The feeling of being yanked by the guts through a dark, disorienting empty tunnel lasted for close to five seconds. When it was over, Ethan’s lunch hit the ground at the same time as his knees.

  Welcome to the tutorial’s first floor, participant #68.

  Congratulations, due to you being part of the first 100 participants in group #12, you’re hereby granted 1 tier-1 spell token.

  It is recommended that you look through your status page and through your wand interface as soon as possible.

  Main Quest: Gain access to the second floor within 6 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes.

  Reward: 1 tier-0 wand.

  Ethan quickly examined his surroundings. He was in an empty stone room, the sort he’d expect to see in a castle. The floor was bare, with large, uneven and cracked gray flagstones. Moss grew through the cracks, and light streamed in from the corner, where the wall and a good portion of the roof were just… gone. He turned his attention back to the text floating in front of him.

  He didn’t know what was happening. His heart was hammering in his chest, but he couldn’t help the sense of excitement coursing through his veins as he wiped his mouth and slowly stood up.

  Okay, first things first. Let’s do what the system recommends. I have a wand, right? Not sure why the reward is just another wand for finishing a floor, but alright? Now, how do I see the one I already have? Interface… where is–ah, there we go.

  Ethan expected needing some password or keyword to view the details, if that was even a thing, but he was glad to find out that he just needed to think about it to bring it up.

  “This is… interesting.”

  Name: Ethan Voss

  Traits: None

  Level 1

  Might: 3

  Toughness: 2

  Spirit: 3

  Mana: 1

  Tokens: 1 Tier-1 spell

  Wand #1:

  [Form: [Claws]]

  [Sequential: None]

  Class: Enhancer

  Tier: 0

  Unique Trait: None

  Cast Setting: Sequential

  Capacity: 1/2

  Cast refresh: 5s

  Mana regeneration: 0.01s (1%)

  Stat Bonus: +2 Might +2 Spirit

  Fragments: 0

  Available spells:

  General: None

  Modifiers: None

  Armament: None

  Enhancer: [Claws (Tier-0) - In use]

  “This is crazy.”

  Quests? Levels? Traits?

  Every small part of the screen was vying for his attention, but when he tried to focus on one element or another, hoping for a tool-tip or an explanation, he got nothing. But that didn’t put a damper on his mood at all.

  Ethan was electrified. Worried. Excited. This all smelled like a challenge, and he was all for it.

  His eyes lingered over the wand section for a second, and he recalled the selections he’d gone through barely moments ago.

  “I do have a wand now… How do I use it?”

  Do you wish to see a quick introductory guide about your wand?

  Ethan blinked. Then confirmed. “Yes, please.”

  Your current wand is a spellcasting tool grafted onto your soul. Its strength is yours, and its abilities can be upgraded through the collection of fragments, which are the remains of the wands of deceased casters.

  Then the guide went on to explain how to view his interface, how to move spells around and how to trigger the wand, but it didn’t really explain every little line in the wand’s interface.

  It was a bit underwhelming, but it still gave a lot of context. Clearly, Ethan will have to do a lot of testing and discovery on his own, but this was a good start.

  Following what the guide had said, Ethan felt around in his mind for the trigger and quickly found it. It was like a new mental muscle he instinctively knew was connected to his hands.

  So he flexed it.

  Something both cold and warm rushed out of his stomach, toward his shoulders, then down his arms. As it reached his hands, his skin toughened. His joints and fingers swelled, growing taut, and finally, black claws erupted out of his fingertips. They were thick, two-inch-long and slightly curved to a narrow sharp edge.

  Ethan raised both hands and examined them, curling his fingers and watching the sharp black claws move, reflecting the light coming through the destroyed wall. He tightened his hands into fists, feeling the claws gently dig into his palms, but it didn’t break skin.

  Even though his cheeks were sore from smiling this wide, Ethan laughed.

  “This is fucking sick!”

  Throwing a couple of punches confirmed the claws were a bit awkward for that, but it was still manageable. On the other hand, he now had some incredibly tough mini-daggers. Whatever the magic did to his hands and joints, it made it so Ethan could claw at the wall with most of his strength without much pain. Enough to leave deep grooves in the damn stone.

  “Damn,” mumbled Ethan as he looked at the dust flaking off the sharp talons. He could definitely get used to the claws.

  “Now what’s this about tokens… It should give me a new spell, right?”

  Looking at the option he’d seen on his profile, he clicked it. A new prompt appeared.

  Do you wish to exchange your token for a tier-1 spell?

  Ethan confirmed, then another menu appeared, and when he hovered over the options, he got an explanation. A sigh of relief escaped his throat. He could understand if the tutorial needed him to work for his answers, but guessing could only take him so far. Thankfully, the system was willing to step in and clarify some things on occasion.

