Waking with a calm mind and relax body he gets up and starts his day with eating but not the usual lowest F-grade tainted meat but instead the new meat that appeared on the shop window the other day, it was normal F-grade tainted meat making it so he can begin to upgrade his beginner level taint resistance. although he is sure the resistance is only barely at the normal grade level due to only dealing lowest tainted meat.
It showed he truly was still only at the bottom of the totem pole for the tower as he only barely counted as a normal F-grade rather then the lowest grade, though the fact he counted as F-grade may be a jump as he is unsure what constitute the grade differences.
Next he enters the ring to begin his combat practice the first since his advancement, he is curious just how different the martial arts moves will be with the proper use of it.
He kills the first goblin quickly like usual, one wave after another comes quickly but once the 6th wave comes the change in his martial arts is clear as he cuts the speed goblin with ease making it seem like it was merely a little faster normal goblin and not something he could barely touch in the past.
The strength one is cut in half even through it's weapon and the mage is easy as always, but once he faces the speed and mage is where the change truly comes as he feels no trouble getting rid of the speed one.
So he reaches the further waves uninjured and by the time the fifteenth wave with the necromancer goblin comes he is uninjured and wasted little stamina to get here, he has plenty of energy to deal with them. First he throws his sword like a spear nailing the necro-goblin in the head next he dodges the speed goblins and mages while blocking strength goblins attacks, he gets his sabre and then kills the mage goblin near him followed by the speed goblin racing at him.
One speed, one mage, and two strength goblins are left of the fifteenth wave.
He deals with the mage one then the last speed one each falling with little difficulty now, the strength goblins are cut through with no trouble clearing the fifteenth wave.
He is now panting from the strain of such fight as he had to time all of his moves perfectly using both his martial arts enhancements and his energy detection, one wrong move and he would be injured but it was as though he instinctually knew the right call for each situation.
He goes on to the sixteenth wave and it is a goblin warrior a advance version of the strength goblin known for both some speed and strength, looks like all the waves will be goblin evolutions then.
He prepares for combat but the goblin doesn't straight out attack him like the other do even after he purposefully makes what seems like an opening, this one is even smarter then the speed goblin it seems. But is it so much stronger as well, he decides to attack and is shocked when he is met with a swing of it's sword that pushes him slightly back even with his 15 in strength.
He leaps back and the goblin stays put not chasing him despite his supposed weakness, it is cautious and powerful with decent speed it is almost exactly like a human.
He felt a certain thrill go through him like back when he was learning combat in his military training, all people of his country required two weeks of basic military training between the ages of 18 and 21 and he did his the week after his eighteenth birthday.
Now he was once more fighting against something that wasn't pure instinct and felt a certain thrill from the increase in trouble, he was always a adrenalin junky and this was a massive thrill.
Slowly he and it exchanged blows until he was panting and exhausted from the exchange, clearly wave two should be from normal F-grade and above but he can barely handle the first one much less the ones that will follow truly no wonder they say going to the second floor is certain death for those not at least about to become proper cultivators otherwise you can't even sense the thing before it kills you and this is simply floor two he wonders how much worse the other floors become.
Shaking his head he focuses back on his fight that is coming to an end with him barely outlasting the goblin warrior in mana though the thing is slightly stronger so if it had attacked from the start it would be on the winning side now, but with a blast of mana that takes down it's shield and cuts through it's sword I dig the sabre into its chest killing it in a final blow.
After this wave is finished he steps out of the ring as he knows he barely won this and has no stamina left so continuing to fight now was a waste of time, he looks at the 46 coins he gained in one go and smiles as getting through sixteen rounds means 46 coins.
He begins his study sessions once more and forges another iron ingots before going back to the ring once more, settling back into his usual pattern.
Until one day while fighting the warrior goblin he lashes his mana out in great concentration and breaks through it's defense in one go, killing it by exhausting only half his energy instead of all like usual he is shocked at this but the ding that comes lets him now he has done something.
-You have gained beginner sabre martial arts title rewarded {Newbie swordsman}
It was clearly a low level achievement but to finally get recognized for my sabre fighting after all this time feels incredible and he decides to continue to the next wave with his energy still half full.
The seventeenth wave comes with him seeing nothing until suddenly he feels a hint of mana causing him to jump to the side barely dodging an assassin goblin, an enhanced version of the speed goblin and nearly undetectable for even me until it attacks the deadliest of it's grade for the goblin species despite in stats being the weakest.
He knew he had no chance and so left the circle with a sigh of disappointment, he will need to increase his detection abilities before he can even think of scratching the assassin goblin.
He looks to the many iron ingots lying around from his practice forging and decides it is time to try and make the most basic item possible a nail, he has nothing to do for a bit and doesn't feel like fighting after that last attempt for a bit so he settles in for his first true forged item.
He picks up one of the iron ingots that is the perfect constancy and shape, one iron ingot can easily make 10 nails 11 if you can properly make use of the left overs.
But he will focus on making 10 nails perfectly rather then attempt to try and use the leftovers until he knows he can do the basics, so he heats the ingot and begins slowly shrinking one section into a thin cylinder shape with a flat large base and once the shape was right he cut it off with a mix of heat and the prongs slowly adding the last of the shape to the nail and once finished dropped into the basin of water before he started the next one.
He finished it with not enough to even think of trying for an eleventh, each nail can sell for 10 coins so 100 for the whole 10 but that only make back the price of his purchase not even enough to pay for all the things he bought for forging this one nail but that is the case for most low grade blacksmiths here in the tower they barely make due.
As long as one can become renowned in the future then they can skyrocket the prices of their items making far more then even those on the highest floor or so I have read on the trading window I have still yet to use despite my early access.
