Chapter 2

Before doing anything, Zephyr quickly checked his status.

[Name: Zephyr

Race: Human

Title: None

Class: Swordsman (Apprentice)

Second Class: None

Level: 1

Tier: 0

HP: 100

MP: 50

Stats:

Strength: 5

Agility: 5

Vitality: 5

Intelligence: 5

Points available for stats: 0

Weapon Mastery:

[Basic Sword Mastery Lv.1]

Increases sword damage by 5%.

Class Talent:

Proficiency in sword-related skills increase by 50%.

Skills:

[Chop Lv. 1]

Rating: Common

[Deals 15% damage to the target.

Type: Active

Skill Proficiency: 0%

Consumed Skill Resources: None

[Cooldown Time: 20 Seconds.]

From his status window, Zephyr deduced that every point of vitality increases HP by 20 and each point of intelligence increases MP by 10.

In Tensura, all classes start with 100 HP and 5 points in all stats, and upon leveling you get 10 stats points which you can freely distribute. However, MP wasn't very useful before Level 10 because players didn't have any skills at all, and even magic-type classes could only use physical attacks in the early stages.

Zephyr then looked around the village. He was amazed at how this place could probably be a real town in the countryside except for the swords and wands that some people released to show off.

Zephyr could even smell the scent of food that was being sold in the food carts. Unlike the modern city where Zephyr lives, the Beginner Village has fresh air, unlike the polluted air.

'Now then, what should I do?'

As Zephyr muttered, a notification appeared.

[The tutorial will now begin.]

Along with these words, Zephyr disappeared into a dark space.

****

Virtual reality was able to become the forefront of the modern era because anything was possible inside a VR world.

Anything was possible. But that didn't mean one could be good at anything.

Although one could accomplish anything in the virtual world, doing it successfully was difficult. Taking a cliff jump? Although there would be no pain, most people would be unable to perform it. People would not be crying and shivering in dread while they undergo boot camp training if they could.

This was the biggest hurdle one had to overcome when playing virtual reality games, especially RPGs.

Virtual reality games gave players the power to beat a bear to death with just their fists, but even so, it was only possible for two or three out of every ten. The other seven or eight failed.

There were two reasons.

First, they couldn't utilize their powers. Not only were they scared, but they also lacked experience.

The second was their distaste for killing living creatures. To them, the virtual creatures looked no different than real-life creatures.

Tensura's main feature was fighting monsters, and the game developers believed that perfecting this aspect was the key to success.

As a result, they attempted to make gaming combat as realistic as possible.

It was harsh to be realistic. And that was the end of it. There were no organs spilling out of incisions, no brains exploding, but blood spurted out realistically. Although players could always disable this feature, the fact that it existed was game-changing.

Furthermore, when monsters got injured, they wouldn't just sit still but roar angrily. They moved to cover their injuries, and they charged at whoever gave them the injuries.

Conversely, for those playing VR games for the first time, it was a challenge. There were many who couldn't adjust to the game even after paying a large sum of money to play it.

The developers' solution to this problem was simple.

They made a very thorough tutorial. The tutorial's purpose was to help players adjust to this new world.

****

The space where Zephyr appeared was a huge Colosseum. There was a man waiting for him. His name was full of question marks. It was an AI who conducted the tutorial.

Before Zephyr could respond, the AI talked.

[Hello, Zephyr. I am responsible for the progress of the tutorial.]

"Finish it as quickly as possible," Zephyr said to the AI, as he had decided to explore first but couldn't because of the tutorial. Still, the AI didn't panic.

[Then I will proceed directly with the tutorial. There are two tutorials. I'll go through the details of the magic power test and the combat test before proceeding.]

The moment the AI's words finished, a magical force sprung up under Zephyr's feet.

[This magic circle is responsible for gathering magic power. It will test your sensitivity to magic power.]

Zephyr nodded, as he was curious about this.

[From here, the magic circle will start. You might feel a strange sensation. You have to be honest about what you feel without any falsehoods.]

