Serenity reluctantly cut back on his Trial runs to only the ones needed to help other students. He’d finished all of the available Trials once anyway. Since he still couldn’t take a Tier 1 Path and Human was a completely uninteresting Tier 0 Path, he didn’t feel the need to push XP until he completed his Core and - hopefully - was able to take a Tier 1 Path.

Many students seemed to have decided to do Athletic Trials instead of Dungeon Trials, which he didn’t feel the need to help with. The few that were still doing Dungeon trials didn’t need much help, so the entire group was either re-doing dungeons or finding other things to do in the afternoon. Doyle, Nightwitch, and Liyudao all set themselves the goal of soloing all of the dungeons, but Echo and Lancaster didn’t seem to care.

Serenity spent most of the extra time in classes - teaching or learning. Any spare moment he had was spent at the practice arena, training with Kerr or one of the other instructors. He was busy from sunup to sundown every day.

He tried not to think about everything that was going on, or about Rissa. Staying busy helped.

Day 17 was the first day the new Trial was available - so obviously the group of friends had to try it. It was called the Strategy Trial.

As a group, the friends had to command a group of heroes defending a town from invaders. They were told the setup was always similar, but the invaders were different. They were not permitted to join in the combat themselves - this was a test of their command ability, not their combat ability.

The invaders they ended up with was waves of unintelligent beasts - monsters, but very basic ones. They had little time to grow the town before the waves hit, and each wave depleted their resources a little more. The group desperately blocked holes and rebuilt barricades, while sending their defenders to sequentially overrun the hordes as they hit the walls.

It was close-fought and much of the town was destroyed, but they won in the end.

Strategy Trial Complete

5 Participants

Trial Rewards: 200 XP, 200 Ev

After the battle was over, Sillon told Serenity that it was the only Trial type where people couldn’t directly die from the Trial itself. Even the Athletic Trial was more deadly than the Strategy Trial. If you failed a Strategy Trial - well, if it wasn’t mandatory you could just leave, but it wouldn’t count as a completed Trial. If it was mandatory, you’d just be sent back in to retake the Trial until you succeeded. It was training.

Serenity knew it would be popular. It was highly reminiscent of strategy games, after all.

There was even less reason for him to spend his afternoons at the Trial arena than before.

That afternoon, Nightwitch asked him if he’d be interested in spending some time outside the camp. She’d done some of the “gathering” activities to see what they were about, and told him that that land was worth seeing.

She was right. It was beautiful.

Serenity didn’t even have to be looking for anything to enjoy walking around. He was able to see where people were working outside - a few hunters, but mostly people looking for interesting edibles. The one thing he didn’t see was people gathering metal, but hopefully that would be handled in the short term by dungeons and existing mining. Long term … well, everything would be different long term as the world changed.

He kept an eye out as he wandered, but he didn’t see any trees with shimmering fruit. It was too bad; they were the best thing he’d found for his Core yet, and no more had appeared for sale, either.

It wasn’t until late that evening that Serenity realized there was a good chance that Nightwitch had probably invited him into the countryside for a reason other than seeing the countryside. He wasn’t entirely sure, since Nightwitch hadn’t pushed at all. Maybe there hadn’t been an ulterior motive?

Serenity replaced his afternoon activities with walking outside the camp. One or more of his friends always went with him - even if he didn’t invite them, someone would show up a few minutes after he left camp. After the first few times, Serenity gave up on trying to avoid them; it gave him time to talk to them one-on-one in a more relaxed atmosphere, and even Echo was willing to be quiet when he needed space.

He missed Rissa. She'd have enjoyed the walks. She'd always enjoyed when they spent time outside, just the two of them together. Periodically, he’d see something, turn to point it out to Rissa, and realize she wasn’t there. He’d show it to whoever was with him, but it wasn’t the same.

Going outside to explore every day was good for Serenity. He enjoyed finding new things he hadn’t seen before, even if they weren’t directly useful - perhaps especially when they weren’t useful. The peace and quiet finally made him relax in a way he hadn’t since he woke up from that “dream”.

Perhaps it wouldn’t all be horror and blood and striving to prevent destruction.

The exploration also made him realize just how artificial the Tutorial area was. Sometimes, he’d revisit an area only to find that the landscape had changed a little - usually the plant life, but sometimes the shape of the land itself would shift. He also noticed that every day was a clear, calm spring day with a cloudless sky.

When did it rain?

Yet the plants all did fine.

Day 20 was spent as an instructor watching people do the Strategy Trial. Serenity was surprised by many of the groups; people he would have assumed would be terrible were excellent, while people who were otherwise capable got hung up on the wrong details or simply missed things - like gaping holes in walls. There were fewer people stuck in the mandatory Trials now that there were more options, but the Strategy Trial was the longest one yet, so he was still busy all day.

