Over the next two weeks, Dante had a surprisingly well-structured schedule. He would attempt to move his tail every morning for an hour or so, search for portal crystals until nightfall, then spend the rest of the evening learning basic methods to control his soul force.

It was oddly therapeutic despite the random hawk screeches. They echoed off of the mountains, creating a haunting sound that lingered too long for comfort. His only consolation was that they became less frequent with each teleportation. Now there were only two or three in a day, but he was usually well hidden in a cave or under the tree line when he heard them.

Dante didn’t know how far each teleportation took him, but they seemed to vary significantly in the distance they took him. Sometimes he would appear a few kilometres away, his current location and the last separated by only a single mountain. As for other times, they would teleport him so far that even the type of tree in the area would change.

That was also when he realised the tutorial grounds weren’t on earth. First it was the purple trees, their trunks looking like amethyst coloured flesh. Then it was the fruit, most of which were like nothing he had ever seen. Apples with soft, pink flesh that tasted like pear, limes full of beads that tasted like watermelon, and he even found some fruit with green skin and the texture of stone, only for its insides to taste like a creamy peach.

But in the end, he could discount those as rare fruits that he’d just never heard of. What he couldn’t ignore, however, was the size of the mountain range. Dante had teleported across at least one hundred mountains and had counted peaks in the hundreds. That didn’t sound too large, but Earth’s most extensive mountain range only had around a hundred peaks.

Wherever he was, this mountain range was probably over ten times larger than the broadest mountain range on Earth. So, in his curiosity, he had asked Laurelai about it... which he now regretted since he already had the answer. He had just forgotten about it in the heat of the moment.

“You should have gotten a notification about being sent to a tutorial space or tutorial grounds, right? It should have popped up before you were teleported into the tutorial.”

Dante soon found what she was talking about by scrolling to his earliest notifications.

[Congratulations! You have been deemed a Peak-grade talent. Unique, Elite-grade tutorial grounds will be allocated.]

He expected the tutorial grounds to be some location on earth, not a separate planet. But to his shock and disgust, that wasn’t technically right either, according to Laurelai.

“This isn’t a ‘planet’. At least not anymore, I don’t think,” Laurelai muttered, looking around on reflex as they walked through a valley of orchids the size of trees. “It was at one point, but they lost that right when they failed to adapt.”

As they walked, Laurelai spotted a stream of glacier water passing through the valley. It was roughly a few metres across and half a metre deep, almost perfect to bathe in.

“Lost?” Dante asked with interest, sitting down and putting his sore feet into the river. “Did the system designate it as a moon or something?”

“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Laurelai said, diving off of his shoulder into the stream. “First of all, the system arrives at a planet and awakens its World Core. Now that there’s energy, granting most creatures the ability to use the system, it sends everyone into a tutorial.”

“As for the tutorial itself, there are three distinct stages. If your race passes all three, you become official members of the multiverse and get released back onto your newly improved world. The system then challenges your race, and each time you succeed, major rewards are granted. The most beneficial is, of course, the grade increase that boosts the energy density of your world. Food becomes more abundant, resources grow exponentially, and increasing your rank is so easy that almost everyone can do it.”

“What happens if you don’t pass all three?”

“If your race fails the tutorial, that means you aren’t even in the door yet. You’re the leftover grime beneath the trash pile. Failing on the third stage means that your entire planet is enslaved, turning them into gifts for higher civilisations.”

“Slaves? You can’t be serious?”

Laurelai giggled. “That’s not even the worst one. If you fail the second phase of the tutorial, the world is transformed into a tutorial space like this one. The mantle is ripped off the core, teleported into an alternate dimension, and left inside as a flat plane of land for other tutorials to use. It’s kind of that awkward area where your people are too useless to be effective slaves but too useful to be scrapped for parts.”

“That’s… horrifying,” Dante said, hopping into the stream. He was thinking of rinsing himself off, but he was too shocked to continue. “So there are people in this place as well? Just waiting to die, locked inside this place like animals waiting to be culled for the growth of new members?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Better than slavery in my opinion. Too much of a gamble when you can be sent to a mining colony for the rest of your life or trained as a personal servant to the aristocracy.”

