I went outside the city and started to walk towards the quest location. It was 40 minutes walking north-east of the city.
Before reaching the location though, I felt like I had to learn some more spells. 'One can never be too careful...'.
"Query! How to cast 3rd Circle magic?"
[Query Received!]
[Required FP: 400]
[Answer to Query: The basic 3rd circle spells are: "Cinder Arrow", "Frost Blob", "Force Push", "Rock Pillar". Some spells can be evolved : Ignition -> Scorch; Pebble Bullet -> Rock Bullet; Shadow Cloak -> Shadow Shroud. Casting 1st-2nd circle magic and evolved magic will now require lesser time to cast.]
I quickly learnt all of the spells. The basic principal behind all of the spells were the same, the only difference was that the mana flow and outcome was different. Just like how a phone and a tablet are basically the same thing, but different in size and battery life.
The only interesting spell was Frost Blob (I hate that name by the way...). It shot a blob of Ice Property mana at the desired location, and as soon as it made contact with anything solid or liquid, it instantly absorbed a lot of the kinetic energy in its surroundings. It was a good crowd control spell.
{*NOTE: Force Push is a gravity spell. It pushes the opponent away and deals some physical damage. All gravity spells deal physical damage.}
After power-walking for 30 minutes, I reached the supposed location of the goblin's hideout. It looked like a cave was created on the side of a small hill. It wasn't hidden well enough for me to miss it, but any ordinary Joe would definitely overlook it.
'The cave's entrance looks weirdly synthetic... like it's not natural...', I was confused by the appearance of the cave.
I paid it little mind as I casted an overcharged Shadow Shroud onto myself. It took me around 20 seconds to cast, which was 10 seconds better than before, which was quite good. The spell's effectiveness was also slightly enhanced, but nothing too grand.
I walked inside the cave, making almost no sound. I ran into 2 guards within a minute of entering.
They were definitely goblins. 5ft tall, their skin color was green, bright yellow eyes, long nose and long ears with some kind of hair growing behind them. They looked and smelled disgusting.
I overcharged Icicle Shot and sneaked behind them. When I was in range of their necks, I released the spell. The sharp icicles pierced their necks and they collapsed immediately. I also dismembered it's limbs, just in case they resurrected as zombies again.
'I feel like an assassin more than a sorcerer right now, haha...', I chuckled inwardly as I left the dismembered bodies of the goblins behind. I burn the bodies as I feared that the goblins might have an amazing smelling ability, and also, I didn't want to waste precious mana. The goblins didn't exude dark mana for me to absorb and replenish my reserves.
As I walked more into the cave, I came across a chamber. It was about 7ft tall and was 10ft in diameter. This chamber too was weirdly synthetic. It had 3 corridors in three random directions.
By now, I was suspecting that someone was creating these caves using some kind of method. I hoped it wasn't magic or something similar. I didn't want to face other mages or sorcerers just yet. I wanted to get used to my 3rd circle before any pvp.
I sneaked into the corridor closest to me and heard some noises. It was more goblins. 4 of them. They were wearing some kind of helmets and 2 of them had small daggers while the other 2 had bows and arrow-filled quills. They were much more geared than the goblins at the entrance.
One of the goblins seemed to have smelled something strange and warned the others. He then slowly walked over to my previous spot, which I had already left and picked up a roasted green finger.
I had cut off some fingers from the previous goblins and burnt them a bit. I intended to use them as bait to lure the goblins into traps.
As soon as the goblin realized what it was, he screamed and called over its allies. Whem all 4 of the goblins were nice and packed together, I discharged the Overcharged Frost Blob I had been casting.
The tennis-ball-sized, white-colored ball of Ice Property Mana hit the ground directly in the center of them and within a blink of an eye, all of the goblins, including some of the ground around them froze in place. They became like ice sculptures.
I walked up to the frozen goblins and destroyed the sculpture using a few Wind blades.
After that was over, I went inside the chamber those goblins were guarding. There were racks made of wood and some poles were erected out of the ground, which were connected with ropes at the top. Meat were hanging from the ropes and the heavier, more solid foods were kept on the wooden racks.
"useless...", I grumbled before heading back.
I went into the second chamber. there were 6 guards this time. I killed them all the same way I did with the previous ones.
This chamber was quite different. Very different. The noise that was coming out of that chamber were very disgusting. It was very clearly a 'Mating Room'. I didn't even want to know what kind of degenerate shit was going on inside that room. I didn't want to know if those were the noises of humans I was hearing. But alas... My greed of finding new things took over me. I thought, 'what if there's some clue about how these seemingly stupid goblins made an artificial cave like this?'.
I sneaked inside the chamber. What I saw was absolutely revolting. Goblins mating all together.
I was so disgusted, I almost threw up.
There were about 15 goblins total. Doing the deed all together. None of them had any clothes on, let alone armor.
I sealed the chamber's exit using rock wall and rock pillars, making something like a dam-type wall.
Some goblins noticed this and started shouting, alerting the other goblins. They still couldn't see me in the shadows, and just started to knock violently at the wall I made. I sneaked behind all of them, and casted an overchaged Icicle shot. The spell took out most of the goblins in one hit, hitting the survivors in the limbs or the torso.
The 7 survivors were all shaking and trembling in fear. Their "Happy Time" was now over and the cold grasp of death was all they felt.
I showed no mercy to the disgusting little goblins.
[Difficult Task Accomplished!]
[Task Level: 10]
[Reward: 100FP]
[Total FP: 120]
I recovered my mana by meditating for a few minutes, destroyed the seal I made by using Force Push on the weak spot I had purposefully put before, covered myself with Shadow Shroud again and aimed for the 3rd corridor.
The 3rd corridor was different from the others. It looked more polished and even more artificial. I was sure the creator of this cave was there.
I came across another chamber, just like the previous ones, but this chamber had a wooden door t its entrance. The door was plain and didn't have any designs on it, but it was still quite an impressive door.
The door was being guarded by 2 very tall and muscular looking goblins. It seemed like they were still unaware of my presence.
I used the same strategy, throwing out a charred finger and waiting for them to catch the scent and gather in one place. But the goblins didn't seen to care. They didn't even move.
They were just standing in front of the door motionlessly. It looked rather eerie. I didn't understand what was going on...
'what? are those goblins brain-dead or something? or are they just sleeping while standing.'
I sneaked near one of the goblins and attacked it in it's neck with a very long and sharp icicle.
The icicle pierced it's neck, but no blood came out. It didn't even flinch at the fatal wound that I just inflicted.
Instead, it's big, bright, yellow eyes were now fixated onto me and in one jerk of it's body, I went flying into a wall.
*AUGHH!* *DRUAHG*
'WTF?! WHAT IS THAT?!', I inwardly shouted.
Before I could make sense of what was going on, the door behind the goblins opened up, revealing a figure behind it. It was another goblin, but this one looked much older and had some white beard flowing down its face. It was also much more clothed than any other goblin, with a robe. It held a wooden staff with some kind of glowing purple crystal on top of it. The staff looked like a wooden branch, but I could feel some kind of ominous power flowing through it.
'A GOBLIN MAGE?!'