“A fortuitous acquisition,” Aefore announces. “The [F-grade constitution pill] will help refine your race trait. It contains low pill toxicity, so it will not overmuch affect your long term cultivation. It is a useful tool to push you towards gaining an E-grade race, thus increasing your lifespan by multiple hundreds of years. Your particular pill is low quality, but higher standards of pill are available as rewards from the system. Continue to push yourself and treasures like this will appear more often.”

  Todd pays partial attention to the longwinded pixies as they address the gathering. They answer questions about the system, the multiverse, the earth, and about the tutorial. They reply loudly, speaking to everyone assembled as they inform the humans about various things.

  Just a few of the facts Todd learns: he learns that only seven percent of all people are cultivators, and so only seven percent of the population have been enrolled into the tutorial. The rest of humanity is outside, back in a changed world.

  He learns that the pixies are aiming to get at least one person to reach level twenty five before the tutorial is through. Apparently, the level is a major milestone, one they are eager to achieve.

  The pixies review the new Tutorial title, and they confirm his suspicions. Both selecting a harder difficulty and performing better in the trial will improve the final results of the bonuses.

  Finally, Befor announces that the next challenge will be able to be taken by groups of up to ten. There are some sighs of relief at this information. But others are more circumspect. They remember that the pixies had once told them that difficulty increases with more participants. They ask just that question, and Befor adopts a baby talk manner of speaking. Not only does she affirm it, she practically dares them to take up the increased challenge.

  Todd fingers the flesh repairing pill in his pocket. There were numerous people out there who could probably use the potent medication. It feels like it’s burning a hole in his zubon. He should have bought cheaper pills, and more of them. He kicks himself for being so rash.

  “How are you feeling, Randall?” he asks.

  “Itchy. I feel like I want to scratch it,” Randall admits.

  “Well don’t!” Todd laughs. His laugh chokes out as quickly as it comes.

  “’M not planning on it,” Randall grunts. “Can you help me get up?”

  Todd extends his hands wardingly. “You want to get up?”

  “I want to see if I can balance with those things,” Randall resolves.

  “Are you sure that’s a good… okay. Here, let’s get you up,” Todd acquiesces.

  The following maneuver is awkward and unpracticed. Randall grips onto his crutches and tries to lever himself up from a seated position. In his first attempt, he collapses down onto the floor again. Nayira Seacole shouts at him from a distance. She tells the two of them that Randall should keep his leg raised for as long as possible.

  Todd and Randall complain. How will that be feasible when Randall is to be thrown into danger in just another day?

  Todd prepares two bedrolls. He lifts Randall up, shocked by his own strength, and lays him down on one of them.

  “Go help out,” Randall says. “I can see you squirming.”

  Todd pats Randall’s hand. “Are you sure? I can stay,” he pauses. “Okay. Try to get some rest.”

  Meanwhile the other cultivators are trying to get Andrew Kreutzer to host another training session. The bearded, blood-soaked man is refusing. It sounds like his intention is to cultivate for the full day. There are talks for Walter to take his place, but Walter protests that he’s not any more suited for the task than anyone else.

  In the end, everyone agrees to take a break to sleep, and then they reconvene in the plaza.

  Todd lays down on his bedroll on the floor, staring up at the black sky. Sleep comes with great difficulty; a tossing, turning, restless slumber.

  When people start returning, Joe and Candra pull away to teach a self-defense class. Walter and Sue Ann teach survivalism, and Todd is cajoled into helping lead the cultivation exercises. Randall sits up on his right, dutifully gathering energy as Todd tries to explain the more advanced principles of the method to a small crowd. Abigail Fletcher interjects with her own insights and Todd learns a thing or two from her ideas.

  It’s nearly impossible to shepherd sixty people in cultivation all at the same time. Two people make mistakes and suffer deviations. Todd doesn’t begin to know how to diagnose the cause of the problem, and guiding the poor souls through the solutions is immensely difficult to do with the limitations of the english language.

  At this point, the effort of correcting the worst performing cultivators is taking attention away from the best. Three people have managed to advance a level, and five others are close enough to taste their new free points. Todd is torn between answering questions from both groups, and is doing little cultivation of his own.

  Luckily, Randall is making good progress. He tried to make use of his new cultivation manual, but the process of redrawing his channels was so painful that he abandoned the effort swiftly.

  Todd wants to shout. The young woman he is helping is completely misunderstanding the instructions in the cultivation manual. She’s useless at describing exactly where her deviation has occurred. It’s affecting her ability to cycle cosmic energy. If it gets worse, she may even have trouble activating her skill.

  Jingshu is asking him about the third stage of the cultivation method, and he can barely pay attention. Roughly twenty of the gathered cultivators are poor or impaired at the task. Their incessant questions take up more and more of his time.

  Unless something changes, some of these people are truly hopeless.

  Right or wrong, Todd refuses to give up on them. For hours, he guides, advises, and encourages. Some people give up, realizing they aren’t going to gain a new level in time. Others join, looking to invest in their future and pursue a longer life.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Ciforre hovers overhead at times. She answers direct questions when asked, and she hints that there are better cultivation manuals available in the multiverse. Apparently a higher quality manual can have specialized effects like improving an aspected constitution, fortifying attributes, or synergizing will skills. She exhorts them to find a manual which fits them better as soon as possible.

  Eventually, they take a break for a meal. A certain amount of chaos erupts as organizers try to provide food tokens to anyone still missing them. It takes an hour to sort out, an hour with a great deal of shouting.

  Hundreds of people sit with unappetizing portions of boiled, soupy grains. They arrived in cheap clay pots without spoons. Some people who lost their personal utensils are forced to use their hands to eat. These people can only look on with envy at those who are eating the standard rations.

