Poison filled the air around Teresa as she ran in a circle being chased by mosquitos. She had improved significantly at running from monsters while using the poison staff, and she had figured out the art of running in a looped pattern. Run at an angle, dodge, run more, sidestep a monster, repeat. Really all she had to think about was not getting hit, her offense was taken care of automatically by the staff.

She had begun to take riskier fights once again. That battle at the stronghold had shown her just how bad a fight could get, but it also desensitised her to fighting monsters while fully equipped. So what if these level 16 monsters were faster and stronger than her? Teresa was smarter, and had them following her into poisonous clouds to asphyxiate to death.

Both of her healing skills had leveled up again, and Teresa was sure leveling them both up one or maybe two more times would be good enough to save Sarah. Trying to gauge just how strong she needed to be to rescue her friend was kind of difficult. A while ago she had discovered it took more restoration Mana to heal someone with a higher Fortitude. Teresa's was at 7, and she was pretty confident Sarah's was relatively low. It was like 3 or something.

Or was it Madeline who had 3 Fortitude? No, Madeline had 4 and Sarah had the lowest tied with Teresa's at the start, so definitely 3. Shit, Teresa should have written all of their stats down somewhere but she had never thought she would need to. At this point knowing her friend's stats would be like knowing their blood type, knowledge that might save their lives someday. Except Teresa didn't even know her own blood type. Shit. She should probably know that, shouldn't she?

Anyways, Sarah's Fortitude was low meaning it took less restoration Mana to heal her more. How strong of an effect was this? Teresa didn't know, she didn't exactly have a lot of perspective on healing people at different Fortitudes. She had healed Jake plenty of times, but she had not really paid attention to how much Mana her spells used quite as closely.

So really it would be a guesstimate. It was better to play it on the safe side and go for as many levels as she could. As a matter of fact, Teresa wanted to get through as much of the Tutorial as she could. Not just because of Sarah, but because she might never get the chance to again. Would there be another Tutorial? Who knows, but the answer was probably not. Why would there be another Tutorial?

She wanted to know how far she really could go in this thing. It was the exact same mindset that had her worried about her brother, as he might think the same way. What would she get for beating the Tutorial? A cool title maybe? The last one gave her an amazing benefit, +5% in all stats. She would always have 5% more stats than someone at the exact same level with the same classes. That was huge, and that was for beating just stage 1.

These were benefits that would follow her for the rest of her life. Surely she had to try her best to reap the rewards of this Tutorial.

The last mosquito fell to the ground, struggling to move just like the rest of its pack. Did mosquitoes travel in packs? What was a group of mosquitoes called? Were they called anything? Shit, probably a swarm huh.

A few sword plunges later, Teresa's experience shot up again.

You Have Slain {Large Mosquito Queen (F) (lv 14)}

Experience Granted

Level Up!

Shoot, one of them was a queen? Teresa's brain had been running on autopilot a bit during the last few fights, but she was seeing the rewards for it now. Level 16, her first level as a Jack Of All Trades. It felt great. In the past, her mind had felt a little clearer whenever she leveled and her senses would slightly increase, but now everything increased a bit. She was a bit faster, a bit stronger, a bit sturdier, everything saw improvement. For some of her stats like her Intelligence an extra point wasn't a lot, but for things like her Fortitude and Strength it was a very noticeable improvement.

Her poison staff was the MVP of this whole leveling grind. She would absolutely get destroyed by most of these monsters if she tried to fight them normally, but just running around in a big circle slowly poisoning them to death? Easy.

As a matter of fact, her reaction speed was insane. She didn't have a way to measure it, but she felt like she could react faster than a cat. Was that because of her increased mental stats? Which one? Was it her Intelligence or Wisdom? It would also make sense in a way if Perception had a thing to do with it, but she wasn't sure. Either way, it made avoiding the monsters' attacks feel like something she could do in the background while her mind wandered.

She continued looking for more prey, decidedly hunting the monsters she had previously avoided. It had barely taken two hours to reach level 16 this way, she could definitely hit 17 before heading back to Liberty Island. She might even be able to hit level 18 on the way back if she got lucky, but that was unlikely. She had hunted most of the monsters closer to the Statue of Liberty, and many of the ones left had high levels.

The hours passed as Teresa killed monster after monster. Mosquitoes, Wyvern-Fish, Vampire Deer, Goblins, Clubbers, all of them needed to breathe. Teresa tried to continue experimenting with the staff, but it was like hitting her head against a wall. She wasn't making much progress in that regard, but she was still curious how it worked.

