He had made it back to camp well before even the false sunset of the sun passing below the mountaintops. Yes, growing his classes was important and he could have spent more time doing that, but he also needed to take care of some other long term considerations. If the next tier was anything like this one then he would need to work on a plan for a better shelter. His cave was safe and hopefully very comfortable. It was a shame he hadn’t gotten to sleep in it the night before, which was part of why he came back early. But he also didn't know if he was going to be able to use it after tomorrow night. He would need to be prepared in case he lost access to it.

  The encounter with the coyotes that morning while he lay unconscious proved the importance of a secure base. The beasts were getting stronger every day and if that continued into the next zone he absolutely could not just sleep in the open. While it may be possible to come back to his current safe shelter, it would probably not be convenient going forward. If he could locate another elevated cave that would be great, but a plan was needed for constructing a more conventional shelter just in case.

  The biggest thing holding him back from making improvements was a lack of wood. It was possible he could build something using stones and mortar, but he didn’t have the ingredients. Well, he had access to the water and there might be some limestone in the lake he could use, but sand would be a problem. The bed of the lake was more of a swampy dirt which would not be suitable. Also, the thought of how much grinding he would have to do, even if he found enough limestone rocks in the lake, made his arms ache.

  Wood was a much better alternative. Only using what he could break off of trees would be severely limiting. If there were other people around then maybe someone could have gotten an axe as a quest reward and could have cut down trees and branches for others. All by his lonesome he had no such luck. He could either whine about it like a baby, or put on his big boy pants and make his own axe.

  The process that he went through for making a whetstone was a little similar to how he was shown during a survival training course to make a stone blade. You can do it with nothing but two rocks, a stick, and possibly a fire. Alan already had a perfect stone to help him shape the axe head, the extra white quartz rocks in his pouch. Looting anything that might be useful was now his mantra. There was no way he wasn’t going to collect some of those freely provided stones from the mage dungeon. Now he needed a good sized river rock to be the blade.

  Luckily the lake was full of these. It probably shouldn’t be since there wasn’t really a flow of water to wear away the rough edges of the rocks, but like the initial setup of this place, they didn’t seem to be too concerned with making sure the science made sense. After fishing around for a few minutes he found one that was larger than the others and a good shape. It was granite which had positives and negatives. It was a hard stone so it would make a strong blade, but it would also be harder to shape. Between mana strengthening and his almost superhuman strength, though, he should be able to handle it. Flint would have been even harder, and was the traditional stone people thought of for stone tools. However, he had yet to locate any in the lake.

  To begin he spent some time infusing his chosen white quartz hammer stone with mana. It wasn’t as much as he had put in the club, but it should be adequate to make it durable enough to be his hammer. Quartz was supposed to be harder than granite, but they were close. A little reinforcement wouldn’t be bad. Next he looked over the stone that would be his axehead. It was already a nice shape, not too thick and oblong in shape. It was about twenty centimeters long and thirteen wide and was a dark gray color. It wasn’t all that large, but he wasn’t trying to make a war axe, and honestly there weren’t many larger stones in the lake except for the much larger boulders by the waterfall that would be unsuitable.

  Next was a check using his aura senses. The granite had a nice grid without any obvious flaws. Now he could use a process called pecking to slowly form an edge on one end. Using hard precise blows with his hammer stone he slowly chipped away. This took him about an hour, which is honestly much faster than he expected. There was now a rough and jagged edge on one end of the stone. Using his whetstone he ground that edge to a smooth polish. Then he followed that up with some mana reinforcement to make sure the ‘blade’ could handle powerful strikes.

  Now he needed a handle. The club he had already made would be a nice size, but it was a little thin and was probably too hard to shape now that it had been infused with mana. Instead he found a branch on a hickory tree that was about seven centimeters across. Holding the stone axehead in his hand he cut the branch down to an appropriate length and then used the head to also remove any small twigs coming off of it.

  It was not fun cutting through that using his arm as the handle, each blow left his hand aching with vibrations. It would be nice to get a real handle. He also appreciated not having to use his precious daggers for this work. Yes, he could sharpen them afterwards, but sharpening a blade is a destructive process. You are removing parts of the blade to leave the edge cleaner. Over time this would reduce his blades to the point of making them brittle and small.

