Chapter 1
The sky had cracked. Between the blue sunny horizon lay shards of purple hues, clawing their way into the prime universe. The few battered people on Earth looked up and shrieked with bloodthirsty eyes as dark shadows of destruction emerged from the purple cracks and corrupted everything, destroying everything. The world had lost and would now be consumed by a monster who cared naught about the millions of lives about to be extinguished. It was a world where predator ate prey.
Alex stood by helplessly, feeling the last of the smog touch his body and disintegrate his physicality as regret and helplessness panged through his heart. Was this the destiny of humanity? As he felt his existence evaporate, his vision blanked out and his eyes dimmed to lifelessness, he suddenly trembled dramatically and opened his eyes again in shock, to find himself in a different but familiar surrounding.
Alex's eyes drifted towards his hands as confusion reigned over his mind. His hands appeared smaller than he remembered they were, child like. Getting up from the familiar bed from his childhood he walked up to the mirror and was stunned with realization. He wasn't sure how it had happened and he wasn't sure why him of all people, but he was transported back in time to a moment when the tutorial had not even taken place yet.
Alex's eyes darted towards the calendar to verify whether his hypothesis was in fact a reality. The date was December 12, 2012. A full eight years before the moment that shook the fate of humanity itself. He trembled in realization that he had a chance at changing the fate of the world. At the same time, the puzzlement over how he returned to this point of time as a mere fourteen year old left him feeling cautious. It was prudent to assume he might not be the only one who had returned to the past.
Eight cautiously planned years passed by in the regular cycle of time. Alex had displayed a dramatic change from that moment several years ago, almost like he had turned into a different person entirely. His parents had watched in surprise a growing occupation of the lad with combat sports and weaponry. Kendo lessons, kickboxing, judo, swordsmanship, shooting - Alex had developed a range of eclectic passions that made his parents worried. However, Alex was so industrious that he had supported his own hobbies with money he made from clever investments in the financial market.
The year was 2020. Alex was now in college, but his regimented activities continued like normal. Eight years of hard work was all in preparation for one significant moment which was soon about to arrive. The busy schedule of constant practice and work had not allowed him to mingle much with the rest of his cohorts and make friends. Either way, friends wouldn't matter much where he would soon be going.
When he wasn't practicing combat, Alex was reading about esoteric things. Survival, psychology, manipulation, assassination. His interests had long worried his parents, which was why he was glad when he could finally move out during college years to an apartment of his own. He kept his eyes out for signs that there might be other time travelers like himself who had been sent back into the past. Noting dramatic changes in the stock markets around the world was an obvious method to keep track, but noticing significant changes in the timeline of events was also another.
Over the years, Alex had noted a gradual divergence of events from how he had remembered them. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure if they were simply butterfly effects from his own changes, lapses in his memory or results of interference in the sequence of world events by other temporal actors. At this point, the best he could do was to hide his own presence and bide his time.
December 12th, 2020. The day of reckoning finally arrived. Alex sat on the armchair flicking the study lamp on and off for the umpteenth time in anticipation of his tutorial summon. As the clock neared the midnight mark, Alex took a deep breath and gazed at the inky black night sky. The memory of destruction of the end days had not left his head. The real question he had was whether he could actually do something about it. He did not know, but with the information advantage he could at least help humanity have a better fighting chance.
The clock struck midnight and Alex noticed a giant purple lightning flash in the sky, illuminating it with momentary brightness, as he found his own body disintegrating into a stream of light particles, slowly ceasing to exist on Earth itself.
When Alex's vision returned, he found himself surrounded by a white hallow of infinite shallowness. There was nothing around him except the white hallow which lit the entire area with an aura of holiness. A translucent blue display suddenly appeared in front of him.
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[Welcome to the Tutorial]
[Choose your Difficulty Level]
[Very Easy -> Easy -> Normal -> Above Average -> Difficult -> Very Difficult -> Dangerous -> Randomizer]
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Alex sighed in relief and also in realization. He had genuinely been pulled back into the tutorial. Swallowing a gulp of imaginary air, Alex decided on exploiting the glitch he had once heard about from an individual who had passed away. He clicked the randomizer and a pinwheel with the various difficulties appeared and rolled before randomly landing on normal. He chose the randomizer again. This time the pinwheel rolled before stalling onto dangerous. However, Alex ignored it and decided to click the randomizer again. However, a message interrupted his action.
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[Do you wish to take the Trial of Hell?]
