There was another blue flash, similar to the one he thought he had seen earlier. This time it was accompanied by the worse case of sea sickness Tyler had ever thought possible. Thankfully it lasted only a second, long as that may have felt, before he felt his legs hitting solid ground once more. The flash took another second to fade, and then Tyler found himself standing in what could pass as an office. It certainly wouldn’t be one any worker he knew would want, but with the weird fashion trends going around he guessed medieval chic could be the latest feng-shui. There was no computer, no technology of any kind actually. Simply a large wooden desk & chair. There were various animal heads mounted on the walls, although none that Tyler recognised. On the floor was a genuine animal skin rug, except it was different. The fur looked like to have been from a large bear, but it was golden with spots, like an oversized cheetah. The head was snake like in its form, pointing out into elongated jaws with slit eyes. If the colouring wasn’t perfect, Tyler might have assumed this had been put together as some form of art project.

“Welcome participant”

Tyler spun, and found a beaming middle aged woman walking through the door to the office.

“Err. Hi?”

She carried on smiling and made her way to the desk, taking the seat behind it and immediately pulling out sheets what looked like thick, aged paper.

“Don’t worry, its disorientating for everyone at first, that’s why we do this.” The smile she kept on her face was so genuine, and never faded for a second even as she talked “Project MICHAEL does the initial introduction, activates your status screen, your mana and the like, have you done all that?” she waited for him to nod, before continuing to talk “We like to do a more, personal introduction once you arrive here in the tutorial town. Now, please take a seat.”

Tyler found his feet moving. He honestly wasn’t sure if she had done some form of magic on him or if his brain was in such a state right now it hadn’t processed what he was doing. Could easily be a mix of both now he thought about it. As soon as he sat down, a screen similar to the ones he saw earlier appeared to the right, showing his status to both of them.

“Great. Don’t worry sir, we at the guild are obligated to keep all details confidential. Even once you leave the tutorial and return to your planet, the guild offices you find will be outside of any planetary authority. That means even if a king orders us to reveal them we will refuse, and any worker who broke that trust would be severely punished by the system itself.” She started busying herself, pulling out different sheets of the paper and putting them away. Finally she was left with just a few.

“Now, the purpose of our meeting here today, and the time you have in the tutorial, is to prepare both you and your world for your new reality. As we speak, your worlds core is being pumped full of mana in levels you or I could never hope to experience. Once this is done, your world will be capable of producing its own mana, filling the environment for its inhabitants, both man and beast, to utilise and evolve. The most important thing to highlight about this is that this process will evolve your planet, which is why you and everyone else have been transferred into a designated tutorial area for the duration. Mountains will shift, oceans give way to whole new land masses, and I am afraid any structures or buildings you have now will likely be completely destroyed. Think of this as your world being given a fresh start. When you return it will be to a planet unrecognisable to the one you left. Any questions?”

Tyler just opened and shut his mouth like a particularly slow goldfish. Questions? He had hundreds, but wording them was a different issue. His world was being evolved? He didn’t even know worlds could evolve. This was going to cause insane amounts of panic. Taking his silence for a lack of questions, the woman continued.

“Now normally all worlds start as rank F, which is the lowest rank, however your planet has been marked as rank E, which means you get an extra allotment of time here in the tutorial. Additionally it means there will be a much greater load of mana on your planet when you return, which is quite the reward. Normally planets can take centuries to upgrade their mana core. This also means a higher chance of higher rank monsters from the start.”

Tylers memories quickly flashed back to the message about his own mana recharge rate. God he hoped he wasn’t the only reason the world would be facing higher ranked monsters, he didn’t need that guilt.

“All that brings us to you. The tutorial is designed to help find out how you can best serve your new world. Now looking at your stats, you obviously have a lot of potential, and therefore have been marked as a warrior. You will find a large number of your fellow new participants will not be lucky enough to achieve this, and will be assigned roles such as merchant, administrator, or even one of the many crafters that are essential to helping warriors such as yourself grow and evolve. When you return to your world, you will find the system has built guild offices such as this one in a number of locations. Everyone you meet here in the tutorial town will be assigned to the same starting location when you return, so it is in your best interest to form relationships with aspiring crafters as early as possible. Also your system allows for parties to be formed with up to 6 participants, to form a party all members will need to go to a guild office to register.” Her smile finally slipped “As your world is starting at a higher rank I highly suggest forming a party earlier than normal if possible. This will ensure you have a better chance against any stronger monsters that appear. Now.” She stood up and walked to the door, before she had even reached it there was a knock and the door opened to reveal another woman, this one younger, wearing an identical outfit to his guide. She handed over something, then turned and left.

