"Soon…"

Startled, Alan picked his head up and took a step back, breaking the contact with the egg. He was lucky that in his distracted state he didn't disturb the magical lines all around him. That voice was all he could think of. Could it possibly be real? Perhaps he was more tired from fighting the owlbear than he thought.

Moving forward, Alan once more put his hands and his head on the egg, but no amount of straining with his senses let him hear more. Silence was his only reward. Rather than just listening, he next tried to speak to it, to cajole it into answering. Whether he spoke to it with his mouth, or thought at it with his mind, he received nothing.

Finally giving up, Alan stepped back out of the house and found Two socks watching him. It seemed like the wolf was very interested in how his reunion went. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to say. Instead, Alan made a thorough inspection of his crops. Everything seemed to be flourishing, despite the weeds, and he more than replenished his food stores.

Alan had been saving something for his last stop. Shortly before the last tier had ended, he had started another experiment with diagrams and fruit. Nothing but some small plants had come of it before he left, but it had now been weeks since the last time he checked. It turns out that having a high perception makes it difficult to actively ignore noticing something, but he managed through pure dint of will.

Now he finally beheld his circles and the plants within. The first plant he inspected held raspberries. This one had a magical representation of heaviness around it. For the most part, it looked like a regular raspberry bush, perhaps the branches dropped a little more than normal. Picking several berries, Alan let his gaze linger on one.

Consumable: Raspberry of Heaviness (Uncommon). This fruit is a tasty and refreshing snack, but it seems far heavier than it should. Has some uses in various crafting recipes.

It didn't sound like it was harmful, but he was leery to try one. Finally he screwed up his courage and popped one in his mouth. Truly, other than an extra weightiness, it felt and tasted normal on his tongue. This wasn't a total failure, the fruit had absorbed a new characteristic, and could potentially be used to help craft things, most likely with alchemy.

The second plant was hiding strawberries under its leaves, and these were supposed to be getting bombarded by fire mana. The leaves of the plant felt warm as he lifted them up, but that could be in his head. Picking two of the plump berries, Alan compared them to one from his storage. They were the same size, but the new ones were a brighter shade of red. Identify kicked off again.

Consumable: Fire-Infused Strawberry (Uncommon). This fruit has been infused with fire mana. Careful, it's not just spicy, it will actually burn your mouth. Has some uses in various crafting recipes.

This was a tragedy! Alan had taken a succulent and delicious strawberry, and made it inedible! He actually lost his breath for a moment before consoling himself with the fact that it could at least be used to craft things. Still, this was a lesson to remember.

Turning to the last plant, goji berries, Alan was surprised to find only a few orange fruits. Scanning the plant, he found there were ten in all. That was far fewer than he was expecting. Pulling one off the bush, he studied it carefully.

Consumable: Fruit of Hardiness (Rare). This fruit can be consumed to permanently boost an individual's Constitution. Should not be consumed by those who already have a constitution class. Has some uses in various crafting recipes.

This was almost enough to make him forget about the ruined strawberries. This is what he had been working toward, a fruit to boost someone's stats. Alan had known this was possible ever since he had discovered the fruits of knowledge in the mage dungeon. The giant tree that was being grown inside the circle there had produced quite a few of the precious treasures. They were useless to Alan, Tamee had explained, since he had a class for all of his stats, but for those without the associated class, they were necessary for advancement to higher levels.

Alan was currently at opal for all of his classes, but he had started at quartz. In order to make the transition he had first had to level his classes up, but then he had needed to upgrade his aura. That process of upgrading his aura required a certain level of power in his aura. To achieve that, one's stats usually needed to be boosted above where they began. Classes naturally raised those stats as they improved, but the other stats required special items to get them to grow.

What Alan had just managed to do was create his own stat boosting item. Without testing, or a much higher skill level on identify, he didn't know how effective they were, but it was still a huge deal. Quality stat boosting treasures cost a significant amount of money on the Network stores. Back when Alan had access to the dungeon store, a limited time opportunity that had sadly passed, one of these treasures went for about half as much as a talent stone.

Quickly harvesting the remaining nine berries, Alan was pleased to notice that the plant didn't wither or anything after the last one was picked. He already knew that these berries were sterile, so he couldn't plant them and hope for more stat boosting bushes. If he was lucky, the bush would continue to grow more berries, but if it didn't, Alan could hopefully recreate the feat using the same method as before.

Alan had a thought, and then decided to check in with Tamee. She was the Network overseer in charge of his zone, but she and Alan had formed a kind of team and she helped him as much as she could. They had long ago created a type of party and even though she wasn't physically present, they could still talk to each other.

"I don't know if you can see this, but these berries permanently boost someone's constitution. Would they work on creatures, like Two Socks?"

