An arrow planted itself in Teresa's shield, but thankfully it didn't go through the wood. Was the skeleton shield enchanted too? None of Teresa's arrows ever shot straight through a shield, not even the arrowheads ever poked through the other side.

<Embers> made short work of a group of skeletons, making a bajillion notifications pop up. Eyeing one of the archer towers, she adjusted her shield in front of her to block yet another arrow. <Embers> shot out from her palms towards the tower, and even if she initially missed it wasn't too hard to adjust her aim when she could just keep the spell active constantly.

Honestly Teresa was probably going to run out of Mana again, this was her second visit to stronghold number 3. She had charged in with her shield, burnt through a bunch of skeletons, then tactically retreated to recharge her Mana for two hours. All of the skeletons here were only level 20, which was 2 levels higher than the skeletons at the last stronghold. So far there had been a pattern, where each stronghold increased the level of the skeletons by 2 and contained a lot more skeletons and archer towers.

Teresa was actually overleveled for this. The skeletons had a few stats higher than hers depending on what their individual build was like, but a couple of stat points couldn't compete against having the ability to actually think combined with her versatile build that favored no particular stat.

Okay, she took that back. Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception were all significantly higher than her other stats, but she was still pretty well balanced across the board. This was, dare she say it, easy.

Her sparks flooded into an archer tower, killing two skeletons. There were multiple archers per tower now, but it hadn't been too much of an issue. Her <Embers> started to weaken as she ran low on Mana, and her spell very suddenly stopped working.

Teresa drew her sword as she prepared for another tactical retreat, blocking a strike from a skeleton that had taken advantage of the opportunity to get closer. She thrust her blade through the skeleton's skull, and it crumbled to the ground in front of her. She preemptively raised her shield, expecting another arrow any second now, but nothing happened. Huh.

Teresa paused and looked around, seeing that all of the skeletons were dead. Was… that it? Teresa had steamrolled this place, that didn't feel fitting for the Tutorial. During the waves every fight had been life or death, and even early on in stage two there were some close calls. Actually, now that Teresa thought about it, she still had some close calls. That shaman yesterday totally could have killed her if not for her healing magic, but still.

Why was the Tutorial getting easy? What was the catch? She was totally okay with the difficulty taking it a step down, but was that really what was going on here? Teresa walked into the stronghold, eyes peeled for traps. That's definitely it, this has to be bait, right? Kill all the easy skeletons, get confident, walk inside and BOOM! Pitfall with spikes or something. Tripwire that activated a bunch of crossbows aimed at her. Something.

The treasure chest was once again in plain view, and Teresa remained skeptical. Sure she was several levels higher than these skeletons, but there had been a lot of them and this was the Tutorial. The last time things were this easy, a smoke attuned Wyvern-Fish had suddenly come and forced Preston, Jake, and Madeline all out of the Tutorial.

Teresa cautiously made her way over to the treasure chest and examined it closely before opening it. There were no wires anywhere, she dug a bit under the chest and there wasn't a pressure plate connected to explosives meant to blow her up as soon as the weight of the chest changed or anything.

The other shoe had to drop sometime, just when?

Teresa decided to wait around for her Mana to recharge before opening the chest, just in case. There was no chance in hell she was going to have made it this far only to die from being careless.

She opened the chest, holding her breath as she completely expected some sort of trap to go off. Somehow, nothing happening was more nerve racking than a bunch of monsters trying to kill her. Inside was the typical equipment for C4, along with a fucking boomerang. Really? What was she going to use a friggin boomerang for? It probably had some crazy enchantments on it, but it's not like Teresa could find out.

How do you even throw a boomerang?

Teresa lifted the weapon out of the chest, immediately sensing some magical contraption within it. She also grabbed the C4 and its related equipment, far more comfortably than the first time she handled the explosives. It still made her a little nervous to hold, but that would probably pass with time.

Should she try using the boomerang? Well, yeah, obviously. She wasn't just going to let it sit in a treasure chest doing nothing for all of eternity, it was a tool that Teresa didn't have before. Was it a useful tool? No idea, but she would find out.

Teresa cautiously left the stronghold and got a good distance away. She knew from the previous wand she got that the weapons gifted by the System could be quite devastating, she was not about to risk anything she didn't have to. She grabbed the boomerang with one hand and took a deep breath. She'd throw it like a frisbee, that was her best guess on how she was supposed to use it.

She wound up and threw the weapon, only for it to fall to the ground a short distance away due to her terrible throw. Oh fuck. Teresa sprinted away and dove to the floor, expecting some cataclysmic event to happen a short distance away from her. She placed her hands over the back of her head, preemptively activated <Healing Touch>, and pressed part of her arms into her ears so she wouldn't get completely deafened by whatever was about to happen.

Nothing happened.

A few moments passed where Teresa embarrassingly realized there was no lightning coming down from the heavens to smite her. Was it such a bad throw the weapon didn't even activate?

She went over to pick up the boomerang, looking at it curiously. Maybe she was supposed to inject Mana for it to work? Well, if she was then she wanted to learn how to throw it first. If injecting Mana into the weapon caused it to detonate a massive explosion, she would prefer to be capable of getting the weapon as far away from her as possible before said explosion.

