I woke up drowning.
Water—cold, dark, and pressing—filled my lungs. Panic overrode training as I thrashed, couldn't tell up from down, couldn't see anything except murky darkness. My chest burned. Instinct screamed for air that wasn't there.
Then something shifted in my mind. Not a thought—more like a door opening.
**[SYSTEM INTEGRATION COMPLETE]**
**[WELCOME TO THE TUTORIAL, CANDIDATE]**
**[INITIALIZING INTERFACE...]**
The words appeared in my vision, glowing blue text that somehow remained clear despite the water. I ignored them, focused on the primitive need to *breathe*. My hands found something solid—mud, slick and yielding. I pushed against it, felt myself moving upward.
My head broke the surface and I gasped, sucking in air that tasted like copper and rotting vegetation. I was in a river, maybe twenty feet across, surrounded by twisted trees that looked nothing like any Earth species I'd studied. The bark was dark purple, almost black, and the leaves glowed faintly with bioluminescence.
The Tutorial hadn't wasted time on gentle introductions.
I swam for the bank, arms heavy with exhaustion that didn't make sense—I'd been in peak condition seconds ago, standing in Facility 7. Now my body felt wrong, sluggish, like I'd been running for hours.
**[TUTORIAL ZONE: UMBRAL MARSH - THREAT LEVEL: VARIABLE]**
**[CURRENT LEVEL: 1]**
**[SURVIVAL TIMER: 29 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 47 MINUTES]**
More text crowding my vision. I reached the bank, hauled myself onto soft ground that squelched under my weight. My pack was gone. The clothes they'd given me were soaked through, already starting to smell like the marsh.
Thirty days to reach level 50. That's what Brennick had said—the Tutorial gave you a month, and if you didn't make it, you were kicked out. Sent back to Earth as a failure, assuming you survived at all.
I lay there for a moment, catching my breath, trying to process the transition. One second I'd been in Colorado, the next drowning in an alien swamp. No transition, no warning, just immediate danger.
Yurick's words echoed: *Don't trust the system when it tells you something's safe.*
I pushed myself to my feet, wiping mud from my hands. The interface was still there, hovering at the edge of my vision. I focused on it, and it expanded.
**[KADE TORREN - LEVEL 1]**
**[CLASS: UNASSIGNED]**
**[STATS:]**
- **STRENGTH: 8**
- **AGILITY: 11**
- **CONSTITUTION: 9**
- **INTELLIGENCE: 13**
- **WISDOM: 10**
- **PERCEPTION: 12**
**[SKILLS: NONE]**
**[TALENTS: EVALUATING...]**
The numbers felt arbitrary—baseline human stats, probably, modified by the Program's training. My agility was higher than strength, which tracked. Yurick had focused on speed and precision over raw power. Intelligence at thirteen made sense; the Program selected for tactical thinking.
The "Talents: Evaluating" line bothered me. Every candidate got at least one talent at entry—minor advantages that the Game granted based on some calculation I didn't understand. Most were ranked E or D, maybe C if you were lucky. Things like "Enhanced Stamina" or "Keen Eye" or "Fast Learner."
The evaluation should have been instant.
I was about to dismiss the interface when the text changed.
**[TALENT EVALUATION COMPLETE]**
**[WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED]**
**[ANALYZING SOUL STRUCTURE...]**
My vision flickered. For a moment I saw something else—geometric patterns, complex and shifting, overlaid on reality like a schematic. They spiraled inward, converging on my chest, on something that pulsed with light I couldn't quite see.
**[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]**
**[MERGER RESONANCE DETECTED]**
**[CANDIDATE BORN DURING REALITY INTEGRATION EVENT]**
**[SOUL ABSORBED UNASSIGNED DIMENSIONAL ENERGY]**
**[INNATE STRUCTURE MODIFIED]**
**[CALCULATING TALENT MANIFESTATION...]**
The text scrolled faster now, almost too quick to read. I felt heat building in my chest, spreading outward through my limbs. Not painful—more like standing too close to a fire, warmth that bordered on burning.