She answered right back, her voice was confined to Alan's head so no one else could hear her. "I did notice, congratulations! That is a pretty big accomplishment. Sorry to disappoint, but creatures, and even Ascended Beings, do not have the same stats that we do. That berry wouldn't do anything for your friend. Also, not to rain on your parade, but remember, not all stat boosting items are the same. Until you can determine the quality of yours, do not get too excited."

She may have said she didn't want to bring him down, but she certainly did. He already knew that effectiveness differed, but it didn't feel good to be reminded about that. He did have some guinea pigs he could probably test it out on though. After taking care of things here in tiers one and two, Alan would be returning to his village, Elstree. Technically, the farm here was also a village, but it didn't even count as a level one version. Elstree was currently a tier four village and was also the home of his allies. They were a party of beast people, led by a hamster man named Lyonel. Only Lyonel had a constitution class, so he could feed the others the berries and see how it went.

With his aura reading ability he could also see for himself the effects. Alan would probably have to spring for some Network provided ones to use as a control, but he could afford it. He wasn't super wealthy, but he had done well for himself in the tutorial so far. For himself, and by himself. Alan had the misfortune to be inducted all alone into zone two hundred and fifty-six of the Network's latest tutorial. As a former Green Beret, among other things, he had turned his solitude into an advantage.

He now had accrued a large amount of gold, thousands of quartz class stones (which were one of the most valuable things in the Network, at least at their level), a nice collection of rare skills, a dungeon core, and a dragon egg. Now that he had won the third tier of the tutorial he was no longer alone.

He had taken over the village of Elstree, bloodlessly, and was now in charge of over six hundred serfs and a party of adventurers. Serf was the derogatory word for people without any classes. Alan didn't like using it, but there was no other word to describe them under the Network. That fact should be enough to let people know where serfs stood in rank.

It was time to put that all away for now. For the next couple of days, Alan was once more on his own, except for his best friend, Two Socks. He had discovered the wolf when he was just a pup, and seen him grow to a horse sized fiend. He had single handedly taken care of the dungeon bosses who had spawned in the area, as well as the other monsters that had spontaneously appeared.

The ambient mana that suffused everything in the universe, would occasionally coalesce to produce various things. Most common were monsters and natural treasures, but there were other possibilities as well. Alan hadn't seen any of the others, that he knew of, but Tamee had mentioned some.

Now that he had checked on the farm and the egg, it was time to take a closer look at the dungeon core. Alan had never seen one before purchasing this one at the end of the last tier. It had cost pretty much all of his remaining dungeon points. It hadn't shown up in a box or bag, instead a brightly glowing point of light had appeared, hovering in front of him. He stared at it for a moment, with both his eyes and his aura senses, and then he had reached out and grabbed it with both of his hands.

It was a clear crystal about twenty centimeters across that had an inner illumination. That light was both physical and mystical as it looked the same to both of his senses. Tamee had told him that these cores could talk and communicate, but usually only with the person who had control over them. If Alan had activated the core right there, they would have been able to talk.

He hadn't done that though. Once placed, it can be difficult to move such a core. Part of the core's function is to create a full dungeon. It does that by somehow spreading energy throughout the area around it. In order to move the core, it would have to leave behind all of the energy it had expended. That was apparently a big deal, as cores existed to increase the amount of energy they held. This was all told to him by Tamee, the wiki didn't have anything about this, most likely because it wasn't a normal occurrence in the tutorial for someone to have such a core. It happened, but incredibly rarely.

Placing the core here wouldn't have been very helpful. By the time he was aware of its existence, he was also aware that he would be claiming a village in the next tier. The dungeon would do much better placed near Elstree. It would act as another area to level, and it could be encouraged to provide certain types of loot. Here, it would mostly sit unused. Alan had wanted to bring the core with him when he left the first time, but dungeon cores couldn't be placed in spatial storage. Something about the energy they were made of, or that they emitted, was antithetical to what allowed spatial devices to function.

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

Now that he wasn't worried about hiding away, he would be bringing it back with him when he returned. Standing before it now, he could see how it was definitely bigger. It was still the same colorless crystal with a bright light. While the ball was at least thirty centimeters across now, the light itself didn't seem as bright. His aura senses showed its energy levels as being twice as strong, but visually it actually seemed dimmer than before. Another mystery, hooray!

Some days Alan really felt like the idiot Tamee always claimed him to be, but he knew that it wasn't always his fault. He had been a smart guy before all this, but almost everything he had learned on Earth about science had little to do with how the Network worked. Add to that the fact that some of the things he was dealing with were also super rare even here, and it just made everything worse.

Luckily, his partner in crime had found a solution for him. It turned out that other people faced similar problems as Alan, and there was a whole industry whose job it was to supply them with information. Now that he had access to the Network store, he could purchase pamphlets that contained information about almost everything. It was like the wiki, but actually full of details. He had a list going in his head of things to look into when he got back to Elstree. Dragons, Dungeon Cores, Stat Fruits, Quartz Class Stones, and Types of Energy. He didn't want to try and purchase anything himself, he wanted Roger's help with that. It would be Alan's money, but Roger had more experience working with things like that.

