Chương 3

You have opened an S-Ranked Treasure Chest! I shielded my face from the light with a hand. Then, as the light subsided, I peered inside. There was a…

"What the fuck?" I bent down and picked up a very long…

"No. Fuck." Item - Lance of the Hero (Rank - S) - Level 10 The lance came out of the chest vertically and it weighed so much I felt like falling forward into the S-Ranked chest. Not wanting to know what would happen if I fell into the darkness from which the unwieldy lance was emerging, I pulled harder and finally extracted all of it, falling on my ass. Description The Lance of a Hero. It was their favorite. But… they're dead, as you can probably gather from the fact that you have it now.

A great lance that gives a host of crazy bonuses! Strength, Plus 15 Dexterity, Plus 5 Penetration Damage, Plus 200% Charge Speed, Plus 300% Throw Speed, Plus 300% Grants the following Skills: Recall Lance, Max Level: Summon your lance from up to two miles away. Cooldown: one minute. Heroic Throw, Level 15: When you throw your lance at your enemy, your strength is temporarily doubled for the throw. The lance will home on your target. I whistled reading all of that.

"Holy shit, this is great." I made the mistake of letting that one escape my lips. And of course, I spoke too soon because I then checked the rest of the description. There are requirements, bud. That was the AI's voice speaking directly into my head as I indeed read the requirements. Requirements Spear Mastery - Level 15 Strength - 40 A Hero's Heart A hero's heart? What was I supposed to do — cut one out of somebody's chest? Find a hero and take it? I looked at the requirements and then at the blinking timer.

11: 03 Of course. I can't use it. I don't even know how fucking hard it's going to be to use this. Sorry, there, the Lance will now be locked in your Inventory until you have fulfilled base requirements. The lance poofed out of existence with a small cloud of smoke and a drum sound.

"John? Where did it go?" Lucas asked.

"Did it have requirements? Just get the Skill like I did."

"Did you guys have a way to check your stats? Apparently we have like, Strength, Dexterity…" They all looked at me and shook their heads. You unlock your Status once you reach your first Haven.

"Well, I can't use this," I told them, and I caught almost a glimpse of relief from most of them, and a frown from Lucas. I sighed and opened the next chest. Item - Armor of Raziel (Rank - S) - Level 10 Description: Raziel was an angel of fire in your planet's mythology or something like that. Now, you get their armor. It's probably the best piece of armor you can find in the Tutorial, lucky luke. But you will be hunted by bloodthirsty, psychotic fallen angels if you wear this. They want to reclaim their heritage.

So, that's that. Also, this is a bound item. You can't unequip it once you put it on. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it I looked at the white, scaly armor in front of me. Each scale was pristine white, the whitest white I had ever seen. It felt extremely light and it covered both the torso and my arms. Description Constitution, Plus 15% All Resistances, Plus 300% Grants the following Quest: Fury of the Fallen Angels. Raziel's Fall.

Grants the following Skills: Fire Mastery - Level 15 (Permanent) Judgment of Raziel - Level 1 (Permanent) The bonuses were great. The fact that constitution was in percentage, I knew it meant that this would scale even more later in the tutorial and it quadrupled any resistance I had. I waited for the other shoe to drop, but nothing came. I supposed that the shoe was the fact that this would put fallen angels on my tracks. And the system AI had described those fallen angels as bloodthirsty and psychotic.

That did not sound like a fun time.

"I think there are no requirements for this one," I still said, relieved that I could use it, although still undecided whether to do that given the downsides.

"Can I look at that?" Lucas asked. I nodded and I held the armor in front of him. He touched it and it was apparently enough for him to see the description.

"Damn," Lucas said.

"No requirements." Then he turned to Marcus.

"Shouldn't Marcus wear this?"

"I'm sorry," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Marcus has a shield and this is perfect for a tank." I looked at Marcus and his unwieldy shield. Tina chimed in.

"I guess that makes sense." she shrugged.

"We should share anyway. Didn't you say that you're working in the interest of the group?" Hailey didn't say anything, seemingly not interested in this choice. Marcus, instead, was looking with open eyes at the piece of armor after Lucas's suggestion. You could see him salivate, basically.

