Chapter 5

  Tutorial World #336 Day 1

  Grizz huffed in laughter. Next time I will make sure to chomp an arm off or something.

  “Is that a good idea,” Doc wondered aloud. “Wouldn’t that mean that the monster would be maimed as a summon?”

  I am getting the feeling that however they are tamed, they will come out whole when you summon them. Your Summon Card Carrying Case says something about increased regeneration. I am not completely sure, but I get the feeling that they are summoned whole every time.

  “Interesting,” Doc thought it over. Since you had to defeat the monsters to be able to tame them in the first place, it made sense that they should be able to fully recover over time. They wouldn’t know until Doc was able to tame a monster. The first effort was not successful.

  “Alright,” Doc started. “I really do want to go through the rest of these notifications before we get started. I don’t have to distribute all my characteristic points, though. Spammed my ability while I was being choke-lifted to my doom. Mind keeping an eye out for any other monsters? Would be a shame for us both to die without really doing anything.”

  Grizz nodded and started patrolling the surrounding area. The summon had a solid perception and his Tremorsense ability should allow him to feel someone or something coming from a good distance away. The spider bear’s spinnerets started working hard. It looked like Grizz was working on some traps to use in the future.

  Shaking his head in a bit of disbelief at his new life, Doc started inspecting the notifications again.

  Better take this tutorial thing seriously. Doc thought to himself. Also, because he wasn’t tamed through battle, it didn’t look like Grizz would count toward that total. He still didn’t know how long The Tutorial would even last. Thinking back to the Grinkled Ape, he was hoping to be more successful in future tamings.

  Doc no longer thought that he was the least creative person anymore. Looking at the names of the quests, worlds, and dungeons, he at least felt he could have done better than the “Tree Dungeon” for a dungeon in a tree or Tutorial World #336. Even Forest Tutorial World #336 would be better. At least the dungeon seemed to fit the theme of this world. He had a feeling he was going to be tired of trees by the end of this. He continued browsing the notifications

  Doc now understood why he felt such a strong rush after activating the ability. His physical stats all went sky-high. It also looked as though his instincts felt like he would need a decent amount of luck to get out of the situation. After reviewing the short fight in his mind, he had to agree. He thought back to the moment as his body was suspended in air and he felt the swift tug of gravity downwards. If it had been needed, Doc would have put all 100 points into his Luck stat. Getting caught out of the air by Grizz probably was an extension of that luck as well.

  His swift, instinctive movements with the knife made significantly more sense now. After the Skill had been activated for him, he remembered feeling like the knife was just an extension of his hand, a single claw that could be used for protection or aggression. Pulling the knife out of his inventory had required no thought. It had just materialized and slashed at that…sticky vine thing.

  “Hey Grizz,” Doc called to his summon. “Did you see what he grabbed me with? That vine felt kind of slimy.” Doc hadn’t seen anything resembling the vine when Grizz had brought the white bundle of monster down. He reached back up to his neck, feeling a sticky, phantom grip return to his neck

  Yaaaaaaa, Grizz started. I am pretty sure that was its tongue. When I got to the tree branch where it was hiding, it was holding its bleeding mouth and seemed pretty upset. I think you pissed it off. Maybe that’s why it didn’t want to be tamed.

  Doc was absolutely creeped out that a tongue over 100 feet long had wrapped itself around his throat. How do you even get your tongue to stretch that long, he thought to himself. Shaking his head, Doc realized that magic could essentially explain everything now that didn’t make sense before. It would be hard to cognitively transition to a new way of thinking. He was pleased with how well his ability had worked, though. He was certain that he would be dead without his amazing Soul Summon, but the ability was very versatile. He wasn’t completely sure what all the stats meant yet, but he thought he could try and look at those when they had a moment to breathe.

  Glancing up to the tip of his HUD, Doc could see new information posted on his status bars. The red Health Bar now read 144/160, and the blue Mana Point bar 76/100. Doc reached for his neck and felt the damage that had been done to his neck. It definitely felt like it had seen better days. In the craziness of the moment, Doc hadn’t even noticed that he was being hurt. He wondered if there was a way to know how much damage he had taken or given in a fight without having to look at the notification.

  Mentally selecting the notification, a new pop-up menu filled his vision. It was filled with lots of different odds and ends but allowed him to make a few choices. One was having instinctive knowledge of his Combat Log. He would know how much damage he was giving and receiving from now on. That seemed like some pretty important information to know in the middle of a fight.

  Hmmm, Doc thought to himself. I did cut off its tongue.

