NOVEL NEXT Chapter 31: Tutorial Store?
<Alex, Real - Prepare, Complete>
Alex was frozen in place, the whole world seeming to have ground to a halt. He had barely read the initial notice, letting him know that the time had run out, before two more windows popped up, one after another.
Group Quest [Prepare]: COMPLETE
You have chosen to stand with others.
You have less than six hours to prepare for the coming outbreak.
Create a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
Reward:
Determined based upon results and surviving Initiates after the quest timer ends.
Calculating…
Displayed for your first Group Quest reward calculation session only.
You began with six.
Within your base of operations, you have eight Initiates.
Within the city, there were four hundred one.
Surviving total… One hundred eight.
City wide survival rate: 26.93%
Group survival rate: 133.33%
Tutorial reward bonus: 4.95x
Group quest selected: 0.5x reward per surviving group member: 3x
Total Reward Multiplier: 14.85x
System Notice:
Difficulty increase correctly taken into account through factoring of city wide survival metrics, no further adjustments will be made.
That was interesting. Whatever the reward was, they would get a nearly fifteen times multiplier. The next notice called his attention, then.
Individual Quest [Prepare]: COMPLETE
Get at least one 'friend' from your false memories to join you in your base of operations.
Reward:
Determined based upon results and surviving 'friends' when the group quest timer ends.
Calculating…
Displayed for your first Individual Quest reward calculation session only.
Ten non-initiates within your base of operations would call you a 'friend' unsolicited.
Reward Multiplier: 10x
System Notice:
Difficulty increases not factored.
System adjustments required.
Something about the System notice came across as somewhere between profoundly disappointed and ticked.
Alex was just glad that the sentiment wasn't directed at him.
Refactoring, Recalculating…
Humans would call anyone who saved their life a friend.
Two hundred eighty seven non-initiates within your base of operations have substantive reason to consider you a 'friend.'
System Calculated Reward Multiplier: 287x
Warning:
Disparity in reward calculation greater than a factor of 20 to the detriment of the initiate.
Reward Multipliers will be compounded, rather than added, for this one scenario as a penalty for the disparity.
Alex blinked a bit, trying to understand all the language. If he comprehended it, the Watcher hadn't properly adjusted his rewards for increased difficulty, and so the System was greatly increasing them as a penalty on the Watchers?
One more panel popped up, adding more questions than answers.
Apology Tutorial Notice:
Final Reward Multiplier for session one of scenario one of the Apology Tutorial is:
4,261.95x
Alex's eyes widened.
That was a big number.
That was a big number that held absolutely no meaning for Alex. Is it pennies? Levels?
No, it obviously wouldn't be levels… right?
<Watcher, Apology Tutorial #486 Control and Observation Room>
Her Supervisor was losing his religion.
The room around her pulsed between utterly destroyed as the man enacted his rage and perfectly intact as the System's maintenance of key facilities immediately returned it to operating condition.
"He should have only had a 14x multiplier!" He destroyed the room again, but then he visibly calmed himself. "Even with the increased difficulty, proper factoring could have kept him below a 100x. The System always goes to extremes to balance out slights."
He turned on the Watcher, a spark of cold fury in his eyes. "Do you understand what this means, Watcher?"
"This cost will be directly attributed to those responsible."
"And while that should be you, it will be me." He growled. "How could you miss this?"
"I was rebuilding the quests for four hundred initiates basically from the ground up, while trying to keep the System's mandated setting changes to a contained level. I will state, once again, that I advised against this course of action."
When the supervisor seemed to be on the edge of attacking her, the Watcher added, "This is only meant to be a time to rearm, cover a few weaknesses, and see what will be available so as to inspire them to work harder on future quests. This could have been much worse. Imagine if it had happened at a scenario calculation instead of a simple initial quest?"
The Supervisor was still fuming, but her words did calm him somewhat. "While that is true, it is still something that will be noted. While allowing one with an active Aspect to come through the Apology Tutorial represents a cost well beyond this minor setback, this still adds insult to injury, Watcher. The results will be severe discipline, if he survives."
