The Place Where Everything Begins

A being that had direct relationships with Akashic Records...

There was no doubt...

The actual creator of the tutorials was the sole and only 'System', the very helper of every living thing on Ortus itself.

However...

There was another hidden secret that only people on Ortus knew about. The mysterious secret that was not so secret after one arrived at Ortus.

That was 'missions'...

The missions were assigned by the System itself.

They were the missions entrusted towards assistant creators, aka 'designers' of each tutorial space.

What did that even mean?

It simply meant there were 'people' who had received missions from the System to design the outlooks, Crystal's missions, places, monsters, and various things within the Tutorials.

All those tutorial-related things were according to only one and sole purpose, 'for the newcomers to adapt and survive on Ortus'...

Right now, Jeremy was indeed shocked to realize there were masterminds behind all these Tutorials so suddenly.

Jeremy had never been in control or charge of the tutorial processes, related events, or whatsoever in his past life.

However, Jeremy had quite an in-depth and intensive knowledge regarding these topics from his various researches, including self-research, torture, observation, stalk, and more.

But, all those knowledge was kept too deep within his soul, as he never suspected one bit about the word 'creator' until some moments ago...

'Now, I finally know what I'm fighting against.'

'Designers or the so-called Cupids are the big bosses who only play a minor to no role after they had sent us here, as they only design these tutorials and be done with it. Right now, they should be relaxing leisurely somewhere else on their turfs.'

'Starting from the moment we were teleported from the white Tutorial Space, Earthlings were let free from the cupids' jurisdiction, but there would be other people 'caring' for us instead.'

'Those people are... and they...'

'As for the three doors, the crystal, the monster waves, and the missions, the cupids design them. While later, those people would supervise the tutorials instead as they had also received missions from the System just like the cupids.'

'Regarding this place, normal difficulty... Haaa, it is a total scam. It seems like I feel afraid for nothing.'

'What a scaredy cat of me to think there are halflings in this normal-difficulty trial. If there is one here for real, how are Earthlings supposed to adapt and survive? They will be massacred within seconds...'

'About this normal trial's purpose, from the looks of it so far, it is just designed to be testing only the contestant's survival skills within the harsh, winter wilderness filled with quick-nose predators readily to hunt anyone down. Well, there might be some luck's element in corresponding with that, as one might be able to luckily walk in the correct direction towards the brick house from the get-go.'

'Hmm... Come to think of it, even though I can't fight the cupid yet, I can still kill those people...'

When Jeremy thought till here, his virtual blue eyes suddenly brightened up with a cold glint...

'Alright, it is time to leave before I kick the bucket from the mind's implosion.'

Having finished pondering long and profound thoughts within his own soul, Jeremy hurriedly came out of the 'pond'.

After coming out, Jeremy took a brief look around his sea of consciousness and discovered some big and small cracks present throughout the protective layer of the land and sky areas.

Like Jeremy's inner world would be crumbling down at any moment...

That was clearly the result of overloading and overclocking his weak mind with too much high-end information...

Upon seeing such a heartbreaking sight of his own sea of consciousness having cracks in various places, Jeremy thought depressingly,

'Well, how long will it take to recover this time? By the way, do the land and sky areas get bigger? Hmm... around 14 acres. It seems like my mind power has gotten a bit stronger.'

'Hehh... This is the first time I have discovered a cheat-like method to enhance mind power.'

'I can utilize this method the next time...'

When Jeremy saw his sea of consciousness becoming more extensive and having more space, he finally felt a bit better.

After seeing there was nothing worth taking note of anymore, Jeremy willed his mind to the outside world.

A short time later, Jeremy was seen to be sitting cross-legged with eyes closed on the cold, snowy ground...

'How much time has passed?'

