[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Welcome to the Murim Tutorial Tower
Goal: Climb 100 floors to get back to Earth
Current Location: Floor 1 - Beginner's Trial
Participants: 10,000
Survival Rate: 3%
Good luck, Player!
---
My name is Lee Junho and I'm 25 years old, I work at a convenience store, and approximately thirty seconds ago I was restocking instant ramen at 2 AM.
Now I'm standing in what appears to be some kind of huge stone arena with nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine other people, all looking just as confused as I do.
"What the hell is going on?!" someone screamed.
"Is this a dream?!"
"Where are we?!"
The blue holographic text floating in front of my face suggested this was very much not a dream.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Tutorial Starting in: 60 seconds
Floor 1 Objective: Survive the trial
Completion Reward: Access to Floor 2, Basic Cultivation Manual
Penalty for Failure: Death
That last word shut everyone up real fast.
"Death?" a woman beside me whispered, trembling. "This has to be a joke, right?"
I wanted to agree with her. But something in my gut told me this was very, very real.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Tutorial Beginning in: 30 seconds
Trial Type: Combat Assessment
Opponents: Qi-Infused Stone Golems
Difficulty: Easy
"EVERYBODY RUN!" someone shouted, and it was pandemonium. People ran every which way, screaming, crying, demanding answers that nobody had.
I remained still, my mind racing.
Alright. Alright, think. This was like a video game, right? System messages, tutorial, floors to climb. I'd played enough RPGs in my life to recognize the pattern.
If this was a game, then there were rules and mechanics to survive to this fucking tower.
" " (Lehavah) end
Tutorial Starting in: 10 seconds
The arena floor shook. Cracks started to form in the stone, and from those cracks came huge humanoid figures. They were twice as tall as a regular human, made of rock, with glowing red eyes and with fists the size of my torso.
Stone Golem - Level 1
HP: 100/100
Attack Power: Low
Defense: Medium
Weakness: ???
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
[START!]
The golems moved.
And people started dying.
---
The first thing I learned is most people on this tower don't know how to fight.
The golems were not fast and skilled. They simply moved forward and swinging their enormous fists.
It's simple, right?
But when you've never been in a fight before-when you've spent your whole life in a safe, modern world where violence is something that happens on TV-you freeze.
If you panic you die.
I watched a businessman in a suit try to reason with a golem. It punched him into the wall. He didn't get back up.
I watched a college student attempt to run. A golem caught him in three steps.
I watched and thus I learned.
The golems moved in straight lines. They telegraphed their attacks—pulling their arms back before swinging. If you paid attention, you could see the punches coming.
"MOVE!" I grabbed a woman who was frozen in fear and yanked her out of the way as a golem's fist crashed into the ground where she'd been standing.
"Th-thank you—
"Don't thank me, just run! Find a safe place!"
I didn't wait to see if she listened. I was already moving, my eyes on the nearest golem, watching its patterns.
Straight-line movement. Wide, telegraphed swings. No apparent intelligence beyond "find human, punch human."
I could work with this.
A chunk of broken stone flooring from the arena was about the length and width of my forearm. I grasped it, felt the weight. It wasn't much, but it was something.
The golem turned towards me. Red eyes focused on me. It raised its fist.
I waited for it to commit to the swing. Waited until the last possible second—
Then I dove to the side.
The fist struck into the ground. Cracks spider-webbed across the stone.
While it was recovering, I lunged forward and smashed my rock into its knee joint.
[Critical Hit!]
[Stone Golem HP: 75/100]
It worked! The joints were weaker than the body!
The golem swung again, and I dodged, struck another joint. And again. And again.
It was exhausting and terrifying. My hands were bleeding from the rough stone. but I survived and that's what matters
[Stone Golem HP: 0/100]
[Stone Golem Defeated!]
[EXP +50]
[Level Up! Level 1 → Level 2]
[+5 Stat Points]
The golem crumbled into dust, and a small glowing orb appeared where it had stood. I grabbed it instinctively.
Basic Qi Stone obtained
[+10 Qi Energy]
Before I could even fathom the meaning of that, someone screamed nearby. Another person going to die.
I made a split-second decision. I could hide, preserve my energy and focus only on my own survival.
Or help those people.
In my old life, I'm not important or special i'm just a man who love watching anime, reading webnovels story, and eating adobo.
But, at that moment in time, I possessed knowledge that could save lives.
"THE JOINTS!" I yelled as loudly as I could. "AIM FOR THE JOINTS! AND DODGE BEFORE THEY COMMIT TO SWINGING!"
A few people heard me. A guy with a metal pipe struck a golem's knee. It staggered.
"It's working!" he yelled.
Others copied the technique. Dodging. Striking joints. Working together.
The tide began to shift. Slowly. But it turned.
---
Two Hours Later
[FLOOR 1 TRIAL COMPLETE]
[Survivors: 3,847 / 10,000]
Congratulations, Players!
I crashed onto the hard earth, my muscles shrieking in protest. All around me, survivors were doing likewise, some crying, others merely staring at nothing, eyes wide in shock.
We'd lost over six thousand people in two hours.
Six thousand people who'd been living their normal lives hours ago were gone.
"Hey. You okay?
I looked up to see the woman I'd saved earlier. She was holding a water bottle that had appeared from the system, probably.
"Yeah..." I accepted the water gratefully. "Thanks."
"I should be the one thanking you: you saved my life. Twice." She sat down beside me. "I'm Park Minji."
"Lee Junho."
"You were amazing back there. How did you figure out the weakness so fast?"
"Video games, mostly." At her look of confusion, I explained. "This whole thing-the system messages, the levels, the HP bars-it's set up like a game. So I treated it like one. Observed enemy patterns, looked for weaknesses, adapted."
"That's. actually brilliant." Minji looked around at the other survivors. "Most people just panicked."
"Can you blame them? We got pulled from our normal lives and thrown into a death game." I took another drink. "The ones who survived either got lucky or adapted fast."
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Rest Period: 6 hours
After rest period, Floor 2 will be accessible
Rewards Distribution Starting:
[You have obtained: Basic Cultivation Manual
[You have acquired: Basic Weapon - Iron Sword]
You received: Beginner's Ration x3
A book, a sword, and three things that looked like protein bars appeared in front of me.
I picked up the manual first.
Basic Murim Cultivation Method
Master the basics of Qi cultivation and start your road to immortality!
I flipped through it: breathing techniques, meditation postures, something about meridians and dantians.
This was actual cultivation. Like from the wuxia novels I'd read as a teenager.
"This is insane," I muttered, "We're supposed to become martial artists now?"
"I think that's exactly what we're supposed to do." Minji read her own manual. "Look at the floor structure."
She pulled up a holographic interface showing the layout of the tower:
Floors 1-10: Basic Qi Cultivation
Floors 11-25:Foundational Techniques
Floors 26-50: Advanced Combat Trials
Floors 51-75: Sect Challenges
Floors 76-99: Master Level Trials
100th Floor: Final Boss - Return to Earth
"A hundred floors," I said. "And we're at floor one."
"The survival rate was three percent for just the first floor," Minji added in a quiet tone. "How many of us will make it to floor one hundred?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
But one thing was for sure: I was going to be one of them.