The seventh Tutorial was different. It was a single-stage “child’s Tutorial”. The youngest “child” was less than a day old, while the oldest was 56. The older woman was a very nice disabled lady who had trouble caring for herself. By the end of the Tutorial, she seemed a lot more capable than she had been at the beginning. Serenity suspected that some of it was the Path, but a lot of it simply seemed to be people expecting her to be able to learn and do what she needed to.

Apparently, Order’s Voice put people into this Tutorial not based on age but by whether or not their society treated them as adults.

Everyone had the “Human” Tier 0 Path, and the goal was to get everyone to a level on the Path appropriate to their age. Generally, that meant that people should finish the Path if they were in their mid to late teens.

Most of the teenagers did. Several went on to starting - and even making good progress on - other Paths. Many of the twenty-somethings didn’t. There weren’t many over 20, but the ones that were fully capable were often also the ones that were problems - after all, there was a reason they weren’t considered adult. The more mature ones - which, fortunately, was the vast majority - would be in a normal Tutorial.

Serenity found it odd at first that the Trials weren’t a part of the Tutorial, but the Human Path was easy to level outside of combat - talking, making things, practicing with a weapon; almost anything a person did could give XP.

It was an interesting experience, but one that Serenity hoped he wouldn’t see too often.

The sixteenth Tutorial was another unique Tutorial. Serenity found himself standing in a forest with four other instructors instead of in the usual “incoming student area”. The others were Ekari, Margrethe, Kerr, and Sillon.

A campsite appeared around them, with five tents, a fire pit, a small building (which looked like it probably held supplies), an outhouse, and a cleared area surrounding a small pyramid. Serenity recognized the pyramid as a magical projector - it would show a hologram that anyone near it could look at and direct. The pyramid showed an image of a group of soldiers when he looked at it.

It was a much nicer campsite than Serenity currently had in his Stage Two Tutorial.

Serenity was about to ask what was going on when text appeared in front of him.

[This Tutorial has one stage]

[Rewards for completing the Tutorial depend on achievements and contribution]

[Tutorial Goal: Survival]

[Optional Goal: Find the Instructors]

[Optional Goal: Defeat a Tutorial Lord]

[Optional Goal: Capture a Settlement]

[Additional Optional Goals may be added if current Optional Goals are completed]

[Participants: 100 students, 5 instructors]

[Instructor Information: Instructors may not participate unless found by students]

[Instructors are limited to Tier 1 attributes and skills for this Tutorial]

[Instructors may watch student progress in the scrying station but may not leave the protected area unless found by students]

[Welcome to the Tutorial]

[Time Remaining: 20:00.00]

Serenity looked at the instructions, puzzled. “Why this sort of Tutorial? It seems like this wouldn’t give nearly as much information or experience as the normal type?”

Ekari looked at him, then shrugged. “There are a few different types. The normal one and the child’s Tutorial are the most common. At least this one has a nice camp in the forest, sometimes they’re pretty unpleasant or have an opposed element. Five people is also nice. This type is minimum two people. Those are usually not any fun.”

[Some people learn better when they have to work for it. A Tutorial is tuned to its center]

Serenity tried to line up Ekari’s words with the Voice’s statement. “So. Better Paths for the Tutorial’s center? A better way forward?”

That sounded reasonable.

“Is the leader also the center?” Serenity had a sinking suspicion that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“It doesn’t matter. We often can’t identify the center, and even when we do there are usually a few options. We need to train everyone anyway. The Voice knows more than we do.” Ekari’s answer confirmed his suspicion.

[No]

Serenity had a sinking suspicion that this Tutorial would probably not be as peaceful as most of them had been. Hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as his first Tutorial.

There was probably a reason the instructors were limited.

Five days later, they hadn’t been found. The students were doing fairly well; they’d grouped up and seemed to have a clear idea of what they were doing, at least. They looked like they were current military, and many (though less than half) of them had been armed when the Tutorial started.

The students’ scouts had found a goblin “settlement” on the fourth day. They hadn’t immediately attacked, but Ekari and Kerr predicted it would happen soon, depending on when the goblins noticed the students. It generally didn’t take long after fighting off a goblin wave to be willing to attack their town.

That evening, the group gathered around a fire pit after dinner. Everyone was bored, and the students didn’t do anything interesting after dark unless something attacked them.

“Why did you agree to be an instructor?” Kerr flicked some of her drink into the fire. “I know you’re not doing all of the Tutorials, but I don’t see that you’re getting much out of it.”

The fire flared for a moment before returning to the happy flame that it had been. Kerr’s drink was almost pure alcohol; with her Phys, even that would barely give her a buzz.

Serenity took a swallow from his drink. Unlike Kerr, he wasn’t willing to risk the possible side effects of heavily distilled alcohol, especially when it might not all be ethanol. “It was a bit of an impulse decision. I think it was a good one. It lets me teach a few, and more importantly…”

I miss my home. This was a terrible decision.

