The sun was shining. It felt warm on her skin. She kept her eyes closed for a few seconds, enjoying the sensation. She smiled and opened her eyes, and was immediately greeted by another blue screen.

Welcome to the tutorial. You can view the current status of the tutorial by saying or thinking “Tutorial Status." Your objective for the tutorial is to re-conquer Halsted Forest. You have one hundred days to accomplish this goal. You are one of two hundred aspirants placed in one of ten outlying camps. Halsted Forest is currently occupied by an army of monsters. As you fight your way inwards, you will encounter both increasingly powerful enemies and increasingly valuable rewards. Be wary, however, as the enemy will be able to attack you as well. At the end of the tutorial, you will be further rewarded based on how much you contributed to regaining control over Halsted Forest.

Tutorial Status:

Aspirants Remaining: 2000/2000

Time Remaining: 99 Days | 23 Hours | 58 Minutes

Percentage Conquered: 10%

After carefully reading through both windows, she closed them. She felt a shiver go down her spine at the reason why “Aspirants Remaining” needed to be a category. Before this moment, she hadn’t fully internalized that death was a real possibility in this new world. She didn’t want to die.

She started looking around, hoping for distractions from her thoughts, and found plenty. All around her were people dressed in strange ways. She looked around, seeing a woman dressed in some kind of leather armor, a man dressed in a large blue robe, and a man wearing some kind of chain mail. Actually, the chain mail looked kind of cool, if she was being honest.

Her location was also distracting. She was at the edge of some kind of ruined camp, with a wild, untamed forest behind her. In front of her were dilapidated, poorly maintained shacks surrounded by overgrown grass. She had never seen buildings in such bad shape in person before, and there were a lot of them, scattered about in no discernible pattern. Between two of the shacks was what looked like a path, at least somewhat cleared of grass, leading deeper into the camp.

Was she going to have to stay in these old, disgusting buildings? She reached to adjust her tie, but her fingers fumbled around, not finding it. She froze and looked down.

Just as she had feared when she noticed that her tie was missing, she was wearing a weird outfit instead of her favorite pantsuit. The closest equivalent to her outfit that she could think of was a white karate uniform with added fingerless brown gloves and leather boots. She thinks that it’s called a gi? Whatever it was called, it was not what she wanted to be wearing. She couldn’t believe that the System had stolen her clothes!

She took a deep breath. Out of everything that she was dealing with, including the possibility that she might die fighting an army of monsters, this really felt like it should be a minor concern. Maybe it was just what the clothes represented: the conclusive ending of her old life, the good and the bad. Or maybe she just really liked that suit.

Anyway, there were more important things that she needed to focus on. She needed to figure out what changed when she selected her class. How did she do that again? Of course—she just had to say or think the word Status. She needed to get her head in the game, so to speak. Although personally, she thought that she was adapting really well for someone who had just been given a video-game-esque interface and told that she needed to fight monsters.

“Status," she whispered to herself.

Status:

Name: Karolina Grant

Level: 1

Race: [Human (F)]

Class: [Monk]

Health: 110/110

Stamina: 100/100

Mana: 130/130

Stats:

Str: 11

End: 10

Dex: 13

Con: 11

Int: 12

Wis: 13

Free Points: 1

Not much had changed since she selected Monk as her class. It had shown up as her class, and she had gained the stats from her first level in both her class and her race. She didn’t really feel much different, but she hadn't actually done anything yet and it was doubtful that one or two stat points would make much of a difference, anyway. Now that she’s checked on her status, what’s next?

She looked around. Not much has changed while she was checking her status, which was probably bad. When she started looking into her status, the people she could see were not handling the situation well, and the few minutes that she had spent looking at her status didn’t seem to have improved anyone’s moods.

She could see a woman wearing a blue robe crying into her hands. There was a man and a woman, both wearing heavy leather armor, arguing loudly with each other. She couldn’t even tell what they were arguing about, as they were both so angry and speaking so quickly that it was hard to make out their words. There was another man who seemed to be in shock, who was just staring at one of the cabins without moving.

All of them had strange white glows coming from their chests. Were those their souls? She immediately resolved to never tell anyone that she had the ability to see souls. She didn’t see that working out well for her.

There was only one person that she could see who seemed to be handling the new world as well as she was: a man who appeared to be in his early 20s wearing a blue robe with rolled-up sleeves. He had brown hair, glasses, and an average-looking face that was narrowed in concentration.

