The lifestyle of the goblins appeared to be quite mundane, unlike what I would have expected them to be. I had probably read too much Goblins Slayers and thought they were more of a bloodthirsty kind. Instead, from my two days of observations, the goblins appeared to be involved in a generally normal lifestyle.
The stronger ones usually headed out to hunt while the younglings foraged around the forest for mushrooms, fruits and tubers. Those that remained behind in the village tended to other chores, like crafting straw baskets or simple wear. All in all, it felt like a really normal village and my interest waned except for the totem in the middle of the forest.
For some reason, my thoughts were kept drawing to the totem and it made me feel uncomfortable. It was also why I stayed for two days to observe the village and I noticed that my Faith Points remained at 8. I got the feeling that those damn bears were not fed hence they did not give their worship to me...
When night fell, I decided to return and see if I can get some Faith Points from the bears when I noticed the goblins had gathered around the totem. A small bonfire was lit and offerings of fruits and meat were placed on the flat stone before the totem. The scrawny shaman dressed in bright feathers and bone came out from the cave holding a roughly made bowl.
The male adults of the goblins all lined up one by one and took a pinch of something from the bowl and soon, there were loud pops like tiny firecrackers going off around the totem as the entire village suddenly started dancing and playing their equivalent of music.
I frowned as I felt my sense of unease grew stronger and stronger as the totem seemed to pulse with unnatural energy. Suddenly, there was a yell followed by a loud boom. I focus my sight on the source and found the scrawny shaman roaring into the skies. Muscles started developing on its body as if the goblin was doped up.
The shaman shook off the feathery cape and the bone vest snapped as it became too small for the shaman, whose sized tripled. All forms of music and dancing had stopped at this point and the goblins had all went down on their knees and bowed down to the shaman and were chanting something in their own language.
The once scrawny shaman, whose height was at most to my waist, now stood well over two meters and boasted a muscular body that would be envied in any iron man competition. But the problem was the shaman's head remained the same size and it made the creature looked lopsided and unproportional.
As I crouched on the tree branch frowning at the scene, I felt a sudden chill down my spine when I noticed that the muscular shaman was looking right at me! How could it be possible? I was about two hundred meters away and hidden in the trees!
The shaman gave me a grin and he crouched down slightly and leapt. My senses instantly told me to dodge and I did so, pushing myself off the branch just in time as the shaman smashed right where I was just moments ago.
I was shocked as I looked up at the creature giggling at me. It removed its hand half punched into the tree trunk and shook the splinters and wood sap off its hand and lunged at me again. I braced myself, using both my arms to block the attack and was sent flying into a tree. The force numbed my arms while the tree behind me jabbed me painfully when I impacted it.
"What are you?" I asked the giggling creature before me as I shook my arms to get some feeling back. "Why are you attacking me?"
"??? ???" The muscular goblin replied to me in some strange language before it rushed forward again, its speed many times faster than what a human could move. But I managed to see it coming and dodged in time. The poor tree behind me shattered after taking a second hit and I punched back, catching the suped up goblin in the chest.
It felt like I was punching a slab of stone but I felt something give. I quickly followed up with a kick and managed to send the mutated goblin flying back. The goblin recovered quickly and retaliated while still giggling. I blocked, punched and kicked back until the muscular creature's irritating giggling and movements ceased.
I stood over the creature and under the bright moonlight, I saw the light in the goblin's eyes disappeared. Groaning, I slumped down on my ass, feeling aches all over my body where I was hit. Even the skin of my knuckles were all bruised and bloodied which made me surprised as I was supposed to have a high physical defence.
The body of the goblin suddenly gave a twitch and seemed to deflate as it shrunk down and returned to its original form. That was when I saw how battered the body was from my beating. I shook my head and pushed myself to my feet up, and looked towards the lights of the village.
Whatever that controlled that totem must be a God or Immortal, and it must have sensed my divinity. It must have given some kind of power to the shaman and came to kill me, but luckily I managed to defeat its champion. Any hesitation vanished as soon as I was targeted and I ignored my aching body and headed into the village.
My appearance spooked the inhabitants of the village as I appeared out of the night. The goblins brandished crude spears at me but none dared approach. I stopped before totem and looked at it. The pillar made out of stone had carvings of some kind of runes covered all over and it radiated a strong aura of malice at my approach.
As I reach my hand out to touch it, the sense of malice grew unbelievably strong and caused stabbing pain in my head. I ignored the pain and pulled my arm backwards before shooting my fist out and shattered the totem. Almost instantly, the headache was gone and just before the feeling of malice vanished, I felt a strong sense of hatred directed at me before disappearing.
