Opening my Character Menu as I waited, I decided to spend my 30 unused Available Points on balancing my other Stats, still unsure what exactly to put them in, and keeping Strength and Agility higher than the others because they seemed the most useful.

  “I thought I didn’t put any points in Sense, so how is it at 20 already?” I asked myself, still dumping the remaining 10 Available Points into Sense anyway because it made the Seer Skills better. Moving on, I also noticed that Titles was now clickable, and I had 2 of them.

  “Ahhh, that’s why my Sense was higher.” Trying to find out more about the Seer Subclass, I hovered my finger over it in the Menu but it only gave the same description from before. “How strange.” I thought to myself. “Usually if there’s a Subclass in a game, it almost always has a separate Level from the Main Class, but in this System the Level is separated from both. Does that mean they're the same Level? and if they’re not the same, is there a way to Level Up the Seer Subclass?” I wondered to myself, fiddling through the Menus.

  After a few minutes of waiting and not getting a single response to my Requests, I was about to give up, when suddenly a bunch of messages came one after the other.

  “Ooo, 1, 2, 3, 4…” Counting the messages aloud.

  “5, 6, 7, 8…” Seeing the decline, I said “Awww, so close to being perfect, but I guess 8 out 9 ain’t bad, which is actually way better than 3 or 4 I expected.” But a second later, I got another message.

  Taking me by surprise, I immediately clicked it.

  I laughed, and said “I guess I spoke too soon.” Clicking Accept.

  Going to the Messages Menu, I created a group chat and began inviting the others to it, and then waited for them to join.

  When everyone had joined, I was surprised to see no one was talkative, so I typed in Chat first.

  “I can't believe my Subclass got exposed so early, I was planning to keep it a secret, and who would’ve guessed these people would just outright tell each other theirs.” I thought to myself. “They either don’t really care about people knowing, or they can’t see the value of keeping 10 completely unique Subclasses a secret from people, except for that Faust kid.” Then typing,

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Completely lying to them.

  Thinking up a lie they would believe, I typed...

  Reading back what I typed, I thought “Will they actually believe that?”

  While they continued to talk, I looked up from the screen and saw the timer.

  Waiting For Other Players: 2 Hours, 21 Minutes, 14 Seconds

  “Wow, it’s only been about an hour and a half since I finished the Tutorial, this is gonna be a long wait.” I thought to myself, going back to the group chat where they were now exchanging what Classes they were. Scrolling back up, I read that: Lavie and Omega were Fighters, Casino and Tobias Rogues, Dream and Xian Healers, and Da Vinci, Essex, and Faust were all Mages.

  They all hesitated and didn’t type anything, and I assumed they were thinking of the pros and cons of the other Players knowing, and about the lie I told them. But after a few minutes of thinking, they all agreed one after the other to keep our Subclasses a secret.

  The whole Chat stopped after what Casino typed, and I thought “They probably all had the same thoughts in the back of their minds, ‘Can I really trust these people? and what if I need to fight them?’, and Casino just said what we were all thinking.” Having the same thoughts in the back of my mind.

  “No, I can’t let them leave cynical about each other, otherwise they could be a problem in the future if they side with other Players later on, and they might even tell people about our Subclasses.” Then quickly typing to them,

  The chat went dead again until Lavie typed first.

  I think seeing Lavie, the one who placed 1st in the Rankings, agree with me caused the others to follow suit.

  I smirked, as a loud bell sound echoed in the now incredibly crowded space. My attention was immediately drawn to the timer that had now completely stopped, with an hour and 40 minutes still left on the time, as it then slowly changed the words in the air.

  All Players Have Now Finished The Tutorial.

  Changing what it said again.

  All Tutorial Rankings Will Now Be Updated To The Final Results.

  The Tutorial Rankings were then displayed on the 6 large blue screens, allowing everyone to see from every angle, but still unchanged and floating above the Rankings was the words COMBAT IS PROHIBITED. Catching everyone’s attention, the Tutorial Rankings started at the bottom at 9991-10,000th, but seeing their updated placings for what I assumed was their first time, people started yelling in anger, as the screen slowly scrolled up higher showing everyone else’s placings.