He seemed to be experimenting with his skills, repeatedly forming some kind of blue ball of energy in his hands and then releasing it at the ground in front of him. She wasn’t sure how long he had been doing it, but the crater in front of him suggested that he had been doing it for at least a little while.

After he blasted the ground with the ball he was working on, he looked up at all the people and seemed to consider going over to one of them, but then shook his head and looked down again.

She found herself walking toward him. She wanted to know what he had learned from the System and what class he had picked, but the main reason she wanted to talk with him was to prove to herself once and for all that she wasn’t crazy, that this was all actually happening.

He looked up from forming another one of his balls of energy when she got close. She tried to inspect him, just to see if it would work, and was surprised when it did.

Thomas Hargrove: [Human (F) / Magician] - Level 1

“Hello, Thomas," she said when she got close enough to speak. He briefly looked surprised, before his eyes narrowed in realization.

“Hello, Karolina. How very nice to meet you," he replied after a second with a slight smile.

This close, she could see something white and amorphous shifting in his chest. Was that his soul? It looked like a white ball of gel that was constantly shifting and changing. She started to look closer, fascinated, when—

“Karolina?” Thomas repeated, causing her to jerk her head back towards his face.

“Sorry, I have a million thoughts racing through my head right now,” she apologized, trying to fight down her embarrassed blush.

“I understand completely. This is all so fascinating, isn’t it? Magic is real, or at least is now real, which throws out everything we thought we knew about the world. Who wouldn’t have a lot on their mind right now?” he asked.

She gave a brief smile at his torrent of words. “Yes, it is all very interesting. Anyway, as you know, my name is Karolina, and I’m a corporate... mediator," she chuckled to herself. “Well, I was a corporate mediator. Now I’m a monk."

“I used to be a college student, even had a 4.0. Now I’m a magician. This is a very strange world that we find ourselves in, isn’t it?” Thomas replied.

“Anyway, I wanted to know what questions you were able to ask the System before you ran out of time. You seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and like you’re more put together than anyone else here, so I wanted to ask you first,” she said. Hopefully stroking his ego would make him more likely to help her.

He seemed to puff up a bit before he replied. He went on to explain how he had asked numerous questions about mana and magic before he ran out of time. It seemed that there were innumerable types of mana, from fire mana to gravity mana to more. The world was naturally full of mana, with certain types of mana being created by certain environments. He insisted that even though they couldn’t currently see mana, that would change as they grew in levels and eventually evolved into a higher grade of human.

Different types of mana had different properties, and skills that used mana made use of those properties along with the raw power inherent in all mana. Every human had a pool of pure mana, which could be converted into other types of mana through the application of effort, mana control, and the correct type of visualization. His class got a skill to do it—Convert Mana (F)—but according to the System anyone could learn how to convert their mana.

After he finished with his explanation, he looked proudly at her. She could see why he had apparently been so successful at college, with how articulate and eager to please he was. In turn, she started to explain the advice that she had been given by the System.

In comparison with his long-winded explanation, hers felt short and lacking in detail. Class evolutions are based on accomplishments. Skills can be upgraded, and here are the different methods of doing so. Despite the brevity of her explanation, he seemed fascinated, and she could tell that he was itching for a notebook and pencil to write down what she was saying.

She liked him, she abruptly realized. This prideful boy who was so full of excitement and curiosity at the new world they found themselves in. He didn’t even seem to realize the danger that they were all in, what “Aspirants Remaining'' implied about what they were going to face.

“Stick with me, and I’ll keep you safe,” she found herself saying. His eyebrows raised questioningly. “We’ll learn more about this new world and get through the tutorial, together."

He still seemed a little confused, but he nodded. Good. Before she could say anything else, life interrupted.

Her new ally pointed behind her. “It seems that everyone is starting to gather together in the center of the camp."

He was right. It didn't seem organized—more like some people had started to gather in the center of this ruined camp, and then the rest had started to head there to see what all the fuss was about.

“We might as well join them,” she said flippantly, and started to walk toward the growing crowd with Thomas by her side. He seemed content to walk in silence and leave her to her thoughts, which she was thankful for. Was this going to be her chance to be a leader? In the old world, she had always wanted to be able to change the world for the better. Would her path to greatness start here, when she calmed down this crowd of people and motivated them to work together?

As she got to the edge of the crowd and saw the size of it, however, she started to feel faint. Earlier, two hundred people hadn’t sounded like a lot, but that was before she saw them all in one place. The small space in the center of the camp was absolutely teeming with people.