**[TALENT AWAKENED]**
**[RANK: SSS]**
**[THE PARAGON]**
The heat peaked, then faded, leaving behind a clarity I'd never experienced. The world seemed sharper, more defined. I could see individual water droplets on the leaves overhead, could hear something moving through the underbrush thirty yards away, could feel the way the ground sloped slightly toward the river.
New text appeared, slower this time, as if the system was choosing words carefully.
**[THE PARAGON - SSS RANK]**
**[EFFECT: ALL GAINS MULTIPLIED BY 10]**
**[EXPERIENCE, STAT GROWTH, SKILL COMPREHENSION, LEARNING SPEED, AND ALL OTHER SYSTEM-RECOGNIZED ADVANCEMENT MULTIPLIED BY BASE FACTOR OF 10]**
**[RESTRICTION: CHALLENGE SCALING ENABLED - TUTORIAL DIFFICULTY WILL ADAPT TO CANDIDATE PERFORMANCE]**
**[NOTE: THIS TALENT CANNOT BE HIDDEN, TRANSFERRED, OR SUPPRESSED]**
I stared at the words, reading them three times to make sure I understood.
SSS rank. I'd never heard of anyone getting above A rank, and those were rare enough to make the news. The Ascended back at Facility 7—Brennick, Osei, Talin—they'd all been B or C rank talents. Good enough to survive, good enough to matter.
This was something else entirely.
Ten times everything. Every point of experience I earned would count as ten. Every stat increase multiplied. Every skill learned ten times faster than normal candidates.
The restriction made sense in a sick way—of course the Tutorial would scale up to match me. The Game wasn't interested in easy victories. It wanted to test limits, break the weak, forge the strong.
And the note about it being unable to hide? That was a problem. Once I started leveling, once I encountered other candidates, they'd see my talent rank. They'd know what I had.
Osei's warning came back: *Some of your peers will decide their best odds involve eliminating competition.*
I dismissed the interface, focused on my immediate surroundings. The marsh stretched in all directions, broken only by those twisted purple-bark trees and patches of open water. The sky was wrong—too dark, with three moons visible despite it being what looked like late afternoon. Different reality, different rules.
A sound caught my attention. Splashing, coming from upstream. I dropped into a crouch behind one of the trees, watching.
Something emerged from the water. It looked like a frog crossed with a spider—four legs, bulbous body covered in slick green skin, multiple eyes arranged around a mouth full of needle teeth. About the size of a large dog.
**[MARSH STALKER - LEVEL 3]**
**[THREAT ASSESSMENT: MODERATE]**
The creature's head swiveled, eyes fixing on the spot where I'd climbed out of the river. It moved toward the bank, surprisingly fast for something so ungainly-looking.
I had no weapons. No gear. Just soaked clothes and a talent that wouldn't help me in the next thirty seconds.
The Stalker reached the bank, head low, tracking my scent or trail or whatever sense it used. I stayed perfectly still, controlling my breathing the way Yurick had drilled into me. Movement drew predators. Stay still, stay quiet, wait for the opening.
The creature moved closer. Ten feet. Eight. I could smell it now—rotting fish and stagnant water.
Six feet.
I exploded from cover, going low. The Stalker's head jerked toward me but I was already inside its reach, hands finding purchase on slick skin. It was heavier than it looked, muscles like coiled springs under the membrane.
The creature shrieked—a sound like metal scraping glass—and tried to snap at me with those needle teeth. I twisted, got an arm around what passed for its neck, locked my legs around its midsection. Yurick's grappling training took over: control the head, control the fight.
The Stalker thrashed, trying to throw me off. Its skin secreted something oily and foul-smelling. My grip started to slip.
I tightened my hold, ignoring the burning in my arms, and found what I was looking for—a gap where the skull met the spine. I drove my thumb into it, hard as I could, feeling something crack.
The Stalker went limp.