  It was unfortunately necessary to use his pugio to remove a section of bark from one end of the branch. The axe edge was not quite sharp enough to shave the bark with. He then cut, as best he could with his stone, a hole through that section. It was slightly smaller than the unfashioned side of the axehead. After that he then cleaned the hole up the best he could with his seax. It was going to be an extra long sharpening session tonight.

  Next up was the hammer rock again and he pecked down the back of the axe head until it would fit snugly into the hole. Once this was completed he placed the stone in the end of the handle and then, gently at first and then with increasing force, tapped the axehead into a tree trunk causing the stone to bury itself firmly in the handle.

  He now had an axe that was about ninety centimeters long with the top twenty having no bark. In that section was buried a now eighteen centimeter stone axehead that was about ten centimeters wide and stuck out maybe seven centimeters from the handle. The rest of the branch was covered in shaggy bark.

  Another twenty minutes was spent removing the bark from the bottom third and then using one of the coarse fox pelts to sand smooth all of the exposed wood. While he was sanding it he was also infusing the wood to make sure it wouldn’t crack or split. Alan smiled to himself when he thought of all the people back home who would have gone crazy over this ability. Its uses for creating strong tools was incredible. When he was done he had a fairly impressive looking piece.

  Item: Mana infused Stone Axe (common), this crude stone axe has been infused with light mana to make it more durable. It also provides a low level of illumination.

  Again infusing it with his mana seemed to cause it to glow. Why was that? Possibly because his mage skill is light spinner. Now that he really thought about that it seemed obvious. Ok, he had an axe, now what? Chopping time. No he wasn’t trying to make logs for a shelter. While it would be possible now that he had an axe it would not be fast. Especially with the relatively low quality of the axe and its smaller size. Also, he didn’t need a new shelter yet. Instead, he wanted to upgrade his arsenal. The club he had used today was serviceable, but nothing impressive. It was similar to a billy club and he was envisioning more of a Fred Flinstone thing for his upgraded version.

  Going back to his hickory tree he found a thick branch, it was about twenty-five centimeters thick. He took his axe and slowly chopped the branch off. It took about five minutes, but that axe was sharp! He was reevaluating how long it would take to cut a tree into boards. The limiting factor was the size of the blade. Even the branch proved too thick as it meant he had to chip into it in several sections to make a cut all the way across the branch.

  Next he trimmed it up and cut the other end off so he had a section that was over a meter long. All in all, after putting it to hard use, he was very happy with the axe. The handle especially was an improvement, and it left his arm in a much better condition.

  He then used the axe to trim down the diameter of his future club. The goal was a taper from the fat end all the way to the thinner end which would be the handle. The last seven centimeters were left a little thicker to provide a base for his hands to brace against. He now had a very rough club that was over twenty centimeters across at the whacking end and tapered to the handle area which was about five centimeters in diameter.

  Picking it up with one hand he found it heavy, but not unwieldy. Holding it with two hands was much more comfortable. He had tried to make the cuts as smooth as possible, but it showed that he was working with a stone tool. Taking out his sanding fur he set about smoothing the shaft. He focused mostly on the handle area, but made sure the whole thing got a pass. Once that was done he again used mana to harden it.

  He hadn't gathered any resources for a future shelter, but now that Alan had an axe that would be much easier if it turned out to be necessary to build one. Tomorrow he hoped to avoid using his daggers at all while fighting, instead using only his new war club, so he could focus on leveling his guardian class instead of his other martial classes.

  Storing the club and the axe back in his pouch he made his way back to the lake. The perfect trees were unfortunately not all right there at the lake. During his exploration of tree auras he had located the ones needed and they were scattered around in maybe a three klick radius, so he had a relatively short walk back. The sun was now officially set and he wanted to get an early start the next day. The sooner he was able to complete Tamee’s mission the sooner he could start getting real help, or at least better answers to his questions.

  His daggers had seen a lot of use today and he refused to neglect them, especially after using them some for carving. Sitting down by the lake he sharpened them as he focused on his aura. With all of the stat growth he had managed there were quite a few disruptions that needed fixing. Using his new level of sensitivity and insight Alan fixed the problems and smoothed out his aura. He was also able to tell that the flow had increased again. There seemed to be more energy and it was also moving through the field faster.

