Anton stood and looked around. Where the hell was he? Additionally, he felt like he was newly born. Well, not exactly, but still, he no longer could become a Specter, fly, or … damn it! On the plus side, his attributes were high enough that he could run pretty fast, but now he had to worry about wind resistance again. Well, shit.
He did have the skill Basic Map, which only had a range of one foot, but the one thing he had right now that he wouldn’t have without it was a compass. Anton checked, found the North, and headed east. If this planet were like Earth, the sun would rise to the east and set to the west.
As he walked through the forest, he saw various creatures that looked very much like what he’d expected to see: deer, foxes, squirrels, and different types of birds that looked very familiar—had the SYSTEM recycled creatures and plants from the previous Iteration? As he walked through the forest over the next hour, it sure looked like it. Or, was this an artificial environment?
As he looked around, he saw two metal rails on the ground running over wooden boards buried in the ground. They were train tracks! Was there a train here somewhere? Interesting. At least he now had a path to follow to find a civilization in this world. The tracks led off to the north and south. Anton looked north and then decided to head south. Anton started jogging, and pretty quickly, he passed through the forest at about thirty miles per hour. As he ran, a thought crossed his mind: Did he need food and water? He was immortal, so if he died of starvation, he should come back. He didn’t feel thirsty or hungry. Of course, it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to not needing to eat; he’d been living off of psychic energy for quite a while now.
Anton’s thoughts were brought to his surroundings as he left the forest behind and came out onto open hilly plains. A road had come into sight and wound toward the train tracks until it was running alongside him as a town came into view. The road moved about 100 feet away from the train tracks which passed by the south side of the town to a set of closed doors in the city wall. Anton slowed down and moved over to the road, where he began leisurely walking toward the closed town doors. When he was about a half mile away, he noticed that the town had a ten-foot wall and gates. Also, the two beings he saw standing on the wall weren’t human; they were shorter, had green skin, and had large noses and ears. They looked like…Nope, they were goblins, and they were wearing metal helmets that looked a lot like something he’d seen in the World War II documentaries. There were symbols and words painted in red on the helmets, but they didn’t resemble anything he’d seen before.
Anton looked at the goblins who had seen him and picked up their rifles to point them at him. When he was 500 feet away from the wall, one of the goblins called out in common, “Halt!” As Anton stopped to see what they wanted, the second soldier fired his rifle as the first gave a toothy grin and muttered, “Too easy.”
Anton wasn’t sure exactly how powerful he was compared to the two. As soon as he saw the second goblin start to squeeze the trigger, he activated his Bracelet of Protection and invested 700 Psychic Energy into it. Immediately, a Shield of Protection that would stop 700 points of damage popped into existence. Because he willed it, his Anit-Mage ability did not automatically dispel the effect. His Master of Magic ability was turning out to be very useful.
You have been struck by a bullet fired from a Common Rifle.
Shield of Protection has taken 10 points of damage.
Current Shield of Protection Strength: 690 of 700
Anton read the combat notifications and laughed. The rifles only did 10 points of damage. 20 points if it were a normal critical hit and possibly 80 if someone had a multiplier up to eight times if they were spec’d for it with their class skills. His Physical Damage Resistance was 128. The bullets wouldn’t even get through with that maximum multiplier. Not to mention that he had 12,842 hit points. Granted, this was a Common Rifle, so maybe higher-ranked items could get through his resistance, but for now, he wasn’t worried.
The second Goblin shouldered his rifle, and both fired again, reducing his Shield of Protection by another 20 points. As they started to reload, Anton activated his Bracers of Telekinesis and yanked the goblin that had thought this would be “Too easy” off the wall and toward him. The second goblin ducked out of sight. Anton heard him scream for help while the one he had control of telekinetically flew toward him.
Anton spared a glance at his Status Screen to note that his Psychic Energy regeneration of 1,241 per turn had already replaced the 700 Psychic Energy he’d used to create the Shield of Protection and the 100 Psychic Energy he had invested in this use of Telekinesis. Granted, he hadn’t been moving as quickly as he could and had been taking things relatively slowly as only 30 seconds had passed, which was what the SYSTEM considered three combat turns.
The floating goblin tried to bring his rifle to bear. At this point, Anton locked his body in the position it was in and turned him 90 degrees to his right. As the goblin came to a stop directly in front of him, Anton decided to see if he could take advantage of his Anti-Mage ability while maintaining the Shield of Protection. He reached out through the Shield, grasped the rifle, and yanked it from the goblin’s hands. The Shield of Protection remained intact and ignored him as his hand passed through. It even ignored the rifle when he pulled it back through the barrier to take a closer look at it. He could pass through barriers without affecting them; good to know. It was a cheat, but it was good to know.
