Riveting Night stood in place as these 1,000 trainees quickly formed groups among each other while the outliers moved on their own, mostly those who had total confidence in their skills. She didn't plan to interfere or move from her spot, as this was just a waste of her time in her opinion.
Soon, everyone rushed into different directions. A Field Zone was as large as a state in the former country of America, so there was definitely more than enough room for them to spread out. That FireFighters guild trying to swallow it all up was a joke, because they hardly had enough members to even clear the whole place!
What was interesting though, was the fact that the leader of their overall group also chose to go alone. Riveting Night had pegged him for a solo player, and it seemed her judgment was right. She simply activated her Control and spread it over the entire Field Zone to monitor their progress.
The many groups had already encountered their first few monsters. Since this was technically a Rank 0 Field Zone, the monster concentration was almost double that of the Rank 1 Field Zones, which were already congested to hell with the influx of new players. In this Rank 0 Field Zone, there was likely to be a monster encounter every 10 steps.
The members of Supernatural's most elite youth were truly exceptional as they knew how to fight as a team or individually against any kind of foe, small, moderate, or large. They were professional in their movements and actions capable of easily razing through the monsters in their way, gaining their first level up before the second hour was up.
By their current pace, they would have no problem in accomplishing their task before Riveting Night's deadline came to an end. However, Riveting Night was frowning heavily while she watched their performance, almost recalling them and brutally beating them for their stupidity.
There were generally three types of people who entered Boundless nowadays. The first were the gamers, those who had played previous FIVR games or at least knew a lot about RPG as a genre, or gaming as a whole.
This bunch started out weak and were easily beaten by the starting monsters, but they grasped the laws of the world and were able to find means to rise quickly as well as fix their weakness of being shitty fighters.
The second group were the clueless. They were neither gamers nor warriors, basically totally normal people who jumped on the FIVR bandwagon. They had no clue what they were doing or what they should do, only there for the ride and to add fluff to their social media or pass the time.
As one could expect, about 99% of victims of unmoderated abuse like r.a.p.e, torture, and all other evils came from this bunch. Jumping into a lawless den of tigers as a meek lamb was never a good idea, but no one had been able to warn them in time.
The third group were the aforementioned warriors. These consisted of those from various security forces, private militia, or governmental armies. This group were undoubtedly the best at the early game, rising through the levels the quickest with their exemplary techniques and combat styles/formations.
Their strategy and tactics were impeccable and their growth was largely smooth up to the middle of Rank 1. Usually around that point, the biggest flaw of these professional groups revealed itself: They understood dogshit about games and how they worked, especially this one.
Take the current group Riveting Night was watching over. They killed enemies with ease but progressed forward without stopping to collect the loot. They did not understand the class system or how it worked, so when they allocated their stats, they predominantly chose Strength.
Very few decided to balance it out with Dexterity and even fewer increased their Endurance. Please don't mention Luck or Charisma, they didn't even look at those stats at all. Since the majority of them were melee fighters, the increase in Strength yielded huge benefits in an early game scenario like this, giving them the illusion that this was the right choice.
As such, the kind of classes they would get would be rough, unplanned, and unequal. The clever plan by the AI to use the knowledge of gamers to assign them classes based on their stat point allocation became meaningless when people didn't even know what those stats typically did.
This system had benefited the early players because they were all gamers. Those who came after also benefited by stepping into the footsteps of those who had acted as pathfinders for the classes they wanted. However, many of those new players were nowhere near as powerful or efficient as the early game ones who had used their gumptions.
On top of that, these so-called elite youth from Supernatural did not use a single class or classless skill from their Master Package. Heck, they hadn't even selected a single skill altogether, because they did not understand the skill system.
On the one hand, it was extremely impressive that they could get by so easily with their techniques. This was the weakness of true gamers, as they had no fighting technique to speak of and were forced to compensate by learning how to use skills to the best effect to stand a chance at fighting.
On the other hand, though, it showed complete ignorance. After all, this was the world of Update 1, with Tier 1 Realism. These warriors had limited stamina based on their stats, and they could not fight forever as Draco could thanks to his own stats and passive skills.
As such, using techniques to quickly end battles was the epitome of foolishness. For many groups, they didn't even last 3 hours at this kind of pace before they had to rest. Since they had no stamina restoration potions - as they hadn't deigned to use their heads to buy some or even check their inventories - they had to rest the typical way, which cost them three hours of idle time.
