Tutorial 1 (1)
"I'm all set!"
Gaon shouted in an empty room.
In ten minutes, the Another Mundus servers would open.
Wearing only the dedicated helmet and shorts, Gaon entered the capsule. After lying down and pressing the button, the interior tightened around his entire body. Soon, the blunt tips of protrusions touched various parts of his body, but the sensation wasn't as bad as he'd expected.
He had checked the homepage—the material clinging to his body and the protrusions with their blunt tips were made of graphene composite fiber, which was said to innovatively increase the assimilation rate with the physical body. Of course, this was a feature unique to the premium capsule.
'Even better capsules with higher assimilation rates will come out later.'
Only the standard model was available now, but the premium capsule releasing in a month would not only further increase player assimilation rates but also come equipped with various cutting-edge functions, so despite its high price, an enormous quantity would sell worldwide.
Truthfully, there was a reason Another Mundus had failed to gain popularity at launch.
It was because of the monthly account fee of 300,000 won and the capsule price of a whopping 12 million won even for the standard model.
However, its realism was on a completely different level from any VR game released to date—people unanimously said it felt like traveling to another dimension to enjoy the game—so the moment gameplay videos began appearing on platforms, it exploded in popularity overnight.
When the time came and the servers opened, Gaon logged in immediately, set his ID and password, briefly lost consciousness, then opened his eyes in a familiar space.
It was the Customization Room visited upon first login.
The Customization Room was a space to create one's avatar.
First and foremost, Gaon decided the name for the avatar he would use in Another Mundus.
'Simple is best!'
Without much thought, Gaon set his character name to 'On' and registered it immediately.
Next was race selection.
The selectable races were only Human, Elf, and Dwarf, and appearance could be adjusted within a 5% margin, but for now, only Human could be selected.
'Just as I thought!'
Once again, Gaon confirmed that the dream he'd had was definitely a prophetic dream.
In the prophetic dream, he'd thought there was no need to change his appearance, so he'd skipped this process. But this time, he'd decided things needed to be different, so he resolved to customize.
That said, he couldn't spend too much time here. Above all, he couldn't remain in this space for long. Because after thirty minutes, an avatar identical to his scanned body would be generated.
Gaon selected Human for his race and adjusted his features little by little, just as he'd always wished they looked. He, too, had parts of his appearance he felt insecure about.
Then, like the majority of people on the Tan Continent where Another Mundus took place, he changed his hair and even his irises to gold, and with a bit more tweaking of his features, he transformed into an incredibly exotic and handsome man.
'Just as I planned, I look a bit older.'
He'd deliberately adjusted his appearance to look like he was in his late twenties. Because in the prophetic dream, he'd been disregarded due to his age several times.
After finishing his customization and checking in the mirror, he doubted even someone who knew him well would recognize him. His altered avatar looked completely foreign, and older to boot.
Having finished altering his appearance, Gaon decided to start the tutorial immediately.
Players who had read the Another Mundus lorebook and understood it to some extent could skip the tutorial without much issue. In fact, most people usually skipped it.
'I already know the contents inside out, so I could skip it, but I need to check if the rumors that secretly circulated are true!'
He'd glossed over the tutorial in the prophetic dream, but because of rumors that had spread through secret channels, he couldn't risk skipping it just in case.
Even if that weren't the case, doing the tutorial wasn't necessarily a waste of time. Clearing the tutorial with outstanding performance could yield items, titles, or skills that were minor but still helpful in the game.
'In the prophetic dream, right before I started over, there had been rampant rumors that Levandorf, a Russian player who had started earlier, obtained the title Slaughterer of the Forest in the tutorial.'
The title Slaughterer of the Forest possessed an incredible effect, raising all stats by 5% in forest-like environments. Since it raised stats by a percentage rather than a fixed value, its effect grew greater at higher levels.
Besides that, there were unconfirmed rumors about players receiving titles or items with fairly good effects for properly completing the tutorial, which most people skipped.
Of course, the parties involved neither denied nor confirmed it, and since the subjects of the rumors were so few in number, most dismissed them as baseless—but to Gaon, they were well worth attempting.
'I have to collect as many titles as possible!'
In Another Mundus, titles weren't equipped by selecting them each time you played; acquired titles applied immediately and could stack, making their utility even greater.
Thanks to that single title, Levandorf had become a ranked Assassin and gained tremendous fame, unlike Gaon, who had cooped himself up in a pioneering city playing passively like an NPC.
According to rumors that spread later, Levandorf, a former Russian special forces operative, had obtained the title by achieving the feat of killing a certain number of every type of monster on the tutorial stage using only a single dagger within the time limit.
'Of course, most people didn't believe that rumor, but it's entirely plausible.'
Very little information about top-rankers had been released, but by the summer when Gaon restarted Another Mundus, the high-rankers who were already making a name for themselves had mostly shown unusual growth from the very beginning.
Gaon believed this was because they had properly completed the tutorial that ordinary people skipped or rushed through, or because their trained bodies gave them a high assimilation rate, allowing them to get ahead of others from the very start.
The tutorial's contents were simple.
On stages of different environments, you hunted magical beasts or monsters for one hour each, totaling five hours.
The developer, Savior Company, stated that the tutorial's purpose was to eliminate any aversion to hunting and to inform players that hunting was essential to properly grow in Another Mundus.
