When there was no immediate answer, Ronan sighed. He hadn't expected much from Howard, but at least letting him know what he was about to be fighting would have helped.

So, when Alyssa rounded the corner with a maniacal grin on her face and an evil sparkle in her eyes, sword brandished in the air, Ronan almost wanted to turn around and slap Howard into the walls. However, he resisted the urge, and stayed on guard.

Maybe they decided waiting wasn't worth it? Let's play this out, he thought to himself. He stood his ground, and prepared to take Alyssa's rush head-on.

Alyssa spotted Ronan, and came to a screeching halt. She lowered her sword, and when she spotted Howard behind him, a trace of disappointment flashed through her eyes. "Oh, you're awake," she muttered. "Welcome back sleeping beauty. Did you manage to do what you needed?"

He was about to reply when a bolt of black lightning arced out of the corridor and smashed into the wall. A tiny puff of dust was all that blew off, and a cackling Jenna leapt into the crossroads, dark electricity crackling around her hands.

A similar scene to the one Alyssa had just performed played out, and Jenna came to a halt beside the other woman. She had a face like a kicked puppy. Apparently Ronan had spoiled their fun, but saved Howard in the process.

"Yeah, I reached the first realm of—" he glanced at the message to double-check the name, "—Prismatic Soul cultivation. Neat bonuses, too. Cultivation talent, and efficacy in luck, intelligence, and tenacity. I can explain the process now, before we continue, if you'd like?"

Alyssa frowned. "That sounds pretty sucky to me. Those are like… the worst stats. I'd appreciate the method, though. Maybe I can try my luck in one of the other cultivation aspects," she said with a shrug.

Jenna nodded her agreement, and with the two women no longer gunning for his arse, Howard came out of his shell once more. "I can't believe you called that dodgeball. You almost killed me," were the first words out of his mouth.

Jenna waved at him dismissively. "As if! You'd have some minor burns, at worst. Nothing the next level-up heal wouldn't have fixed."

They teased the complaining guy for a little longer, before Ronan raised a hand to interject. "Honestly, the method for absorbing energy from the shards is pretty simple. It's how you direct it to your body, mind, energy, or soul that makes the real difference. I had a bit of trouble with a body shard when I dangerously tried to absorb it straight away, but I soon figured things out. I got this thing called a legacy grimoire that basically gave me someone's memories about cultivation. I was lucky. I'll tell you what I know, but don't blame me if it doesn't work for you and you end up crippled or something."

The part about the legacy grimoire was a white lie, but Ronan wasn't about to tell his new teammates that he had the ability to survive death and redo the tutorial as many times as he needed. That was a surefire way to get killed out of jealousy, or eventually sold off to some overpowered aliens if they made it out of the tutorial. Howard seemed like the type…

About ten minutes later, Ronan had shared most of what he knew with the three others, and they all thanked him profusely. They agreed they would wait until they had more time to practice, most likely once they finished the tutorial, to actually try cultivating themselves. All of them wanted to push forwards and complete stage 4.

"So, which way are we going? Left, right, or straight ahead?" Jenna asked, exaggeratedly pointing at each path as she did.

To Ronan there was little difference. Any of the three paths might lead to the boss—or all of them. Besides, he would eventually have to explore them all.

"I don't mind. We can start left and then move along as we go. Seems like the easiest way to do it," he answered.

"I agree. Let's not think too hard about it," Howard added.

Alyssa hummed for a moment, then tilted her head to one side and glanced at the left path. "I don't know. I get a bad feeling from this one. That one's calling to me." Her outstretched finger pointed towards the path on the right.

"Fuck it. Gut feelings are often right," Ronan said with a shrug. "Let's go right."

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Jenna giggled. "I didn't know you were psychic, Alyssa. I kind of want to take the left path even more, now. Danger can be… titillating."

Ronan had a brief flashback to Dana. It seemed that he was destined to find rather deranged women no matter what difficulty of the tutorial he went to. He couldn't say it wasn't attractive, and he was becoming rather good friends with danger… and death.

Howard baulked at Jenna's attitude, and started taking small steps towards the path on the right. "Nothing's stopping us from coming back and clearing the left path after we check out the right one, assuming we don't finish the stage while we're at it," Ronan said, opting for the middle ground.

