Reaching Tier 1.

Standing at the entrance to the goblin village, Alex cast another Area scan spell.

Right now, the goblins were still unaware of his presence, so he could slowly chip away their numbers by ambushing any goblins that were alone.

He soon found a target. It was a level 16 goblin with a club made of bones in its hand. It was lying against a wall and was most likely asleep in an abandoned corner of the ruins. Alex streaked through the dark pathways and arrived where the goblin was resting.

He used shadow movement and arrived near the goblin. Instantly, a wind blade was stabbed into its vocal chord. Taking lessons from the previous incident, Alex didn't stop and cast two fireballs in succession.

By the time the goblin was fully awake, it's HP had already plummeted to 0. Alex dug out it's mana core and was preparing to leave.

Alex cast another Area scan and his face fell. A group of four goblins were patrolling the area nearby and it was more than likely that they would be arriving here shortly.

Even if Alex could escape their surveillance, the dead body of this goblin would soon be discovered and other goblins may become aware of his presence.

'And I was entertaining the idea of playing the assassin. Well, if it is inevitable to get discovered , then so be it.'

Alex quickly removed the core from the goblin and dashed away from there. Alex continued running until he was out of the goblin village.

He absorbed the mana core of the goblin, but unlike the first two which gave Alex 5 core points each, this core only gave him 4 core points.

Alex wondered if something was wrong with the core or was his body getting immune to absorbing the core?

Alex finally made up his mind to use the exp to level up. After his duel with Sheri, he had enough exp for leveling up to level 11, but he had decided to hold it back for now.

When he reached Level 10, he had gotten a notice from the system that he would be officially entering Tier 1 at level 11.

Whenever someone entered Tier 1, their mana cores would expand and also their mana circuit would change and form completely.

Depending on the type of mana circuit formed, those people would be divided into various classes like mages who had a complete circulation of mana inside their body just like the circulation of blood from heart and back to heart.

Then there were augmenters whose mana circuits emerged from their mana cores and were spread throughout their bodies and terminated in their muscles and bones. This made their bodies exceptionally strong and they mainly were melee combatants.

All the remaining classes lied somewhere between these two classes depending on the percentage of mana returning back to the mana core in one cycle, needless to say that those with complete mana returning could cast spells faster and had higher mana reserves and those with low percentage of mana returning had higher physical strength.

Alex wondered what kind of mana circuit he would develop.

"System use all the exp for leveling up."

[Level up!]

[+5 all stats,+10 free attribute points, +50 HP,

+75 MP, +2 skill points.]

[You have reached Tier 1.]

[+30 all stats.]

[Level up!]

[+5 all stats,+10 free attribute points, +50 HP,

+75 MP, +2 skill points.]

Alex was excitedly waiting for his mana circuit enhancement, but nothing happened.

Just as he was about to curse out in frustration, he felt a sudden pain in his mana core.

Alex was reminded of the excruciating pain when his heart was stabbed by Louis, but this pain in his mana core was even stronger.

Not able to hold back any longer, Alex roared in agony.

"Aaaaaargggggg.....hhhh!"

Alex couldn't exactly remember how many times he screamed in pain, but he knew that it wasn't one or two times.

When he got up, he was completely drenched in sweat and his eyes were bloodshot.

Alex quickly cleared his muddled thoughts and used speed enhancement to dash away from where he was.

The goblins must definitely have heard his screaming and would arrive here very soon.

Just after Alex left, four goblins that were armed with spears and daggers arrived where he was.

When they saw a large crater over there, they were confused. There was no other lifeform nearby and only a crater that appeared out of nowhere.

Usually, the enlargement of mana core was a gradual process with moderate pain that continued for weeks or months, but due to the system, Alex's mana core enlarged instantaneously, thus causing an unbearable amount of pain and a mana shockwave which had resulted in the formation of this crater.

Alex was too busy fleeing away to notice this.

Alex opened his system interface to view his new stats.

[Name : Alex Vermillion ]

[Race : Human]

[Level :12]

[Mana core : white (62)]

[Stats :]

[Strength : 136]

[Agility : 141]

[Endurance : 128]

[Intelligence : 99]

[Perception : 95]

[Charisma : 150(100)]

[HP : 860]

[MP : 1305]

[+20 free attribute points, +16 skill points.

Spells and skills level cap has been increased to level 3.]

[5 skill points can be used to upgrade any existing skills. ]

[Level 2 and level 3 spells and skills have been unlocked in the store.]

[Special constitution: Aronith's constitution has

leveled up to level 2.]

Alex was still reading the last notification when pain assaulted him once again. This time, it was the same as when he had gained Aronith's constitution, so he could bear it much more easily than the core enlargement.

' I feel like every time something levels up, I am subjected to torture by this system. ' Alex thought.

Alex opened his personal information out of curiosity. He wanted to see the details about Aronith's constitution.

