Chapter 4: Advanced Tutorial
Panting and collapsed against a pillar Seth was relieved that he was finally done. The interface had ran him through every type of skill, from weapons training to lock picking, hacking, fire making, long distance running, and everything else you could imagine. Each time this strange place would morph into whatever was needed for his test and then come back to the simple area surrounded by pillars once he had finished.
All sense of time was gone, there was no telling how long he had been trapped in this 'tutorial' but it felt like days. The only thing he had learned is that he was ranked just about as lowly as possible in almost every type of score possible. He had just finished doing wind sprints a moment ago and thankfully there was not yet a new message for him. Instead it still read the same thing it had after each test.
'COMPILING RESULTS'
Seth was enjoying the feeling of the cold stone against his back when a small chirp sounded. There weren't any animals here unless there was a test, so the sound was very alien. Seth looked at the tops of the pillars and to the blackness beyond but couldn't see anything that would have made the noise, then he saw the message had changed.
'RESULTS COMPILED, STATUS WINDOW UPDATED, SKILL WINDOW UPDATED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW YOUR RESULTS?'
For a moment Seth held his breath, he had already thought this felt similar to a video game in its language, but he was almost afraid to believe what he was seeing. After hesitating a moment he sheepishly spoke.
"Status window, skill window....? Yeah show me the results I guess."
The moment he said those words two panels entered his vision, one on either side of his field of view. He looked to the left first.
'OPERATOR STATUS: TIRED
LEVEL 1
HP: 60/60
STA: 4/60
SPC: 1/1
EXP: 0
RANK: 32
PARTY SIZE: 1
CURRENT QUEST: COMPLETE TUTORIAL'
Dumbfounded Seth looked to the right. He recognized the terms floating in his vision but couldn't believe they were corresponding to him. HP meant health, and thanks to his shield he hadn't been injured. STA usually stood for stamina, and based on how he had collapsed after the final test the low current reading seemed right. He had no clue what SPC stood for and was shocked when he saw EXP listed and that it was at zero.
"After all of that I didn't get any experience? Maybe because it was a test..."
Seth was whispering to himself, afraid if he spoke too loudly the spell would break and he wouldn't be able to see this again. He saw his rank and didn't understand. Why would his rank be so high if he was so weak according to his stats? He ignored this for now and looked to the other screen before him.
'EQUIPMENT
GRAPHIC T – SHIRT
CONDITION: POOR
EFFECT: NONE
JEANS
CONDITION: POOR
EFFECT: NONE
RUNNING SHOES
CONDITION: POOR
EFFECT: NONE
UNDERGARMENTS
CONDITION: POOR
EFFECT: NONE
VAE RIFLE (TEMPORARY)
CONDITION: FAIR
EFFECT: NONE
VAE SWORD (TEMPORARY)
CONDITION: FAIR
EFFECT: NONE
BASIC SHIELD
CONDITION: FAIR
EFFECT: 100HP SHIELD, REGENERATES WHEN OUT OF COMBAT, BURNS OUT IF REDUCED TO ZERO'
While looking over these items he couldn't believe that his clothing had been listed. Glancing down at the dirt and tears covering his clothes due to the testing he understood why the condition was rated as poor. After a moment the windows vanished and a new message took their place.
'RUN ADVANCED INTERFACE TUTORIAL?'
Even though he was exhausted and had long since stopped caring if this was a hallucination or not he couldn't help but get curious about what would come next. He didn't want to do any more tests so this time he asked a questions instead of blindly accepting.
"What does the advanced tutorial do?"
At first nothing happened and Seth thought that perhaps the interface wasn't able to answer questions, that it only responded to specific commands. A few seconds later however the message changed again.
'ADVANCED TUTORIAL SHOWS THE OPERATOR THE VARIOUS OPTIONS AVAILABLE WITH THE INTERFACE, ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE BASIC TUTORIAL HAS BEEN COMPLETED. CONTINUE?'
"So I get to see how to use you more? Yeah sure, continue."
'THE OPERATOR HAS ALREADY SEEN THE STATUS AND EQUIPMENT WINDOWS, THEY CAN BE VIEWED AT ANY TIME TO CHECK STATUS AND UPDATE EQUIPMENT. THERE IS ALSO THE QUESTLOG WHERE YOUR CURRENT QUEST DETAILS ARE LOCATED AND THE CHARACTER MENU WHICH DISPLAYS CURRENT ATTRIBUTES AND ABILITIES, THIS IS WHERE EXPERIENCE CAN BE SPENT.'
Once the words stopped scrolling across his vision Seth spoke the word and opened the character menu, and once again a panel opened up in front of him. The display showed what he had seen after his initial test, his attribute scores listed, as well as skills that he had been tested on and their corresponding ranks. All were at level one. The second panel opened for the character menu had the word "abilities" written across the top, however all of the information on that page was grayed out and instead a banner was written across the page that read "LEVEL UP TO ACCESS THE ABILITY MENU."
"Ok, so I have to level up so see that... ok how about the questlog?"
The interface responded again with a chirp and a new window opened in front of his eyes. This time titled "QUESTLOG," but there were only two entries on the page.
The first entry read 'COMPLETE TUTORIAL,' and beneath it there were phrases listed line after line that described each of the tests Seth had been put through, each with a check mark next to them. The last line read 'VIEW ALL INTERFACE MENU OPTIONS THEN CLOSE WINDOWS TO COMPLETE.' The second quest was further down and it was titled 'IN NEED OF A PARTY,' it was grayed out and the same banner was posted across it saying Seth needed to level up to access it.
Once he had looked over each of the menus he had been told about and was satisfied he understood what was presented on each Seth took a deep breath.
"Time to find out if I can wake up I guess.. close windows and complete tutorial!"
He shouted the final words and closed his eyes expecting an unpleasant feeling to follow. To his surprise there was no sensation, no lights, and no noise that followed his words. After a moment he heard another chirp. Sheepishly he opened his eyes and in front of him was a small bird perched on the armrest of the bench he was seated on. He was back on campus.
He saw other students milling about the campus, looking like they had just left their classes, the sun was high in the sky exactly like when he had left. Seth was in shock.
'Was all of that some kind of weird dream?'
He looked down and saw that his clothes were clean and whole, and the silver box that had shielded him was nowhere to be seen. While he was looking himself over he heard a familiar voice.
"Seth! There you are, man we better hurry and get back to the dorm, we gotta get ready for the party!"
It was Rodger, with a big grin on his face.
"Hey buddy, yeah... what time is it?"
"What do you mean? Classes just ended, it's like four. We gotta get going, the party starts at six!"
There was no trace of worry on Rodgers face, no sign that Seth had been missing for hours or days or however long he remembered being in that place.
"Right, yeah, sorry. I think I've been pushing myself too hard, I must have dozed off on this bench. Lets go get ready."
With that he stood up and began walking back to the dorms with his friend. It wasn't until they were already a few minutes into the trip that Seth dared to look.
'TUTORIAL COMPLETE, QUEST COMPLETE,
WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM OPERATOR.'
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
John_Roney
John_Roney Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I'm going to keep trying to publish at least one a day but there will surely be times where I fall behind. Thank you for being understanding and I hope that you enjoy reading this!
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