No, it was the right decision. I can help people. We built the plan around it.

I hate it when the right decision is so unpleasant.

It really hasn’t been unpleasant, just boring. Yet if I hadn’t made this decision, would I have made friends with Kerr and Sillon and Blaze? Or whatever it is with Ekari and Margrethe?

It would be nice if I didn’t have to choose between people.

The silence stretched on until Sillon cleared his throat. “More importantly?”

Sillon was pointedly sitting on the opposite side of the fire from Margrethe. Every time she moved around the fire - even when she didn’t try to get close to Sillon - he’d move to put the fire between them again. Serenity didn’t think of himself as good at reading people, but even he could tell there was something going on there.

He didn’t think Sillon would appreciate Serenity involving himself, so he was going to let the two of them sort it out.

“More importantly … being an instructor gets my name and face out there. People will know it. That is its own kind of power. I’m - we’re planning to turn that into information. Let people know things they need to. Including the people who make decisions that could change things.” Serenity wasn’t sure if he’d ever expressed the plan to other instructors before.

For that matter, Serenity wasn’t sure if he’d ever asked what the formal rewards from being an instructor were. His were likely to be different from the other instructors, but he was still confident they’d be good. It wasn’t hard for rewards to be good when you had as little as he did. Serenity looked back at Kerr. “Why did you become an instructor?”

Kerr didn’t answer for a long moment. She stared into the fire before taking a deep breath and letting it out. “The possible rewards. We probably won’t get it. This is my fourth Tutorial and I never have. But if we got an Excellent rating, or maybe even a Great rating since this is such a long Tutorial….”

“Long?” Serenity had no idea what that meant. The tutorials took about half a year to run, with each individual disappearing for only a few seconds, maybe a minute.

Kerr glanced at Serenity, then looked back at the fire. “Six months realtime? Normal’s one, and usually done in less than that. I really hope the goals are adjusted for that.”

“It is.” Ekari’s voice came from the other side of the fire pit. “The Tier rating’s a bit higher but not bad. Excellent’s fifty percent survival with an average adult rating of Tier 1 Level 25 or higher. There are also bonuses for technology survival, which makes sense now.”

“Fifty percent after six months? And an average over Tier 1? I’m never going to get that skill.” Kerr sounded dejected.

Serenity was puzzled. The first time through, there had been a huge death toll, but it hadn’t really started until after the six months was over, when the world started to gr- oh. That made sense. If they pushed the Tier higher faster, the world would start to grow sooner. Serenity wasn’t sure what Tier most people had managed immediately after the Tutorial, but he doubted the average was Tier 1. The average in his Tutorial at Stage Two was only 43, after all.

“I think we might be able to do it. The problem isn’t the survival rate, it’s the Tier. People have to keep pushing even after the Tutorial is over. Earth is too safe, there’s no reason to push levels at first. Which brings its own disasters. If we can repel the invaders, that should net us a lot of levels. Maybe that’ll do it?” Serenity wasn’t sure if that would be enough, especially not if he and a few other high-powered people did it. Levels did eventually get harder, and he wasn’t sure how Order’s Voice would count Tier repetitions.

“If you repel the invaders, that will definitely do it.” Ekari’s voice again. Serenity could only make out a vague figure across the fire. “That will also remove the mana drain they represent, and allow your planet to grow faster. All of the cases I’ve been able to find that received an overall Excellent were planets where the first invasion was defeated within the first few months and the last within a year. The last recorded Excellent I could find was three hundred and seventeen years ago. The first invasion was destroyed after three months. Most of the remainder retreated with their winnings within half a year.”

Kerr flicked more of her drink on the fire and watched it flare. “At least there’s hope. I need something to change to open a new Path, and an Order-provided skill should do it. If not, then maybe being an instructor at an Excellent will.”

Kerr managed to actually get drunk that night.

As Serenity thought about it more, he half wished he could as well. What he was doing was necessary, but it would drive the planet’s Tier higher faster, and that would cause devastation. It had been a slow-moving disaster the first time, and most people had coped, but if it was faster, he wasn’t sure how it would work out.

The best way to handle that would be to get enough people to an even higher Tier that they could use magic to fill the gaps when and where they were needed, but that would require specific Paths that weren’t very good at combat and therefore were harder to level.

If only I could control the dungeons somehow. Or even monitor them - just knowing where they are and what their status is would help so much. That would let me know where the planet’s going to shift, and also where things will grow best, and where monsters are likely to gather … Even better if I could choose what’s in each one and move mana around between them, but that’s a complete pipe dream.

It was too bad that even monitoring Dungeons wasn’t easy. The only way that had ever been found to monitor dungeons was the way everyone did it: having people manually check in on them regularly. Ambient mana levels could be monitored with technology; it was hard but not impossible. Unfortunately, ambient mana levels were a secondary effect of Dungeon presence.