Back in the valley Alan found himself geeking out. When playing video games he usually found himself playing the melee classes, but having participated in an actual magical ritual, or circle at least, and now having a spell was sending the endorphins shooting through his brain. Technically he already had the healing spell, but that just didn’t seem the same. Maybe it was because he was a doctor and so was used to healing, or maybe it was because it wasn’t something he cast on others. A quick scan left him bereft of targets so he thrust his hands toward the sky and cast light bolt. A streak of light shot into the sky and quickly disappeared. That was magic!

  It would be fun to try out the new spell some more, but that dungeon had taken a while and it was already almost noon, or what he was calling noon anyway. Tamee still wouldn’t tell him how long the days were. He really wanted to finish another dungeon before the day was over, but was also thinking that it might be nice to improve his cave if there was time. What settled it is that he also needed to fight more monsters to level up his classes. There was less chance of encountering beasts back the way he came since he had already cleared that area out. Figuring that beasts were more likely to appear on the way he headed out for the next dungeon.

  As suspected based on the previous dungeon locations, the token was sending him to the south. The pace he set this time was much faster than before. He wanted to test out his body. The idea of him casting magic rammed home that he was no longer Alan Taylor of the SSF, he was now a fantasy hero. It was time to see what he was capable of. He was able to run much faster than he had previously, but Alan still found himself tiring quickly while sprinting. Slowing up to a fast jog he considered how his body had changed.

  The new strength was easy to notice. When grinding up the stones, or swinging daggers he could tell that he was significantly more powerful. It was the difference between a gym rat and a bodybuilder. Both were strong, but one was at a whole nother level. Dexterity was only a little harder to notice. He threw some random turns into the run and even did a cartwheel. Alan could feel the agility he now possessed. He wouldn’t be joining the olympic gymnastics team any time soon, but it was a safe bet that he could if he trained for it. He might even be able to do a flip now, but decided not to test it. His body had the potential but he needed to work on getting it used to the movements.

  Perception was another stat that was not too difficult to notice the change in. He could see details from farther than before. When looking back at the cliff from here he could just make out the waterfall pouring down the face. It wasn’t just sight, taking a deep breath he could smell things that before he never would have noticed, his BO included. The bath last night had helped, but he had worked up a sweat breaking up all those stones and from his quick run. He wondered if there was a stat that would help with that?

  The last two of his stats that had improved, wisdom and intelligence, were harder to figure out. Intelligence had gone up with his mage class, and wisdom had increased twice with his healer class. Both had caused an increase to his mana pool, but the boost from intelligence had been significantly greater. He wasn’t sure how to measure what other effects these stats had, though. There were no IQ tests lying around and what is the measure of someone’s wisdom?

  “Tamee, I don’t suppose you can tell me about what the different stats do?”

  “As an assistant manager there are a limited number of topics I can give you information on. The tutorial is where you learn about your new potential. I am here to help guide you through questions you might have about the tutorial itself. By the way, nice job on that last dungeon. Most people do not catch on so quickly.”

  “Can you tell me how people in the other zones are doing?”

  “I am currently only able to observe human zone 256. Even if that was not the case, I cannot answer questions about how others are doing. That would be an abuse of my observer role.”

  “But you just told me that I did better than others in the last dungeon.”

  “I only told you how you compared to what historically others had done in that dungeon. Remember that the Network has integrated new races thousands, even millions, of times. The dungeons you will be running are rarely unique and are usually based on past versions.” That was good to know. Maybe he could exploit this.

  “Can you tell me what historically the other three dungeons were like?”

  “That would also be cheating. It is ok to talk about challenges you have already overcome. It is not ok to prepare you for future challenges.”

  Alan would have to think about how to get some information to help him out without running into her manager's sense of duty. Now was not the time though because he had found a new threat. He could see two foxes in the forest ahead. It didn’t look like they could see him yet. He also didn’t think they would be able to smell him from too far away because there was little to no wind in the valley at the moment. Taking a page out of the squirrels’ playbook he slowly and quietly made his way to a nearby trunk. With a slight jump he managed to catch a thick branch and easily pulled himself up.

  It was soon apparent that there would be no careful crawl from tree to tree to get over the foxes. The trees were spaced too far apart and the outer branches would not be able to support the weight. Unable to pounce from above, Alan decided to try out his new ranged spell on a real target.

