In the deep forest of the dungeon, thick tree leaves blocked out most of the sunlight, and the ground was covered with layers of fallen leaves.
As soon as Lucas and his team entered, they noticed goblin corpses scattered everywhere.
"Looks like Seraphina's team has gone pretty deep," Lucas muttered, frowning. It was clear the earlier team had cleared a lot of goblins, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
Jeff glanced around warily. "According to what I gathered, the evolved goblins should show up in this part of the forest. We need to be careful."
Before he finished speaking, they spotted a large, lush tree deeper in the woods. Lucas's eyes lit up as he stared at the tree.
"Wait here. I'm going to grab some berries!" he shouted to the group.
Without giving them time to react, Lucas sprinted towards the tree and began climbing it, searching for the energy-restoring berries.
"Berries? Here? In a dungeon?" Emily asked, clearly confused.
Jeff shrugged. "This is a dungeon. Weird things are bound to happen. But I wouldn't trust every plant here—who knows what kind of freaky effects they have."
Jack, unfazed, simply asked, "How does Lucas even know there are berries up there? Has he been here before?"
"Hey! There really are berries!" Lucas shouted from the treetop. He picked the bright red berries, shocked to see that this tree looked exactly like the one in his game.
His mind raced—was there some mysterious link between the game he played and the real-world dungeons? The way things were overlapping was getting weirder.
Suddenly, chaos erupted.
"Watch out!" Jeff yelled, breaking the calm.
Three throwing goblins appeared from behind the trees, hurling stones straight at the group. Even with their armor, the impact sent them stumbling backward, feeling a sharp pain in their chests.
"These aren't just regular goblins!" Emily gripped her weapon tightly, her face tense.
"Yeah, these guys are way stronger than the usual ones!" Jeff grumbled. They had been plowing through regular goblins easily, but these evolved goblins were different.
One stone was enough to make them feel serious pressure. Without their armor, they'd probably be seriously hurt.
"Don't panic. They hit hard but have weak defenses. Get in close, and we'll have the upper hand." Lucas activated his Frost Shield, ready to jump into action.
From his vantage point in the tree, he scanned for weaknesses in the goblins below. He knew there were even stronger magic-wielding evolved goblins lurking in the forest.
"Cover me! I'll take them down!" Jack shouted as he dashed forward, sword in hand, turning into a blur as he charged at the goblins.
Jeff and Emily immediately spread out to confuse the goblins, giving Jack an opening to strike.
Lucas watched from his tree, amused but also calculating. "Looks like Jack's going for the speedy playstyle. Bet he's aiming to be an assassin when he class-changes."
Despite being ranked near the bottom of their class, Jack was impressing Lucas with his combat skills.
With a swift slash, Jack reached the nearest goblin and sliced its head off like it was nothing.
"These guys have paper-thin defenses. But man, they sure pack a punch." Jack wasted no time and swiftly took down the other two goblins.
Lucas nodded approvingly from his spot in the tree. "Yeah, assassin-types definitely work well against magic monsters like these."
A sudden idea popped into his head, and he couldn't help but get a little excited.
"These goblins are a pain," Jeff muttered as he inspected the goblin corpses. "But check this out—their energy crystals are twice the size of the regular ones!"
Emily walked over, her expression serious. "If the throwing goblins are this tough, the boss is going to be insane. We need to pick up the pace, or we'll lose out on the top ranks."
"Let's head east." Lucas jumped down from the tree, glancing around. The west and north sides were littered with goblin bodies—likely cleared out by other teams.
The east side seemed untouched.
They moved out, and Lucas nonchalantly pulled out his phone, eager to test out the wild theory swirling in his mind. Emily, Jeff, and Jack barely reacted—they were used to Lucas and his gaming habits by now. To them, Lucas was a lost cause—a hardcore gaming addict beyond saving.
This time, instead of selecting his usual gunner role, Lucas decided to create a brand-new character.
"Ding! Character creation successful. Attributes focused on agility. Would you like to start the game?"
"Awesome!" Lucas's eyes widened in excitement.
He forced himself to stay calm as he tapped the button to enter the game. The system voice chimed in.
"Available skills for extraction:"
Skill One: Quick Stab (Dash forward and stab with your dagger. Movement speed up 3 second.)
Skill Two: Upper Slash (Slash upward to launch your enemy into the air.)
Lucas scanned the skills and felt a twinge of disappointment. There were no powerful skills here. At level 1, his options were limited.
Plus, he hadn't classed up yet, and his skill slots were capped at three.
"Maybe I should wait until I hit level 5 to see if better skills show up," he mused. "But I'm still not sure if the skills from different characters will sync up."
If the skills weren't transferable, it would mean a long grind. But if they could share skills, he could use Fire Blast to power-level this new character.
Taking a deep breath, Lucas made up his mind. "Whatever. Grinding's a part of the game. Time to get serious!"
Even though the current skill options weren't ideal, Lucas decided to hold off on extracting skills and closed the game for now, saving it for later.