Oddly enough, as an instructor Serenity got the same reward for each Trial - even the ones the groups failed. The reward was very low, but then the reward for doing the Trial as a student wasn’t that great either.

On Day 23, Serenity and Echo found a small pyramid-shaped building. It looked like something that should be familiar to Serenity, but he couldn’t place it. One of the walls had what looked like a door, but there was no handle. Serenity pressed his hand against it.

[Tutorial Great Dungeon Found]

[Entry Requirements: Phase 3 of Tutorial OR completion of all Tutorial Dungeon Trials]

[Requirements met]

[Dungeon Rules]

[Enter dungeon?]

Serenity focused on the Dungeon Rules

[Tutorial Great Dungeon Rules]

[Maximum Party Size: Unlimited]

[Dungeon is instanced. Separate parties will face different challenges and cannot interact]

[Entire party must enter together]

[Some or all of a party may leave at the entrance or exit of each floor]

[Party members may return to an existing instance separately]

[To proceed to a new floor in the same instance the entire party must be inside the dungeon]

[Entry with an altered party will reset the dungeon instance]

[Dungeon difficulty and rewards increase with increased depth]

Serenity remembered a dungeon being the last stage of the Tutorial. He’d never known it could be entered early. He seemed to remember that it had a lot more items than dungeons outside the Trial, though they were all minor overall. It would be good to get in there and see what they could get.

It was too late tonight, but he’d be back in a couple days - with the rest of his group, if he could. The one concern he had was the lack of a healer. Some of the floors could get pretty big, and without a healer it would be difficult to clear them in a single attempt. He’d soloed his way down the first time, but it hadn't been easy making it to the end with the only healing coming from potions.

On the way back into camp, both Serenity and Echo were greeted with arrows. Something alerted Serenity, and he moved to intercept the one aimed for Echo - she couldn’t take an arrow the way he could.

The one aimed at his head hit his shoulder instead, while the one aimed for Echo tore through the armor on his right forearm. That piece of armor would need to be replaced, but all told it was a minor injury, since it would stop bleeding soon. The one in his shoulder was a much more dangerous - potentially debilitating - hit. His left arm wasn’t quite moving right. In some ways, it was bad it wasn't worse; if it had been worse, his tattoo might have activated and prevented it. Instead, he'd have to depend on his healing to get his arm working again.

Echo screamed. It was an astonishingly loud noise that was more painful than the arrows.

Serenity suddenly realized what had alerted him to their danger - the two men carrying wood back to the camp nearby had dropped the wood. They were charging at Serenity and Echo. One had a sword drawn, while the other seemed to be holding his in the scabbard.

The two men weren’t the archers. The archers were farther out - likely instructors again, since they had been accurate at an incredible range.

With Echo screaming as loud as she was, Serenity only had to hold the attackers off for a short time. They were near the camp. Help would be coming.

Serenity reached up with his right hand and pulled the arrow out of his shoulder. It did a lot more damage coming out than if it were carefully removed, and he was bleeding quickly - the arrowhead had nicked a major vein. He was going to have to depend on his healing to take care of that quickly, or he’d be in trouble.

[Pain Resistance increased]

It also hurt. A lot. Not that he was going to let that stop him.

Serenity drew his knives and prepared to meet the charge. A second arrow was incoming at him, and he dove out of the way. He realized he should have gone the other way when it scraped his back armor while he was still in the air instead of completely missing.

His dive meant there wasn’t anyone between the two men and Echo. One of them - the one with his sword still sheathed - grabbed for her, but she dodged and sliced at his hand with her knife. Serenity finally got a good look at the man and realized it was Macho.

Serenity hadn’t realized Macho was even in the Tutorial, though as he thought that it occurred to him that he should have known. Macho had been taken to the same hospital as Serenity, after all.

“Don’t let him grab you!” He didn’t want Echo to become a hostage.

“I know!”

The other man - the one Serenity hadn’t gotten a good look at yet - slashed his sword towards Serenity’s leg, where he didn’t have any armor. Fortunately, he seemed to expect Serenity to stop when he hit the ground, and ended up hitting the open air behind Serenity’s foot as he turned the dive into a roll to his feet.

The bleeding from his shoulder had already stopped, but Serenity could feel that the landing and roll had torn something loose. He wouldn’t be able to get the strength out of his left arm he was used to unless he gave it some time to heal.

He turned to face the unknown man and after a moment recognized him - it was Raymond, the man who shot Serenity early in the Tutorial. “I hoped you would learn!”

Raymond yelled back at him “I did!” as he threw something soft at Serenity with the hand that wasn’t holding his sword.

Serenity cursed at himself for stupidity and almost managed to dodge it, but Raymond was simply too close and he hadn’t been expecting it. The pillow-like object smacked Serenity on the calf.

Serenity collapsed to the ground as his entire leg locked up in a giant muscle spasm.