Tutorial Tower
After the book fused with his body the spark inside him got bigger and faster, now maybe enough to power a small toy car for a few seconds.
Along with the change in his spark, his once shadowy, incorporeal body began taking on a human shape.
First it spread out in five directions making the semblance of a stick man, then he felt a strange power flowing into him which settled around where his heart used to be.
And then it began.
…
His heart formed first, then the blood networks connected to it spread out within the shape of his shadowy figure.
The heart started beating immediately after his vein system formed and started sending cycles of blood through his body.
Then his skull formed, and the brain within it.
As soon as his brain formed it connected with all the nerves that were created already and sent waves of coursing ice throughout his body.
As the rest of his bones and nerves formed he went through agony as the newly formed senses experienced their first feelings.
In his life that he remembered so far, he had felt nothing. It was like a baby put into ice water, they would be in extreme discomfort and start crying.
After the bones formed, tendons and muscles formed around them, and after that the skin on those muscles.
…
This all felt like hours of pain and agonizing discomfort, while in reality only took a few seconds.
His new body was filled with energy, though his brain was tired from his body being remade.
He stood up and looked through his now real eyes and saw that the runes were gone.
"As you were brought here after death, your body has been recreated for you."
"You will be brought to a tutorial, and then you will be free to delve into The Deep. Good luck."
Those were the voice's final words to him as he was suddenly in a new space.
The dark plane was substituted for a small circular room filled with a tidy space of a bed, four windows, a mirror, and a wardrobe.
Looking around, he noticed that the door had words in engraved into it.
The words said: "Hello! Welcome to the tutorial tower!"
"This tower will show you how to survive in The Deep. all you have to do is reach the bottom of the tower and you can leave."
"Put on clothes and start your first descent!"
After reading that, he decided to check his looks in the mirror before putting on clothes.
It seemed like he had been lucky, as he wasn't ugly, he had short blonde hair, and dull brown eyes. He had no measure on his height, but he knew he wasn't short. That along with a healthy body meant that he was relatively attractive.
He went to the wardrobe, inside it was only one pair of an old looking tunic and pants.
He wore the clothes and went through the door.
Behind the door was only stairs. They winded down in a circle and slowly got wider.
After walking down the stairs for a few minutes it ended with another door. It didn't have any words on it this time, so he just pushed through.
The next room had nothing in it besides evenly spaced weapons on wooden stands, and a door.
The stands had a basic metal sword, spear, bow, and brass knuckles.
The door to the nest room had writing, "This room has the weapon of the path you chose. Grab your weapon and keep going!"
From the words he could tell that usually there was only one weapon available, but for him there were many. He guessed it was because of his bronze ranked path.
He had many different directions he could possibly go, but no background on any of the weapons so he had no clue what to pick.
He walked to the closest one, the bow, and looked at it.
He didn't notice anything wrong so he moved to grab it, but as he did he felt a strong dissatisfaction from his body.
He stopped moving, confused.
'It seems like my instincts are telling me not to use this. Hmm… this happened with the books as well.'
He moved to the brass knuckles and felt the same thing.
As he went to the sword he felt the same feeling.
Finally, he went to the spear.
As he reached his hand out to grab it he had a feeling of deep familiarity, like he was reaching out to an old friend.
He firmly grabbed onto the cold metal surface of the spear.
As he grabbed onto it a shock ran through his body, through the spear, and back into him. Before he noticed, small amounts of smoke appeared over the other weapons, and by the time the smoke cleared they were gone.
Clenching his hand with the spear in it, he walked through the door.
The door lead to a damp and dark brick room.
Compared to just the last room it was significantly colder. This room was almost three times as large as the last one, filled with pillars and shadowy corners. The only light came from torches that lined the way along the walls.
Seeing a door far across the room, he walked towards it. After he crossed the first pillar a small shape jumped out at him.
Before he knew what he was doing, he stepped away from it on reflex.
A long scratch appeared on his shoulder, quickly drawing blood.
He turned and looked at whatever hit him. A furry, humanoid figure with a canine head and legs holding a long jagged dagger looked back at him.
He backed away further from the creature and held his spear with both hands.
The creature didn't give him any more time and rushed at him, swinging it's dagger above it's head.
He held his spear above him, making the dagger bounce off of it. Using the opportunity, he twisted his body and sliced the beast's throat in one motion.