  He said good night to Tamee, who laughed at him for his efforts crafting the new tools. The Network had called them crude, and she saw them that way as well. What she didn’t realize was how useful an axe can be in a survival scenario, even if it wasn’t a fancy one. On the other hand, maybe she knew that his survival days were behind him and thought it was wasted effort. She did know what was coming up after all.

  The next morning he awoke at the usual time and did some tai chi. The feeling of restrained power in my body was heady. He would say that his body felt at least twice as powerful as before he started this tutorial. He was looking forward to the day when he could spar against an actual person and see what he was now capable of. When he thought of the fact that his next ‘spar’ would probably be against an alien who would be trying to kill him, he lost some of his enthusiasm. But not all. In the end Alan was still a Green Beret and kicking ass is in the job title.

  He went to check his new berry bush and found that it was already starting to fruit. There were only a few, and they were nowhere near ripe, but that was insane progress. He wasn’t a gardener, but his mother was, and he knew that what he was seeing should have taken weeks or months. Some plants he knew took years to produce fruits but he thought that was mostly for the tree borne variety. Grabbing some berries off of the original bush he set out into the valley. Sports training montage number 2!

  His nemeses today were boars, wolves, and cougars. Thankfully they did not travel in groups. The boars were the easiest to fight. They were built like tanks and could hit like one too. However, they were slow and the new club was amazing. His daggers would not have been able to make much of an impact because of its tough skin and hard muscles. A couple of good whacks to the spine or head with his heavy club was enough to put them down, however. There was something to be said for blunt weapons when dealing with an armored foe.

  The wolves, on the other hand, were fast and their bite was much worse than a coyotes. They also were willing to take a hit to deliver one. One wolf took a slice to the face so that it could bite his arm. They moved too fast for his large club and the smaller one couldn’t generate enough force to really hurt them, so he was forced to use his daggers again. The wolf was strong too and when it clamped down and shook Alan’s arm it almost dislocated his shoulder. Sadly for the wolf, its fur, while thick, provided no protection from a pugio to the lungs. After skinning the first one he noticed that their fur was even softer and thicker than the coyotes’.

  All day long he was also trying to make sure each blow hit a vital area. It was not only improving his scholar class, but also helping him with his aim. By the end he could tell he was a much more effective fighter now than he was four days ago, and not just because of his increased stats. He was mowing through the beasts with little challenge now. This gave him plenty of time to work on his scholar class which had the farthest to go to get to 30%.

  The hardest of the beasts was the cougars, which thankfully were rare. They were fast and agile and used all of their lethal claws in addition to their vicious bite. He found that using the club was most effective. While they were fast like the wolves as well, they also were more protected by their thick muscles. It was easier to land a blow with his daggers but it was difficult to make them count. With the heavier club a hit would do plenty of damage.

  Taking a page from the wolves fighting style, he allowed the cougar to wound him in order to create an opening. Like the wolf he could take a smaller strike to deliver a devastating one. A well placed blow from his heavy club would often leave the cougar wounded enough that it was then easier to finish it off. This also let him work on his healing.

  His healing class made huge improvements when Alan realized he could heal not just himself but his enemy too. It wouldn’t be something he did in a real battle, but even these level three beasts didn’t really pose a lethal challenge. He killed so many that he was forced to take out all of the old carcasses to make room for the new ones. The pelts he had already skinned and the few loose goat horns were saved, as well as some of the squirrel carcasses. They had been tasty, and useful for charming that bobcat. A lot of meat was thrown away, but he was looking forward to cooking up boar later. That was one of the few animals he was killing that he had eaten in his previous life.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  In true montage fashion he was back at the lake by midafternoon flush with victory. He pulled up his status sheet to confirm.

