The Place Where Everything Begins

Without further ado, Jeremy thought to himself while staring at the floating Crystal in the middle of the chamber,

'It's time to claim rewards, alright...'

Then Jeremy walked with the Forsaken Branch in hand towards the floating Crystal at the chamber's center...

After a short time, Jeremy finally arrived before the green Crystal, and then he reached out his left hand to touch it.

Simultaneously, a light-blue interface popped up...

...

[Shop]

[Mission]

[Leaderboard]

...

Upon seeing the three options, Jeremy used his mind to choose the [Mission] option to report the missions and claim the rewards first and for all.

Then the interface instantly changed into another one...

...

[Would you like to report the missions and claim the rewards for completing them?]

[Yes │ No]

...

After seeing the options asking whether to receive the rewards or not, Jeremy chose the 'Yes' option.

Soon after, the window switched to another one...

...

[You have received 1400 SP for completing the mission, 'Kill 5 humans']

[You have received 5x★ for completing the mission, 'Pass the hard-difficulty door']

[You have received 1x✰ for completing the mission, 'Complete every mission in the list']

...

When Jeremy saw the third notification, his eyes suddenly lit up as he suddenly got another priceless white star into his already big wallet.

'As I've thought, the cupid must be too lazy to put the last mission as something too complicated. That's why the last mission, aka the hidden mission, must be something related to all the previous missions.'

Jeremy thought with a smile after thinking about the simple-minded and lazy cupid.

After a few seconds, the interface stating about the current missions finally showed up...

...

[Your Current Missions]

— Kill 10 skeleton soldiers (Completed)

— Kill 10 imps (Completed)

— Kill 8 wolves (Completed)

— Kill 5 goblins (Completed)

— Kill 5 humans (Completed)

— Kill 2 hobgoblins (Completed)

— Pass the easy-difficulty door (Completed)

— Pass the normal-difficulty door (Completed)

— Pass the hard-difficulty door (Completed)

— Complete every mission in the list (Completed)

...

Upon seeing everything was right in place, with the end result being perfect scores, Jeremy nodded his head in satisfaction.

Who didn't like perfect scores anyway?

Then Jeremy thought fleetingly to himself after dismissing the mission interface,

'After most people had been teleported away as they should have earned some SP from the second stage already, I wonder my ranking still remains the same or not...'

Having finished thinking so, Jeremy shook his head at the absurd notion that another Earthling might have overtaken his ranking.

He knew it wasn't possible in the least unless the said Earthling somehow razed the entire second stage aflame.

'Let's see...' Jeremy thought briefly.

Afterward, Jeremy focused his mind on accessing the [Leaderboard] option to check his current ranking...

...

[Leaderboard]

Zone: 82,364

Survivors: 2,548

Your Ranking: 1st Place ?

[Your ranking has been ranked according to your total Survival Points earned]

...

No doubt, even after most people within the tutorial zone 82,364 had been teleported to the second stage, Jeremy was still ranked first out of the remaining 2,548 Earthlings of this zone.

Also, it was a matter of course that he would be ranked first. After all, Jeremy had already accumulated at least 50,000 SP so far.

Actually, such a massive amount of SP should have already broken all the previous records in existence on Ortus...

Upon seeing the current numbers of Earthlings, Jeremy contemplated to himself,

'Hmm... In my past life, the total amount of survivors should also be pretty close to this number but not quite the same if I don't remember wrong, that is...'

'Either way, having thought about more than 2,500 people living together within the same camp in the second stage makes me have quite a bad taste in my mouth.'

When Jeremy thought till here, he shook his head slightly as he really didn't appreciate the crowded place.

Afterward, Jeremy accessed the [Shop] option, intending to buy more skills from there to upgrade his fighting power.

Soon, another transparent window popped up in front of him...

...

[Weapons]

[Clothes]

[Miscellaneous]

[Skills]

[Your Current Balance: 17,213 SP]

...

After seeing the current SP balance, Jeremy thought to himself while raising an eyebrow, 

'Well, I've only 17,213 SP... It is even less than when I've completed the normal trial... Whatever, I don't really care about SP anymore at this point as I've already acquired most useful skills from the Shop.'

As in Jeremy's mind, he always thought that earning more stars was always the best outcome regardless of the amount of SP earned from the trials.

Hereafter seeing the four options to be chosen from, Jeremy accessed the [Skill] option first...

After the skills list appeared before him, Jeremy directly scrolled down to skill no.160 onwards as he didn't see any usefulness in the low-level skills anymore...

...

Skill no.163, [Called Shot]

Skill no.164, [Knife Throwing]

Skill no.165, [Martial Arts]

Skill no.166, [Charge] (Sold out)

Skill no.169, [Hibernate]

Skill no.174, [Focus]

Skill no.179, [Hypnotism]

Skill no.180, [Analyze] (Sold out)

Skill no.181, [Fast Hands]

Skill no.182, [Marksmanship] (Sold out)

Skill no.183, [Stealth] (Sold out)

Skill no.184, [Balancing Feats]

Skill no.185, [Breathing Control] (Sold out)

Skill no.186, [Eagles Eyes] (Sold out)

...

'Hmm... only two skills from no.160 onwards were bought by other people... Not bad, but also not that good of a performance either.'

Jeremy thought after seeing not many skills were bought from the skills list as it clearly appeared that Earthlings didn't excel in physical prowess, so they could only do this much.

In fact, to have two skills of more than number 160 being bought was already considered impressive enough.

Right now, Jeremy was sweeping his eyes at the skill names quickly while musing to himself,

'After being teleported into the second stage, the Survival Points cannot be used to buy skills anymore but will be used to buy 'those things' instead. Hmm... Then it will be for the best if I just spend most SP now while leaving some to spare in an emergency situation.'

Afterward, Jeremy fell into deep thought as he was thinking about the skills that would benefit him the most in the short-run and long-run of his journey on Ortus.

Just like that, Jeremy stood there with a moderately deep frown on his forehead for two full minutes before finally deciding on the skills to buy....