She did what she could to memorize some of the invisible patterns she could sense inside of the staff, but she didn't really understand them at all. What they did and how was a mystery still, but maybe one day they would make more sense. For now, tracing Mana through the inside of the staff was like absentmindedly fiddling her thumbs.

Around thirty monsters or so later, Teresa got another level up. Level 17. Having her class get changed was possibly the best thing that could have happened to her. When she was a healer, she had felt the level of monsters she could fight couldn't improve at the same rate as her own level. She had started out fighting level 4's and 5's at the start of the Tutorial, but fighting things 4 or 5 levels higher than her when she was level 15 was nearly suicidal.

Now she felt like that issue had been reversed. She had only leveled up twice, but that had made her more confident and capable than any of her earlier levels had done. Her Strength was at 12 and she felt like a powerlifter. Keeping her backpack on all the time had become significantly easier, though she still took it off for fights.

Her current strategy with the poison was incredibly slow due to how durable a lot of the high leveled monsters were, but sometimes the staff surprised her with the poison it could make. Was she just getting better at using the weapon or was the poison becoming stronger? It probably had to do with her level ups, but it still felt… strange. Her Mana could go through the staff quicker as she leveled up, sure, but making the poison stronger? There was something to it that she was missing, and she wasn't sure what.

The hours were filled with killing monsters. Run around with the poison staff, monsters drop dead, gain experience. Occasionally stab something and shoot arrows when possible, more poison. Rinse and repeat. Each fight was easier than the last, and at some point Teresa began experimenting with her skills in the middle of fights.

What would happen if she used <Facilitated Restoration> on an enemy she was fighting? Would she get experience as she healed their injuries? Could she deliberately make the skill weak enough for the poison to still kill them? What if she used <Magic Wellspring> on an enemy? Would she gain skill experience for providing a buff to a creature engaging in combat, even if the combat was against her?

The answer was, surprisingly, yes. Using <Facilitated Restoration> dragged the battles out longer, and ultimately slowed down her experience towards a personal level up, but it leveled the skill a lot faster. It was a trade off. More skill experience for less personal experience, something that she wasn't completely opposed to.

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It's not like there was an unlimited number of monsters to fight, or at least Teresa didn't think so. Areas she hunted in had less monsters than they used to, which was why she had to run so far from Liberty Island to find any close to her level.

She might as well make the most of every fight in that case, getting as much experience in as many things as possible. She still got the same amount of personal experience per fight, it was just slower is all.

By the time she was heading back to Liberty Island, it was dark. She had spent a lot of time just hunting monsters, and the temperature had returned to freezing. Teresa's Fortitude combined with <Facilitated Restoration> actually made it less bad than last time, she might not even freeze to death without her healing skill active.

Of course it was still on, she wasn't going to pass up on experience in exchange for nothing. Teresa wanted to make it as far through the Tutorial as possible, and she was doing it solo now. She needed every boost she could get.

The next day was filled with even more hunting, this time in a different direction. She wasn't planning on taking out the stronghold yet since she still wasn't strong enough to take on multiple enemies that could actually think and use weapons. The Wyvern-Fish always presented some issues, but their fire was actually a lot slower than an arrow fired from a bow. Teresa could avoid a very clearly telegraphed projectile, she could not avoid an arrow that was traveling probably around 200 miles an hour.

The levels came easier now that she was slowly catching up to the monsters again in stats. Level 18 came, then level 19 a few hours later. Her <Facilitated Restoration> had reached level 7 now, and her <Magic Wellspring> was already level 3 after only a day of use.

Her newest skill gave her a buff to Intelligence and Wisdom, making her other spells slightly more effective. Her healing skills produced slightly more restoration Mana, her control over Mana was slightly more precise, nothing major but still a nice buff.

It also made thinking a bit easier. Most amazingly, it helped sometimes with anxiety. Randomly feeling nervous for no apparent reason? KABAM! One <Magic Wellspring> later and her nerves calmed a little. The skill was not enough to completely eradicate negative emotions or anything, but it helped stabilize her mind whenever she started spiraling. It also didn't help if she already had <Magic Wellspring> activated, as there would be no sudden reprieve in her mind that wasn't already there.

A Wyvern-Fish opened its mouth and a bright red light glowed within. Teresa started to run in a straight line away from the Wyvern-Fish, and as soon as she saw light on the ground behind her she changed directions to run perpendicular to her previous path. The fire shot past her, and the Wyvern-Fish sucked in a massive dose of poison taking a breath after its attack.