“That’s… That’s just too….”

“Ruthlessly pragmatic? Well, better hope your people complete the first stage at the very least. It’s definitely the worst to fail on.”

Dante almost opened his mouth to ask, but the words caught in his throat. If failing on an earlier stage resulted in worse consequences, then how bad was a failure on the first stage? It was the worst result a race could have, but that was only because they couldn’t possibly fail before then.

Laurelai smirked, kicking up some water as she did backstroke past him. “I see you’re interested? Well, let’s just say that you’ll find a lot of interesting items on the multiversal markets.”

Dante held his tongue. He really didn’t want to know.

“So if you fail, you either become a slave or a captive. What happens to the planet and the animals? Are they also captured and used for parts?”

“Instead of your planet being upgraded, it’s left as is. Civilisations that fail the second and third phases of the tutorial have the surface of their world ripped up while the animals are sent to new worlds. Since the surface is ripped up, it then leaves the dissected world to be repopulated through natural evolution. It’s almost like pest removal, but on a planetary scale. As for the planets of the first phase? Stripped for parts and repurposed since the system considers them defective to raise such a useless species.”

It was incredibly unsettling to think about the millions, maybe even billions of people locked in this custom tutorial with him. Did they know he was here, and did they know they were trapped in some kind of limbo, all kept healthy and alive to fuel his growth?

Dante shivered as he realised that there was a genuine chance he would join them soon.

If it was based on individual merit, Dante would feel much better about passing the tutorial. But he already knew it wasn’t based on personal achievements. It was based on the collective ability of an entire race, and that worried him immensely.

He really didn’t put much stock into the general population. People had two instinctual responses to danger; run or fight. The first time people came across a beast, over half of the population may end up dead before they even figured out that they needed to fight back. And once they did try to resist… could they?

Almost no one knew how to use a weapon, and only a slightly bigger share of the population was physically fit and healthy. The last time he checked, obesity rates were around forty percent, meaning almost half of all people could not fight back. Also, a decent chunk of the population was either elderly or under fifteen, the age you had to be to join the system and start training.

There was a very real chance that they might actually fail the tutorial and turn into the system’s version of farm animals. Very, very real if less than twenty percent of the population was made up of fit and healthy people. That was it. As for the people who could fight, were smart enough to fend for themselves, and survive their first encounter with a beast?

Things weren’t looking good.

Laurelai swam around him in circles. “If you want my advice, you should learn to detach yourself from any empathy you may have. If they aren’t your direct family, friends, or subordinates, don’t do anything for anyone unless you profit from the interaction. Don’t even dare to feel bad for anyone, and if you do, don’t let it sway your rational mind. It may very well cause your death.”

Dante frowned, biting his lip in frustration. “This… I don’t know if I can do it, Laurelai.”

“Your safety and survival are the number one priority,” Laurelai said, her voice low, “and you better not forget that. Who cares if someone you’ve never met before dies? It’s inevitable, Dante. Especially during the tutorial. The multiverse is cruel beyond belief, and war is a universal constant. Across the multiverse, the population of your entire planet is dying in battle every second.”

“I just can’t wrap my head around it all,” Dante muttered, splashing his face with some icy cold water. “The need for death and violence is just so… evil to me. Didn’t you say that everyone can level up by meditating to absorb the primal aura? Why become a dictator when you can avoid all that trouble and strife?”

“How hypocritical,” Laurelai mumbled, splashing him in the face with a little spurt of water. “You realise that your race is fighting all the time, right? There are tens of conflicts going on across planet Earth right now, and all your people are fighting for is money, resources to make money, or some stupid ideal like freedom or to resist some despot. As for the rest of the multiverse? They’re all fighting for immortality, and even if they don’t reach it, those who are successful in their war campaigns can still live for millions of years.”

Dante opened his mouth to argue, but he didn’t have anything to say. The people of Earth had no real reason to fight. If they needed food, water, or land, they could obtain it all without violence. There was no need for it. Everyone could theoretically live in peace, working together so that people could live long, healthy, and happy lives.