A part of her was kind of tempted to go find the next stronghold and conquer that one too. Really, if it followed the same pattern it would just be the same old fight with more skeletons 2 levels higher. Did she even need the boomerang?

No, probably not, but it might be really friggin cool. Throw a boomerang, use her <Embers> while it's still in the air, catch it smoothly after it does some magical boomerang stuff, repeat.

Okay, she was really trying to hype herself up for it, but it just didn't seem like the weapon for the job at hand. She wasn't going to just write it off, but really? A boomerang? The Tutorial was giving her C4, could she trade in the boomerang for a gun maybe? Teresa would not be opposed to just shooting monsters in the face, that would make a lot of her problems go away.

At least it was something to do, she didn't have <Appraise> so for all she knew the boomerang might be even more deadly than the C4. She spent a lot of time just running through the desert, having mimosas was the first non-violent entertainment Teresa had in a good while.

Unfortunately, it turned out having a high Fortitude did in fact apply to alcoholic intoxication. It was still totally possible, but Teresa's Fortitude was 6 times what it was at the start of the Tutorial, and weirdly enough she needed to drink more than 6 times as much to feel the same effect.

Healing magic also behaved strangely with it. Alcohol was treated the same as poison, so she could heal the effects but she couldn't get rid of the alcohol itself. If she used healing magic while intoxicated, she would briefly become sober until she stopped using it.

It hadn't really been the greatest drinking experience, considering she started to get full before she felt tipsy, but she figured getting drunk would only become harder as she leveled up. Might as well make the most of it while she could, not that she suffered from alcohol addiction or anything.

Teresa decided to make a game of running back to Liberty Island. She threw the boomerang ahead of her, then ran to catch up as it fell uselessly to the ground. She'd figure it out eventually, she just didn't have any real perspective on boomerang throwing. The only time she had ever really seen someone throw a boomerang was in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and that was animated. Additionally, Teresa was definitely no Sokka.

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Was she supposed to throw it vertically or horizontally? Maybe at an angle? Was she just not throwing it hard enough perhaps? Teresa threw the boomerang again and again on her way back, smiling as she did so. Teresa, the superhuman who single handedly conquered multiple strongholds in the Tutorial, couldn't throw a fancy stick the right way.

It was really fucking funny.

This made the trip back to Liberty Island take longer, but it didn't feel like it. She encountered a single group of Clubbers on her way back, but they didn't pose much of a threat. They were just glorified bags of experience, though Teresa felt a bit icky as she thought that.

Liberty Island was pretty close when Teresa finally managed to make the boomerang come back to her after throwing it. She held it vertically, and gripped it with her fingers near an end point. As she threw it, she pushed with her fingers to make it spin more, and crazily enough it actually turned around in the air and came right back to her. She even managed to catch it.

"Let's fucking go!" Teresa screamed out in excitement, laughing as she held the boomerang up in victory. Holy shit. That was pretty fun, she was a lot less upset about getting a boomerang now.

Alarm quickly overtook joy as she felt the System give her a notification. What was going on now?

Class Level Up!

Jack Of All Trades (F+) Skill Selection Available!

Teresa blinked at the notification in front of her, then burst out laughing even harder. Are you fucking kidding me? Teresa bent over and had to put her hands on her knees since she was laughing so damn hard. Did her class just level up because she was dicking around with a fucking boomerang? She was laughing so hard tears were running down her face.

Here she was, running around killing monsters for experience, and now she just got a class level up for this? Admittedly she was incredibly close to a class level up after all of the fighting she had done today, but she was deliberately not thinking about that because "I leveled up from learning how to use a boomerang," was a lot funnier.

Shit, alright. Teresa spent a moment catching her breath before opening up her skill selection menu. She was still snickering to herself a bit when the menu appeared. Both <Intuitive Aim> and <Purify> were still available, and they were both really solid choices. Either one would be a massive boost to Teresa's capabilities, but she was still going to read some of the new skills to see if anything interesting was there.

<Taunt: lv 0>

Type: Mental Magic

Convert Mana to a mind-altering state and release it in an uncontrolled explosion. Any hostile creature capable of feeling emotions will feel inclined to attack you over other potential targets.

Oh hey, it was Jake's tank skill. Unfortunately it was immediately disqualified since Teresa didn't exactly have any use for it in the near future, but it was neat that it was an option. She could always just get it later if she needed it.

<Ignite: lv 0>

Type: Elemental Magic

Infuse an object with fire-based Elemental Mana with your touch, causing the object to catch fire. Attempting to set living beings on fire will require significantly more Mana.

There it was, the way to set stuff on fire with Elemental Mana. It made sense that Teresa got an option for fire-based Elemental Mana considering how much she used <Embers> since she had gotten it. Would this skill let her set her sword on fire? That would be kind of badass, wouldn't it? Having a flaming sword, cutting through monsters while the fire gave off cinematic lighting.

