I felt a disturbance in the force. er... I meant disturbance in the flow of qi.

It was a gut feeling, but a cultivator worth their salt would never ignore their guts. I knew better than not to ignore them. Though it was sudden and too out of the blue, I believed that it would not hurt to check.

Using my Mind's Eye, I scoured the dozen-kilometer radius around my mountain, but I could not sense anything amiss. I frowned at the thought of someone capable of eluding my detection. 

I had sent Goblin Slayer down the mountain to wait for my player's return. I used my Mind's Eye on my players. It appeared that Nee Chen and Xiang Ya were resting a few distance away from where they fought the goblins. I looked for Bi Yuan... She appeared to be still in the 'dark world' thinking about whether she should pick reincarnation or resurrection. "Such a funny little bunny..."

Ignoring Yuan'er of her turmoil and whatever life choices she decided on, I proceeded to monitor my surroundings via my goblins. I fully activated my Mind's Eye. If there was nothing then good, I was just being paranoid. But if there was really something, then hoped I would be able to find it before it was too late.

"Was it just me, or that I could no longer feel my connection with Groque?" 

I frowned at the thought of losing my connection to one of my goblins... but I feared it was not just one goblin. I could not find anything around the Goblin fortress that the Goblin Shaman Groque had built. There were two possibilities: first was that a bigshot cultivator found my goblins and annihilated them, or... the second was that my goblins had finally rebelled and were on their way to plan my demise.

The former was most likely to happen considering the nature of my goblins, but what about the second possibility?

I have tested it many times and the goblins could never defy me.

What should I do?

I guessed I should include this in the quest storyline for the Goblin Slayer.

~~~

In the deep of the periphery of the forest stood a magnificent fortress of wood, dirt, and stone.

Inside this fortress was a group of goblins kneeling on their heads. Their subject of worship was none other than Yu Hong.

She sat on a throne made of beautifully carved oak though primitive in her eyes, she decided this was better than nothing. On her left was her trusted slave, Shi Feng of the Wind Blade Sect, and on her right was her most recent slave, the Goblin Shaman Groque. 

For Yu Hong, it was fairly easy to usurp control with these goblins.

This was due to the goblins being generally weak as their strongest cultivator was merely at 2nds stage. This made Yu Hong laugh and weirded. For such an evil race, it was weird how these creatures were so weak! Evil lifeforms had the tendency to thrive in wickedness, thus it should be natural for such an evil race to get stronger as they commit more evil doings.

Yu Hong recalled the time when the goblin tried to rob her. She then became aware of where the inconsistency was. The goblins though malicious in essence were acting reserved! She recalled the many times she spied on the roads with her power as part of her scouting.

The goblins had a tendency to be nice. More than once, the goblins only asked for toll from their victims and left them be. Even bandits could do worse than these goblins! Whoever the Creator God of these goblins was, they were wasting this race's potential.

Yu Hong snickered. It was correct of her to act immediately on taking control of this race. At first, she thought the existence responsible for creating these goblins must be equally a malicious Evil God considering the essence the goblins were made of. However, it seemed that the Creator God of these Goblins was incompetent! Through her own unique vision, she saw through the 'essence' of the goblins which was pure of flaws!

"In my hands, these goblins shall achieve the best version of themselves!" She declared. "Groque, declare this to your kin."

The Goblin Shaman Groque kneeled on one knee. 

Yu Hong continued. "They were free to rape, plunder, and take! Revel in your desires! Embrace your flaws! AND TURN THE WORLD ASUNDER!"

~~~

I was speechless. I finally found the source of the disturbance. 

Under the effects of Telepathy, I made myself psychically invisible. I watched the mad woman on her wooden throne throwing orders at the goblins with her sultry voice. She was the culprit behind the changes in my goblins.

Using my Mind's Eye, I examined my goblins, and not to my surprise, they seemed to have been fundamentally changed in their core in that I would never be able to take control of them anymore. 

Oh my, by creating the goblins, did I just shoot myself in the foot?

I deliberated on my possible next recourse. I could just annihilate the goblins here with the haughty woman. That was a solution, but maybe there was more to this. One of my favorite sayings was that a crisis could be an opportunity in the right circumstances!

"Hmmm..."

I have decided, I would not kill this woman yet. I would let her infect more of my goblins. I needed to increase the stake anyway. This could be a good storyline. I would create intelligent goblins too who could become my NPCs. My players really need a beginner village. 

So the story was going to be like this... Two goblin forces were at war, and in the middle of it all was the Goblin Slayer who hated all of the goblin kind. The player would have to connect the Goblin Slayer to the smart goblins who were more inclined to the peaceful ways. 

While I made the goblins to be filled with flaws, that would not mean they would be incapable of coexistence. In the realms of fantasy, there were also educated goblins who were quite civilized. This way, I could also introduce goblin NPCs who were much more mundane than the Goblin Slayer. These specific goblins could offer all kinds of services from construction, food, and the more mundane stuff... like for example, just for the sake of existing as a background character.

In the end game, after killing this woman, I planned on creating 'monster cores' to act as a soul-conductor for the hostile goblins. The wild goblins would be marked red in their label tags and would be the staple canon fodder for my players. Meanwhile, the NPC goblins would be marked green. It was fairly simple. I had it all figured out.

And because I had increased the stake for my players, it was time I increased my player base.

[Players: 5/10]

I could still add five more players to my roster. It would be unfair for Nee Chen and Xiang Ya even with the help of the Goblin Slayer to clean up the Butterberry forest for goblin activity. I knew it would be difficult for me too to add a player. The merchants that as passing by could barely qualify considering that I used my Mind's Eye to even check their latent potential, but I got nothing.

I was simply lucky to find Nee Chen, Xiang Ya, and Lu Gao. 

Initially, I thought, it wouldn't matter whether my player had a talent or not since the system could just compensate with what they lacked, but I was wrong. There was a requisite for a player to succeed, and that was open-mindedness. This was the kind of 'talent' I was looking for from a player. There had to be a sense of freeness to a person's thinking.

And most of the people I got in touch with were short-sighted! That was why I had not filled up my player limit yet.

I thought of relying on the Mindless Monk, but he was too far. Even if he found someone with such open-mindedness, he would be still too far from me! And then I compromised by relying on Lu Gao. I even went as far as giving him an exclusive quest about recruiting players, but he still got nothing. It was only a few weeks since he left, so it was understandable.

But I could not patiently wait anymore. There was something that had to be done.

With the power of Teleportation, I left the fortress and returned to my cave abode. "I guessed, there was no harm in trying..." I sat in a lotus position and perused on my quintessence points. "I needed talented players. I would not be able to 'create' them from scratch like what I did with Goblin Slayer and the goblins, but I should be able to 'resurrect' someone from the netherworld by turning them into my player."