The magical attunement and empowerment diagram under the core was still firing on all cylinders, so he left it there. No point in taking it out until he was ready to leave anyway. Now that he knew everything was fine on the farm, he needed to check out tier one. He had already seen that tier two looked the same, minus a few dungeons, but he had to know if tier one was any different.

Turning to his furry friend, who hadn't left the area since Alan had returned, he checked on his plans. "I'm gonna head far south, do you want to come with me?"

Two Socks looked from Alan to the south and back. He started to whine a little and Alan realized he had his answer. "Don't worry, it should be just a short trip, I hope to be back by the morning. You stay here with your friend."

The wolf stopped whining, and instead pressed his forehead against Alan's. It was a little intimidating since his head was now much bigger than Alan's, but it was a nice gesture. While they were still in contact, Alan thought he heard a quiet voice talking to him. He waited to try and hear it again, but then Two Socks pulled his head back before using it to push Alan southwards. The sooner he left, the sooner he could return.

It was already well past afternoon, and Alan had quite a distance to travel. It wasn't enough for him to simply reach the passage between the two areas, he needed to thoroughly explore his landing zone. The journey south was relatively uneventful. He caught sight of a few small herds of prey animals, as well as a few solitary ones that he took for predators, but none of them got close enough for him to worry about.

It seemed that this tier was finally starting to develop fauna. The first tier had been artificially populated, and the third seemed to be experiencing an accelerated spawning rate, but the second had been mostly empty his entire time there. It was probably healthy for the growth of the land, but it might make things trickier later on.

After a couple hours, Alan was once again standing over the lake that had been his home for the end of the first challenge. It had also been his major source of quartz, but his last trip here had mostly depleted the supply. Now he wasn't worried about the water, he was looking at the forest.

When he had first been placed here in the tutorial, the forest had been fake perfection. The trees were laid out in a neatly spaced grid and each had been almost identical to its neighbor. The ground had all been grass, and not the wild grass of tier two, the grass of a well maintained lawn.

Now looking down upon it, he couldn't even recognize the place. There were a multitude of types of trees, and the ground below was a mix of longer grass and barren patches of dirt. Nature was taking over, but it hadn't won the battle yet. He also noticed quite a few animals running through the woods. Identify showed him goats, foxes, wolves, and cougars. He even noticed some squirrels running through the branches.

No doubt if he looked hard enough he could find some of the other creatures he had fought here. It seemed that after the area was completed, that the animals had continued spawning. Now the area was most likely infested with beasts. That was going to be a problem. The good news was that it wasn't a problem for current Alan. While some of the animals had proven an issue for Alan before, with his current abilities they would be a piece of cake.

It was almost embarrassing when he thought back to his first few fights. He had gotten injured from fighting goats and squirrels. True, a lot of that was from him experimenting and testing out his body, but if a Green Beret had been almost knocked out by an Earth squirrel, that man would have never heard the end of it. The fact that these squirrels were faster, stronger, and carrying bats for clubs wouldn't have mattered.

Thinking back, a large part of his early issues stemmed from his mental state. He had been in a kind of shock for pretty much the whole tier. Losing your planet, all the people you know, and even your original body will do that to you. Whatever had happened then, now Alan was a real predator.

With his favorite weapon combination of spewn and pugio, he made war with the denizens of the area. The pugio was a dagger best used for stabbing, but his spewn was a special weapon created by the dwarves. It was a combination dagger and mace that looked like a short spear with a fat tip. Say what you want about its aesthetics, it made short work of any animal in reach.

His holy pugio, Alan had enchanted it with holy mana, also tore through hide and bone. At first he stored every carcass as he went, but even with all the storage devices he had accrued, from rewards and looting the Nivex party that he had killed, he was going to fill them up. Eventually he decided to keep a small stack of bodies for each type, and then all the boars and wolf carcasses. The boars he kept for the meat, the wolves for their fur. He had found that wolf fur was incredibly soft. Alan also made a mental note to make sure Two Socks wasn't around when he took those bodies out.

By the time he made it to his first destination, Alan was made of gore. It had soaked through his padded shirt to coat his body, and his bone chain mail links were clogged with various fleshy bits so it looked like he was wearing ring mail. The trail of carnage behind him was insane, and the worst part was that it didn't really seem to be making a dent in the overall population. Perhaps by the time he left he wouldn't have to kill something with almost every step.

Looking up, Alan was happy to see the shadowing pane of a dungeon entrance. He couldn't really tell if it was active, as he had already been in this dungeon and it didn't take repeats. However, the missing dungeons in tier two were simply gone, so the fact that the entrance was still here should mean that the dungeon was still active.