  Alan Taylor

  Race: Human [W]

  Class:

  Fighter (40%) Quartz

  Guardian (34%) Quartz

  Healer (48%) Quartz

  Hunter (41%) Quartz

  Mage (31%) Quartz

  Rogue (51%) Quartz

  Scholar (31%) Quartz

  Seeker (36%) Quartz

  Health: 164 (16/hour)

  Stamina: 146 (29/minute)

  Mana: 126 (13/minute)

  Stats:

  Strength: 13

  Dexterity: 14

  Perception: 12

  Focus: 10

  Intelligence: 11

  Wisdom: 14

  Constitution: 11

  Spirit: 7

  Skills:

  Aura Reading: 13, Blunt Weapons: 17, Cooking: 3, Daggers: 26, Dodging: 9, First Aid: 11, Harvesting: 9, Herbology: 7, Identify: 11, Mana Drawing: 3, Mana Enhancement: 4, Running: 13, Sneak: 9, Tracking: 12, Two Weapon Fighting: 18, Unarmed Combat: 10

  Titles: [Top Recruit]

  Talents:

  Fighter: Parry

  Guardian: Hammer Blow

  Healer: Mend

  Hunter: Charm Animal

  Mage: Light Spinner

  Rogue: Quick Hands, Stealth

  Scholar: Understanding

  Seeker: Sensitivity

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

  Basically everything had improved. Classes, skills, stats, everything. Alan also felt like he had managed to integrate his various combat abilities fairly well. For example he found that a light bolt to the face, while not very damaging, was a great distraction to allow for dodging or delivering a more significant blow with his daggers or club. He also liked the flexibility that being able to use a club or daggers gave him, and it was finally getting comfortable to use his off hand in combat.

  It was time to see what Tamee could do for him. “Ok Tamee, I did what you asked,” he told her as he also shared his status screen.

  “Now I am guessing you want to hear how I am going to help you? First, I want you to know why I am helping you. It is difficult to trust if you don’t know someone’s motivation. By becoming a tutorial assistant manager for a zone I receive rewards based not only on my own performance, but also on how far the recruits in my zone make it. With only one person I thought this zone was doomed. But with your talent we have a chance to get all the way to the end.”

  “No pressure there, thanks. By the way, what’s your real name?” Alan asked.

  “It actually is Tamee. I am not really tutorial assistant manager #33, we don’t get numbers. I just added it on because it was already so close to my name. I’m a little bit of a nerd, deal with it! There are other reasons why it makes good sense to help you, but let us not get into that now.”

  “So the better I do, the better you do. Works for me, but won’t you get in trouble for helping me? What happens if the Network decides you have broken too many rules?”

  “Well, this is where it gets interesting. There are some rules I cannot break because you are correct, I would be removed and forfeit all of my rewards and possibly my life. I might have even crossed that line when I warned you the other day about the bobcat. However, my actions are not under the scrutiny that they usually would be.

  “You have heard of the Network out there and I have talked about the Network providing you rewards in here. These are not actually the same entity, or at least they did not start that way. The outside reality is controlled by the Network, but the tutorial disk you are on is actually the inside of a dungeon.”

  The next ten minutes stretched the picture he had built of his new reality to the breaking point. There was a Network, and it did absorb star systems to incorporate potentially new races and new cultures. However, the tutorial disks were not run by the Network, or at least not directly. They were instead built inside of a kind of sentient dungeon. The sun orbiting the disk was actually the core of a massive dungeon.

  This dungeon was tasked by the Network with introducing the new races to the reality they would be faced with when fully integrated into the larger Network. While responsible for all of this getting set up, the Network is so large it cannot focus everywhere at once. It somehow makes these huge dungeons to run the tutorials for it.

  Tamee had told him about how the Network can’t create sentient life. That is not exactly true because it can create dungeon cores which in a way are sentient. They, however, lack a soul. Also, when a dungeon is born there exists a line of control between the maker and the created. While the dungeon has the power to do almost anything it wants inside its zone of control, the Network also retains the ability to control the dungeon.

  This entire set up was like a dictator sending a general out to found a new town. As far as the people in the town are concerned the general and the dictator have the same powers, but at any time the dictator could come in and take back control. And apparently that is what had happened. Not only that, but what he had been dealing with wasn’t even the general. These tier one zones were under the control of much smaller dungeons that were newly created. The larger dungeon in the sun had already been around for thousands of years, and had created and run countless smaller dungeons. This was like a promotion for it. These smaller ones were like baby dungeons, or possibly toddlers. They may have been tasked with running one tiny dungeon somewhere, but this was their first chance at something bigger.