"Or a great reward of unparalleled worth."
The man scoffed. "For you, maybe. The only reason I would receive reward is if the System takes a direct interest."
"Regardless, we are to do our jobs, mitigating costs as we can, but not violating the tenents."
His face went blank quicker than a flash of lightning. "Are you reprimanding me, Watcher?"
"I am stating Policy, Supervisor."
He looked at her, utterly without emotion, and for the first time, the Watcher felt like her life was in danger.
Finally, he just shook his head. "We're cutting costs. There will be a singular secondary setting. It is to take up the remaining time. I will coordinate with the other Supervisors. All Initiates will be in one artificial world."
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"As the Supervisor says." The Watcher kept her face a blank mask as the decision was made.
There. That's the most I dare risk. Have fun, Alex. If you come through this well, I'll see you again.
<Alex, Real - Prepare, Complete>
Alex still didn't really know what he had earned. He might have asked everyone else what they thought, but the world was still utterly frozen. He couldn't speak. In fact, as he thought about it, he realized he wasn't breathing. Well, this is… interesting.
He did actually feel rather proud of being largely responsible for getting nearly three hundred people to safety, even if the others had helped out quite a bit too.
Finally, another panel popped up:
Apology Tutorial Notice:
All Rewards Calculated.
Reward: Due to all factors, base rewards set at 100 System Merits.
The Tutorial Merit Store will be open and accessible to all for 20 relative minutes before the store will close and the regular flow of time will resume.
One Time System Note:
This is a limited version of the System Merit Store in which you will be able to spend merits in the future, should you survive the Apology Tutorial.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Good luck.
That meant that Alex had 426,195 merits to spend within this… store?
He really hoped that that was a lot, and that there were actually meaningful things to purchase.
The store came up, looking very similar to an online retailer of some kind.
To get a baseline on prices, he mentally wished for things to be sorted by price, lowest first.
Only one item was available for 100 merits.
The item itself was a circular, white pin with basic black lettering printed across the front. The words said it all: 'I did my best.'
This would be all that someone could afford if they had flubbed things, even if they had survived despite that failure. Alex grinned internally.
He wanted one.
With a mental flick, he added it to his 'cart.'
Honestly, the regularness of the whole setup was a bit… weird.
It was comforting, because he had a framework within which to understand this store, but it was eerie because of how alien it still was.
When he sorted it the other way, seeing the most expensive items, he simply stared in wonder.
While the store was obviously limited—he'd been told it would be—there were still standouts all the way down.
For a billion merits, he could buy a pass through the remainder of this scenario receiving standard benefits from all mandatory quests as if he'd completed them to a basic level.
He had no interest in that, even if he could have afforded it, which he couldn't.
For a million merits he could replace his bones with artificial ones of several varieties, and while that was both horrifying and outside his price-range, it did give him the sprouting of an idea.
It was likely a terrible idea, but it might grow into something interesting. But not now.
Aside from switching out bones, there were thousands of seemingly cosmetic changes available. Most of which he had trouble understanding why anyone would want, but he supposed every person had their own preferences so… He gave a mental shrug.
There were also deeper options. A 'Genetic Purification' stated that it would remove all corrupted genes and replace them with unmutated versions, making him an idealized version of himself. He could actually afford that one, oddly enough.
It seemed to even distinguish mutation types so that those like eye and skin color would be left alone, and those that were true defects that would be fixed.
That was honestly tempting given…
But he couldn't let himself go down that road, not at the moment.
He was needed, and while this might help make him more capable, it certainly wasn't as good as other things that were available.
For five hundred thousand, he could increase a Race's rarity, but it was explicitly from Common to Uncommon. He didn't see any option that would increase the rarity of his own Race. Though, it made sense that he wouldn't in the more limited Tutorial store. Something told him that it would be available afterward in the System Store, and he also somehow knew that he didn't have even one percent of the merits it would take to buy it.
With some of the extremes of the store explored, he began the business of trying to find things that would actually be of use to him in the moment.