The magic circle was activated, and a large amount of magic power rushed toward Zephyr. He felt so comfortable, like you were still in bed in the morning, making it hard to wake up.

Zephyr subconsciously raised a hand toward Al. 'This feels so good...'

Flames made of magic power burned at Zephyr's hands.

["!!!"]

'Monster!' Ai didn't know anything about Zephyr and was astonished. It was a result no one had ever seen before. Ai decided to finish the magic power adaptation since going any further was meaningless.

[There is no need to ask. Let's move on to the next test. The combat test summons one monster. You have to deal with the summoned monster. The test will stop automatically if the player is fatally wounded.]

[The difficulty goes from stage 1 to stage 10. Please note that rewards will be paid differently depending on the stage passed. If a difficulty isn't selected, it will be done randomly.]

A table of weapons appeared in front of Zephyr as Al's words continued. Zephyr was no longer listening to Al's words, though. He was busy looking at the weapons on the table. Starting with a single-edged sword, there were things like a bow and a spear.

As his classmate was a swordsman, he looked at the long single-edged sword. The width of the long single-edged sword was around four centimeters, and the length of the blade was 130 centimeters.

[Rusty's Long Sword]

Rating: Common

Durability: 2/5

Attack Strength: 15

Accuracy: -10%

Zephyr read the introduction of the item before he immediately sent an order to his mind. Equip!

Light flashed across his hands as an extremely poor quality sword appeared in his hands.

Zephyr picked up the weapon and gestured to Al to start. "Start."

As he didn't pick the difficulty level. The system assigned his trial a Stage 10 at random. The monster that appeared humanoid was a dark phantom assassin. Zephyr narrowed his eyes and grumbled.

"It's almost not a monster no matter how you see it."

He thought it should not belong in the tutorial but didn't dwell too much as he was relatively new to Tensura. The Phantom Assassins weren't challenging monsters. The phantom assassin was strong in offense and was a monster that would die under the concentrated attacks of the party members if the party members held out for one attack.

On the other hand, they were a nightmare for those who couldn't withstand one attack. It was why a phantom assassin appearing in the tutorial was nothing more than telling the player to just die.

The phantom assassin showed cautious movements. It was as if it was already fighting with Zephyr. On the other hand, Zephyr was relaxed. He might not know how to fight monsters, but he know a few things or two about self-defense. He grabbed the handle of his sword as he pointed the tip of his sword down while he shifted toward the phantom assassin.

He wanted to charge forward, but his movement speed didn't let him...

He began to think about the instructional videos by Swordsmen he found when he searched for several videos made by several alleged expert Swordsmen about fighting monsters.

There was also a description.

All movements in the game are made through individual thoughts. You can take any action that you like, as long as you can think of it. Of course, your actions are limited to typical human actions. For instance, you can do a back flip. You can perform such actions inside the game world, even if you can't in reality. This is one of the reasons why many people like playing this game.

But you can't turn your neck 360 degrees unless you obtain some special physique within the game, or if you obtain some special skill.

Eventually, the lone phantom assassin became impatient and attempted to attack. The phantom assassin dashed across the 10 meters in a hurry, stabbing Zephyr with its dagger. Zephyr remained calm. He deflected the dagger with his long sword.

'It is better than I thought...'

The dagger was being used to its best advantage by the phantom assassin. It took advantage of the recoil to immediately resume its assaults. The dagger that pierced Zephyr in the stomach moved so quickly that it appeared to be two or three knives.

The phantom assassin appeared to be losing his mind. The individual, who didn't appear to be unique, had an impenetrable wall of defense. No matter how hard the phantom assassin tried, there was no way to win.

It was blocked, as if this being was anticipating every move it made. The phantom assassin was anxious due to the amount of stamina consumed by the continuous attacks.

At that moment, Zephyr's single-edged sword made a stab at the dark elf's shoulder.

[You have dealt 15 damage to the target.]

Zephyr swiftly retreated after his first successful strike because the monster was about to strike back.