I have contemplated for a bit but have chosen to use it as it doesn't appear as rare as I had first believed so I put my nails up for sell at the base price and return back to forging more nails to continue practice, one by one I have nearly a hundred nails for sail on the trade site by the end of the day.
He sees them sitting there but is not worried people will buy them eventually and he smiles when he sees that his name and floor number are both question marks meaning to most he is on a higher floor then them and so they aren't allowed to see some of his information. Honestly he felt happy over the information protection given to beginners like him in the tower and felt that at least some fairness is given to new worlds like his.
The next day he does the sixteen waves then forges more nails while making a few iron ingots using the money from the nails sold since yesterday, although no profit has been made a small system has made to pay for his practice now so no need to spend the money he earns in the ring solely on blacksmithing anymore he can save up for more books.
He has the tower history book, the basic cultivation book, dwarven translation book, sabre martial arts manual, and basic blacksmithing book, so 5 books in total but almost all his money made these few years spent on it and the blacksmithing hobby.
Now he can begin buying the other martial arts manuals he thought of purchasing to practice, although he is doing well with a sabre he got it solely due to it being the easiest weapon for beginners to learn.
Now that he has access to better and more complex weapons he should try and find what fits him before he gets completely set in one way that he may later learn doesn't fully fit him and so he ends up having to unlearn far more habits then he already has.
Looking at the 2000 coin price tag for a basic dagger martial arts he begins his daily routine of making coins and practicing forging, he continues with ease each day coming with a certainty and safety of his continued growth even if slowly.
The new tainted meat enhances him in the same .1 amount the lowest grade one did and so he consumes it everyday like before, slowly his original schedule returns with each day more breaks coming up as the amount of nails he sold can't match with the speed of his forging for once and he finally makes an attempt to make an eleventh nail from a single ingot which although fails the other ten come out fine.
Until his stats are at the 15 mark and he is still unable to find and kill the assassin goblin, clearly this is not a wave solved by pure strength but skills.
He is once more reaching the bottle neck he so recently escaped from but doesn't feel upset as he knows he is far ahead of those on his planet as although he has been in here an unknown amount of time he still has had far more time then the others of his planet who simply skipped past the tutorial.
Status-
Strength-18
Speed-2.2
Agility-6
Intelligence-14
Regeneration-18
Detection-12
Health-18
Mana-130
-your mana type is purifying, beginning tainted energy resistance, beginning energy detection, beginning energy manipulation, beginner blacksmith, beginning
Although far from what he originally thought he would be he knew he was spending less time on cultivating and more on his forging and detection practice which was a lot of trial and error on his part as although the forging book gave a beginning spot he had no proper teacher and the detection was a complete figure it out yourself type of thing.
He spent hour simply trying to sense more miniscule and distinct things from the goblins he ties up but he simply couldn't tell anything past the surface, while he is doing better with his blacksmithing it is slow progress.
Slowly he was getting the hang of feeling more miniscule things, he can't sense the energy within the goblin but the way the world around him reacts to said energy can be sensed like the small breeze made by it dashing around or the small heat it naturally produces when it exhales.
Until finally he finally senses the assassin goblin for a moment through the exhale of breath it releases from the small vibrations that come by it stepping on the ground, he doesn't see it or even know it's exact position but he cuts it.
It is a small drop of blood on the sword that lets him know he even succeeded for the first time as he didn't feel the blade strike anything or even a resistance to the blade, he has heard that once someone learns how to deal with them they are easy to deal with but they have no physical resistance what so ever.
However the greatest increase from the sensing was with his forging as he realized that the energy in the blades themselves and the fire are not the sole thing going into the things he forges, every breath he takes and action he makes produces a small energy that effects the out come of whatever he is making just like the goblin can't hide it's footprint these things will also act like his.
He tries to breath as little as possible and move the item as little as he can but soon realizes it is a futile attempt as the things come out worse not better as the nails become almost sub-par.
He is unsure how long he has spent doing these things as he has simply ignored all but attempting to succeed even eating has slipped his mind a few times despite it being his only means to increase his mana in this place, it isn't until he truly finally collapsed due to mental exhaustion he realized how far he was pushing himself as he checked the amount of coins he now had.
He had obtained nearly 15,000 coins marking nearly another entire year spent solely on his basic forging and fighting the assassin goblin, but he cared little for that as he knew that he needed to earn as much as he can while still early into his learning task so when the advance things came he can buy it without worry.
He decided he needed something less physically taxing to calm his mind when he took a rest, so looked through the books available to him.
There are many potential hobbies for him even with his current location being as it may, but he saw one he felt happy with which was sowing. His mother used to force him to help his grandmother and her to sow things up as a punishment for ripping so many of his clothes, not that it stopped him but he was quiet sufficient in sowing and even in some weaving due to this and it would make it seem less like a chore and more like a relaxing hobby.
So he bought the needles and basic looms for only 100 coins before looking through the available fabrics and choosing the cheapest normal ones.
Slowly he let his body and mind relax as he did the one thing he knew was unnecessary for his situation but he needed to get his mind off his constant contemplations, one loop after another as he stitches a small scarf using the yarn he has bought making a knitted yellow scarf with a small butterfly in black on one end.
He feels the constant stress seep as he finally does more then train and sleep, a proper rest of simply enjoying himself.
After another nap he felt relaxed and rested so decided to focus on his blacksmithing bit by bit he forged the nails but soon felt his mind drift to the feel of his energy and soon had a new thought, he couldn't prevent the energy from leaving the items he forges so why not integrate it like weaving different strands of material into a single fabric. He slowly starts to weave the mana as he pounds on it, slowly he feels it lap over each other making it so the energy was evenly spread.
Once he finished the ten nails he heard a ding.
-You have crafted a purity nail, granting the title {Beginner energy weaver}