Jenna sighed and deflated. "Fineeee. I'm sure there'll be lots of new friends no matter which way we go. I want to play with more goblins."

Alyssa's chuckle at that echoed through the corridor. "Not if I beat you to it."

With their heading decided, the group made their way to the crossroads, and turned right. Ronan was ready for whatever awaited them, be it more skeletons, goblins, or some new type of monster he'd yet to encounter.

For about thirty minutes the party had travelled down the corridor. It had made a few twists and turns, but overall the path was straightforward. Along the way they encountered two more groups of goblins, all of them elites.

The fights ended without much fanfare. Against a well coordinated party of dangerous individuals, the goblins seemed a much diminished threat.

Ronan thought back to how much they'd struggled against the regular goblins in the normal difficulty tutorial. The system was truly unfair.

The advantages one gained in the hard difficulty tutorial would set them up to do far better once they returned home compared to the others. Then again, the risk of death was far higher. How many had died attempting to complete the first 3 stages of the hard difficulty tutorial compared to the normal one?

He'd gained three more levels from the goblins, though his gains were beginning to drop off as his level drew closer to that of his enemies. Foolishly, he almost hoped to trigger another skeleton trap, so that he might reap the harvest of a large horde of foes once more.

Unfortunately his wish wasn't granted. They turned around another corner, and found the path forward blocked.

Instead of the corridor continuing ahead of them, a wall blocked their path. Apparently Alyssa's gut feeling had been off the mark. "Well, looks like we're heading back and going left," Ronan said, not that bothered by the lost time. He was completing stage 4 no matter how long it took.

"Wait a minute," Jenna said, approaching the wall. She pressed an ear against it for a few seconds, then her face lit up. "I can hear movement on the other side. Let's try blasting it open."

Ronan felt that was a foolish idea, for more than one reason. The walls the system had created were nigh-indestructible, and he doubted Jenna had the firepower to open a hole they could fit through. Plus, they would only be risking drawing every monster in the dungeon to their location if they caused a big enough commotion.

Howard clearly agreed. "I don't think we should do something so risky. Let's just try the other paths. One of them should take us to the end."

"What if they don't?" Alyssa interjected. "I don't exactly agree with Jenna, but it could be worth a try."

"The walls are indestructible, we know that. How are you even planning to get through? Your magic is powerful, Jenna, but not that strong," Ronan reminded them.

"True… That's a shame. I guess we'll have to try the boring route, then," Jenna said, punching the wall in frustration.

The stone beneath her fist sank into the wall, leaving an indent. Ronan's face dropped, and he cursed in sync with Alyssa. "Trap!" he yelled.

The four of them rushed away from the wall, but it was a futile attempt at escape. Howard made it the furthest of any of them, but as he took a step forward, the ground beneath them collapsed, the stone tiles tumbling into a deep abyss. Ronan looked upwards as they fell into the bowels of the dungeon, wondering if this would be the end of this iteration, or if they would survive the fall.

It turned out to be the latter. A few seconds later, he heard splashes from below. Then, he smashed into a semi-hard surface. An icy chill permeated his body as they began to sink into a pool, but his feet touched the bottom soon after.

With a push of his legs, Ronan shot to the surface. One by one, the rest of his party breached the surface until they were all gasping for air, while avoiding the last of the stray bricks from above. Thankfully most of the rubble had fallen faster than them, and now littered the bottom of the pond.

Ronan looked around to get a grasp of their surroundings. They were in a cavernous room, circular, with eight pillars at equidistant locations around the pond holding up the ceiling. Braziers were attached to the pillars on opposite sides, and most of them held flickering torch-flames. One had been snuffed out.

He swam to the edge and began to haul himself out, the rest of his party following suit. They shook themselves mostly dry on the side, and he began stripping and wringing out his clothes. Once they'd re-dressed, they took stock of the situation once more.

"So, where the hell are we?" Ronan said, opening the conversation.

A voice he didn't recognise—deep, rumbling, and ancient—replied, echoing around the entire room. "You have found your way to the throne room of Tharaxes, the Goblin Lich. I must thank you, it has been so long since I had new toys to play with."

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