Where am I?

I regained my consciousness all of a sudden, and I felt a sharp pain in my forehead. I suspected that my head got injured, but I was relieved to find no traces of blood after checking it.

I was alone in a small dark room, and I could move freely all around it. There was some canned food in one corner, in addition to some bottles of water. There was a toilet in another corner too.

How did I get here?

I tried to remember the events that led to my current situation, but my memories were jumbled for a while. It took me a couple of minutes to remember my last memories before losing my consciousness.

The nine of us were inside the safe room, and we were confused about the fairies’ strange actions. We tried to get out, but we gave up when the fairies used force against those that kept trying.

After that, I just sat there. Until a weird system screen appeared.

It said that a member of our group cleared the tutorial by satisfying the hidden condition and that our tutorial iteration was over.

I remember people panicking, saying that the tutorial was supposed to be over after twelve days and that it wasn’t fair for them. People like Chris and Marla still had single digits levels, in addition to lacking any tutorial points. They demanded an explanation from the fairies, but they received nothing.

The fairies wished us luck, and they told us to blame ‘Jason Stubbs’ if we wanted to point our fingers at someone.

Jason, Jason, Jason… He’s always in the center of trouble, and I am starting to hate his name…

When the tutorial was over, I noticed the ranking list of people in our group changing once more. Well, the only thing that changed was Jason’s number of tutorial points; he had around two hundred million points if I remembered correctly.

Suddenly, my stomach made a weird noise; I was glad that no one was around to hear it. I was starving, so I grabbed some canned tuna to sate my hunger.

I decided to check some of the system screens that appeared when I was asleep.

-Host gained a total of 0 tutorial points throughout the tutorial clear.

-For having gained no tutorial points, the host is deemed as an Illegal Citizen.

-Good luck, Petra Lehmann! You’re gonna need it!

What the hell is this ‘illegal citizen’ thing?

It didn’t matter; I couldn’t wait to get back to Munich and live a normal life once again.

*

I walked toward the Primordial’s body and my eyes were opened widely at the sight before me. The creature was still as enormous as it was when I first encountered it, but it didn’t seem as frightening.

Three of its wings were partially destroyed, and another wing was no more. There was a giant hole in its torso, and I could see the floor beneath the Primordial through it. There was no liquid blood, but the injured area of the corpse had many purple stains.

I was impressed with myself, even though I didn’t remember anything about the battle after getting struck by the Primordial’s wide-scale attack.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! I didn’t expect to survive my encounter with it, but here we are!

My latent ability was another mystery that I needed to make sense of as soon as possible, but my current priority was to dismantle the corpse in front of me.

I put my hand on the corpse’s arm, but I felt something pinching my back for a moment. I turned and found my mysterious friend waving at me.

“Hey kid,” he said, “Come here for a minute, there is something important that I need to tell you.”

I fought the urge to tell him to fuck off, as the possible punishment wasn’t worth it. I inhaled deeply and opened my mouth.

“No, I am busy right now,” I said with a poker face, “I’ll talk to you in a minute. I am sorry for this, but I’ve been eager to dismantle the corpse for a while.”

I tried to be respectful without sucking up to him. This mysterious guy was giving me friendly vibes, and he didn’t seem to care about respect all that much.

Still, this guy was a god, and gods were eccentric.

There was a small chance for him to overreact and lash out, maybe even break a couple of my bones for being impudent.

His facial expression contorted, but he didn’t make any negative comments.

All of a sudden, he started laughing and clapping. He sat on the ground and started talking after he calmed down.

“It seems like the little strength that you got made you brave! Other deities would have killed you on the spot for refusing to play along with their whims, but I hate formalities,” he said, “Just treat me like a friend. Tell me once you’re done with your little task.”

Phew, it seems like my assumption about him was correct.

I put my hand on the Primordial’s arm and used the [Dismantle] skill. I was a bit anxious about the number of drops that I would get from this guy, as his state seemed bad.

[Condition of the corpse: 66% intact.]

[Host gains three drops!]

[Host gains [Manadizium Horn]!]

[Host gains [Primordial’s Mana Core]!]

[Host gains [Primordial’s Mana Reactor (Busted)]!]

The mana core was as large as a volleyball, and it was crimson. It was a straightforward reward, as I could just convert it to shop points. After thinking for a while, I decided not to convert it. It wasn’t a regular mana core, and I decided to study it in depth once I had enough free time.

I’ll quickly buy the other items’ descriptions… Oh, the shop doesn’t work here.

I sat for a couple of minutes staring at the items in front of me, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. I was about to ask my mysterious friend if he could help me, when something grabbed my attention.

All of a sudden, three system screens appeared in front of me.

[System Admin]

You’re welcome! But I am still putting this on your tab.

I stared at ‘Loki’, and his muffled laughs pissed me off. He hid his mouth using his hand and pretended to be deep in thought.

He finds this funny, huh?

I appreciated his help, but he didn’t respect my privacy at all; he could’ve waited for me to ask him instead of reading my thoughts.

Oh well, I’ll just check the description of the other two items.

