Sam walked forward along a beaten dirt path. Massive trees stretched high on both sides of him. The undergrowth was thick, but had been cut back. He had used this path many times now.

The survivalist book hadn’t been a random gift. The next ‘area’ of the dungeon was a massive forest. At first Sam was surprised, thinking he had escaped. Then he noticed that the ‘sky’ was merely painted on and the sun was only a glowing rock. The ‘Sun’ rock dimmed each night and dawned each morning.

The ‘Jungle’ -as Sam had taken to calling it- was massive. He had explored it for nearly 10 full days but hadn’t found a single wall, construct, or barrier. The doorway he entered from was somewhere in the middle of the room, he assumed. Without headings or any directive, Sam could only slowly start mapping out the jungle in order to find the exit.

-

A low growl sounded out from a nearby bush. Sam jumped back and drew a longsword, something he had pilfered from the Death Knights and altered to better suit himself.

Every monster in the jungle was vicious, hard to deal with, and -worst of all- extremely fast.

A shadow leapt forward and Sam barely reacted in time, stopping a clawed hand inches from his eyes. It was another Stone Leopard. Possessing metallic claws, stone-hard fur, and a penchant for ambushes, these predators had been Sam’s worst foes in the jungle. He had already died twice at their feet.

As quickly as the Leopard attacked, it retreated into the underbrush, disappearing like a shadow at sunset.

Sam cast the Cabalist spell ‘Life Detect’ on his eyes, but the foliage, bugs, and birds masked the hunter.

“Shit,” he cursed as he put his back to the trunk of a large root system.

The bushes opposite him rustled, and soon enough the Leopard showed itself… Along with two friends.

Sam’s eyes went wide. Stone Leopards were supposed to be solitary hunters. Why were three working together?

Before he even finished preparing, the beasts launched their assault. Sam ducked the first swipe and blocked the second. The third beast’s blow landed true, ripping up his side and making blood spray across the jungle floor.

It was a mortal wound. Trying to restore it would only prolong his suffering at the hands of the beasts.

Sam roared with defiance. He knew he was going to die, but he certainly wasn’t going to die alone.

With a newfound speed, Sam ripped the first Leopard in half with his blade. The swing opened his own wounds further and exposed his guard to the other Leopards. The beasts took advantage and cut into Sam, aiming to kill him quickly.

With the last bit of willpower he had left, Sam unleashed a torrent of fire, bathing the world in unbridled flames.

“Hell Storm!” He cried the spell’s name with laughter in his voice. Cracks formed along his body, glowing red from raw mana. Then he burst in a whorl of fire and death, killing both himself and the Leopards.

Welcome to the Tutorial!

Muttering under his breath, Sam stood and set out, intent of surviving longer this time around. He had yet to find a single boundary wall in the jungle-stage yet, but he was certain they existed.

It was difficult to explore. Between the poisonous plants, dangerous pitfalls, and monstrous animal life, the Jungle was the hardest challenge Sam had yet to face. It wasn’t something he could brute force his way through. No matter how proficient he was at magic, he couldn’t cast spells faster than the Leopards could cut his throat. No matter how strong he was in combat, he couldn’t stop the Sickle Weasels from slitting his throat in his sleep. His body’s durability had no chance at fighting the Gransul Snake’s poison, or the infectious bites of the Artillery Ants.

The Jungle was a miserable area filled with the most terrifying beasts imaginable. Sam decided that he’d rather fight a dragon straight up than deal with the sheer mental stress that came with the Jungle.

Still, he had no choice but to improve and succeed in the face of overwhelming odds. What other options did he have?

And so Sam persevered.

-

Sam ducked under a paw strike, countering with a slash of his own. His blade dug into the Stone Leopard’s soft underbelly. The monster cried in pain before it collapsed in a puddle of its own blood.

Sam wiped down his sword but didn’t sheathe it. He kept it in his free hand while walking up to the beast. Carefully he cut off the monster’s pelt with the steady hand of an expert, stripping the skin, meat, and precious organs. The rest he buried in a shallow pit.

Looking up at the canopy above, Sam took a moment to appreciate the fluttering light shining between the leaves. Even if the sun was fake, it’s light was real.

-

Before he knew it, three years had passed. Sam had finally, after all that time, managed to reach one end of the jungle. The end he found was a painted mural, designed to trick the onlookers into thinking the treeline continued indefinitely. Only from up close could Sam even determine that it was actually a massive wall.

This wall was where Sam built his first long-term campsite. He needed a marker, something to show where he’d been in case his plan didn’t work. While he could mentally map out most of the Jungle as he went, a lack of physical landmarks continued to hold him back from making true progress. Thus, his only option was to make the landmarks himself.

Sam dragged the useful parts of a Leopard carcass back towards his campsite. He stayed wary of further attacks, but the ambushes had grown further and further apart over time. Most of the beasts in the forest now recognized him as a formidable foe and prefered to avoid him altogether.

The reason Sam had been ambushed so many times after first arriving was due to the monster’s abilities to detect mana and magic. Sam, due to being trained without others around, had entirely neglected his own leaking mana. Thankfully his book on survivability included details about masking one’s aura. Now that Sam no longer gave off magic at every interval, most animals wouldn’t be able to track him. His massive mana pool had, unknowingly, been his biggest weakness.

Sam reached his campsite and tossed the carcass next to his firepit. He lit the flames and tossed several chunks of the Leopard meat into a pot and left it hanging over the fire. He also spread out the pelt to let it dry.

With his meal cooking and a new pelt drying, Sam grabbed one of the trees he had downed earlier and dragged it towards the wall, where his construction was underway. It was only a basic lean-to, using the wall of Jungle to hold up part of the structure. Sam didn’t need to be fancy, only effective. He continued working on his shelter until his ‘stew’ was hot enough to eat. He returned to his firepit and ate a terrible meal with bitter meat. It still tasted like heaven compared to the flesh of the goblin.

Sam used his magic to set up wards around his campsite. Wards were a type of Ruin magic designed to activate if an enemy came too close. They could be avoided by humans easily if undisguised, but the animals in the jungle seemed to sense mana to find prey… Thus they would be more likely to pounce on the runes than avoid them. To have the bait and trap be the same thing was the truest form of efficiency in Sam’s eyes. Pragmatism incarnate.

Sam climbed into his half-finished lean-to and closed his eyes, forcing himself sleep. Despite being asleep his body was completely aware of his surroundings. Years of sleeping in constant fear of ambush had trained Sam to be able to react to attacks even while unconscious.

Paranoia was an acceptable side effect to safety.

-

Sam’s plan to get through the ‘Jungle’ was simple. He intended to walk along the walls until he found the exit. He was certain the exit would be along one of the walls, and thus now that he had found one he only needed to keep following it. The jungle couldn’t go on endlessly. His understanding of magic and dungeons was top notch after reading about them in both the Introductory Magic book and the Bestiary, and nothing was ever truly infinite.

There was a chance the exit wasn’t along one of the walls, though. Thus Sam opted to build the Lean-to at his starting location. He knew even with his mental mapping he could lose track of where he began his journey. Thus, if he came back to his Lean-to without finding the exit he would know for a fact the exit wasn’t along one of the outer walls...

He was also extremely wary. He knew that if he died he’d have to reconstruct the lean-to from scratch again, and that was something he didn’t want to deal with. Thus, Sam didn’t begin his journey until he was certain he could survive in the Jungle for an extended period of time.