Out of the 24 hours they had to reach level 5, they were already down by 6 hours and the highest among them was level 3. This person was the leader of the bunch, the adept and semi-competent Tunder Power who Riveting Night had kept a watchful eye on since his performance was the best of the group.
He had been fighting and resting at a moderate pace. Since this early game Field Zone was part-forest, part-meadowland, he thrived by using the bushes and trees as vantage points before sniping his targets with perfectly placed shots. Even though he had little knowledge of games, he was extremely adept at survival and living in the wild, which surprised Riveting Night.
These pampered children of the higher-ups in Supernatural only had endless talent to their name due to their heritage and some minor training from their various households which only covered combat, but they had no ideas on how to survive in the wild as this fellow did. This instantly highlighted to Riveting Night that he was an outlier in their group and someone with an interesting story.
She watched on for 6 more hours before shaking her head. The Tunder Power fellow was the only one to reach level 5, while the best among the rest had only reached level 3 at most.
Now that the players needed to rest, eat, and sleep, there was no way for them to make it in time. It was a complete waste of her precious time to watch them any longer.
As such, she recalled them at once. Many of the fighters here were relieved to be freed of this annoying task, wondering what kind of silly world this was with such meaningless mechanics limiting them to such a degree,
Tunder Power though, frowned contemplatively when he saw Riveting Night's message, realizing that there was more to it. It was likely that something had gone very wrong, and an unfortunate fate awaited his whole group.
As he was a punctual person, he was the first to arrive. He saw Riveting Night standing in the same spot they had left her, in the very same pose. It made Tunder Power wonder how she monitored them, but he then remembered that she was a Control master.
It was likely that she had seen everything they did. This made Tunder's heart sink as he realized that it was likely that she had noticed something from their performance that forced her to call the operation off.
As the others filed in from the Field Zone, his heart continued to fall to the abyss when he looked at the numbers above their heads, until he looked like he was weighed with despair. The arriving members were quite chatty at first, talking about the experiences in combat, but once they saw each other, their talks died down as they began to perspire.
The ones to arrive later also noticed the tense atmosphere. Once they looked around, they too began to feel dread, while the ones who had already arrived lamented.
By the time everyone was here, there was total silence as the entire group gazed at the silent Riveting Night with trepidation. She had not said a word after sending that message, nor had she moved. Not even a twitch. If one didn't know any better, they could mistake her for a creepy statue rather than a human being.
Eventually, she gazed at the row of talented youths from left to right, only moving her neck slowly as she assessed them. In the end, she simply folded her arms and spoke in a cold voice.
"It seems as if the quality of talent from Supernatural is not what we've been told. Either that, or you fellows lied when you shuffled yourselves according to talent. If you're the best of this batch, then we might as well return you from whence you came."
This made all of them sweat, even as they felt some slight indignation since Riveting Night had all but called them trash. However, they knew better than to talk back to a Superior Lord or a Control master, so they silently took the disparaging.
"Out of a thousand elites, only one was able to reach level 5 by the 12th hour. I gave you a full day, and the second place in this little event only reached level 3."
The one in question mustered his courage and raised his voice to argue for their group. "Our progress is fine. We've spent the first half of the day reaching the halfway point, then with enough time, we should reach level 5 by the end of the day!"
A lot of the 'talents' here agreed with this statement. If Riveting Night hadn't disturbed their progress by calling them over, they would likely have reached the goal, so why was she insulting them like this?
Tunder Power began to sweat and he stepped away from his so-called team members. He couldn't understand how they could be so foolish and conceited to not see the obvious point she was trying to make.
As for the others, when they saw Tunder Power step away, they glanced at him with slightly concealed disdain. It was clear that despite the fellow's success and supreme talent - at least among their group - he wasn't entirely well-received by them.
This little fact interested Riveting Night in passing, but she decided to focus on the important matter at hand.
"In other words, you're saying it's my fault for wasting your time by summoning you before the deadline, eh?" She asked the person with the complaint in a light tone.
The fellow, as if only now realizing his folly, panicked and quickly tried to defend himself. "N-No, what I meant was-"
Riveting Night lazily waved her hand and silenced the fellow. "I don't care to hear your excuses! After all, what you said does have some merit. If I didn't call you out here, by my estimations you, and around 67 of you who have set out alone and reached level 3 might indeed have reached the goal in time."
Her voice became extremely chilling at this point. "However, I couldn't bear to look at your foolishness any longer. Watching you bunch of clowns fool about has made me sick, and I have no more tolerance for it!"