Deciding to make the most of the scenery, Astaria pulled the waterskin out of her inventory and enjoyed the cool liquid as she drank. Feeling the slight pangs of hunger now her dry mouth was satiated, she opens her inventory and her eyes were unconsciously drawn towards the slice of cake. Noticing this, she sat for a moment in contemplation, thinking about the slight discrepancy in her behaviour.

‘Is it possible that my tastes have slightly changed since I’m a girl now? I guess I will have to try the cake to find out. In the past, I liked the cake I had from the Cats Paw Bakery, but it was a bit too sweet.’

Ending with that thought, Astaria brought the slice of cake out of her inventory. Packaged in a pure white cloth, Astaria placed it on her lap, slowly unwrapping it to find a perfect slice of red velvet cake, its pleasant and sweet aroma hitting her nose.

Relishing in the enjoyably sweet smell, Astaria finally broke off a bit of cake and brought it to her lips.

“Mmmm! Oh my god, it really does taste better!”

With the sudden realisation of what she just exclaimed; Astaria covered her mouth.

“Did I really just shout that out…!? That was so girly! I hope I don’t keep doing this…”

After voicing her concerns, Astaria’s attention moved straight back to the cake on her lap. Slowly savouring the taste, she tried to control herself as she finished eating.

Now feeling a little more comfortable in her body after so much moving, Astoria decided that now was the right time to adjust the pain reduction settings. Since she didn’t want to feel the full impact of faceplanting into the ground while adapting to the difference in height and weight distribution, she had left it at the default of 75%.

While things would hurt far more, Increasing the pain sensitivity allowed a player complete immersion into the world. It allowed for players to be able to perceive the world around them more accurately, as well as removing the slightly disorienting feeling that occasionally appeared. An example of the disorienting feeling would be like when receiving a heavy blow that reverberated through your body while you only felt a slight tingle and your arm's movements were slower.

Opening up the settings menu, Astoria quickly scrolled through until she found the Pain reduction settings and set it to 0%. Feeling the slight change as everything became clearer, she smiled, enjoying the scenery which now feelt more vivid.

After her short break, Astaria’s hunger returned to 0% and her Fatigue lowered to 28%, so she continued her trip to the main road.

 ---------

After covering the last stretch to the main road, Astaria could now easily recognise where she was. The main road, while still a dirt track, was relatively quiet for now. The road crossed directly in front of her, passing through the plains and going straight through the forest to her right. Looking south where the goblins were, she could see one merchant carriage making its way from Alennos Pass having safely made it past the danger.

Having figured out the direction she needed to go; Astaria started jogging south. After a short time, she finally crossed paths with the carriage as one of the adventurers guarding the carriage upon seeing her called out.

“Excuse me, beautiful miss, please wait a second.”

Hearing this, Astaria stopped jogging and turned towards the young man who was walking up to her.

“How can I help you?” Astaria asked with a slight tilt of her head, on guard in case the adventurer had ill intentions.

“I saw you were travelling south alone and had to warn you about the dangers on the road ahead.”

Seeing the young man’s response, she smiled, becoming visibly less tense.

“Are you referring to the goblins? I have heard and was on my way to hunt some of them down. I appreciate the warning, however. It was most kind of you.”

“It was nothing!” He responded with a laugh and a slight blush.

Pausing for a second in a brief moment of thought, Astoria decided to make a request.

“You might see some others like me on your travels, so might I ask you to offer them the same kindness? They mostly lack experience and won't fare so well if unprepared.”

Seeing her smile and hearing her words, the young man bashfully looked away.

“I most certainly can, so you can rest easy. But are you sure about going in yourself? Your gear looks… old, and I can see that your sword needs sharpening.”

Hearing the young man’s concern, Astaria chuckled, casting a brief glance at the blade attached to her waist by a simple leather strap.

“Don’t worry, I’m an experienced mage, so this sword will mainly be used if one of them gets too close.”

Astaria thumped her chest with her fist to show her confidence, but smiled awkwardly after realising she had instead just thumped her breast making it jiggle around.

“Anyway, I should get going, I would prefer to be done before night falls.”

Nodding in understanding and with a blush even fiercer than before, the young man bid her farewell and joged to catch up with the carriage.

Seeing the young adventurer leaving, Astaria let out a deep sigh, once again realising that her change would take a lot of getting used to. Picking up her pace, it only took her a short time before she made it to the area of the forest where the goblins attacked passing travellers.

In the past, this area became a hotspot for new players since there were a large number of goblin spawns over the forest, and that goblin's tended to group together. Due to the goblins’ constant presence in the forest and their use of wooden spears, the area has been named Woodspike Forest by the NPC’s.

