"Oh? You're actually strong for a mere goblin with no intelligence, huh?" Cirain scoffed, gripping his sword tighter. "But sadly, you will now die here!"

With a swift, precise strike, his sword pierced through the goblin throat. A moment later, its head flew off and landed with a dull thud.

Cirain exhaled sharply. An hour had passed since the battle began, and he had finally finished it. His body ached and exhaustion weighed on him. He lay down on the forest floor letting himself rest for a moment.

"Tsk. In the end, I'm still weak. I need to get stronger—soon," his voice was firm, but frustration flickered in his brown eyes.

Years of relentless training and yet his progress remained painfully slow. No matter how much effort he put in, it never seemed to be enough. Although it was indeed a demoralizing, he still never give up.

Because of his dream, becoming stronger was the only thing he would never abandon in his life. To find his mother and father.

After a few minutes later, he pushed himself up and turned to the goblin corpse.

'I wonder what I should do with this goblin body? Hmm, let's see… what color the core gem inside its lungs might be.' he thought, with a curious and excited expression.

With a careful slices, Cirain opened the goblin chest. His breath hitched as he saw a radiant glow—inside, nestled between it lungs was a shimmering rainbow-colored core gem.

His eyes widened. "A rainbow-colored core gem?"

He carefully pick it up, watching how the colored shift under the dim light. This was the first time he had seen this such a kind of gem.

In fact, he hadn't even know that this color existed.

'There are only seven known core gem color's right?' He thought.

'Red, blue, white, green, violet, black, and finally the special color of the core gem, which is a mix of violet and blue.'

But this rainbow-colored core gem is something new to him.

So, it only natural for him that he didn't know it.

These seven core gem held a powerful abilities, depending on its color. But only the red-colored core gem effects were well documented. When paired with a fire magic element's, it amplified a ten times fold power.

And as for the other colored core gem's their abilities remained unspecified, closely guarded by the Guardian of the Core Gems.

"Well, I guess I can just keep it. Whether it is higher quality than that special core gem or fake, I'll found it eventually."

Tucking the core gem into his small pocket, he then thought with a confidence. 'Next! I should explore more this dangerous forest. I hope there must be a goblins nearby.'

This places is called the Forest of Dusk, and it is indeed dangerous. It's bordering the northern camp of the goblins—the weakest among the other three continent camp of the goblins. Even though they are indeed the weakest among the four, they are still far from being weak.

Fortunately, every individual tried to attack the northern camp of goblins before, yet no one even came back alive after three days ago.

The information about the four-continent camp of the goblins is still lacking, so that is why no one knows how dangerous it is.

Only the king of the great empire and the nine strongest demons of the underworld held the true knowledge. Since they have the power to kill a gods...

As Cirain continue venturing deeper into the Forest of Dusk. A goblin suddenly attacked him from a tree branch above.

Without hesitation, he sidestepped and stabbed his sword into the goblin chest before it could land a hit at him.

Unconsciously, the goblin fell to the ground with a blood pooling under it.

Cirain frowned, nudging the goblin lifeless body with his boot. 'That was too easy.' He gripped his sword tightened as unease crept over him.

"Could it be that this goblin and the one I killed earlier ago are different?"

'Wait, maybe the difference lies in the core gem.'

Kneeling, he sliced open the goblin body—but his brow furrowed when he found out that there's nothing inside it.

'Hmm, it's impossible. Every monster has a core gem's inside their lungs–but this one…'

He double-checked, scanning it again carefully, seemingly there's really nothing.

'... Strange, could it be that the weaker goblin don't have a core gem in their lungs?'

Frowning, he shook his head and let the thought go for now.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Cirain decided to return home. His body ached and his mind buzzed with questions about the core gem. And by the time he arrived, an exhaustion had overtaken him, he the fell into a deep sleep…

Morning later...

Inside a cozy living room, a fireplace crackled softly, casting a warmth light across the space. Two armchairs sat near the hearth, a coffee table between them with stacked with books.

A plush rug covered the wooden floor, and a large window revealed a snow-covered landscape outside. That is where Cirain always training his movements and his sword every morning.

He sat near the fire, sipping the cup of hot coffee while flipping through the pages of a book. The warmth of his coffee seeped through his fingers and the steam curled upward from the cup.

"Ah—wait!" His eyes widened again. "I forgot the rainbow-colored core gem inside my pocket."

Setting his book and cup down, he reached into his small pocket pulling out the rainbow-colored gem. His heart raced as he held it up to the light.

"It's so shiny… so beautiful."

But then, doubt crept into his mind. "But I'm still confused. Why did that have this kind of core gem? It wasn't even much stronger than the other normal goblins."

"And the fact that this core gem is something new to me and never heard it before."

"So, Maybe—"

A sudden bright light flashed appeared into the rainbow-colored core gem, interrupted his peaceful moment. Cirain breath caught as the rainbow-colored core gem slowly began to formed into the air he never seen before.

[ Mission - Kill 10 Normal Goblins! ]

– Reward - Basic Random Skill –

[ Complete the mission within two days ]

[ Failure Punishment - None ]

– Yes / No –