14 Dungeon Expedition (2)

I chopped off yet another goblin's head.

"And this is the fifteenth..."

I gulped down a low level mana recovery potion and sat down to meditate. I found out that mediating actually helped me replenish my mana faster. I already had some doubts about meditation increasing the rate of mana gathering when I first tried to use mana. But now that I was more familiar with mana, I realized meditating was really helping me recover my mana faster.

After about 30 minutes, my mana reserve was fully recovered. I moved forward for another 5 minute and stumbled across a huge gate. It was at least 5 meter high and 3 meter wide. It was made of wood and had a medieval style. I sensed a powerful creature beyond this gate.

"This must be what they call the boss room."

I pushed the gate open. The door slowly opened. I was met with a large room. At the other end of the room was a giant whose height reached up to 2 and a half meter. It was sitting on a throne made of skulls. It had a bulky body with scars covering his whole body.

"Giant Goblin..."

Giant goblins were mutated from goblins. They were stronger, faster and more intelligent. It emitted a (G+)-rank aura. But it was obvious that it was on the brink of breaking through (F-)-rank.

The rank of a dungeon is determined using a technology called mana detector. The mana detector measures the amount of mana present in the atmosphere and grade it accordingly.

The rank of a dungeon is the same as the rank of the boss of that dungeon. So an (A)-rank dungeon will have an (A)-rank boss. But sometimes that seemingly (A)-rank boss may be close to breaking through (A+)-rank, increasing the difficulty of the dungeon. Despite this, the mana detector still measures the rank of the dungeon as (A)-rank.

This was exactly what was happening right now.

The giant goblin stood up from his throne and glared at me. It sent shivers down my spine. It grabbed its one sided battle axe and roared with all its might. It's sharp fangs looked menacing.

It pressed its feet on the ground and dashed in my direction in high speed. It jumped half-way and raised its axe above his head to strike vertically. From the looks of it, it intended to cut me into half. However, I was quick to react thanks to my enhanced senses. I rolled to the left to dodge the attack.

As I looked at the impact of the attack, the very thought of being hit by that brought me out in a cold sweat. The floor was crushed from the force exerted by its axe and chunks of rocks were scattered around.

I hastily created a fireball on my palm. I threw it towards the giant's face but it literally punched the fireball in the air and extinguished it instantly. Then I remembered giant goblins were relatively resistant to magic.

I pulled my daggers out of their sheaths and reverse gripped them. At the next instant, shadow essence covered them thoroughly. Sensing the ominous aura my blades released, the giant goblin became more cautious towards me.

This time, I was the one who attacked. I rushed at the giant and slashed horizontally. But it easily paired it with its axe. I felt the impact on my arm as the two metal blade clashed against each other. Nevertheless, I kept throwing slashes at its way, horizontally, vertically, diagonally.

Although the giant goblin was strong, its agility was limited due to its body mass, making it unwieldy, at least compared to an assassin. I was attacking it continuously. I didn't give it any room to counterattack.

5 minutes had already gone by and both of us were tired. Because of continuous strikes, bruises had accumulated on my palms, and blood was seeping out of them. But I didn't feel any pain due to excessive adrenaline, it was just tickling.

On the other hand, there were many deep and shallow slits and wounds on the giant's body, from which black blood oozed down.

"Tired already?"

I said with a smirk, hoping that the giant knew the human language. I did try to provoke it but I wasn't in a good shape either. As I was thinking that, the shadow essence on my daggers slowly disappeared. My face stiffened. I had to end this fight before my stamina and mana hit rock bottom.

I examined the room once again to find anything useful. There was nothing but a throne and torches on the wall.

'Torches... Ah!'

I chuckled under my breath and ran towards torches, the only source of light. The giant thought I was trying to escape so it pursued me with a roar that shook the whole room.

I broke all the torches in the room before the giant could even get to me. And what followed it was complete darkness. There was not even a speck of light. The giant stopped in its tracks as it noticed my presence was erased completely. It could neither see me nor hear me.

The giant was in bewilderment seeing my presence vanished. I forcefully pulled the giant out of its bewilderment with a strike on his back. The giant cried in pain and swung its axe into darkness but it hit nothing but air. I was already gone.

'So this is the power of <Might of The Werewolf> when there is no light. My presence is completely erased from existence. Though I doubt it will work on those who are higher than me in terms of overall rank.'

I once again attacked it from behind. This continued for a minute or so, the already-exhausted giant lost all of its energy and fell to its knees. The slits had become deeper and there was a horizontal scar across its nose.

I approached the giant. I was at my limit, still, I swung my dagger for the last time and plunged it into the throat of the giant. Confirming the giant died, the strength left my legs and I fell in a heap. The effects of <Might of The Werewolf> wore off.

Since the effects of <Might of The Werewolf> had ceased, I couldn't see anything right now. But I could imagine a satisfied smile creeping onto my face. However, at the next moment, the pain proved me wrong.

Since the adrenaline in my body was gone, I started to feel the pain and aching all over my body, especially in my hands. I took a low quality healing potion out of my pocket, which I had prepared for emergencies.

I gulped it down without a second thought. The pain didn't disappear completely since it was only a low quality potion, still it diminished some of my pain.

After resting for a while, I stood up with aching legs. The <Might of The Werewolf> was activated again. But before I left the room, I crouched near the corpse of the giant goblin and stabbed its chest. I split opened the chest area and searched for something.

"I guess I am not that lucky."

I was searching for the mana core of the giant goblin. A mana core is a compressed form of mana. It is so compressed that it turns into solid. Every living being who can wield mana, slowly forms a mana core as their bodies suck in mana threads.

The mana core functions as the control centre in a body. It refines the raw mana in the air and pumps it throughout the body, just like heart. The rank of the core is the same as the rank of the 'mana' stat showed on the status screen.

In order to enlarge the mana core, you need to use up your mana reserves and replenish it over and over. As you do this kind of training, your core expands in order to handle the next training. Basically, it was like muscle growing.

Even a (G-)-rank mana core costs about a ten thousand BS. The compressed mana in the cores has a variety of uses, from improving the technology to breaking through. However, because of how valuable a core was, core trafficking appeared in some places.

Although it is forbidden to kill someone solely to get the mana core in the human domain, the core trafficking is still done illegally within human domain as well as with the other races.

On another note, I needed an at least (C)-rank core to use it as an energy source in the ritual I will do to gain an extra attribute.

I walked out of the room. Although I couldn't find any mana core, I was still satisfied with how things turned out. I came back to the entrance of the cave. The portal had reopened, yet it was green instead of dark-red, indicating that the boss has died.

I stepped into the portal. My head got dizzy and I found my self back at the city. The dizziness vanished as fast as it came. I glanced at my left, the same bald man was standing there. Taking notice of me, he talked with a monotonous tone.

"Congratulations for clearing the dungeon."

He extended a card towards me.

"You can take your reward from an awarding department working under the government. You just need to show this card."

"Thank you."

I decided I would go to an awarding department tomorrow since I was both physically and mentally exhausted.

I just wanted to sleep.

I really did.