"Hmm? Is it really that safe?" At this moment, Zhang Yanhang was already ambushing near the staircase entrance, since he had found that there were actually no monsters at all in the corridor, making it eerily safe.
The three minutes flew by in the blink of an eye, and Zhang Yanhang, lost in thoughts about Ashen World, suddenly heard the patter of footsteps coming from downstairs, and they were quickly drawing closer.
About ten or so seconds later, Zhang Yanhang suddenly saw a green-skinned monster, less than a meter tall but cloaked in a black robe and carrying a sack on its back, dart in front of him.
Zhang Yanhang, crouching behind the wall, grabbed the sack from the goblin's back and pressed it to the ground in one smooth motion, not having time for second thoughts. He then smashed his knife mount onto the goblin's head, not once, but three times in rapid succession.
When he struck the first blow, the goblin's limbs suddenly twitched, blood began seeping from the back of its skull, and then came the second hit—smashing the goblin's crimson eyes outwards, flattening its head—finally, the third strike shattered the yellow-green skull altogether, causing green brain matter and green blood to splatter irregularly across the nearby walls and floor.
Overall, Zhang Yanhang's preemptive ambush was carried out with swift precision, the whole encounter taking just a few seconds—so quick that the Wandering Goblin Merchant didn't even have the chance to accuse him of a lack of chivalry before it was killed on the spot.
[Successfully slain a First Tier Three Star Monster 'Wandering Goblin Merchant (Elite)' ×1, Soul points +30.]
"As expected, you gain Soul points by slaying monsters, huh? And with soul points, it seems I can upgrade, right?" Zhang Yanhang didn't dwell on why a notification message would pop up after killing a monster—given that levelling up through combat was possible, wasn't a notification message also quite normal?
[Soul points: 30]
Zhang Yanhang casually checked his Soul points balance, then noticed it had indeed changed. Where before there had only been a '0', now there was a '3' in front of the '0'.
Next, Zhang Yanhang began searching for the so-called 'interesting things', but after looking around, he found only two items on the goblin: one was the sack it had been carrying on its back, and the other was the black robe it had worn.
It seemed the sack contained some items, which Zhang Yanhang decided to take back to his room to inspect. The black robe? It was nothing but a tattered piece of cloth, now also stained with the goblin's green blood, deterring Zhang Yanhang completely from taking it; thus, it remained on the goblin's corpse.
Once back in his room, Zhang Yanhang changed into clean clothes before sitting back on the bed. Some of the goblin's blood, having been caught by the black robe, had still splattered on his clothes. If this had been ordinary blood, it might have been fine, but the goblin's green blood had a stench like rotten eggs, which Zhang Yanhang found rather unbearable.
Sitting back on the bed, Zhang Yanhang began to reflect. It was, after all, his first time hunting a monster, and he hadn't performed particularly well. The knife mount had to take the primary blame for that—if he had used a hammer instead, he was sure he could've smashed the goblin's head open with a single blow.
Moreover, he was aware that the goblin had died from the first blow, when its limbs twitched because he had heard the notification message. But believing it to be some kind of auditory hallucination at the time, for the sake of certainty, he struck the second and third blows until the goblin's head was completely crushed, resulting in him being splattered with green blood.
It wasn't until later, when he checked his Soul points balance, that he realized the notification message he had heard was actually real.
In the future, when going out to kill monsters, Zhang Yanhang would learn from this lesson; as soon as he heard the kill notification, he would cease any overkill actions. Likewise, if he didn't hear the kill message, he would continue to unleash his attacks until the notification finally came through. In any case, the kill notification would be his standard for judgment.
After reflecting, Zhang Yanhang took out the sack he had picked up from the goblin and dumped its contents onto the floor. Most of it turned out to be useless junk, but among them were two conspicuous items: one was a broken greatsword, not only nicked at the blade but also snapped in two, and the other was a quaint little box.
Compared to the broken greatsword, Zhang Yanhang felt the little box had a higher chance of containing a surprise, so he decided to open it and see what was inside.
The moment Zhang Yanhang laid his hand on the small box, a notification sounded in his ear.
[Would you like to open the 'Goblin's Prank Box'?]
"Yes, open it." After Zhang Yanhang confirmed the opening of the box, Time Pause suddenly descended, and a text box, like nothing he had seen before, appeared before his eyes.
[Please choose the specific content of the 'Goblin's Prank Box'.]
[Item One: ?]
[Item Two: ?]
[Item Three: ?]
[Item Four: ?]
[Item Five: ?]
"There are actually treasure boxes in Ashen World too? That's just fantastic." Zhang Yanhang was quite fond of opening treasure boxes because they usually meant high randomness—and his Multiple Choice superpower could turn that randomness into concrete options. This meant that as long as he opened treasure boxes, he was bound to find good items.
He had verified this previously when playing games. Even with pseudo-randomness constructed from data, his Multiple Choice ensured he always got the best option, like pulling ten SSRs from a ten-pull gacha—he had experimented before and achieved it easily.
Unfortunately, not long afterwards, the game company detected abnormal data patterns, and they banned his account. Of course, the company didn't ban him just over a single ten-pull of ten SSRs—it was mainly because Zhang Yanhang tried several more times afterward, each time guaranteed to pull SSRs, until he emptied the entire card pool and used the excess Fragments to max out all his SSRs.
Afterward, Zhang Yanhang had tried to appeal for an account unban, claiming it had been his recently awakened superpower, which he had no control over yet, but it was to no avail. It was indeed a sad story.
To this, Zhang Yanhang just wanted to say: he really hadn't cheated. How could you call an Awakener's abilities cheating? That was just making reasonable use!