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Alex sighed in shock. The person who had told him about this glitch had genuinely been telling the truth. Unfortunately, even a person as strong as themselves had failed this terrifying single time challenge. Alex grit his teeth and said Yes.
.......
On Earth, 2020 was a landmark year. In the middle of the pacific ocean a giant tower rose out from under the sea and pierced into the sky. The tower didn't appear to have an end in sight, it was like it pierced up into space itself. At the same time, people began disappearing all over the world under mysterious circumstances. Children would disappear in bright daylight, students would disappear from their classes in the sight of others, adults would disappear on camera in shopping malls. The epidemic of disappearances coupled with the rise of the mysterious tower had lead to speculation of a connection between the two as well as considerable panic and instability around the world.
It was only when the first individuals who had disappeared reappeared at the mysterious island that hosted the tower did the world find out the reason behind the disappearances. The tower was known as the Tutorial tower, an ancient artifact designed to train humanity against external threats. Individuals who returned from the tutorial were no longer ordinary. They were superhuman with all kinds of special abilities putting them far above their peers. The resulting changes were immediate. The current political system of the world was not equipped to deal with this kind of power differential among humans.
The next hundred years was a period of constant tumult. With people randomly disappearing into the tutorial as well as others returning to become a part of the various Hunter guilds or government agencies. At the same time, dungeons began to spawn around the world, dimensional gates to bizarre worlds which were habitats for alien and magical creatures, beasts and civilizations, many of which were encountered in the tutorial.
These dungeons were sources of precious material, abilities and knowledge that could strengthen these new age of hunters. Thus wars began over the control of dungeons and the allocation of the resources farmed from within them. The greed to control those resources led to the spilling of much blood.
Meanwhile, a hundred years into this new age of the tower, Alex quietly sat in his store inside the tutorial player common village where the players gathered and convened in between their challenges. His wizened eyes blinked as they read a leather skin book written in an alien language made of intersections of squares and circles. There was no ordinary item within his store, and it was a common sight for other players to gather within to take a loathsome look at items they could not even dream of affording.
This shop, known as "The Dragon's Bone" based on its handsome calligraphic poster introducing it, was known to be extremely picky about its wares and only exchanged items on barter. The items on display could only be exchanged with the owner by providing him with an item, skill, knowledge or piece of information that could entice him. The owner was also known to be upfront and honest about his transactions and had been around since the very early days of the tower.
While there were a few other rarified shops in the player's common area, none had the reputation or the glamour of the legendary items within this particular store. There was a considerable mystery surrounding the origin of the owner as well. Initially the owner was a regular fixture at the store, but over the years a female grey elf had taken his place. The elf was cold but harmless and had become an attraction in itself. It also bewildered other players how a player was able to hire an elf within the tower.
While the players gawked at his items on display or the elf coldly handling them, Alex sat behind the counter, invisible to all but the elf, calmly reading the book. In front of him, a translucent display describing his current stage at stage 100 of the hell trial. Every time his eye glared at the screen, his eyes sighed. It was his final opponent in the Hell trial, an immortal creature that was impossible to slay. Alex had been stuck on this grade for the good part of several years, and spent his time studying instead.
Over the course of this insanity filled trial, Alex had slowly learned from and defeated the most incredible of opponents. From dragon lords to ferocious titan kings and forever high elves and balrogs, to even demigods and finally gods. Yet, he had been stumped on the final level by an artificial chimera whose traits had fused to give it a composite [Invincible] and [Destined to stay Alive] trait. It caused incredible probabilistic events that would ensure that the ugly beast survived even the most powerful of attacks.
Alex had spent the last few years peering through the laws that only gods were supposed to comprehend, however, he had rejected the offer of becoming a god himself from the tutorial. The tutorial was particularly annoying in its efforts to convince him to take up godhood and warned him that it would be impossible to clear the hell trial without an insight into the laws themselves.
However, Alex had reincarnated. He knew very well the pitfalls of becoming a god were. A god was extremely dependent on faith to gain power, which meant swallowing other worlds to increase the faith. It was a destructive path. Alex was nigh immortal already, he didn't need to become a god. He had been spending the last few years peering through the laws as a mortal Godslayer.
However, hundred years had been an awfully long period of time. His parents had probably already passed away in the outside world, and the fate of his own sibling was unknown to him. Over the years, between the intermediary breaks he took after defeating bosses that would shake the self beliefs of even the best of the players in the world who chose and succeeded on the most difficult path, he would take fancy to teach some random students he would come across. This was especially the case if he saw them have some special talent worth nurturing with his [Arcane Eye] talent which could appraise anything.