  There are already haves and have nots. Todd doesn’t know how to fix it.

  Eventually even Abigail and Jingshu leave to practice fighting, leaving Todd alone with the class. He does his best.

  Night comes. Some people head to their rooms to get some sleep. Others huddle together and try to find some comfort in preparation for the days ahead.

  An hour in, Candra comes to fetch Todd. There’s a meeting going on and they want him to attend. He excuses himself reluctantly from the last remaining cultivators in his circle. The young woman has still not yet repaired the channel in her arm. In many ways, she’s worse off than when she started.

  Todd is led to the impromptu leadership of the tutorial section. Thirty people make a large circle, with Joe and Fireman Ian in the center. Todd recognizes half of the faces, but a number of the attendees are unfamiliar to him. He and Candra sidle into place. The conversation doesn’t stop or repeat for them.

  “It’s gotta be somebody,” a longsword carrying brown haired man says.

  “Well then, you do it!” an annoyed blonde woman barks back.

  Todd leans towards Candra. “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “We’re trying to figure out who’s going to take the harder difficulty,” Candra replies.

  Joe speaks up. “Extreme was too much for us. Larry was killed and Randall was hurt bad. We’re not going to try it again, it’s just too dangerous.”

  “Without the extra coins from a harder difficulty, we’re not going to be able to feed all these people,” a man with a hearty mustache says.

  “See, I don’t know if that’s true,” Business Jenny interjects, “each team in normal mode could earn several hundred coins from monsters, more than enough to feed all of their members. If we just got people to share, we wouldn’t have to take any higher difficulties at all.”

  “Except the food sucks,” calls out a frustrated voice.

  “Is that really a reason to risk our lives?” the woman from before asks.

  “Well what about the improved titles?” asks an eager sounding man with a silver mace. “You’ve got one from extreme mode, how is it?”

  Joe hesitates. “I don’t know if it’s worth it. It’s amazing, yes. But it’s not something you won’t gain from a couple more levels anyways.”

  “Except it’s getting harder and harder to gain levels now,” the mace holder complains, “the pixies say it’s only going to get worse the further we get.”

  Attracted by the debate, Ranger Drew approaches. He carries a bronze spear in one hand, and a red-tinged xiphos in the other. The discussion quiets as people make ample space for him to join.

  Andrew growls. “I’m going to take extreme mode again. Walter, Teo, are you going to come with me?”

  Walter and Teodore exchange a look.

  “Don’t be crazy, boy,” Walter exhales, “we barely made it out alive. And worse than that, plenty of folks didn’t make it. I’m gonna find the group that needs me most and keep them safe.”

  “Plenty of women and kids who need us,” Teo shamelessly declares.

  “Well, our group is going to do hard mode,” the man with the mace declaims.

  “Be careful,” the man with the mustache warns. “We had to use nearly all of our healing pills, and we still lost someone. Hard mode is ruthless.”

  Joe speaks up. “Andrew, if you’re willing to take hard mode with us, Candra and I are forming a group. We could use your help.”

  Ranger Drew looks Joe up and down, judging. “If you can keep up, I’ll think about it,” he says.

  Todd taps Candra’s elbow and leans close. “You’re taking hard mode?” he whispers.

  “Yea,” Candra whispers back, “someone needs to earn more coins, and we figure it’ll be easier.”

  “You’re going without me?” Todd can’t help but ask.

  “You’re going to be with Randall and Sue Ann,” Candra states, matter of fact.

  Taken aback, Todd asks a stupid question. “Sue Ann’s doing normal mode too?”

  “She was really shaken. She wants to take it easy,” Candra explains.

  “Yea. I can see that,” Todd accepts.

  Still, the idea of being left behind rankles him. He wishes that Randall hadn’t been hurt so that he could stay with his friends. No, that’s not right. He wishes that Randall hadn’t been hurt so that Randall wouldn’t be hurt.

  Selfish.

  Todd listens as the leaders come to a conclusion. Three groups will challenge hard mode this time. They will spend the rest of the time here preparing. Joe and Candra will still need to recruit a few more people, but they hope to convince Ranger Drew to join them.

  In the meantime, Todd is burdened with a group of cultivators who have yet to redeem their weapon tokens. He is volunteered to help them do so. Soon, the meeting breaks up and the various attendees head off to help all the orphaned cultivators find their new teams.

  Todd does his duty. He instructs. He advises. He sneaks in a few minutes of cultivation here and there as his charges funnel energy through their tokens. One by one, strange and esoteric weapons appear in their hands: punch daggers, chakram, kama, a flamberge, even a macuahuitl. If there’s rhyme or reason to what a person will get, Todd can’t tell.

  Eventually, Todd finds the spare time and the privacy to tackle the next exercise his cultivation. Ignoring the outside world and twisting his energy in new loops, Todd carves ever finer lines throughout his internals. He breathes in cosmic energy through his lungs and skin. He draws it through his body along prescribed patterns. By now he has to juggle dozens of channels at once. Keeping them fixed in his mind takes up all of his attention, and he strains to settle them in place. An hour passes. Randall staves off questions while Todd focuses. He develops a headache as he works, but he reminds himself of the consequences of failure, and he pushes through.

  Todd checks the manual crystal again to make sure he’s performed the process correctly. There are small errors, and he can feel tiny perturbations in the energy as it flows through his body. But he isn’t sure he can do much better. There’s a demanding level of microscopic accuracy which he simply can’t reach. The results speak for themselves though, as his cultivation speed and efficacy has increased by nearly a fifth.

  The square is nearly empty. Most everyone has returned to their room to get some much needed rest. Exhausted, Todd lies on his bedroll next to Randall and settles in for a nap. A nagging sense of disappointment weighs on him.

  In the morning the second trial will begin.