With the help of his enhanced vision, Punk saw about six or seven little green-skinned monsters, who were hiding in the bushes, which was about one person tall. Punk felt very amused because these were the same common beginner-level monsters of all the online games on the earth. ---Goblins.
Goblins were related to Gnome. History and genes both have proved this, but no Gnome would ever accept this fact. After all, Gnomes were once a member of a very prosperous Civilization that was very famous among many planes because of their creation of the "War machine." Although their civilization had now fallen, they still despised these so-called relatives, "Goblin," who had remained uncivilized from the ancient times to the present times.
Goblins were as tall as a human child. They had a large eagle-like nose, a disproportionately big head, and every single one wore a kind of tattered animal fur as cloths. Because of this, they looked more like a group of a hungry mob than a group of ferocious robbers.
Although these goblins had the bad habit of bullying the weak while fearing the strong, that didn't mean that they were less dangerous.
They had the strength of an adult human, and they were as flexible as monkeys. So, it usually takes two ordinary militiamen to deal with one Goblin.
So even these few goblins had the combat power of a militia squad.
Judging from these goblins' location, their original plan should be to ambush a Reindeer group in the distance coming to the river to drink water.
After all, they were not very good at hunting something with great speed like Reindeer because of their short legs.
But now, these little monsters with limited intelligence obviously have changed their goals. They tightened their grip on their stone axes, indicating that they were now focusing on the closer and seemingly weaker target, "Punk." But of course, Punk was not a helpless prey.
Punk stood calmly and took out the small piece of rabbit fat from the pocket of his robe.
Generally, any creatures with an IQ of 50 or above would choose to attack when they see a mage, who was preparing spell materials, but this group of stupid Goblins thought that they have not been discovered. So, they were just waiting for "the prey" Punk to approach their attack range.
With the help of triple assistance of casting materials, hand gestures, and spell chants, Punk released an apprentice-level summoning spell in less than two seconds.
A big cluster of Astral Oil was created inside Punk's mind palace and then summoned into reality by the power of magic. The rabbit fat in his hand slowly disappeared and was replaced by a basketball-sized cluster of Astral Oil with white flashing light dots in it.
As the last syllable of the spell was completed, Punk threw this cluster of Astral Oil at the large bush, where the goblins were hiding. Although this spell had a small ejection array installed, its speed was not too fast compared to the "secondary catapult" spell, which was as fast as a sniper bullet. But even this speed was not something that a group of unprepared goblins could react to.
And the Astral-oil drenched the entire bush and the goblins inside. Seeing this happen, the little monsters were taken aback. They jumped out of the bush and wanted to leave, but they fell to the ground again and again because of the Oil's very slippery nature. They were struggling wildly but still could not stand up, let alone run.
After casting the Astral Oil spell, Punk quickly began to prepare for the next attack. This time the spell he cast was the simplest spell of any faction-"normal fire." This spell had extremely low lethality, and its primary function actually was to make a fire, but when used with compatible AOE spell-like "Astral oil," it could produce a tremendous effect.
Because the fire spell was so simple, Punk took only about a second to cast it. The orange-red tennis-ball-sized fireball flew out immediately after the astral oil spell. And It hit the bush covered in Oil. The Astral Oil was more flammable than Punk imagined. The whole bush quickly turned into a giant fireball, which produced a high temperature of nearly a thousand degrees.
Even in the early morning when the temperature was still low, the enormous fire created a circle of heatwaves around it. As for the unfortunate goblins who were inside, except for those wearing thick leather armor, enabling them to rush out a bit farther, most of the other goblins only had time to emit a chilling scream before turning into ash.
The big fireball ignited by the astral Oil burned out quite quickly. And after about a minute, it was completely extinguished. It was this quick partly because of the tender season when the plants contained a lot of water.
After the remaining wisps of smoke also dissipated in the wind, a tragic scene was revealed unabashedly. The bush had been burnt entirely at the very beginning, and now there were only a few charcoals left on the ground.
"Sure enough, this is a real-world; it is better not to be delusional and think there will be items drops after killing monsters."
When Punk saw this situation, he murmured lightly and strode towards the burned area.
Punk kicked a piece of charcoal away with the soles of his shoes because there was nothing except for few parts of pitch-black stone tools.
Punk rubbed the soles of his shoes against a river-side rock and then continued his journey. As he walked along the riverbed, he couldn't help but recall the goblin corpses that had fallen victim to his own spell. Surprisingly, he didn't feel disgust; instead, a faint excitement simmered at the depths of his heart. Perhaps it was because those bodies had been so thoroughly incinerated that they were no longer recognizable. Whatever the reason, Punk believed it was a positive development, a means to help him adapt to this world where the weak served as prey for the strong.
Punk was walking along the riverbed. The river water was gently taping the shore. Many fish with glowing blue horns were swimming in this part of the river; thus, the whole river was scattered with blue light dots.
In the sky, two suns were slowly moving towards the center, one was small with an orange glow, and the other was huge with a red shine.
...…
Finally, In the afternoon, Punk noticed a small village in the distance.
This village had the most typical characteristics of a poor medieval village. There was a fence around the village made of tree branches with different lengths and diameters. The fence wall was so broken that it was now more like a boundary line for the village because it would surely not provide any defense against wild beasts. Large tracts of irregular and scattered farmland were separated by winding narrow roads. There were few houses or more like few shacks stacked together in the middle.
Working in the field, the villagers were very thin with yellow faces; if someone saw them in the dark, they might think they were undead skeletons.
The villagers were weeding in the field with wooden tools, and a tall man with a hideous face was standing next to them, holding a whip. He was patrolling the area, and whenever he encountered a slow working person, he would
whip them. In the Pheren plane Landlord system was one of the main social structures. So These farmers worked under a landlord.
As Punk was walking through the narrow road, some peasants secretly looked at Punk, who was well-dressed and very handsome. But, when they noticed the mages' standard objects, like the staff and the magic robe, they quickly lowered their heads and continued to weed the grass as if they didn't see anything. Still, few children kept looking curiously even when they were forcibly dragged by adults.
Punk did not have the time to pay attention to the reactions of these villagers. He was already a little disappointed when he found out just how run-down this village really was. So now he just hoped that this poor village still had communication with the outside world so that he can inquire about a town.
But of course, he wouldn't ask these ignorant villagers who were obviously very minor characters, so he beckoned to the tall man who looked like a sort of henchman.
"You, come over here."
Punk said blankly. His voice was not too loud nor too small, just enough so that the tall man could hear it.
But when the tall man, who was fierce and vicious to the peasants a few moments ago, heard a mage with unknown origin was calling him, he became very frightened. Still, as a shrewd man, he knew what could happen if he angered a mage, so he quickly ran over with slightly trembling legs.