Jin's heart raced knowing that these were guards, they weren't just any regular humans that he would've considered pushovers, but he was determined to see his brother.
Jin pulled out his sword and pointed it at the crowd of guards before asking, "So which one of you am I going to fight?"
An old guard who seemed to be in his late 50's made his way towards Jin, "You're a hasty lad, aren't you?". He then let out a slight chuckle before continuing, "Fighting would be a waste of time, so how about we have a nice old monster hunting challenge?".
Jin let out a sigh of relief knowing that monster hunting would give him a better chance of winning and seeing his brother. The old man went over to the other guards, they seemed to be arguing about something, but Jin couldn't make out what exactly it was.
After returning, the old guard said "After some discussion with the others, we have decided that you will be competing against the newest guard, Jimmy".
After that, the old man left and a young man looking to be around his early 20s came out saying, "I want to let you know of two things. Firstly, I'm not doing this because I want to but because I was told to, and they also said I could get some money out of it. Secondly, even though you're doing this for your brother, I ain't holding back".
Jin could feel his cold glare, but it didn't deter him from his goal. Jimmy then said, "The scouts told us that 50 goblins are headed to this area in around 7 minutes, so get ready. Whoever kills 25 goblins first wins". Jin stretched and since he had some time he decided to test his theory.
Instead of focusing his mana on one spot, he thinned it out and let it flow through all the mana veins around his body. Jin suddenly felt an unfamiliar feeling, his entire body felt light as a feather and all his senses increased.
He never tried to focus his mana in one of his senses so this was a new experience as he could hear the goblins walking, smelt a foul odor like a rotten egg cooking on a hot summer day on a dirty street coming off them, and could even see little specks of green which he assumed was the goblins.
Jin waited for a couple of minutes and noticed that this lasted longer than any other time he used his power, but that thought was soon replaced as he saw multiple groups of goblins come into view and started trying to come up with a plan to deal with them.
He knew that his enemy wasn't easy, the amount alone was tough to deal with, but, even worse was that goblins are very good at helping each other, so this would be a real challenge.
Jin knew that the clock was ticking down as he looked at his opponent about to charge, so he quickly thought that he should go for the smaller group.
Jin then ran, pulling his sword out targeting a small group of 3 goblins and with a swift stroke he cut off one of the goblins' heads, taking it clean off, and it landed on the ground.
He channeled the normal amount of mana and followed up by kicking the goblin's head at the other two, and as they avoided it, he threw his sword at one of them while charging at the other goblin, smashing his fist into the little green monster's face repeatedly and finished it off with a hard stomp on its face.
Jin realized that the first goblin was about to jump onto him so he ran over to his sword, which missed its target earlier and which was stuck in the ground.
He jumped, taking the sword out while jumping, and then with a quick stroke, slashed the goblin's head off and when he landed on the ground he felt a wave of confidence and decided to rush over to a group of 8 goblins.
He surprised the group and managed to grab a goblin, slamming it into another, toppling them both and stabbed his sword into the ground, impaling the goblins. He then jumped up, and put his hand on the hilt of his sword, spinning and kicking a goblin into the ground, breaking its neck on impact.
Jin then grabbed a goblin running towards him and slashed its neck using the sword that was still embedded in the ground. Jin realized that he was missing one goblin, and saw that he was running to a group of eleven goblins, most likely trying to get their help.
He didn't care as he was focused on the fight in front of him, taking two goblins that were running at him in each hand and bashing them into a third one that was running at him before looking at the 12 goblins running at him, and formed a little smirk on his face.
He was surprised to see the goblins surround him instead of charging in, but didn't mind it as he started channeling mana, but instead of moving it all around his body he put it in his left leg and slammed it down into the ground, fracturing the ground around him and causing the goblins and his buried sword to launch into the sky.
Jin wasn't done yet, as he focused more mana in his body to make himself lighter and grabbed his sword, stepping on the goblins' bodies to get them off his sword, but also to help himself get momentum to get a clean strike at another goblin, cutting it in half.
Jin then leapt off of one of the protruding rocks around him, cutting down 9 goblins before landing on the ground and aiming a sweeping slash at the final three incoming goblins cutting their heads clean off.
He then jumped back up, looking for enemies, and when he spotted two goblins he jumped off a rock grabbing one by the head and crushing it, and piercing the other goblin and kicking it off his sword.
Jin looked around seeing that his opponent had teleported, killing a goblin, and was about to go after his final one, so he focused even more mana into his legs going after the other goblin.
As Jin reached close it was almost like time slowed down and a certain godly old man laughed, but as no one else could feel this, it looked completely normal when Jin slashed that final goblin's head off.
