_

We were led into a different area for which the doorway just appeared after the Instructor snapped his fingers. This area was still a huge warehouse but it had various facilities spaced out inside it. It had practice guns, modified suits, garages, an arena, firing ranges, a block of buildings which looked like classrooms and many more. There were only 46 buildings.

We spent a week testing out various things. I tried most things but left out several sections like the boxing arena or the garage section. We were only allowed to skip 31 out of the 46 activities that were available every day. I spent quite some time in the gym and the firing range as well as any section to do with learning how to control my mana. I only gained one skill because of that, mana manipulation and it stayed at level 1 no matter what I did.

On the other hand, I managed to raise my stats by an impressive extent, every time I exercised I would raise my strength and agility. Of course, my intelligence and wisdom were raised the fastest based on my activity choice. Wisdom determined how fast my mana regenerates and intelligence determined my capacity. On the other hand, I quickly figured out that my vitality would only increase when I was hit, so I had to volunteer to be the target at the firing range in order to raise it, a couple of the others also joined although that number did decrease slightly when someone died from it once. A week quickly passed like that, with me managing to raise my stats to 50 for all 5 but not going further. Once I hit 50 for my first stat which happened to be intelligence first, I got a notification.

'Ding'

'To increase your stats further please choose a class.'

The knowledge from the pill told me that I would be able to choose a class once the training session was over. Then at the end of the 7th day, the Instructor yelled,

"Gather!" We all ran over to the arena, which he'd been personally supervising for the last week, I hadn't seen it was necessary to include it as one of my courses as I already had plenty of combat experience, besides brawling wasn't really my thing, I paid people to do that for me.

He stood in front of a wall of weapons, it looked longer than a kilometer and we were standing at one end.

"Edged weapons are best, but I would suggest having a backup. Choose, you can only choose two." He glared at us fiercely which contrasted his kind words. I hadn't had much interaction with the Instructor, the one question I'd asked him in this 'week' (It didn't feel like a week it felt like two days, time seemed to pass quickly, either that or the days were very short here) had gone something like this.

"Uh, Sir I'm having trouble advancing my mana manipulation skill, do you have any ideas?"

"What's mana manipulation? Stick to enhancing your body boy."

We hadn't talked much since then, he was a stereotypical warrior and I wondered what Lvl he was.

"You have ten minutes, Begin."

I chose a gun which felt similar to a sawn-off shotgun but sleeker however only 9 rounds came with the gun. The other weapon I chose was a glove similar to one which I'd been practicing with, all I had to do was inject mana and it would produce a fist-sized slow moving fireball which hit for 100 damage. The Instructor gave me a disapproving look once he saw what I'd chosen, but he didn't say anything. I was fairly sure based on his attitude that he was this games equivalent of a classist warrior, hating all mages. He was waiting at the other end of the wall of weapons, in front of a large grey gate which stood out against the white surroundings. Above the exit was a word in a foreign language which read 'Exit'.

This was it, our training period was over. I was ready to embrace the outside world with open arms, I had put in all this effort and I didn't want this game to bore and frustrate me as the previous one had.

We walked out of that building with pride, all 461 of us that had survived. Our Instructor had been brutally unforgiving towards people who'd failed to meet up to his expectations in the classes, I'd seen him just glare at an underperforming student and they'd collapsed with blood streaming from their eyes and ears several times.

We walked out to a glorious sight, huge skyscrapers, tens of times bigger than my Tower towered over us and beyond with the tips being obscured by the clouds. They had seemingly been constructed by different people, the first stretch of maybe a hundred meters was sleek and black for all the towers before all the towers constructors had apparently gone insane. They went through a kaleidoscope of colors, pulsating, shimmering, with advertisements attached to drones streaked between the buildings at impossible speeds, forming a wall of color and sound. Parts of the towers looked to be decaying and crumbling but other parts were baroque in nature, people had built outcroppings as well, huge swimming pools with glass floors. Bridges had been built in some places, in some place functional as I could see movement which indicated people were using them. However others were just insane, a gigantic building shaped like and looked exactly like a wedding cake with parts of strawberries strewn all over it was placed in the middle of four buildings. I could see with my enhanced vision which occurred when my vitality stat rose, that explosions were occurring off in the distance, with gigantic blasts of light swarming off in all directions. I watched as a skyscraper collapsed in front of me, before being grabbed out of the air before it collided with another tower and propped back up. I saw a tower bathed in light, while another wallowed in shadow next to it, their respective auras of light and shadow seemed to press in on each other, neither winning or having the advantage.

We all just stood there for several minutes, taking it all in. Like clockwork, the rain came down when a bell rang. The Instructor seemed to take that as a signal to start as he led the way down the steps ahead of us. They were long, we started out at eye level with the top of the black segment of the towers which they all shared and when we reached the bottom we were at ground level.

The sound of a fanfare of trumpets echoed off of the rain which came pouring down with no end. We walked down in rows of ten across, ten on each step with a few rows behind us. I stood in the middle and listened to a young and jovial voice read out the recording.

"Introducing, The Class of Viktor Steel No #4623510 to Graduate! Let's give them a round of applause folks!"

No-one clapped. In contrast to the voice booming out of the speakers, our greeting party was small. I was surprised before the Knowledge (knowledge from the pill) kicked in. They were here to choose the best for their Group (Guild). They would put forward requirements and if we didn't meet them we'd have to go and train ourselves before trying to be recruited again personally by approaching their Guild. If we weren't chosen now, it would get much harder later when went to beg for a position in the group. If nobody liked the look of me, this last week which hadn't even been a day in real time would have been for nothing.

The greeting party consisted of people wearing all black, with no skin showing as well as huge black shiny overcoats. Some wore goggles with blue sparks coming off and colored lenses attached. One person came dressed like Judge Hedd, is that a kink, or is that just how police officers dress here? Some wore masks with feathers and bells, and some with just their chin showing. I saw people wearing glowing armor and people wearing armor made of earth. One person had literal wings, white as snow, while someone stood as far away as possible with wings dark as night. One wore a full pinstripe suit and seemed to be dry despite the weather. One guy was wearing an insane amount of guns on him, like all kinds and at least 20, that I could see. They were slotted into a backpack behind him for easy access. I could see faces in peoples shadows occasionally and the spotlight which had been shining down on us since we exited the building seemed to be frowning some of the time. I knew from the Knowledge that there were at least 50 classes but only 18 people stood before us that I could see. Within some of their classes, there was a wider selection to choose from.

Everyone there knew what this was, this was an interrogation, an interview and a talent scouting all rolled into one. No one spoke we just watched each other.

The suit, he walked forward first until he was an equal distance from us and the other delegates, then took one hand out of his pocket, raised it high and brought it down while clicking his fingers.