B1 | Chapter 4

Aidan

A new System Message appears in my vision. With this one being a lot longer than the previous ones and without those lines on the sides.

◊ Mission Received ◊

Tutorial: Tower – Floor One

Objectives: Find the exit to the floor and slay at least one hundred cave dwellers.

Reward: 1000 Tutorial Points + 1 Tutorial Point per additional monster slain.

My mind kind of freezes up as I read the mission. Specifically the part about slaying a hundred cave dwellers. Whatever those are.

Right. So, while I have also learned martial arts, I don’t know how smart it is to use my fists against unknown monsters.

Plus, the idea of beating something to death is…

I purse my lips for a moment before scouring my pockets and bag for anything I could possibly use as a weapon. But there isn’t anything. Except some pens and pencils.

Something tells me those won’t likely work very well. Not as well as my own claws would.

It’s too bad I don’t carry something like scissors in my laptop bag.

Then again, who would carry scissors to computer science classes?

Right. Wandering mind again.

My new claws should work perfectly well as a weapon since I don’t really have anything else to rely on.

I look down with a frown as a dull ache begins to build across my body.

Aaand my hunger is starting to come back. Great.

The bright side is that my hunger is a great motivator for wanting to kill whatever these cave dwellers are. Since I can just feed on the source mana contained in the cave dwellers’ corpses after I kill them.

My thoughts come to a halt at that thought before I pull out one of those stones I’ve always found to slightly lessen my hunger. And the moment I see it, text floats above the thing in my vision.

[Fractured Iron Tier Mana Core – A fragment of the core from a weak Iron Tier creature that may be used as a power source for certain items.]

Oh. So that’s why these stones have been helping me calm my hunger. Albeit barely.

That’s nice. Kind of curious why there were mana cores on Earth before the System though, even if they’re just fragments.

Anyway, I search around the cavern I’m in for a few seconds before putting the core back into my pocket and entering the only tunnel connected to it. Then I continue making my way through the tunnel until I arrive in another cavern.

But I still don’t see anything. Not a single creature, monster or otherwise.

Where are these deep dwellers?

I feel my hunger growing stronger at a rapid pace for some reason. And that’s not all, because for some reason, I can… sense something. Almost like a smell but not at the same time.

What is this feeling?

I frown and wrinkle my nose as I also begin to smell something on top of that strange sensation that’s making me even hungrier.

Then a thought crosses my mind.

What creatures might live in caves and be difficult to spot from the ground…

I slowly lift my gaze towards the ceiling high above where I’m standing. And there, clinging upside down to the ceiling, are the very creatures I’m looking for.

A System message appears in my vision as I stare at the one-and-a-half-foot-tall bats sleeping on the ceiling.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

◊ Congratulations! You have met your first monster! Inputting knowledge of the skill known as ‘Identify’ into your mind! ◊

I feel a headache assaulting me before I just know how to use this thing called a skill. Meanwhile a description of the skill fills my vision.

[Identify – This is a skill used to identify living creatures. It is necessary in order to pierce through the natural defense an Awakened being has to any sort of scrying. Beware, for it may notify the creature being identified of the act should they be perceptive enough.]

Right. The Guide did mention skills a couple times. First with the Class and Profession specific skills, and then with the basic skills later on.

He never specified what skills were, though.

That Guide should be fired.

Or at least not get his bonus.

I frown at that thought while slowly stepping back towards the tunnel. Trying as hard as I can to not wake up the swarm of large bats on the ceiling.

Right as I’m about to get out of the cavern though, one of the bats suddenly opens its pitch black eyes. And it only takes a moment for it to notice me.

The bat lets out a screech before dislodging from the ceiling and flying straight at me. So I immediately run into the tunnel, hoping to at least not attract any other bats that might have been woken up by this one’s screech.

And fortunately for me, that plan actually works, as the only bat to follow me into the tunnel is the first one.