  “Here is what gives us a big opportunity. The dungeon is no longer in control of this tutorial. Do you remember when that imp attacked you back on day two? Apparently the dungeon running this tutorial was messing up. It was having trouble dealing with its new much larger zone of control. Its difficulties showed it was not up to correctly running this whole valley yet, so the Network stepped in and basically locked out the dungeon's ability to affect its zone. It was trying to prevent a cascade of issues that could have thrown off the whole tutorial. You might think this would be a problem for us, now that a much more powerful force was running things, but the Network is so large that it cannot devote as much focus on the individuals in the tutorial as the singular dungeon could. As long as no major rules are broken it will not notice.”

  “If it can’t notice small infractions how can it detect larger ones?” he asked.

  “Remember the dungeon where you had to find the lying guards. The ripple you detected was caused by their soul recognizing an intent that goes against their moral code. If a person was a sociopath there would be no ripple when they lied, because they wouldn’t recognize it as a bad thing. Similarly, all of the tutorial assistant managers know what the rules are, and when we break them it causes ripples. Small infractions cause small ripples, large infractions cause larger ripples.”

  “So that is probably why you got away with warning me the other day. It wasn’t an intentional action so your soul didn’t recognize it as a problem.”

  “Wow, that is a rather insightful perspective, maybe you are not as dumb as you look.”

  “That is hurtful. I have an MD you know.”

  “Ok, but I am not sure what that is. Was that not a state or something? Anyway, what all this means is that I can provide you a lot of assistance as long as I avoid breaking the major rules. Things like direct intervention or direct instruction. As long as I skirt around the edges of the rules we should be fine.”

  That didn’t sound like much help to him, but she told him to wait a few minutes and he would begin to see some of the value. It was almost sunset so something was probably going to happen then. Tamee’s voice was once again broadcast throughout the forest.

  Congratulations on making it to the end of day six. Tomorrow, the passage to tier two will open. You do not have to go to tier two, you may remain here if you wish. However, tier two has exciting possibilities for you to grow. Like this valley it will have dungeons. Instead of a few small dungeons providing you with access to classes, these dungeons will have fantastic rewards and allow you to grow to new heights. There will also be significantly more of them, enough that you will be unable to visit them all. Tier two will last for one month. At the end of that month the strongest recruit in each zone and his party will be able to move on to the third zone. Everyone else will be temporarily removed from the tutorial. Not to worry, those of you who do not make the cut will still get a chance to return.

  Just to make sure your zone has progressed far enough to enter tier two, the passage will be guarded by a mana infused beast. In order for anyone to pass into the second tier zone, someone or a group of someones will have to defeat it. There is also a great reward for the ones who do. Good luck tomorrow!

  Alan waited, but that was apparently the end of the message. “Ok, so how is that helping me?”

  It was easy to hear the excitement bubbling out of her, “That does not. That is the Network approved message that all TAMs have to give. What I can do now is tell you what it actually means.”

  She then proceeded to lay out what was about to happen. Tomorrow the passage, which was somewhere here at the end of the valley, would open and he would have to fight a mana infused beast to gain access to the next tier. That apparently meant that the beast would have some powers, like it could breathe fire or trap you in vines. This was caused by whatever mana was used to infuse it, like his light mana causing his tools to glow.

  Assuming Alan beat it, he would then have passage to tier two which was full of dungeons. These were all system created dungeons, meaning they fall under the purview of the Network because they were originally created by the dungeon we were inside, and not spontaneously generated which was apparently a thing. This idea of dungeons creating dungeons seemed a little bit of a ‘hat on a hat‘ situation to him, but what was he gonna do about it? These new dungeons were designed to give them the tools we needed to grow. Spells, gear, money, knowledge, and even opal class stones. It was not uncommon for recruits to evolve one or even a few of their classes to opal during this time.

  Alan was originally dreading that that would mean a lot more time in caves, but apparently the term dungeon was misleading him. Just like the tutorial disk was actually a dungeon, these smaller ones could be anything. They might be a series of tunnels and caves that led to a nest of angry goblins, but it could also be a castle where you had to seduce the queen to gain access to a treasure vault. He knew which he was hoping for.