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  General-class spells: The largest class of spells. All sorts of spells can be categorized as general. They can be offensive, defensive, supportive, utility, or any mix of all four.

  Modifier-class spells: Spells which combine with others to empower, improve, and modify. Modifier spells cannot be cast on their own.

  Armament-class spells: Can only be used as a wand form, transforming the wand into an armament to be used by the user. The spell empowers the user by boosting their stats. The stat boost depends on the nature of the spell.

  Enhancement-class spells: Can only be used as a wand form, transforming the wand into a temporary body modification applied to the user. The spell empowers the user by boosting their stats. The stat boost depends on the nature of the spell.

  Ethan examined the definitions. General spells seemed vague. Most certainly useful, and potentially a good choice. Armament spells were…dicey. Both armament spells and enhancement spells changed the wand to a form, but his wand was already taking the form of [Claws]. Could a wand take two forms? Because if not, he’d be instantly wasting this selection.

  Too big of a risk. I could switch forms, but instead of having two spells at my disposal, I would only have one at a time.

  Picking an armament or enhancement spell was the riskiest choice here until he was able to confirm if the wand could handle more than one form, which left him with a general spell, or a modifier. Considering the description, he leaned toward the latter. Modifiers seemed like literal power multipliers.

  After a moment of consideration, he went with a modifier. A general spell could be great, but he wasn’t sure if he’d get a good option. On the other hand, boosting the spell he already had was a guaranteed increase in power.

  Select a Modifier-class tier-1 spell from the list below:

  Toxic enhancement: Coat your enhancement in a toxic substance

  Fast projectile: Your wand projectiles are faster

  Impactful enhancement: Impacts from your enhancement are empowered

  Flaming enhancement: Ignite your enhancement with burning flames

  Freezing armament: Coat your armament with freezing ice

  Ethan whistled and decided to sit down. He tried to not focus too much and where he was and what was happening and instead narrowed his sights on his current task.

  The latter was a lot easier to process.

  Five options, but not all were good for what he already had. Clearly, only those meant for enhancement were useful for him at this point, so he eyed them carefully. Impactful, flaming, or toxic.

  The latter was interesting, but imagining his hands covered in poison or toxic slime grossed him out. He didn’t know if he’d be immune to it or not, but the image of his clawed hands dripping a toxic substance wasn’t super attractive to him.

  Impactful was good. Ethan assumed that meant the claws would have more weight behind them.

  Which left flaming. He might not be immune to it… But it was so damn cool he was willing to risk it.

  He wanted the flaming claws. He had to see it. But he shouldn’t rush.

  Well. Impactful is about strength. Which… sort of makes me think of the Might stat in my interface. Is there a way to raise that instead? I think it’s possible, and that would allow me to recreate [Impactful Enhancement]’s effect, in a way. On the other hand, there’s no stat for creating fire. Plus, I might be stuck here for a few days, so fire might be useful.

  Ethan shuddered a bit from the breeze that ruffled his clothes, but he still took a second to inhale the clean, fresh air as he reached a decision.

  Hmm. Yeah. That’s a good enough reason.

  Ethan exhaled as he selected his option. Light collected in front of him for a second and then sunk into his chest. A moment later, the new modifier showed upon his spell list.

  Next, he loaded his wand’s menu and tried to move the new modifier into the wand’s free slot, but he got a prompt instead.

  Wand configuration cannot be changed while in use.

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. The system’s guide hadn’t mentioned that, but then again, he was sure it hadn’t mentioned a lot of things.

  He dismissed the claws, and the magic dissipated, revealing his regular ol’ hands. He grinned.

  Focusing on his wand, a menu popped up to allow him to put the modifier into the second of the two slots. When he tried, a message popped up.

  Tier-1 spells cannot be used in a tier-0 wand. Please upgrade your wand.

  “Dammit.” Ethan felt scammed. “Alright. Fine. For upgrades…”

  Ethan squinted his eyes as he recalled what the guide had said.

  Right. I need fragments. Which I need to get from… dead wand-users.

  That was a bit grim, but Ethan quickly reminded himself that he’d seen the word “monsters” be floated around in the system’s messages, so those would hopefully be his only targets.

  Yes. Monsters.

  Ethan stood back up, a concerned frown on his brows as he thought things through. This was a tutorial, and he had been dropped in a dilapidated castle. There were at least a hundred other participants in this group, and there might be more dangerous things around.

  Ethan looked around him and felt a cold pit drop in his stomach. He did not have a lot of faith in people, and he often tried to be understanding, but he couldn’t help but think some will be using this chaos to set themselves above others. To abuse and take control. Especially if these new spells and wands gave the power to do so. It was just human nature, and even though a lot of people could stand together and be altruistic in disruptive times such as these, he could easily see some being corrupted by power.

  But before Ethan could fully explore that line of thought, screechy voices began sounding down the corridor, beyond the room’s exit. Whatever was making them, they were getting louder.

