Rowan made his way around the forest, flying around rapidly in search of more experience. He headed deeper into the forest, there ought to be more monsters there.
And right he was.
Swoosh
Something was flying towards him quickly, it looked like a hawk, but much bigger. Rowan could see that it had locked onto him, claws and beak gleaming in the sunlight, ready to tear him apart.
Unfortunately, Rowan had the perfect skill against such opponents, even more so with it coming at him head on. Rowan immediately activated Taffy Ball, and shaped into a large net quickly, thanks to his stats granting him a greater degree of control over his confections. If his stats weren't what they were, his Hot Chocolate skill wouldn't be as potent as it was, and the same applied to his Taffy Ball.
[98/100]
The hawk's eyes gleamed with intelligence, changing it's direction upwards instantly, avoiding the net. It dived down rapidly, seemingly have just activated a skill, allowing it to go even faster.
Rowan activated another Taffy Ball, again in the shape of a net, and spread it outwards.
[96/100]
Seeing that, the creature activated another skill, shooting out sharp blades of wind, cutting through the thin net. It rushed through the broken net, only to meet the second, and cut through it again.
Swoosh
Suddenly in the next moment, the nets that were cut came back together, closing in on the hawk on all sides. It was over, there was no more dodging, and whenever the hawk cut the net, Rowan would make it come together again.
One of the properties of taffy is that it's especially sticky, and these properties were enhanced by Rowan's stats. The only reason that the hawk could cut through the taffy, was because they were thinly spread out. If they were lumped together, it would take more than a couple of wind blades.
Rowan watched as the hawk struggled, up until it stopped moving. He wanted to know if Sugar Overload would work on animals, like it did to humans. It appeared that debuff didn't discriminate, regardless if the creature was human or not, Rowan knew that the amount of stacks and the tolerance of those afflicted were factors to consider. If he tried to do this on a dragon, as opposed to a human, who knows how was stacks it would take.
Why use a dragon as an example? Well, if goblins are indeed a recent thing, then wouldn't there be other fantastical creatures? That was Rowan's take on this.
He now realized one of Sugar Overload's drawbacks. But, he feels like he hasn't fully explored all of the potential that Sugar Overload has. If he stuck many, many confections on a dragon, would it hasten the rate of Sugar Overload stacks? How long does the debuff last? Was there limit to the amount of stacks?
Rowan was very curious about all of this, but he felt he would know in due time, as he racked up more experience.
Aside from that, Rowan also thought about the monster carcasses, he couldn't really do anything with them. There didn't really seem to be a market or demand on them, at least not on a large scale, further reinforcing his idea that the monsters were recently introduced. He couldn't really craft or make use of the corpse, he had no clue how, nor did he have a class related to it.
What he could do, though, was cook it up and eat it. Thinking so, he brought the carcass into the basket, saving it for later. He still needed experience.
Fwoosh
Rowan sped off in another direction, looking for more enemies.
'Bingo.' He thought, setting his sights on another group of goblins, this time he found their base directly. He implemented the same strategy that he did on the first goblin cave, the goblins stood no chance.
An hour later, Rowan could be seen located at the end of a cave, the goblins were all dead. This cave was much bigger, so while tedious, it was still quite easy. As with before, most of the creatures mindlessly rushed into Rowan's skill, all suffering the same fate. For those that tried to run, they were killed anyways. when Rowan reached the end of the cave.
'Interface. I should have gotten a couple of levels from that.' Rowan thought.
He had leveled up four times. This time, 10 points went to strength, 5 points into constitution, and 5 points into intellect.
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Name: Rowan
Race: Human
Title: None
Class: Confectioner
Level: 12 -> 16
Exp: 75/100%
HP: 200/200 -> 225/225
MP: 150/150 -> 175/175
Stat Points: 20 -> 0
Str: 20 -> 30
Con: 20 -> 25
Dex: 4
Int: 20 -> 25
Traits: Sugar Overload 5★, Intense Aroma 1★
Abilities: Taffy Ball 1★, Hot Chocolate 2★
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Rowan thought that his strength stat was the most important, because that correlated directly into his offensive abilities, like hot his Hot Chocolate is or the integrity of his Taffy Ball. Needless to say, there were also his increase in control and other aspects improved as well.
Rowan was immediately presented with a prompt again, and as he thought, it was an active ability. Personally he preferred traits, as it didn't use any mana, but he knew that active abilities were needed as well. Traits and abilities work in tandem.
[Please select an ability.]
Rowan's rolls this time seemed a bit lacking, compared to before, the skills here seemed more like utility skills. He noticed that Licorice Whip showed up again, and he honestly didn't think it was that good, so he crossed that out of his choices, leaving Gingerbread Man and Chocolate Coins.
Chocolate Coins seemed useless because he could do the same thing with his Hot Chocolate skill, only that it would look like the currency, and not truly emulate it as the Chocolate Coin skill denoted. He has only come into contact with copper coins and silver coins, so he would be limited to that. The skill seemed interesting, he could cause inflation and cover his money problem, but he ended up choosing Gingerbread Man instead.
The reason? Well, he could just sell his own candy and make a vast amount of coin, he saw it happen firsthand before in his previous world. The companies that produced them would attest to that.
After confirming, he immediately activated the skill, to test it out.
[210/225]
Summoning a minion cost 10 mana, quite a bit for him.
He saw it forming right in front of him. It was bigger than him, and although that may be so, he felt like he could shrink it down for no cost. As long as his stats were high enough, he could do it.
The minion looked exactly as he remembered from his previous world, this was a favorite of his in his last life. There was white icing that made up the signature smiley face, winding line around the limbs, a green bowtie, and red icing for the buttons in the middle.
He wanted to test how strong it was, flying around until he found a group of goblins, and one goblin among them looked different. It had a staff, and was covered in rags, acting as a cloak.
Flying above the group, which were starting to notice him, he made the minion jump off to engage in combat.
Boom
After landing, the gingerbread man, waved it's arms around. Although it seemed crude, it did the job. The goblin holding the staff was smashed into meat paste, without even being able to activate even a single ability.
The other goblins surrounded the gingerbread man, stabbing and cutting at it with their weapons, to no avail. There were small scratch marks and indents, but that was it.
One by one, the goblins were turned into meat past. The goblins kept yelling shrilly, calling in more goblins, they thought that the enemy would be finished once ganged up on. The goblins all seemed to be coming from one direction, most likely another cave, this time they seemed more prepared.
Rowan seemed to have underestimated the skill, it had potential.
'Wait, could I make more than one?' Thinking such, he activated the skill again.
[195/225]
A moment later, another minion was before him. Now, he knew that he could make them indefinitely, as long as he had the mana. Although, the drawbacks were that they couldn't be mashed together or patched up, like his taffy when it was cut or melted chocolate. They were a one time use, and if they were destroyed or broken he would have to summon more.
After that, he tested out what would happen if they moved out of his range of manipulation, and as suspected the minions just didn't move at all. He estimated that his range was about 15 meters, give or take.
Rowan directed the minions towards the cave, walking a distance behind them, to ensure they didn't get out of range. After the two went into the cave, he could he goblins' shrill screams again, before they were silenced by the minions.
Half an hour later, two bloodied gingerbread men, full of scratches and indentations, were before him. This scene was sure to deal a blow to the morale of future enemies.
'Interface.' With that done, he checked his gains again.