  Doc was glad that he wouldn’t have to go through the combat log manually anymore. It seemed as though it would slow the reading process down. It was interesting, but tedious at the same time. He could just imagine the amount of notifications he would have read if each time damage occurred a notification was given.

  That was all the notifications that seemed to have popped up since he got on the Tutorial World except for the one he was most interested in after having summoned Grizz.

  Doc was finally getting to the point where he would be ready to progress in this Tutorial. Now that he knew he only had 30 days to complete the Tree Dungeon, Doc wanted to get started. Doc Selected “Yes” and a constellation map sprang into his mind. The map magnified until only seven “stars” were lit. He decided to call the bright lights nodes. They were labeled as Combat Skills, Crafting Skills, Resource Gathering Skills, Leadership Skills, Magic Skills, Perception Skills, and Monster Taming Skills. Off of these seven stars, several others were connected to each but none of these were lit except a dimly lit node coming off the Combat Skills node labeled Knife Wielding.

  This must be what the disembodied Tutorial voice was talking about earlier, Doc thought to himself. He would have to delve into each branch of the constellation or “Skill Store” as the system called the sprawling map, but his main focus would be looking into the Combat, Resource Gathering, and Crafting Skills.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He wanted to be able to fight alongside Grizz and any other summons that he might tame over the next few weeks. If there was one thing he was beginning to learn after the near-death experience, it was that more combat preparation significantly increased his chances of living to see Earth once again.

  There were several different Skills coming off the Combat node besides the Knife Wielding 1 node. Several of them were impractical to him currently just because he didn’t have access to any of the weapons required to access the skill, but he still wanted to familiarize himself with what he could choose.

  Doc was starting to understand more about his new life after reading these available skills. Not only did the system think it was funny, but more importantly, the currency for gaining skills was actually experience points. Doc had been wondering what experience points would do since there weren’t any “levels” to gain. This process weirdly made sense to him, though. To gain a Skill you would need to apply some experience to understand it.

  He also noticed that there weren’t any Skills above common grade. These must all be the lowest form of combat skills. Doc began wondering what he would have to do to unlock rarer Skills. He would have to imagine that they required extra knowledge to possess. A lot of the Common Combat Skills he had seen Doc had some experience with at some point in his life. Maybe not a real blade in the case of a sword, but he and every good little American boy played with a fake lightsaber.

  The descriptions for these skills were also…interesting. It was like the system wanted to be funny. Doc wasn’t completely sure, but he loved the prompts. As a dad, he thoroughly enjoyed the ridiculous humor of it all. He hoped all the prompts from now on had a little spicy edge to them. It would help keep him on his toes.

  Doc had an idea of what Combat Skill he would choose in his situation but wanted to take a look at the other base nodes. He really wanted to see what the Resource Skills and Crafting Skills looked like.

  There were fewer options here than in the combat node. He went ahead and took his first free Skill. It was an easy choice as it was the only Uncommon ranked Skill he had seen so far. Also, it sounded like it would save him a lot of time and even more experience points. He grabbed the Monster Resource Pack 1 Skill. He also wanted to take a quick look at the spell that was given for purchasing the skill.

  Doc sighed a bit in relief. He now had a way to collect resources from any monster killed in these future fights. He hadn’t really thought about the fact he had no food, or anything for that matter, after being transported to this new world. Having a way to collect meat and other resources sounded quite important. Some of the other Resource Collection Skills looked useful too, but he decided he wanted to take a look at the other nodes with options leading off of them.

  Doc was beginning to get a little overwhelmed with all the options but was beginning to form a plan. Both Crafting and Perception skills had some incredible versatility! Fortunately, this seemed to be where his looking at possible Skills was going to take a break. The other 3 base nodes, Leadership, Magic, and Monster Taming Skills, didn’t have any skills that he could buy currently. There were some branches off of each node, but he couldn’t see what they were. When he had more time and somewhere safe to sit for a longer period, he would have to investigate further.

  Doc knew what Skills he was going to choose. He was in a forest all by himself and his new summon, so Skills that would best suit who he was right now would be best. He went in and selected the 4 other skills he knew that he would need moving forward: Identify 1, Alchemy 1, Herbology 1, and Unarmed Combat 1.

  Considering his background as a high school chemistry teacher back in his old life, the alchemy and herbology skills felt like a gimme. He would need to be able to identify herbs and enemies, so choosing the identify skill was a requirement. The Combat Skill was the hardest one to choose, but since he had no other weapons and didn’t know if he would ever get any weapons, besides his knife, he had to go with the option that would most likely be useful to him and Grizz.

  “Alright, I am finally ready.” Doc started moving forward, motioning for Grizz to follow.