  Spell: Light Bolt (common). Summons a bolt of light which can hit a target up to 30 meters away. Deals a small amount of damage which scales with your intelligence. Mana cost: 20

  He could currently cast it four times, but decided to try it twice and see how effective it was. He wanted to keep enough mana in reserve to cast minor healing if needed. Light bolt was nice because you didn’t have to say anything. You only had to point with a finger and think it into being. When he had cast it previously he hadn’t really been paying attention to the specifics, he was just excited to cast.

  Pointing at the closer of the two foxes, about twenty meters away, he willed it into being. At first it looked more like a ball of light, but then it quickly streaked toward the target, stretching out as it flew. He willed a second into being while the first was on its way. There didn’t seem to be a cool down which was nice. When he managed to grow his mana pool higher he could send a mass of bolts at a target in a quick burst.

  The total travel time was maybe one second. The physics of it was confusing since the bolts seemed to be simply light, but the two streaks actually caused the fox to stumble. The uninjured one turned and found Alan in the treetops almost immediately. He guessed these bolts acted like tracers which could be easily tracked back to their source. Something to keep in mind in the future. The fox that had been hit seemed to have some singed fur and was a little unsteady on its feet. It would be nice if they had a health bar.

  It seemed that the spell had done a little damage, but it wasn’t going to allow him to mow down enemies. Both foxes made their way over, noses in the air as they stared up at him. It was apparently too much to ask for them to come all the way beneath him, though. They stopped about five meters away and spread out a little from each other. It was an impasse as long as Alan was in the tree since they couldn’t reach him and he didn’t have the mana to take them out with his spell, which was his only ranged weapon. However, he had stuff to do and needed the growth he could get from killing them so it was time to press the issue.

  Not wanting to jump out of a tree with his weapon drawn, he grabbed the branch with his left hand and used it to slow his fall as he hopped down. The right hand went to his seax and drew it immediately. Meanwhile, the foxes had advanced as soon as they saw him start falling. Staying about a hundred degrees apart they moved on him together. Both were leading with their jaws, maybe foxes, like dogs, don’t usually use their feet and claws for fighting. He swung his dagger in front of him to fend off their attacks but they were far enough apart to make it awkward. He tried to go on offense and focus on striking one rather than keeping it back. Alan managed to score a small cut to its face but at the same time the other managed to bite his leg.

  He was able to shake it off but decided he needed to try using his other dagger as well. He had gained two weapon fighting last time so maybe if he kept working at it the second dagger wouldn’t feel so awkward in his left hand. Backing up Alan reached over and drew his pugio as well. The next couple of minutes were going to be a learning experience.

  It instantly became apparent how much easier it is to keep them back, having two weapons to wave in their faces. However, he still wasn’t confident enough to make an actual attack with his off hand. He had some success attacking with the right hand while brandishing his left at the second fox to keep it back. It was during one of these attacks that his seax sliced a fox’s neck open. Either the improved strength or the sharpened blade let it cut right through the beasts thick hide. Collapsing to the ground it quickly bled out.

  Alan started to turn on the second fox but found his movements suddenly sluggish. It felt like he had just finished a triathlon. Keeping one of his blades between him and his foe was a herculean effort. After calling up his status screen he found the problem. His stamina was almost at zero. He hadn’t ever thought about it before, but thinking back he realized that he had always finished his fights fairly quickly. His stamina had never been an issue in battle before, but maybe it was the reason he got so tired after sprinting. Luckily it was his fastest recovering pool. By playing defense for a little while and focusing on conserving energy he should recover enough to end the fight.

  The remaining fox had other ideas, but now that Alan had both daggers to keep it away there was no chance of it getting close. Even slowed, it was easy to keep sharp iron between him and its teeth. After another minute of this he found himself able to move faster and took the opportunity to end it. With a clumsy stab using his left hand as a distraction Alan slashed its throat open with the seax when it moved to avoid the feint.

  Now it was time to carve up the carcasses. While the pugio was a blade designed for stabbing it still had a double edge. With its shorter blade he found it to be the better tool for harvesting. Wiping his other blade clean on the foxes fur he sheathed it to free up his main hand. Squatting down he then proceeded to collect the fur and meat from both foxes. While he was at it he pulled out the squirrel carcasses and skinned those as well. He took this time to also cast healing on himself and called up his status screen to check on his growth.