But Gaon, who had experienced the prophetic dream, accurately guessed the true meaning behind the tutorial.
'The tutorial definitely plays an important role in determining initial stats along with assimilation rate, not just offering title and item rewards.'
This fact only became known roughly six months after release, when word spread that initial stats were determined based on physical abilities measured by the capsule's precision instruments combined with tutorial performance.
Initial stats consisted of only five categories: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence, and Perception. Each stat averaged 10, usually with a variance of about 5. In other words, someone with exceptional Strength would have around 15, while someone very weak would have around 5.
But it wasn't limited to such ordinary cases. Levandorf, a public figure who had revealed quite a lot about himself, was known to have had an initial Agility stat of 19. It was nearly double that of an average person.
'Not that Levandorf's real body actually possessed that level of agility.'
For that reason, almost no one believed it was true when the story came out. At the time, even world-famous athletes in sports that demanded extreme agility couldn't surpass 15. Common sense would suggest that groups like professors and experts in various fields would have high Intelligence, yet no one had heard of anyone surpassing 15 in that stat either.
On top of that, there were game-exclusive stats like Mana and Magic Power, which were normally heavily influenced by Intelligence and Perception. Generally, those with high mana capacity could grow quickly as mental-class professions like Mages or Healers.
Levandorf's case was enough to guess that there were hidden rewards in the tutorial. In other words, one had to achieve system-recognized accomplishments in the tutorial, which most people skipped or only used to get a taste of hunting.
An accomplishment meant either clearing in the shortest time possible or hunting the maximum number of monsters—one of the two.
Gaon decided to aim for the latter, not the former. Because the former was what players who guessed the tutorial was important would be aiming for.
'Let's do this properly for once!'
In the prophetic dream, he had only heard about Another Mundus from friends around mid-February and started in a hurry. Naturally, he'd started with a ruined body, and his total stats had ended up so low they didn't even reach 40.
But now was different. Though he didn't know the cause, his physical condition had changed drastically in a short period, so it seemed he could afford to have high expectations.
As soon as he finished customizing, a guiding voice was heard.
—Mr. On, I am the assistant of Another Mundus. Allow me to explain the main game to you.
"No, I'm good."
Having refused the assistant's guidance, which would have explained the overall game, Gaon decided to start the tutorial right away.
The world briefly went dark, and when light returned, he was in a different space.
The first stage of the tutorial, the Forest, was unlike anything in Korea, which now fell within the subtropical climate zone.
'Truly astounding.'
He had marveled at it in the prophetic dream as well, but the sensations felt through his body were perfectly real.
The windless, hot and humid jungle was filled with alien scents. Well-traveled people said it was like a tropical rainforest right after the monsoon season, and Gaon agreed.
The towering trees with their large leaves blocked out most of the sunlight, making it dark, and the ground was covered with thick layers of rotting leaves that sucked at his feet, impeding his movement.
'I have to watch out for leeches.'
The most dangerous creatures in this humid forest were the bloodsucking leeches living in the palm-deep leaf litter. These leeches clung like ghosts the moment you stopped or sat down even briefly, and they were the main culprits in steadily draining one's stamina.
The only way to avoid leeches was to keep moving without rest. Alternatively, moving from tree to tree was an option, but the branches in this forest weren't thick enough to support one's weight, making proper movement impossible.
Although it was merely a tutorial, Gaon tensed his entire body.
'I'll give it my all!'
He couldn't afford to do it half-heartedly. He was certain the prophetic dream was the future he would experience, and knowing the flow of that future had given him hope, so he had to do his utmost to live—for himself, his parents, and his acquaintances.
Just then, a guide's voice announced the start of the tutorial.
—Mr. On, the tutorial is beginning. Your objective is to safely reach the White Tree, located one hour away in a straight line. The time limit is five hours, and please be advised that the tutorial will end immediately upon death.
There was no need to rush just because the announcement had been made. Though it was called one hour away, one could reach it in barely twenty minutes by running straight there without hunting.
'At this point, most users were probably aiming for the reward for arriving the fastest.'
But considering the tutorial's purpose, that reward couldn't be anything significant. In fact, even if one achieved a noticeable accomplishment, the reward was merely +1 to Agility, which held little meaning for growth.
Instead, there were hidden rewards. Around the time Gaon had started Another Mundus in the prophetic dream, streamers and creators—solo broadcasters who thoroughly analyzed the game—had discovered a reward based on kill count that increased stats.
Therefore, Gaon intended to use every minute of this tutorial to record as many kills as possible.
'That'll be good, but there's probably something even bigger hidden.'
If the rumors about Levandorf were true, there was a hidden quest in the tutorial. Though its authenticity hadn't been confirmed even in the prophetic dream.
Gaon first checked his equipment. The basic armor was the same he'd worn in the prophetic dream—thin and worn out, so its defense was abysmal. And the weapon was the same as well.
'As expected, a dagger.'
It was old and the blade was chipped, but it was far better than nothing.
All he had to do was hunt with this dagger and reach the target one hour away within the time limit.
In the prophetic dream, Gaon had skipped the tutorial entirely. Because he'd started late, he'd been in a hurry, and at the time he'd judged there was little to gain from the tutorial.
But this time was different.
'I'll set the highest record!'