The Place Where Everything Begins

"Yayyy!!!"

"Death!!!"

"The challenger won!!"

"Blood, want more blood!!"

"Woahhh!!!"

After the victor had emerged from this bloody battle, the audiences suddenly cheered up and applauded loudly...

It was quite a sensation and sight to behold after considering at least five hundred people shouting and cheering simultaneously at the end of their lungs, albeit they were just half-sane humans who could only say a limited amount of words...

'His strength is roughly the same as me, but his technique, tactic, and battle instinct are not up to par at all.' Jeremy thought within his mind after looking around the arena for a bit.

Then...

...

[You have received 847 SP]

[You have received 3x★ for successfully killing a no-named Initiate Warrior]

[You have 10 minutes for recuperating]

...

'Oh?' Jeremy raised one eyebrow after seeing the notifications...

'When I killed the gnoll, I got around 1,100 SP together with five black stars but killing this guy who is considerably weaker... Hmm... alright, that makes sense.'

Indeed, killing the human warrior should get less SP than killing the gnoll because the latter was clearly stronger than the former. So, Jeremy didn't linger with the topic for long before throwing the thought away.

'Now, I have 10 minutes to rest. What should I do?'

After thinking and looking around the entire arena, Jeremy's eyes finally stopped at the cold corpse on the ground.

Without further delay, Jeremy walked up to the warrior's corpse before crouching down. Afterward, he reached out his right hand to touch the cold body.

Then he thought inwardly,

'Analyze'

Suddenly, mysterious energy rushed out from somewhere within Jeremy's body towards his right hand before going directly to the cold corpse...

Then, a transparent window suddenly popped in front of him...

...

Race: Human (Artificial Species - Low-Rank Organism)

Class: Initiate Warrior (Substage 1 of Class 1 Warrior)

Status: Dead — Assumed to be killed by a sharp object penetrating and twisting inside his abdomen, causing the internal organs to be damaged severely.

Description: A low-rank organism that has recently come into contact with an Aura energy particle.

...

'Well? Artificial Species?'

After seeing the transparent window generated from his newly bought skill, [Analyze], Jeremy thought about the term 'Artificial' within the 'Race' section.

Then Jeremy suddenly shook his head slightly in disappointment and thought,

'It looks like the information regarding that topic is still kept within my sea of consciousness. I will look into it later then...'

Upon finishing his thought, Jeremy walked back towards the arena's center before bringing out a wooden chair from within his left glove and sat there silently, waiting for the next battle to commence in around nine minutes.

Regarding Jeremy's [Analyze] skill, it was obviously bought from the Shop at the time before he came into this hard trial with the price of 5,497 SP, as he had plenty of time to spend before coming into this hard trial.

After sitting down on the wooden chair, Jeremy turned to look at the so-called 'audiences'. When his eyes finally stopped on a male 'human' sitting on a stone seat above the wall opposite of him.

Then Jeremy thought inwardly...

'Eagles Eyes.'

Upon willing his mind to activate the skill, the view in front of him zoomed towards the man's face...

A split second later, Jeremy finally saw the said man clearly as he could even count the man's eyelashes from more than 30 meters away.

Even if it was still at the low-basic level, the skill was pretty good...

'Well, he looked just like a normal human with common facial features that can be seen anywhere. But... his black eyes look so dazed like he is currently daydreaming, and he also doesn't show any facial expression on his face... a literally emotionless human...'

'It is quite different from the heated cheering earlier like heaven and earth... So, these people should also be artificial humans the same as the Initiate Warrior earlier.'

'Hmm...?'

'Doesn't it mean every living thing inside this tutorial is all but a programmed artificial creature?' If it is so, that will somehow make sense... The System should be able to do something like that at the very least, as it is a part of the Akashic Records... Hmm... then their souls are also artificial ones? I wonder if their bodies are also carbon-based like Earthlings...'

Upon thinking up to here, Jeremy suddenly deactivated the [Eagles Eyes] skill and shifted his gaze towards the warrior's cold corpse lying around ten meters to his right. Then he thought,

'Should I keep his body for the future experiment?'

*Sigh*

When Jeremy finished thinking such an absurd notion, he promptly let out a sigh. Then he thought dismissively,

'There are still many chances for me to encounter the creatures created by the System. There is no point in rushing...'

'Well, let's not think about those far-fetched thoughts for now...'

Shaking his head slightly to discard the unnecessary thoughts away, Jeremy decided to not dive further into the topic regarding the artificial creatures, the System, or the Akashic Records as of yet.

Moreover, Jeremy didn't have the necessary information right now as it was being kept inside the deepest part of his soul right now.

After realizing not much time was left before the ten minutes of resting time ran out, Jeremy stood up and then kept the wooden chair back inside the left glove.

Shortly after, the ten minutes resting time had finally passed...

The metal gate in front of Jeremy opened up again...

*Creaks!*

*Chrrrick* *Chrrrick*

*Chrrrick* *Chrrrick*

The mechanism sounds resounded out within the quiet arena, generating the same annoying sound the same as last time...

'Let's see what my enemy is...' Jeremy thought in anticipation while looking at the black silhouette within the dark passageway.

*Tabdak* *Tabdak*

*Tabdak* *Tabdak*

The unknown being didn't keep Jeremy waiting for long as the footstep sounds rang out from the inside resoundingly...

Soon, the black silhouette from earlier finally became more visible when faced with light from the outside.

At this time, the audiences' cheering sounds were heard once again, but Jeremy couldn't care less about them at all because...

"Oh?"

When Jeremy finally saw how the figure looked like, he exclaimed lightly.

His enemy this time was also someone with a height of around two meters with a somewhat similar body build as the human warrior earlier.

However, the enemy in front of Jeremy was wearing full-body steel armor with only minimal gaps that looked very heavy. Each step the man took created the clanging sounds audible even to the crowd sitting above him.

In the man's right hand was a long steel sword that looked sturdy and sharp at first glance when anyone laid their eyes on it.

Meanwhile, the man was exuding the same 'intent' as the previous enemy that Jeremy had fought before.

'An Initiate Warrior again? Well, his Aura intent feels a bit stronger than the guy before. Still, this man should be somewhat weaker than the gnoll...'

While Jeremy was thinking so, the full-armor warrior suddenly stopped walking and only stood silently watching Jeremy from a distance away.

This time, Jeremy didn't open his mouth to greet his enemy again as it seemed to be pointless.

'Let's end this fast...'

Jeremy thought boringly as he promptly dashed towards his opponent explosively...