Wasn't that kind of similar to a lightsaber? Teresa wasn't super familiar with Star Wars lore, but she was pretty sure lightsabers were just super hot plasma swords or something. Teresa probably wouldn't be turning her sword into plasma or anything, but it was vaguely similar in function.

Unfortunately, as cool as having a budget lightsaber would be, it also wasn't that useful to Teresa at the moment. Additionally, she had thought about getting a skill that wasn't based in magic so she could still fight after running out of Mana. It was something that only happened in larger battles, as Teresa had a massive amount of Mana, but it would still be nice to have non-magical options.

There was one last skill available.

<Dash: lv 0>

Type: Physical Enhancement Magic

Channel Mana to your legs and feet, temporarily enhancing your physical body to increase movement speed.

Well, there was another skill Teresa had seen before. She was pretty sure Preston had used this skill, and it wasn't that bad of a pick. Right now, it was between <Intuitive Aim>, <Purify>, and <Dash>. She wasn't entirely sure if <Intuitive Aim> required Mana or not, but she knew for a fact both <Purify> and <Dash> would use Mana.

Now, the question was which would be most useful? Yes, she had just said she wanted a non-magical option, but it was still a toss up. She eliminated <Purify> first again, knowing damn well there was probably going to come a time where she wished she had it. The skill was just too situational, it only really helped her against one kind of enemy.

<Intuitive Aim> or <Dash>? The first choice would make a lot of sense, Teresa used a lot of ranged attacks. They were just incredibly useful against opponents who didn't dodge very well, and it would benefit her in multiple ways. <Dash> on the other hand would allow for more versatility. Having a skill that could get her in and out of a situation fast was incredibly useful, it might even save her life someday.

There was also another factor that came into play, one that probably shouldn't be considered. Fun. It was so nice running around as fast as Teresa was, making her able to run even faster would be such a blast! It was a little irresponsible to take that into consideration, but fuck it. No one was allowed to tell her they wouldn't pick <Dash> until they experienced what it was like to be as fast as a car.

<Intuitive Aim> probably complimented her current skill set better, but Teresa didn't pick it. Knowledge on how to use <Dash> became intuitive as she gained another skill, and she immediately tried it out.

Mana drained from her Soul to her legs, along with something else Teresa hadn't really experienced before. It was like her flesh produced some kind of energy completely different from Mana, and reabsorbed it in her lower body. She started to run, and was immediately caught off guard.

There was barely any acceleration time. She went from completely stationary to a full on sprint almost instantly, running faster than she ever had before. Teresa had not expected it to work that quickly, and lost balance after just a few steps. She almost tripped, but managed to just barely catch herself before falling.

Holy shit. Teresa noted she had been thinking holy shit a lot, but honestly that was just her genuine reaction to so many things lately. Holy shit might as well become her catchphrase at this point, but enough about Teresa constantly being surprised by things.

This was fucking awesome.

She activated the skill again and took off, she was definitely going highway speeds now. Teresa was already really close to Liberty Island, but she traveled the mile in a minute. At this speed, she might even be able to take out two strongholds in a day if she timed it well.

Hang on.

She should totally take out two strongholds in a day. Alright, that was her new plan for tomorrow. The Tutorial had been getting a little too easy lately, it was time for a self imposed challenge. She knew she shouldn't be upset about the Tutorial getting easy, but Teresa kind of was. It kind of felt like it invalidated a lot of Teresa's struggles getting to this point, but she knew that was just her shitty mental health talking.

Teresa wasn't going to entertain that train of thought. She smiled a little, feeling like she just had a tiny victory. It wasn't much of one, but she caught herself and stopped herself from potentially spiraling about something incredibly wrong. She had gotten here because of her hard work and the sacrifices she and even her party members had made. Teresa might as well enjoy the reprieve while she had it. It was a baby step in the right direction for her, but it was a step nonetheless.

She had a plan for tomorrow. She opened the quest menu, wanting to see exactly how much time was remaining.

Questline

Newcomer Tutorial (2/3)

Seize Destiny

You have successfully defended your land, laying claim to it as your own. Monsters will no longer attempt to trespass in this territory without significant motivation. Now that your land is secure, it is time to conquer. Seek out the monster strongholds within the desert and gather the artifacts needed for the upcoming war. Monster strongholds can be located using the <Tutorial Compass>.

You have one month to gather these artifacts. The next stage of this questline will not wait for the completion of the current stage.

Time until next stage: 6 days, 3 hours, 0 minutes, 21 seconds

Strongholds Conquered: 3

She was on schedule for 5 strongholds, but why stop there? What if there was a title for taking out 2 strongholds in a day? Teresa wasn't sure exactly what actions would give her a title, as they seemed somewhat random so far. She had gotten a title for being first to level up and for being the first to reach 100 total stats in her party, but not a title for being first to change classes which was a milestone in its own right.

It felt kind of arbitrary, it was a bit frustrating not knowing how to get titles that gave her incredibly useful permanent buffs. Whatever, it wasn't for the title. Teresa was going to do this simply because she wanted to see if she could, what other reason did she need?

Those strongholds weren't going to know what hit them.

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