"Kuock. Human!" The phantom assassin struggled in pain.

Zephyr wielded the sword with a blank expression. He slashed and used Chop as soon as the opportunity rose and didn't miss the gap that the phantom assassin created.

[You have dealt 18 damage to the target.]

[Critical!]

[You have dealt 20 damage to the target.]

[You have dealt 15 damage to the target.]

The phantom assassin screamed and stabbed wildly toward Zephyr.

'I won't stop. Human.'

Zephyr took a step back, seeing the dagger, but his retreat meant he completely evaded this attack, and an enormous "MISS" appeared above his head.

The narrator's voice flickered across his mind.

When attacking monsters, you should move around to the monster's left or right, or you can circle around it while attacking it. You can increase the monster's miss rate this way. The magnitude of the monster's miss rate depends on your individual reactions and on your judgment of the monster's attacks.

If your reactions are quick enough, you should be able to evade all attacks by low-rank monsters in the Newbie Village. Of course, that's just theoretically possible. Even though newbie monsters have low ranks and their movement speeds and whatnot are slow, newbie players are also very slow.

Therefore, evading all the attacks shouldn't be possible. Let's not talk about whether the players have reactions that quick, because not many people can predict monsters' attacks. Of course, there are exceptions. I have heard of several experts who rely on their superior judgment and reactions to evade every single attack. But even then, they should only evade the first few attacks.

There hasn't been any reliable proof about whether that's true. Every player will probably find that someone can evade all attacks without predicting them. A big joke, because no human can possess such reaction time.

The narrator made another funny expression as his explanation stopped there.

The phantom assassin kept launching attacks yet couldn't smile. Zephyr's face was expressionless as he blocked the phantom assassin's blows. It seemed as if these attacks were nothing.

Zephyr's sword showed a strange trajectory. He seemed to be drawing in the air, but at some point, he hit the phantom assassin's dagger. After cutting off the head of the phantom assassin with a blank expression, Zephyr finished the tutorial.

[Critical!]

[You have dealt 23 damage to the target.]

[The target has died!]

[50 experience has been acquired.]

[You have acquired 10 silver.]

[Level difference of 4. Experience gain will be multiplied by 400%.]

[200 experience has been acquired.]

[Your level has risen.]

Al was only left with a sense of shock when he saw Zephyr's battle. The difficulty was set to stage 10, yet no attacks hit him as he easily avoided, deflected, and parried the dagger of the phantom assassin.

[Amazing work.I will finish the tutorial with this. The reward will be given by the village chief.]

****

"Oh! Are you a new otherworlder adventurer? "It is nice to meet you," an old man with a warm expression welcomed Zephyr. "I am the village chief. You'll probably see me often while you are here. "

Zephyr's eyes narrowed at hearing the term "otherworlder adventurer" from an NPC. He thought it was a way to address the players. Zephyr appeared at the location of the village chief of Beginner Village. He was an NPC that beginners were going to be tired of meeting.

"What is your name?" He greeted Zephyr with a smile, like he wasn't an NPC that was tired of saying such things every time.

Zephyr politely introduced himself to him, "I am Zephyr."

"Zephyr... I'll remember it. Here are your rewards. You can get something appropriately useful or perhaps something from a legend. "

As soon as he said that, a notification appeared in front of Zephyr.

[You have completed the tutorial with the maximum difficulty.]

[Grade: SS

Completion Rate: 200%.]

[You have made an achievement that is not easily accomplished. Additional karma will be provided.]

[You have acquired 100 karma.]

[You have acquired 150 additional karma.]

Zephyr received the reward box from the village chief. He immediately opened the box. The thing that emerged from the box was a ring with an ancient pattern.

[Ring of the Giant]

Rating: Unique

Durability: 500-500

* Strength +50

* Vitality +50

* The skill 'Giants Strength' will be generated.

Giant's Strength: Temporary increases your strength equal to the vitality stat.

Skill Duration: 5 Minutes

Cooldown Time: 1 Hour.]