Anton looked over the rifle, which appeared to be semi-automatic with a five-round clip. He looked from the rifle to the goblin and noted that he had extra clips attached to his belt. Anton extended the rifle through the barrier, aimed at the Goblins’ leg, and fired.
The goblin screamed as green blood exploded from the back of his leg. Anton looked down at the goblin and, with a smirk, parroted his comment back to him, “Too Easy.” The Goblin's eyes widened as Anton moved the barrel of the right up to the goblin’s head directly under the helmet and pulled the trigger. The screaming stopped as a small hole appeared between the goblin's eyes; green blood and brain matter exploded away from Anton onto the ground behind the goblin. Some back splatter hit his Shield of Protection, and immediately fell away to the ground.
You have Killed a Level 5 Goblin, 50 XP Earned,
No treasure earned, and the monster level is too low.
No Treasure? That sucked! Anton’s attention was brought back to the second goblin on the wall as his rifle rang out again. He’d been so focused on the rifle and shooting the first goblin he’d missed the previous two shots. He quickly checked his Shield of Protection and noted that it was now down to 650 of 700 points.
Anton, tired of putting up with the little shit on the wall, moved the 500 feet to the giant double door and punched the door on the right, which splinted and fell away. He quickly checked his Combat Log and noted that he’d inflicted 541 points of damage with that single punch on an object with a durability of only 200. The locking log had also been shattered by his punch, which was why the door had splinted and fallen to the ground.
As he looked through the hole in the wall, he noted that a group of goblins was running toward him from further down a wide street with low buildings on each side. In the distance, he could see a much larger group of goblins rushing up out of the ground and moving toward an open gate on the opposite side of the town. They were emerging from a hole in the middle of the street, and while he probably had 100 goblins rushing toward him, there had to be thousands moving away from him and toward whatever was happening on the other side of the city.
As he took the time to look around, he could hear the sounds of a significant battle happening from the other side of the town, where explosions and gunfire drowned out the screaming and yelling that he could hear. The goblins were invading and going to war with someone or something else? What were the odds that such a good experience grind would become available…
Anton looked at his effective Luck attribute. 240,474? His Constitution was 12,841, and his willpower was 12,428, but all of his other attributes were just over five thousand. The ability Divine Luck made such a big difference. He didn’t even have a class, Common Core or Evolutionary Evolution Core yet, and his Luck attribute was incredibly high. Still, he had the goblin on the wall above him and the one hundred or so goblins in front of him. As Deadpool would say, “Time to make the chimichangas,” Anton sighed; he didn’t even have the two Desert Eagles to help him out.
The one nice thing about having such high attributes is that he could make eighteen attacks per combat turn for 4,950 stamina while his stamina regenerated by 5,339 in the same period. Additionally, every goblin appeared to be moving in molasses. While he couldn’t move so fast that the goblins couldn’t track him, what he could do was move and attack almost twice per second. While he couldn’t move at his maximum speed because air friction was a thing, he could quickly move at 100 miles per hour, which meant he could shift his position by up to 146 feet per second or 73 feet per attack. As long as he moved horizontally around his targets, he’d appear and disappear out of their lines of sight between attacks, which was precisely what he did.
He was up on top of the wall, had kicked the second goblin there, and was already moving toward the horde of goblins before they’d even reached for their ranged weapons. The first goblin in the horde found this out when he simply pushed that goblin's head into the goblin's right beside him, killing them both before he dashed off to the left around the outer edge of the goblins. Those goblins in front lost track of him and were turning to their right as he attacked the third goblin by shoving his head into the goblin beside him. He did this seven more times, killing a total of 35 goblins in that first turn and only getting hit by one stray bullet, which reduced his Shield of Protection to 640 of 700 points.
The goblins turned to and fro as Anton moved back and forth. One lucky shot from a handgun caught his shield again and inflicted another 10 points of damage on it, reducing it to 630 of 700. He thought of pushing some more energy into the Bracelet of Protection to max out the shield again but received an error.
ERROR!
Once established, the Shield of Protection will last until reduced to zero or 115.7 days, whichever happens first.
The Shield of Protection may be voluntarily dropped at any time.
Once deactivated, the Bracelet of Protection cannot create another Shield of Protection again for the amount of time that it was active, up to a maximum of 115.7 days.
That information hadn’t been in the initial write-up, but it made a bit of sense. There had to be a negative for a shield that could block so much damage. Still, he had something to do here and now, so he concentrated on combat again. He was far stronger than any of the goblins trying to attack him, so it was nothing for him to smash one goblin into another. A thought crossed his mind, and before he continued, he spent 10 convictions and activated the Sigil of Keres above his head.
