After following the path for a while I’d not found anything of interest other than a lizard every once in a while, which I quickly dispatched. I’d managed to level up Stealth again bringing it ever closer to a potential rank up. My swipe is almost there as well but if my previous rank up is anything to judge by, I’m going to need to get more skill points before I can actually upgrade the skills. Fortunately, I’ve already gathered a fair amount of skills and If I rank a few of them up I think my power will definitely see a sharp rise. One thing to note is that I haven’t gotten anymore trait points so I’m fairly certain I won’t be getting anymore from the lizards, but I wonder if its something I’ll get once per race or is it a different requirement I’m not aware of yet. Hopefully I can find  a new creature to test my theory on and then I can work towards earning more Trait points. Although I’m not too sure about the restrictions on them but surely there would be something… I’m just missing too much information.

I continue along the path grumbling to myself about this and that before coming to another junction. This one leads down on one end and up on the other, going by common dungeon logic if this were a dungeon in a game then going up would probably lead to the exit. As I head towards the upwards path something catches my eye and immediately my attention is drawn. A human footprint! I’m thrilled at the prospect of meeting human life as it means that there would definitely be an exit and I can meet up with my former brethren. Only one issue… how will they react to me? We’re in a fairly dangerous place so would they treat me like the other creatures down here? I am fairly unique though so maybe they’d give me the benefit of the doubt. But then what?

After a quiet argument with myself, which I swear is happening far too often, I decide to take a look at the humans before making any more decisions. I enter stealth and follow them as they lead towards the downwards slope…Guess going up isn’t going to happen today. After a short while I begin to feel a difference in the air, a sort of eerie feeling. It vaguely reminds me of mana but feels a lot more wrong, while mana feels warm and comforting this current feeling is cold and almost fear inspiring…

I raise my guard as I continue down the path until I come to an opening in the tunnel, there’s an eerie silence up ahead along with what looks like blood and bodies. My heart stops for a brief moment before my eyes get a better look and I realise that these aren’t human corpses. They’re green and vile looking, about as tall as the spider but definitely humanoid in shape. A name comes to mind from the countless volumes of light novels, goblins. I near their corpses and take note of the fact that all of their right ears are missing, alongside some wounds sustained in battle. The ears however seem to be purposely removed as from the group of 4 goblins all of them have their right ear removed. Perhaps its being used as a marker of how many they’ve killed? Although goblins are known for being quite horrible little creatures in the novels I know I can’t help but get even more wary as this almost certainly proves a negative relation between the humans ahead and the denizens of this dungeon. My curiosity outweighs my caution ever so slightly and I decide to push on.

I step past the goblins before pausing for a moment. This is the perfect time to test my theory isn’t it? I walk back to the goblins and close my eyes before taking a bite out of the cleanest looking one. They may be monsters but it still feels very strange taking a bite out of a humanoid creature especially one so gross looking. But for science I will prevail, I say proudly .

[Trait Point Gained]

My eyes glimmer as my idea seems to be all but proven. That’s 3 trait points gained all from different monsters but none from repeating monsters, at least in the lizards case. I walk over to a different goblin and take a small bite, for science…Nothing. Okay so it’s not just the lizards, with the goblins at least it seems that a repeat is not going to give me anymore trait points. Rather than spend the point I decide to save it for the time being as I’ve already gotten quite a few new abilities recently and I’ve also seen one or two traits that require multiple points so I think it’s a better idea to save for now and increase my proficiency with my current skill set.

Having successfully conducted this experiment I happily continue forward with a newfound interest in this expedition. After all who knows what other new creatures I could find left over from the humans rampage. If I play this smart I could get quite a few trait points while levelling up my stealth skill at the same time.