Missions run on faulty or incomplete intel had been a common occurrence when he had been on active duty. Because of this, Alan didn't take things for granted anymore, and made his south along the mountain wall. By the time he reached his very first dungeon, the rogue one, he had confirmed there were still four entrances, right where they should be. A quick run through the forest to the mountains on the other side, and then a bloody march north, showed that the four dungeons on this side were in place as well.

Just as he had predicted, as well, by the time he stood at the lake again, the population of beasts had decreased dramatically. There were a lot of carcasses out there though, so the ones still alive would be eating well, as would the new spawns after he left. Hopefully he could get some people down here before the place became unmanageable again.

Night had fallen, and he only had a few hours before sunrise, but he wasn't going anywhere until he took a bath. Alan left his clothes on as he waded into the lake. It was nice to see that there were still no fish here. His padded shirt was self cleaning, so eventually it would return to a nice white color. Everything else, though, needed a thorough scrubbing. Using the dirt he found under the rock layer that made up the bottom of the lake, he scrubbed and scrubbed his armor, his pants, and himself. During that process he was reminded that his boxers were also self cleaning. Upon seeing the pink and green travesty that was his underwear after taking off his pants, he wasn't even worried about how ugly they looked. He was just thankful it was one less thing to clean.

While he was in the lake, he did fish out the occasional quartz stone, but they were few and far between. Even with the Network helping with the process (all work just seemed to go faster here), it took him an hour before he felt clean again. He spent another ten minutes just floating in the water and working on his cultivation. With his improved body came the need to meditate and empower his hidden aura. Not only was it necessary to upgrade his classes eventually, but it also helped him grow more powerful everyday. His aura was one of his special advantages. His aura reading ability had helped him to guide the evolution of his aura when he went from quartz to opal, and it showed every time he got to look at someone else's.

As he finally made his way back to his house in the next area, Alan considered his plans. Everything he had seen had been just as expected, except for the excessive beast population. After killing the Nivex (a party of insectoid recruits who were also inducted into the tutorial), Alan had started thinking of an audacious idea. In their loot he had found thousands of common and uncommon quartz class stones. The leader had apparently convinced the rest of the population from his zone to give him all of their extra stones.

Because of the way the first area had worked, most people ended up with plenty of class stones that they couldn't use. Common stones could only be used if you didn't already have a class, and uncommon had to be used before you had two classes. Because each person could get up to eight stones, there were a ton of extra for each class.

It was normal for there to be extras, Alan had been instructed during orientation to get all the extras he could. They were valuable outside of the tutorial. Most people sold their unused stone once they had access to a real store. Because of how tutorials worked, the recruits couldn't get the true value of the stones, but it still meant a nice windfall. Because the Nivex had somehow managed to gather everyone's stones, it could be a huge pile of gold.

But Alan wasn't going to go that route. Instead, he was going to offer these stones to his villagers. He would need to talk to Roger first to figure out the details, but the plan was for everyone to get two classes. In the outside Network that would put them in the top fifteen percent of the population, here, Alan wanted it to be everyone who had classes.

The benefits would be incredible. Not only would it allow them to live longer, but it would also make them better at their crafts. A blacksmith with better strength, an alchemist with higher intelligence, a hunter with better senses and dexterity. In addition, they would also be safer. No longer would they be so reliant on guards to protect them from random monsters, each would be potentially capable of taking out threats themselves. That wasn't the end of it either.

Two classes was good, but you weren't considered an Adventurer unless you had three classes. Also had just verified that the eight starter dungeons he had run were still present. Because he was the only person in the zone, he had only taken one stone from the potential ten thousand they could give. Not only that, but the second stone all the way to the hundredth would be rare versions. This would allow 792 people to get a third class, and since that was more than the population of the village at the moment, it most likely meant some would be able to have four. It would have been nice to allow Lyonel's party to add a fourth class, each of them only had three, but since they had already evolved to opal, they were unable to take on any new quartz classes.

Not only should this help bind the people to his cause, but it should make the four tier trivial. It was almost guaranteed to be a competition to see which of the nearby villages could take over the town of Dewhurst first. Other zones might have twenty or thirty adventurers to wage war with, Alan would have hundreds. Sure, not every one of them would be a true combatant, and they would most likely still be quartz level, but quantity is a quality all its own. Also add in the fact that Alan could create a small Army with his best warriors, and the town most likely wouldn't stand a chance.

These thoughts were bouncing around his head as he made his way back to Two Socks and the farm. Alan wanted to spend some more time with his friend today, and maybe spend a little while meditating with the egg, but then he would need to head back to Elstree. This all had been almost like a vacation for Alan, but there was a greater competition that he had to win. There were four recruit planets, and only one of them could win the tutorial, and control of the system the Network would give to the victor. Earth had to be the planet to win.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.