On the first turn, he killed 35 goblins; on the second turn, 36; and on the third, 36 more. As he looked around for his next target, he noticed a shamanic goblin in a thick black robe holding a large staff, smiling at him evilly. He saw that the majority of goblins coming out of the tunnel continued south away from him as the robed goblin directed them that way. There was approximately 200 feet between himself and the Shaman, who seemed to be directing energy into his staff. Anton could cross that distance in a moment but decided to see what this shaman had up his sleeve. Just to be safe, though, he deactivated the Shield of Protection and allowed his Anti-Mage ability to come to the forefront of his protections.
Doing so prevented him from being able to absorb spells or utilize any magic he might have, but most lower magics wouldn’t be able to affect him, and even the higher-powered magics would have less effect. With a command word, the Goblin Shaman pointed his staff at Anton, and a ball of sickly green energy exploded toward him.
Anton watched as the ball moved toward him. He could have dodged, but he saw no point. Instead, he moved toward and into it. As the green boiling mass of magic touched him, it vanished, and Anton continued until he stopped one foot in front of Goblin Shaman.
Anton reached out, grabbed the Goblin’s staff, and yanked it out of the Goblin's grasp with his left hand as he reached out with his right hand and flicked the goblin in the head with the full might of his right pointer finger. The look of surprise on the goblin's face as he burst through the spell was compounded when Anton reached through his magical shield to grab his staff. The goblin’s look of surprise vanished when Anton’s right finger made contact with his head. The skull caved in as the goblin fell back and tumbled away from Anton, dead.
You have inflicted 10% of your normal 541 points of damage. 54 points of damage inflicted.
Congratulations! You have killed a level 105 Uncommon Goblin Shaman.
You have gained 10,500 XP
Error! Common Core NOT detected
Error! Class NOT detected.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Would you like to choose one of the Four Basic Classes—Fighter, Rogue, Mage, or Cleric? If you choose one of the basic classes, the SYSTEM will provide the required Class Core.
Or, would you like to acquire additional class shards to acquire a unique or rare class?
Note: Experience will be banked, and Class levels cannot be gained until a class is chosen.
Anton chose to wait. He should have no issues fighting anything in the Common or Uncommon ranks, and if that changed, he’d pick one of the common classes. As for cores, had he found any core, evolution or class shards yet? Anton checked his Notifications.
Congratulations! You have discovered Common Core Shards, Total of 9.
Congratulations! You have discovered Common Goblin Evolutionary Shards, Total of 8.
Congratulations! You have discovered Common Soldier Class Shards, Total of 6.
Congratulation! You have Discovered Common Lurker Class Shards, Total of 3.
Congratulations! You have discovered an Uncommon Shamanic Class Shard.
All Shards have been deposited into your Portable Exchange Storage.
107 Common Goblins, Average Level 31 Killed.
Focus here for the individual breakdown.
XP Earned: 33,170
XP Banked.
Copper Earned: 3,317
System Awarded Treasure deposited into your Portable Exchange Storage.
One Uncommon Goblin Shaman Killed, Level 5
XP Earned: 10,500
XP Banked.
Silver Earned: 105
System Awarded Treasure deposited into your Portable Exchange Storage.
NOTE: SYSTEM awarded Treasure will be deposited in your Personal Storage if space is available and then into your Portal Exchange Storage.
Items on the monsters or creatures killed must be recovered normally.
Congratulations! You have earned the Title Goblin Slayer I, +5% Intimidation toward Goblins +1 Bonus Damage when attacking Goblins.
1,000 XP awarded.
XP has been banked.
Anton’s attention was brought back to his surroundings as the horde of goblins less than 500 feet away split as half continued to the south, and the other half decided that Anton was to be their target. Just as he considered doing something, ranged attacks converged on him. Magical missiles, arrows, bolts, spears, and various other implements flew at and into him. They did nothing. Well, okay, they tore up his clothes and bounced, but they did nothing to him. The spells failed, and the arrows, even one that hit his eye, bounced off like the bullet had bounced off of Superman in “Superman Returns.”
Okay, then. They wanted to play hardball, and he had a magical staff that he didn’t need and that he didn’t have to break with his bare hands…Awesome. Anton threw the staff out over the horde and grabbed it with Telekinesis cast from his Bracers of Telekinesis. When the staff was almost directly over the hole in the ground that the goblins were coming out of, he stopped the staff there. The goblins that had turned toward him were making their way around the hole about 500 feet from him. Anton braced himself against the ground and visualized snapping the staff in two.
