Joker opened the treasure chest up and found two items inside of it, both were white grades. The first one was a piece of sleeveless leather armor, a cuirass.
[Leather cuirass]
Grade: normal (white)
The most basic of leather armors, made for protection.
"better than nothing I guess.. Equip!", Joker said and the leather armor disappeared from his hand and reappeared on his body. All defensive type items could be immediately equipped, if one was able to use it due to the item's restrictions. As this was a normal grade item and they had no restrictions, Joker could immediately use it.
The second item he received was a pair of bracers, which also were a normal grade type. Joker also equipped them, without looking at their stats, he guessed there wouldn't be any effect on them.
The two items he had received were of really poor quality, but so were all items which could be used by beginners and even though he could probably fare pretty well without using them, there was no harm in equipping them.
The noise from his previous fight has attracted some attention, as there were now some people watching him from their windows, there was also some people walking on the streets now, watching him and his skeletons from afar, shocked by the corpse filled and destroyed state of the street.
"let's go!", Joker said and was now on his way. The info he had gotten from the last goblin was that there was around twenty more goblins on the way to the supermarket, where there would be even more goblins. It was a great opportunity for Joker, as he was headed in that direction anyway, because that's were one of his friends was living. He wanted to look for his friend Sergej, as he was the one who lived closest to him and he hoped he was at home. If he was there, Joker thought about whether he should try to clear the supermarket out on his own, or if he should take this opportunity to make Sergej get some experience. Depending on the number of goblins, Joker was confident of clearing the supermarket without putting Sergej to risk. If there was too many, he planned to stall for some time, with the support of his skeletons, so Sergej could get out. Afterwards he would use [Shadow Rush] to get out on his own. Wearing his sword, which was now sheathed again, on his left shoulder, he grabbed a cigarette from the back pocket of his jeans and lit it. Before he turned around the next corner, he could hear the goblin's squeaking, so he stopped there and took a peak. It was as the goblin said, there were twenty other goblins, surrounding a group of tied up humans, which consisted of three women.
Goblins were a race that had no females, they reproduced with other races females, the offspring all turning out to be goblins. They captured the women for that reason, Joker knew what would happen to them if they were brought to their camp. But now that he was there he wouldn't let that happen.
As soon as he unsheathed his sword, he stepped around the corner. "Charge!", he commanded his skeletons and as soon as he said it, Scars immediately rushed forward, followed by the other three. They kept their battle formation as in the previous fight, with Joker in the middle, who now rushed to the front. Just like before, he activated [Shadow Rush] shortly before coming into contact with his enemies, surprising them, so he was able to take out two of them immediately with two quick slashes. One goblin was charging him, swinging an axe directed at his hip, but Joker took a step aside, slashing open another goblin's chest and then stabbing the axe wielding goblin's chest in the next moment. In the meantime he saw that his skeletons were being pushed by the other goblins, who ganged up on them, forcing them further away from Joker who was now facing more than half of the remaining goblins on his own. He also saw one goblin standing in the back, next to the hostages which were tied up and gagged, screaming at his fellows. That one wore a leather cap on his head and had the best looking weapon, out of all the crude and rusty weapons the goblins were using. It was a mace with long spikes surrounding it's head in a circle. Joker was pretty sure it was their captain, or at least the designated leader of the little hunting group.
"Kill human, kill!", the goblin was screaming in it's language, with it's high pitched voice. Joker couldn't help but smile, while he deflected a dagger attack, making a goblin stab it's comrade instead of him. He stabbed the attacker, took a step to the side and while pulling his sword out of it, slashing another goblins face. He grabbed another goblin's arm, taking it's dagger away and throwing it at a goblin that was about to charge at him, hitting that goblin's eye. A moment later he slashed the goblin next to him, wielding his sword with both hands, almost splitting the goblin in two. Now there were ten goblins left, the leader included, who was now furiously swinging his weapon in the air, while screaming at the nine goblin's left, who were overpowering Joker's skeletons. His skeletons were badly damaged, many of their bones broken. Scars was missing an arm, while the others weren't looking much better. One of the skeletons stopped moving when a goblin's axe split it's skull open, so Joker interfered. He rushed the group that was attacking Scars from behind, stabbing one, while kicking another one in the face. The goblin he kicked fell against another one, both now lying on the ground, where Scars jumped them, strangling one of them while ripping a part of it's cheek out with his teeth. Scars' partner, the small female skeleton, killed one goblin in the meantime, making their numbers even. Joker attacked the other group, killing two of those as well and leaving the rest of the goblins to his skeletons, now charging the goblin leader.
The goblin leader was now squeaking, pulling one of the women by her hair and putting it's mace against her face. Joker stopped, the goblin now carefully observing him.
"let women got and you free!", he said in the goblin's language, surprising the goblin leader.
"You go away, then me let women free!", it answered.
*Ding*
[Level up! Level 3!]
*Ding*
[Skeleton - level up! Level 2!]
[Skeleton can now use one handed weapons!]
[Skeleton - level up! Level 2!]
[Skeleton can now use one handed weapons!]
[Skill - Raise Skeleton - proficiency raised!]
[One additional skeleton can be summoned!]
A look back to the skeletons and Joker knew why he leveled up at this moment. The other goblins were dead, the leader now being the only one left. Not only did he reach level three, two of his skeletons also leveled up and were now on level two, while his [Raise skeleton] skill had also went up one level.
