1 Summoned

An old man with grey hair and a long grey beard stood calmly and proudly in front of a group of ten students, all who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, "Welcome Brave Heroes. I have summoned you all today to save my world from the looming threat of an Ancient Demon King. I know this may be confusing to you all, but the Kingdom of Solaras needs your help. In front of me is a board, there are sixty skills on this board, six for each of you. Once you have picked your skills, you will be transported to a tutorial, before you arrive in the Kingdom of Solaras' castle. Once you enter the tutorial, you can check the descriptions of your skills in more depth as you can only see brief descriptions on the board, so make sure to do that before you do anything else. Take your time choosing, as you will all arrive at the same time no matter when you finish choosing."

The group of students had previously been in a boring English lesson, but now they were in from of a God, being told unbelievable things. Although they were confused, from what they had just been told, only one thing was clear. 

They needed to gain the best skills possible from the board, and the strongest person would get first pick.

The students all rushed forward, attempting to become stronger than the others, not knowing what would be in their future.

What they did know however, was that the faster they got to the board, the faster they could gain good skills.

The God saw this and tried to intervene, "Remember, if you share the good skills out fairly, then you can all become powerful and defend the world together. There are ten High-Ultimate rank skills, so that's one each of the second highest rank skill, and there's more than enough of the other ranks for each of you to become powerful if you're fair, especially because you can increase your skill's proficiencies, even lower rank skills can be strong."

Despite this, the students carried on with their attempts to get the most powerful skills. Eventually, one by one they disappeared as they had chosen their skills. The first to go was Aldrich, then Seraphina, then Darian, then Ryker, Sylvia, Dominic, Valeria, and then Freya. However, there was still one more student who had not chosen their skills.

Thorne, a seventeen year old boy who was viewed as the weakest and most useless of the bunch, and was often bullied in their lessons together. He had attempted to get good skills, but he was simply unable due to the others taking up all the room, and pushing him away.

This meant he was the last to pick, and therefore he didn't get to pick. Once Freya had disappeared from standing in front of the board, Thorne disappeared with her. As there were only six skills left, there was no need for him to choose, so he was automatically given the remaining skills.

Disappearing from where he previously was, Thorne found himself standing on a dirt floor, in an environment which was barren other than an occasional hill. Before he did anything else, Thorne decided to try and see what skills he had been given as the worst of the bunch.

When he thought of viewing this information, it appeared in his head as a screen.

Name: Thorne

Age: 17

Species: Human

Skills:

[Low] Battle Helper / Proficiency: 0/100

[Low] Strength / Proficiency: 0/100

[Low] Build / Proficiency: 0/100

[Low] Telekinesis / Proficiency: 0/100

[Low] Venomous Sting / Proficiency: 0/100

[Ultimate] Torturous Death / Proficiency: 0/100

Seeing his skills, there was only one thing that surprised him, he was in possession of an Ultimate rank skill, which must have been very high, as the God mentioned that High-Ultimate rank skills were powerful. He decided to expand it and see the description of the skill.

[Ultimate] Torturous Death: The user of this skill is able to revive after death, but they will have to go through a horrific trial to do so. Each time the user revives, the intensity of the trial increases.

Seeing the description of the skill, Thorne knew why it had been left behind, 'Great, it's a powerful skill, revival is a crazy good power, but the horrific trials don't sound too appealing. I'm not surprised they left this skill for me.'

He wanted to try and cheer himself up a bit by looking at his other skills descriptions, but it didn't really help.

[Low] Battle Helper: Assists the user in battle, optimising their movements.

[Low] Strength: Increases the user's physical body's strength.

[Low] Build: User can create things instantly as long as they have materials.

[Low] Telekinesis: User can use limited telekinesis to lift things.

[Low] Venomous Sting: User can create a venomous stinger that protrudes from the middle of their knuckles.

'None of these are any good, I can't even imagine that they will be very strong if I reach max proficiency with them either.'

Despite his poor situation, Thorne was still excited to become a Hero, and the first step to being one would be to complete the tutorial. He began to walk around, and after a minute or two, came across a single creature that was stupidly standing around.

It was green, and was about as tall as a ten year old child and, despite being quite skinny, was holding a thick wooden club. Thorne looked at it, and was excited to recognise a famous fantasy creature, a Goblin. 

The weakest of all monsters, and generally considered a tutorial enemy, which made sense in this situation. However, Thorne was still not confident against the enemy, as his body was weak, and his skills could potentially be too weak to kill the monster. 

He thought that it would be worth a try, and tested out one of his skills. the skill that eh decided to test was Telekinesis, although it said that the skill was weak, he thought he should be Abel to pick up small things, and this is just what he did.

He concentrated his mind, and managed to manipulate a stone on the ground which had a sharp point. It took a few attempts to get used to, but Thorne managed to get a good mental grip on the stone, before he moved it quickly at the Goblin who had its back turned.

The stone lodged itself in the back of the Goblin's head, and green blood spurted out, and then a steady stream of blood began to flow. The Goblin looked around confused, and due to its injury, Thorne felt a bit more confident. 

He ran towards it, and used another one of his skills, Venomous Sting. This caused a  purple coloured stinger with a sharp end to emerge from his right hand, in the centre of his knuckles. It was about ten inches long, and he stabbed it into the Goblin. From this wound, a light purple colour spread throughout the chest of the Goblin, foam started to come out of its mouth, and it fell to the ground spasming. 

Once the Goblin stopped moving, a message appeared in Thorne's mind, 'Tutorial has been completed, transfer to Solaras will now begin... Error... Error... Transfer incomplete... Tutorial will restart in 24 hours.'