  Alan Taylor

  Race: Human [W]

  Class:

  Fighter (24%) Quartz

  Healer (20%) Quartz

  Hunter (14%) Quartz

  Mage (4%) Quartz

  Rogue (25%) Quartz

  Health: 128 (13/hour)

  Stamina: 40/108 (22/minute)

  Mana: 51/98 (10/minute)

  Stats:

  Strength: 11

  Dexterity: 11

  Perception: 9

  Focus: 6

  Intelligence: 8

  Wisdom: 12

  Constitution: 7

  Spirit: 3

  Skills:

  Cooking: 1

  Daggers: 13

  Dodging: 4

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  First Aid: 12

  Harvesting: 7

  Herbology: 6

  Identify: 6

  Mana Drawing: 3

  Running: 8

  Sneak: 3

  Tracking: 5

  Two Weapon Fighting: 3

  Unarmed Combat: 9

  Titles: [Top Recruit]

  Talents:

  Fighter: Parry

  Healer: Mend

  Hunter: Charm Animal

  Mage: Light Spinner

  Rogue: Quick Hands, Stealth

  Spells: Minor Healing (common), Light Bolt (common), Light (common)

  Three of his classes had hit 20% already and several of his skills were going up. Daggers hadn’t improved as much as Alan might have expected, but maybe the growth slows down as the skill level gets higher. As excited as he was about using magic, he still thought his melee talents were more effective. The light bolts could definitely serve a purpose, but they wouldn’t bring a beast down by themselves right now. All in all he was pretty pleased with how the fight went, but it would be important to keep an eye on stamina in the future.

  Running again he continued through the forest to the next dungeon. On the way, there was time to engage in small talk with Tamee. This time her questions were about Earth’s political systems in the western hemisphere. While this was Alan giving information rather than the other way around, it was furthering the bond she felt with him. He had to admit that the talks were also enjoyable, Tamee had a good personality and was fun to talk to. Even when he had to explain the electoral college. Most of the questions he was able to answer, but Brexit was something few Americans really understood so he muddled through those responses the best he was able.

  The concept of democracy was apparently not unheard of in the larger Network, but a government where truly all people were allowed to vote was not common. Most societies were based on strength and class levels, a kind of might makes right hierarchy. Alan took this opportunity to try and find out about what awaited humanity beyond this tutorial, assuming they survived.

  “So how many star systems are there in the Network?”

  “There are somewhere between four and five million star systems currently integrated in the system. Not each of those has its own government. There are many empires, coalitions, kingdoms, powers, federations, dynasties, and conglomerations. Other systems have no governing body whatsoever and are considered rather lawless.”

  “What happens when our tutorial ends, are we automatically added to some bigger empire or do we start independent?” This was the type of question he really wanted an answer to. He was in this to save his planet, such as it was, and knowing what came next would be important.

  “Much of what happens will depend on who ends up with authority over your planet. That is what you are fighting for, the power to choose what happens.” She paused for a moment as if realizing she had said too much, “I probably shouldn’t say anymore about this now.” That response just gave him more motivation to grow as much as possible so that he could maybe help out the other humans. That had been his motivation ever since being teleported down here.

  He didn’t expect to be able to make it all the way to the end, but the more tiers he passed the fewer enemies the other human zones would have to deal with. And maybe at some point he would run into other humans that he could team up with. One against 30,000 in tier three was long odds, but he was growing more powerful every day and he liked to think he could stand on his own against anyone he might face. At most someone might get five classes, he thought, but Alan would hopefully have eight.

  And here was his opportunity to earn number six. The carving above this dungeon was a book with a shining sun above it. He already had a mage class so he wasn’t sure what this would be. There was only one way to find out.

  New Quest: The Cave of Seekers

  [Before you lie two paths. The first is the Path of Faith and the second is the Path of the Soul. Choose a path or exit now.]

  It may have been mentioned earlier that Alan was an atheist. That didn’t mean he hated religion. He thought it was great, for other people. If it brought them comfort and helped keep them from becoming psychopaths, then more power to them. Personally, the idea of a God never made sense to him. Ghosts, auras, and the power of crystals seemed pretty fake as well. On the other hand, here he was in a Network that could literally rewrite reality. Alan had fought demons, used crushed crystals to channel mystical energy, and had been introduced to the concept of a soul. So what did he know anyway?

  All of that is to say he didn’t think these two paths were as silly as he maybe would have a few days ago. The concept of faith was tricky for him. What type of faith did it reference? Being part of a team you had to have faith that your buddies would take care of their business. Faith that ‘thoughts and prayers’ would solve your problem, though, seemed reckless. The faith in this path felt like a capital F. In the end the soul path just felt more palatable to him.

  Quest Update: The Path of the Soul

  [Every sentient creature has a soul. It is possible to see parts of another being’s soul and determine if they are lying or telling the truth. Use your senses to determine which of these guards is a liar and which one tells the truth. You can only ask one of them a question, but you can ask them that same question as many times as you would like. Identify the liar to complete the task.]