And yet, reality was just not like that at all.

If it came down to it, the needs and desires were the same between them. All wars were fought for profit or for power, but a war under the purview of the system was fought for profit, power, and life. And with enough of it, people would be able to live for so long that they would get bored of it.

***

The next day, after two weeks of teleporting across the mountain range in an effort to escape from the hawks, Dante and Laurelai came across a doorway in the forest. There was no building around it or even a single tree, leaving it to stand on its own in the middle of the grassy clearing. It was a rectangular frame of pale brown wood, but the door itself was missing, replaced by nothing more than a blindingly white void.

A portal, then.

“Finally, the gate to the second stage.”

He would have to be a fool to not realise what it was, but he was secretly thankful that Laurelai could confirm his guess. The last thing he wanted to do was walk into some kind of death trap.

As for going through the portal… Well, napping in front of the doorway was a boar the size of a sedan. It was laying on a nest of leaves under the light of the sun, letting out little oinks as it breathed. Dante would probably find it cute if it wasn’t up to his chest while it slept on its side.

He had seen similar boars across the forest valleys over the past fortnight, but they were all up to his knee in height and were very cute. This one, however, had tusks that were bigger than his torso and a body large enough to easily trample him to death.

It was obvious what the system wanted him to do, so Dante and Laurelai retreated in order to quickly sort out a plan. He didn’t have much to work with training for less than a month, but that didn’t mean he was useless in a fight anymore. Laurelai had helped him learn a lot over the last few weeks, and he was ready to see how effective his new skill was.

After sorting out a basic plan of attack, Dante felt his pulse quicken as he skulked through the forest. There was no technique or skill to his approach. He simply crawled around the trees and bushes, staying low to the ground as he kept a close watch on his surroundings. If he made a single mistake, such as stepping on a twig or rustling the bushes with his passing, the boar would almost definitely wake up.

Even before the system’s touch warped this fragment of a world, any regular boar would get startled by even the tiniest of noises. Now, however, every living creature was empowered by an unbelievable degree. Even before the system, many animals had a sense of sight and smell that was thousands of times greater than a human’s. According to Laurelai, those unique traits only became more refined and sensitive as they levelled up.

He had to account for a lot in his approach, including the direction of the wind and even the intensity of his footsteps. Thumping over to the beast, even if he didn’t make any noise, would almost definitely alert it through the vibrations in the earth.

So, after twenty minutes of crawling through the forest on his hands and knees, constantly circling around the boar to avoid the changing direction of the wind, Dante finally made it to the edge of the clearing. He peaked out from behind a typical tree with a broad, earthen brown trunk and made a guess that he was roughly ten or so metres away from its sleeping form.

The distance was perfect.

Dante looked behind him to see Laurelai floating within arm’s reach behind his head. She was all but intangible to anyone aside from him, a known rule to ensure that the guides couldn’t interfere with the tutorial. However, it soon became an incredibly useful tool when he figured out a few ways to bend the rules.

Nodding in her direction, Laurelai got the message and buzzed over his head. It took her all but a second to fly a few loops around the boar, even going close enough to stroke its matted, dirt-covered fur. Once she was done, she stopped above the boar’s head with her hand under her chin in thought, but whatever she was pondering on didn’t stop her from giving him a thumbs up.

Dante smirked for a moment, thinking it was funny that she refused to talk since it might ruin his focus. Her attempt at not distracting him had effectively distracted him more than shouting might have, but he quickly regained his focus as he began to collect his soul force.

If he wanted to be fast, he could pour out a cloud of soul force in seconds at the expense of straining his mind. But if he took his time and prepared the techniques at a healthy pace, the strain on his mental facilities would be a tenth of rushing out a skill.

After pulling out a shimmering ball of soul force the size of his head, Dante began to pull on two opposite ends. They stretched and stretched until the ball turned into a rectangular bubble. Then, he began to flatten out the edges until he was left with nothing more than the blade of a knife.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hidden Blade has grown to Level 2!

