Volume I - History's Longest Tutorial

A day and a half after the dinner. In game. The bay of Suchi, one of Saana's Starting Zones.

A convoy of merchant ships from Chayoka broke the horizon as they sailed into the harbour. Each vessel flew the same ash-grey flag, and on the deck of each, a similar scene was taking place. Hearing the news of their imminent arrival, players and NPCs alike had begun to flood out of the lower levels of the ships to catch their first glimpse of Suchi.

From the shoreline, the terrain rose very gently to a peak of around fifty metres about a kilometre inland. On top of this small crest was built the Central City of Suchi with its magnificent, imposing red walls of magic-reinforced clay, and a spectacular tower in the centre topped by a chamber of 360-degree glass. In contrast to the city's opulence, it was surrounded by vast slum of hundreds of thousands of haphazardly-constructed shacks. Positioned as they were below and around the much wealthier city, these shacks might have made for a depressing view like a bunch of desperate famine-sufferers clawing for rations; however, this sad impression was mitigated by thousands of sky-scraping pillars dotted around the slum, erected by its proud inhabitants.

Aside from a river to the west and a small settlement on one forested bank, in all other directions, the land resembled the savannas of Africa during the dry season. To the horizon, a flat land of crimson clay was dominated by dehydrated yellowgrass and the occasional sickly acacia. With a telescope, a passenger on the boats sailing into the bay would be able to see a strange sight in the distance, as tens of thousands of madmen and madwomen in loincloths wrestled with a herd of Golden-Horned Wildebeest. With the naked eye, however, this crazy game was just a small cloud of blood-red dust.

The passengers on each ship felt a swelling in their hearts at the approaching vision of this rugged land called Suchi. In the depths of the eyes of many players returning shone a nostalgic glimmer for the trials survived in the harsh contest between the city, the surrounding slums, and the romantic savannah. The eyes of newcomers meanwhile also sparkled with the anticipation of their own heroic struggles.

The glances of a few gazing at this strange place, however, were not so positive.

Henry, disguised with an avatar completely different from his real-world teen appearance, stood staring on the deck of one ship with the hood of a cloak drawn covertly over his head, his brow creased in a deep, frustrated frown.

He sighed.

Here it was, Suchi, the battleground for his final adventure in Saana. Suchi, the most trash zone in this most trash of games, a backwater garbage-heap plagued by rats and noobs and criminals, a miserable shithole.

Suchi...

But what would be gained by fixating on this region's problems?

For the next two weeks, Henry's sole focus was winning the wager with his frenemy. His task was to train himself back into fighting shape, place top 10 in his guild's recruitment duelling tournament, and then return to his blissful retirement of Wu-Wei, the philosophy of Non-Doing. That would be his sole focus.

Towards this single goal, one surprise twist had already been thrown in.

Unknown to Henry, whose past responsibilities had been too large to pay attention to this insignificant zone, there'd been a recent shift in the regional political situation. The Slum part of Suchi had previously been ruled by warring gangs of player and NPC ruffians. It'd since been unified in the past six months. The victorious gang, led by an Argentinian mastermind, Ramiro—known locally as 'The Saviour'—had restructured and rebranded themselves to gain legitimacy into a pseudo-empire. The conquered gangs were now stylised as 'Kingdoms', 'Duchies', 'Villages'.

Most of that was irrelevant to Henry, but, as part of the reforms of 'King Ramiro' creating a Hogwarts-style inter-'Kingdom' competition, new players were both encouraged to linger in Suchi, a Starting Zone they should have promoted beyond within a week or two, and to participate in Henry's recruitment tournament to win something called 'Slum Points'. Consequently, the number of noobs to be pummelled had expanded from the anticipated five-thousand to a hundred thousand. This would make the top 10 finish agreed upon for the bet much more challenging.

Alex, aware of Henry's habit of ignoring this dogshit zone, had duped him.

As the ship he was riding approached Suchi's dockyards, the captain reversed the direction of a magically-summoned wind billowing in its sails, causing the vessel to quickly slow down. Below on the pier, dozens of broad-shouldered workmen were awakening their muscles with stretches, and guards and customs officers were waiting to inspect the arriving passengers and goods. A group of local ruffians or 'Villagers' on the deck beside Henry leapt off the prow to beat the rest of them.

"I’m free! Finally!" yelled a jumping player of the Fighter Class, before he tripped on the edge of the boat, slammed his head against the dock, and flopped clumsily into the sea.

As his friends fished him out, they all broke into laughter.

Henry sighed.

This place...

These people...