[Aronith's constitution (level 2) :

Special constitution that provides resistance against corrosive mana, undead aura and some demonic aura.]

[Effects : corrosion resistance to any spells or

skills under level 4, +10% affinity with water element, +50% regeneration rate in absence of mana, +250% regeneration rate by using mana.]

[Additional effect : +50 Charisma ]

[Cost in store : 5000 skill points/ 50 units of World energy. ]

' Whoa!' Alex was stunned by the insane cost of Aronith's constitution, but it sure was overpowered.

' Since I am a human, my recovery is very slow, but it can be increased to a rate visible to naked eye by Aronith's constitution. I can't even begin to imagine what it can do in the hands of some other race which may have a higher recovery rate than humans.' Alex thought to himself.

A growl brought him back to reality.

A level 12 goblin.

Alex was much more confident in facing it than earlier. Alex dashed forward using speed enhancement and slit the goblin into two using a wind blade.

With his increased confidence, Alex entered the goblin village again, but this time, he wasn't hiding anymore. Although his targets were mostly the goblins who were alone or in groups of twos or threes, he no longer had to use shadow movement to fight them.

By the time the goblins realized that their opponent was stronger than them, only ten of them were left alive.

These ten goblins banded together and showed no signs of moving alone.

Alex had no choice but to confront this group head on.

The group of goblins was gathered at the centre of the ruins. Alex cast shadow movement from a distance and arrived in front of one of the weaker goblins of this group. He immediately slit the goblin's throat. Next, he cast a fireball on the goblin standing beside his target.

The second goblin evaded, but was still hurt, leading to half of its HP dropping. A series of debuffs appeared on the goblin. Also, this goblin was unlucky enough to get burned and it's HP began dropping bit by bit.

By this time, the other goblins were already leaping on Alex.

Alex evaded, slashed one of the goblins on it's waist and immediately pulled back. He cast multiple wind blades on the two injured goblins in succession while maintaining his distance from the group.

Only seven goblins were left out of their group of ten. Alex didn't give them any chance to regroup and immediately launched a fireball in the middle of their formation. These black coloured fireballs proved to be the nemesis of the goblins. Even the slightest contact would cause severe burns, not to mention the goblins who came in contact were also significantly weakened. Alex broke into their formation and hacked a goblin into half with a wind blade. This time, a goblin was able to scratch Alex's waist with its spear. Another one followed with a dagger and tried to stab Alex's thigh with it. Alex kicked the goblin and immediately pulled back.

The remaining six goblins regrouped together.

A warning suddenly appeared in front of Alex

[You have been poisoned.]

[3 HP will be decreased every second.]

[Antidote is available. ]

[Use Antidote?]

[Yes/No.]

Alex was already aware that the blades of the weapons carried by these goblins were poisonous. He had known ever since he used appraisal on the first goblin he had killed, but his source of confidence were the 10 low level antidotes that he had received when he completed the mission of surviving the pack of hyenas.

Alex chose yes and the effects of poisoning were immediately removed.

Alex stood at his place and acted as if he was choking on blood.

The confidence of the goblin group increased and one of the braver one stepped forward and moved towards Alex while waving it's dagger and making grunting noises.

When it was halfway through, it noticed an abnormality. Although Alex seemed to be choking on blood, his skin didn't turn pale, also there wasn't a single drop of blood coming out of his mouth.

It suddenly felt it's back go cold, but before it could even turn back, two wind blades hit it's chest and it fell limply on the ground. Blood oozed out of its body and it died on the spot.

The other goblins were scared. They immediately threw all their weapons at Alex and began to run away.

Alex used this chaos and began hunting them one by one. Finally, he killed the last goblin and collected it's core.

Finally, it was time to face the boss.

Alex gathered all the cores that he had obtained and began absorbing them one by one. He had only absorbed three cores when a system notification appeared.

[Daily limit of absorbing single core reached.] [Further absorption may lead to undesirable mutation. Do you want to continue absorbing mana cores?]

[Yes/No.]

Alex had gotten 10 core points from the three cores that he had absorbed.

He finally understood that his body was slowly becoming immune to these cores.

His core was now white(72).

Alex pushed open the door of the house that some goblins were protecting before he slaughtered all of them.

As soon as he pushed the door, a mace came flying at him. Alex dodged using his speed enhancement spell.

If all his spells were not in quick cast, Alex doubted that he would have been able to dodge it.

Alex cast two wind blades in succession, but the goblin evaded the first one and blocked the second with the mace. Alex took a proper look at the weapon and finally saw that it was a flail rather than a mace, thus it provided much greater range to the goblin.

One of the reasons that Alex had emerged nearly unscathed from all his previous battles was that those goblins were inexperienced at combat and didn't pay much attention to defense. Once he created distance from them, they could only pounce on him to attack, ignoring defenses, but this goblin in front of him was giving off the pressure of an experienced fighter.

Alex braced himself. He knew that this upcoming battle would not be an easy one.