"Unlike spells, skills are created by the game's system, and are tied to various game mechanics, such as equipment, class, and a core mechanic called proficiency. Proficiency is a measurement of how familiar a player is with their equipment, and is expressed by numerical level. Your proficiency with a certain type of equipment will increase on its own as you continue to use that equipment type, and there will be other factors that will affect your proficiency level. 

"An example of skill that are tied to your equipment is a skill called shukuchi, which is a movement skill that is tied to certain footwear-type that enables you to move long range in a short time, much like teleportation. For your starting weapon, which is a mace, the skill you can acquire is called "Crushing Blow", which will ignore your opponent's armor up to a certain pre-determined extent.

"For this tutorial, I have temporarily raised the level of Crushing Blow to 1, and for your convenience, the developers have enabled the visualization for damage during the tutorials, meaning you can see how much damage you inflict if the attack lands. Why don't you try and see the difference? You can use this scarecrow there in order to try your skill. Just like your spells, all you need to do to activate the skill is to chant the skill's name."

As soon as she finished talking, an armored scarecrow appeared beside her. Opening his status screen, Takeru could see in his skills screen that he indeed had learned Crushing Blow. Pulling out his mace, Takeru approached the scarecrow and attacked it with a light swing. Upon making contact, the scarecrow swayed for a bit and then the number 4 could be seen floating above it for a moment before fading. Feeling a little bit unsatisfied, Takeru swung the mace a little bit harder and faster, upon which the damage counter increased to 6.

After a few more practice swings, Takeru stopped and stood still in front of the scarecrow before taking a stance, lifting his mace to a position above his head. He took a deep breath a couple of times before firmly shouting "Crushing Blow!" while swinging his mace down. As he did, he saw the head of the mace shining faintly, and unlike before, the scarecrow tilts when Takeru's attack landed, and the damage counter indicated that Takeru dealt 12 damage to the scarecrow.

"Good work. However, I'm sure that you held back on that attack earlier. Now, I've temporarily raised the level of Crushing Blow to the maximum level. Try activating the skill again, and this time try to attack with all your strength," The girl said after she restored the scarecrow to its initial position.

Takeru didn't respond to her words. Instead, he simply raised the mace once again, and, after a few deep breaths, once again shouted "Crushing Blow!", this time using his whole strength to swing the mace. Upon contact, a loud clanging sound could be heard, and the scarecrow was blown away, and Takeru could see the armor it wore broke around the area where the head of the mace made contact. After the scarecrow landed and stopped moving, the damage counter showed up once again, and this time Takeru could see that he dealt 40 damage to the scarecrow.

"Nice job, Takemiya. You have now learned about the core game mechanics that are part of the tutorial. I will now remove the skill and restore your condition to as when we started this tutorial. If you haven't noticed yet, as you could see in the final part of the skill tutorial, the strength you put in to your attack, as well as the speed of the attack, will affect the damage that you deal to your opponent. This means that a player can have different playstyles even with the same weapon. For example, a player using a rapier can choose to emphasize speed to poke his opponent and slowly chip away their health, or he can choose to put his strength into every attack before ending with a coup-de-grace. Please explore the possibilities of your weapon, and develop your very own playstyle that you are comfortable with.

"Now then, you have arrived at the end of the tutorial. Do you have anything you want to ask before we proceed?" The girl asked with a smile on her face, as usual.

"No, I think I'm good," Takeru replied.

"Very well. In that case, let us proceed," The girl said, before snapping his fingers. Right afterwards, particles of light started to converge around her. Feeling alarmed, Takeru quickly equipped his mace and buckler, and took a stance as he prepared to fight.

"Good, it seems that you're quick enough to go on alert. We will now begin your final test. You will now fight an endless wave of monsters, and, just as a warning, there will be no end to the amount of wave of monsters. Make no mistake; you will experience death during this test. The result of this test will determine your proficiency with the weapon you chose, so give it your best shot. Oh, by the way, there's no worries if you're not good in handling your chosen weapon. Once you respawn after dying in this test, you can find numerous trainer for various equipment in the various cities in-game. You can even get other players to teach you, but whether or not they are willing is a different matter entirely," the girl said while her smile slowly twisted into a maniacal grin. 