Surprisingly, as soon as he had that thought, the store lost a lot of the available items.
Of course, it's in your head, Alex. No wonder they thought 20 minutes would be enough time.
He saw some weaponry options in the hundreds and low thousands, but passed them by. His dadao was sufficient, especially with his ability to fix it. That turned his eyes to the more… long term things he could purchase.
It looked like the base price for Rare skills was a million merits, spells being half that.
Uncommon skills were five hundred thousand merits.
Common were a hundred thousand.
Simple were the least expensive—and actually a rarity that he'd not seen before—with a twenty thousand base price.
From that base price, there was heavy modification, seemingly dependent on the System's assessment of how hard it would be for him to get the various things on his own, and his own compatibility with the spell or skill.
He knew this because of helpful tooltips like text that showed up when he considered the prices.
Good to know that skills are considered twice as valuable as a similarly rare spell.
Oddly enough, he actually saw his own skills available but at various rarities.
It would seemingly allow him to upgrade them in either rarity or in name, many of the 'Basic' ones being available without that suffix.
There were no helpful descriptions for what was different, however. That was likely because even the description could give him insights into how to improve his own skills.
How do I improve skills?
At the thought, a book appeared at the top of the available items: 'On the Improvement of Skills and Spells'.
The description stated that it would be customized to how he would accomplish this, but it was only ten thousand merits, so he put it in his cart. Others might find use, but I'll warn them about the potential for incompatibility.
Sure, he could probably buy a few spells or skills that would be useful at the moment, but he was still relatively powerful compared to what he'd been fighting. This book represented the potential to improve every skill or spell he ever acquired. With that idea, a plan began building in his mind.
With a quick mentally guided search, he found another book about classes and progression, a third one on races, and a fourth on attributes.
There was one on Aspects, but that would have cost him nearly four times the points that he had available to him at the start. So, he focused on the books he could afford.
Though, that does give me quite the idea of how much my Aspect is really worth…In case he had any doubt.
With the four books and a pin in his cart, he paused to consider.
From what the others had said, the System Basics book mentioned some of these topics, but it didn't go into detail.
So, get these, then read the Speed Reading skill book to process everything faster.
It was a plan. It might even be a good plan, if he could get just a bit of time to start building his advantages.
His mind went back to what he could get in order to help him survive until that compounding could begin.
Lists of spells and equipment came up for selection.
So, so many spells and skills stood out to him, including all those he'd had access to before through his class or in the Magic shop.
Their costs were still rather high.
He was still interested in the spells Blood Replenishment (Uncommon) and Blood Transfusion (Uncommon), and either would only cost him one hundred and fifty thousand merits or so.
But no. He couldn't bring himself to spend his funds on either of those.
He knew where they could be found, in theory, and he could get them for free with a little effort.
This scenario wasn't done—he understood that much—so he'd likely have a chance to get them soon enough.
One spell grabbed his attention enough to read the full description offered for new spells.
Life to Stamina (Rare), Spell
Turn your health (HP) into stamina (SP)
Spend mana to transform health into stamina at a one-to-one ratio
300,000 merit points
(Discounted due to inherent compatibility)
Honestly, it was an awful spell with terrible ratios. Even if it greatly improved through a synergy with his class or race, it wouldn't be worth it… but he still kind of wanted it, as it might just help him never need sleep.
That was the dream of every sane person. Who wouldn't want to gain back a third of their own time?
Still, he didn't have any idea if that was actually possible, and he sort of doubted it would work that way. That would be answered by the System Basics book, making him rather irritated that yet another thing had been kept from him because he simply had had no time to learn and adjust.
Then again… the wording sounded a lot like Basic Life Transfusion… could he just do this already? What if he just targeted his own stamina pool?
…he might kill himself. He had no idea what was actually involved in the various personal energy types.
So, research it first, then maybe we can try it.
He sighed, his time in the store was passing rapidly, and he'd only flagged less than ten percent of his possible merits to be spent.
It was good to save, but he needed more tools.
Come on, Alex. Think faster.