While thinking back to the days she had spent here when she first started playing Caelus Online, as well as when she had helped level her friends, she made her way towards one of the smaller camps towards the edge of the goblin’s territory.

Walking between the trees, Astaria could begin to hear the high-pitched voices of goblins ahead that inhabited the forest, along with the slight glow of distat campfires illuminating the shadows cast by the tall coniferous trees.

Hearing the screeched gibberish sounding language, Astaria could already feel the headache coming as she prepared to grind xp by killing goblins to the backtrack of weird noises and ear-splitting screams.

Sighing, she made her way closer to the first camp. Reaching out her left hand, she summoned her staff with a slight shimmer as the space distorted, while drawing the sword with her right hand.

In Caelus online, there were a number of magic based classes that had the ability to stow their weapons away in a separate space, like the sorcerer and the druid. This made moving around much easier and was a massive boon when fighting being able to freely swap weapons.

Getting a good look now fewer tree trunks were blocking her vision, Astaria could see the expected group of 5 goblins. Each goblin was lv 3 with 150 HP each. Starting the fight, Astaria cast lightning on the goblin closest to her.

The casting time was 1 second and it had a cool-down of 10. Seeing their companion get hit with magic from above and fall to the floor stunned, the other 4 goblins started irately screeching as they looked around to try and find their assailant.

Seeing her mana go down by 30, Astaria positioned herself to start channelling a fireball that appeared at the end of her staff. It was around the size of a basketball and after 2 seconds she launched it towards the goblins who had started running towards her after seeing the glow of the spell. 

watching her mana drop by 27 and the damage it caused to the goblin's health bar, Astaria smiled, happy now that she could completely dominate the fight with ease.

With one goblin still stunned on the floor and another one staggering from the fireball, Astaria launched a mana arrow toward the goblin charging at her from the right, aiming to slow him down and chip off some of his health.

Seeing the goblins who were now 15 meters away, Astaria launched 3 more mana arrows into the same goblin.

With the goblin now delayed a short distance behind the other two who were now in front of her, Astaria entered into a melee fight.

The first goblin, armed with a club like the primitive barbarian it was, swung at Astaria only to be blocked by a sweep of her staff, knocking the goblin off balance. Stepping to the side, Astaria dodged a thrust from the wooden spear of the second goblin. With the tip of her staff pointed down at the ground and the rest of the shaft nicely out of the way behind her back, Astaria steped towards the stunned goblin and slashed her sword at its neck.

Clicking her tongue at the fact her slash was off due to the fact she was still adjusting to her new body, she doubled down on the now heavily injured goblin, bringing her sword back and thrusting it into the goblin's mouth as it screamed.

“Shut. Up.” She snarled.

 

[Goblin Lv 3 defeated. 180% xp gained. 120% skill point xp gained]

[Lv 0 -> 1]

[+5 stat points]

[+1 skill point]

 

Putting her foot against the dead goblin’s chest, Astaria pulled her sword out in time to step back from the first goblin's next swing, quickly raising her sword to parry the attack from the third goblin who had been struck with arrows. Using the momentum from the parry to sidestep towards the first goblin, she span around while trying to get enough force to lop off the goblin's head. Due to her slightly shorter height her attack sliced into the goblin's shoulder instead of its neck.

Swiftly responding to the unexpected result, Astaria positioned herself so that the first goblin was blocking the way of the remaining goblins, swinging her sword at the injured goblin's neck and cutting halfway through.

 

[Goblin Lv 3 defeated. 80% xp gained. 120% skill point xp gained]

[Lv 1 -> 2]

[+5 stat points]

[+1 skill point]

 

With the brief moment where she was free from attacks, Astaria cast lightning again, hitting the goblin who was blocked by its dead companion, causing it to slump to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

 

[Goblin Lv 3 defeated. 70% xp gained. 120% skill point xp gained]

[Lv 2 -> 3]

[+5 stat points]

[+1 skill point]

 

With enough time to cast, Astaria launched another fireball straight into the charging goblin's face, burning him for a second time.

 

[Goblin Lv 3 defeated. 40% xp gained. 120% skill point xp gained]

[+1 skill point]

 

Now with one goblin left to kill, Astaria yanked her sword out of the dead goblin and walked towards the last survivor that had now fully recovered and was now running at her screaming.

“Oh my god!”

Astaria angrily shouted out.

“WOULD.”

Side-stepping the spear to the right, Astaria swung her staff at the goblin's head, the sound reverberating through the air.

“YOU.”

Spinning around, Astaria uses all her strength and landed a hit on the goblin's leg, breaking it as it crumpled to the ground backwards.

“SHUT.”

Bringing her sword up, she thrust it straight into the goblin's throat.

“UP!”