[Manadizium Horn]

(Epic)

The Primordials were a race accustomed to using mana and their abilities allowed them to reign on top of the food chain for a while.

They were the strongest beings, and no one dared to stand against them.

Until the System appeared.

They’re extremely scarce in the wild, but the hunters still coveted them for the special nature of their bodies.

This is a horn made of Manadizium, the element of which a Primordial’s skeleton is made.

-Greatly Conductive of all forms of Energy (Mana, Heat, Electricity…etc.)

-Greatly Resistant to all kinds of damage.

It was nearly as long as my height, and it was as white as snow. It had a spiraling pattern, similar to Narwhal’s horns.

I played around with it, but it was too big to be used as a weapon in its current form.

I’ll have to find a blacksmith to make something useful out of this… Besides, I doubt if a random blacksmith could even scratch this item’s surface.

I didn’t know a blacksmith who had the tools and the experience to work with Manadizium, but I knew where to look for someone like that. Foreign creatures should have already arrived at Earth at this point, and I was eager to meet some of them; especially Ratska the Gnome.

He might be able to recommend a qualified blacksmith.

I tried to set this item on fire to see how well it conducted the heat, and if it could survive high temperatures.

As soon as I used my [Flame-N-Go] skill, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It was rather painful, but not enough to stop me from using my skill.

However, the more I kept using the skill the worse the pain got.

“I advise you not to use any Mana for a while,” said ‘Loki’, “Like I told you before, the connection between your soul and body got a bit damaged in the fight with the Primordial. If you force yourself too hard, your soul might break down and explode. I suspect that this thing happened due to your Latent Ability’s effect, and I’ll help you on solving the issue.”

I guess this makes sense. It seems like winning a fight against the Primordial cost me greatly, but this is still better than death.

According to the mysterious man’s words, it seems like this problem wasn’t permanent and could be solved.

“Oh,” I said with a sad tone of voice, “That’s a bummer, but I guess I’ll take it easy until my body and soul heal. I don’t want to be a cripple for the rest of my life.”

I took a look at the other item.

[Primordial’s Mana Reactor (Busted)]

(Epic)

Primordials are ancient creatures, and they’re proficient in the absorption of ambient mana!

They can absorb great amounts of mana and store it for extended durations of time.

Most of them were caught to be used as mana batteries for factories and Tutorials, and they can no longer be found in the wild.

The ones inside the tutorial are mere vegetables, and they’re no longer as powerful as they were before.

Nevertheless, they’re still coveted for their useful drops.

This Mana Reactor can absorb ambient mana at a fast rate, store it and detonate portions of it according to the user’s commands.

It’s Busted; this allows it to function in a state of overdrive. However, it’ll deteriorate much faster.

-Greatly absorbs ambient Mana.

-Greatly stores ambient Mana.

-Greatly detonates ambient Mana.

-Greatly improves the user’s control over Mana.

Warning: This item can only be used if it’s transplanted into a living being’s body, and connected to his natural Mana meridians.

Warning: The older the test subject is, the higher the failure rate of the transplantation.

It was glowing brightly with a crimson color. It had the shape of an icosahedron, and there were cracks all over it. It was as big as my torso, but it was as light as a couple of feathers.

I don’t know much about mana reactors, but I can tell that this item is one of a kind.

This could be useful if I used it right. I had many other items that I got from the previous bosses, and I had a plan to make great use of them.

I held the Mana Reactor with my left arm and walked toward the table on which my items were laid. I picked up my bag of holding and put everything inside it. It was filled to the brim, but I managed to shove the Reactor inside it after organizing its contents.

I need to protect this little bag with my life! The success of my guild depends on it!

I took a look at ‘Loki’, and he still wasn’t paying attention to me. I called him to inquire about whatever it was that he wanted to tell me.

“Hey, Loki,” I said, “I am done with my task, and I organized everything. What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

“Come closer here,” he said as he made a little motion with his hand, “There is a little system feature that I’ll activate for you, you’ll like it.”

I didn’t know what this was all about, but a new system feature was bound to be something useful.

As soon as I was close enough, he put his hand on my forehead. I felt a bit dizzy, but the sensation went away instantly.

“So, what did you do, and what should I expect?” I asked.

“I just spoofed your location to show up as ‘Earth’. The ‘Blessing’ feature will be unlocked, and we need to talk about it,” he said, “It’s better if we took care of it here since we have time.”

Oh, so I am going to pick a sponsor!

I didn’t understand the urgency behind his actions, especially since returning me to Earth would’ve unlocked the feature anyway. My guess was that he wanted me to pick him as a sponsor before the other deities swayed my opinion.

It doesn’t matter. I can pick multiple sponsors anyway, the more the merrier!

A couple of system screens appeared in front of me.

-Congratulation! Host Jason Stubbs is the first human to go back to Earth after finishing the tutorial!

-Host gained a title for his feat!

-Welcome back to Earth, Jason Stubbs! The Blessing feature is unlocked.

-You can pick (a) sponsors now!

-Choose from the list: