To be fair, he probably wouldn’t have heard it over the sound of the waterfall anyway. Even though it was a ways off, that much water tumbling over the pile of rocks makes an impression on you. Like a dull roar constantly assaulting his ears, drowning out lesser noises. While he was checking on the ripeness of the blueberries, small feet were making their way along the inside edge of the bushes.

  As he glanced up to take in the rainbow mist floating above the lake, small hands clutched a branch on a nearby shrub he had already identified as buckthorn. He missed the sound of that branch being snapped off. A small mouth full of tiny but deadly sharp teeth chanted quickly over the stick but the unholy words found no purchase in his mind.

  The first clue that something was out there meaning him harm was when a six inch buckthorn branch hardened by some kind of life magic was plunged into his thigh. As luck would have it, it was the left leg again, the poor thing. He let out a totally manly roar, one that was not at all a high pitched shriek. Looking down he saw a dark blue creature gripping that branch in two small hands while standing on his injured leg. It was already pulling it out to plunge it in again, his blood coating the last few centimeters of its small spear. Whatever it was, it was only about 30 centimeters tall with a thin emaciated body. Its hands ended in four fingers with wickedly long claws. Bundled tightly against its back was what looked like a pair of fairy wings.

  Demon: Water Imp (Rare) level 1, threat: moderate.

  This was very different from the previous encounters with beasts here in the tutorial. Its body looked fragile so he reached down and tried to crush it with his hands like a giant mosquito. The wings unfurled and it nimbly flew up and away from him. He took another try at grabbing it but it easily dodged the hasty attempt. Holding the stick overhead in one fist it opened its mouth and shrieked at him. He reached for his dagger but the speedy monster darted in at him before he could draw it. He lashed out with a quick slap with his left hand but it once again showed how agile it was and ducked below the strike before stabbing his shoulder and then flying back out of easy reach again. This imp struck faster than a snake. Both his leg and shoulder were yellow on the display. Alan decided to cast minor healing now. He didn’t want to lose the use of his good arm. As the cooling feeling of his spell spread, the wounds closed and he brought up his dagger, the point aimed at the nimble foe.

  This time it dove towards his face. He managed to keep his blade in line and angled it slightly to block the stick. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to retaliate as it pulled back again. Thinking quickly he reached into his storage pouch and grabbed a handful of dirt. As the imp came in once more he threw it at its face and at the same time sliced at it with his pugio. It worked! The spray of dirt distracted it enough so that it could only partially dodge the true attack. He scored a bloody cut across its scrawny body. It wouldn’t have been more than a flesh wound for him, but this creature, or demon, was much smaller and flimsier.

  It let go of the stick as it clutched its wound. Alan reached out with his left hand and grabbed one of its wings. Yanking, he pulled the imp to the ground and stomped on it, once twice, and a third time for good measure. It now resembled a large squished blueberry with its insides squirting out. A few notifications were waiting, but he ignored them to focus on getting a sitrep as the creature and its weapon below him were rapidly turning into some kind of ashy smoke.

  First he scanned the area for any more of them and backed away from the shrubs. From here he should be able to see anything approaching from the cover of the bushes and on the other side of him it was that well manicured grass of the forest. Everything seemed clear. With clear lines of sight, he went back to the report he got from identifying the imp. It was a level 1, but a rare, which seemed surprising for the first day. He thought they would go easy on them for day two. There was also the fact that it wasn’t classified as a beast. It was listed as a demon. Was there a difference? The Network quests had referred to ‘beasts’ and the other monsters had identified as beasts. Was this significant or was he just putting importance on something that was only semantics?

  “Alan, what just happened? I heard you shriek,” she obviously misspoke, it was definitely a roar, “but I couldn’t see anything until just now.”

  “Umm…I am trying to figure that out too. I was checking the bushes when something jumped out and stabbed me. When I used identify it said it was a demon called a water imp.”

  “That’s not supposed to happen. Have you checked your notifications yet?”

  Quest Completed: Thin the Herd!

  [Beasts killed 4/5. Good job holding onto your weapon this time. Since you proved you won’t lose one, let’s see what happens if you have two! Reward: Error# Conditions not met]

  That was unexpected. Before he could let Tamee know about the weird message the Network displayed another message.

  Quest Update: Thin the Herd!

  [Anomaly detected…checking program. Beasts killed 4/5]

  That was not any better.

  Quest Completed: Thin the Herd!

  [Creatures killed 5/5. Good job clearing out some creatures. Reward: One Seax (common)]

  The first message would have been interesting even without the error. It really looked like the Network was taking an interest in his progress. He had no one else’s notifications to compare it to, but it seemed too personal for a wide ranging reality altering Network. The follow up messages showed that it did matter that it was a demon and not a beast. The fact that he got the reward anyway suggested that there were not supposed to be demons to fight against at the moment. Also, why did the flavor text change so much between the first and last quest complete messages?

  As for the reward, nothing appeared floating in front of him. Instead, at his feet was what looked like a large knife or small sword in a sheath. He used identify on it.

  Seax (common): A large iron knife used for personal defense. It is designed as a slashing weapon with only a single sharp edge on the blade that narrows to a point. It is approximately 50 centimeters long with a very limited crossguard.

  All other concerns aside, this was a great reward. He drew it out from the sheath and took a few practice swings. The blade was much narrower than the pugio, but it was also considerably longer. It could still be used to stab with it but the single edge and length of the blade would lend itself better to fast slashing attacks. He moved the pugio to his right hip and fastened the seax to his left.

  When he told Tamee about the notifications she told him to hold on. There could only be so many nudges and winks before it became crystal clear that something very weird was going on. There was nothing he could do about it until she got back to him so he decided to test out his new weapon while waiting.

  A few practice draws with each showed that they were readily accessible. Then he experimented with holding both at the same time. The seax was definitely heavier than the smaller pugio, but that didn’t prevent him from quickly swinging the seax around. He then tried them in combination, first swinging the seax followed by a thrust from the pugio. The seax felt comfortable but the pugio was awkward in his off hand. He thought maybe a little practice would help. The next few minutes were spent with him waving them around like a college larper. Finally Tamee’s voice came again.

  “Okay, so what just happened, should NOT have happened. I cannot explain why, and I cannot even tell you why I cannot say why. In return for not pestering me about this and pretending this did not happen I can give you some help.”

  “Sure, I can agree to that.” Alan really didn’t want to agree, but what choice did he have. At least this way he would get something out of it. Also, if something was broken with the Network there was no way he would be able to fix it. And if he could help out with their issues a little and appear reasonable to his observer all the better.

  “Remember how you suggested I do some reading rather than watch you all the time? Rude by the way. Well, I actually did. You seemed to be very concerned about keeping your dagger sharp so I read about whetstones. I am not allowed to just give you one, it is not within my purview, but I learned how to make one.”

  “Wow, Tamee, that’s great, but is it something I can actually do here?”

  She then went on to explain the process. There were apparently easier ways to do this, but the method she would teach him, she called it lapping, was one that could be done with two rocks. The other methods she had learned about required more tools than he had access to. In lapping, you simply rub the stones together to smooth them out. Basically a whetstone is a rock that has been polished to a high finish. They can be hard or soft stone and vary wildly in their effectiveness.

  “So the key for you will be finding a rock you want for the actual whetstone. I would recommend a harder stone, quartz is actually really good. If you do get a harder stone you will want to find a second at least as hard to rub it with. The flatter and smoother they are to start with the better.”

  He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to find any rocks until he went into the next dungeon. The ones he stored from the fire pit rings were too large and were the wrong shape. There weren’t any rocks lying around in this artificial forest either. However, he found some in the lake when went over to see if it looked safe to bathe in. Now that he had become aware of his odorous state, he was increasingly desirous of a bath. Turns out the bottom of the lake was fairly rocky. It wasn’t painful to walk on though since they seemed to be exclusively river stones, meaning they were relatively smooth and rounded but with flatter surfaces. This would be perfect for his purposes.

  “Tamee, I am going to jump in the water now. Any chance you could do something else for a while?” Alan wouldn’t describe himself as shy, but the idea of her watching as he got naked and scrubbed down made him uncomfortable.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Bashful are you? Sure, I have a few things I can check on.” He had no way of knowing if she actually stopped watching, but he decided to trust her.

  He stripped down to his skivvies, but even those were filthy so he took them off as well and walked out into the lake. The water was cool, but not enough to make it too uncomfortable. He had to walk out about ten meters before the water was deep enough to submerge in. Along the way he was looking for rocks. He saw several but figured it would be better to gather them on the way back since he didn’t have anywhere to hold things while in the nude. There wasn’t any soap to help with washing so he picked up handfuls of the dirt that was under the rocks at the bottom of the lake and used it to scrub all of the blood and gore from his body and even a little from his hair. Fifteen minutes later he was still just floating in the water calming down. In the heat of the moment he felt like he had handled his encounters well, but afterwards the gravity of the situation was threatening to overwhelm him.

  He had a mission, help Humans dominate in this competition, and he was making progress. He had gained four classes and now had two weapons. He was also learning more about the rules of the system. When he eventually came in contact with others he would hopefully be able to dominate his competition and eventually join up with others from Earth. Of course, since he didn’t know how anyone else was doing he didn’t know if his progress was good or not.

  It was about this time that he started to have visions of Network created fish gliding through the water and taking bites out of the meat bag called Alan. Relaxing in the water was now off the menu so he made his way back to the shore. Along the way he collected about fifteen rocks of varying shapes, sizes, and types. He would have collected more but as he bent down to get number fifteen he almost lost the pile he was holding against his chest. When he reached land he set the rocks down next to his belt and took his pants, tunic, and underwear back into the water. He proceeded to scrub them the best he could. After putting the underwear back on he hung the pants and tunic from a nearby tree. He had wrung the underwear as much as possible but it was not dry yet. Still, he felt the need to have something on and a little cool dampness down there was not an unpleasant sensation.

  As decent as Alan was going to be for a while, he called on Tamee. He needed help choosing the best rocks from his collection. He used identify on the stones, which felt like cheating since he personally had little knowledge of rocks. How could he identify them if he had no basis on which to do so. It worked, however, so he told her what they were. Most were eliminated right off the bat as impractical, but some had promise.

  “That white rock is good. It's a quartz stone. I read that those are a common rock used for whetstones. Something about the hexagonal structure of the crystal. What about the last two?”

  “Hold on Tamee, I notice that my classes are called quartz and my class stones are made of quartz. Is this rock special or magical or anything?”

  “Let me check on something really quick.” He held the white stone in his hand while waiting. It had a good weight to it and the size was nice. It was round on the edges which made holding it easier, although the whetstones he was used to for his Dan D knife in the service were more rectangular. He didn’t know if that was a big deal.

  “Ok, so what you’re holding is regular quartz. Sometimes regular quartz in the system absorbs mana and becomes special. That is what is used in class stones and various other crafts. That would be the best thing to use, but you won’t find any in the tutorial as it takes time for it to absorb ambient mana.”

  “This may be over my head, what is ambient mana, better yet, can you explain what mana actually is?”

  “Huh? Mana, never heard of it.” What the heck? He understood not answering a question, but the way she sometimes gave him information and then implied he shouldn’t have it was weird. It seemed more like she knew what she wasn’t supposed to tell him and usually chose to abide by the rules, but wasn’t automatically prevented from breaking them. “Anyway, let’s look at the last two stones”

  The first was granite. This would be a great rock to use except it is one of the hardest rocks and it would take a long time to smooth it out. He set it aside, it would be good as the lapping stone, the one used to grind the whetstone smooth. Tamee was very excited by the last rock.

  “That is black quartz, it is even better than the white quartz. It is a little harder and has a finer grit.” The stone was slightly bigger than the white quartz one but it was also longer, more rectangular. He set the white quartz in one of his pouches as a backup and took the black one in hand. As she explained the process, it seemed he had a lot of hours in front of him.

  He ripped up some of the bushes near the lake to give him space to work. Luckily the root systems on these bushes were not very developed. It would have taken more strength than he had to rip them out of the ground if he was back on Earth. Here, however, he was able to pull the bush right out of the ground and expose a tiny ball of roots. Remembering digging up an unwanted bush when he was a kid caused a moment of nostalgia. He had tried exposing the roots with a shovel while his dad used a dig bar to loosen the soil and try to pry it out. Eventually they gave up and his dad hacked the roots apart with an axe allowing them to get the bush out. At some point he would need to think about crafting some type of tools. Thinking of tools he got back to his future whetstone.

  He dunked both the granite rock and the black quartz in the water. The granite stone was set on the ground with the other rock laid on top. Then he pressed down with one hand and slid it back and forth, occasionally dipping the soon to be whetstone back in the water. Soon might be wishful thinking.

  After half an hour he checked his progress. There was a definite difference, some of the ridges now had slightly darker smoother sections, but at this rate there was a lot of work to go. When he had asked Tamee how they are normally made she mentioned sandpaper. It occurred to him that he might have something like that. The fox pelt he had skinned had fur that was pretty rough, he remembered thinking it was abrasive when he skinned it.

  Taking a section out of storage he laid it on the ground. Running his hands over it, he could feel his skin being scraped off. It was like a hardcore exfoliating treatment. This seemed to be a good substitute for sandpaper so he decided to give it a try for half an hour and see how the results compared. The rock was dipped in the lake again and then placed on the fox fur. Back and forth he slid the rock, occasionally alternating hands. His arms were starting to cramp up by the end, but when he turned the rock over it was much smoother than before. There were large patches of the dark smooth places and they had little sparks of light in them. The underlying crystal structure was showing through and reflecting the light. Fox fur for the win.

  Alan spent the next three hours rubbing that stone on the pelt. His arms were in agony after the first hour, but after that he was able to enter a kind of meditative state. The back and forth motion allowed his mind to drift off and his thoughts focused on the simple concept of moving his hand. Then the pain caused him to focus on what he was feeling in his arms. It was almost possible to see the muscles cramping up in his mind. He started talking to the muscles in his head, willing them to go just a little longer, to hurt a little less, to relax the tenseness. It was strange, he almost could feel an energy that was flowing into his arms and then back out, and it was drawing the pain with it. When his arms felt better he started focusing on different parts of his body and seeing if he could sense his muscles or energy moving into and out of them. Nothing was ever as obvious as his arms, but he felt like he could feel something.

  By the third hour he was sure there was something there as he focused on the energy itself. He could sense something so he tried to push it around. This was hard, but as he tried to move it he could almost feel how the energy already had a path to move through. It was like a system of energy flowing throughout his body. He felt a few places where it seemed bunched up or constricted. He willed the energy to smooth out like he had willed the pain out of his arms. Something went right because he suddenly felt a loosening throughout his body and the energy seemed to surge around its mysterious pathways.

  He blinked and was once again aware of his surroundings. Good thing nothing had tried to eat him while he was meditating. Stopping to check the whetstone he found a beautiful flat sparkly finish. He was excited to try it out, but the sun had already passed below the mountains and would soon actually set. He needed to find a place to sleep tonight and he didn’t think it would be safe to sleep in the open now that beasts, and other stuff, were roaming around the valley.

  Sleeping in the forest wouldn’t offer much protection either, although he could try sleeping in a tree. A dungeon was another possibility. He could try reentering one he had already completed and sleeping inside. Checking around he started to look to make sure he had collected everything back up. He put on his slightly cleaner tunic and shredded pants which were only slightly damp at this point.

  Looking back at the waterfall he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. With the false sunset the moonlight was throwing strange shadows on the cliff face. It allowed him to see a shadowy cave on the wall near the waterfall. He hurried around the lake and could see from closer up that there were actually a few alcoves on the cliff face. The closest was maybe seven meters up and was about 5 meters across.

  He decided to risk the climb on the wet face for such a secure sleeping site. The cliff had quite a few hand and foot holds so it wasn’t too difficult. However, there were a couple of times he almost slipped on the slick rock, so he made a note to be careful when descending in the morning. It wasn’t until he was almost up to the cave that he considered what might be up there already. His mind filled the dark space with snakes and scorpions and other nasty surprises. He had gone too far now to give up without even looking though.

  After pulling himself over the lip he found an alcove that was just over two meters deep and just under two meters tall at the top. It was also blessedly empty. He was thankful he was on the shorter side because he could stand comfortably without hitting his head on the low rocky ceiling. He smiled momentarily thinking about his friend Bernie having to walk around stooped over in here, and then his smile slipped when he thought about the possibility that Bernie was just a pattern somewhere in a storage system.

  It would be possible to set up a campfire here, but the spray from the waterfall, and the thought of having to climb down and back up again to get firewood disabused him of the notion. He may get hunger pangs overnight but Tamee said he didn’t really need to eat and the temperature in the valley had not gotten that cold so a fire was not a necessity. If he was starving he could always try to cook something in the morning where he set up the fire pit.

  Without any way to really improve his sleeping area at the moment, he figured this would be a good time to sharpen his weapons. Part of the daily ritual in the military is taking care of your kit, and his kit was basically limited to the two knives.

  Taking out his new whetstone he began sharpening. There was no oil, so he held it up until the mist had gotten it good and wet. If his sleeping area was going to be soaked in the mist he may as well make use of it. Using slow steady strokes he took his time working the stone on the blades. Despite having spent three hours repeatedly scraping a rock on a pelt, this repetitive act of sharpening his weapons was mentally soothing as it brought him back to simpler times.

  He wasn’t going to try and meditate since he was basically rubbing a sharper by the moment knife with his hand. One slip and he could be down some fingers. Focus was key. Stroke, stroke, stroke, he lost himself in the work. He had to spend about 30 minutes on the much misused pugio and then spent ten minutes on the seax. It was already sharp but he felt like he was building an intimacy with it as he worked it over.

  After finishing he found that he wasn’t sleepy yet. “Tamee, are you awake?”

  “I do not actually need sleep. What is your question?”

  “I wanted to ask about something that happened to me earlier. I was kinda meditating while making my whetstone and I felt like I could see inside my body. There was some kind of energy I could sense moving through pathways. Was this some kind of hallucination?”

  There was a pause before she answered. “Wow, I really wish I could talk to you about this, but I am not allowed to discuss that thing you may or may not have seen. Talk to me the night of our sixth day.”

  “Ok, I feel like you kinda answered my question anyway. Umm, thanks? So if that’s off the table, how bout you pick a topic?”

  “I have one I was wondering about. What is your culture's obsession with reality shows?”

  They spent the next hour chatting about questions she had concerning Earth customs. This was doing nothing to help him learn about his new situation or directly helping humans beat those other races, but what it was doing was making a deposit on a future payoff. He hoped.