My actions seemed to shock the goblins as they stood there dumbstruck. An elderly goblin, I think, dropped to its knees and started crying and praying. And before long, all the goblins were on their knees crying and praying.
While I stood there slightly embarrassed by my actions, a notification chime sounded in my head,
An ancestral spirit? I looked down at the crumpled pieces of stone and picked up a piece. The rock felt normal in my name, no longer radiating any strange feeling or energy. I crushed the rocked in my hand and turned to face a small mob of crying goblins that seemed resigned to fate. Scratching my head and unsure of what to do next, I quickly left the village and found my way back to the bears who were piled up together and snoring loudly in the cave.
I sat down and leaned against one of them and gathered my thoughts. I checked my status,
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Divine Age : 0
World : Thear
Name : Neo
Rank : Lesser Immortal
Strength : 12 (+10)
Perception : 13 (+10)
Endurance : 1 (Disabled)
Charisma : 13 (+10)
Intelligence : 15 (+10)
Agility : 12 (+10)
Luck : 11 (+10)
Powers :
Immortality: +10 to all stats. Gain Accelerated Regeneration. Endurance is disabled. Unaging through the aeons, one does not require sustenance nor breathing. Diseases and poisons no longer apply and affect you. Eternal death is only granted upon the destruction of the Divine Spark located in the head.
Title :
Ancestral Destroyer: +1 to Intelligence. Gain an ability to detect malicious thoughts directed at oneself. Gain increased resistance against mental attacks. This ability is stackable.
-----
The title section was new and I found I gained a new title called Ancestral Destroyer which appeared to be stackable. Does this mean the more totems I destroy, the stronger my resistance against mental attacks become?
I checked the amount of my faith next and found I have 462 points in total. Finally! I smiled to myself, I can start unlocking some Divine Powers!
Once again, when I mentally opened the divine power page, it took a while before the whole tech tree like interface appeared. But unlike before, when all the buttons were greyed out, there were several dozen options that were highlighted!
I quickly looked through what was available with what faith points I have and to my slight disappointment, the majority of those were on languages of different races, but it also gave me an idea of how many races there were in this world, which was quite a lot. I saw the usual elves, humans, orcs, dwarves, draconians, centuars, goblins, halflings, tieflings and so on.
Skipping the options on languages, I next looked at what else was available. Basic magic, swordsmanship, martial arts, spearmanship, archery and so on. Almost every basic type of martial ability was available which made it hard for me to choose as I have no weapons at the moment but something made me felt very excited and it was basic marksmanship!
This meant that guns were available in this fantasy world! Woo hoo! And it caused only 250 Faith Points! It made my hands itch but I controlled myself as I checked out the other options. There was basic knowledge on almost everything, from construction to hunting, to arts and even storytelling!
It took me close to three hours to look through the options and I tried to sort them out accordingly to category. And even so there was a lot! First, there was martial, which controlled all things about fighting, then, magic, botany, crafting, construction, arts, religion, medicine, agriculture, science, mythos, languages, general knowledge, miscellaneous and finally unsorted.
There were just too many options and knowledge as if the entire secrets of the universe was right in my hands as long as I have enough Faith Points to spend! In the end, I did not spend anything as there was too broad of a choice for me and I had no idea what path would present itself to me yet. As I laid thinking of my future, the soft gentle snores of the bears were like a sweet lullaby that lured me into sleep.
I woke up to a violent licking session by the happy bears which covered me in their saliva. I shook them off in disgust and stood under the waterfall to wash bear glob off my body. Once I was done, I found the bears had enthusiastically hunted several large fat river fish and placed them before me while giving me looks of adoration and anticipation.
I sighed as I heard the notification of getting 4 Faith Points from the offerings by the bear and proceed to make a cook fire and started roasting fish for them. Watching the bears happily enjoy the grilled fish, I thought back to the goblin village.
Should I try to convert them to start worshipping me instead? There were almost forty or so goblins, which meant I can easily get ten times the amount of Faith Points from them instead. But I destroyed their ancestral spirit which they worshipped, would they be willing to switch sides so easily?
I should take a look and see if I can get any chance. I checked my Faith Points, seeing I have 466 points at the moment and knew if I needed to, I can unlock the goblin language at 200 points at any time. I gave the bears a pat before heading into the forest in the direction of the goblin village and it took me a couple of hours before I came to the vicinity of the village.
But to my surprise, as I approached the village, screams were heard coming from the village!