"Marcus needs something that increases his Strength and Constitution, and not in percentage," I explained. I was about to pull the armor back when Lucas held it.

"I'm not sure that's how it works," Lucas said.

"We should discuss this."

"Lucas, that's John's reward. Don't be an ass," Hailey said.

"And I know he plays a lot of videogames–since this thing feels like a videogame, I'd trust him better than you." Lucas was caught unprepared and I snatched the armor back, deciding it was time to wear it, consequences be damned, before it could be 'discussed.' Would you like to wear Armor of Raziel? YES|NO Fuck the consequences. I don't understand what game Lucas is playing, but I'm not letting my reward be snatched away. I mentally selected yes and it appeared over my button up.

It was soft and snug, fitting perfectly to my frame. You have bound Armor of Raziel. You cannot remove Armor of Raziel until you complete the newly assigned Quests. The Quests will be unveiled on the third floor. The others didn't look too pleased by the show of initiative but I didn't care. 08: 33 Time was running out. I selected the Skill Scroll and it appeared in my hands. It was a white scroll with no ornaments. I unrolled it, without looking at anybody in the eye.

Item - Scroll of Sphere of Intuition (Rank SSS) - Level 1 Would you like to learn Sphere of— I immediately selected yes without even thinking. I wasn't having another symposium. I had learned my lesson. Sphere of Intuition - Level 1 Sphere of Intuition doesn't cost Mana Points to use. It shows you everything that happens in a twenty-feet radius. I frowned, not really understanding what it meant, but then, focusing on the Skill, the world around me spun.

Suddenly, I was seeing everything in a twenty feet radius, which is huge. That's a forty feet diameter of perception, which took in everybody else. I could zoom on their faces simultaneously, as if my brain had split and became able to look at more than one thing at once. Holy shit, this is incredible. But, there was something that bothered me about it. First, the AI had not commented. Second, this was an SSS Skill.

Part of me getting an SSS Skill was luck, and there were probably only so many people in the entire world with something like this. For an SSS Skill… wasn't the effect underwhelming? Three-sixty view of everything was great, especially for combat. But I felt like in any other game, this would have just been something like a good Rank A Skill. Still pondering, I temporarily ignored my teammates and picked a spear and Spear Mastery from the F Weapon Chest and Skill Scroll.

I needed Spear Mastery as one of the requirements to unlock the S-Ranked Lance. Everybody else was soon done with their selection. It appeared that Hailey had gotten a heal skill from the F-ranked skill scroll. Tina had chosen Mana Bolt and a staff. She said she felt like a mage now, and she wore the robes to match. The E-ranked chest had given her daggers, and the armor chest a robe — a double of the one in the equipment chest. She complained about being screwed over. It was bad luck, most likely.

I said most likely because none of us knew yet whether the System was messing with us. I counted us up. Lucas and Tina at range. Marcus with a shield, which made him the tank. Hailey with a heal spell. We were a team now, more or less. Hailey had picked Mana Bolt from the equipment chest, but I told her to focus on the heal. I suspected we would need it.

"What now?" Lucas asked. Looking at me. I hadn't forgotten about the weird reaction he had had when I got the armor. I looked at the timer. We had less than one minute left.

"I think," I said, "that we'll have to wait and see. Let's have Tina and Hailey stand in the middle. The guys in the outer perimeter." Lucas nodded. He seemed to return to his friendly and competent demeanor after the weird act from before. The timer slowly trickled down. In those moments of silence, Gina's form falling onto the spiked branches appeared beside my eyes. We stood in a circle with Marcus, Lucas, and me on the outer edge and Tina and Hailey on the inside. 00: 02 00: 01 00: 00 The clock finally ran out.

I didn't feel anything for several moments—we looked at each other. Everything seemed to stay the same. I focused on the Sphere of Intuition, focusing on the outer edges, while using my eyes to look in the distance, to see if anything would appear. Then, two creatures appeared, one in front of me, one right behind me, between me and Hailey.