He couldn’t help thinking of an adventurer’s proverb he’d coined right now. ‘As the journey ends, the troubles begin.’

These fools did not know that the true oppression was awaiting them on the land they were sprinting so enthusiastically towards.

But as Henry watched the burly dockworkers hauling over a portable staircase, he put an end to these useless complaints and refocused himself on the wager.

The bet with Alex was all that mattered.

Since learning of his frenemy's deception, during the voyage here, Henry'd countered by arranging an elaborate surveillance apparatus to monitor his multiplied competitors and note their exploitable habits and weakness. Now, five-thousand, hundred-thousand, a million, no matter how many noobs this universe tossed at him, all that would change would be the number of teeth knocked out by his all-knowing, cheap-shotting fists. The wretched youths of Suchi would tremble before him as before an oracle, a monster predicting their every (pre-documented) combo.

Was this morally cheating? Yes.

Was this technically cheating? Also yes.

Did Henry care? No.

Who was he to trip on such a petty barrier as the rules of an amateur duelling tournament? He was The Invincible Cripple, The Supreme Cheat Magnet, The Cockroach, The Weevil, The Mouse, The Hydra, he was The...well, everyone knew the last title. The point was that, in the years of tiresome climbing through which he'd earned these many epithets, it hadn't been by playing according to anyone else's rules that he'd reached the summit. Even his own rules, in his own recruitment tournament, could not restrain him.

Fraudantum brevis, victoria aeternis, as the ancient Romans used to regularly say. Cheating is brief; victory is forever.

When the dockworkers finished attaching the staircase, Henry joined the throng of disembarking passengers, the travellers in happy spirits to finally stretch their feet along more space than the crowded deck and cargo bay.

Amongst them were the characters of several offline players, tagging along automatically behind their friends. While logging off normally made one vanish, one could also entrust a character to follow another - a practical necessity with Saana's 4x time-dilation feature, where logging off to poop for five minutes would correspond with twenty minutes transpiring in-game. These offline characters were quite creepy. They moved at a zombie-slow, automated shuffle. Their eyes, open, never blinking, were devoid of pupils and irises, just the pure white of sclera. They made no reaction to those bumping into them; one could even thrust a blade into their belly without a whimper.

Henry stepped onto the docks, planting his foot with the firm resolve of a conquistador, unafraid of the tasks of this fortnight, nor the tasks of today.

Today's first task: finish the tutorial to unlock his character's basic combat abilities.

Because players could not unlock skills on their own for some reason, he'd hired an NPC trainer to work exclusively with him as he blitzed through the process. From Level 0 to Level 5, he would learn the basic skills common to all Martial Classes, such as temporary super strength and reflex enhancements. After Level 5, the trainer would then unlock the specialised abilities of the Martial Class Henry had chosen. Entry in his recruitment tournament capped out at Level 20, the maximum for Tier-0, which he would grind to in a few hours.

Then, in the afternoon, he'd dive straight into duelling practice, exercising his muscles and brushing up on the old skills he'd let go to waste. To boost his training, he'd commissioned the building of a small private arena, so he wouldn't have to rely on the shoddy, overly-crowded local facilities. His arena should be completed and opened in about 40 in-game or 10 real-life hours, construction in Saana being quite fast with magical assistance.

Two weeks of practice later, he, history's greatest duellist, The Invincible Cripple, would demolish a bunch of noobs in an amateur tournament and win back The Card. Good game; easy lol.

Somewhere within all that, he'd hang out with his school friends as a minor distraction.

And, if he could find the time to squeeze it in, maybe, he might also create an unstoppable army of sentient monster wolves and rats. This minor side-scheme would really depend on whether his hypothesised game mechanic interactions turned out to be accurate. The plan could be a non-starter.

As he stepped onto the dock, he mimicked Alex's usual expression of supreme arrogance and cast a look of disdain upon this rotten land of Suchi. His mind's eye began to radiate with a shimmering vision of it all being swept away by a billion-strong army of howling, screeching beasts. Some of the noobs would flee, others would stand and fight to protect their homes, all would be transformed into piles of slightly pink bone. And behind this cleansing scourge, there would be he, in a comfortable villa several kilometres away, relaxing with a cup of tea and a good book, too far to even hear a squeak of the symphony of terror.

The crazed look beginning to ignite in Henry's tired eyes vanished when he noticed trouble coming his way.

“I told you that I’m not interested,” he shouted, drawing his hood even further over his head, attempting to walk faster.

A blue-haired NPC was bulldozing in his direction. “Consider it one last time, brother!”

Henry sighed, as he attempted to slip away from his pursuer.

This place...these people...