BOOM!
Everything within 512 feet of the staff died instantly, and those within 16 feet of the hole were vaporized. Anton, standing about 500 feet away, received 10 points of damage from the blast, which he ignored. The blast also caused the tunnel entrance to collapse in on itself and stopped the flow from below, which was what he had been hoping for. He quickly checked his Notifications.
2,621 Common Goblins Killed, Average Level 43
Focus here for an individual breakdown.
XP Earned: 1,127,030
XP Banked.
Copper Earned: 112,703
System Awarded Treasure deposited into your Portable Exchange Storage.
251 Uncommon Goblins Killed, Average Level 10
Focus here for the individual breakdown.
XP Earned: 251,000
XP Banked.
Silver Earned: 2,510
System Awarded Treasure deposited in your Portable Exchange Storage.
Congratulations! You have discovered 125 Common Core Shards.
Congratulations! You have discovered 110 Common Goblin Evolutionary Shards.
Congratulations! You have discovered 15 Common Soldier Class Shards.
Congratulation! You have discovered 17 Common Lurker Class Shards.
Congratulations! You have discovered 21 Uncommon Core Shards
Congratulations! You have discovered 25 Uncommon Goblin Evolutionary Shards.
Congratulations! You have discovered 16 Uncommon Soldier Class Shards.
Congratulation! You have Discovered 11 Uncommon Lurker Class Shards.
Congratulations! You have discovered an 9 Uncommon Shamanic Class Shard.
Congratulations! You have Earned the Goblin Slayer II through Goblin Slayer VII Titles. +35% Intimidation against Goblins. +7 Damage when attacking Goblins.
83,000 Bonus XP awarded.
XP Banked.
Anton closed his Notifications. The good news was that if he wanted to utilize goblin core shards, he could probably create a Common Core and a Goblin Evolutionary Core. As for a class, he could go for Fighter, Lurker, or Shaman class if he wanted to. He wondered if mixing and matching the class shards would create other classes. If so, he needed a better selection, and it looked like he was limited to 10 different shards when forming his class so he wanted ten really good class shards.
As he thought about how combining shards might work, he could see how that mechanism might work when creating an Evolutionary Core. He could mix and match 10 different shards to add new traits or get 10 Human Evolutionary Shards and remain mostly human and possibly improve something. Yeah, he wasn’t sure how that was going to work yet but he knew improving his personal evolution was on his list of things to try to do.
He had been fortunate enough to continue to have access to his Portable Exchange because there was no way his Personal Storage would be able to hold all those shards and coins in only one cubic foot of space. It sucked that he’d lost access to Maggen’s Exceptional Storage, though as soon as he could spend Skill Slots, he might try to purchase that skill if it was still available. More Storage space was always useful. Then again, it looked like Skill Slots were going to be extremely limited. Maybe he could find a spell that would allow him more storage space.
Anton’s attention was brought back to the ground in front of him when there was a rumble and the ground that had caved in shifted and reformed into a tunnel leading into the depths.
“What the Hell?” Anton asked out loud as Goblins began flowing out of the tunnel a few moments later. It looked like they were rushing up five at a time, side by side front to make with almost no room between them. The goblins on the opposite side of the opening, even those that had not died in the explosion, continued south out of the city. Anton rushed to the mouth of tunnel and started killing goblins.
He killed ten goblins by grabbing two at a time, slamming their heads together, and throwing them back and behind him before he stepped forward down into the tunnel.
He killed ten more goblins the same way and took another step forward down into the tunnel.
Instead of rushing, he kept up a steady pace and killed 10 goblins per turn as he moved down the tunnel one step at a time. That set up a rate of killing sixty goblins and taking 6 Steps forward per minute. After three minutes, the tunnel turned to the left, and he could no longer throw the bodies up and out of the tunnel, so he started dropping the bodies into his Portable Exchange storage. If each of the little shits weight about 100 pounds, he could store up to 8 million of them. He laughed as he had a thought. If he found some pompous ass that genuinely pissed him off, he’d have a ton of corpses to chock their dumb ass with after a bit.
Anton was shot and stabbed with swords and spears. A few shamans and even mages appeared, but as soon as they appeared, they died as there was no way for any of the goblins behind the first two rows to see what was killing them and target him before they died. He also noticed that the shards that were dropping only dropped on average once for every 10 goblins that were killed. In that first minute, he’d already picked up another 10 Common Core Shards and nine Common Goblin Evolutionary shards. He’d also picked up one Common Mage Shard, three more Lurker shards, and six Soldier shards. There had been fewer shamans this time, and he got no shards for that class. As he got into the rhythm of making his way underground, he realized that there was about a 10% chance for any specific type of shard to drop. That was good to know.