“This is your guild ID. In addition to providing identification, it will also allow you to make payments from your guild bank, track quests and monster kill records, so you are automatically awarded any relevant bounties, and track your life signs for the guild office. This way if you do fall, the guild will know immediately and can assign a new warrior to complete any quests you were on.”

Tyler was a little stunned by that. No thoughts of rescue, no promises to recover his body. Just if he failed someone else would follow up and do the job. He somehow doubted workers comp was going to be a thing in this new world.

“Now, as a new warrior participant you will want to use the tutorial to level up as much as you possibly can. As you have seen on your status screen, you start on level 1, which is rank F. When you reach level 25, you will qualify for a race evolution to rank E. Then the next evolutions follow every 25 levels. As you might guess, it becomes harder and harder to gain levels the higher you go, which is why each level also extends your lifespan by a small amount, to give you time to work towards the next rank. While your own race is a little hard to predict, I can tell you that the humans from your world would see their lives extend from 80 years to around 500 if they reach rank E. Rank D would see them living for nearly 2000 years. This allows time for your world to gain mana and progress alongside you yourselves.”

She handed him his ID, which has it turned out was a sort of crystal bracelet. Not something he would have chosen, and when he put it on it suddenly compressed so it wa tight against him.

“My advice to you is to look for quests. As a new participant you have a total of 100 coppers in your bank, which will allow you to buy a basic weapon or a single low ranked spell. You already have armour so you are definitely in luck there. You should also look for camping supplies. Eventually you will see inns or taverns open up around guild locations, but its too early for that now which means a decent camp set will be essential.” She began listing out the types of quests, which were pretty much what anyone who watched an anime in their lives would expect. Herb gathering, monster hunts. She also explained there would eventually be escort quests, and bandit subjugation, but they were unlikely until his world was more established. That was apparently all. Tyler then found himself standing in the massive lobby of what he was told was a guild office, and left on his own. It was only then that he processed the fact he hadn’t actually spoken in that entire time, except his awkward greeting at the start.

“Tyler Allen, man of the people.”

Shaking his head Tyler starting walking through the headquarters. He was told that during the tutorial the guild supplied merchants and crafters to sell starting kit, but once the tutorial was done it would be down to the natives. Sure enough as he walked through the halls he could see people being taught everything from blacksmithing to alchemy. Tyler actually felt a little jealous, he had always found alchemy cool when he read about it in books. The idea of making some revolutionary potion that could save a life appealed to his character. Still he had been assigned as a warrior, which he liked the sound of. The problem was deciding what kind of warrior. His mana pool obviously lent itself to learning spells or even a healer type, but that wasn’t Tyler. Oh spells were cool, and he would definitely learn a few at least, but in every game he ever played, Tyler went with the sword wielding warrior. Like every man, he wanted to be the hero, and that meant swords. Sure he could be powerful with magic, but heroes got up close and personal. They killed monsters in close combat, which is why the first store he entered was the blacksmith. He had no training, but again he had watched a lot of anime and other TV shows, and had long since formed his opinions on the types of sword he liked. Two hours later, he was the proud owner of an F grade Bastard sword. It had been expensive, 25 coppers, 1/4 of his total, but he hoped it would be worth it. The blacksmith had been a pro, making Tyler prove he could handle the sword before parting with it. Tyler had spent over an hour swinging the blade at a practise dummy with both 1 and 2 handed grips, with the blacksmith only signing off on the purchase when a screen flashed in front of Tyler.

[Skill: Sword Mastery F-1 achieved]

The most bizarre thing, at least according to Tyler , was that he wasn’t tired. 2 hours of heavy exercise and he while at times he had thought he might have been starting to tire, it had only taken a few seconds to recover and the was swinging again. He soon found a rhythm where he was timing his swings to match his stamina recovery, which meant he could go for hours. That definitely felt a little cheat like, but Tyler wasn’t going to complain. He was starting to get the feeling that whatever it was that caused that weird screen to think he wasn’t human, was giving him a serious advantage. Now that he was armed, Tyler went about following this guides advice. The merchant selling the camping equipment was the first thing that made Tyler truly excited about his potential new world. He eventually spent a massive 30 coppers on a single person accommodation which would go in and out of his storage ring fully assembled. In it was an actual bed as well as a table and chair, a wardrobe, and what they called a bath. It was just a large wooden tub, and it wasn’t like the tent had plumbing, but the merchant assured him it could be filled by an F rank water mage, although he couldn’t promise the water would be warm. Tyler added to that by purchasing various sets of cookware and a knife for skinning anything he hunted. That left him with 30 coppers, and he went straight to the spell crafters, eventually spending all his remaining coin on a single F rank spell.

[Spell: Water Arrow F-1 learned]