1%. Defensive arrays of the type I'm getting for you are one use defensive shields. You use them, they absorb the attack. These ones should work for a while. As your opponents get more powerful, you'll need better arrays. Here, I've gotten you the armor, 3 of the defensive arrays, a small Cosmos Sack, and a handful of those healing pills. Just don't take more than one an hour." He handed her a sack. Examining it, Lucy was startled to find that the small, hand-sized sack contained everything he had bought. The armor fit well, like it had been made for her. "It'll help with cutting and slashing attacks but not so much if they use a hammer, like yourself."
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:52, Fri 04 Mar 2022.

"Thank you, Pit", Lucy said, still looking into the cosmos sack. If she could fit them, she would bring her water bottle, utility knife, and a few extra hammers.

"This armor is great, it will also help me sneak around. That was a problem last time, those monkeys saw me coming too soon."

Lucy started collecting her things for day 2, "How much longer will I be in the tutorial?", she asked Pit.

After the conversation with Pit, Lucy again left her room and ventured into the strange tutorial-world with its many doors and make her way to the crystal. Barring some revelation, Lucy was planning on choosing a Medium mission. She had improved drastically over yesterday and was feeling pretty confident. Pit's reporting of survival rates had tempered that confidence somewhat. With those odds, who would ever dare an impossible mission? 50% was rather risky enough when you're dealing with your own life.

"You will be here for a month, at which point you will be returned to your new home." The cosmos bag could fit all of those and more. It was maybe 2 cubic meters in space. When Lucy left her room, the first thing she noticed was that there were a LOT less beings. As in, maybe half the crowd was gone. There was still chatting but it was more subdued. Quite a few of the crowd still had wounds or had lost a limb, not having enough points to buy healing pills of the efficiency Lucy had. However, most of them were still hale and hearty, though maybe sporting a few scars. Most of them were heading for the Nexus Node but some of them were offering healing at a low price but something about the whole thing didn't smell of true altruism.

Her medium mission was quite a bit more difficult than her first mission, to the point where she had almost lost a hand. Instead of monkeys and a jungle, it was caves and spiders covered in chitin that looked like bone that spun almost invisible webs. They had acidic venom and she had almost lost a hand to a bite, with only a healing pill saving her. After that, she had used two of her defensive arrays for preventing two other bites. That was the main danger. The spiders also had spike-like legs but those merely caused superficial damage to her armor. One time, she had actually run out of hammers, the spider having webbed them all. She had resorted to crushing the spider's eyes with Unseen Hand and taking more backlash. Fortunately, she had earned a C-Grade, adding 10,000 merit points to her bank. Apparently difficulty mattered when it came to rewards. She had also earned a shield made of the spider's bone-chitin as an extra reward. According to Pit, this was common in the higher difficulties. Hard and Impossible gave special items rather than mundane stuff like her armor and shield.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:18, Fri 04 Mar 2022.

Sitting down with Pit that second evening Lucy asked about some of the day's happenings. "There were other beings offering healing in the morning, what's up with that? I was a nurse and something didn't feel right about it. I could do the same...well at least for humans."

"Does the difficulty scale up as I level up? For example, both of these first two missions would be much easier given the points that I've acquired to this point. Does selecting Medium still give me a 50% chance of survival, or are my chances better now?" Lucy had her eyes on these rewards promised by harder difficulties, but wasn't willing to throw her life away to get them. "Or does the System just start forcing harder difficulties by not giving me a choice, that seems like something it would do."

Lucy planned on stocking up with a few more healing pills and defensive arrays. She asked Pit more about the information she could buy with points and if there was any way to buy more skills or upgrade the one she had. "Is there some kind of one-use device that would confuse, blind, or cause enemies to attack each other?" That tactic had worked well in the first mission. Lucy frowned. "If there is, how do I defend against that?"