Anton continued down the tunnel for the next hour. It was slow going, but it wasn’t hard, just time-consuming. When he came to the end of the tunnel, it opened into an enormous cavern with goblins pouring out of the portal on the opposite wall. Every goblin in the chamber targeted him. In the next two minutes, Anton destroyed 432 goblins and made it to the portal. As yet, not a single attack had surpassed his damage resistance, and except for that initial shaman, he hadn’t run into another Uncommon Ranked Goblin.
Before he could think about it, Anton stepped into the portal. Whatever was causing this dungeon overflow had to be stopped. Once on the other side, he felt a wave of small bodies attempt to push against him. With a thought, he utilized his Bracers of Telekinesis to grab and hold all of the goblins in front of the portal, thereby corking and stopping the flow of goblin bodies. That gave him the moment he needed to ascertain the situation.
First, he checked his new notifications.
Congratulations! You have found the Entrance to Dungeon 001ALABORG
This is the First Dungeon to emerge on Terra
Note: This Dungeon is currently at over 1,000% occupancy.
First, that was a hell of a Dungeon name. Second, over 1,000%? Anton considered how he could handle this when he noticed a large glowing crystal floating in the center of the room. Anton kept hold of the goblin bodies with Telekinesis while he pushed his way through the goblins. He sure wished he could still turn into a Specter, but it was what it was. Those goblins that he walked toward tried to cringe away. One tried to attack him, which he killed and dropped into this Portable Exchange space. After it reappeared out of thin air a moment later, Anton ignored the attacks and just pushed forward until he was directly in front of the Crystal.
The Goblins near the large man-sized glowing crystal could not step within five feet of it due to a barrier that surrounded it, which Anton stepped through. Once inside, he reached out and touched the Crystal.
Congratulations! You have found the Labyrinth Genesis Crystal.
You have cleared…ERROR…The dungeon is not cleared.
Error! Barrier still active
Error! You should not be able to touch the Labyrinth Genesis Crystal.
Error! Conditions to release Labyrinth Genesis Crystal have not been met.
A Labyrinth Genesis Crystal? Had the Labyrinth also faded during the end of the 9th Iteration? If so, it only made sense that it would start over or go into a state of hibernation. Anton thought about it for a moment and then, while touching the crystals, asked, “State Criteria to release Labyrinth Gensis Crystal.” A moment later, new notifications appeared.
Labyrinth Genesis Criteria.
Supply Sufficient Energy.
Energy Types Absorbed: Magical, Psychic, and Spiritual.
The type and magnitude of energy absorbed determines the growth rate and rarity of the new Labyrinth and the rate at which it establishes new connections to the Multiverse.
Note: As part of the Labyrinth Genesis Process, this Dungeon and its Dungeon Core will be consumed.
SYSTEM Rewards will be granted to any beings that participate in this genesis process.
So, the Labyrinth was starting over and required a party to clear the dungeon and then initiate the process. Could he force the Labyrinth Genesis Crystal to begin the process on a timer or under a specific condition? Anton pulled up his Status Screen, interfaced with the Crystal’s menu since he was touching the Crystal, and noted that there was a functionality that would allow him to initiate the process based on a contingency setting.
Anton smiled as a thought crossed his mind. He never liked being told what to do, and he needed to see what would happen when he tried to cast one of his spells, so why not? Anton set the contingency trigger for when a fireball hit the shell to initiate the genesis process. If he was right, there were ten times as many creatures as were supposed to be in the whole dungeon. If they all died suddenly and the energy from his fireball was available, it should initiate the process and provide a lot more energy then was required, which would take care of the overflow problem, the goblins around him, and everything within a small radius.
The only thing that would suck was that he probably wouldn’t get any experience for the goblins that died, but he had some banked XP already. If he initiated the genesis, he should get some incredible titles and maybe even some cool rewards. Anton voiced his thoughts, just in case the SYSTEM needed help figuring out what he was hoping to get out of this.
“If this works, it sure would be nice to get some mythically rare shards for my core, evolutionary, and classes; just a thought.”
With that thought voiced Anton put all of his items into his Portable Exchange Storage area. As he stood there naked, he kept his left hand on the Labyrinth Genesis Crystal, made sure the contingency trigger was set, and then placed his right hand just outside of the barrier. With a smirk, he said, “I cast Magic Missile into the Darkness,” as he spent 100,000 Psychic Energy to cast his Master Ranked Fireball set to appear just past his hand, right outside the barrier surrounding the Labyrinth Genesis Crystal.