The crowd had an energy to it—a kind of discontented anger and helplessness. The despondency that she had seen earlier had transformed into anger, with people talking in low, heated voices with violent gestures. Karolina might have liked finding herself in a world governed by the System, even preferred it to their old world, but that was not the case for these people. On the whole, people liked their lives, and didn’t appreciate being torn away from it and their loved ones.

She wasn’t sure if she could do this—put herself out there and tell these people that it was all going to be okay, that they needed to work together to survive this. She had never given a speech, or even made a presentation in front of more than thirty people or so.

She bolstered her resolve. She couldn’t let her nervousness stop her. This new world was an opportunity to be great, to be able to help people the way that she had always wanted to, and one didn’t become great by being a coward.

She practiced her opening line and major points a bit in her head, and then, just as she was about to start making her way through the crowd, she saw the man in the chain-mail armor again. After a brief survey of the crowd, it seemed that he was the only one who was actually wearing chain mail in the whole camp. He was carrying some kind of old wooden table, and was heading toward the side of the crowd.

People made way for him, some apparently recognizing him and others just wanting to be out of the way of the table. Finally, he got to the center of the crowd, and managed to clear enough space for him to set down the table and get up onto it. It should have looked comical, a large man wearing chain mail fumbling to get on top of a table, but he managed to make it look graceful.

Karolina hurriedly inspected him, trying to figure out who he was and what he was doing. She didn’t like what she found. He had already gained a level? And why did the name James Buckley sound so familiar?

James Buckley: [Human (F) / Sergeant] - Level 2

After he had finished climbing on top of the table, James Buckley put his hands at his sides and slowly walked in a circle on top of the table. People in the crowd started quieting down, sensing that something was about to happen. Finally, when the crowd was quiet enough, he spoke.

“Hello everyone. My name is James Buckley, and I am a senator for the great state of Virginia. I am sorry to confirm that this is all really happening. I have conferred with enough of you that I know that everyone here had the same experience, ripped from our lives by some magical force that seems to call itself the System. However, all is not lost. If we are all able to work together, I am sure that we will be able to survive this and find a way back home. We will find a way back to our lives, back to our homes, and back to our families. If we...” His voice, the clear and strong voice of a practiced orator, started to fade into static for Karolina.

As he continued, Karolina stared at his face. He was older, maybe in his forties but still handsome, in the same way that most politicians are handsome: a strong jaw, chiseled good looks, and a full head of blond hair. He had broad shoulders and looked especially shiny in his armor.

How dare he steal her moment from her? She had worked up her courage, figured out what she needed to say to convince these people to work together to thrive in this world, and then he had just stolen her spotlight.

She was angry not just because he had taken her opportunity, but because he was leading them in the completely wrong direction. Finding a way back home, back to their old lives? That was impossible, and it meant that people would just hold out hope that they could go home without actually working to get used to this new world.

She had never really had an enemy before, but James Buckley seemed as good a place as any to start.

She tuned back in just as he was finishing his speech. “...and I believe that, as long as we are all able to work together, we will be able to withstand this tutorial and anything that it throws at us!”

As if his last sentence was a pre-arranged signal, the crowd broke into cheers. Gone were the angry looks and barely constrained violence that had been ubiquitous in the crowd before the speech had begun. Now, everyone in the crowd seemed re-energized and, if not happy, at least not going to immediately start a brawl.

She glanced to her side, expecting Thomas to be in the same good cheer as the rest of the crowd, but he surprised her. His soul was almost vibrating, which she could somehow tell meant he was very irritated.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not liking the speech?”

“I’ve never really liked politicians. Plus, he’s focusing on all the wrong things. I am absolutely positive that it is impossible to escape this tutorial, or to go back to the way things used to be. If the System is able to teleport us all and give us magic abilities, then it is so close to omnipotent that there is no chance of us succeeding in opposing it. Also, I don’t know why anyone would want to: this new world has mana and magic. The magic we can discover, the incredible feats that we will be able to perform—this new world is way better than the old one,” Thomas finished, finally done spewing the torrent of words that had clearly been building up over the course of the speech.

Karolina looked at him in shock. She had thought that he was just handling the transition better than the others, that he was putting a brave face on and doing his best to accept this new world. Now, however, she saw how truly glad he was that this had happened. He was so excited by the possibilities of magic that he didn’t miss his old life at all. She could relate to that.

“This new world is way better than the old one. We’ll make sure of it,” she said, turning away from her friend to stare daggers at Buckley.