“Grooooaah!”

“EIK!”

A tier two goblin, a goblin fighter, and an adolescent bear were having a battle to the death trapped inside a dungeon. A teenager stood hovered around the fight, holding a healing potion in one hand and a knife in the other. He was cheering them on, although he was clearly biased towards the bear.

This sounded quite problematic, if one didn’t know the circumstances behind the scene. It also sounded problematic even when one did know the circumstances, which was why the boy tried not to think about it too much. Otherwise, his brain would hurt.

The boy was somehow reminded of the stories he’d heard about dogfighting, where dogs were bred to be aggressive and were set loose in a ring, where two of them would fight until one of them died.

“Wait wait wait. I’m not doing anything immoral here. This is for his own good. You see, I’m not letting my dog - I mean, my bear - fight for my entertainment. I’m letting him fight because he needs to grow. Also, he wants to. He’s hungry.”

James tried to justify his actions, but gave up. Apart from Ajartum, there was nobody around, and that meant there was nobody who could possibly have a bad opinion of him. Plus, he realized his argument wouldn’t stand when Leo dismembered his opponent, ripped open its chest, tore its mana core out and began feasting.

“Huh. I guess the goblins actually have mana stones in them.”

The 6th floor of the dungeon, the first tier 2 floor. James noticed a definite spike in difficulty. Every single monster here was equivalent to a boss monster on the 1st floor: tier 2 goblins. But it wasn’t too much to handle. James had grown greatly since he’d cleared the 1st floor, in terms of both raw physical ability and combat technique. He also never fought more than two or 3 goblins at a time, a great difference from the hordes of undead on the 3rd and 4th floors. Plus, with his spear, his knife throwing, and his newly acquired magical prowess, he could shave down their numbers or at least injure them before they even got to him.

Even Leo was fighting the tier two goblins. Leo was growing at an astounding rate. Using his size transformation along with his sharp claws and strong jaw, he was able to get magic stones. And the more he ate and grew, the larger he was able to become. Now, Leo was a tier 2 monster that could beat a tier 2 goblin.

“5, no, 4 more around the corner.”

James sensed more enemies approaching him and Leo using his mana sensitivity. He threw a knife, which killed one of the 4 goblins that was approaching him, and began chanting.

<I invoke the element of Earth. Conjuration. Compression. Acceleration.>

He created a mass of dirt, which clumped together and compressed itself, forming a heavy, dense sphere. It was then shot out at a decently high velocity.

Bonk!

The sphere gave a goblin rogue (a knife wielding goblin) a concussion.

Currently, his earth magic was about as effective as throwing a rock at someone, but his magic would become more versatile and powerful as he improved it.

Once the goblin rogue was on the ground after suffering head trauma, James leapt at the final two goblins left standing. He deftly dodged both of their attacks, then stabbed one of the goblins once in the gut and once in the neck. He dropped its body and rushed past the last goblin. He leapt over to the goblin rogue, which was just getting up, and stabbed its neck.

Then, James let Leo have a 1v1 against the final goblin. On this floor, the goblins had varying types of weapons and skills, including swords, spears, and knives. James had also killed a goblin with a leather chestplate. He did meet an archer once, but he was able to throw a knife faster than the archer could release its arrow, because he spotted the enemy first.

This particular goblin was holding a bastard sword. It wasn’t rusted, but it wasn’t particularly sharp either. James wondered how Leo would deal with the difference in reach, since he’d mainly been fighting knife wielding opponents or barehanded opponents before.

Leo grew to his maximum size, about half of James’ height on 4 limbs, and growled at the goblin, as if to assert his dominance. The goblin was not impressed and swung its sword down. Leo dodged to the side with surprising agility, and lunged at the goblin. The goblin moved its blade to intercept Leo’s path.

Next Leo tried aiming at the goblin’s legs, but he was blocked again and forced to stop attacking when the goblin swung its sword horizontally. He ducked to avoid it.

The goblin, seeing this movement, tried to stop  the horizontal swing and transition to a downwards swing - a mistake. The sword was too heavy for the goblin to do this effectively, and it wouldn’t be able to change its course well. James had actually done this once, and pulled his tendon. However, Leo didn’t dodge this swing, and the blade dug into his fur.

