The Place Where Everything Begins

After seeing that the staff had started to drop down from its floating state, Jeremy unhurriedly reached out his hand to grab it. Then he inspected its design, shape, and structure carefully.

He saw that the staff looked very ordinary with a long brown wooden shaft of more than 170 cm in length, and its whole shaft was wrapped and coiled around by many brown-grey wooden vines. The topmost of the staff situated a half-exposed golden orb with a dashing appearance.

It looked so simple yet so elegant at the same time.

'Quite a classic-looking staff, isn't it.' Jeremy thought and nodded his head in satisfaction.

After that, Jeremy put the glass bottle of mana fluid back inside his backpack, and then he went out of the basement with the staff and the backpack.

He was going to the garage to test the staff's capabilities. He would test many things with it for him to know everything about the staff and be able to utilize it to the fullest extent when he was partaking in the tutorial.

Well... he wouldn't test it for long anyway because he had to go to sleep soon; it was almost midnight at the time.

...

Almost half an hour later...

After testing the Forsaken Branch's abilities here and there, he was pretty sure about its usages and various abilities.

'I'm sure that If I am in the tutorial or on Ortus right now. The staff stats will look something like this.'

...

Name - Forsaken Branch

Rank - Rare

Ability:

1. Increase magic attack damage by X%

2. Decrease mana required to cast a spell by X%

Skill:

1. [Life Force I - Active] - Convert the user's mana into a target's life force (Cooldown X days)

2. [Soothing Mind - Passive] - The user's mind would be calm and serene upon carrying this staff.

Note - XXX

...

'It was very worth it to create this staff. I didn't waste ten days of my life for nothing...' Jeremy thought relievedly to himself.

After memorizing most of its abilities and skills, Jeremy was finally ready for the upcoming tutorial in 3 days.

Right now, he had almost reached the Class 1 Mage. He was now around mid-level Journeyman Mage, with only one step away from reaching high-level.

Jeremy believed that after absorbing in the remaining mana fluid leftover from crafting the staff, which had almost reached the rock bottom of the bottle, he would be able to achieve the peak level of Journeyman Mage and finally be ready to become a Class 1 Mage within the tutorial.

Even though he couldn't become a Class 1 Mage before the tutorial began, as the mana particles in the atmosphere and from the old trees were relatively few, he was still quite satisfied with the status quo as it was.

Regarding advancement, he could become a Class 1 Mage at any time within the tutorial whenever he had enough time and resources to advance.

'A strength of a peak Journeyman Mage with great combat power together with a Rare rank staff. I will definitely topple the tutorial upside down this time.' Jeremy thought and grinned sinisterly.

'Hmm... the next step is... to do the 'ritual' and create the 'gloves' for myself...'

Jeremy thought about his next steps in the upcoming two days...

...

Two days later...

Currently, Jeremy was wearing two black gloves decorated with a square-like symbol at the back of the two gloves in a shape of ᛜ, and most people also called the symbol Space Storage Rune, a middle-tier rune.

Surprisingly enough, it was actually a space elemental rune, an element that shouldn't be able to exist on Earth.

But Jeremy had made it possible with a specific ritual...

That's why he was able to use a combination method of Array inscription and Enchantment, called Array-Enchantment Inscription, to create the gloves.

As for the runes, which were engraved on the gloves, were actually space storage runes, were only usable when a class 2 Adept Mage had a high level of affinity in space element.

However, that stated gap could be shrunk down with the extensive knowledge and the intimate relationship with the space element.

Just like that, Jeremy had successfully inscribed the rune on each glove and started to store necessary things for the tutorial inside the said storage gloves.

Inside the right glove, Jeremy had stored three things there. All of them were combat-related stuff, starting from a custom-made 2-meter long steel spear with a weight of more than 10 kilograms.

The second one was an attractive-looking 1.7 meters long staff made of various trees while on top of it was decorated with a perfect spherical golden orb causing the staff's total weight to be around 6 kilograms.

And lastly, a custom-made thick steel shield with a length of around 2 meters and 80 centimeters in width, causing its weight to be as heavy as 70 kilograms which were literally unliftable by ordinary people but Jeremy.

Meanwhile, inside the left glove, there were many things, ranging from preserved foods, daily and combative clothes, first aid kits, medications, tents, and other miscellaneous items.

To store these many items inside the gloves was already the limits of his space runes capability because he now was only a Journeyman Mage who had forcefully inscribed the space runes on the gloves.

That made the dimensional space induced from the runes barely stable enough not to throw out all of the items from the gloves. In the worst-case scenario, his things might even be stuck within the spatial dimension forever.

As for the matter of bringing the gloves and his items into the tutorial and Ortus, it should be possible with more than 90% chance of success because most people being teleported into the tutorial were adorned with their own clothes at the time when they were on Earth.

However, the other things such as knives, guns, cars, furniture that they were having in contact with at that time wouldn't be transported altogether with them. Those items would just drop down onto the ground or wherever they ought to be.

That meant whoever governed Ortus or the mechanisms of the tutorials only allowed the people from all over the universe to bring in only their clothing.

No more power...

No more money...

No more belongings...

No more old relationships...

Everyone had to start their new lives with the same starting line.

However, If we had to ask someone who had been to Ortus before that, was there any equality from the start?

The answer from them would absolutely be... NO!!

From the very start of the tutorials, many things would set and classify people into social classes, whether it be traits, talents, races, intellect, and many more.

Whether it be Earth, Ortus, or anywhere else inside the universe... there was nothing fair at all.

But what If you want fairness?

Then you had to be strong or rich enough to have a say in the various important events around you. That's the only way...

For Jeremy, who was a former sage who had lived on Ortus for almost 30 eras, he had more or less realized the purposes of people being transported from all over the universe onto Ortus.

Well, it was just his hypothesis. After all, he couldn't be too sure about his 'almost' baseless assumptions.

Right now, Jeremy was entirely ready for the tutorial, which would later be called the 'First Doom' tomorrow.

'I couldn't wait anymore. Hehehe.' Jeremy thought satisfyingly.

...

On Sunday, September 29, 2019, at 1.30 p.m., UTC-8...

The day of the tutorial...

The day of the First Doom...

After finishing dealing with his nervous, anxious, scared, and excited subordinates via phone calls and messages in a group chat, Jeremy sat down and waited patiently for the destined event to commence.

He was one of 9 hundreds millions or so people who would experience the first doom after all.

As for his subordinates...

He didn't know when their queue would come. Some might be like him, experiencing the first doom. Some might face the second, third, fourth, and so on.

There were a total of 8 dooms after all...

He could only assure them that everything would be fine if they acted according to the plans.

He had already prepared too much for them already. From now on, whether they would survive or perish, it was all up to them. Their lives were resting on their own hands starting from now.

Five minutes quickly passed by...

All of a sudden, the people from around the world of almost 1 billion people disappeared at the same time!

One of those people also included Jeremy...

Whether they were sleeping or awaking, sitting or standing, walking or running, child or adult, male or female, patient or elderly. More than 950 million of them had suddenly vanished from Earth, leaving behind only their phones, money pockets, and utensils.

Meanwhile, the owners of those things who had only left behind confusion, chaos, accidents, and death were nowhere to be seen.

Then where were they?

The answer was simple...

They were currently inside a Tutorial Space...