  Ethan stilled, then glanced behind him at the torn wall. He hurried toward it only to discover a sheer drop, of hundreds of feet down, leading straight into tumultuous waves.

  Shit.

  Looking back toward the exit, Ethan approached the wall and pressed himself against it, then summoning his claws once more.

  More mana–he guessed–rushed out of his chest and down to his arm, and Ethan felt dizzy for a second. He cursed himself for wasting the resource as he waited with bated breath for whatever was making the ruckus.

  A couple of seconds later, two bipedal, lizard-looking things came sniffing around, looking here and there while warbling at each other in their odd tongue. They were approximately four feet high. Pretty thin, with muted brown scales. At some point, one of them backhanded the other and above each of them, a line of text popped up in Ethan’s vision.

  [Lizardling - Level 2]

  [Lizardling - Level 3]

  What the hell is this?

  Then another prompt popped to the side. Thankfully, it didn’t obstruct his vision.

  Lizardlings

  A sapient monstrous species with high tendencies toward destructive and malicious behavior. Caution is highly recommended. Terminate-on-sight classification pending.

  One of them was carrying a stone dagger in its hand as it narrowed its reptilian eyes at its surroundings, while the second had a short, rudimentary spear. They sniffed closer and closer, and Ethan was forced to take a step backward.

  Destructive and malicious behavior? Terminate on sight?

  Ethan exhaled and rolled his shoulders. He didn’t know how serious that prompt had been, but just in case these things turned out to be violent, he had to be ready.

  The two lizardlings stepped into the room, and their slitted yellow eyes landed on him.

  They hissed and raised their weapons, then slowly began approaching him. A drip of saliva escaped from the toothy maw of the dagger-holding lizardling.

  “I don’t mean you any harm,” said Ethan as he stepped back and raised both clawed hands up.

  The spear lizardling screeched and rushed him, stabbing upward, while the second stealthily stepped around, trying to attack from the side.

  Well, that’s my answer.

  Ethan dashed to the right, comfortably dodging the clumsy spear thrust, and swiped his claws down, hoping to knock the spear out of the creature’s hands.

  Instead, his claws cut through the wood as if it were a mere twig.

  Ethan kept moving around the spear-wielder, keeping its frame between him and the dagger-wielder. From the corner of his eye, he saw a spear stab toward his foot.

  Ethan jumped back, eyes wide.

  The broken spear was gone, and the spear wielder had an identical, pristine–though still primitive-looking–spear in hand. It took him a second to put things together.

  Oh. Armament wands. Right.

  The duo rushed forward again, and Ethan decided he had to end things quickly. He didn’t know why these two were after him, but he couldn’t go for disarming maneuvers any more. Not when he could be left bleeding in the middle of nowhere.

  Ethan dodged another spear thrust, stepped in, and drove his clawed hand into the spear-wielder’s gut. The claws punched through effortlessly, and warmth spilled onto his palm as the lizardling doubled over with a soft screech.

  The dying lizardling looked up with wide-eyes, then its features twisted. Its two clawed hands gripped his arm and garbled something to its companion. From his right, the dagger-wielder stepped in and stabbed.

  Ethan tried angling away from the oncoming blade, but it was a lot faster than he expected. With the half-second it took him to free his right hand from the dying lizardling, the second enemy had enough time to land its hit.

  The dagger sunk into his arm, right above his elbow. The lizardling had aimed for his side, but Ethan managed to wrench his arm in time to cover his flank. He groaned with pain and with his left hand, he swiped at the lizardling's neck with a roar. The talon tore through the brown scales with a spray of blood, and the creature stumbled backward. It stared at him for a second, blood flowing from its neck, then fell on its side.

  You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 2]

  You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 3]

  You have reached Level 2. 1 stat point awarded.

  Side quest unlocked.

  Ethan panted as he looked down at his bleeding arm. The dagger was still in it. He knew he shouldn’t be messing with it, but he couldn’t walk with it like this, either. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like it had sunk in too deep. With his left hand, he reached over to take it out.

  As his clawed hand touched the dagger, the weapon turned to golden smoke and sunk into his claw. A new notification popped up.

  Wand #1: 1 fragment collected.

  The surprises just kept on coming. Ethan chuckled, then groaned from the pain shooting up his right arm. He looked down at it, turning his hand gently to assess the damage. It wasn’t too bad, but it was most certainly painful. Thankfully, it wasn’t bleeding much, so no artery got nicked.

  Now, what should he do about it? Wrapping it with something would be great, but he didn’t have much aside from the clothes on his back and he really didn’t want to start tearing his clothes this early. Recalling what he’d done before he stepped into the portal, Ethan clicked his tongue. He should have kept that store vest instead of throwing it away.

  For once in his life, it could have actually been useful.