He looked back at the old guard who said, "Sorry kid, but Jimmy was a bit faster than you. He got the 25 first".
Jin felt his heart sink and thought of himself as a failure that couldn't even get to his brother, but the next words from the old guard gave him hope, "You almost won, so I'll give you another chance. All you have to do is touch me once, and I won't even fight back".
Jin looked at his status since he knew he leveled up.
---------------------------
[Name: Jin Jiyu]
[Age: 17]
[Race: Human]
[Title: None]
[Job: None]
[Level: 3]
[EXP: 23/300]
[HP: 110]
[MP: 70/140]
[Strength: 1.4]
[Agility: 1.4]
[Endurance: 1.1]
[Intelligence: 1.4]
[Energy: 1.2]
[Stat Points: 1.0]
[Skills: Body Compression Low Rank F]
[Techniques: None]
[Trait: None]
---------------------------
Jin decided thought a second before placing his points
[Name: Jin Jiyu]
[Age: 17]
[Race: Human]
[Title: None]
[Job: None]
[Level: 3]
[EXP: 23/300]
[HP: 110]
[MP: 70/150]
[Strength: 1.4]
[Agility: 2.0]
[Endurance: 1.1]
[Intelligence: 1.5]
[Energy: 1.5]
[Stat Points: 0.0]
[Skills: Body Compression Low Rank F]
[Techniques: None]
[Trait: None]
---------------------------
Jin bit back his urge to scream as he felt his body gain some extra muscle, which felt like a thousand little needles poking him and inflating, then trying to compress back into their original size.
He also felt his mana veins grow a bit bigger and connect to more places, cleaning up some of his impurities, while his mana pool in the center of his chest felt like it was being stretched out and filled with more than it possibly could fit. After a few minutes, he realized that his hand could grab onto a rock and crush it without any extra mana added.
Jin wanted to test some things out, so he decided to kill two birds with one stone by completing the daily quest. He went over to the guards and said, "I want to warm my body up a bit, can I go for a quick run?".
The rest looked a bit annoyed but the old man just said, while still smiling, "Yeah sure, but be quick, I don't wanna waste my time". Jin thanked them once again and started to run for 5 km before starting to do 100 push-ups, then 100 sit-ups, and finished off with 100 squats.
After he finished, he was sweating, but he just wiped it off with his shirt before running back to where they were at.
---------------------------
[Congratulations on completing your first daily quest]
[Daily Quest]
[Quest Name: Daily training]
[Difficulty: Rank Low F]
[Description: You are amongst the weakest within the population. You must train to get strong enough to survive in this hellish world. Therefore, you must go through hellish training. To be able to get stronger you need to do:
100/100 Pushups
100/100 Sit Ups
100/100 Squats
10/10 Km run]
[Rewards: Energy drink]
---------------------------
A can labelled
The old man just smiled and Jin took this as a sign to attack, so he charged at him with his sword, striking at him. Suddenly, a force field that was made of mana surrounded the man and Jin's sword made a crack, but when he went to swing again the crack was gone and his sword bounced back. The old man said, " Time is ticking, the more time passes, the stronger my shield gets".
Jin put some of his mana into his entire body and began to swing his sword on the shield, going at it from all kinds of directions, but he couldn't find a weak point anywhere. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and focused his mana in his arms and his hip area, swinging at the force field with all his might.
A hole opened but the old man was smiling, as the hole soon closed. But instead of the reaction he expected, Jin was smiling because he was having the time of his life fighting this man. If you could call this a fight, anyway.
Jin thought of an idea and decided to kick dirt at the force field to block the old man's vision, then threw his sword at it. He quickly ran behind it and focused mana in his hands, but before he could hit it, the shield expanded, so he decided to test something else, instead.
He put a little energy in his hands and dug his fingers into the force field surprisingly easily before climbing up, quickly grabbing his sword, and slashing at it, but was surprised to see it bounce back.
That didn't deter him, as he put 50% of his remaining energy into his arms as he swung down, breaking it and his sword. He fell and saw that the old guard had another force field around him now and so Jin took out his energy drink and chugged it down.
He felt a sharp pain as his energy returned, but he ignored it and focused all of it in his leg swinging down at the force field, destroying it and then immediately grabbed him so that he couldn't push him away.
The old man smiled and allowed Jin in. As he limped, he started looking around till he saw his brother.
Jin went up and as soon as his brother saw him, he ran and yelled, "BROTHER I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN!".
As his brother jumped into his arms, Jin fell over, since he used all his energy in the battles, so he just used his last dregs of energy to lift his arm and pat his brother and say, " Yeah buddy, I missed you too. And I'll never leave you again, I promise".
As soon as the words left his mouth, the energy exhaustion finally caught up to him and he passed out.