  The first eight dungeons he had already gone through are pretty standard, just like the initial valley. If he somehow ended up on another tutorial disk he would see pretty much the same thing. Apparently that time is not only for the newly collected to grow, but for the newly promoted dungeons to learn how to work with the huge upgrade in the amount of energy they were given to run this whole place. That is why everything seemed too perfect, the dungeon was working from a preset blueprint and hadn’t learned fine control yet. The next zone would be fundamentally different and Alan needed to prepare himself because his opportunity had just become a liability.

  These dungeons would be designed with parties in mind. Most recruits team up and work together, and the dungeons are built assuming that will happen. They won’t require a party to get through them, but without others to back him up he could have a very difficult time. Some would be designed with the assumption that people could be working on different tasks at the same time and it would take careful juggling to overcome that by himself.

  The other thing Tamee did was explain to him what was going on with his aura. She had earlier hinted that she could tell him tonight anyway. By this point it is assumed all recruits have a class and will have begun leveling up. An important part of leveling is apparently cultivation. Because this is probably a foreign concept to most non-Network races the TAMs are allowed to explain it now. The wiki also had a new section on the topic available, but why read when you have your own tutor.

  The energy field he had sensed inside himself, which is actually called an aura, is a conduit for the mana that is flowing through a person. Not necessarily his mana pool, but the mana that empowers his whole body. It is the energy flowing through your aura that gives you your abilities. It is also that energy that fills your mana pool, which is like a reservoir of easily tapped energy. As your classes level more energy flows through your aura. When your stats go up, it is really your aura spreading to more parts of your body, the branching that he had been seeing. As this happens, though, the addition is usually not perfect. Part of cultivation is learning how to fix these branches to truly unlock their power. That is why Alan hadn’t felt much of a difference in his body until he started fixing the flows that second night.

  Cultivation is only partly about fixing your aura, it is also about growing the pipes. Think of the aura like a body’s arteries, arterioles, and capillaries. You start your Network life with just the major arteries. When you get your first class the energy flow increases and as you start increasing your stats you add more, smaller, arteries, reaching new parts of your body and unlocking more potential. But the level that the energy is growing at does not match the expanded area. As the arteries shrink and become more like arterioles and then eventually tiny energy capillaries, they will be incredibly widespread. All this time the amount of energy is growing while the size of the vessels containing them get smaller. They will be unable to handle the extra flow which causes a kind of pressure to build.

  “So what cultivation will allow you to do is not just improve the flow of your energy, but also make the pathways better able to handle an increased flow.” Tamee explained to him. “I will teach you methods for improving your body that will cause the pathways to increase so that they can better handle the increased flow.”

  It turned out Alan was even more blessed to have all eight basic quartz classes than he knew. Because he had all of them it meant that all of his stats, and therefore energy arteries, would grow as he leveled up toward opal. Because of this his aura would be better spread around his body and able to handle more energy. He wouldn’t have to cultivate as much as others whose auras would be more limited by their lack of stats. There were ways for them to improve their non-class stats, but it was time consuming and expensive. It turned out that you had to reach some threshold of energy to be able to upgrade to opal, and that was much more difficult with fewer classes.

  She also explained some basic techniques for improving his aura that the Network allowed her to share, but she also told him that better cultivation techniques could be found in the challenges ahead. All in all he felt that Tamee had shared a lot of very useful information. Some of it he had guessed at, but getting confirmation did a lot for his confidence going forward. There was a lot to think about and it was well past sundown.

  He worked on his ‘cultivation’ while sharpening his daggers and the new axe, although the axe really did not need it. The mana reinforcement seemed to help a lot. It was a shame he was unable to do the same for his daggers. He both fixed the changes in his aura from his leveling today and worked on growing his aura as Tamee had taught him. There was already a change in his pathways, but it was almost imperceptible.

  Alan was unsure if he would be able to sleep with all of this on his mind, but when he lay down on his new luxurious bed in his much drier cave, he fell asleep as soon as his head rested against the soft coyote fur.