"Well then, TakeMiya! Once again, we welcome you to Second Life Online!" The girl cackled as she disappeared in to a puff of smoke, and in her place, a pair of rats the size of a bulldog appeared.

Just as suddenly as they appeared, the giant rats charged towards Takeru while baring their fang.

"Gh!" Takeru grunted as he avoided one of the rat's charge before smashing the other's face with the buckler on his left hand. The rat that hit the buckler then lay motionless before Takeru's feet, seemingly dazed from the impact. Not missing the chance, Takeru swung his mace towards the rat, dealing more damage, and after that single strike, the rat started to dissolve into light particles as it was defeated. 

Feeling elated for his first ever victory, Takeru temporarily forgot about the other rat, until he was reminded of its existence by the painful impact on his left calf as the rat's charge met its mark. Takeru rotated his body just in time to see that the rat was trying to bite his ankles, and he hurriedly moved his leg back, losing his balance in the process. As he fell, though, he swung his mace towards the rat's head and successfully made contact with it, caving the rats skull in one hit. Hoping to land on the rat to cushion his fall, the carcass instead dissolved into light particles as Takeru passed through it, and he ended up falling face first on to the ground.

Takeru lay on the ground as he massaged his nose, which was in pain after it absorbed most of the force with the ground. When he looked up, he could see that the HP bar had been reduced slightly. Just as he was worrying about how long he could survive, light particles once again started to converge near the spot where the girl had disappeared. Takeru then stood up and once again took his stance, just as the light particles finished converging, revealing a pair of what looked like feral dogs.

Much like before, the dogs charged towards Takeru as soon as they were able to. Just as Takeru prepared to swing his mace, the dogs accelerated and their speed explosively increased, catching Takeru off guard. Takeru hastily swung his mace, missing both of the wolves, and in exchange the dogs sank their teeth in Takeru's right ankle and calf. Takeru winced in pain as the bite tightened up, and the dogs shook their heads as the bite tightened even more, threatening to tear the flesh off of his calf and ankle. 

"Get off of me!" Takeru shouted as he swung his mace at the head of the dog that was biting his calf. Takeru could see its head cave in as the mace made contact with the top of the skull, and the pain in his calf subsided, only to be replaced by a searing and excruciating pain from his ankle, before he lost his balance and fell down. Looking towards it, Takeru could see his ankle near his heel had been cleanly bitten off, all the way to the bone. Blood was steadily pouring out of the wound as the dead body of the dog slowly dissolved into light particles.

The dog, who temporarily retreated when Takeru fell, stared at him as he sat down on the ground. Briefly opening his status screen, Takeru could see that he'd been inflicted with the bleeding status, which caused him to lose health steadily over time. At that moment, perhaps feeling that Takeru was not a threat, the dog once again charged towards him, this time clearly aiming for Takeru's neck. Takeru, who was sitting down, made a quick decision by tilting his body and swung his mace downwards from overhead. As a result, the dog's face ran head-first into the head of the mace, and crumpled lifelessly besides Takeru. Soon after, it transformed into light particles as well.

Takeru exhaled as he felt relief after defeating the wild dogs. Just as he was trying to create a spell to heal his wounds, from the edge of his vision, he could see light particles starting to converge once again, and in a much shorter time than before, two snow-white wolves appeared, their teeth gnarling. They instantly charged towards Takeru, baring their fangs as they accelerated. Takeru tried to stand, but couldn't because of the wounds he suffered. When Takeru refocused his attention and tried to look at the wolves, he found himself staring at the jaws of the wolves.

"Ah, dammit..." Takeru mumbled as the wolves' fangs dug into his neck. He felt a sharp pain, and then his vision went black.