The Wyvern-Fish in this group had been more trigger happy with their spells than previous groups. Probably because Teresa used <Magic Wellspring> on them along with a weakened version of <Facilitated Restoration>. Making the spell weaker unfortunately provided less skill experience, but she had to actually be able to kill the monsters if she wanted to survive. Every fight was still life or death, mess up too badly and Teresa was done for.

Except Teresa was making far less mistakes than she had in previous fights. Even if she was in her own world thinking about things like what happened to people in space when the Tutorial started? Are their Tutorials on the moon or something? That wouldn't be fair though, not enough oxygen, Teresa was still locked in. She hadn't really thought she hesitated much in the past, but in retrospect with her new reaction speed and mental stats it felt like she had always been incredibly hesitant.

The moments where she thought about what to do had blended in with action, she was able to think and move at the same time much easier. Soon, she might even be physically able to keep up with monsters on her own level instead of just mentally.

You Have Slain {Atrocious Wyvern-Fish (F) (lv 17)}

Experience Granted

Level Up!

Level 20. She had been expecting something more out of it, maybe a title or something? It was a nice, round number, surely the System would see that as an achievement. After all, it gave her a title for hitting 100 total stats. Why not a title for level 20?

Unfortunately she didn't get a new title. That was within expectations, considering she didn't get a title for her class change either. Really, what was the logic behind getting titles? How was she supposed to figure out what to do to get more?

Whatever, enough complaining. She already had four titles, and she might get more as time went on. Maybe they were just hard to get, and the ones Teresa had gotten were the majority of what was available in the Tutorial.

There had to be more titles, right? What if there was a title for running as far out into the desert as possible, like an easter egg in a video game? She wasn't going to test that, but it was a fun thing to think about.

Her stats had increased dramatically since she got her new class, 5 levels meant 5 more points in everything. She was faster than a professional cyclist on flat ground, probably. She didn't really know enough about professional cyclists to actually be sure how fast they could go, but there was no way a bicycle could go faster than her on a flat straightaway.

Status:

Name: Teresa

Race: Human (Earth)

Level: 20 (F) (0%)

Class: Jack Of All Trades lv 0 (F+) (88%)

HP: (168/168)

Stamina: (168/168)

Mana: (626/626)

Strength: 15

Fortitude: 12

Endurance: 13

Vitality: 13

Agility: 22

Intelligence: 47

Wisdom: 43

Perception: 28

Unallocated Points: 0

<Skills> {

<Translate: lv 0 (1.3%)>

<Mana Control: lv 7 (98%)>

<Healing Touch: lv 5 (13%)>

<Facilitated Restoration: lv 7 (4%)

<Identify: lv 5 (48%)>

<Totem Of Life: lv 0 (11%)>

<Magic Wellspring: lv 3 (47%)>

}

<Titles> {

<System Newcomer>

<Tutorial: Power Hungry>

<Tutorial: First Stage Completionist>

<Tutorial: Level Pioneer>

}

Teresa had become a bit of a powerhouse. She was probably stronger, faster, more physically durable, and more everything than any pre-System human. A light jog made the wind whistle past her ears, she barely registered her backpack's weight, she felt like she could punch a tree and not only would the tree crack but her fist would be totally fine.

It was amazing.

The all around improvements were addicting. Every level she got, she couldn't wait for the next. She almost wished she could get a skill that would remove the need for sleeping so she could stay up all night fighting.

Hell, she was pretty sure she could save Sarah now. She had begun mentally walking herself through what she would need to do first based on what she remembered. Obviously she would work on the gaping hole in Sarah's side before healing her nearly severed arm. She would need to stop the blood loss without using too much blood for coagulation since Sarah had already lost a lot, so that meant growing skin back first and worrying about the organs second.

The internal bleeding could be stopped with a guided dose of restoration Mana along any paths Teresa could sense would be damaged, the whole process of replacing the skin and internal flesh would only take a few seconds, maybe 3 or 4. Then she could fix up the organs, that would be another 4ish seconds, fix up the arm, and she would be fine. Maybe.

Teresa was staying around in the Tutorial for a while longer if she could help it, she wanted to know if she could even beat it by herself. Was that possible with only one person, or did it require a full party? Who knew? Teresa was going to find out though.

It was about time to take out the next stronghold.

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