  The voice of a man was prominent in the crowd, as he shouted “What the fuck is that bullshit! I was the first one to finish the Tutorial, so why was I placed 10,000th!”

  A woman agreed with the man, “Yeah, I finished close to first too, but why did my place get changed close to last!”

  Another person shouted, “Fuck you Guides!”

  A few more people felt the same, then a few hundred, and then a few thousand. All shouting and yelling in anger of their placements, this whole situation we’re in, and at their Guides.

  Making me look up from the chat, lighting was suddenly shot from the crowd, and passed right through the floating screens. A few other people started to join in attacking the screens, hurling more various types of elemental spells at it, and even shooting some arrows and crossbow bolts.

  I don’t think the people noticed, but the COMBAT IS PROHIBITED words were now starting to blink red, and I thought “That doesn’t look good, I wonder what’ll the punishment be if it’s broken?” As I then heard a person scream out in pain, and in an instant the whole space suddenly went cold.

  An overwhelming pressure overcame my body and it felt like the whole space just got a whole lot heavier and harder to breathe; slowly pushing us down, and causing all my senses to scream for me to run. Something was here but I couldn’t see it, and when I tried to move my body it wouldn’t move an inch, not even knowing or seeing why.

  A loud voice then echoed in the space and silenced everyone. “Oh, no, no, no, didn’t you read the one rule? Did I not make it big enough for all of you to see? Combat is prohibited!” The voice was so loud that I thought my eardrums were about to burst, but I couldn’t even move my arms and hands to cover them. The words COMBAT IS PROHIBITED then turned completely red and instantly became 10x the size, making all the Tutorial Ranking screens disappear, and the words taking their place. “Lucky for you rulebreakers, only one Player really broke the rule before I stopped the rest of you from inflicting damage to another. And as such, only one will become my example.” Suddenly only my head was free to move, as I then watched a Player begin to float upwards from the crowd.

  Moving and floating high up in the center of the space, the Player was able to move his whole body, and he shouted as his limbs flailed wildly “ What the hell is happening!? Who the fuck is doing this! Somebody help me! You're gonna regret-” And in the blink of an eye, the man’s head was cut clean off, not even seeing what cut it, as his head then dropped from his body to the floor. With the other Players also having their heads free to move, thousands of voices then screamed in complete fear and horror at the sight, pleading for help, and praying to their different Gods.

  I was completely stunned in shock and disbelief. “There's no way that just happened, it must be a trick, right?” Looking up at the body still floating in the air, and spewing out blood from its neck. The sight was too much for me to handle, being diagnosed as hemophobic after the accident, as the memories of Uncle Thal’s bloodied body began flooding my mind again. Looking away, I felt absolutely sick to my stomach, and wanting to throw up, but I gulped it down. “Was I being too optimistic and carefree about this whole situation? Maybe these Guides are the bad guys, and they really are just using us for their sickening entertainment?” I thought to myself.

  Then someone shouted, “Look something’s happening to that guy's body!” Reluctantly I forced myself to give a quick glance at the body, and I saw that a green and gold magic was surrounding and enveloping the entirety of the body. I watched all the spewing blood being sucked back up into the man’s body, and the head floating back up tp it too. With the head back on the neck, the bone, muscles, and skin reconnected itself, and when it was finished the gold and green magic dissipated.

  Gasping back to life, the man said “What the hell, what was that!? Did I just die?” A spark of fire then ignited on the man’s chest, freaking him out, as the flames slowly grew and began engulfing his body. “Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhh! Help! Please help! No more!” Unable to move, none of us could do anything but watch the flames burn him alive. When his body stopped flailing in pain and was burnt completely black, the same green and gold magic surrounded his body again, and healed him completely back to normal. The man freaked out again when he returned back to life, but almost instantly his body was impaled with a large sharp ice shard, and then another and another, until he died again.

  The loud echoing voice from before then spoke to us again, and said “I’m sorry for taking so long Players, I have to double check on everything before we start. Just give me 5 more minutes, and try to follow the one rule.” And instantly my body felt free again, and everyone else looked to be free too.

  I looked at the man’s reviving body again, and I thought to myself “This is insane…” Watching the man get electrocuted to death next.