Chapter 12: World searching

 Just like humans, when goblins are born, they are defenseless and weak. Because of how small goblins were, baby goblins were much smaller than human babies. But unlike their ugly older forms, the baby goblins looked a bit cute. Their flesh was soft, and their cry ran throughout the dungeon.

Sadly, this cute exterior will soon be ruined in just a week, as in that time span, the baby goblins will have a crazy growth spurt. Within a week, they would be able to walk on their own. And in one month, they would be fully grown. Truly becoming the nightmare in many children's dreams.

But before then, these four baby hobgoblins will continue to be cute.

Sadly, though, no one in the whole dungeon appreciated their temporary cuteness. Be their mother, who had just given birth to them, their father, who does not give a sh*t, or their originator, who only saw them for their physical prowess.

But they were newborns; what did they care about who or what saw them? For the next week, the only important thing on their minds was drinking the life-giving water provided by their mothers. As a much bigger variant of the goblin, the baby hob-goblins needed a lot more food than the normal goblin.

But since female goblins did not have breasts or produce milk, they could only survive on life-giving water. Luckily, life water was magical water, so the goblins could drink only it and never go hungry or require any other food type with it.

"Three baby hob-goblins; one of them is a male. I guess it could have gotten worse."

One of the female goblins gave birth to two hobgoblins, while the other gave birth to one. The reduced chances of twinning are, of course, due to the size difference between goblins and hobgoblins.

Because hob-goblins were larger, it would be too dangerous to have too many of them in one single goblin's belly, so the child saw it fit for one single goblin to give birth to only one to three goblins. With a high chance of birthing only two. This could ensure a safer delivery for both the mother and the possible babies.

But the same could not be said for hobgoblin females. Since they were larger, the child saw it as fitting for them to carry more. So he increased the chances to two or five little goblins. Meaning that as long as a hobgoblin gets pregnant, she is definitely guaranteed to give birth to two babies.

Although the birth of these three goblins is worthy of celebration, their birth has also reminded the child of a few problems that he has been putting off.

The child looked at all the current goblins in their full glory. Unlike how they were months ago, they now looked like a proper horde. Unlike before, they at least looked like a threat to something.

From the beginning, there were six goblins and one hobgoblin in total. But that day, including all the baby goblins, there were a total of 23 goblins and 4 hobgoblins. Which was a great improvement from what the child had thought he would reach. Of course, only about 10 of the 23 goblins are fully grown. The other 13 still have two more weeks to fully grow. As for the hobgoblins, only one of them is combat-ready, as the others were just born a few minutes ago.

But either way, it was a great number, a number that has started to worry the child.

Unlike how a dungeon would normally be, the child's interior space was very small. Due to his dungeon core taking up most of the space, there is little left for the goblins to go about their usual lives. With a total of 27 of them in the same small space, problems will obviously surface soon. Hygiene and constant friction among opposing goblins will be a problem. For now, it was still calm, as the young goblins and hobgoblins were too young, but what of when they are older?

And the problem of energy has started to surface. Although the child did have an ample and infinitely refilled tap of Ether, the same could not be said about third-order energy. For every bit of Ether used, a small bit of third-order energy is necessary to hold it so that it becomes eternal. This amount of third-order energy is very small and could even be considered insignificant, but the child has been using Ether for a lot of things lately. Be it rewarding the goblins, making weapons, creating life-giving water, or even making air that is necessary 24/7, all of it uses Ether. Which needs third-order energy to be stable and not dissipate.

So if you add all those costs together, you will notice that the cost isn't as insignificant as one would believe. So if this were to go on for too long, it would ultimately lead to the child having no energy for universal traversal.

But be it the two problems above or the new ones that may arise, all can be solved easily.

"If I just connect to a world, I can get more third-order energy. Space won't be a problem, as I could use the world's idle energy to grow myself. But am I ready?" The child sighed. "I have been stalling for quite some time, haven't I?"

Because he was in a remote place with no world in sight, the child took his time to further his plans without getting hindered. But he now worries, since he has not seen a single world in sight, which means he does not know exactly how far away the closest world is. If he uses too much energy, he might not have enough to connect to or even find a world later. Thus getting him stranded in this black, blank space without a single life in sight.

From then on, the only chance he would ever get to move forward is if he was pulled by the world's spatial pull. Which would likely take millions of years considering he does not feel any force acting on him.

Or he could be found in another dungeon. Which would be bad considering most dungeons are controlled by others. Meaning that the dungeon lord would either leave him since he would have no use for him or control him and use him for his own wishes.

Both of which he did not wish to see happen. So the child made a decision.

"It's time I connected to the world."

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