**[MARSH STALKER DEFEATED]**
**[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 150 (BASE: 15 × PARAGON MULTIPLIER)]**
**[LEVEL UP!]**
**[LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]**
**[ALL STATS +1]**
**[SKILL ACQUIRED: UNARMED COMBAT (BASIC) - LEVEL 1]**
The rush hit me like a drug. Energy flooded my body, washing away the exhaustion and replacing it with something vital and electric. The interface showed my stats ticking upward, but the numbers didn't capture what it felt like—like every cell was being rewritten, upgraded, optimized.
**[SKILL COMPREHENSION ACCELERATED]**
**[UNARMED COMBAT (BASIC) LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 3]**
**[ANALYZING COMBAT PERFORMANCE...]**
**[ADDITIONAL SKILL ACQUIRED: GRAPPLING (INTERMEDIATE) - LEVEL 1]**
I released the Stalker's corpse, stood up on legs that felt steadier than they had any right to. One fight. One kill. And I'd jumped from level 1 to level 2, gained two skills, and those skills had immediately started advancing.
The Paragon wasn't just multiplying experience. It was accelerating everything—skill growth, combat comprehension, the rate at which my body adapted to new information.
I pulled up my stats again.
**[KADE TORREN - LEVEL 2]**
**[CLASS: UNASSIGNED]**
**[STATS:]**
- **STRENGTH: 9**
- **AGILITY: 12**
- **CONSTITUTION: 10**
- **INTELLIGENCE: 14**
- **WISDOM: 11**
- **PERCEPTION: 13**
**[SKILLS:]**
- **UNARMED COMBAT (BASIC) - LEVEL 3**
- **GRAPPLING (INTERMEDIATE) - LEVEL 1**
**[TALENTS: THE PARAGON (SSS)]**
One level up and I already felt different. Stronger. Faster. More aware. If this was what one level did, what would fifty feel like?
But the restriction nagged at me. Challenge scaling. The Tutorial was watching, evaluating, adjusting. That Stalker had been level 3, marked as moderate threat. What would the system throw at me next?
A notification appeared.
**[QUEST RECEIVED: FIRST STEPS]**
**[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE 24 HOURS IN THE UMBRAL MARSH]**
**[REWARD: BASIC EQUIPMENT PACKAGE, 500 EXPERIENCE]**
**[FAILURE CONDITION: DEATH]**
Twenty-four hours. Simple enough objective, except I had no food, no water, no shelter, and no idea what else lived in this marsh besides level 3 frog-spiders.
I looked at the Stalker's corpse. The skin was already starting to decompose, faster than it should. Tutorial mechanics, probably—bodies didn't persist to prevent candidates from fortifying positions with corpse walls or something equally grim.
But before it dissolved completely, I noticed something. A small crystalline structure near where I'd broken its neck, glowing faintly.
I reached for it, felt resistance, then it came free. The crystal was warm, pulsing with inner light.
**[MARSH STALKER CORE OBTAINED]**
**[MATERIAL COMPONENT - ALCHEMY, CRAFTING, OR DIRECT CONSUMPTION]**
**[WARNING: CONSUMING MONSTER CORES MAY HAVE UNPREDICTABLE EFFECTS]**
I pocketed the core. No idea what I'd do with it yet, but Brennick had mentioned that everything in the Tutorial had potential value. Resources were scarce by design.
The sun—or whatever passed for a sun in this reality—was sinking toward the horizon. The marsh would be even more dangerous at night. I needed shelter, needed to find water I could purify, needed to survive long enough to start turning the Paragon's advantages into real power.
I chose a direction at random—away from the river, toward higher ground visible in the distance—and started walking.
Behind me, the Stalker's body finished dissolving into mist that smelled like ozone.
The Tutorial had begun in earnest, and I'd already learned the most important lesson: the system gave nothing for free. Every advantage came with a price, and mine was painted in glowing letters that everyone would eventually see.
SSS rank. The Paragon.
Humanity's potential savior, or its most valuable target.
I'd figure out which soon enough.
For now, I just needed to survive the night.