  Someone had been watching too many 80’s movies. Was David Bowie hiding somewhere playing with a crystal ball waiting to steal his baby brother? The movie wasn’t really that great, but he did think Bowie looked kinda cool juggling that thing around. Maybe with his increased dexterity contact juggling was something he could pick up. Focus dude, more important stuff to think about.

  Anyway, this was a challenge he was thoroughly prepared for. Between movies, fantasy books, and unoriginal DM’s, Alan knew exactly how to handle this. Sure enough, as he looked around the room he saw 2 guards standing in front of a tunnel. As he approached they crossed their spears in front of the door. If he was going to pass he would have to figure out which guard was telling the lies.

  The general idea behind the solution to this challenge was to ask one guard about what the other would say. Because of one always lying and the other always telling the truth they would end up giving the same answer no matter which guard you asked. Kind of like how a positive and a negative always multiply to a negative, regardless of the order. His challenge was not to find a safe path like in Labyrinth, but simply which guard was lying.

  He stepped up to the guard on the left and asked “Who would the other guard say is the liar?” If the guard he asked was the liar then the other one is the truth teller. The truth teller would say that the other guard is the liar, so Alan’s guard, the liar in this situation, would lie and say the other guard. Does your head hurt yet? Let’s use guard 1 (the guard questioned) and guard 2 (the other guard) to make it easier. In the other case, If guard 1 is the truth teller then guard 2 is a liar. That means #2 would lie and say that guard 1 is the liar. Since guard 1 tells the truth about what guard 2 would say, he would say guard 1. In both cases the guard identified in the end is the truth teller, which means the other one is the liar.

  His chosen guard looked at him and said “He would say that he is the liar.” Looks like he had picked the naughty one to start. Alan now knew which guard was the liar, but he hadn’t actually tried to do anything with the soul. It is important to remember that this was an opportunity to learn more about his powers in addition to making his way through. He started by looking inside himself.

  He found his energy flow again and once more had to smooth it out in a few places. Was this happening naturally over time, or was this possibly happening because his classes were going up? Maybe his gains in power affected how the energy passed through his body. He didn’t have enough data to make a determination yet, so the question was shelved for later. Now it was time to see if he could tell when he himself was the one lying.

  “I love getting my left leg mangled.” Nothing.

  “The moon landing was fake.” Still nothing.

  “How I Met Your Mother had a great ending.” Maybe he felt something that time. It wasn’t anything in his energy flow, but it wasn’t not in his energy either. It wasn’t until after a few more times trying that he was sure he could see something. It was very faint but Alan could sense some kind of ripple spreading out from his chest when he lied.

  Now to test what happens when telling the truth. “I was born in New York.”

  “My favorite color is magenta.”

  “Spiders creep me out.”

  No reaction to any of those. It was possible he was missing something, or it was possible that telling the truth doesn’t cause any kind of reaction. Either way he decided it was time to try it on the guard. Alan asked him the question again and got the same response. He was unable to see the guards energy flows, but he could still sense a disturbance when he lied, like a ripple moving across his body that somehow wasn’t really there. Just to make sure he wasn’t deluding himself he did it five more times, each with the same result.

  That settled it. There was definitely some kind of disturbance when someone lied. It would be hard to notice if you weren’t specifically looking for it, but if you were it was obvious. Were there ways of beating this like you can with a lie detector? That was a question for another day.

  Now he only had one problem, how to complete the test? He had figured out who the liar was a long time ago but there was no notification that the quest was done. Maybe he needed to make some kind of formal commitment.

  Pointing at the lying guard he declared, “You sir, are the liar.” The guards uncrossed their spears and Alan entered the tunnel between them. This brought him to a room identical to the last one.

  Quest Update: The Path of the Soul

  [You have passed the first test. Now demonstrate that it was not just luck. Liars identified 1/8]

  Wow, that was kinda smart of the Network. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he identified the wrong guard, but by making him do this over and over he would have to be really lucky to guess correctly every time. Or he would actually need to be able to tell if they were lying. Alan asked the question again to one of the new guards, and again he had chosen the guard who was lying. He could sense the disturbance when he answered and declared him the liar immediately.

  He passed into a third identical room and this time ended up choosing the truth teller. No matter how many times he asked the question, twenty-nine times if you must know, Alan could detect no change in his energy and no ripple. He declared the other guard the liar and moved on. And so it continued with each room, he would ask his question and declare the appropriate guard the liar. After the eighth guard he once again found himself in an exit room, the same as in the very first dungeon.