At this moment, James nearly threw the vial of recovery potion in his hand, but stopped himself when he realized that Leo had gotten hit on purpose. The goblin wasn’t able to put much force in the swing so it didn’t do much damage. But, the blade got stuck in Leo’s hide for a moment - that moment was all he needed to lunge forwards and bite the goblin’s wrist, rendering the arm unusable.

“Where did he learn to take hits and counterattack? I didn’t teach him that,” James said to Ajartum.

“He’s a gluttonous mutant. It’s probably in his nature to be able to fight. To hunt.”

James was about to respond, but stiffened. He turned his head away from the fight to the opposite end of the corridor.

Another party of goblins had just turned the corner and appeared in the corridor. There were 5 of them this time, including a fighter, a swordsman, and a rogue. However, that wasn’t the problem. In the back was a goblin archer and a goblin mage.

James quickly glanced back to check on Leo. He had confidence that Leo would be able to deal with the goblin that he was fighting. So, James just had to deal with the 5 goblins in front of him.

“EIK!”

2 of the goblins, the swordsman and the fighter, let out a cry and charged towards him. They promptly fell into a pitfall trap.

“...”

The goblin rogue was smart enough to avoid the hole, while the archer and mage stayed behind this trap and began nocking an arrow and chanting a spell respectively.

James threw a knife at the archer, but it hit the goblin rogue in front instead. The archer took the chance and released an arrow. James nearly dodged on instinct, but he remembered he made what could have been a bad decision - he let the arrow fly straight into his gut.

The arrow didn’t manage to puncture his leather plate armor, but it did make a sizable dent and made an impact. He’d probably have bruises around his midriff.

It had been a while since he’d gotten injured. James threw a second knife, and this one hit his target. The knife sank into the archer’s left shoulder after cutting the bowstring. James hadn’t intended the latter, but it was a welcome surprise.

James ran forwards to meet the injured goblin rogue, and quickly dispatched it in a few swift yet powerful knife strokes.

By this time, the goblin mage had finished its spell. James felt fire attributed mana gathering around the mage, so he hastily chanted a spell to counter.

<I invoke the element of Water! Conjuration!>

A fireball was launched towards him. In the time before it reached him, James conjured as much water as he possibly could. He ended up creating a sphere a foot in radius, which was only possible because he completely focused on generating more, not controlling itl. Water and fire collided, causing a cloud of steam to cover the entire corridor. 

The amount of steam wasn’t something you’d expect, given the low amount of water he’d been able to produce, but James had learned to separate normal Earth logic and magic. The amount of power that a magic spell could materialize was ridiculous. Plus, conversions made no sense. If you casted fire magic, you might be able to quantize the amount of heat energy you produced. But what did ‘1 Joule of ice magic’ mean?

James was gradually becoming accustomed to the logic of the magic, and thus becoming more distant from normal earth logic.

James wasn’t fazed by the fog, even though it was thick and stopped nearly all vision. He channeled mana into his eyes - a trick he had recently learned from Ajartum. This allowed him to improve his vision in various ways. For example, he could see things further away and in more detail, allowing him to see the steam more clearly!

Well, he didn't do that. Instead, he gained the ability to see mana - everything in the dungeon had mana. The walls actually had a large mana signature, because they were reinforced with magic, making them impossible for James to even crack. He wasn’t extremely adept at it yet, so everything was still blurry, but he could make out the positions of the goblins and where the pitfall was located.

While the goblins were blinded, James leapt over the pitfall trap and ran full speed at the goblins. The last thing they saw was a dark shape in the mist hurtling towards them.

By the time James had killed the archer and the mage, the steam had cleared up somewhat. He spun around and saw that one of the goblins that had fallen into the pitfall had managed to climb out and was approaching him. He was about to kill it, when Leo, who had evidently killed his earlier opponent, launched himself into the goblin, eager to eat more magic crystals.

As Leo beat down the goblin, James walked over to the pitfall, where the last goblin was still trapped.

<I invoke the element of Fire.>