Then he closed his blue eyes a bit to 'feel' the fluctuation in the space, using his high-level of space affinity to his advantage; Jeremy pondered to himself,

'Only 3 minutes have passed since I did the meditation to access my sea of consciousness, whereas I spent two and a half minutes to enter the sea of consciousness and stayed inside for around 40 or so seconds to filter all those memories.'

Then Jeremy thought further,

'I'm sure the time within my sea of consciousness had gone by more than 20 days as the time there moves faster than the outside world... but the outside world's time had just passed by only some 40 seconds...'

Even though he could do better than this dozens of times in his past life, this was still considered good progress...

Good progress meant when compared to the previous time that Jeremy had accessed his sea of consciousness for the Enchantment method.

Although Jeremy only felt like he had been in his sea of consciousness for four or five minutes, the time there had actually gone by more than 20 days. That's one of the sea of consciousness or inner world's properties.

Time dilation...

Jeremy was inside his sea of consciousness for only four minutes, but the time had passed 20 days inside. Meanwhile, the outside world time had only passed by 40 seconds.

The feeling of time was felt differently and shifted significantly between the inner world and the outside world.

It was bizarre indeed...

But our space sage, Jeremy, who had stood up against the Gods before, understood the notion very well. So, he didn't question anything about those time-related matters.

After wrapping everything up, including his own thoughts and subsequent actions, Jeremy finally stood up from the cold white ground.

Then he walked back towards the brick house, the very place he had retreated from earlier.

...

Some minutes later...

Jeremy finally arrived at the same place, approximately 100 meters away from the brick house.

He walked towards the house with firm footsteps, creating moderately deep footprints on the soft snow ground.

*Scrunch*

*Scrunch*

Each of his steps created a scrunching sound echoing softly into the cold temperature...

Soon, Jeremy finally arrived before the house's wooden 'door'.

Then...

...

[You have received 5,000 SP for successfully finding the exit]

[Please open and go inside the door to exit this trial]

...

After seeing the notifications about the exit, Jeremy thought inwardly,

'As I've thought, the reason why this trial does not contain any treasure box or herb to be sold in the shop was that the final reward is big enough to cover all that. Not to mention SP received from killing those wolves...'

'Or... the damned cupid is just too lazy to add other features...?'

'Whatever... Nonetheless, my hunch is right once again this time. It never fails me, after all, as there is no one inside the house... but...'

Not opening the door yet, Jeremy raised his head to look at the brick chimney emitting black smoke incessantly...

In consequence, if a particular house had a chimney exuding dark smoke like that, it 'usually' tended to be someone staying inside the said house.

For that was a common sense...

However, whenever Jeremy used his common senses within this normal-difficulty trial, he would be met with some nonsensical rubbishes as feedbacks instead.

At last, after staring at the chimney for some more time, having thought about the nonexistent halfling and alpha wolf, and seeing a medium-sized brick house situated in the middle of nowhere while operating as the 'exit',

Jeremy's handsome face twitched constantly...

'Piece of shit of a cupid. How dare you design a ridiculous and preposterous trial like this. You are shaming and humiliating my Mystery Decipherer title, fucker.'

'Just you wait...'

Upon cursing the damned and lazy cupid 'lightly', Jeremy turned his back towards the house without any hesitation...

As Jeremy had ultimately completed his first priority, which was to find the exit, his second priority was still left to be done.

That was, without a doubt, to gather more SP...

After all, there were still hundreds of wolves waiting to be... let's say 'liquidated' by him; how could Jeremy return into the tutorial chamber and waste this hard-to-come-by opportunity?

Regarding those people within the chamber?

Jeremy couldn't care less about them at all, for his greed had retaken over his mind.

Thus, Jeremy chose a direction to walk in with a spear in hand as always...

'Before that, I should take some good rest, for my body is at the very limits already.'

With those thoughts in mind, Jeremy's black-cloaked figure disappeared from the brick house's vicinity, leaving behind only the lonely house while exuding black smoke from its chimney ceaselessly.

...

[A/N: Please read the author's thoughts below.]