The thing was simple to the extreme, lacking a hilt, curvature, or anything that didn’t help cut an enemy. There was only one sharpened edge, leaving everything else to the wayside so that it looked like a poorly made rendition of a knife.

A knife made of glass.

It was the best he could do at the moment. When he became more experienced in controlling his soul force, Laurelai claimed he should be able to create a handle and a hilt, increase the size, and even make it into a specific type of bladed weapon. But if he tried to do any of those now, the skill would fall apart.

Dante readied himself before standing up from behind the tree, a forearm length blade hovering behind his head. Since his control decreased the further away his soul force was from his body, he had to approach the boar. If not, the blade would simply disperse into a gentle gust of wind before it even managed to cut it. So, with the Hidden Blade in front of him, Dante sucked in a breath as he rushed the boar.

The lumbering giant sat up in an instant, but it was too weary to do anything besides turning its head to look at him. This was his first advantage they had accounted for in their plan. Since it was the biggest and strongest creature besides the hawks, Laurelai guessed it would never expect a sneak attack. The hawks usually avoided the outskirts of the mountain range, and since the only other creatures here were normal goats, it was basically napping in its own home.

With a stomp of his foot, Dante skidded to a halt as he raised his arm above his head like an executioner, the fingers of his right hand straightening into a chopping gesture. Then, with the Hidden Blade hovering above his fingers as though it was extending out from them, Dante chopped down onto the boar’s neck.

Although his hand missed the boar since he was standing a metre to its side, a glint of light followed the simple gesture and slammed down into the back of its neck. A wet thud echoed out through the peaceful forest, but to Dante’s surprise, it was soon followed by an enraged squeal. Instead of the scene he expected to see, the blade only managed to sink a few centimetres into the beast’s flesh before it lost its momentum.

Dante willed the blade out of the beast’s neck as it jumped up, leaving a thin trail of blood to dribble down its fur. He expected more, but that was the only thought he could muster as the boar flicked its head to the side, knocking him back with more force than he thought possible.

Dante rolled across the clearing until he crashed into the trunk of a tree, something audibly cracking as his ribcage took the brunt of the hit. He rolled onto his back and took a shuddering breath as he got his bearings, immediately feeling a few stabbing pains in his left ribs. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain, only just managing to keep the Hidden Blade from dissipating.

It hovered above his head in a slow orbit, the edge of the blade already chipped and blunted from one attack.

The world was still spinning when he heard the deep, rhythmic thumping of hooves as they rapidly closed in on him. Dante felt a moment of indecision as his mind caught up, but he still managed to leap forward into a roll, getting out of the way just before the boar crashed headfirst into the trunk of the tree he had been thrown into.

By the time Dante managed to orient himself, the gust of wind from the boar’s passing had caught up to the creature, tugging on his clothes and ruffling his hair. He quickly got onto his feet as the boar lay still on its belly, stunned from charging headfirst into a solid tree. He felt a sense of triumph intermixed with relief as the tree, which was wide enough for him to barely wrap his arms around, creaked and groaned before it fell in the opposite direction of the boar.

If he didn’t leap out of the boar’s way on instinct, he would have definitely turned into mush.

Dante took a deep breath as he gathered his focus, raising his arm up above his head. The Hidden Blade glided through the air before orienting itself with his hand. It was still chipped from the first strike and would likely break from another strike, but it was what the situation demanded. He would need to finish off the boar now if he didn’t want the situation to turn deadly, so without any hesitation, Dante swung his hand down onto the boar’s wounded neck with as much precision as he could.

A sickening crunch sounded out as the Hidden Blade bit into the boar’s exposed flesh. It was soon followed by a spray of hot blood as the blade shattered, dissipating into a wave of force inside the boar’s neck.

The pressure shoved the wound apart, creating another spray of blood that stained the grass for metres around it. Dante knew that the boar was done for. Nothing survived having its spinal cord severed like that, so thinking that it was well and truly dead, he began to create another Hidden Blade to start dismembering the thing for food.

Once he was done, he pointed the Hidden Blade at the boar’s neck, but as it stabbed into the creature’s fur, it opened its eyes and leapt at him with its teeth bared.