  Quest Completed: the Path of the Soul

  [You have become more in tune with the soul. Reward: One epic Seeker class stone.]

  Item: Seeker Class Stone, rarity Epic. This stone can be used to gain the class Seeker, a spirit based class that looks for meaning beyond themselves, it specializes in auras and the soul. Because of this stone’s rarity it can be used as long as you have no classes above quartz level. Can be used at any time.

  He absorbed the class and suffered through the requisite headache. Was Advil still a thing he wondered? His spirit stat increased by one and he had gained the new class talent Sensitivity. Receiving that talent kinda made sense with how the quest went, but it would have to be tested to see if it worked how he thought. Just like with all the others. It would really be nice if Tamee would be more helpful, or if there were others to talk to. Comparing notes with someone would have been useful. But then again, if there were other people then he wouldn’t have his sixth class. Alan had also picked up a new skill, Aura Reading, that must have been what was happening when he was sensing the guards' falsehoods.

  Upon leaving the dungeon he found that the sun had already passed behind the mountains. It was time to return to his alcove at the end of the valley for the night. Sleeping outside in the open wasn’t appealing anymore since he couldn’t be sure beasts wouldn’t attack during the night. On the way he continued to chat with Tamee.

  “Is there a god?” was the simple question he chose to start with.

  “That is a loaded question. There are beings that could be considered gods, but if you mean an all powerful deity who created all things like some of your planet’s religions, then probably not. Some would argue that the Network is God, but there exist things outside of its reality, so I would not think it counts.”

  This was actually reassuring. He would hate to know that he had lost Pascal’s Wager. The discussion continued with some more questions regarding the soul and the god-like beings she mentioned. She once again was unable to really help him. The rest of the time was spent explaining to her the many uses for duct tape. Apparently there was nothing like it in the Network. Alan felt a little bad for them. How would you fix things without it?

  Arriving back at his new home he decided to cook up one of the squirrels. It was already cleaned and skinned so all he had to do was place it on a spit. Throughout the day he had spent a lot of time in a tree or fighting things in the trees. This had knocked a lot of dead branches onto the ground and he had made a point of collecting these and any others found during his travels. If a reality bending godlike entity gives you a magical pouch that holds whatever you want, it would be rude not to use it. He was a little surprised that there were now branches on the ground, other than the ones he knocked down there. The first and second day the ground had been bare, but now there was the occasional stick or small branch among the grass. Maybe other squirrels had knocked them loose from the trees, or possibly the change in the environment he had noticed was causing them to act more like real trees.

  Either way, two thicker branches with a useful ‘y’ shaped branching at the top were stuck in the ground outside the ring of stones as the holders of the spit. Then a thinner branch was run through the middle of the squirrel and it was ready to cook. Before getting the fire going he took a quick dip in the lake. Trying to be fast so that he could get to cooking, he rinsed himself clean as best he could and washed his clothes. The wet remains of his wardrobe were hung near the fire once it was going.

  Turning the squirrel for about thirty minutes he couldn’t take it anymore. For some reason this repetitive motion drove him crazy, unlike the blade sharpening and stone grinding, go figure. Maybe it was the anticipation of juicy meat. It seemed to be cooked all the way through so he bit into it and there was no comparison to the calamity that was the goat strips. It still could have used some seasoning but it was hot all the way through, not burned, and there weren’t any splinters this time. Hooray!

  With that he made his way up to his alcove. There had been a plan to spruce it up but there was no more daylight. The two quests today took much longer than the more physical dungeons from day one. He would have to work on it in the morning. Even if he didn’t have time to make improvements to his house he was still going to take care of his kit. The sound of his stone rasping against his blades could be heard across the lake for the twenty minutes he spent on each blade.

  The entire time Alan tested out his energy senses, seeing if he could detect anything in the blades. He even tried pushing the energy from his hand into the stone to then send it into the dagger. Contact with the dungeon tree had helped him expand his senses into it and he hoped the same concept would work here. By the end he managed to push his energy into the stone, but once it entered he couldn’t do anything with it. This did cause his mana to drop a little, so something must have happened, but it didn’t help him sense the blades.

  He wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish with this process anyway. Being honest with himself it was probably because he had a new power and he kinda wanted to try it out. He had always been one to test his limits. Unfortunately he couldn’t sense anything, either because his daggers are not living things or more likely because he didn’t know what he was doing. With that failure to keep him company through the night, he lay down and passed out.