Pit barely looked up from his book. "Oh, they were probably deepening their insight into their skills, which is for their benefit. Skills start off in the lowest class and you gain insight into them as you use them. Grinding them out like that is sometimes done with those who don't have confidence in their combat abilities. And don't worry too much about the survival rates. 50% means of the, say, 2 million Medium-Grade missions taken last Tutorial, about 1 million ended in the death of the participant. As for status effect, yeah, there are plenty of those kinds of arrays. You could even get a reusable one, if you want. Defending against them is based on your Endurance for physical effects and Wisdom for mental effects. If you find an opponent who specializes in mental attacks, poison them or something, they usually have weak bodies. That is, if they don't split your soul in two with their first attack." He smiles mischievously, "And yes, there are mental defense skills now that you ask."
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:49, Fri 04 Mar 2022.

"Well, I seem to be getting plenty of practice with the unseen hand in combat. I guess I should start using it to do things around the room too." As she said this she used the unseen hand to start moving dishes into the sink.

Lucy raised an eyebrow as Pit explained the statistics. She would do another Medium mission tomorrow and make her own judgments as to whether they appear to scale or not.

"Well then I'll refill my health pills and defensive arrays, and get some mental defense arrays, if those are different than the ones I already have. I'll save the rest of the merit points for now."

After finishing her conversation, Lucy went to bed. She set out the next day to head to the crystal for her third mission.

"While I'm gone, could you look into these information crystals? What would be the point of getting one? Do they have information that you don't?"

"Arrays that focus on mental defense are much more expensive but I can look into it. Would you like a reusable one or a one-time array? Information crystals are each on a particular subject, such as classes, skills, or a smaller subsection, such as particular classes or common Dao. Some are even more specific, focusing on certain clans. They aren't particularly expensive with your amount of points. I can only provide broad information on any subject you ask. Also, you can simply hand them out, not having to explain things for everyone."

"Or maybe a static mental defense", Lucy said casually while packing up her Cosmos bag for the day, "you know, like an aluminum foil helmet or something." She was watching Pit out of the corner of her eye to see if that got any reaction.

"I don't know anything about classes, and don't have one, so that can probably wait.".

After packing up, Lucy headed back to the crystal for her third trip.

Pit just rolled his eyes. "You people and your weird ideas. I'm just going to find a skill for you and be done with it. You've got enough. And you need to figure out how to throw those hammers. Find someone who will teach you. It's been embarrassing how much you have to use the skill just to hit something that's standing still."

Pit seemed to have a point as the next mission was terrible. She had to kill several squirrel-like rodents on an island that was home to a volcano like her first mission. Except this time, after ten minutes, magma started to come out of the top. The whole jungle was burning and she had been forced farther and farther out, having to deal with a whole host of confused and dangerous creatures. The squirrels were also ridiculously fast and she ended up burning a lot of energy to hold the things down and just smash them with her hammer since her attempts at throwing the hammers never ended up anywhere near them. By the time she was back, she smelled like an ashtray, most of her hair had been burned off, one hand had suffered a second-degree burn at least, and she was pretty sure a lung had been punctured by a rampaging boar. And then for all that effort, she only got a D-Rank, earning her 1,000 coins, a tenth of what she had got the previous day.

Pit looked at her, amused "Hard day? You know, you're never going to get very far if you don't figure out how to access Cosmic Energy."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:40, Fri 04 Mar 2022.

Lucy slumped down into the chair. She was feeling down and Pit's teasing didn't help. She had thought dumping points in Dexterity and Strength would have helped more with the hammers than they did.

"Cosmic energy?, Lucy asked, "Is that like the Force?" After cleaning up and eating dinner, Lucy sat down cross-legged on the floor. "Cosmic energy...cosmic energy...in Star Wars they say 'stretch out with your feelings'", she trailed off in a slightly incredulous tone. Lucy closed her eyes and tried to feel... something.

Realizing that this mediation thing was going to be hard work, Lucy decided she would work on that tomorrow.

"You mentioned someone to train me," Lucy said to Pit. "Tomorrow if I leave the room, do I have to take a mission or can I try and find someone to train me, or work on learning more about this Cosmic energy/Force thing?"