"Skill info: Raise skeleton!", he whispered, keeping an eye on the goblin leader, while the window popped up in front of him.
[Raise skeleton]
Beginner rank level 2
Raises a skeleton from a corpse (4/16)
Mana cost: 10
"16!? When did I raise the max. amount of skeletons to 16?", Joker thought, before he remembered. His passive skill [Immortal Legion] quadrupled the amount of summons he could employ, meaning it would originally be four. So he was able to have one while he was at level one, now the original number would be 4? That didn't make any sense unless.. Joker thought that maybe he gained one more possible summon for each of his levels and one more for each level of the raise skeleton skill. He would check the next time he leveled up, there was no way to be sure now and he still had to face the goblon leader, who was threatening to kill one of it's hostages.
"Let women free and you can go, me promise!", Joker said, lowering his sword.
"Stop!", he commanded his skeletons, which were walking towards the goblin, immediately stopping them. The goblin was nervous, it didn't know how to react.
"Me promise, will let you go!", Joker said again and the goblin slowly lowered his mace. It pushed the woman away, turned around and started running away, when suddenly it felt something heavy hit it in the back. The goblin fell on the ground with it's face first. It slowly turned it's head to the side and could see the hilt of a dagger sticking out from it's back. Someone had picked up a dagger and thrown it after the fleeing goblin.
Joker was slowly walking towards it, lighting another cigarette, until he stood above the goblin.
"oops, look at that, I tried to pick the dagger up and it slipped from my hand and hit you. How unfortunate!", Joker said, before stomping down with his foot, crushing the goblins' spine. Took of it's leather cap, wiping his sword clean, before throwing the cap away and walking towards the hostages, which were now watching him nervously.
"Stick your hands out!", he said and cut the ropes, freeing the women. They were silently watching him, shaking and with big eyes. They had just seen him brutally slaughter twenty goblins, with the help of four moving skeletons and even though they were beaten and tied up by the goblins, the scene they saw was a bit much to process for them. One of them, a brunette with a bleeding nose, the right side of her face bruised, watched the skeletons and then she turned her gaze to him.
"Who are you? What are those things and what are those skeletons behind you? Why are they moving, what is happening here?", she asked him.
"Well.. Those were goblins, these skeletons are exactly that, skeletons. They are moving because I used a skill to raise them!", he said. HE tried to quickly explain to them what had happened to the world, giving them a brief explanation on how to access their character info, their skills, telling them that they should register their usernames and also warning them about the various monsters in the area.
"Sorry, I can't stay, I've got something to do. before you leave, I'd advise you not to use cars anymore if you're trying to get away from here. They attract too much attention and can be seen from the sky, flying monsters will probably attack you if you do. Walking attracts a lot less attention! Stay safe and good luck!", he said, walking away before they could react, leaving them speechless. He had seen that some people were watching from above, some behind the curtains of their windows, others had opened them up, so Joker had talked louder. He hoped the info he had just given these people could be of some use to them, at least they would be able to get their hands on some weapons and not be completely defenseless. Whether or not they would raise the weapons to fight was a completely different thing, but that wasn't his problem. He was on the way to look for his friend. Before that he had to distribute his the stat points he had received from his level up. This time he invested all of his points directly into the intelligence stat.
[Joker]
Class: The Immortal Emperor (5 stars)
Class description: Relying only on yourself you will stand at the pinnacle of all necromancers. Your enemies will tremble in the face of your armies, while you lead thousands into battle.
Level: 3
(Available attribute points: 0)
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 8
Agility: 11
Vitality: 7
Intelligence: 38
Mana: 120/190
After putting all ten available skill points into his intelligence stat, it should now be at nineteen, but his passive skill [Superior Mind] doubled his intelligence stat, leaving it at thirty-eight, making his amount of mana skyrocket, as every point in intelligence gave him five mana. That should be enough for him to raise some more skeletons now, without having to wait for too long, for his mana to regenerate. He looked at the four skeletons he already had, now all healed up and two of them equipped. Scars and one of the other skeletons had reached level two and were now able to wield one handed weapons, so he had made each of them pick up a weapon. Scars was now wielding the goblin leaders' mace, while the other goblin held a short sword in it's hand, which was the least shitty weapon out of all the weapons the goblins had used. He thought about putting the other weapons into his inventory, a sub space everyone had, where people could store a certain amount of items, but he left the rest of the weapons there. They were bad and he knew that there would be enough other weapons at the supermarket he was heading to.
When he went around the next corner, filled with more corpses, he raised another six skeletons, so that he was now commanding ten skeletons. He could have raised another six, but chose not to for various reasons. He didn't want to blast all of his mana on his skeletons, so he could still use [Shadow Rush] in case of meeting something dangerous. Another reason was that less skeletons meant less attention, even thought his small group wasn't very decent. The skeletons had proven to be of some use, but he did not want to solely rely on them. After walking a couple of minutes more, during which he had not encountered either monsters or humans, he turned right at the next corner and he finally saw his goal. The supermarket he was headed to. The parking lot in front of him was littered with corpses, most of them human, but some belonged to goblins and various other monsters. It looked like there had been a fight here, now the goblins were slowly dismembering the corpses. He also saw his other target was a few dozen steps away, the building his friend was living at.