Chapter 9: conflict

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Seeing the hobgoblin's glare, the male goblin felt afraid and wanted to back down again. But it looked back at its own group of female goblins and then at the new goblin female. One must know that although the three female goblins on its side are still energetic, they have started showing small signs of fatigue, like the first female goblin. The male goblin had a premonition that soon all the female goblins would be like the first. Once that happens, what will it do every day?

Goblins are creatures born inheritably lustful and greedy. So when it looked at its own group of female goblins, the male goblin felt that it wasn't enough. It wanted more, and it was not going to let the newcomer stop it. So although the goblin felt fear, it still charged at the hobgoblin in anger.

The hobgoblin also grew angry. So when the male goblin got closer, it raised its fist and...

Bam!

A tooth flew, and the goblin fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The hobgoblin was surprised at how easily it beat down the male goblin. A second later, though, it came to its senses and went to finish off the male goblin. But before it could, it changed its mind. To the hobgoblin, taking the new female goblin was much more important than dealing with this male goblin. So the hobgoblin turned back towards the new female goblin.

The other female goblins in the male goblin's group were all terrified. After all, it was the first time they had seen a fight.

Well, if that can be considered a fight,

While the hobgoblin went off to try its hand at 'battling,' the orchestrator of everything that happened till now watched.

"Interesting, the male goblin was able to go against my command."

Previously, when the male goblin was angry and trying to force the hobgoblin away, the child had ordered it to stop. But somehow, the goblin went against his command and continued anyway. In the end, it tried to fight the hobgoblin. Which ended in a pretty obvious fight. Considering that the hobgoblin was almost two heads taller than the male goblin, the ending was clear to anyone but the two fighters.

But although this goblin had gone against his command, the child was not interested in letting it die. After all, he had used a lot of energy to make it. If it was going to die, it should at least die on the battlefield trying to protect him. So when the hobgoblin was going to continue pummeling it, he ordered it to stop. Diverting its attention towards the new female goblins.

Without wasting any time, the child ordered the female goblins and the hobgoblin to mate. The earlier they make his army, the earlier he will be able to connect to the world. The earlier he connects to the world, the earlier he gets stronger. So he had to urge the goblin to start humping faster.

"It seems like everything is going well. But I am now out of free energy to play around with."

Over the few 20 days that passed, the child had gone a bit over his energy budget. Although most of his energy went towards goblin making, some of it was taken over by his goblin development plan. Most of the improvements were made using ether energy as a projector and his powerful mind as a computer for all the parts, but at some point he had to use third-order energy to experiment. After all, a perfect item cannot be created by theory alone. Experiments were needed, and these experiments needed energy. So the goblin core got this far because he had used some third-order energy along the way.

As such, he was now broke. The only third-order energy he now has is enough to traverse across the universe and form a connection with another world.

Because of this, the child was thus left With nothing to do. Although he could go and try to improve the goblin further, he knows that would not amount to much. As he has already gone beyond by getting the goblins that far. Trying to make them stronger would get harder from here. Plus, without third-order energy, the development would take even longer with some uncertain results.

Thus, for a little while, the child was free to look at his dungeon inhabitants closely. He, of course, did not watch the hobgoblin and female goblins mate. Such acts have long lost his interest. What was interesting to him, however, was the first female goblin. Out of all the female goblins in the dungeon, she was the only one closest to giving birth. Due to its approaching parturition, its energy intake has grown tremendously. It has been drinking more life-giving water than it usually does.

It was at that moment that the child noticed something. It was a short and small spike of energy within the female goblin. The child's curiosity was thus piqued. He then focused more of his ether on the female goblin. Hoping to see what it was that rippled his senses. And upon closer inspection, what he had sensed earlier became more and more clear.

"Third-order energy?"

The energy was in small quantities and rippled here and there. The energy was so small that had he not peered deeply at the female goblin, he would not have sensed it at all.

The energy was slowly rising, bit by bit. So slowly that it could not make a ripple. In fact, the only reason the child had found it all was because, for a moment, the third-order energy had rippled. The child used his senses to try and see where this energy came from, but his probes were pointless. The energy seemed to have suddenly come out of existence. It just suddenly popped up in the goblin's belly. Right where the young fetus rests.

"Hmm. I guess this explains how normal birth acquires the energy to form concuousness."

For a while now, the child has been a bit confused about something. When creating a goblin, third-order energy is essential for a lot of things. The first use of energy is material connection. Since a dungeon uses ether as materia to form parts of the body and the core, third-order energy thus has to be used for the body to be permanent. Or else the goblins would have a time limit and go 'poof' at some point.

But this isn't where most of the third-order energy is used. As large as the goblin's body may seem, most of it is made up of ether. The part where third-order energy is used is the core. But even within the core, there are parts that use more energy than others. The part that is used more than others is the part that the child does not fully understand.

concuousness.

The reason he doesn't fully understand it is because the dungeon inheritance doesn't say much about it. In order for him to create it, he simply has to cluster a lot of third-order energy and make it collectively move at a certain frequency for a certain amount of time. In the whole goblin creation process, this is the only part that uses third-order energy alone and nothing else.

What the child was confused about, though, was that if goblins can give birth naturally without him using third-order energy, how will their consciousness form? Will they be born without it? And it seems today he has found out what the answer was.

"So the energy just appears? No, that shouldn't be. Although both second- and third-order energy can break the rules of first-order energy, there is one rule that has been common to all energy levels: energy cannot be destroyed or created. So if that is true, where does this energy come from?"

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